Slashdot Mirror

With manual voting, sometimes the minor parties don't have enough people to witness counting in all places, so the big parties can do what they want with those votes...

And how do the electronic voting machines prevent the big parties from doing what they want with those votes?

With paper votes, yes people can destroy/change the votes, but it's a lot harder to do on a massive scale. They need to work for each vote and each ballot box they stuff/swap. Whereas a million electronic votes can be tampered with in less than a second.

Fact is if you are in a country where paper-pencil voting is being rigged on a massive scale, electronic voting isn't going to be better at all. Think Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi elections: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2331951.stm
Who thinks electronic voting systems in that case wouldn't show the same sort of results?

You mention lack of witnesses. Fact is the more voters you have, the more counters you can have and the more observers you can have. If your system/rules prevent that, that's not a problem with paper-pencil voting. If a party can't even find enough "friendly" observers for the ballot stations in that area how the heck do they even expect to win that constituency even if the voting is fair? Should they even win that area? Think about it.

Even though in theory there can be tamper-proof verifiable electronic voting (I've seen at least one described plausibly on youtube), the fact is paper and pencil is very easy for the average person to understand.

So when they are standing there and looking at the transparent ballot boxes that have not been moved from the room, and see the votes being counted one by one, it is easier for them to understand what is happening and convince them that it is being done _reasonably_ fairly.

AFAIK most of those "rigged" elections do not have the ballot boxes staying put and opened up and counted on site for people to observe. That's why the people get upset and riot - when the counting is done behind closed doors, they know it's no longer fair.

And that leads us to the one important requirement that most electronic voting systems are inferior at meeting: the counting doesn't just have to be fair/correct, it has to be _seen_ as fair/correct.

If the elections are seen as fair, it is far easier to convince the losers that they have lost fair and square (at least reasonably enough). That way you have fewer riots on the streets.

When the losers see that most of the votes are against them, one by one as they are being counted, displayed and announced (that's what they do here[1]), they will know deep down that they lost.

[1] Where I live I think the bulk of the tampering is done with postal votes, and more remote areas - where you're not sure what is actually going on (whether there's even voting). But the conventional electronic voting systems won't help with this either.

My colleagues have stuff like that, although it's not so expensive (bikes, surfboards, skis). As far as I know, many of them take it on holiday with them -- that's half the point of having it.

I think we have the lowest legal holiday entitlement in the EU, at 28 days. Yes: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6943667.stm (I'm surprised the Netherlands is as low as us.) But, obviously we don't have any crap like using "vacation days" when you're ill.

(I get 30 days, plus the 8 fixed public holidays. Legally, I must use 20 days per year (I'd be sent home if I hadn't used them by the end of the year). Contractually, if I have more than 10 days left over after a year I lose them. There's no worry at all about someone having replaced me after a week or two away -- I should have had at least that much time off in the first few months of working!)

Being able to work "very long hours" doesn't cause unemployment. For example, France tried cutting their workweek to force businesses to hire more people to do the same job. It didn't work, nor do most schemes along the lines of "replace one full-time worker with two part-time workers."

In the long run, an increase in productivity simply means you can either

1. Work fewer hours for the same pay
2. Work the same hours for more pay

There's nothing wrong with choosing option two, and there's nothing stopping you from picking option one instead.

That's an ignorant thing to say. It's not about Eskimos, it's about the US missile defense system in Alaska, which is an ongoing sore point in US/Russia relations (cite). (Granted, Russia's apparently baseless charge it caused this launch failure seems pretty ignorant, too).

But it's not capacity in terms of too many trains on the lines - on the contrary, local trains tend to be pretty frequent, it's capacity in terms of the amount of carriages - they're cramming 4 carriages worth of people onto 2 carriages because they claim they can't afford enough carriages.

I was however about to source this, but it seems in some examples they're not finally actually solving this, in the last few weeks it seems Northern Rail has finally started putting new carriages on for example:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-16136583

These are the sorts of problems with the rail that need solving.

