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No, that doesn't make sense. I've seen a few locations guessed wrong (including on CNN, who just zoomed in on downtown Abbottabad). None of those locations in the thread are right so far.

It's been described as a 3-story building with a walled balcony on one side and a high wall around it, fitting what is seen in the ground photos in the news stories. Location-wise, yes, it is near Abbottabad, but is described as being in the outskirts, and only a few hundred metres from the local military school -- that places it on the east or northeast side of Abbottabad. The neighborhood has also been described in the media, and a BBC article showed a box around the relevant area on the map, between Abbottabad and Kakul. Within that area, this building and walled compound is noticeably bigger and has a higher wall than most other buildings in the area, has a bunker on one side of the roof as seen in the ground photos (at the N side of the roof), and a walled balcony on the opposite side (the S side). It closely matches the appearance of the building in the ground photos. Ah, just as I was about to add in the BBC link, I discovered that they've already updated their map with a more precise location: that is the right spot.

living in a private luxury compound (right outside the main military Academy on the outskirts of Pakistan's capital) which was at least eight times larger then anything nearby.

Well, to be fair, I don't think most people would ever have suspected that was where he was. I mean, that's some _legendary_ hiding in plain sight, reverse psychology concealment right there. To get more audacious, he'd have to holed up in like, Washington D.C., or New York or something.

This tops Radovan Karadzic's disguise by a long shot.

It sort of depends on what you call "mansion". Exact details are still a little scarce, but this BBC article gives the neighborhood near Abbottabad (within a few 100 metres of the Pakistan military academy!), and within that neighborhood there is one compound that stands out with high walls and a 3-story building that matches the ground pictures in the news pretty well. It's a "mansion" that stands out in the neighborhood, but not a flagrantly ostentatious one.

We couldn't help it but make it generally a PR farce from the start anyway, for some reason. How many people are even aware that preparations were well under way by the time "the reasons" happened? (and nvm slight continuity problems and how the ultimatum was a farce, also how getting in the way of some investigations possibly made those events easier)

And all also good reasons to invade Pakistan (one of very few of our "allies" to quickly recognize Taliban gov; others being Kuwait and Saudis, IIRC) and label ISI as a terrorist organisation, for a start... Pakistani ISI which fought alongside the Taliban (the largest support going towards the only mujahidin faction eager to fight not only against the Soviets) against the Northern Alliance, greatly contributing to them being unable to hold Afghanistan.
But don't forget how, immediately after the "causes", "rumors" began that Iraq could have played a role... Or how opium production skyrocketed after the intervention. How the compromised ISI was again, also, quick to helpfully point out their enemies, for us to deal with.

How ideology is branded as an "organization", which can be obviously fought like any organization

Oh well, admittedly such subtleties just confuse people (and the farce of October surprise in 2004 was hilarious, with OBL tape clearly designed to make reelection easier :) ...well, still not on the level of Reagan team hampering Iranian hostage release efforts), what we got is so much more palatable.

How many people now realize that bomber gap and missile gap were a fiction comparable to mine shaft gap? How many even heard about Team B?

We couldn't help it but make it generally a PR farce from the start anyway, for some reason. How many people are even aware that preparations were well under way by the time "the reasons" happened? (and nvm slight continuity problems and how the ultimatum was a farce, also how getting in the way of some investigations possibly made those events easier)

And all also good reasons to invade Pakistan (one of very few of our "allies" to quickly recognize Taliban gov; others being Kuwait and Saudis, IIRC) and label ISI as a terrorist organisation, for a start... Pakistani ISI which fought alongside the Taliban (the largest support going towards the only mujahidin faction eager to fight not only against the Soviets) against the Northern Alliance, greatly contributing to them being unable to hold Afghanistan.
But don't forget how, immediately after the "causes", "rumors" began that Iraq could have played a role... Or how opium production skyrocketed after the intervention. How the compromised ISI was again, also, quick to helpfully point out their enemies, for us to deal with.

