Slashdot Mirror

Second link should be: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6200005.stm

http://www.rfreitas.com/Astro/LegalRightsOfRobots.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6200005.stmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6200005.stm

Something else to think about related to simulated entities' rights: http://www.simulation-argument.com/

Yes, let's harshly criticise them for even trying to cater to a geek audience (something I don't see any other channels doing right now, even the supposedly more scientific channels on cable seem to be about loudmouth presenters blowing stuff up while they high-five each other). That will encourage them to do more, better geek programming in the future...

It's a pretty sad state of affairs when the most scientifically interesting show on TV is Big Bang Theory (not to be confused with Bang Goes the Theory, the Beeb's other offering which is very much in the idiots blowing stuff up vein).

While it's a shame he missed it, the Quadrantid Meteor Shower is still on for a few days, and it's one of the best, so natually they picked an interesting time to have Stargazing Live (although they aren't of course stars!), so keep looking and you'll probably see another.

Yes it's a shame he missed it, but as so many others have said, it's not really his fault. The only reason for his being sheepish was he'd turned to complain about lack of visibility, so yes, he probably feels a little silly, wouldn't you? I would.

Hopefully we'll have some decent meteor showers this year that arent completely obscured by days of clouds. I've been very disappointed not to see the sun and moon in days, not to mention missing out on the Quadrantids, my local Astronomical Society has a public viewing tomorrow night (8th), so I'm crossing my fingers the skies clear up some!

Astronomy is a fascinating subject and has come on massively in the last couple of decades, less than 100 years ago people really believed in canals on Mars (signs of life!), water and volcanoes on the Moon, and Venus was just like Earth, possibly covered with life!

What about the comment in the article located on that thread that said "It'll roughly be another 56 years before we have to consider changing it again."?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7037462.stm
Safe huh?

There is an article on the history of video recording in the production industry. The tapes (Ampex VRX-1000) weren't destroyed as in thrown out, crushed or incinerated. They were re-used to record new programming until the iron oxide was worn out. Given the relative costs of storage and purchase of each cassette, limited budgets, tight deadlines, the fact that copies were made for distribution, no producer or accountant would have given a second thought to overwriting the tapes for new programming. The same happens with server disk space for rendering these days. Once you've got the final reel out to the client, all that space is free for the next project. Someone with decades of experience might have seen the importance of saving all those clips for re-use, or using scraps for experimenting with, but then there would not have been the space to store them, or even the funding for archival.

For longer distance connection, at the expense of speed, a regular phone line could be used, with modems at both ends.

That doesn't get you around the "central point of control" that is one of the weaknesses in the current internet -- the government can just ask the Telcom to cut your phone line when it has something to hide.

Plus, "expense of speed" is an understatement. Even compressed, a page like http://news.bbc.co.uk/ would take abount 3 minutes to load over a 28.8kbs modem. (which is about the highest speed I remember back when I actually owned a modem -- you won't get 56k on a point-to-point modem connection, that requires a digital connection on one end)

It won't be long before we see another court case concerning a defendant's right not to disclose his whole disk encryption passphrase.

This is not from the US, but...
News: Man jailed over computer password refusal

The average pay for a GP in the UK is over £100,000 per year (linked like that because I'm not sure if /. will mangle pound signs in links). I'm not saying that GPs should not get that amount, but that is around 5 times the median for the UK. £100,000 is about the _total_ income tax of 30 taxpayers on that median pay.

Sadly, the link doesn't say one or the other, but I'm wondering if that average is mean or median? (As in, are there really well paid doctors skewing the average).

Misplaced the link, but I remember reading about a similar effect in actors - the "average" acting wage is decent, except no-one actually makes that much; you either make way more or way less.

As someone who has visited A+E a few times, I have to (generally) agree.

The times I've been into A+E I (and those I've been in with) have generally been seen quickly and well (though once by a doctor who was obviously _very_ tired, but I could see that he still knew what he was doing). The one time I was kept waiting I wasn't going to go in, but I was very drunk, it was a wound on the back of my head I couldn't see, and a few people told me to go in (I'm occasionally vaguely rational when I'm drunk, and I thought I'd better take other people's advice because I knew the alcohol could be killing the pain and disrupting other symptoms). I sat there for 4 hours to be told it was a graze, but that wasn't really a problem with A+E.

