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I think he remembers his apartment dwelling days quite clearly.

Is that why he takes so many expensive vacations on the US taxpayer's dollars? (Michelle too)

Seriously, it takes the UK less than $60 million per year to support the entire Royal family, while it takes the USA over $1.4 billion per year to support a family of four in the White House. Whether you like Bush or hate Bush, he (Laura too) didn't take as many expensive vacations and was less expensive to support.

Here's an article about this. While in a UK newspaper, the money amounts in dollars rather than pounds.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2210323/Obama-family-costs-taxpayers-1-4BILLION-year.html

It's expensive any time the President and/or family does anything, because large numbers of people are involved (security, etc.) but it's worse when the vacations are places like Spain or Hawaii. Bush caught hell in the news media just for taking a vacation at his ranch in Texas, but its okay for Obama to go anywhere, nobody cares.

Obama has also played more golf than Bush ever did. Bush quit after the press gave him hell about it: "troops are dying and you relax with golf" I don't really care, golf is cheaper than vacations, but the double standard blows.

http://obamagolfcounter.com/

You could always try The Daily Mail A surprising number of people outside the UK think it's a real newspaper.

> Red Bull gives you wings!

Not to mention an increased risk of heart disease.

Accourding to the following http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2244344/Yelp-review-lawsuit-Jane-Perez-ordered-change-negative-comments-business.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
She did file a police report but the police could not find evidence that Perez stole the jewelery. The judge had her remove that part of the review. There was a prior civil lawsuit that she won against the contractor. The judge did not have her remove that statement. It was pretty much the only thing the judge had her remove.

They're here.

Just found the actual comment she left via the Daily Mail:

This is the text of Perez's original review posted on Angie's List in August 2012.

Overall: F

Price: F

Quality: F

Responsiveness: F

Punctuality: F

Professionalism: F

Description Of Work: Dietz Development was to perform: painting, refinish floors, electrical, plumbing and handyman work. I was instead left with damage to my home and work that had to be reaccomplished for thousands more than originally estimated.

Member comments: My home was damaged' the "work" had to be re-accomplished; and Dietz tried to sue me for "monies due for his "work." I won in summary judgement (meaning that his case had no merit). Despite his claims, Dietz was/is not licensed to perform work in the state of VA. Further, he invoiced me for work not even performed and also sued me for work not even performed. Today (six months later) he just showed up at my door and '"wanted to talk to me." I said that I "didn't want to talk to him," closed the door , and called the police. (The police said his reason was that he had a "lien on my house"; however this "lien" was made null and void the day I won the case according to the court.) This is after filing my first ever police report when I found my jewelry missing and Dietz was the only one with a key. Bottom line do not put yourself through this nightmare of a contractor.

If that kind of review is worth $750,000 in damages then the Internet is boned. I thought the RIAA's damage calculations were bad -- There must be a trillion dollars worth of "harmful" reviews for places on Google Maps alone!

you may joke a seriously ill unemployed man and his family are getting deported from NZ as he is to much of a dead weight on society not quite so fluffy as you like to think "A British family are facing deportation from New Zealand because the father has a brain tumour, it has emerged. Paul and Sarah Crystal have lived in New Zealand for seven years with their three children, setting up and running two successful businesses. But their application for residence was rejected because Mr Crystal's tumour means he can no longer work. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2241294/British-family-facing-deportation-New-Zealand-father-brain-tumour.html

And from samsung. And from this other company on the comments:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2117493/Samsungs-latest-TV-sets-built-cameras-spark-concerns.html

... Just in case you would like something other than just my word that it hasn't warmed significantly in the last 2 or 3 years. Now, call that what you will, but it isn't the rantings of some crazy person. However -- again for the sake of truth and fairness -- the graphs in that article are misleading. They are the doings of the media, not the scientist being quoted. [Jane Q. Public, 2011-11-22]

When you claimed that climate scientists predict temperature trends on timescales of 8 or 9 years, I pointed out that 8 or 9 years is too short to obtain a statistically significant trend. Now you've tightened your self-imposed blinders even further by talking about 2 or 3 year temperature trends. Note that any 2 or 3 (or 8 or 9) year timespan would be too short to obtain a statistically significant trend. It's not something special about the last 2,3,8, or 9 years, so contrarians can recycle this talking point ad nauseum. That's the entire point of the Escalator, in fact. (Incidentally, at least 17 years are needed to establish a statistically significant trend of global surface temperatures.)