How ideology is branded as an "organization", which can be obviously fought like any organization

Oh well, admittedly such subtleties just confuse people (and the farce of October surprise in 2004 was hilarious, with OBL tape clearly designed to make reelection easier :) ...well, still not on the level of Reagan team hampering Iranian hostage release efforts), what we got is so much more palatable.

How many people now realize that bomber gap and missile gap were a fiction comparable to mine shaft gap? How many even heard about Team B?

sony did this once before, with a fake movie reviewer: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4741259.stm

News at eleven! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4741259.stm

Because the FDR is just part of the unit:
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45996000/gif/_45996239_black_box_loc_v2_466_v2.gif

Also, a floating FDR would be a nightmare. In the event of an ocean crash do you *really* want the FDR to drift off on the currents? It could end up anywhere - oceans are vast, even with a locator beacon broadcasting its position it's hard enough to find in a reasonably well defined debris field on the seabed.

To answer everyone's question, all they found is the chassis housing the FDR. It connects to the plane's avionics and does the actual flight data recording, which it then writes to flash memory in a separate memory module. It is only important before the crash. The memory module plugs into this chassis and screws on (you can see the 4 screws on the chassis and the screw holes on the memory module's feet if you click on the pic in the link). During the crash, the two got separated. The memory module itself is the part that's designed to be crash/fire/water-proof, and the locater beacon they were listening for immediately after the crash is attached to the memory module.

And if you don't like China, welcome to Brazil!

In 2003 scientists in Hawaii found other places in the Mariana Trench that are as deep as the Challenger Deep. Perhaps they could go there?

Its called the HMRG Deep
Link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3071749.stm

There is another place called the Tonga Trench that has some pretty low spots also. There is a good chance the the challenger deep isnt the deepest place in the ocean, in fact its depth has had to be adjusted numerous times. It has been measured at 35,760 ft, 36,201 ft , 35,840 ft. Its hard to measure something that deep, in that kind of environment, and be 100% the numbers aren't off even as much as 0.25%.
The Tonga Trench has been measured at 35,702.
The HMRG Deep has been measured at 35,209.
Either of those two spots can actually be lower then the Challenger Deep if there was the slightest error in the measurement.

Really? That's surprising, considering a lot of the UK news sites are all over it - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13192359 - and it's coming close to beating the number of reader comments on the royal wedding - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/have_your_say

Of course, I'm assuming that you're not reading the Aussie version of the Daily Mail? Royalty are like celebrities with super-polarized public views - it's a flame war waiting to happen, and tabloids love that shit.

Really? That's surprising, considering a lot of the UK news sites are all over it - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13192359 - and it's coming close to beating the number of reader comments on the royal wedding - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/have_your_say

Of course, I'm assuming that you're not reading the Aussie version of the Daily Mail? Royalty are like celebrities with super-polarized public views - it's a flame war waiting to happen, and tabloids love that shit.

The BBC has a radio offering http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b010dw0k/In_Business_Watch_This_Space/ (available for afew more days) detailing some of the businmess ideas behing Space-X and others. IMHO this is well worth a listen "America's space effort faces big upheavals as President Obama reigns in government spending and NASA is told to work in partnership with private enterprise. From the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida and the Mojave Desert, Peter Day asks what happens next on the USA's journey into space." Show the part played by both private business funding and new building methods.

I'm not sure that Sellafield counts as monitored and controlled - there are certainly bits of it that aren't safe. It, like many other sites that were used in the glory days of the quest for atomic weapons, has many areas that contain undocumented and unknown materials. Like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield#Dirty_Thirty The Fukushima workers haven't been in the reactor buildings, I'd hazard a guess that it will be the long slow cleanup that runs the greatest risk of exposure for workers, just as the long, slow cleanup of Sellafield does. See also http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7773593.stm It's pretty shameful, but I'd hazard a guess that there are a lot of industrial (non-nuclear) sites that are as dangerous to the environment and those who are trying to clean them up.

I'd suspect that it was more about economics and the fact that the console import duty for the EU is at 0% now.