Anyway, given the choice between the NHS and another system... I'd choose the NHS, despite some of its failings.

The NHS has for some time been dependent on the goodwill and vocational motivation of it's healthcare professionals, because they sure as hell ain't motivated by the working conditions, pay, and benefits.

The average pay for a GP in the UK is over £100,000 per year (linked like that because I'm not sure if /. will mangle pound signs in links). I'm not saying that GPs should not get that amount, but that is around 5 times the median for the UK. £100,000 is about the _total_ income tax of 30 taxpayers on that median pay.

I'm not sure exactly how it works in the UK but here in Australia most GP's earn around A$400,000/yr which seems like an insane amount of money until you factor in their costs - they have to pay for the very matronly group of gestapo officers at their front desks, utilities, journal subscriptions and most importantly they pay over $100,000/yr in insurance premiums and then their tax... so at the end of the year they probably walk away with 80-100k in their pockets which is a substantial amount to be sure but not the 400k windfall that everyone assumes.

It should be pretty obvious to anyone that you can't have a democracy when the media is controlled by the person in power. It's also quite well documented on how the media in the countries I've listed has been taken over by the government or their freedom otherwise suppressed.

This is from just a quick Google search. The concept of freedom of the press and democracy goes back to the founding of the United States where the press is often referred to as the 4th branch of government or the 4th pillar of democracy. One needs a free press in order to expose corruption and provide an informed electorate which is vital for a healthy democracy.

It's well known among journalists in Russia that reporting on certain things is a good way to end up dead. In Venezuela almost all (if not all by now) of the major TV stations have been taken over by the government and spew pro Chavez propaganda without providing an outlet for the opposition.

http://www.un.org/democracyfund/XNewsSGFreePress.htm
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/21452
http://www.america.gov/st/democracyhr-english/2008/June/20080630215145eaifas0.6333842.html
http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/news/press-freedom-pillar-democracy-mzilikazi-wa-afrika
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51587-2005Feb24.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7321168.stm
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20100430/158814432.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,443543,00.html
http://www.advancingafreesociety.org/2010/12/14/russian-style/
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2004_2009/documents/fd/droi20071001_russia_004/droi20071001_russia_004en.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press_in_Russia

As someone who has visited A+E a few times, I have to (generally) agree.

The times I've been into A+E I (and those I've been in with) have generally been seen quickly and well (though once by a doctor who was obviously _very_ tired, but I could see that he still knew what he was doing). The one time I was kept waiting I wasn't going to go in, but I was very drunk, it was a wound on the back of my head I couldn't see, and a few people told me to go in (I'm occasionally vaguely rational when I'm drunk, and I thought I'd better take other people's advice because I knew the alcohol could be killing the pain and disrupting other symptoms). I sat there for 4 hours to be told it was a graze, but that wasn't really a problem with A+E.

Anyway, given the choice between the NHS and another system... I'd choose the NHS, despite some of its failings.

The NHS has for some time been dependent on the goodwill and vocational motivation of it's healthcare professionals, because they sure as hell ain't motivated by the working conditions, pay, and benefits.

The average pay for a GP in the UK is over £100,000 per year (linked like that because I'm not sure if /. will mangle pound signs in links). I'm not saying that GPs should not get that amount, but that is around 5 times the median for the UK. £100,000 is about the _total_ income tax of 30 taxpayers on that median pay.

the way chicom preaches, sex is for reproduction purposes, and any sexual act not related to reproduction is a bourgeois extravagance. it's further infused with elements of chinese tradition (from confucian/buddhist roots), where sex is considered dirty and degrading, and only to be practiced to maintain the blood lineage.

Sex is dirty, and only approved for reproduction? They're Catholics!!!
No wonder the Chinese Communist party is appointing Catholic bishops etc in China nowadays. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11937807

Where's USAID in Chechnya?

Providing support for the IRC to help farmers, small businesses, and vocational training?

Where's USAID for Palestine (oops, sorry, the "Israeli Palestinian Occupied Territories")?