But let's read your article, Scientist who said climate change sceptics had been proved wrong accused of hiding truth by colleague, by David Rose:

[Prof. Judith Curry] said that Prof Muller's claim that he has proven global warming sceptics wrong was also a 'huge mistake', with no scientific basis. ... Like the scientists exposed then by leaked emails from East Anglia University's Climatic Research Unit, her colleagues from the BEST project seem to be trying to 'hide the decline' in rates of global warming. In fact, Prof Curry said, the project's research data show there has been no increase in world temperatures since the end of the Nineties - a fact confirmed by a new analysis that The Mail on Sunday has obtained. 'There is no scientific basis for saying that warming hasn't stopped,' she said. 'To say that there is detracts from the credibility of the data, which is very unfortunate.' However, Prof Muller denied warming was at a standstill. 'We see no evidence of it [global warming] having slowed down,' he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. There was, he added, 'no levelling off'. ... As for the graph disseminated to the media, she said: 'This is 'hide the decline' stuff. Our data show the pause, just as the other sets of data do. Muller is hiding the decline. 'To say this is the end of scepticism is misleading, as is the statement that warming hasn't paused. It is also misleading to say, as he has, that the issue of heat islands has been settled.'

Wow. These are very serious accusations. But are they valid?

The graph in Rose's article labelled "the inconvenient truth" is misleading, but mainly for the same reason that Jane's references to short term trends are misleading. Since that graph only shows 10 years of data, any conclusions drawn from it will be conclusions about the noise in the climate, not the long-term trend. But this isn't really the media's fault: Prof. Curry chose that absurdly short timespan herself by talking about the trend since 1998.

Also, the abrupt cooling shown in the BEST data in April and May of 2010 isn't real. Those months only include data from 47 stations in Antarctica, compared to March 2010 which has 14488 spread around the world. So April and

Forget that, Walnuts are not considered a "drug".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2018807/Walnuts-DRUGS-FDA-makes-bizarre-claim-seller-says-reduce-risk-heart-disease-cancer.html

Ok...
Doctors leaving Germany over low wages:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/german-brain-drain-sick-of-bad-pay-doctors-flee-germany-a-399537.html

Waiting lists for hospital treatment:
http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/nireland/healthcare_ni/healthcare_nhs_healthcare_e/nhs_patients_rights.htm#Hospitalwaitinglists

Hospitals unable to meet maximum wait times and resorting to fraud to meet guidelines:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-90691/Patients-cheated-NHS-waiting-list-scandal.html

Wait times continue to increase despite government pressure:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/apr/19/david-cameron-pressure-nhs-waiting-times
"Recent hospital figures show the average waiting time across all 19 departments to be about eight months. While breast surgery patients are seen in less than a month, patients waiting for a pain management appointment can expect to wait years"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-isle-of-man-20238418

Remember those "death panels" that were such a joke? Meet a victim of one:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/2910780/NHSs-refusal-to-fund-cancer-treatment-costs-mother-21000.html

So when does life start?

That depends on how you define life. I define it as "a self-sustaining biological unit suitably equipped to survive in its nominal environment". Humans are not adapted to survive when immersed in amniotic fluid, and when they are immersed in it they aren't a self-sustaining biological unit. Your definition may be "any functioning cells", but that includes a leaf just fallen from a tree, a heart in an organ transport cooler, or the leg of a cat that's just been run over and otherwise reduced to pulp, and that's clearly way too broad.

Life OBVIOUSLY starts at conception.

