Slashdot Mirror

U.N. officials in New York sought to play down the significance of Annan's remarks, noting that he had previously said the U.S.-led war was not "in conformity with the U.N. charter." They noted that he was prodded three times by the BBC reporter before acknowledging his position. "The secretary general was quite reluctant to use that word," said Annan's chief spokesman, Fred Eckhard. U.S., Allies Dispute Annan on Iraq War

Annan's statement that the war was "illegal" is both false and spurious. By Annan's logic, the 1999 U.S./British-led intervention in Kosovo, which was conducted without benefit of a Security Council resolution, also would be "illegal" despite the fact that it was widely supported by the international community. It is true that Washington failed to convince Paris and Moscow to vote for a final Security Council resolution that explicitly endorsed the use of force if Iraq's dictatorship continued to renege on its legal commitments to disarm. But the Security Council did unanimously pass Resolution 1441 in November 2002, which threatened "serious consequences" if Iraq failed to do so. Iraq also defied sixteen other Security Council resolutions on disarmament, human rights, and support for terrorism.

Moreover, Iraq put itself in a state of war with the United States by violating the cease-fire that ended the 1991 Gulf War. Iraqi forces shot at American and British warplanes assigned to enforce the U.N.-imposed "no-fly zones" over Iraq on a daily basis long before the 2003 war. While the Clinton Administration chose to ignore these and most other cease-fire violations, the Bush Administration correctly decided to take action in view of Iraq's manifest failure to prove that it had dismantled its prohibited weapons programs. The U.N. Charter explicitly recognizes the right of every state to act in self-defense, a fact that Annan curiously neglects.

An Ill-Timed Intervention

Kofi Annan's ill-timed comments should be seen as a poorly conceived attempt to undercut the U.S. President's impending address to the U.N. General Assembly and to indirectly influence the electoral debate in the United States. The notion of U.S. isolation, a prominent theme advanced by Senator John Kerry, is a myth that Annan is keen to promote on the world stage. He ignores the fact that the U.S. is backed by over 30 allies with troops on the ground in Iraq, including 12 of the 25 members of the European Union and 16 out of 26 NATO members states.[3] Kofi Annan's Iraq Blunder

The Daily Mail, with their 'leaked account' of a 'secret meeting' - so secret it had been publicly streamed over the internet. Read about what actually went on if you like.

Not to pick nits,

but you obviously haven't read this article: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3318582, 00.html

Or this article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/new s/news.html?in_article_id=411846&in_page_id=1770

The BBC ADMITS that is not only NOT objective, but that they are VERY far to the left. Of course, I guess if one is already a socialist this would appear to be "objective" but to the rest of us that are more towards the center and right-of center this is hardly "Objectivity".

Sorry, but the Beeb isn't objective, and hasn't been for years. Much like many of the newsies and other media outlets in the UK, it is a prime example of what happens when with media concentration. A restriction of viewpoints to a very small selection on the overall spectrum. It's quite obvious that you have not been properly exposed to enough viewpoints if you can't see the obvious liberal slant in most British newsies.

Of course, the American news landscape is much the same. We Americans don't have the Beeb, but we do have our own Alphabet Soup of "me too" liberal outlets that all report the exact same stories in exactly the same manner with exactly the same slant and conclusions. Fox News is really the only one even slightly different. While I will readily admit that thier format is not entirely my favorite, at least I know that I'm getting a different slant on the news when I watch them. It allows me to make a more informed decision than if all I watched were CNNCBSABCNBCMSNBC et al.

I'd recommend that you start adding FoxNews to your weekly watching schedule, if for no other reason than to broaden your perspective a bit.

(And yes, I do think it's sad that an American has to tell a Brit to get a broader perspective.)

It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism....

It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran...

At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.

One veteran BBC executive said: 'There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness.

'Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC's culture, that it is very hard to change it.' .....

Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to 'correct', it in his reports. Webb added that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it 'no moral weight'....

Randall also told how he once wore Union Jack cufflinks to work but was rebuked with: 'You can't do that, that's like the National Front!'

