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I left out an important comment to my last reply, so I'm adding it here. You said:

Referring to children who engage in sex (or often people who wear skirts or shorts) as "victims"

I can't find where I referred to people who wear skirts or shorts as victims.

The topic of this thread is the relationship of Child Pornography and Censorship. As I've stated in my original post "Child Pornography" is always deliberately vague when the government, police, religious and child advocacy groups talk about it. In Britain, for example, it is illegal to own pictures of children in bathing suits if the police determine the pictures to look sexy. In Australia it is illegal to take a picture of a child without a parents written permission. If you ever looked at the black list of "child porn" sites (that Wikileaks publishes; I've sampled a few dozen links and NEVER saw any pictures of children actually having sex) you will see occasional pictures of Hentai (drawings of children), or kids in bathing suits, or anti-abortion sites with naked fetuses, etc and so on. So when you talk about Child Pornography you are talking about children in bathing suits, and in Canada you are talking about written word fiction. Let's not fool ourselves; Child Pornography (activism) has nothing to do with Child Pornography. And is, amongst one of many, many reasons, why I advocated in my original post to legalize Child Pornography, because it eliminates the excuse of government to suppress people (and children). Also note that "child" porn, by the government definition, also usually includes pictures of teenagers not having sex, but who are in provocative (or non-provocative) poses that may be semi-nude or fully nude. Child Pornography legislation is about Punishment, not Protection. You are fooling yourself if you (honestly) believe otherwise.

It's always the case that the people (usually Right Wing people in authoritative positions like the police, government politicians, CIA, etc) want people to have no privacy for some purported "good" of humanity, and yet for themselves they demand utmost secrecy.

We could stop all this BULLSHIT by just OUTLAWING CENSORSHIP and legalizing child pornography. There will be great amounts of outrage by the Right Wing, claiming that society will collapse, but really, child pornography existed for decades without any moral panic and collapse of society. You need to ask yourself if you would rather be FREE, or believe the government that what they are doing is good for you and children. After all, arresting teenagers for showing naked pictures of themselves is dangerous, according to the government, and even wearing kilts is dangerous for school children, according to authorities.

The Informative thing is that when government and so-called child-advocacy groups talk about banning Child Pornography and punishing people with YEARS in prison (compare "sex crime" punishments [like having pictures of naked children] to the WEAK punishments often given to murderers in the U.S.); and by "child pornography" they often don't mean actual children having sex with each other (which they think is immoral and psychologically damaging), but they often define child pornography as girls wearing skirts or bathing suits. For the Muslim community it means girls showing their naked faces (which I've heard Muslim men saying they would be tempted to rape these people because bare faces are sexually exciting).

We can solve this whole problem and controversy by legalizing child pornography and punishing people who engage in censorship.

Of course, most zealots and haters would (and have) just accuse me of being a child molester and rapist. Ad hominems and other logical fallacies are usually the only arguments censors can think of (apart from outright lies) to defend their authoritarian and control oriented personalities and fetishes.

Sure, but can it beat a monkey?

It isn't as if you're allowed to drive a tank to work every day, are you?

Choose your own snarky response!

1) I dunno, one of my first cars was a 70-something Lebaron, and that thing was DEFINITELY a tank!

2) Have you ever ridden in a Hummer?

3) Well, you can in England... :)

Sorry, couldn't resist. But I actually do agree with you, I think...

I guess you missed the coverage and the fact that Russia Admitted it was a failed missile test?

Admit it, you're just a crackpot.

You're defending the idea that he may get 50 years in Federal prison for, to use your analogy (with a slight modification), walking into your house when the door was unlocked and having a look around? The nutcase who shot and killed a doctor got 50 years!

I can't understand why you think this is in any way proportional.

For example, this story is crafted to push buttons on how some barmy council is wasting taxpayers money mandating the number of holes in salt shakers while the entirely reasonable rationale for a pilot study is buried right at the bottom.

When the new coalition speaks of all things being open, I don't think the people were thinking about their private details being among the information being "open".....

Private medical details open for all to read via the NHS copmputer system

A controversial database of personal health records will continue to be rolled out despite Government pledges on civil liberties. Campaigners accused the coalition of a U-turn over a system they say people are bullied into signing up to and is too hard to opt out of. The Tories insist they never made a commitment to end it. Director of Big Brother Watch, said patients should be told the truth about its drawbacks and, like ID cards, it should be scrapped. This is a disgraceful U-turn by the coalition. The Government wants us to believe that they are serious about privacy and civil liberties - this is their first test and they have failed it.

