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http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2008_Jan_7/ai_n27489648

1 company, 50 million pounds of meat per year

"The 52 million pounds translates to about 200 million meals in the coming year."

Four pounds of meat per meal sounds a lot to me, I suppose that is raw weight, bones etc.

Lets pretend that 200 million Americans eat meat such meals twice a day.

52000000 * 2 * 365 = 737960000000 pounds of meat per year in the U.S.

500lbs of meat on a cow, lets pretend its just cows

75,920,000 cows

2lbs of meat on a chicken

18,980,000,000 chickens

The truth lies between the two, don't forget to add on the other 95% of the world's population, I'm too lazy to work the rest out.

While the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been doing some good things, I see one criticism missing from wiki. The foundation is a big investor in Eni, an Italian petroleum giant. Eni has been accused of having bad environmental and health records.

Falcon

Somewhat old but still relevant article on some of the mathematics behind voting, circa 2000 :

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_11_21/ai_66456956/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1#

Can't I? - On average the weather will be colder in winter 4008 than it will be in summer 4008.

Are you sure about that? You see, you opened a hole so broad that your statement isn't accurate even today. It's always summer and always winter on the earth. So it could be the same temperature in summer and winter in 4008.

Also, you didn't explain what future climate predictions you came to that conclusion over. I might have not been specific enough for a fan boy like you, but I was making the claim to future weather predictions from climate predictions. Of course a prediction is an attempt to explain what the future will be like so it is in the future too. You can conceive the seasonal climate differences in a particular spot from historical reference but not future climate predictions. In other words, you can't claim the climate will be X in the future and then make a claim about the weather from X. Or do you know something the rest of us thinking individuals don't? I mean how do you come to the conclusion that summer will not be as cold as winter by using climate predictions alone?

The rest of the logic in your post is upside down, however we have crossed swords before and I have (in the past) provided you with relevant links that you are still choosing to ignore.

That's a cop out. I really wish you guys wouldn't get your panties in a knot when someone questions the premise of your faith. The only flaw in my logic is where it hampers with your beliefs.

And the site your talking about uses some false logic and logical fallacies in and of itself. I remember it, in one article, attempting to reference a claim that was recently refuted in order to refute the claim that just refuted the previous claim. Yes, your head should be spinning by now. It's like saying your wrong because of this stuff that your claiming is wrong shows something different. But that's what I would expect from a site pioneered by a NASA scientist who said he knew information he was using was flawed but "exaggeration by scientists had its place when it was necessary to mobilize public opinion." Of course the father of global warming also published his first climate model claiming global cooling was a threat in 1971. And to make things even worse is the political hijacking of the issue and almost all of it's purposed solutions. But like you've said, we have had this talk before.

Clicky

That seems the best info on the program I can find on the program with a quick google search. There is a ton of people, like librarians and teachers, saying that the nonjudgmental attitude of the dogs helps the kids with confidence to practice more and therefore get better, but that seems to be more op-ed than anything.

When did MC Hammer become a restaurant? You do know that trademarks are industry-specific, right?

Yeah, tell that to M$ or any other bigcorp. You mean, they were industry-specific before the creation of the internet. But nowadays, their marks apply anywhere: the larger the company, the less they are hindered by their product being "in a different industry. See:

• UPS accuses Lakewood lawyer of infringing `Brown' trademark (over www.sambrownlaw.com)
• Firestone sues over trademark infringement
• M$ sues a dentist
• French television presenter sues M$ over the Vista name
• Intel sues disk jockey for diluting its trademark
• ESPN sues QuickSilver, Inc., Alleging trademark violation

The easiest way you figure out a CD-ROM's performance is by looking at the speed multiplier: 2x is twice as fast, 4x is four times as fast, and in this case, the faster the better.

Homeopathic medicine uses an ass-backwards rating system for its remedies: when you read the labels of homeopathic medicines you'll see, for example, 3X as an indicator of the active ingredient's strength.