Why do you feel there's an issue with crowding in terms of too many trains on the track when we're not even filling the trains we have, yet trains run pretty frequently? If we had a capacity issue with too many trains on the tracks then it'd mean that we'd both need more trains because the current ones are full (we don't, we just need more carriages on smaller trains), or that trains aren't frequent enough. There's certainly no need to increase the number of trains right now, only extend capacity on smaller trains with extra carriages, because having 2 carriage trains serving routes such as Leeds - Wakefield - Barnsley - Sheffield (i.e. 4 decent sized cities, 2 of which are dual university towns too) is just ridiculous, then in contrast if you take a train Leeds - London, or Sheffield - London then there's tens of empty seats every time. This new line only increases capacity in the latter case, where there is no problem, without dealing with the actual problem with rail capacity demonstrated in the former case.

Either they got it wrong or you misremembered.

Birmingham journeys will be shorter by about 40 minutes. Leeds, Manchester and Scotland journeys by about 1 hour.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16473296

Well, there's the beach under Spaghetti Junction... http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/content/articles/2008/01/31/spaghetti_junction_beach_feature.shtml

The "Costa Del Gravelly Hill"...

It appears you are right and I stand very much corrected. I had to do some digging, but this report from nearly 2 years ago breaks it down properly:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8561286.stm

He said the first 120 miles between London and the West Midlands would cost between £15.8bn and £17.4bn.

The cost per mile beyond Birmingham is then estimated to halve, taking the overall cost of the 335 mile Y-shaped network to about £30bn.

It appears that the estimation has risen slightly in the last couple of years to about £33billion, but yes, Phase 1 is about half of that. Still, the difference compared to the broadband investment is still quite staggering.

Nope: the Iraqi government has wanted coalition troops out for years.

The withdrawal occurred so that no more casualties occur during Obama's re-election year. And no more embarrassments, either.

If the elections were in another 4 years then the troops would still be there for another 3.

To some extent, the answer is yes. I doubt we'd have many poo-powered data-centers, but things (stoves, heaters, etc) that would use natural gas can use methane-burners:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16203507

There are tests in using treated sewage for biofuel in vehicles or small power plants
    http://futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/11/7349762-poop-fuels-hydrogen-cars
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5335635/ns/us_news-environment/t/poop-power-sewage-turned-electricity/

IMHO, it makes sense. More people = more energy needs = more waste. If we can find a way to reconstitute our waste into something useful, then the two scale together somewhat usefully.

The telling paragraph:
"I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," he said. "I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."

Very short and very ill-attributed paragraph you have there. Here's a more detailed paragraph, also from the BBC, about his treatment :

(source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8009804.stm )

Professor Hawking was able to feed himself and get in and out of bed until 1974.
Until that point he and his wife were able to manage without outside help, but then had to rely on live-in help from one of his research students.
In 1980, he changed to a system of community and private nurses, who came in for an hour or two in the morning and evening.
This lasted until he caught pneumonia in 1985, and had to have a tracheotomy operation.
After this, he needed 24-hour nursing care.
Before the operation, his speech had been getting more slurred, so that only a few people who knew him well could understand him.
However, he could communicate. He wrote scientific papers by dictating to a secretary, and gave seminars through an interpreter.
The tracheotomy operation removed his ability to speak altogether, and he had to rely on a small portable computer and a speech synthesizer fitted to his wheel chair.

Note also that there is no known treatment (the causes are not known either, nor are the effects. It is not known why ALS patients usually die of pneumonia, aside from extremely general statements pointing out that ALS patients don't cough). Nurses and butlers are the only known form of even mildly effective treatment, and for some reason Hawking lived extremely long even for someone who does have full 24-7 personal care. Also his disease started up extremely late in his life compared to other patients : he got 21 years of near-normal living. And is still not on ventilation support at age 71. You have no idea just how rare it is for ALS patients to breathe on their own at age 25 ... He is about 10 standard deviations to the right of the bell curve. Are you claiming the NHS is responsible for that ? If so, they're limiting the good version of their care to Hawking alone.

While the NHS probably partially paid for the operations mentioned above, does it really need to be said that care like Hawking received isn't available for all that many people in the UK. It's extremely disingenuous to hold up Hawking's care as an example of an NHS "success". Let's hold up Donald Trump's medical care as an example of the US health care system. Do you think that fair ? If not, why do you get to pull crap like that ?