Not obvious at all. At conception all you have is a single cell, and while there are single celled organisms, this cell isn't capable of surviving on it's own. It's just a free-drifting cell which will cease to function if it doesn't implant itself in the uterus wall within a matter of days, so at this stage it's biological but about as much "life" as a blood cell or a transplant organ.

Once it implants itself it relies 100% on the host (or mother if you prefer) for nutrition, oxygen, etc. This is also true of a kidney. Again, both are biological, but neither are independently self-sustaining biological units. Still not life by my definition, but life by the cat's leg standard.

After some months the internal organs develop to a point where it can survive outside the womb with varying degrees of artificial assistance. This could be considered life, but lacking the intervention it's not viable life, it will quickly die or suffer serious permanent damage in the event of a power outage, a faulty humidicrib, or even spontaneous organ failure due to stress.

Full term baby: definitely life. It breathes without assistance, it maintains it's own body temperature (not perfectly, true), its skin is suited to exposure to air...IOW, it is fully adapted to function as a biological unit in its nominal environment.

So unless you introduce unprovable religious concepts like a soul or use an effectively meaningless definition of life, it is by no means certain that life begins at conception.

Can you get life without conception?

Of course you can. Bacteria do just fine without it, and there are lots of higher species that can reproduce by parthenogenesis or other asexual means. And if you're prepared to accept artificially supported life as life, I don't see why artificial cloning doesn't count.

Oh that's right, life starts AFTER the baby leaves the womb and not before.

Well, yes. Until that point it's only potential life, and sometimes confusing potential life with actual life can have dire consequences. HAND.

Who gets access to the data?

The NSA, CIA, DIA bulk collection is cleaned up and indexed very quickly and well. The US had a vision of an electronic file system back in the 1960's. It was well funded while other agencies around the world where still working with paper and dreaming about data entry into realtime file systems.

The NSA, DIA is not some federal police building with an old database and top contractors trying their best over many years.

Historically your "access to the data" might have been a good question. Now its any contractor, new agency or cleared staff member can have a look.

The tight cleared for "hierarchical" internal NSA structures are been replaced with a more open "cloud". You have 100000's for new 'cleared' staff in new buildings with new encrypted lines getting bulk data, adding their 'thoughts' for top wages.

Re 'It is wrong to keep people in fear." We dont really know what the US likes to do the "West" when they get interested.

Can we project from COINTELPRO and wonder about what parts of the world that keep "company" with the US do:

If your political at the low end of the scale get noticed you might face something like decades of undercover officers?:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236811/Ten-women-sue-Scotland-Yard-tricked-sexual-relationships-officers-including-activist-spy-Mark-Kennedy.html

The other question is why they have access? I think even if the CIA or others have access there must be a reason why.

What happened to need to know? I'm not against collecting the data because no one should keep secrets from the NSA/CIA but the question is who accesses it and why?

Who gets access to the data?
The NSA, CIA, DIA bulk collection is cleaned up and indexed very quickly and well. The US had a vision of an electronic file system back in the 1960's. It was well funded while other agencies around the world where still working with paper and dreaming about data entry into realtime file systems.
The NSA, DIA is not some federal police building with an old database and top contractors trying their best over many years.
Historically your "access to the data" might have been a good question. Now its any contractor, new agency or cleared staff member can have a look.
The tight cleared for "hierarchical" internal NSA structures are been replaced with a more open "cloud". You have 100000's for new 'cleared' staff in new buildings with new encrypted lines getting bulk data, adding their 'thoughts' for top wages.
Re 'It is wrong to keep people in fear." We dont really know what the US likes to do the "West" when they get interested.
Can we project from COINTELPRO and wonder about what parts of the world that keep "company" with the US do:
If your political at the low end of the scale get noticed you might face something like decades of undercover officers?:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236811/Ten-women-sue-Scotland-Yard-tricked-sexual-relationships-officers-including-activist-spy-Mark-Kennedy.html

At least the countries stand up for eachother,

- yeah, what you mean by that is that Germany pays for the food while various Southern States live off of other people's charity (credit).