In the UK, even the PS2 had a disk included in the original box that allowed the owner to code in BASIC in an attempt to be classified as a computer (import duty 0%) and not a games console (import duty 2.2%). HOWEVER, the UK HMRC looked in detail when SONY tried to get £50m in tax rebates and decided (not surprisingly!) that it was a sham and charged them 2.2% import levy anyway). The same negotiation happened with the PS3 - SONY really thought they could avoid import duty.

in the EU, the import levy varied over the years from 0.6% to 2.2%. Of course, local VAT was compounded on top of those rates. Today, the import duty from Japan to the UK is 0% (i.e.no incentive for even trying with OtherOS)

Given the problem with PSN in the last few days, it appears there's no viable option left but use the PS3 as an offline gaming machine, an ordinary Blu-ray player or maybe a space heater :-)

It makes a fantastic space heater, easily rivaling the Power Mac G5 Quad I have upstairs, which can actually be used to heat the whole upstairs of our house just by having it transcode a video.

I make sure to turn off the power switch on the back of our PS3 after shutting it down, as there were many times I would come into the living room to find the PS3 running its fans at full speed and blasting out heat - hours after it had been shut down. I don't really care to know what it was doing, I just wanted it to stay "off".

Given the problem with PSN in the last few days, it appears there's no viable option left but use the PS3 as an offline gaming machine, an ordinary Blu-ray player or maybe a space heater :-)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/more_or_less/default.stm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qyyb

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/more_or_less/default.stm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qyyb

Speaking of utter lack of links, because this was completely devoid in the description and the articles themselves, here are some I found relevant from comments below other articles and searching for a couple of minutes:

http://www.sfx.co.uk/2011/04/16/85-authors-protest-at-the-bbc%E2%80%99s-treatment-of-genre-fiction/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/18/genre-authors-protest-bbc
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13128769 --- (this is the BBC defense / response)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/?q=World%20Book%20Night

And the answer to your question:
The Books Featured

(Hell someone had to get a few more links in here eventually)

cheers

Speaking of utter lack of links, because this was completely devoid in the description and the articles themselves, here are some I found relevant from comments below other articles and searching for a couple of minutes:

http://www.sfx.co.uk/2011/04/16/85-authors-protest-at-the-bbc%E2%80%99s-treatment-of-genre-fiction/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/18/genre-authors-protest-bbc
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13128769 --- (this is the BBC defense / response)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/?q=World%20Book%20Night

And the answer to your question:
The Books Featured

(Hell someone had to get a few more links in here eventually)

cheers

This is news to me too. In the BBC article, it says gravitational quantum states were only measured in 2002, in the parent experiment (the one where they didn't use piezo resonators -- just parallel plates).

Cool! Falsifiable experiments testing unified theories, like string theory!

Truly this is horrible. This will definitely sour the relations between the parties. What with the whole hostage thingie, the desire to wipe Israel off the face of the map, nuclear weaponry ambition. Lawyers everywhere, SUIT UP! Iran is going to court.

I hope this gets settled in record time just like SCO v IBM.

The only court I'm aware of where venue and jurisdiction for Iran to "air their innocent grievance" are just and proper is currently the one I'm sitting on.
Iran is welcome to kiss it.

E

You'd know that there *are* millions of climate refugees.

Start here or here or here ("12 out of 13 'flash' appeals in 2007 related to weather"). Here's 3/4 of a million soon to be refugees in just ONE island nation (now go add up the rest).

Pretty nice writing that snide and ignorant summary from your comfortable suburban basement, wasn't it?

I agree that China is probably going to go the way of Japan in the 80s - everyone thought it was the ultimate powerhouse economy that could do no wrong. Eventually everyone saw through the doddery asset inflation and its economy is still practically collapsed.

China... the country that wants to float its currency but cannot as it would bankrupt both it and the US (as it hold an eyewateringly large number of dollars), China that has such excellent infrastructure and a truly incredible property bubble (especially in Beijing)

I think the world needs to prepare for the Chinese disaster to come, I think the world's politicians already know about it and are trying to manage it already.