Private tax information being used illegally by the public sector workforce.

More and more town hall bureaucrats have been caught snooping on private details held on a giant 'Big Brother' tax and benefits database. Instances of unlawful hacking of the Customer Information System, which belongs to the Department of Work and Pensions and holds the personal records of 85 million people, have increased sixfold in a single year to more than two a week. Council staff have looked at accounts belonging to their friends, family members, neighbours and even celebrities.

Quick pop quiz on the second article. There's 65 million people in the UK, so why are there 85 million tax records?

When the new coalition speaks of all things being open, I don't think the people were thinking about their private details being among the information being "open".....

Private medical details open for all to read via the NHS copmputer system

A controversial database of personal health records will continue to be rolled out despite Government pledges on civil liberties. Campaigners accused the coalition of a U-turn over a system they say people are bullied into signing up to and is too hard to opt out of. The Tories insist they never made a commitment to end it. Director of Big Brother Watch, said patients should be told the truth about its drawbacks and, like ID cards, it should be scrapped. This is a disgraceful U-turn by the coalition. The Government wants us to believe that they are serious about privacy and civil liberties - this is their first test and they have failed it.

Private tax information being used illegally by the public sector workforce.

More and more town hall bureaucrats have been caught snooping on private details held on a giant 'Big Brother' tax and benefits database. Instances of unlawful hacking of the Customer Information System, which belongs to the Department of Work and Pensions and holds the personal records of 85 million people, have increased sixfold in a single year to more than two a week. Council staff have looked at accounts belonging to their friends, family members, neighbours and even celebrities.

Quick pop quiz on the second article. There's 65 million people in the UK, so why are there 85 million tax records?

Did NOBODY read the story about the previous attempt where the Russian forced himself on the sole Canadian Woman volunteer at the New Year's party.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1283145/Discrimination-row-Russia-bans-women-18-month-mock-mission-Mars.html

Its more than halfway down the story AFTER they talk about how they tried to select 2 women for this latest outing, but none of them passed all the test criteria.

Sit back and wait until you are arrested on obviously false charges the collect the large settlement.

In the UK? Just hope that your settlement is larger than the bill. Heck, one guy who was wrongly imprisoned for three years on a false accusation was, upon his release, sent a £12,500 bill for "board and lodging" by the state. And they made him pay it, too.

-FL

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1243625/Businessman-Mirko-Fischer-sues-British-Airwars-treating-men-like-perverts.html Being seated next to a child on a plane also makes one suspect of being a kiddiefiddler. Come on guys, really?

And clearly Canada is controlled by racists as well, isn't it?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1210281/South-African-man-refugee-persecuted-white.html

The biggest problem with child pornography and paedophilia is that it has become a thought crime.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1035315/Father-branded-pervert--photographing-children-public-park.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/merseyside/7474968.stm
http://www.shropshirestar.com/latest/2008/09/08/town-park-staff-to-quiz-adults/

It's not just abuse of "Think of the children" even Steve Jobs comes out with the age old you-can't-discuss-this-unless-you-have-kids.
http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/iphone-news/gawker-media-vs-steve-jobs-in-email-flame-war/

In the UK this subject cannot be discussed rationally, without a angry mob of vigilantes coming around to your house e.g.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4719364.stm

When the satirical TV show "Brass Eye" covered the media and public reaction to paedophilia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_Eye#Paedophilia_special_.282001.29 thousands of people complained and public figures denounced it as sick despite it's ironic nature.

A proper discussion includes considering all aspects and viewpoints before coming to a conclusion. However, if you do not immediately take a severe stance against paedophiles even for the sake of argument, you must therefore be one of them. And you must be hurt.

Hence, posting AC otherwise someone could trace this back to me and my life would be fucked regardless of my true opinion.

Not exactly a top flight news source, but it was the first one on Google.

"well, I can't give legal advice, so I can't help you find the form you're looking for." That's just ridiculous. Help the customer.

Unfortunately, at some point in the distant past, some customer got helped, received the wrong form, and suffered some delay or inconvenience because of that. Because that customer was a litigious, spiteful, vindictive asshole who likes blaming others, he found a hungry lawyer willing to take the case on contingency, sued the person who gave him the form, and won on the grounds that the form-hander-outer was not qualified to provide legal advice. And for that reason, form-hander-outers cannot comment on the appropriateness of the forms they hand out. Presumably the same thinking is behind the law in the UK that threatens to make criminals out of people who suggest to their friends that putting money into an ISA (like a 401(k) in the USA) is a good idea.