I actually have a friend that has ALS and trust me, the NHS does not assign someone 24-7 to look after him, never mind additional 2 technical assistants. Essentially, without a knowledgeable butler, he has about 0 chance to survive another 5 years. He will not get one. He's quite okay with that, but that's another matter.

As for statistics : survivability of ALS in the US is 4-5 years while in the UK it's 3-4 years (shows again why Hawking is such a huuuugely exceptional case). Needless to say, both suck and the difference is so small it's probably a measurement error. Especially since the only treatment available is more people actively looking after the patient 24-7-365.

Seconded. Maybe the timing is good for kids in the UK too.

They don't have a patent on trees, dammit!

these guys do.....

The easiest/efficient way to protest Govt/Corporate hegemony is to print/circulate/use your own banknotes exclusively among your friends/family/community.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14774526

News just in: School ICT to be replaced by computer science programme

*albeit, it's a Government announcement without, it seems, any thought to how to implement it practically. But never-the-less, things might be looking up!

Since there are so many silly posts assuming that these things have ordinary cameras: According to BBC one of the next generation drones has a 1.8 gigapixel camera. It is hard to say what the current generation surveillance drone has, but one or more 1 gigapixel sensors would not be surprising. 500mbit/s is peanuts if you're taking that kind of images.

The carrying capacity of a global hawk is about 3000 pounds / 1300kg (wikipedia), so they can carry a pretty powerful directional antenna. Point that antenna at a very high-flying support aircraft with (literary) tons of processing power, and the systems on the aircraft can be used filter away most of the "boring desert scenery" before sending it to a base with a satellite link. The question is then "given lots of power and a couple of hundred kg in equipment, how much bandwidth do you get for any given distance, with line of sight?"

IMHO, 500mbit/s should be possible in the microwave bands for a couple of hundred km, but 500mbyte/s does sound a bit excessive. It might not be impossible: Line of sight to a support airplane, really high up in the air where there is no interference, lots of power, no regulation that you need to bother about, and enormous budgets.

It's already been tested in the lab, or did everyone forget the story from earlier this year? Well, not quite ATP, but a fuel cell utilizing glucose and oxygen at blood concentrations. It worked quite well in a rat in 2010.

Japan ending its nuclear program? Source?

I think he means Germany.

Maybe because of this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15342682

BlackPignouf said:

No Nobel prize. Less range than a Prius. Lame.

He still hasn't solved the most troubling mystery of Man. From Stephen Hawking himself:

In an interview with the New Scientist ahead of his 70th birthday, he said he spent most of the day thinking about women, who he says are "a complete mystery"

References:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16137007

With sunshine and 30C+ temperatures throughout the year..."

This is a lie. A big one sadly. Despite being on the equator, Kenya and other countries that the equator crosses never have temperatures beyond 30 degrees Celsius for more than 3 months in a year.

In fact for Nairobi, their capital, you will freeze at night and temps never go beyond 28 degrees Celsius for most of the day. Google Nairobi weather (I just did) and you'll find temperature now (it's almost noon there) at 23 degrees Celsius.

Why is it that most people in the west (who are supposed to be the best informed), are misinformed about Africa? Why?

This BBC link should help educate you to an extent.

You're dead wrong about temperatures. Most of Kenya is arid and daytime temperatures in some areas frequently approach 40 degrees Celcius in areas such as the Chalbi Desert, Magadi, and the North-Eastern province. Nairobi's weather does not represent the entire country's. Get your facts right, read more about our country before you post.

With sunshine and 30C+ temperatures throughout the year..."

This is a lie. A big one sadly. Despite being on the equator, Kenya and other countries that the equator crosses never have temperatures beyond 30 degrees Celsius for more than 3 months in a year.

In fact for Nairobi, their capital, you will freeze at night and temps never go beyond 28 degrees Celsius for most of the day. Google Nairobi weather (I just did) and you'll find temperature now (it's almost noon there) at 23 degrees Celsius.

Why is it that most people in the west (who are supposed to be the best informed), are misinformed about Africa? Why?

This BBC link should help educate you to an extent.

The North Koreans, aided by Burmese workers, are constructing a concrete-reinforced underground facility that is '500ft from the top of the cave to the top of the hill above'," reads the cable, published by the Guardian newspaper.

Some 300 North Koreans were working at the site, the authors said, although the cable suggested this number was improbably high.