There is a solution of kinds.... China needs to take chunks of its manufacturing and relocate it to the USA - thus keeping the products, the currency input, and also reducing its reliance on exports to the US. The US will also benefit - it'd be just a balancing of global trade that has become dangerously unstable over the last decade or so. They would get rid of some of their dollars then - in payment for supplies and wages, would help to reduce the inflation that China is struggling with at the moment. Sound sensible?

Probably because they're the ones who broke the story - it's been picked up by slightly more high-brow outlets too, but it's a tradition that you link to the source of a story. Even the BBC point to them: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13107413

Unless you have a blog to pimp, and need the ad revenue... then you post your link on the front page and wait for the Slashdot effect to make you rich ;)

On another note, why in the name of fuck is Slashdot posting anything from the Daily Star? The newspaper is most famous for its page-3 topless girls and their sheer determination to use words with as few syllables as possible.

So what if they have pictures of totty in their pages, that is not what is being linked to. The Daily Star do not seem to have made the story up, the write up seems as good as you get anywhere else. It appears that the Daily Star alterted the MOD about their stupidity so they are the origin of the story & deserve credit for that.

If you are such an intellectual snob that you won't read the Daily Star, here is the story on the BBC.

The hypocrisy here is thick enough to cut with a knife. Every minute of every day US corporations (from Microsoft to Monsanto to Chevron and thousands of others) and the US military break the law in over 100 countries, heedlessly and without accountability or redress. Yet the FBI has the astonishing chutzpah to make a statement like, "Foreign firms that choose to operate in the United States are not free to flout the laws they don’t like simply because they can’t bear to be parted from their profits".

The iconic example of US corporate intransigence might be Union Carbide/Dow's all-but-deliberate poisoning of Bhopal, India, where tons of toxic, unstable nerve poison, improperly and carelessly stored in an American pesticide plant, killed 8,500 horribly in one night, and permanently injured 100,000s. No proper reparations have been made and nobody has been held to account.

In the Amazon, Chevron has committed one of the largest environmental crimes in US history - and thousands of US companies are doing the same every day.

More recently, the behaviour of Blackwater has illustrated that indiscriminate murder of foreign citizens is now just an accepted part of American corporate practice. Countless Iraqi citizens killed and injured by Blackwater (and other mercenary firm) employees have not seen justice.

Another example from this morning's timeline.

Here's another: Indonesia is just one of many countries now being flooded by a tsunami of toxic electronic waste from the United States.

Funny thing about karma...

And you are linking to old annual reports. The latest linked on that page is 2008. At which point Nintendo absolutely were surging ahead. Nintendo's profits for 2010-11 are... ok... but they are below expectations and trending downwards (though the impact of the 3DS remains to be seen. At the same time, the latest MS quarterly results show a healthy profit from Entertainment and Devices division, which you will also find (albeit to a slightly lesser degree without the Kinnect bubble) in previous statements.

Actually, McDonalds *has* been sued because parents buy their kids McPoison. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2502431.stm

Thankfully, it ended up getting thrown out, but still...

And Israel does indeed try to minimize civilian casualties. Otherwise they wouldn't have halted attacks because of civilians gatherings.

That mad dog nonsense seems to only be found on Nazi sites and similar racist bigot sites. Sorry, but they have no credibility. And how is Dayan relevant? He's dead!

That said, based on Spotify's revenues which they have publicly stated along with subscriber numbers, it looks like they made about 50p in advertising per "free" user over the whole of 2009. While some argue they're paying for their experience with ads, 50p per annum for unlimited streaming music cannot look like a good business proposition to the music industry, and it's hard to say they're being unreasonably greedy by refusing to drop their royalty demands down to that level.

Dailymotion is less restrictive and you can even show boobs :D
However, based on France's recent draconian data retention law I think I'll be closing my Dailymotion account.

"Evolution is demonstratively proven. Here is the long list of cases which support evolution."

Sooooo........where's that list?