You don't think watching his predecessor die would be sufficiently effective?

No, I don't. They will literally execute you and steal your organs (note that the family is not permitted to see the body once the about-to-be-murdered-individual is put into the death van) if you cheat on your taxes in China. (They don't have enough death vans for everyone, so they still use bullets for execution as well.) China admits to executing ten times more people per capita than we do here in the USA, and it's pretty safe to assume that the actual numbers are much, much higher.

Furthermore, people commit crimes for which the penalty is death all over the world every day. There are two reasons people commit crimes that they know they could be punished for. One is that they don't believe they will get caught. Two is that they don't care if they get caught, either due to reason of insanity or poverty. If you and your family will starve to death next month, you might as well steal some food today, even if you're likely to get something lopped off for it. But seriously, if criminals don't think they will be caught and/or punished, what's the motivation not to commit crimes? Even our "leaders" are unscrupulous bastards for the most part, so "because it's the right thing" has lost much of its cachet. And since white collar criminals are least likely to believe they will be caught, it's not hard to believe that we can have precisely the same problem with food safety all over again. It's also worth mentioning that we have only China's word for it that the particular individual they killed was really to blame. What if that really isn't why it happened?

NAS? Nah. There was another group who were advocating AGW. Well the inconvenient truth is the academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information. Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers. Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’. The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory. Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon. And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html

For the sake of argument, though, let's pretend that AGW isn't a scientifically well-established.

it isn't, "for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming." Professor Phil Jones. "Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon." If your in the Apocalyptic Global Warming church, how can you argue against Phil Jones?

the FBI watched him actually as a TARGET of terrorism... plus were involved in investigating the other charges... must have misheard or misremember that part... but they were involved for looking through things and kept watching him after the trial i believe.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1237844/The-Michael-Jackson-FBI-files-Authorities-feared-singer-terrorist-target-child-molestation-trial.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1234669/Twice-suspects-extradited-U-S--fair-Gary-McKinnon.html

Ministers have always insisted the 2003 Extradition Act is fair and balanced. But figures slipped out by a Home Office minister last night under cover of the Pre-Budget Report show that between 2004 and 2008, 68 people were sent to the U.S. while only 34 people were sent to the UK.

I guess my google search could be wrong but I couldn't find anything to suggest more americans have been sent to the UK.

http://extradition.org.uk/ a couple facing 98 years for legally exporting chemicals that were later used to manufacture crystal meth. (The back story on this seems quite interesting especially the part where an appeal can be made to the court of european rights but only after scotland has granted extradition and thus making the appeal impossible).

mind who needs extradition
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2982640.ece

AMERICA has told Britain that it can "kidnap" British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.

A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.

Finally in an attempt to be balanced I found some american (or is it irish) opposition to the treaty.

http://www.irishfreedomcommittee.net/IFC_INFO/CAMPAIGNS/USUK_EXTRADITIONTREATY/extradition_treaty_ACTION.htm

This document [Treaty Doc. 108-23] -- signed under cover of great secrecy on March 31st, 2003 by US Attorney General John Ashcroft, and Britain's Home Secretary David Blunkett-- permanently erases America's symbolic image as a land where the oppressed of the world can escape to as a haven of freedom from foreign oppression.

This treaty will make possible the extradition and imprisonment of any American deemed to be "anti-Britain" or opposed to British military rule in Ireland. Under the terms of this Extradition Treaty, American citizens will be eligible for extradition to Britain to stand trial without proof of guilt and without judicial review. There is no statute of limitations to these offenses, which can be lodged on the word of a sole witness. The document at first glance upholds, but then proceeds to decimate, the political exemption clause; a cornerstone of America's diplomatic relations since Thomas Jefferson refused the extradition of an opponent of the French Revolution. This document is by far the most extreme US Treaty yet and will have drastic effect on any person who has ever spoken out against British human rights abuses at any time in their lives.

Ok thas my google search results , please show yours.

At least they didn't beat the shit out of her and throw her in prison like they might have in Saudi Arabia.

In a word, you are wrong. And oh please! A NDA, geez? No his emails include discussions on how to intimidate folks from questioning global warming, and how to avoid producing the data and avoid complying with the law.