How's this for science: Instead of the 3x rating meaning three times the strength, it actually means dilution of the active ingredient repeated three times! In short, the higher the number, the weaker the medicine! There are two scales for homeopathic medicine, X(sometimes D) and C.

Coincidentally x is also a symbol for multiplication so many folks are misled into believing that 3x means "multiplied by 3" like the CD-ROM example above! I'm sure that's no accident.

Next time you go to the drug store, look for Head-On("Apply directly to the forehead") and see for yourself.

...And don't even get me started on "intelligent" Design!

Spelled it wrong (might be a marketing problem right there) - Dilberito.

Now, now, two wrongs don't make a right.

The bending of a stick in the other direction may be a way to righten in straight. Just consider the "affirmative action" programs, which discriminate against whites in order to compensate for the past discrimination against minorities... The trick, of course, is in knowing, when to stop — but that's even further off-topic.

Time Warner Cable vs. the city of North Kansas City http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4185/is_20060105/ai_n15995825

Sucks to be those thieves, mufflers are made out of stainless steel or rarely aluminum.

Mufflers also contains platinum, a precious metal. Now, does the amount of platinum in mufflers make it worth while to to try to recover the platinum?

Falcon

They want to make an example of McKinnon. Mess with the government and you'll spend the rest of your life in prison. Screwing with banks? Cause financial damage? Yeah, we'll give you hell for it. But screw with the government. Oh, you are SO going down. Nevermind that it's already been established that security on U.S. government systems is horribly inept to the point of being almost ridiculous.

I didn't see any anti-dumping petitions for Kia's Buy One Get One Free event. Didn't notice any powerful lobbies in opposition either. But then, maybe that's why the Big Three are in such dire straits right now.

(sorry, I couldn't resist!)

Unlike what Monsanto said, and you fell for

[Citation needed]

• Superweeds fear from GM crops
• Destructive creation: GM superweeds
• Rise of GM superweeds
• RE: Government Study Finds GM 'Superweeds'
• "Cross-Pollination Leads to Triple Herbicide Resistance"

Crops cross pollinate, GE or otherwise. And those who complain about GE crops need to Keep It Real - we've been genetically engineering for thousands of years through cross breeding.

We have not been inserting fish genes into tomatoes, or any other foreign genes into any other plant or animal life for thousands of years. Horizontal gene transfer happens rarely in nature. Simply selective breeding as is done in agriculture and farming does not introduce genes that do not occur naturally in plants or animals into those plant and animals. All it does is amplify traits that already there. I garden and if I come across a trait say in tomatoes I grow, I currently have four different tomatoes growing in the garden, I can save the seeds from the tomatoes I like and plant them the next year. If next year I do the same and keep doing that year after year I'll eventually create my own cultivar. That's a lot different than introducing foreign genes.

Yes, I know Monsanto are dicks, and I heard about that farmer. What I don't see, however, is how this is Gore's fault

It's not Gore's fault but he supports increasing genetic engineering.

The most a quick Googling brings up is that Clinton's secretary of agriculture was opposed to it while Gore was VP - pretty weak sauce.

Perhaps you searched for the wrong things. From wiki's article on Al Gore:
"Gore was one of the Atari Democrats who were given this name due to their 'passion for technological issues, from biomedical research and genetic engineering to the environmental impact of the "greenhouse effect.'"

• Famed geneticist creating life form that turns CO2 to fuel
• Al Gore's Mealy-Mouth Position on Genetically Engineeered Food

Falcon

The Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, cites a study by Laumann et al. (1994) which found that the percentage admitting to at least one act of extramarital sex are 25% of men and 15% of women. And even then, less than 4% admitted to doing so in the previous year, so most of them weren't in active extramarital affairs. A number of other studies cited in the same link show percentages of roughly +-5% for both genders. In other words, GP is pulling statistics out of his ass.

Do people realize that SS has, since the first year, taken in more money each year than it's paid out? Where did all this money go?