How is Greece doing, by the way? I am in Germany right now, I know people who go there on vacations, apparently on the islands they are not treated as 'nazis' the way that Merkel was greeted back in October this year. You know, a leader of a country that actually gives out cash to the socialists.

--

And as to your assertion that European countries are the 'proper' ones, it's funny. It's funny because of how many Americans ran away from those proper countries for freedom. Not for free education, free social assistance (welfare) or free food.

No, for individual freedom of being able to live and not be harassed by their tyrannical governments.

One planet is almost entirely sugar, and there's some sort of nebula that is basically alcohol.

Where are these wonderful places, and how soon can I get there?!!?

The Orion Nebula has alcohol. It will take over a thousand years to get there, assuming you're a photon (are you?). Sugar is closer, less than half as far.

Unless that treatment were to be a simple virus either injected into a tumor or an IV drip. Then there wouldn't be much money for that treatment now would there? As you google the rio virus and other possible virus treatments for cancer you should notice a trend. All the companies that are doing clinical trials have tried to *modify* the virus in some way in order to make in "novel" so they can patent it. The goal is NOT to find a cure for any type of cancer - it is to find a "novel" cure that can be patented.

Did you read the article? The treatment is novel. The fact that a virus exists which can fight certain types of cancer cells means absolutely zero if you can't find a way to deliver the treatment. That's the treatment. Randomly infecting yourself with the virus isn't going to work. That's where the research comes in.

For the record: There are many, many examples of pharmaceutical drugs based on natural compounds. The novel parts of these compounds are their concentrations, what they're combined with, how they're administered, etc. It's why pharmaceutical companies exist: The stuff you dig up out of the ground can be, but often isn't, as effective as what you can synthesize if you know what you're doing with chemistry and biology.

Recently I read another article about a researcher who had a potential cure in his lab, but since he had already published his work it was no longer patentable, so they needed to find a way to make it novel before any serious funding (needed for more research and then clinical trials) could be had. He claimed he was not unique, there are many researchers that have something that works in certain conditions (rats, specific scenarios, etc) but it's hard enough to figure out who to fund without the problems of making sure the result is proprietary.

I'm not really certain what your first sentence means here. If it's a novel treatment, it's patentable. If the researcher already produced results that showed a treatment was possible with a certain compound, and he didn't use the compound somehow for his company, then just what were they paying him for? The whole point of research is to find these things out.

It's not clear to me what the solution to this is other than funding the researchers who are actually doing worthwhile research instead of trying to figure out a way to modify existing drugs in order to get another 20 years of patent protection on a new variant.

The system is, to a degree, self-correcting, in that sense. You can modify existing drugs and renew patents to a certain degree, but they give diminishing returns until the next breakthrough drug -- especially as patents run out on the original compound. Example: Tylenol is still a big drug, but not as big as before every major pharmacy had a generic brand of acetaminophen they sold.

Pain is one of those things that demonstrates my larger point, though: You've got lots of drugs to treat pain, but there's still a huge market for it. No "cure for pain" has decimated the market.

A 100% effective treatment for a specific cancer would be a multi-billion dollar a year drug, and would earn that revenue for years to come.

Unless that treatment were to be a simple virus either injected into a tumor or an IV drip. Then there wouldn't be much money for that treatment now would there? As you google the rio virus and other possible virus treatments for cancer you should notice a trend. All the companies that are doing clinical trials have tried to *modify* the virus in some way in order to make in "novel" so they can patent it. The goal is NOT to find a cure for any type of cancer - it is to find a "novel" cure that can be patented.

Recently I read another article about a researcher who had a potential cure in his lab, but since he had already published his work it was no longer patentable, so they needed to find a way to make it novel before any serious funding (needed for more research and then clinical trials) could be had. He claimed he was not unique, there are many researchers that have something that works in certain conditions (rats, specific scenarios, etc) but it's hard enough to figure out who to fund without the problems of making sure the result is proprietary.

It's not clear to me what the solution to this is other than funding the researchers who are actually doing worthwhile research instead of trying to figure out a way to modify existing drugs in order to get another 20 years of patent protection on a new variant.