Here's a link to the story in the Daily Mail. Nothing the headline and major bullets at the top. In fact, the story goes on in saying that Dr.Jones "can't find his data", it doesnt claim that his data is covered by a non-disclosure. WHAT A FANTASY! Of course this guy works at what us Yanks call a publically funded university.

The story continues on to confirm there has been no global warming since 1995 (see that's really what "no" and "no significant" means) in the dictionary. and as to the prior warming period have been similar warm periods earlier in the 20th century, and confirms that there was a MidEvil warm period, etc.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html

Now as to Mars, here's just one of the stories -- this time from National Geographic -- confirming the warming trend on Mars that occurred in parallel to Earth's. This using Earth and Mars data generated from satellite measurements.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

I would go on but the rest of your post is purely argumentative on face value. Simple enough for you?

while not mentioning that he & Melinda give along the lines of 1% ~ 2%.

Yeah, that Gates, he's a real miser.

Outside of that, though - saying "1-2%" is playing the same percentages game that politicians and bloggers love to play when they say that the wealthiest people "only" pay a 15% tax rate, while the poor middle-class working man is paying 20-25%. It doesn't make a good sound bite to say that (for example) in 2007 the wealthiest people (over 100k in income) have paid 203bn in taxes (for 2007, last year data is available for now) while the total income from under 100k earners was 38bn. (Source: http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0,,id=96981,00.html)

If anything S.P. should be footing the bill for all the proceedings simply because she used such easy/obvious answers that it was inevitable to happen.

I wonder what the bill was for the investigation of Obama's Twiiter hacking investigation. Think he'll be the one paying?

"A French computer hacker was facing prison today after breaking into the Twitter accounts of Barack Obama and Britney Spears by ‘guessing’ their passwords.
In the U.S. president's case the key word is said to have included the name of his beloved dog, Bo.
Agents spent six months on his trail after he managed to gain access to Mr Obama’s Twitter account - a micro-blogging site which the president frequently uses to communicate with voters."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1260488/Barack-Obamas-Twitter-password-revealed-French-hacker-arrested.html

Err... no, this won't be taking down aircraft carriers any time soon.

Indeed. You know what else will never happen any time soon? Taking down a brand new 1.1 Billion dollar guided missile destroyer with a mere rubber dinghy. That is a preposterous idea, isn't it? Perfectly impossible. If it's impossible for a diesel sub to make on your major carrier group then what are the odds for that to happen? Impossible, I say.

So, as you see, it's pretty reasonable to assume that a major threat that is capable of rendering one of your main branch of your armed forces completely useless is simply not a thread. Just dig your head into the sand and let's keep mindlessly hammering on the "we are invulnerable" mantra. That does wonders, all right.

Yeah, they would have to be so close to the carrier, which is impossible. Heck, they'd have to be inside the battle group or something.

And here's the transcript of a letter from a priest who cooperated with the Vatican for picking # 1.

Now the funny thing is that it's MANDATORY to report suspected cases of child abuse, and yet the priests who covered it up have never been charged. Covering it up after the fact also makes them accessories after the fact.

Maybe it's time to do like some people in Great Britain are thinking of doing, and have the Pope arrested if he comes visiting.

Any bets that he cancels the September visit?

I hope this picture guide changes your life. If you don't believe it, google around about it, it's true and works.

You're welcome!

British NHS problems: (just a few of them) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1033832/The-Dirty-Secret-Your-NHS.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5955840/Patients-forced-to-live-in-agony-after-NHS-refuses-to-pay-for-painkilling-injections.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6092658/Cruel-and-neglectful-care-of-one-million-NHS-patients-exposed.html Spain under Franco, Italy under Mussolini, Germany under Hitler, Czechoslovakia under Communism, Hungary under Communism, East Germany under Communism, Poland under Communism I could go on and on, yep, trust the government they are looking out for you!!! ((To head this one off at the pass, you have to keep a very critical eye on corporations also))

Actually it's quite different. The bomb threat is made against a third party. The posting to Craislist is simply following through after you threaten your kids with doing so. It's right up there with "I brought you into this world, I can take you back out." I beleive eBay has an official policy against listing your children for sale, no matter how insolent they are. Apparently it's also against the rules to list your grandmother on eBay.

As for Islam, the problem with Islam is it really is an "us VS them" war, and we are losing badly [youtube.com] even if they don't fire another shot! At the current rate pretty much all of Europe will be "Islamaland" in less than 60 years, simply because they treat their women like cattle, and keep them breeding.