The BBC's diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says that for months there have been persistent reports in the press and specialised journals suggesting that Burma is building a nuclear facility with North Korean help.

Another cable released by the whistle-blowing site suggests that China, Burma's most powerful ally, is growing impatient with the country's leaders.

Frankly, this is what happens when powerful nations have nuclear weapons and smaller ones want them too to defend themselves. And remember that U.s. is still the only nation on planet to ever have used nuclear weapons. Against civilians, no less.

According to BBC, the reaction of the London mayor was that he's too busy for things like that.

That's completely wrong. The BBC actually reports [...] the mayor is in awe of his good friend Michael Bloomberg, and if re-elected will explore whether he can join him on that course. I believe you got Boris Johnson (current mayor) confused with Ken Livingstone (former mayor and current candidate for the opposing party). Ken Livingstone stated If I'm elected, I'll be a bit too busy to take any education courses.

Anyway, it's certainly nice if politicians broaden their minds, but it's reasonable that they have to allocate their time and set priorities.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4757181.stm

I can come up with more, but I'm lazy and its Saturday.

As for "The right thing to do". It was, but that was not the reason the US Government at the time (not the people so much as always) had gone to war.

"It is a popular misconception among Americans that the US voluntarily entered WW2, at least against the Germans. In fact, the US didn't. The US entered the general war as a result of the attack on Pearl Harbor. But the US entered against Japan and did not, repeat not, declare war on Germany." http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_did_the_US_become_involved_in_World_War_2

That was my "quick Google" attempt.

Don't get me wrong, Americans are a good people in my book, but they blow their own trumpet a bit too much. All governments on earth are screwed up to some degree, America is one of the better ones.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/topgear/show/episodes/series10episode4.shtml concludes, via demonstration, that the unstoppable VW Beetle would be far more appropriate than your SUV.

Adverse conditions do not favor SUVs; status conscious *holes favor SUVs.

Must say that I approve - there's more and more crap on TV these days and even historically good programmes like the BBC's Horizon have gone downhill - more filled with dramatic music and camera shots than with good information.

No wonder the Chinese are doing so well - they *can't* rot their brains watching trash TV and they also have Tiger Mothers! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12249215

Actually, you are wrong. Spain has a GDP foreign debt of 284% and Germany has a GDP foreign debt of 176%. The US have 101%, and they are in much better finantial shape than many strong countries in EU.
Spain also has a complex, almost non-regulated, mutualist banking system (Caixas), and very poor performance in the EU stress tests. The only reason Spain has no interest to the IMF/European Fund is because most of the foreign debt is held by Germany and the UK, and a rescue operation would imply much more money than what the European Fund had avaliable, and would cause a direct hit in both UK's and Germany's banking companies. I used as reference the following infographic: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15748696

Can you name a single EU country that is self-sufficient in oil?

the UK

The UK is a net oil importer, and has been since around 2004. Output peaked in 1999 and has been declining since. ("The rate of decline has ranged from 6% to 17%, year-on-year.... The UK produced an average of 2.72 million barrels a day (mbpd) in 1999, hitting a high of 3.1 mbpd in August. But by June 2005 this had fallen to 1.7 mbpd, a drop of 34%.") Is UK oil output running on empty? )

Norway

Norway is not in the EU. It is a net oil exporter but exports have been declining since 1993. see Oil_production_Norwegian_North_Sea.png and oil-production-norway.gif. They hit peak oil in 2001, so reversal of this decline seems unlikely unless they can discover and bring big new fields online. (They will undoubtedly bring more small fields online, the issue is whether this will be enough to compensate for decline in the existing fields) Only 12% of European oil comes from Norway, and they do not have the production capacity to increase this significantly.

Or you could always use pee to generate your own power. You could stick some electrodes into your bladder, or if you're the squimish type, you could just do it the traditional way and refill your phone with fresh pee every 6 hours.

Yeah I'd agree with this, made it all the more impressive when I saw this web summarising app on the BBC the other day.

iPhone only, so I haven't been able to play with it.

Fracking has already been linked as the most likely cause of earthquakes in and around the seaside town of Blackpool. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-15550458.