As you probably know, it's not exactly "gone", it's owed to the social security fund by the Federal Government, which borrowed from it to pay for programs that apparently weren't funded fully enough by tax revenues and fees.

The thing is, when you think about it, this means that FICA has essentially become another tax, used to keep *other* taxes lower. And a rather regressive one at that, when you consider that it only applies to individual middle and lower class earnings.

I still think that a social insurance program is a fairly essential part of any really stable retirement system, and there seem to be other countries we might even call "socialist" here in the states that apparently manage to implement them effectively while still having higher average savings rates per household than we do in the U.S.

But you don't make it a winner by slowly transmuting it into a regressive tax. If taxes need to be higher, make 'em higher, so that people can enjoy well-funded effective programs. Or squeal if the tax rates are too high and the funding for programs needs to be cut.

I'm having trouble finding out what treaties and conventions the Chinese government has actually ratified or signed, but when they say they will - or will work towards - abiding by this or that UN Human Rights agreement, then yes, it is our business.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0WDQ/is_2005_Sept_5/ai_n15403393

  "The covenant is a 29-year-old agreement that calls on nations to let their people freely determine their political status and not be arbitrarily arrested. China signed the agreement in 1998, but has not ratified it."

  I'm quite happy for them to torture, murder, enslave, and restrict the activities of their own people as much as they like as long as they admit it. No problem. But when they say 'oh, we're nice people really' and carry on, well then I just CANT STAND hypocrisy....

So you are willing to just stand by and allow human rights violations to happen? You are willing to allow them to commit mass murder (see the Cultural Revolution as a superb example) and say nothing, let them conquer a neighboring nation, suppress its religious and other freedoms if they simply admit it?

Wow.

What part of "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." did you miss in Civics class?

And what part of your human compassion circuitry got damaged when your parents dropped you on your head as an infant?

For the record, China is a signatory to the United Nations, which means it is also a signatory to UNESCO, which provides relief and aid to children in disaster areas - and oppressed states, including Tibet!

I'm having trouble finding out what treaties and conventions the Chinese government has actually ratified or signed, but when they say they will - or will work towards - abiding by this or that UN Human Rights agreement, then yes, it is our business.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0WDQ/is_2005_Sept_5/ai_n15403393

  "The covenant is a 29-year-old agreement that calls on nations to let their people freely determine their political status and not be arbitrarily arrested. China signed the agreement in 1998, but has not ratified it."

  I'm quite happy for them to torture, murder, enslave, and restrict the activities of their own people as much as they like as long as they admit it. No problem. But when they say 'oh, we're nice people really' and carry on, well then I just CANT STAND hypocrisy....

That is 100% wrong. First of all, the Slashdot asker might live in Europe, in which case he has even more rights to stand on. It is not uncommon here for employers stealing their employees inventions, making billions and then getting sued by the inventor for millions. If the invention is invented at work and if the invention is relevant for the work, an invention that improves the manufacturing process would be a prime example, then the company has a right to take ownership of the invention but must pay the inventor reasonable compensation. That is, a few percent of what the invention brings in.

If the invention is not relevant for work, a developer inventing a new blend of coffee for example, then that invention is the sole property of the inventor. The company has no right to it whatsoever even if the invention was made on company time using company resources.

IANAL, but I can Google.

That resemblance you mention is more likely due to the shared origins of native Britons and Iberians than any Roman conquest. This is well known due to the R1b Y haplogorup distribution that reaches the highest percentages in Iberia and the British Isles (and especially in Ireland).

See this reference for some further info, although the information in there is rather speculative.

Yes, read the damn link you provided. Then do some critical thinking of your own. First, they didn't surcey FOX news viewers on what they knew. They surveyed random people representing the public. Second, they didn't survey NPR/PBS viewers, they surveyed random people representing the public. This, it is inaccurate to say that X percent of Fox viewers got something wrong. It is accurate to say that X percent of people who got something wrong watched Fox news. And no, those two statements don't have the same meaning. If you can't understand that, you have no business talking about the information presented.