So instead of education, supporting civil liberties for ALL (even those you consider oppressed by Sharia), and finding a peaceful way to integrate new people into our democratic society, you support... what, exactly? Pre-emptive racial cleansing? Excluding Muslims from being able to vote? Exactly what part of the free, democratic society that you claim to love do you want to destroy in order to save it?

As far as your nutty Youtube video, I can put together a slide show of equally scary Christian people with signs. There are crazies everywhere, especially in poorer sections.

A large part of the fear-mongering that's going on around Islam is based on this nonsensical idea that we've had a safe, happy country, and the evil outsiders are coming to take it away. Bullshit. Every poor immigrant population in this country has clustered together at one time or another before integrating over several generations. We've got the Mormons holed up in Utah popping out kids, the Southern Baptists preaching brimstone, Mexican and Central American illegals setting up ghettos in the southwest. The Scientologists infiltrated the CIA in the 50s, and to this day are growing in numbers, and won't hesitate to ruin anyone who opposes them socially and financially. We've got Latino gangs in California, Black gangs on the east coast. Before that we had the Yakuza, the Italians had the Mafia, and the Irish had street gangs.

Society is always on the verge of collapse according to some people. Living in a free society means you have to put up with people you disagree with, and find a way to coexist. You can't just wipe out people who scare you. Hell, if I can learn to live in a country run by moralizing, religion-imposing Christians, I'm sure you can eventually come to grips with Islam bumping up over 1%.

Most of the packaging tasks that this machine performs are done by third-world workers who earn less than $5000 a year. Especially technology items: your new Microsoft mouse or iPod was packaged in China by workers who live at the factory and work long, long hours

That fancy robotic pick & place machine is impressive and it's much faster than a human. But it's not faster than a bunch of humans and when those humans are Chinese they cost much, much less than the robot (and its custom "workplace") does. The Chinese workers are so overworked that their ten minute breaks are used as an opportunity to get a few minutes of sleep. Here's the pick and place machine that packs Microsoft mice: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1266643/Microsofts-Chinese-workforce-tired-stay-awake.html They're just the tip of the iceberg, there's over 500,000 Chinese "pick and place" machines in service today.

And there are some business concerns that the robot can't address; it can't see or do anything it wasn't programmed for and the real world isn't quite that neat and tidy. And when there's a "failure" you'll have to wait for the robot technician - and hope that he has the parts on hand. If you're using Chinese workers they don't have these problems; humans are very, very good at dealing with the unexpected - and if one gets sick or hurt you just put another worker in that position and the line continues to operate.

Not only that, but the founder Mark Zuckerberg has no problem hacking into other people's accounts. He came up with facebook while working on a similar project for others at Harvard. Evidence shows that he stalled his work on the other project while working on Facebook while stringing along the others. I certainly wouldn't trust a backstabbing jackass like Zuckerberg with my information. It is why I deleted my facebook account almost a year ago.

Please link me to those polls. I want to see them.

It's all trivially googled, but there you go:

1 in 4 young American Muslims condone suicide bombings against civilians, at least sometimes.

13 per cent of young Muslims said they "admired" organisations such as Al Qaeda which are prepared to "fight the West" ... While only 17 per cent of over-55s said they would prefer to live under Sharia law, that increased to 37 per cent of those aged 16 to 24. ... If a Muslim converts to another religion, 36 per cent of 16-to-24-year-olds thought this should be punished by death.

In Morocco, just 26% of the public now say they have a lot or some confidence in bin Laden ... In Indonesia, the public is now about evenly split, with 35% saying they place at least some confidence in bin Laden ... In Pakistan, however, a narrow majority (51%) places some measure of confidence in bin Laden (by the way, there's a lot of other interesting related statistics, on many other aspects of this issue, by that link).

Enough?

Then also, some of it can be assessed indirectly, for example from what was uncovered in "Undercover Mosque" - keeping in mind that mosques involved in the controversy are some of UK's biggest.

I hear they're kinda gamy. There was another story where a couple Russians picked something a bit tastier. I could think of more entertaining things to do with her though. Looks like the guys involved could be tossed into a wood chipper, and no one would be upset in the least. I'd worry about staining the machine though. "Damn, he nicked the blade."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1264535/Muslim-woman-strangled-burkha-freak-kart-accident.html

LOL! Just LOL! Isadora Duncan my ass. Sounds more like a Darwin Award winner.

Are you denying that there is increased energy within the atmosphere and surface as result of increased CO2 in the atmosphere over the last fifteen years?