[1] China leads world in green energy investment
[2] Top Countries For Renewable Energy Capacity
[3] Actually, China accounts for 70% of green energy investment

the iOS App Store and KNOW all that stuff has already been done for me

Malicious app penetrates iTunes store to test security Miller's malware was on the Apple app store for over 2 months, so clearly the Apple store is vulnerable to the same sort of shenanigans as the Android market.

Apple has never had to exercise its "Kill Switch" option for an App already in the Wild

From the BBC article: "Apple declined to comment. It also removed the app and barred the developer from its store."

Notice how they like to mention that they're the number-one ranked in illegal downloads. Personally, whenever I hear someone claim to be in that number-one spot for anything online, I immediately get suspicious.

In the case of Madonna for instance, she flooded p2p with millions of fake tracks, and then included the fake users downloading those fake tracks in the final tally of people pirating her music. This scheme had several purposes. Aside from making it more difficult for illegal downloaders, and making them download the same track multiple times, it magnified the perception of piracy, increased the perception of possible damages she incurred, but also implied in the media that her music was so popular -- that everybody just had to have it.

Basically, she's the poster child for that kind of market manipulation and PR coups, and this type of practice has been happening since at least 2003. That's why I don't trust any ranking of p2p, or any online poll for that matter, unless I can personally verify a sample of those people doing the downloading/voting in the first place.

Even if the US whould have invested 500Billion in a meaninful way in the Region, the world would be better off.....

The "in a meaningful way" part is a bit tricky, wouldn't you agree?

Let me ask you something. Why do you think that Pakistanis blame Americans for the deaths of their civilians by Al-Queda suicide bombers? TTP screws up any attempts to help Pakistanis and they have increased their suicide bombings from one to hundreds of attacks inside Pakistan's borders since Pakistan began accepting USAID. And the Pakistanis blame us for these suicide bombings.

How exactly do you propose "$500 billion in a meaningful way" when that shit happens and the United States takes the blame for it?

I don't understand how your post is an answer to what I wrote. Whether Facebook is built on PHP or ASP.NET doesn't really matter in this context. The APIs this article is talking about are the APIs used by Facebook games such as Farmville that enable them to integrate with Facebook profiles, friends and whatnot. Or the APIs that people can (could) use to create mashups based on Google maps.

That's also why I mentioned that these open APIs (open in the sense that third parties can use them) are not guaranteed to stay available, and hence do nothing to address one of the main drivers behind open source development (fighting vendor lock-in and planned obsolecense).

Ahhh yes... Mr O'Leary is a constant amusement. It appears from Wikipedia that he got his original ideas from Southwest Airlines, and has twisted it to the absurd extremes that is now the modern Ryanair. I'm not sure what's most laughable... the Standing Seats, or the Pay Toilets

Personally I think his silliness is one of the main drivers behind this cap on Credit Card surcharges. Just for fun, http://www.ihateryanair.org/ will give you a good chuckle... and make you seriously consider accepting that tempting offer. Lucky for us RyanAir are the exception to the norm, and I usually fly BA anyway... better service, and cheaper fares. No brainer!

Ahhh yes... Mr O'Leary is a constant amusement. It appears from Wikipedia that he got his original ideas from Southwest Airlines, and has twisted it to the absurd extremes that is now the modern Ryanair. I'm not sure what's most laughable... the Standing Seats, or the Pay Toilets

Personally I think his silliness is one of the main drivers behind this cap on Credit Card surcharges. Just for fun, http://www.ihateryanair.org/ will give you a good chuckle... and make you seriously consider accepting that tempting offer. Lucky for us RyanAir are the exception to the norm, and I usually fly BA anyway... better service, and cheaper fares. No brainer!

Ahhh yes... Mr O'Leary is a constant amusement. It appears from Wikipedia that he got his original ideas from Southwest Airlines, and has twisted it to the absurd extremes that is now the modern Ryanair. I'm not sure what's most laughable... the Standing Seats, or the Pay Toilets

Personally I think his silliness is one of the main drivers behind this cap on Credit Card surcharges. Just for fun, http://www.ihateryanair.org/ will give you a good chuckle... and make you seriously consider accepting that tempting offer. Lucky for us RyanAir are the exception to the norm, and I usually fly BA anyway... better service, and cheaper fares. No brainer!