Funding improvements in infrastructure, schools, agriculture, hospitals, and water distribution in both Gaza and the West Bank?

where are the FUCKING WMDs THE US WENT TO WAR OVER IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE?

They weren't there. Even Bush admitted it -- several times. Or perhaps you missed out on that point?

Yea, without Wikileaks Mugabe would never have moved against the opposition ..

"On 11 March 2007 a day after his 55th birthday, Tsvangirai was arrested .. His wife .. reported that he had been heavily tortured by police, resulting in deep gashes on his head and a badly swollen eye" link

"ZANU-PF has implemented a strategy of reciprocity in the negotiations, using Western sanctions as a cudgel against MDC. He would like to see some quiet moves, provided there are acceptable benchmarks, to 'give' some modest reward for modest progress .. He also acknowledged that his public statements calling for easing of sanctions versus his private conversations saying they must be kept in place have caused problems" link

"He [Tsvangirai] is the indispensable element for opposition success, but possibly an albatross around their necks once in power. In short, he is a kind of Lech Walesa character: Zimbabwe needs him, but should not rely on his executive abilities to lead the country's recovery" link

"Grace Mugabe sues Zimbabwe newspaper over Wikileaks diamond story" link

South Korean charity estimates 3.5 million deaths since 1995. Published in 1999. On top of that, the population of Iraq is ~30 million. The population of North Korea is ~20 million.
Wikipedia: "Beginning in 1997, the U.S. also began shipping food aid to North Korea through the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to combat the famine. Shipments peaked in 1999 at nearly 700,000 tons making the U.S. the largest foreign aid donor to the country at the time." Additional sources: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/54102.stm

So yeah. The worst of the famine ended in the early 2000s, which coincides with the end of major US aid. North Korea's killed more of its own people both absolutely and proportionately by famine alone than the US has killed in Iraq (taking your figure as correct, which given the amount of truth in the rest of your post is awful generous of me), and is in the habit of disappearing dissenters. It's a totalitarian police state, whereas Iraq at least is making an effort toward a free government. In conclusion, you're badly misinformed.

South Korean charity estimates 3.5 million deaths since 1995. Published in 1999. On top of that, the population of Iraq is ~30 million. The population of North Korea is ~20 million.
Wikipedia: "Beginning in 1997, the U.S. also began shipping food aid to North Korea through the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to combat the famine. Shipments peaked in 1999 at nearly 700,000 tons making the U.S. the largest foreign aid donor to the country at the time." Additional sources: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/54102.stm

So yeah. The worst of the famine ended in the early 2000s, which coincides with the end of major US aid. North Korea's killed more of its own people both absolutely and proportionately by famine alone than the US has killed in Iraq (taking your figure as correct, which given the amount of truth in the rest of your post is awful generous of me), and is in the habit of disappearing dissenters. It's a totalitarian police state, whereas Iraq at least is making an effort toward a free government. In conclusion, you're badly misinformed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/433641.stm

FTA: "Up to 3.5m people have died of starvation in North Korea since 1995 and up to 300,000 have fled over the border to China, a Seoul-based charity says." The article itself was written in 1999. So 3.5 million people are estimated to have died in NK in 4 years due to a famine. I'm no mathematician, but that's a lot more than 2 million in 9 years.

I don't think you'd say such things about North Korea if you know the magnitude of how bad it is there.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12075094

CCTV cameras 'help solve' 2,500 crimes in London; 60,000 (council-operated?) cameras in the UK

estimate. 10,000 cameras in London (2008 figure - 7,431 [source]) So it takes 4 cameras one year to 'help solve' one crime.

There were 809,350 crimes reported in London in the 12 months to November 2010 [source: Metropolitan Police Service]. Of these, 2,500 were 'helped solved' by cameras. 0.3%. That's a fantastically small figure. Had the police, ten or twenty years ago, approached the Home Office for funding for CCTV with the claim that it would 'help solve' 0.3% of crimes in the capital, they wouldn't have received a penny.

Lets look at the 'serious' crimes.