Quoting a George Orwell observation, Randall said that the BBC was full of intellectuals who 'would rather steal from a poor box than stand to attention during God Save The King'. ...

Biographies of Winston Churchill note mostly in passing that the BBC systematically barred Churchill from discussing his defense and foreign policy views during the 1930's; Sir John Reith was head of the BBC at the time. In the second volume of his Churchill biography, for example, William Manchester states that "Reith saw to it that [Churchill] was seldom heard over the BBC..." Reith wrote of Churchill in Reith's monumentally voluminous diaries, "I absolutely hate him."

In the fall of 1938 Churchill was scheduled to appear on the BBC for a half-hour talk -- on the Mediterranean. When the Czech crisis erupted, Manchester reports, Churchill asked that the program be cancelled. On the Saturday before Parliament's debate on the Munich Agreement, Churchill agreed nevertheless to meet with (future Communist spy) Guy Burgess of the BBC. Churchill complained to Burgess, according to Burgess's recollection, that "he had been very badly treated in the matter of political broadcasts and that he was always muzzled by the BBC."

Why did Reith detest Churchill? In Reith's eyes, Churchill was of course a warmonger, and Reith, not coincidentally, held Hitler in the highest regard. How little times have changed.

Impartial? Not according to the BBC.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/new s/news.html?in_article_id=411846&in_page_id=1770
rather telling...

I think most of the larger news orgs are controlled, one way or the other, even if they give the illusion of being less than biased or more biased or whatever. I say as a default they all are, you just have to figure out which way and when and why..making it sporting I guess.....

  The real importance of the censorship debate is how and when and why articles are massaged for propoganda purposes, and when important news stories are minimized or ridiculed. For example, I would say the bulk of the large news orgs are all covering up the 9-11 and 7-7 attacks, because the overwhelming evidence so far points to a rather large amount of governmental inside knowledge and involvement. both those attacks had wargame "drills" being run simultaneously with the attacks, following the same guidlines setup in the drills. This is a coincidence??? I doubt it... WTC building 7 fell from very little damage and minimal fires, and is almost completely ignored in the 9-11 commission whitewash report-yet none of the major news orgs-including the BBC-covered that little gem much. The sin of ommission is just as much censorship if the *critically important* news serves to educate the public.

    The BBC is just as bad in this regard going way back. They also went along with the UK government being inside the IRA (having actively working agents who participated in assassinations and bomb making for instance) and keeping that quiet for years, and it is only relatively recently that any of that knowledge came out. They are tools of the monied establishment, never forget that. Propoganda works.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/new s/news.html?in_article_id=399145&in_page_id=1770

This is the latest.

The modern version of this "salami-slicing" progression with regards to installation of surveillance technology:

1) We're installing cameras in selected areas for limited purposes, eg. at street intersections to catch speeders. Don't be paranoid; we'd never link 'em up into an all-purpose surveillance system.

2) We're expanding the camera network to pedestrian areas to fight crime and, if you're in the UK, "anti-social behavio(u)r" (shudder). Don't be paranoid; it's not like we're trying to track you everywhere you go.

3) We're linking up the cameras into a region-wide surveillance system. How can you complain? You already accepted the monitoring itself, and now we're just coordinating our law-enforcement efforts among various places and agencies. It'll help us protect you better.

4) We're adding new software capabilities to the surveillance network, such as automatic license-plate reading, identification of "suspicious behavior," and cameras that bark orders. What's wrong? You already agreed to be watched everywhere you go; now we're simply going to look a little more closely.

5) We, who rule you, hereby exempt ourselves from monitoring. Transparency is for our side of the glass.

Known as the 'mountain of mysterious fragrance', Mt. Myohyang ('Myohyangsan' in Korean) is one of the most beautiful places I have seen on the Korean peninsula. Thanks to the International Friendship Exhibition, it is also one of the weirdest. Though the name sounds nice enough, an exhibition of friendship, in reality the place is best described as the mecca of Kim-clan worship.