FAR more people, not in numbers, but in PERCENTAGES OF VIEWERS, that watched Fox News held utterly false perceptions about the world's most important news items of the day. NPR/PBS, the least. This is something a 10 year old could understand.

No.. This is nothing to do with the percentage of viewers. It is only with the percentage of people who got something wrong. Your attempting to take a square peg and put it in a round hole because all you can see is the void in the middle. And your wrong to do that too.

All the study says is that 60% of the people got something wrong. And of those 60% X watched fox news. Nothing more, nothing less. I know the author's analysis is attempting to say something different but it is from a liberal organization anyways and you just can't make those inferences that you are attempting to make. At best all you can say is that idiots watch fox news which is the same as the demographic argument. The only way the study could accurately make a statement about any news organization in the way your attempting to is if they studied the audiences of those sources. They did not do that.

So lets take a few numbers from the study. 3% of those polled claimed to of gotten their news primarily from NPR/PBS while 18% said FOX news. So if everything were distributed evenly, that would mean that not more then 3% of the country would watch/listen to PBS/NPR. But the study makes no claim to that. Also, the study lists 18% of those poled claimed to have gotten their news from FOX news. But we know that at the time of the study, Fox News had twice the viewers of any other cable news source. They are still up there but I'm not sure where at now. Fox news, at the time was also availible to 85 million homes but only 1.4 million viewers. In contrast, NPR is said to have 22 million listeners and yet was only represented by 3% of those polled. Now lets contrast that for a minute because it shows where you are completely wrong. Fox News was over represented by over 2000%. Now tell me that your not going to find more of the 60% who got something wrong in that sample.. Tell me.

BTW, 3% of a survey is in no way 22 million listners/viewers when a 1.4 million or less viewer sources in the survey is 18%. You would fail at simple math if you attempted to claim otherwise. There is no other way to look at it other then the demographics were off on the study to make that claim.

You talk about critical thinking as if you actually employed the concept. Maybe you did in an intellectually lazy way but it doesn't make your claim correct. If this study, or any other studies were to survey the entire audience of each source and come up with numbers, I could agree. But going with 18% of one market compared to 3% of another won't give you any comparisons on the quality of coverage.

Microsoft is (and has been for a few years now) fighting hard against the Linux tide on the sub-desktop. Currently, they say its 50-50... but that was years ago. I guess that's why the first result in every API search at the time returned the WinCE version.

Fast forward today, and Windows is sliding against the Penguin, which could suggest why the first result in every API search returns the .NET equivalent, and how if you install the Platform SDK, you cannot uncheck the option for .NET embedded APIs.

So.. Linux for the future, I reckon so simply because the biggest and best weathervane for increasing Linux adoption is shouting how worried they are (ie Microsoft). If MS were ignoring Linux and F/OSS then I'd think it was all hype, but as they're coughing up cash for various OSS projects, declaring how open-source friendly they are, creating their own OSS repository sites (codeplex), getting various OSS projects better integrated with Windows.. all that just shows how worried they are, so Linux is a big deal at the moment.

[citation needed]

Here. AT&T wants to offer fiber, but the city won't let them.

Here's another one. AT&T gets to sell broadband in Denver for 10 years in exchange for meeting the city government's bandwidth requirements. Guess how much incentive there is to exceed that requirement?

And some more. If Verizon wants to offer FiOS, they need to get approval from local governments.

I don't know where you live, but there's a good chance you don't get to choose your broadband provider because the government chooses for you.

Don't forget that the USOC has special trademark protection granted by Congress in 1978 that goes way beyond the normal protection that any other entity gets.

Here's an interesting Article about how the USOC is harassing an Olympic National Park ranger who wrote a book entitled "Best of the Olympic Peninsula."

I am a religious user of disposable credit card numbers. The numbers are user-generated using a little flash-applet that I requires a login and password. They are linked, at the bank's end, to my 'real' credit card account be it visa or mastercard.