Is 2008 "history"? 8 year old denied divorce from her 58 year old husband. Our friends and allies, give them a hand, folks.

"Back then" isn't the problem. It's that it's still considered normal now, and always will be as long as Sharia exists.

Care to take a guess at the age of consent in Saudi Arabia?

SPOILER: any answer is wrong. There is no age of consent in Saudi Arabia.

Here's an 8 year old being told that she can't divorce her 58 year old husband. That's from 2008, which I guess is technically "back then" for very strict definitions. You'll just love the reason why the case was rejected, by the way.

I don't know about that. From an evolutionary standpoint, "racism" as it were tends to prevail. Nearly all advanced lifeforms lend a favoritism towards their own clan, and shun others. I think the idea is that your familial gene survives and spreads, while theirs does not.

In any case, some well known geniuses were also well known racist asshats, e.g. Bobby Fischer. And there's this:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1198112/Sleek-swift-deadly--Hitlers-stealth-bomber-turned-tide-Britain.html

Interesting post in an otherwise duff discussion thread full of awful stereotyping. Yes, I believe in the brain's ability to rewire itself. Born without empathy? Some of them will discover that this is why their life sucks so badly, and train themselves empathy. And I mean genuine empathy, not learning how to fake it. It's probably not the easiest thing to do, going by testimonies of people forced to rewire part of their brain after an accident, but a lot can be done with perseverance. As a much more extreme case study, I give you the well-published story of Mary Bell: at very young age, a heinous archetypical psychopath - just reading about the things she did makes your hair stand up. Now, reportedly, a 55 years old grandmother who has an unremarkable life and carpingly raised a daughter who is now ~28 years old and has a child of her own that should be ~4 years old by now.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/famous/bell/index_1.html (very long read but it's really worth it)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1110123/Child-killer-Mary-Bell-grandmother-51-But-I-left-grief-says-victims-mother.html

Granted, not all of them do change and those that don't should probably be kept away from positions of power. All I'm saying is that having a childhood diagnosis of Autism, Asperger's or Psychopathy does not necessarily doom these people to harm others and live at odds with society. This is also why I am against the dead sentence: the person you'd be executing today is not necessarily the same person you'd be releasing 12 years from now.

Perhaps it's time to take a step back and a deep breath? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released--chart-prove-it.html As the article says - 'The most depressing feature of this debate is that anyone who questions the alarmist, doomsday scenario will automatically be labelled a climate change ‘denier’, and accused of jeopardising the future of humanity. So let’s be clear. Yes: global warming is real, and some of it at least has been caused by the CO2 emitted by fossil fuels. But the evidence is beginning to suggest that it may be happening much slower than the catastrophists have claimed – a conclusion with enormous policy implications.'

Wow, lot's of hostility to my comment, and a few good points too.

Boats - I stand corrected, boats have some modest emissions controls. We could definitely stand to see something stronger though:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/09/shipping-pollution, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-16-ships-create-pollution-cars-world.html

Planes - Yes, I understand that the U.S. is large, but we can start with modern trains that connect smaller distances, like Milwaukee to Chicago, L.A. to Vegas, etc. Trains are more efficient than planes, and can actually travel very fast. I'm also speculating that trains suffer from fewer delays, have quicker security checkpoints, and require less maintenance.

Coal power plants: There is no such thing as clean coal plant. Look at the destruction caused just to GET the coal, let alone burn it. It's dangerous for the workers and disastrous for our environment. Search for images before and after mining, it's unsettling.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_power_in_the_United_States, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

Lawn Mowers - Operating a mower for an hour is the pollution equivalent of driving a car 200 miles. Consider how many lawns are in the U.S. alone. That is not insignificant: http://www.epa.gov/oaqps001/community/details/yardequip_addl_info.html.