Let's take another example - Google Maps:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15523050
or Google App Engine:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/cloud-computing/platform/231600672

That's a pretty tall order. I'm actually hoping to spin that very notion into a master's thesis - strategies for analyzing a grocery budget and maximizing nutritional value while minimizing cost. (And if possible, factoring in how appetizing the food is.) I can share a few general tips, though, that will apply for a variety of kinds of diets.

1. Use less salt; use more herbs and spices. While reducing sodium intake is probably beneficial for most westerners, that's actually just a side benefit of this advice. The reason for doing this is to broaden one's idea of what constitutes "flavourful" food. If you're accustomed to using cumin, cinnamon, paprika, black pepper, and ginger then you'll be comfortable with these flavours when you use them to enhance blander foods.

2. Eat less meat; eat more plants. A diet that mixes cereals with legumes can an adequate intake of all essential amino acids without consuming any meat. If your budget, your doctor, or your conscience demands that you eat less/no meat, you can still get sufficient protein. Using seasonings, as recommended above, will allow a relatively small number of plant ingredients take on a large number of flavour profiles. Rice or pasta with cinnamon and ginger is distinct from rice or pasta with cinnamon and cumin.
For example, I've been tinkering a lot with various substitutions for the spices and the chickpeas in Moroccan Spaghetti.

3. Cook foods properly. Another poster mentioned how, while growing up, "vegetables" meant the contents of a tin can warmed up on the stovetop. That will do in a pinch but it isn't very appetizing. Frozen is better than canned. Steamed is better than boiled. When in doubt, it's better to under-cook than over-cook (vegetables only; please don't eat undercooked chicken.) The food will be more appetizing and more nutritious. It's a little bit more expensive but the value of the resulting food is much higher. I know that time is at a premium but spending some of it practicing good cooking technique will often result in more nutritious, more satisfying meals.

Oh, it's news alright. International news that's gone way beyond geek/niche websites. Hopefully that will result in people both leaving GoDaddy and learning about and expressing an opinion on SOPA to legislators.

I wasn't specifically singling out the US. In fact in Africa, the US isn't nearly as bad as some European nations, such as France and England, which still haven't gotten over the idea that these countries are their colonies. The US has been much worse in its treatment of South American nations, however.

Furthermore, I'm not denying that rich nations don't provide money for infrastructure or education, or provide funding to NGOs that provide these things. But the money quite often gets in the hands of corrupted governments, which are helped or put in power by the West. There are a few genuinely helpful programs, but these seem to be exception.

Some citations for the West plundering the resources of poor countries, aided by corrupt governments they support and/or put in power, while the people starve (or worse) :

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,686774,00.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8126353.stm

http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2011/10/03/new-report-exposes-shell-complicity-in-nigerian-human-rights-abuses/

http://www.examiner.com/public-safety-in-national/blood-diamonds-zimbabwe-torture-camp-discovered-by-bbc

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/12/french-president-jacques-chirac-corruption_n_958043.html

http://foodwhistleblower.org/blog/22-2011/240-united-nations-report-contract-farmer-exploitation-imperils-food-integrity

You may say, well, these are almost all examples of corporations exploiting people, not governments. But let's not forget that these corporations are based in Western countries and have an enormous influence on their politics, the whole "revolving door" thing.

Not as high-tech as one of these Automatic rising toilets

But the one-way mirror loo passes them all for zaniness!

Short answer - you can not shoot down a satellite,.

Yes you can.

Of course Russia is selling billions of dollar's worth of weapons to Iran (and Iraq before that)

[citation needed]
#1 Iraq did not have weapons, ergo Russia did not sell weapons to them

Wrong. Here is your citation: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/world/europe/12moscow.html

#2 If Russia already sold weapons to Iran, they already have them, therefore their "proliferation" is a done deal.

Wrong again. Iran is continually trying to get its hands on more offensive and defensive gear from Russia: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11388680

Please stop making shit up.

No sir. You stop making shit up. Stop making assumptions about whether other people's points are sourced until they reply.

The real issue is that there is significant international pressure for Iran to stop its nuclear program for civilian (power) purposes.

What "civilian" purposes? I'll repeat my question in case you missed them the first time around:

Why does Iran need nuclear energy program when it has enough oil to meet domestic use for over 100 years?