Posting as AC because I'll likely be flamed for asking this question, but, I've looked all over the place for evidence of this claim. I've found pages such as this http://evolution.berkeley.edu/, and this http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3790531.stm, but neither of these offer incontrovertible examples of speciation. Instead, they say "the populations stopped breeding with each other". There is a lively debate in biology even about the definition of a species http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_problem. The fact that two populations, when combined, only interbreed with those of their own population doesn't necessarily mean speciation has occurred, only that there is a selection mechanism in play between the two populations. In fact, it is would be foolish to conclude that you just witnessed speciation until you've proven that the underlying genetic material has sufficiently changed between the two populations, something not accomplished in any of the fruit fly studies I've seen.

How does evolution account for the number of positive mutations that would be necessary to achieve current biodiversity? With mutation rates of ~10E-8 per base pair per generation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_rate and say a 2/3 chance that mutation is beneficial or has no impact (but may contribute to a beneficial gene later on) how many billions of years would be required to go from a pond full of proteins to what we currently observe? Is that number less than the current estimated age of the universe according to astro physicists? Do we have to assume faster mutation rates earlier on to make things work out? If so, why? How is that explained?

Speaking of that pond of proteins form whence life sprang, has there ever been a case in which simple elements have been observed to form into protein chains in nature with no pre-existing biological influence? I'm talking fundamental elements in solution here. How did the proteins get there if not through simple chemical reactions? If it was just chemistry at work, why do we not see this occurring now?

I pose all these questions because the current science curriculum has been so hell-bent on convincing me that evolution is "proven" that it forgot to actually show the proof. I really want to know, but I'm almost certain the response to these questions will be to call me an "idiot", assume my beliefs are exactly X and then explain why X is so wrong without once engaging on any of the above questions. Please prove me wrong /.

The BBC is reporting that brain scans can detect Alzheimers decades before symptoms show. If you couple the two studies together, you should be able to identify what biochemistry is related to those specific areas that are thinning and no others. In further news, five more genes linked to the disease have now been identified. One of them turns out to be also linked to the immune system - which is interesting, since one of the key processes involved is the production of tau protein tangles which literally crush areas of the brain to death and toxic substances in the brain (such as aluminium) are known to trigger that process.

It has always struck me that it had to be an immune response of some sort, since the tau proteins "contain" these contaminants, but I'd pictured it as being an archaic response (there's no evolutionary advantage in being dead, but there is an evolutionary advantage in single-cell and simple multi-cell organisms being able to detox). There's nothing in the BioNews article to suggest the mutation is a regression bug, though it's not exactly chock-full of details on things like how old the regions involved are.

Anyways, with now ten genes identified, a region identified as pre-symptom Alzheimers, and a knowledge of the genes and chemistry of that part of the brain, it should be possible to do quite a bit.

Weren't there arrests at several of Bush's (Jr) speeches?

Let's see how my google fu is today.

There's this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4672676.stm
which is a little bit different, as it's at the State of the Union, not a public speech. Just remember, our best and brightest men and women are over there fighting for your freedoms. So don't dishonor them by actually exercising any of those freedoms.

And it's not just in the US of A:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16752321/
Hey Fosters, what's Australian for brown shirts?

Ah...here we go:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20310306/

And this:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=RU8eAAAAIBAJ&sjid=VccEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2056,2962921

Remember, the Republicans want to protect your freedoms! That's why they want to take them away and hide them in an undisclosed location.

You sort of forgot btw2: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10461048

(unless it was just the usual Finnish-Swedish funny relations ;) )

This is becoming a joke, first people try to claim health care is a right

Hi there. I live in Sweden. Over here basic medical care IS considered a human right, and we recently even passed a law which grants it for people who are here illegally (shocking, I know ). Somehow our society has not collapsed despite this fact.

Seriously, why do you think this is ridiculous? Diseases tend to spread you know.. Deny treatment for the poor and eventually those infections will hit somebody you care about. Even if you don't think it is immoral to leave people to suffer unnecessarily, it is just better for everybody to have universal health care.

But don't listen to me, what do I know. I'm obviously brainwashed by this crazy socialist state I live in.
Btw: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13053999

Making and selling the hottest chillies seems to be an ongoing competition. The UK grown ones are verified by Warwick University. Who is verifying the australian ones? I wonder how high in term of Scoville Heat Units this arms race is going to go?