Excessive Water Consumption - Too many people underestimate the value of clean, fresh water. It takes energy and costly equipment to clean and deliver fresh water to your home. Water is also a limited resource. If/when our rapidly draining aquifers run dry, the consequences will be disastrous to our food supply and economy. We can do some simple things to reduce our usage, without much effort. Front load washing machines save ~20 gallons per use. Low flow toilets can save ~2 gallons per flush. I have no regrets switching to either, and I have a lower water bill. http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/water-conservation-tips/

This is not in the range of epic fails for MS PR standards, just a minor scratch. It can't be compared to Bill Gates getting a BSOD showing Windows 98 or, more recently the Surface version with Steven Sinofsky. And there were a lot of intermediate fails in the last 15 years.

You're wrong: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2216238/Now-theres-ice-South-Pole-So-global-warming-thawing-Antarctica.html

Hottest summer where? One hot summer does not climate make. And here's the citation. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2220722/Global-warming-The-Mail-Sunday-answers-world-warming-not.html

What if it's a false positive?

Also, for those who think this is extremely unlikely and automatically believe DNA evidence is some sort of slam-dunk:

Teenager wrongly accused of rape (and imprisoned) because of DNA contamination (fortunately, it was picked up in this case)

DNA evidence contamination leads to review of 7,000 cases The police in Victoria are reviewing 7,000 cases involving DNA evidence after they had to withdraw murder charges in a high profile cold case. Police now say they deeply regret having charged a man with the murders of Margaret Tapp and her daughter Seana, at their home in 1984. They charged Russell Gesah two weeks ago, but since then problems have emerged with the DNA evidence.

DNA rape sample procedures 'not adequate' Adam Scott, from Devon, was held for a couple of months after being accused of raping a woman in Manchester. The charges were dropped when it emerged a DNA sample had been contaminated at LGC Forensics.

Police Fear 'Serial Killer' Was Just DNA Contamination A notorious German serial killer known as "the Phantom of Heilbronn" might not exist. Police believe DNA evidence which pointed to a 15-year trail of crimes across Germany was a case of contaminated cotton swabs.

Aerosolized Vaccine as an Unexpected Source of False-Positive Bordetella pertussis PCR Results etc.

China - they've been there done that.

How they survived without life support is another story...

Attention seekers annoyed when attention given! Some are so polite about posting inaccurate information on twitter they cannot see why they would be sued whereas a newspaper did not reveal CTB's name after he took out an injunction to prevent anyone revealing that the only player to have played in the Premiership since it was formed was banging his sister-in-law and he did not want his other mistress finding out whereas a nobody Welsh guy went to jail for 8 weeks for questioning the over reaction to a player getting a heart attack on a football pitch.

It appears that there's been no net global warming for 15 years. In reaction to the new data, Professor Judith Curry at Georgia Tech says global warming models are obviously flawed. Professor Phil Jones (2012) from the U. of East Anglia disagrees and says we need to give it more time. Professor Phil Jones back in 2009 disagreed with his modern self, when he said a period of 15 years without upward trend would seriously challenge the models.

One thing is clear, fresh measurements of reality trump empirically derived models every time, and ordinary non-scientists find it difficult to place confidence in the AGW alarmism industry when they have been so overconfident and yet so wrong in their climate trend predictions over the last 15 years. So I'm not saying Phil Jones 2012 is wrong, just that it's awkward to make the case to chase his moving goalposts.

In that line, we're still ok, just as long as Kuratas doesn't get live ammo. This one isn't mind-controlled per se, but it does shoot when you smile.

Sure the Palestinians are not nice people, I already stated that. This is a giant case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Say
that
to
their
faces

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

....that the person who is supposed to have originally pointed the finger at McAlpine is a notorious liar; see here. Didn't the BBC do any checks or were they simple after any scandal?

What makes you so sure?

The iPhone 5 released on 9/21 announced about a week earlier.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2206143/iPhone-5-release-day-2012-Apple-fans-Sydney-New-York-finally-hands-latest-iPhone.html

I can provide over 1000 more links if you like. You seem confused. Apple sold (to customers) 6 million iPhone 5s in the period this report covers. If you RTFA you would know that.