First off, Iran is quite correct in that this is unfair as they are have signed the NPT, and have cooperated with the IAEA. Secondly, now that such crippling sanctions are in place against them, why should they stop? They are rightly convinced that the world will view them as a nuclear threat whether or not they stop their civilian program, and they now need that civilian program more than ever due to the sanctions.

The NPT entitles Iran to start a civilian energy program *if* and only if they declare their intent to do so ahead of time and provide full transparency throughout the process. Why then did Iran conceal their nuclear program for years? Why then did Iran boot out IAEA inspectors? Why did the UN catch Iran in possession of schematics for outfitting a nuclear warhead on their missiles? Why then did Iran use computer modeling to study the a core of a nuclear warhead? This and more curtsey of http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15643460

Economic sanctions are a precursor to war. The American propaganda machine wants war with Iran. When have you ever known the American's to let the truth stand between them and one of their holy wars.

Right, because Obama some crazy yahoo with a track-record of declaring wars. Give me a break. You have one of the most left-wing Presidents in power and even he cannot deny that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

The facts are stacked against your twisted reality. On the one hand, there is no reason for Iran to develop a nuclear energy program. On the other hand, it has a long record of training, funding and outfitting terrorist groups to attack its enemies. They don't even deny doing so. To add insult to injury, they slaughter their own civilians in the streets. Why are so many bleeding-heart liberals exerting more energy defending dictators than working to remove them? Who do you think is helping Syria slaughter its people? http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/12/21/uk-iran-syria-kidnap-idUKTRE7BK0S620111221

Of course Russia is selling billions of dollar's worth of weapons to Iran (and Iraq before that)

[citation needed]
#1 Iraq did not have weapons, ergo Russia did not sell weapons to them

Wrong. Here is your citation: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/world/europe/12moscow.html

#2 If Russia already sold weapons to Iran, they already have them, therefore their "proliferation" is a done deal.

Wrong again. Iran is continually trying to get its hands on more offensive and defensive gear from Russia: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11388680

Please stop making shit up.

No sir. You stop making shit up. Stop making assumptions about whether other people's points are sourced until they reply.

The real issue is that there is significant international pressure for Iran to stop its nuclear program for civilian (power) purposes.

What "civilian" purposes? I'll repeat my question in case you missed them the first time around:

Why does Iran need nuclear energy program when it has enough oil to meet domestic use for over 100 years?

First off, Iran is quite correct in that this is unfair as they are have signed the NPT, and have cooperated with the IAEA. Secondly, now that such crippling sanctions are in place against them, why should they stop? They are rightly convinced that the world will view them as a nuclear threat whether or not they stop their civilian program, and they now need that civilian program more than ever due to the sanctions.

The NPT entitles Iran to start a civilian energy program *if* and only if they declare their intent to do so ahead of time and provide full transparency throughout the process. Why then did Iran conceal their nuclear program for years? Why then did Iran boot out IAEA inspectors? Why did the UN catch Iran in possession of schematics for outfitting a nuclear warhead on their missiles? Why then did Iran use computer modeling to study the a core of a nuclear warhead? This and more curtsey of http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15643460

Economic sanctions are a precursor to war. The American propaganda machine wants war with Iran. When have you ever known the American's to let the truth stand between them and one of their holy wars.

Right, because Obama some crazy yahoo with a track-record of declaring wars. Give me a break. You have one of the most left-wing Presidents in power and even he cannot deny that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

The facts are stacked against your twisted reality. On the one hand, there is no reason for Iran to develop a nuclear energy program. On the other hand, it has a long record of training, funding and outfitting terrorist groups to attack its enemies. They don't even deny doing so. To add insult to injury, they slaughter their own civilians in the streets. Why are so many bleeding-heart liberals exerting more energy defending dictators than working to remove them? Who do you think is helping Syria slaughter its people? http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/12/21/uk-iran-syria-kidnap-idUKTRE7BK0S620111221

What protests? Did you mean the rioting in which looters made off with anything they could and burnt businesses? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14460111

So I read the article twice- are they going to fix his house for him?

The article I read said the district administration was inspecting the damage, and would be compensating Mr. Krivoruchenko for the damage to his house.

SOURCE