Infinity report from the BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12505344

Naga Viper from the grower:
http://www.chileseeds.co.uk/Naga_Viper.htm

New fire at Fukushima power plant.

and isn't likely to mistake a bus-full of nuns for an enemy aircraft carrier..

You mean that actual nun incident you reference was just an identification error? The one that caused protesters to chant "Washington Guns Killed American Nuns" during Alexander Haig's commencement speech at Syracuse?

Those nuns were targeted, and should it suit someone in the right position to send a laser blast into a bus full of nuns, you can bet they will do it with no qualms at all.

The clear argument that weapons will be used improperly is that historically use of weapons is primarily at the sole discretion and behest of extremely self interested parties and serves only their own greed.

Actually, the GP is correct. The pilot was partially sucked out and survived, though it looks like he was unconscious for most of the ordeal.

OK looks like my figures are a bit wrong. But after corrections the point still stands:

The NHS 2.7billion cost was just for England:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7654153.stm

Oxford uni says cost is 5 billion:
http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2009/090609_1.html

Tobacco tax revenue = 10.5 billion:
http://www.the-tma.org.uk/tma-publications-research/facts-figures/tax-revenue-from-tobacco/

One has also to wonder whether the 5 billion is the absolute cost or a _relative_ cost increase compared to nonsmokers.

For example it's like saying dinner X costs 5 billion. But if you must have dinner anyway and the alternatives cost 2 billion, then the actual difference is 3 billion, despite dinner X indeed costing 5 billion.

Because nonsmokers also get sick, eventually die and thus also cost the NHS money :).

For example if a nonsmoker picked a lifestyle and diet which was super healthy (say steamed fish and vegetables) but as a result ended up surviving cancers a few times (they won't die from chemo, surgery, heart disease or stroke, because they're fit and healthy) and eventually dying at 95 after lingering in a nursing home (paid for by NHS[1]) with age onset dementia or Alzheimers (because they won't die of heart disease or strokes). So a lot of people picking a long walks, steamed fish and vegetables lifestyle might actually cost the NHS more billions than smoking does ;).

I've seen some pretty bullshit cost estimates too - one actually said that potential lost earnings from a smoker dying earlier = cost to society. Given that smokers tend to die near retirement or soon after, even if they are earning a lot it doesn't mean that them dying at that point would be such a great loss to the rest of society.

Lastly I'm a nonsmoker and have never smoked in my life (except via second hand smoke ). I don't like cigarette smoke (pipe smoke actually doesn't smell that bad), but to me it seems ridiculous for governments to ban away such great sources of tax revenue while making stupid noises about "aging populations".

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-13010087
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_4002953

OK looks like my figures are a bit wrong. But after corrections the point still stands:

The NHS 2.7billion cost was just for England:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7654153.stm

Oxford uni says cost is 5 billion:
http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2009/090609_1.html

Tobacco tax revenue = 10.5 billion:
http://www.the-tma.org.uk/tma-publications-research/facts-figures/tax-revenue-from-tobacco/

One has also to wonder whether the 5 billion is the absolute cost or a _relative_ cost increase compared to nonsmokers.

For example it's like saying dinner X costs 5 billion. But if you must have dinner anyway and the alternatives cost 2 billion, then the actual difference is 3 billion, despite dinner X indeed costing 5 billion.

Because nonsmokers also get sick, eventually die and thus also cost the NHS money :).

For example if a nonsmoker picked a lifestyle and diet which was super healthy (say steamed fish and vegetables) but as a result ended up surviving cancers a few times (they won't die from chemo, surgery, heart disease or stroke, because they're fit and healthy) and eventually dying at 95 after lingering in a nursing home (paid for by NHS[1]) with age onset dementia or Alzheimers (because they won't die of heart disease or strokes). So a lot of people picking a long walks, steamed fish and vegetables lifestyle might actually cost the NHS more billions than smoking does ;).