Or this wonderful tidbit from just 2 summers ago: "Almost half of Belgium's euthanasia nurses admit to killing without consent": http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285423/Half-Belgiums-euthanasia-nurses-admit-killing-consent.html

Smoke and mirrors: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3364762/

Pereira’s conclusions are not supported by the evidence he provided. His paper should not be given any credence in the public policy debate about the legal status of assisted suicide and euthanasia in Canada and around the world.

Strike that. The Daily Mail article was referring to a different study that was referenced in the Pereira paper.

Or this wonderful tidbit from just 2 summers ago: "Almost half of Belgium's euthanasia nurses admit to killing without consent": http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285423/Half-Belgiums-euthanasia-nurses-admit-killing-consent.html

Smoke and mirrors: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3364762/

Pereira’s conclusions are not supported by the evidence he provided. His paper should not be given any credence in the public policy debate about the legal status of assisted suicide and euthanasia in Canada and around the world.

much clearer picture here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2226203/Skeleton-hero-World-War-II-carrier-pigeon-chimney-secret-coded-message-attached-leg.html

Or this wonderful tidbit from just 2 summers ago: "Almost half of Belgium's euthanasia nurses admit to killing without consent": http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285423/Half-Belgiums-euthanasia-nurses-admit-killing-consent.html

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TO X02
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AOAKN .HVPKD FNFJU YIDDC
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NURP 40 TW 194
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[cursive] lib. [normal print] 1625

Time of origin. 1522
Date and time of return at loft [not filled out]
Number of copies sent. 2

Sender's Signature [line illegible/best guess] W St[?]t Sjt.
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Transcriber's note:
Dots/periods in the body of the message are probably not part of the encrypted message.
The dot in the first line is somewhat below the letter H in the second grouping.

Transcription based on
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/11/01/article-2226203-15CC0406000005DC-295_306x423.jpg
and
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/11/01/article-2226203-15CC0406000005DC-763_634x286.jpg

Transcription assumes all capital letters and no numbers in the encoded message.
--cut here--
[TOP LINE NOT SHOWN IN IMAGE]
TO X02
FROM [NOT FILLED OUT]
Originator's No. [NOT FILLED OUT]
Date. [NOT FILLED OUT
In reply to No. [NOT FILLED OUT]

AOAKN .HVPKD FNFJU YIDDC
RQXSR DJHFP GOVFN MAIPX .
PABUZ WYYNP CMPNW HJRZH .
NLXKG MEMKK ONOIB AKEEQ
UAOTA . RBQRH DJOFM TPZEH
LKXEH REEHT JRZCQ FNKTQ .
KLDTS PQIRU[FQIRU?] AOAKN 27 1525/6.

NURP 40 TW 194
NURP 37 OK 76

[cursive] lib. [normal print] 1625

Time of origin. 1522
Date and time of return at loft [not filled out]
Number of copies sent. 2

Sender's Signature [line illegible/best guess] W St[?]t Sjt.
--cut here--

Transcriber's note:
Dots/periods in the body of the message are probably not part of the encrypted message.
The dot in the first line is somewhat below the letter H in the second grouping.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2226214/Apple-reprimanded-Samsung-apology--claims-WEEKS-replacement-web-site.html:

A lawyer representing Apple said the firm could take a notice off its website in 24 hours but asked judges for 14 days to post a replacement.

Wikipedia has a list of people killed by police in the UK. If you discount the ones that happened in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, it has a grand total of 15 people killed by police since 1920.

I do not feel scared by that number.

I'm not sure which numbers you were looking at, but I think they are rather a lot higher than that, even if not officially acknowledged as such. Possibly you have confused "being shot by the police" with "being killed by the police" (although even then the number is far, far higher than that).