I have never signed up for verified by visa, but I have found that every time I use a disposable number linked to my visa account that it automagically passes the verified by visa tests - I'll see the verified by visa web page come up, and without any other actions on my part, it says that I passed or was verified or whatever and my transaction goes through just fine.

You really think it needs billions to be done from scratch? Electronic cars are no where near as complicated as the internal combustion engine.

I bet you could do it for less than that even with sports cars:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_pwwi/is_200802/ai_n2427343

Anything worth owning probably started out as an idea with 2 guys in a garage.

"Mostly leaving cut grass where it is leaves you with a lawn choked with decaying grass"

That is only true if you are one of the nuts out there that thinks thick, blue grass with NOTHING else is a healthy environment. Why not just pave your lawn and put down carpet?

If you don't fertilize your lawn, the grass will be less thick, grows slower and be a little paler. At that point the clippings provide enough nutrients provided you don't kill everything with herbicides and pesticides.

even below toxic levels can cause algal and bacterial blooms in water and soil - blooms which can and do crowd out other organisms from the ecosystem.

I have yet to see an algae bloom in the soil!!

Aside from that, the cause of algae blooms is NOT nitrogen. It is phosphate. Phosphate is the limiting factor for aquatic algae. Aquatic environments already have enough nitrogen.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NTB/is_8_41/ai_94333421

Algae blooms is NOT from nitrogen! It is from phosphate! *Phosphate* runoff from agricultural lands and similar sources is the cause the algae blooms.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NTB/is_8_41/ai_94333421

Get rid of phosphate sources, and you get rid of algae blooms.

You see there is already LOTS of nitrogen in the water. It is the not limiting factor for algae. The limiting factors are phosphate and iron.

Come on it's funny cause it's true. More women watch the Olympics then men. My wife and her friends are already planning to watch the opening ceremonies on our HD tv. I never understood why people watch the opening ceremonies (or parades for that matter). How can a bunch of people walking be interesting. I'm sure I'll be making snarky comments during the event similar to the LOTR rant on Clerks 2.

Did you RTFA? The guy asked for a programming training and it was denied. He studied for himself, wrote the software by himself, and bring it to the office, to get his job done. Thus, USAF didn't paid him to write this software. It is *his* software, and he has the right to sell/rent/loan it to anyone he wants, including his employer.

The same applies for every job in the world: you can do whatever you want in your spare time, unless it competes with what the company you work for produces.

Of course I RTFA'd. How do you think I got the information that I posted. It certainly wasn't in the summary. The summary never mentions that the software was written by a service member.

Many "civilian jobs" are the same way, BTW. I used to work with an engineer who created a way double the scan heads in a flatbed scanner, allowing it to do auto-scratch-and-dust-correction in a single pass (ICE and ROC). He did the work at home. The company got the patent. That's how it works. When you as an employee invent something work related, the company owns it. (Actually, the company's owner got the patent in his name!)

HERE is an article on it (bad grammar and all):

Under the shop right doctrine, the employee may not dictate how the invention is used. For instance, if it was made on a particular piece of machinery, the license does not limit the employer to use of only that machine. Rather, the employer is entitled to use the idea behind the invention for alt reasonable purposes.

HERE is another article. Both articles explain both sides.

As for the SGT writing on HIS time, it doesn't matter. The USAF is not "every job in the world". This man was a member of the US Armed Forces. Anything he does at any time is property of the US Government. I know it sux, but that what you sign up for.

A couple of examples. When in Basic Training, we were given two weeks time off for Christmas. It's called Christmas Exodus. One guy in my unit got a DWI while at home. He was given an Article 15. Another guy got in a fight and had his face a bit dinged up. He was also given an Article 15. After Basic and when I was with my regular unit, my SGT got a DWI off post one weekend. He was demoted. What do all these things have in common? They were all done with the soldier was off post, on HIS time.

Moral of the stories. When you sign on the dotted line, Uncle Sam owns you for the allotted time!