4 murderers (out of 112 reported crimes, december 2009-november 2010)
23 rapists and sex attackers (out of 9285 reported crimes, december 2009-november 2010)

The figures are not prosecutions, not convictions, and are not even definitive pieces of evidence - the expression is 'helped solve'.

These are shockingly insignificant numbers and a convincing reason to remove all cameras and kill their associated budgets.

Eg this http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/8413787.stm where the burglary victim was jailed because he chased down the burglar and broke a cricket bat over his head.

Hitting him with the cricket bat at the scene of the crime probably no problem, and rightly so.

So far he has recieved much better treatment by the Aussie government than David Hicks did.

What? You're saying that the Australian government actually treated an Al Qaeda trainee more harshly in some fashion than Mr. Wikileaks? For shame!

Jihad" diary reveals David Hicks terror training
DAVID Hicks's handwritten "jihad diary" gives new insight into the sophisticated terrorism training he underwent, exploding claims that he was an innocent abroad.
The confessed terrorism supporter used a school exercise book - complete with boy's-own images of fighter aircraft - to write up the detailed instruction he received in weapon use, explosives and military tactics from Islamic extremists in Pakistan.

After describing how "to kill a VIP", Hicks noted that guerilla war involved "sacrifice for Allah". He sketched the mechanism of the telescopic sight of a sniper's rifle and the circuitry of deadly rocket-launched warheads. The exercise book was released yesterday by federal magistrate Warren Donald who, in easing the interim control order covering Hicks since his release from jail last month, found that, on balance, he remained at risk of committing a terrorist act or of undertaking further terrorism training......

The exercise book was filled out by Hicks while he was training with the Lashkar-e-Toiba terror group in northern Pakistan between March and June 2000.

Hmmm.... Lashkar-e-Toiba .... where have we heard of them before?

US blames Lashkar-e-Toiba for Mumbai
About 10 gunmen landed in rubber dinghies in Mumbai on Wednesday and wreaked havoc with automatic weapons and hand grenades, in an assault that killed 188 and injured more than 300. The dead included 22 foreign nationals, among them two Australian men....

Jihad" diary reveals David Hicks terror training
The Adelaide man, now 32, went on to train with al-Qa'ida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, where he was captured and handed over to US forces.

Training with al-Qaeda.... hmm....
Mumbai attacks: al-Qaeda plotter behind Bali bombing linked to terror attacks

I'm sure most Australians remember the horror of the Bali Bombings and the many Australians killed there. Most people probably remember their handiwork on September 11, 2001 as well.

Of course, the Taliban are reaching out as well.

I would say that Mr. Hicks was involved with a rather nasty bunch, and is quite lucky he didn't get himself killed.

The Aussie politicians asked the federal police to see if Assange had broken any laws, they came back with a definite "no".

Well, it's actually a bit more subtle than that.

"The AFP has completed its evaluation of the material available and has not established the existence of any criminal offences where Australia would have jurisdiction," it said in a statement.

"Where additional cables are published and criminal offences are suspected, these matters should be referred to the AFP for evaluation."

Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the AFP had noted a number of offences that could be applied depending on the circums

Begging a dying man to go for a weapon so he could be finished off is sick.

Actually, I took it as the opposite, as in "Don't do it, or you'll be dead".

Whether or not you agree with the conclusions wikileaks came up with from the video, it's pretty undeniable that the soldiers involved were having a grand time.

Didn't sound like a "grand time" to me. It sounded like a group of professional soldiers going about their business. Apparently they were engaged in stopping the Mehdi Army. The Mehdi Army caused Iraq plenty of grief.

It is a remarkable change from years past, when the militia, led by the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, controlled a broad swath of Baghdad, including local governments and police forces. But its use of extortion and violence began alienating much of the Shiite population to the point that many quietly supported U.S. military sweeps against the group. Mahdi Army waning, a tentative sign of stability in Iraq

a 200 million country

It's 142 million, sorry.

what do you think ?

I think it will end up in the same way as migration of Russian schools to Linux ultimately went.

The heat wave in Russia this past summer was unprecedented. A Russian scientists stated it had been at least 1000 years since such a heat wave has occurred there.