Also imprisoned were others who were perceived to be potential complainers and persons who purposely or inadvertently did not take proper care of photographs of the Great Leader, Kim Il Sung, or the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, or even of newspapers that contained photographs of the father and son. The Hidden Gulag

It is the widespread jailing of political prisoners' families that makes North Korea unique, according to human rights advocates.

Under a directive issued by Kim's father, North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung, three generations of a dissident's family can be jailed simply on the basis of a denunciation.

NBC News interviewed two former prisoners and a former guard about conditions in the camps. The three spent their time at different camps. Their litany of camp brutalities is unmatched anywhere in the world, say human rights activists....

. ... Kang Chol-Hwan is now a journalist with Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's most important newspaper. His recent book, "The Aquariums of Pyongyang," is the first memoir of a North Korean political prisoner. For nearly a decade, he was imprisoned because his grandfather had made complimentary statements about Japanese capitalism. He was a 9-year-old when he arrived at the Yodok camp. His grandfather was never seen again, and prison conditions killed his father....

. ... The system appears to draw no distinction between those accused of the crime and their family members.

In prison, says Kwon Hyok, "there is a watchdog system in place between members of five different families. So if I were caught trying to escape, then my family and the four neighbouring families are shot to death out of collective responsibility."

Can someone please engineer hangover proof Alcohol?

there's a guy working on such a thing at the University of Bristol.

It has since emerged the police had taken the decision to deselect the men as part of an 'advance diversity' drive. Every one of the 129 female and ethnic minority candidate who applied was accepted, along with 63 white males who escaped the illegal cull. [DaillyMail.co.uk]

"A cure for allergies that affects millions including asthma and hayfever will be available within the next few years" so we don't need hyperallogenic cats. Let's make them glow instead.

Your grasp of irony would be funny if it weren't so deadly.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/new s/worldnews.html?in_article_id=405238&in_page_id=1 811&ico=Homepage&icl=TabModule&icc=NEWS&ct=5

Chinese courts to use computers to decide who should face death sentence

I have 5 kids - 11,8,6 & 10 month old twins. I can say that there are pressures on me as a parent that my parents did not have to contend with. With Michael Jackson's balcony stunt, and Britney Spears tripping in public while carrying her kid, and the media circus that followed both, I think that parents are unwilling to let their kids take physical risks today that wouldn't have mattered 30 years ago. When I was a kid, my kness were regularly covered with scabs, I've had my share of slings, stitches, bruises and the ocassional black eye. Last week my 8 year old gets stomped on the face in football practice by someone's cleat, and ends up with a black eye. A subsequent trip to the doctor for school vaccinations found my wife and I with a doctor's disapproving look as she interrogated my son about the cause of the black eye. When I was a kid, if you fell and hurt yourself doing something physical, you got a "better be more careful next time" lecture aimed at the kid. Nowadays it seems that allowing your child into an arena that has the possibility of physical injury is as bad as causing the injury yourself.

Not to mention that you never know how local authorities are going to handle instances of perceived misbehavior. In my day, if you got busted by an authority figure, you got yelled at, and maybe a call to the parents. Today it seems that you can get in a lot more trouble for just climbing a tree.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/new s/news.html?">in_article_id=397240&in_page_id=1766 &in_page_id=1766&expand=true

My kids also have a plethora of consumer devices, game cube, ps2, game boys, mp3 players, etc. They also have bats, balls, gloves, bicycles, etc., as well as memberships to local museums, botanic garden, zoo, library cards, etc. They spend more time with the consumer devices then I did as a kid, but I'm spending more time with consumer devices then I did as a kid as well. Life is changing, times are changing. If you removed all of the consumer devices we have now, I doubt my kids would be spending any more time outside then they do now. Society has changed as a whole, it's not just one element that has caused it to be.

I'm disappointed by the Live Science article. It dismisses the subject without considering the wider implications.