I've seen some pretty bullshit cost estimates too - one actually said that potential lost earnings from a smoker dying earlier = cost to society. Given that smokers tend to die near retirement or soon after, even if they are earning a lot it doesn't mean that them dying at that point would be such a great loss to the rest of society.

Lastly I'm a nonsmoker and have never smoked in my life (except via second hand smoke ). I don't like cigarette smoke (pipe smoke actually doesn't smell that bad), but to me it seems ridiculous for governments to ban away such great sources of tax revenue while making stupid noises about "aging populations".

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-13010087
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_4002953

And you expect truthful journalism?

*shiver*

Look at the latest escapade of its Sunday bedmate, the "News of the World"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3119676.stm

"Wait, which war was started ten years ago again?"

I'm sure there's a reason you keep repeating that statement. I'm sure there's a reason you think it's a particularly witty response to what I said. But for the life of me I don't know what your point is.

Note the lame post-facto "sorta apology" to the readers.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/how-will-japan-earthquake-affect-apples-ipad-supply-chain/9763

Authorâ(TM)s Note: A number of readers have complained that this article is insensitive to the pain and suffering of the Japanese people. Please accept my sincere apology. I have friends and former colleagues in Japan and I offered them my prayers for their safety and recovery last night. I have been to Japan and have a respect for its traditions and people. The devastation from the quake is terrible.

At the same time, my editorial mission here is to look at Apple, its products and markets. If that appears callous, I ask your forbearance. Some of the comments in the story were made several months ago, so please keep that context in mind.

http://www.businessinsider.com/gene-munster-apple-supply-demand-2011-3

Apple's supply chain is likely temporarily going to be affected by the Japan earthquake and tsunami, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster writes today, but demand for Apple products is stronger than ever, he says, and that should ultimately drive shares higher.

Hilarious phrasing here, "not much impact - more worried about the impact in the next quarter":
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12782566

"In the short term, there won't be much impact," said chief executive Yang Yuanqing of Lenovo. "We are more worried about the impact in the next quarter."

No shit? Employee absences common?
http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=774&doc_id=205416&f_src=internetevolution_gnews

Getting raw materials supplied and distributed remains a challenge in Japan. Disruptions to the country's transportation systems have made employee absences common. Interruptions in Japan's electricity supply have hindered maintenance of sensitive processes such as semiconductor lithography. Because of the setbacks, Apple delayed iPad2 shipments by one week from the original March 25 launch to allow it to catch up with production, given the shortfall in Japan-sourced parts.

But don't worry. Apple's supply chain is very robust and you'll be able to get your iPrick in time for Christmas.
http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/thestreet-apple-supply-chain-japan-supply/4/4/2011/id/33755

Apple's (AAPL) supply chain remains robust, according to analyst firm Canaccord Genuity.

"While we believe supply could be tight for the industry due to Japan, we believe Apple is leveraging its dominant market position and will fare much better than competitors," wrote Canaccord analyst Michael Walkley in a note Monday. "We believe suppliers will likely provide Apple with preferential supply, as Apple is often the largest customer for many suppliers."

It is the BBC's twitter feed. They hadn't written the article at that point, but they have now, and you can find it here. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13005110

TEPCO has already stated that reactors 1-4 have already been scheduled for decommission. The only reason they are going through all this trouble is because they need a stable method for keeping the fuel rods cool.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12903725

Also, TEPCO hasn't come out and said it specifically, but the idea of long-term relocation has been discussed on the news quite a bit here in Japan. Many of the people affected were relocated to a new city as a group so that the community could stay together for the short term. Their housing options run out in about 6 months, so most likely that's when we will start to hear how the government wants to handle the situation. They are going to require financial assistance either way, so the government has to figure out ways to finance their relocation - which they are already talking about.

The TEPCO stock has already lost most of its value, and there is a lot of talk about nationalizing the company so that affected residents can be compensated for their losses. Again, all of this is being discussed on a regular basis here.

Nothing in this situation is going to happen quickly. We're looking at least a decade of slow steps to even get back to where we were prior to the earthquake. Everyone clearly recognizes that, especially with first-hand experience in disaster recovery from the Kobe earthquake in 1995.