... your point being? Let's see what NOAA has to say about that heat wave:

Despite this strong evidence for a warming planet, greenhouse gas forcing fails to explain the 2010 heat wave over western Russia. The natural process of atmospheric blocking, and the climate impacts induced by such blocking, are the principal cause for this heat wave. It is not known whether, or to what extent, greenhouse gas emissions may affect the frequency or intensity of blocking during summer. It is important to note that observations reveal no trend in a daily frequency of July blocking over the period since 1948, nor is there an appreciable trend in the absolute values of upper tropospheric summertime heights over western Russia for the period since 1900.

The indications are that the current blocking event is intrinsic to the natural variability of summer climate in this region, a region which has a climatological vulnerability to blocking and associated heat waves (e.g., 1960, 1972, 1988)

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/csi/moscow2010/

As far as the cold over Europe and the US it is not record setting.

You might want to revise that.

December is on course to be the coldest since records began in 1910, the BBC weather centre has said. - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12078425

Coldest December in Sweden in 110 years - http://www.thelocal.se/31072/20101226/

In Berlin gab es Anfang Dezember den absoluten Kälterekord, "seit 100 Jahren war es hier nicht so kalt wie in der ersten Dezember-Dekade", so Globig. Das gelte auch für andere Regionen Deutschlands. - http://wetter.t-online.de/winter-extrem-neue-kleine-eiszeit-ist-jetzt-moeglich-/id_43699628/index

Chicagoans shivered through the coldest December open in 27 years - http://blog.chicagoweathercenter.com/2010/12/chicago-books-its-coldest-december-open-in-27-years-highs-nearly-30-degrees-below-a-year-ago.html

Sometimes I wonder if it's really the global warming advocates who seem to ignore science, at least when it's science and data that don't fit their agenda.

The BBC Newsnight program on the issue (from last February) explains the issue pretty well. Watch it.

The funny/disturbing thing is why did it take 10 months! for some official at the UK banking industry association to have a revelation/panic and issue such a stupid letter. The professor's response to them is pretty effing on!

I think he should've said quite blunty: " listen, our students figured this weakness in your system during their free time, using our shoe string budget". Do you really think high tech criminals and criminal organizations with millions or even more at their disposal won't reproduce this? All you need to do is read the bloody manual! "

If I was a banker/bank/building society I would seriously consider funding research into this instead of whining about it. I mean those students don't have what the criminals can easily get with just money. At least buy them the latest oscilloscope/logic analyser for god sake! - its a miniscule fraction of the profits the banks make - or even what they stand to loose from such weaknesses...

Don't understand your comment.

I have to say I wasn't aware that "placebos work even without deception" was new but perhaps this is the first rigorously controlled trial.

I've seen stuff before like "What should you tell your patient?" with suggestions like:

"Nobody understands why it works but in one in three cases, just taking one of these sugar pills three times a day can help with the symptoms."

For that matter, "Nobody understands why it works but in one in three cases, taking homeopathic remedies helps with the symptoms" ought to be equally valid, especially for things like chronic pain where conventional medicine doesn't really have an answer and is just used to mask the symptoms. If homeopathy works for someone then it's almost certainly a better option than morphine.

The main objection to homeopathy is that some people recommend it over conventional therapy that is known to be both required and effective in treating the particular problem.

Article on BBC today: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12060507

Alternative remedies 'dangerous' for kids says report

"In 30 cases, the issues were "probably or definitely" related to complementary medicine, and in 17 the patient was regarded as being harmed by a failure to use conventional medicine.

"The report says that all four deaths resulted from a failure to use conventional medicine."

Tim.

To give you an idea of the authoritarianism of Spain's government, around three weeks ago it issued a State of Alert because of striking ATCers which came down to, "If you refuse to work, you will be sent to jail." (Conversely, work sets you free.) Note that Spanish ATC was civilian, but an argument was formed that by striking you are denying people freedom of movement. This is probably one of the most Orwellian interpretations of "freedom" Western Europe has seen in recent years, and is the first time quasi-martial law has been enforced in Spain since the fall of Franco.

This is not the sort of government that is about to sympathise with filesharing arguments. It is, like all authoritarian governments, a stickler for procedure, and that's the only real reason this law didn't pass.