No that would be Professor Phil Jones

I see. You have no understanding of what acidification actually does. Are you claiming that increased CO2 dissolution in our oceans leads to greater biomass and has a net positive effect?

you may find “ACID TEST: THE GLOBAL CHALLENGE OF OCEAN ACIDIFICATION” – A NEW PROPAGANDA FILM BY THE NATIONAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL FAILS THE ACID TEST OF REAL WORLD DATA an interesting read.

Indeed. Spanish teenagers already pulled-off the balloon + camera trick on March 2009 for much less money than an iPad.

there are already 100s of processing units in modern cars trusting 1000s of signals. when the implementation is correct, a correct purpose can be served

granted the recent problems with toyota's accelerator signals suggests a slide in quality of implementation, but i still think it's very possible to make a trusted mesh network to establish lanes, and actively sense other cars approaching your position in your lane, and also accept signals from other cars that believe the same thing, and then react by not allowing the cars to move closer to each other, or backing off on the accelerator of one of the cars.

and just to further point out how stupid your analogy is, you are comparing life on the line mission critical hardware to an operating system that allows you to play solitaire.

cars can much easier be made to drive themselves when they communicate with each other. i think working towards that goal would save lives. perhaps that doesn't seem important to you because of the unemployment rate... or maybe you just don't like people because they don't like you... perhaps because you pose ignorant analogies?

airplanes automatically pull up when they detect you are too close to the ground or approaching a mountain. why on earth don't we just trust the pilot to not move about 200 tons of equipment and 100s of people at 10 times the speed of cars into a mountain? oh wait, i forgot.

You sure about that?

I realize most of those links are for British stories, but still...

I guess if you're Rom Houben, you'd have a legitimate need for one of these things.

I mean, someone like Dr Steven Laureys would presumably come in, attach the electrode cap to your head, post the operating instructions on the ceiling over your bed, and leave you alone with it. After a few hours, if you've typed out "OMG Help Me I'm trapped and I can't move -- oh and please scratch my nose!" then you're not comatose.

the “welfare queen/king” myth is, at best disingenuous.

Really?

You have been misinformed.

A descent proxy to define a "good" health care system would be survival rates of life threatening diseases like cancer and heart disease. These are the leading causes of death in most countries and require much more time within the health care system then many other diseases.

UK has very low cancer and heart disease survival rates. Here's another article about both or you can simply google something like "cancer survival rates by country"

You'll also notice that the US comes out far ahead of the UK.

I rather think "survival" is a better way of assessing a health care system then whether or not you have to pay a co-pay.

It's actually a fairly easy test:

      1. Do you have a penis?
      2. Do you have even the remotest access to children?

If you can answer yes to both of those questions, you are automatically suspected of being a kiddie-fiddler.

Sad, but true. British Airways actually has an explicit policy stating that:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1243625/Businessman-Mirko-Fischer-sues-British-Airwars-treating-men-like-perverts.html

British Airways is getting sued over it, and the guy they did it to is a deep-pocketed hedge fund manager, so things might change.

I like the part where he points out the obvious truth:

'Furthermore statistically children are far more likely to be abused by a member of their family. Does that mean that BA are going to ban children sitting next to their own parents?'

Under the UK system, you can't pay cash for services outside of the approved system while receiving government benefits.

That is utterly false and the rest of your post is frankly offensive.

Don't you regressives just hate it when reality gets in the way of your plans for making America a worse country?

Just to correct you, it was Jacqui Smith who was involved in the porn on expenses scandal.

However, the pair of them are evil, menopausal bitches from hell - and Harriet Harlot was also the one who toured her own constituency in an armoured vest.

Personally, I'm not letting the pair of them anywhere near my cock.

Just to correct you, it was Jacqui Smith who was involved in the porn on expenses scandal.

However, the pair of them are evil, menopausal bitches from hell - and Harriet Harlot was also the one who toured her own constituency in an armoured vest.

Personally, I'm not letting the pair of them anywhere near my cock.

Although this certainly sounds more sophisticated, the UK NHS offers an 'over the phone diagnosis' service, NHS Direct. Although the article mentions 'physicians' being used to monitor the network, how long will it be until they too are using unqualified staff to handle more routine cases?

The danger for misdiagnosis is huge, although they no doubt have a clause somewhere about it - they may just end up telling patients to visit their doctor in person for a proper check-up, which kind of defeats the object.

There is the Calcium(www.dailymail.co.uk) taste buds which were not listed, and I'm sure there have been others discovered.