Most Slashdotters have picked up on the big brother issues of tracking your purchases, but no one has mentioned the reason why the news surprised many UK citizens - we had no idea that the tags were installed until last week. The RFID tags were installed without public consultation or political discussion. I'm grudgingly impressed that the government and contractors has been able to implement such a policy so fast, but I'm shocked that they did not bother to inform the UK public - the people to whom they are responsible - of their actions. Instead, most people only learnt of the tagging system fitted to their rubbish bins last Saturday when it appeared on the front page of a newspaper. A web version of the original article that sparked outrage can be read here. What similar projects are they funding with tax payers money without public consultation?

Oh, you care if you have to live with drastic recycling duties and get fined for putting the wrong item in the wrong bin/case (or your rubbish stays where it is...). Some cities in England have to face that, with very odd requirements at times. More info here: Daily Mail Article.

Double devils....what if the images of either are computer generated...no humans involved at all...no humans harmed. What would the rules be for creation and posession of those images?

In the UK, it's illegal. Even if its a kids head cut&pasted from a magazine picture onto another magazine picture of an adult naked woman.(or vice versa) No matter how crudely patched together the images are.
To me this is reeks of madness, but the madmen currently in charge of this asylum have to meet their daily quota of more and more senseless laws, 3,000 new crimes and counting over the last 9 years, including selling squirrels

Which is the most simple explanation? That a bunch of people who don't have passports, plane tickets or (if the Register article is to be believed) the remotest understanding of explosives presented a genuine threat? Or that someone didn't really care what kind of threat they represented wanted to present themselves as the good guys by having "saved" us from this threat?

I am often amazed that even so sharp a tool as Occam's razor is unable to cut through the nonesense that gets posted on Slashdot.

Lets try this: It was a genuine plot, under invenstigation for a long period of time, (one of many) that was stopped when they decided to try a dry run. Cash, guns, and a bomb making kit have apparently been found. No word yet on if they are related to the suspected terrorist training going on in various places in the UK. This was as much about "saving Joe Lieberman" as the terrorist activity against Australia... which is to say, not related at all. (Maybe you've heard of the Bali bombing? It is just one of many attacks against Australians and the West in general.) There are many more like it in: Phillipines, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc, none of which are designed to prop up a US president who can't be reelected any way..

Which is the most simple explanation? That a bunch of people who don't have passports, plane tickets or (if the Register article is to be believed) the remotest understanding of explosives presented a genuine threat? Or that someone didn't really care what kind of threat they represented wanted to present themselves as the good guys by having "saved" us from this threat?

I am often amazed that even so sharp a tool as Occam's razor is unable to cut through the nonesense that gets posted on Slashdot.

Lets try this: It was a genuine plot, under invenstigation for a long period of time, (one of many) that was stopped when they decided to try a dry run. Cash, guns, and a bomb making kit have apparently been found. No word yet on if they are related to the suspected terrorist training going on in various places in the UK. This was as much about "saving Joe Lieberman" as the terrorist activity against Australia... which is to say, not related at all. (Maybe you've heard of the Bali bombing? It is just one of many attacks against Australians and the West in general.) There are many more like it in: Phillipines, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc, none of which are designed to prop up a US president who can't be reelected any way..

Well as long as you dont clone Heed the world's smallest cat. That wouldn't be very filling.

Wonderful mix of comments from the DM readership: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/new s/news.html?in_article_id=397240&in_page_id=1770&i n_page_id=1770&expand=true#StartComments Charlie.

I would not take seriously a single word that that rag published. A recent example: They published something about my website and claimed to have spoken to me the previously day - a lie. See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/new s/news.html?in_article_id=395688&in_page_id=1770. They lied, were factually incorrect, they nicked pictures and text without attribution, god help anyone who takes the DM seriously. Charlie.

Mel isn't looney, he's just drunk out of his gourd much of the time. When he sobers up he generally apologizes, like he did yesterday after a drunk driving arrest where he claimed "the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world" & that he owned Malibu. He even asked forgiveness for shouting at a female cop (sow?) "What do you think you are looking at sugartits?" Class act, all the way.