These is just bu*****t

They did not go on strike. No they did not. They just stopped working and paralyzed the whole country.

Don't get me wrong, I understand most of what they are asking for but... theirs was not the right way of doing things!

The government did the only thing they could have to keep the country working. I do not like what happened but feels right to me that "desperate situations require desperate measures".

I'm not saying I agree with what the government did to this group of people but, again, how they reacted was totally unreasonable and they relied on the fact that they control the whole Spanish air traffic and could block the country. That's not going on strike, that's not negotiating: that's blackmailing!

Have a look at the whole picture please and not only to what you wanna see

Regards

To give you an idea of the authoritarianism of Spain's government, around three weeks ago it issued a State of Alert because of striking ATCers which came down to, "If you refuse to work, you will be sent to jail." (Conversely, work sets you free.) Note that Spanish ATC was civilian, but an argument was formed that by striking you are denying people freedom of movement. This is probably one of the most Orwellian interpretations of "freedom" Western Europe has seen in recent years, and is the first time quasi-martial law has been enforced in Spain since the fall of Franco.

This is not the sort of government that is about to sympathise with filesharing arguments. It is, like all authoritarian governments, a stickler for procedure, and that's the only real reason this law didn't pass.

Well I don't know if you live in this world or you're looking to Spain in another dimension.

The truth is that ATCers went on strike (and they had reason, some of their privileges were revoked) but they went on strike so many times in the recent years (only for a higher salary) that the public opinion can't hear now their cries.

It's theirs fault, they shouldn't have f*cked up the whole air space only for their salaries so many times.

To give you an idea of the authoritarianism of Spain's government, around three weeks ago it issued a State of Alert because of striking ATCers which came down to, "If you refuse to work, you will be sent to jail." (Conversely, work sets you free.) Note that Spanish ATC was civilian, but an argument was formed that by striking you are denying people freedom of movement. This is probably one of the most Orwellian interpretations of "freedom" Western Europe has seen in recent years, and is the first time quasi-martial law has been enforced in Spain since the fall of Franco.

This is not the sort of government that is about to sympathise with filesharing arguments. It is, like all authoritarian governments, a stickler for procedure, and that's the only real reason this law didn't pass.

They probably didn't know the citizen recorded, otherwise it could very well have been possible that he forgot to put the tape in the camera... Just like with a high profile incident such as the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes where the hard drives from the CCTV camera's all went missing... It's funny how CCTV is used so actively by government to check on citizens, but when citizens want to check on the government there just happens to be a malfunction... It's almost as if they don't want citizens having proof of their failures...

So all we citizens can do is hope we don't get shot in the head 7 times because we look like a terrorist or behave suspiciously like for example going into a hypoglycemic coma!

People following Jo Moore's infamous advice might just achieve that elusive "sneaky reveal" - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/1823120.stm

Except they may not have been in public view to begin with. The Google car-mounted camera system is around 2.5 meters high...higher than a pedestrian or driver of a normal vehicle, so it's entirely possible that the location is not normally viewable from the street.

Exactly. I remember this was a concern brought up last year

Google's Street View service suffered a second blow this week after numerous complaints in Japan forced the firm to start reshooting all the photos.
Cameras attached to the Street View car were "too high" for Japanese buildings, allowing them to see over walls into private areas.
Google said it would lower the cameras on its cars by 40cm (16in).

From 2004 to 2008 Jackie Selebi was in charge. Another paragon of virtue.

The IRA robbed banks and blew up streets and buses. They are responsible for several hundred deaths. Why think of them as freedom fighters? Is it somehow ok, because the people who died were English?

By your own logic people who lay IED's in Afganistan are freedom fighters and to commended.

Some examples of their work:
Omagh Bombing
Hammersmith Bridge
RPG Attack on MI6
BBC Car Bomb

I could go one but I'm getting bored.

The IRA robbed banks and blew up streets and buses. They are responsible for several hundred deaths. Why think of them as freedom fighters? Is it somehow ok, because the people who died were English?

By your own logic people who lay IED's in Afganistan are freedom fighters and to commended.