Between 2000 and 2011 there were nearly 6,000 deaths in police custody in the UK. Now, some (perhaps even many or most) of those will be unavoidable - perhaps people who would have died anyway even if not in police custody. Then, some are down to negligence (although I'd argue that in many case that is just as bad as malfeasance - if I was at home and vulnerable to some medical condition e.g. diabetes then it's much more likely someone would be around who would watch and look after me properly). But I find it very difficult to believe that given such a large number of cases there is no significant element of either bad intent or intentinoal recklessness, because it really is a shockingly high number - for context, it is not terribly far off the total number of murders recorded in the UK in the same period.

Looking just at shootings - there seem to be on average about 6 or 7 a year in recent years - e.g. here is a list of some of them. There are in fact multiple recent cases where the police have literally shot naked and unarmed people (and faced only relatively minor consequences as a result) and several more where they have shot unarmed people. Even in this case, which would appear to be about as clear-cut a case as they come, the officers were acquitted and retained their jobs in the police, albeit not on firearm duties.

Finally, I'd like to say that the fact that police can apparently get away with murder should worry you, for two reasons. Firstly - not because you might be murdered by the police yourself (that is still very unlikely), but because it means they might be likely to get away with far lesser crimes (like assaulting you, planting drugs on you, or making up a traffic offence because they decide they don't like the look of you) much more easily. Secondly - because it is indicative of a force who don't see their primary loyalty as being to the victims of crime (and to thus solving crime) but rather to looking after their own. If you were a victim of crime, would you want a force where the officers thought people who didn't pull their weight to solve it effectively should be protected from public scrutiny?

If anything, we should be holding police officers, especially firearms officers, to a higher standard than we do the general public because we grant them additional powers and privileges and entrust them to use those responsibly while paying them out of the public purse.

Except that in Britain you aren't allowed to opt-out of or refuse the Nude-o-Scan!

Why doesn't the UK allow passengers an 'opt out'?

Yes, they do enforce this:
Doctor barred from flying after refusing body scan on health grounds
Air passengers who refuse a full body scan to be barred from their flights

Try to find an airport that doesn't have the Nude-o-Scan, last I checked LCY (London City Airport) was safe. Best to check before travelling though. Here is a list of airports with NoS that is kept updated by the members of the Flyer Talk forum: Complete List of Airports with Whole Body Imaging/Advanced Imaging Technology Scanner

Posted anonymously so I don't get hassled every time I fly from now on. Sad, but necessary.

Time to post "observers" in the UK.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released--chart-prove-it.html

Give them a brain scan. Or alternatively, one of those SAT example papers would be a good way of finding out .

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2218611/How-differences-brains-autistic-people-explain-difficulties--shed-light-unique-talents.html

It's all to do with the way your lateral ventricles are wired up. It's almost like have a data center where there are extra fiber-optic cables going from the disk servers/HD video cameras straight to the GPU card, and bypassing the CPU/bridge altogether. You can do some things faster because there is no contextual filtering being applied, but other things slower because there just aren't the connections.

You think that's delusional? Wait until I say that this is only one small move before they are at train and metro/bus stations, then on to the shopping malls. Before long we will have check points every mile in the major cities. And ultimately they will be integrated into the overhead lights and cameras that dot almost every part of civilization in the United States.

But no... I am sure this is just to impress and gain votes or gain space for new scanners at airports.

http://www.vizfact.com/tsa-agents-take-to-the-streets-of-houston/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1362588/New-documents-reveal-TSA-wanted-body-scan-pedestrians-city-streets.html

People use phones to report drug dealers to the police; do you want this done to you when it turns out that the policeman is working for the cartel?

This argument seems bogus. If you hide the number, the police can't see it directly on their display, but I'm sure they could get it if they wanted to, by talking to the carriers, etc. It's just a bad idea to rely on a hidden number for anonymity in any case.

That wasn't my argument; I was simply replying to the statement from the original post that "I can't think of a single legitimate reason why a call should be anonymous." and arguing that there are situations where anonymity would be a good idea if it were possible.

You are completely right that, whilst the Indian call centre doing the bogus anti-virus aciton can't be traced, the policeman probably can track an informant back to whichever phone you used. For this reason I would not use a phone which could be connected to me to call to report about a Mexican drugs cartel. There are other safer ways.