Sweet! So 17 beers helps prevent prostate cancer and coffee prevents cirrhosis... Besides the 30 trips to the bathroom a day from drinking a pot of coffee and 17 beers I'm all set!!!

Acme! The only Batman outfit worn by bats!

According to The Register, the Metropolitan Police have received a complaint about "improper use of communications networks" and are investigating. Whether the complaint was made by the eBay seller, we don't know. There's also an amusing-in-a-schadenfreude-way article in the (right wing scandal rag) Daily Mail today, where someone else claims to have been shafted by the seller on eBay.

exactly!! While it's all very well spending millions of dollars on a MRSA vaccine, hospitals continue to neglect that washing their hands would do the same thing. "£2.99 handwash kills MRSA"

There's an interesting story today that says that 90% of women in Brittain still think that one night stands are immoral and deviant, and that younger respondents were more vocal with their opinions than older ones.

Civil rights are not prevented in any way by gun control (that is a very good thing and we want it. Don't you dare criticise our right not to get shot).

I take it that The main story of today didn't happen then?

CCTV has reduced crime a lot, and we don't like crime. It doesn't affect our civil rights at all.

Well at least some of the ones that abuse it get jailed

ID cards do not affect civil rights either at all.

Of course not. They are little pieces of plastic. The things that do affect civil rights are what happens when the massive central database is abused, by insiders or outsiders, or even sold off to dodgy criminals

Of course once you are required to carry them arround it will be easier to find out who is at a peaceful demonstration and quietly arrest them a few weeks later

America's problems are much worse, and in fact the UK is ahead of America in civil rights and such. We are just both behind places like Sweden.

Well Duh

Labour are not fascist. Conservatives are not for civil liberties either; they are just not against them.

Torys are against things that Labour are for. Labour are for Spin, PR, the credit economy, "Being seen to do something", Pleasing George, Pleasing Europe, or just Pleasing campaign contributers

I think Americas problems are actually much worse than the UKs, and we are certainally not doing worse things. You are just blind of the problems of America and uninformed about the problems of the UK if you think that.

Yup. America has a lot of problems, however it seems you're blind to the UK's problems, including unprecedent consumer debt, overvalued housing market, london-centric population, shaky stock market, collapsing pensions etc.

Anyone know where I can find an RSS feed for the Daily Mail? :)

He told the Mail on Sunday: "I can't help wondering if I hold the cure for Aids. There are 34.9 million people with HIV and if I have something to contribute, then I am willing and ready to help."

There is currently a lot of debate in the UK about the error tolerance of a certain type of LIDAR gun - the LTI 20-20. The importer claimed that it was incapable of producing erroneous readings on a moving object but a US-spec device was shown to produce an incorrect high reading by sweeping it along the side of a moving truck. The UK importer then said that the US spec device was different (inferior?) to the UK device used by police, but recent tests have suggested that it is possible to get a UK device to do it too. We have yet to get the courts to force disclosure of a police device for testing, efforts are still ongoing with the hope that a friendly police officer can lend one for testing. Oh, did I forget to mention that the prosecution's expert witnesses are a) the UK importer and supplied to the police, and b) the CTO of the manufacturer? The courts pretty much accept all their statements without question.

For more information see this article from the Daily Mail last week (front page article), this page about a BBC programme (Inside Out) which investigated the issue. Also see PePiPoo.com, a forum where you can read about many ongoing investigations related to speed enforcement, including legal loopholes, faulty signage and information on all types of legal defences.

Gareth

It's probably no difference from the danger of travelling in either a British train in Summer or on the London underground on the hottest day of Summer (8th June 2001).
Temperature was around 40 degrees centigrade, and they were serving free bottles of water for people coming out of the train.