Some examples of their work:
Omagh Bombing
Hammersmith Bridge
RPG Attack on MI6
BBC Car Bomb

I could go one but I'm getting bored.

The IRA robbed banks and blew up streets and buses. They are responsible for several hundred deaths. Why think of them as freedom fighters? Is it somehow ok, because the people who died were English?

By your own logic people who lay IED's in Afganistan are freedom fighters and to commended.

Some examples of their work:
Omagh Bombing
Hammersmith Bridge
RPG Attack on MI6
BBC Car Bomb

I could go one but I'm getting bored.

The IRA robbed banks and blew up streets and buses. They are responsible for several hundred deaths. Why think of them as freedom fighters? Is it somehow ok, because the people who died were English?

By your own logic people who lay IED's in Afganistan are freedom fighters and to commended.

Some examples of their work:
Omagh Bombing
Hammersmith Bridge
RPG Attack on MI6
BBC Car Bomb

I could go one but I'm getting bored.

This was the case in Pakistan until a few years ago.

And here's the case of Saudi court punishes rape victim with 200 lashes

Where's the ignorance again?

Outside of the very visible Day Laborers lined up outside the Home Depots waiting for an installation job from a home owner or a Day job from a contractor, it's very very hard to exist or work without a valid SSN and having taxes withheld from your wages; it just not likely that the valid SSN is going to be yours as it is unlikely that you'll be able to reap the benefits, fro the withholdings or to receive a refund of any excess withholdings! Approximately 18 million people in the US are using a valid SSN that is used by multiple people, people that will never receive a dime of benefits for the labors. So it's not about financial drain on the federal part, they're probably making a profit off the illegal immigrants.
Open the boarders up, yeah right, there is a war going on down there in Mexico, there are website like El Blog del Narco that report on the fighting like American websites report traffic accidents.
Time to pull your head out of the sand there cupcake; Narco-Terrorism in Mexico is far more deadly than what's going on in Afghanistan. A little waterboarding offends your sensibilities, hese will show you how the real pros do it. Right now. Ciudad Juarez, the most violent city in Mexico, is just across the Rio Grande from El Passo TX, as many as 5,000 Women have been murdered in the last 10 years. Mexican Prisons have become Safehouses for criminals who come and go as they please and to top it all off, Mexican Drones are crashing in the United States. Opening our boarders isn't an option and securing them isn't xenophobic, it's due diligence. You know things are getting bad when war correspondents who have cover wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and all over the Orient are returning to the US after years overseas because the US SW is where the action is going to be real soon.

Outside of the very visible Day Laborers lined up outside the Home Depots waiting for an installation job from a home owner or a Day job from a contractor, it's very very hard to exist or work without a valid SSN and having taxes withheld from your wages; it just not likely that the valid SSN is going to be yours as it is unlikely that you'll be able to reap the benefits, fro the withholdings or to receive a refund of any excess withholdings! Approximately 18 million people in the US are using a valid SSN that is used by multiple people, people that will never receive a dime of benefits for the labors. So it's not about financial drain on the federal part, they're probably making a profit off the illegal immigrants.
Open the boarders up, yeah right, there is a war going on down there in Mexico, there are website like El Blog del Narco that report on the fighting like American websites report traffic accidents.
Time to pull your head out of the sand there cupcake; Narco-Terrorism in Mexico is far more deadly than what's going on in Afghanistan. A little waterboarding offends your sensibilities, hese will show you how the real pros do it. Right now. Ciudad Juarez, the most violent city in Mexico, is just across the Rio Grande from El Passo TX, as many as 5,000 Women have been murdered in the last 10 years. Mexican Prisons have become Safehouses for criminals who come and go as they please and to top it all off, Mexican Drones are crashing in the United States. Opening our boarders isn't an option and securing them isn't xenophobic, it's due diligence. You know things are getting bad when war correspondents who have cover wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and all over the Orient are returning to the US after years overseas because the US SW is where the action is going to be real soon.

but I'm fairly sure that if you're living a reasonable lifestyle then genetics completely dominates. After that it's probably as much down to happiness as anything else.

That's what you get for 'being fairly sure' instead of actually investigating. We've noticed a lot. We've noticed that exercise keeps your telomeres long. Also important in that study, the more exercise, the longer the telomeres. There are lots of studies like this that show exercise can reverse the effects of aging. This one is not related to aging directly, but exercise helps you grow new brain cells. Some researchers at Berkeley did a 20 year study of more than 100,000 runners, and found that the more you run, the longer you live, up to 50 miles a week (the benefits probably extend beyond 50 miles a week, but they couldn't find enough people who run that far to get good numbers). It's pretty clear there are a lot of things you can do to live longer.

You also may consider reading a book about nutrition, since you likely have some misconceptions in that area, too.

Or more directly here in case anyone was wondering if the dailyheil had twisted it.

Thanks though, I hadn't kept up with the recent statements.

I'm as trusting of politicians as the next Slashdotter but, given how the Brazilian president recently (and very publicly) voiced his strong support for Assange and Wikileaks (when there weren't that many world leaders doing the same), I'm not sure their intention is the one stated in the article. They may just want to reduce US control of the internet, which is clearly a good idea given both past and current events.

A BBC article mentions that any DNA sample would be contaminated.

And an iranian nuclear scientist has been killed recently:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11860928
And the article mentions that another one was killed at the beginning of this year.

It's more efficient to kill scientists than to use virus.
This is very similar to Mossad's ways http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossad

As usual, Iran blames Israel, and Israel blames Iran for this murder.

"Certainly not for lack of trying. Also nice job trying to equate the two sides- most if not all Palestinians are killed trying to commit acts of terror (or are unfortunately nearby)"

Lie. Most Palestinian victims are now 'collateral damage'. During the last war with HAMAS, about 2/3 of killed were civilians, many of them children.

Total killed: 1,417 (PCHR),[29] 1,166 (IDF)[30]
Militants and police officers:
491* (PCHR),[29] 709 (IDF)[30]
700(Hamas)[31]
Civilians: 926 (PCHR),[29] 295 (IDF)[30][30]
Total wounded: 5,303(PCHR)[29]

"while most Israelis killed were civilians who were hit randomly by snipers, or victims of random shelling of civilian areas."

Total killed: 13
Soldiers: 10(friendly fire: 4[27])
Civilians: 3

So you see, HAMAS actually seems to inflict far less collateral damage.

"There are plenty of 'Palestinians' who are citizens of Israel- living in Israel. Are the Israelis supposed to give citizenship to people who don't live in Israel?"

When what the fuck Israel does in Palestine?

"If the Palestinians want their own country, they need to stop attacking Israel, and elect better leaders. Those two just might be connected..."

And who are you to judge which leader is better for their nation? Would it be OK if Israel was occupied by the League of Arab Nations and Arabs told you that you'll have your own country when you learn to elect good leaders?

"OK, show me a civilized country where you can build a house without permits? Arab houses build with permits are not demolished. The Israeli construction has the permission of the local government, which again is usually considered sufficient."

Aha, sure. Have you tried to do this?

"Israeli buildings without permits are also demolished."

Yes? So all these illegal settlements are being built with permissions from the Palestine Autonomy?

"Israel sabotages the peace talks?"

Yes, that's what it looks like.

"Are those actions (btw, wtf are you talking about, please provide reference) really more damaging than, say, shooting mortars and missiles randomly into civilian areas like the Palestinians have been doing for years?"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7794577.stm
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/hamas-declares-end-to-cease-fire-israeli-gov-t-sources-fear-violence-is-unavoidable-1.259846
etc.

Basically, Trademark and Copyright prevent the importation of anything. It's specifically the grey market that is being "crushed".

Individuals can buy anything they like, and bring it in and sell it as "2nd hand", thats not what this is about.

It's about importers importing with out the permissions of the trademark/copyright owner. They may have bought the item legiteimately from another supplier but that doesn't matter.

The big one in the UK has been Levi Jeans :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1261829.stm

It even affects good made in the EU and exported to another market, and then bought back in - it needs the permission of the trademark owner!

Makes a mockery of "free trade".

Ok, I'm not quite right, it's Securecode that went down: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11935539. Apparently prevented some web transactions from going through.