The word "erode" doesn't appear in TFA, except in the subheadline. It does appear in http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/new s/news.html?in_article_id=361911&in_page_id=1770&i n_a_source=&ct=5
i.e. the Dame didn't say that, it just appears in the dailymail writeup (then, of course, in slashdot, as "Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller claims in the future some civil rights may have to 'erode'")

The actual text is like this:
"In a speech made in the Netherlands on 1 September and put online by MI5, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller said 'Okay, people, we tried this whole guaranteeing-civil-rights thing but it's just not working out. We're ready to come back to the bargaining table and try and find a more solution-oriented solution that will add value for consumers while protecting the innovation of our industries.'"

from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/new s/news.html?in_article_id=335026&in_page_id=1770&i n_a_source=

"They found that in intelligence tests men use 6.5 times as much grey matter as women do - but women use far more white matter.

Grey matter is a category of brain tissue crucial to processing information and plays a vital role in aiding skills such as mathematics, mapreading and intellectual thought.

White matter connects the brain's processing centres and is central to emotional thinking, use of language and the ability to do more than one thing at once. "

So Personally I think it all evens out. Besides that, then you get into the whole IQ / EQ thing.

I especially like the following part about Women and Spacial

"Professor Rex Jung, a co-author of the study at the University of New Mexico, said: "This may help explain why men tend to excel in tasks requiring more local processing-like mathematics and mapreading, while women tend to excel at integrating information from various brain regions, such as is required for language skills.

"These two very different pathways and activity centres, however, result in equivalent overall performance on broad measures of cognitive ability, such as those found on intelligence tests."

Previous studies have shown that women have weaker spatial awareness than men, making it harder for them to read maps. "

"But places like Iran aren't less free because people have chosen, it's because they haven't been given a choice."

They are given some choice, and they just chose that again. The people of Iran have the same concerns about crime, and feeling safe in their neighbourhoods as people in the western world do. They just feel more strongly about them, and see a different way to combat those things. What you call "freedom" is more like what you would call "anarchy", to them.

What they choose, or do not choose isn't of concern to us. We should respect them, and they will learn to respect us as well.

Indeed. If you are British or vaugely interested in the British royalty then the Daily Mail did a good one. But it's not techy.

There are the obligatory think geek ones which are mildly amusing.

Even gmail is having a little joke. It's only funny due to the reaction of the launch last year.

Googles got a proper April fools, but it's not very good...

That was pre-IPO.

We'd like you to meet Bubba. Bubba's fully vested, and as this article says, he's, uh... he's grown somewhat.

That was pre-IPO.

We'd like you to meet Bubba. Bubba's fully vested, and as this article says, he's, uh... he's grown somewhat.

Ah ha. Look at the source at the bottom.

Source: Daily Mail; London (UK)

It may be that Red Nova is a valid news site, but they should really check the status of their sources. The Mail will run just about any sensational piece of b*ll*cks doing the rounds. They are not the sort of organ that would want to cloud the reader's faith in the paranormal with any of that cynical questioning. Please insert the phrase 'Top scientists believe ...' at the begining of the piece to make it more credible.

Click here and search for "Crop Circles", "MI6" or "UFO".

Easy, just have marketing gussy it up as a "feature", not a bug.

Powerbook G5! Not only does it have a 64-bit CPU, it makes you fried eggs and barbequed sausages for breakfast! Automatically!

and The Mirror, and the The Daily Mail and indeed most media today.

Actually, wearing tight trousers or briefs does have an impact as well. Read more here

"Professor David Nutt: Member of Committee on Safety of Medicines.
Interests: Has been consultant to GlaxoSmithKline and holds shares in the company."

"Professor David Nutt: Member of Committee on Safety of Medicines.
Interests: Has been consultant to GlaxoSmithKline and holds shares in the company."

this article shows what happend

*COUGH*UK

Don't go automatically editing the photos too enthusiastically. One mother detected cancer in her kid's eye when only one of them came out with red-eye in a photo.

I really hope you will just be able to copy files to these new mini iPods with ordinary file management software (i.e. Explorer on Windows, cp and friends) and have them playable on the iPod. I don't want to use iTunes or MusicMatch bloatware, especially as you need Win2k or XP to use iTunes on Windows (and yes, even though Windows 98 has been 'retired', there are still a heck of a lot of people using it. Trust me).