Soldiers have US Army on their uniforms:
US ARMY = Uncle Sam Ain't Released Me Yet

When you read it yourself, it appears backwards:
YMRA SU= Yes My Retarded Ass Signed Up!

I don't understand it myself, but there are plenty of instances of the legal system being more on the side of the underclass than home owners.

Family ordered to remove security gates from driveway

Photographing vandals is assault, cameraman is told

Pensioner ordered to remove flat-cap for security reasons

Families who overfill rubbish bins fined more than shoplifters

There are many others.

Have we reached the point where access to the internet is more important than electricty and running water? Really? 18,000 Navajo families live without electricity, and use kerosene lamps at night, but they can't live without the internet? *

Out of all the grief /. gives Bill Gates, this one you can honestly blame him for. His foundation was the funding instigator of this technolgical leap-froging, and the racist motivation is obvious, as no one would believe he's that ignorant. I don't know why, maybe he can't say no to someone pressuring him to do these things, a guilt trip maybe, who knows, but if he isn't man enough to say no at his age that's even more pathetic than being ignorant.

Tell that to the founding fathers who wrote the Federalist, and anti Federalist papers in a 100% anonymous fashion.

"The tradition of anonymous speech is older than the United States. Founders Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote the Federalist Papers under the pseudonym "Publius," and "the Federal Farmer" spoke up in rebuttal. The US Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized rights to speak anonymously derived from the First Amendment.

The right to anonymous speech is also protected well beyond the printed page. Thus, in 2002, the Supreme Court struck down a law requiring proselytizers to register their true names with the Mayor's office before going door-to-door.

These long-standing rights to anonymity and the protections it affords are critically important for the Internet. As the Supreme Court has recognized, the Internet offers a new and powerful democratic forum in which anyone can become a "pamphleteer" or "a town crier with a voice that resonates farther than it could from any soapbox."

http://www.eff.org/issues/anonymity

See also:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_n11_v26/ai_16763603

Not that most adults in Iraq will ever have a beer, either.

Muslims generally view alcohol as haraam (forbidden by God), and despite the overturning of Saddam's outright ban on booze, there are still few who dare to sell the stuff.

(Good comment though--sorry to sidestep your point.)

Back in 2000, Bell Labs came out with something similar. They produced n and p type transistors out of plastic based materials and could be printed on with techniques used for paper.

Plastic circuits that have both n-type and p-type transistors would be useful in certain high-volume applications. Besides roll-up display screens and smart cards, other potential uses include luggage tags that help airport personnel locate lost suitcases, or tags on groceries that verify whether they were transported under the right conditions to the supermarket.

Not to mention algae blooms (and resulting fish kills) caused by waste spills from hog farms [findarticle.com].

They can't fund themselves from *fines* This is specifically why they call it a fee. (read any one of the numerous articles about the failed $1k speeding ticket experiment - it's how I became aware of the very important legal distinction between fines and fees when dealing with this area)

The fact that it goes to "other agencies" is irrelevant. If 50 dollars from the fee goes to fund the parks department, the city/county/whatever can take another 50 dollars of tax money that would have gone to fund the parks, and put it towards other things, like the court, police force, or whatever else it pleases. The effect is the same: There is an incentive for local governments to set speed limits based on things other than sound engineering surveys, and use the enforcement of these politically set speed limits to generate revenue.

here's one example: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4191/is_20041114/ai_n10042164

I do recall one instance where some town hall lackey was dumb enough to end up on record saying speed limits were lowered to help with a budget deficit, but I can't find it at the moment.

This is hard to find information. In most test pc are rated under load.

but Here

. I was shocked to discover just what an inefficient beast the desktop is: even when the computer and monitor are physically turned off, they continue to draw 31 watts from the wall (precisely what the laptop consumes when it is on and in use).

I was sure i read such values from a test on tomshardware, but i fail to locate it now.

To quote a recent online article:

"Nolan Waithe Grant was hired Aug. 16 to work at the university computer system's help desk at a salary of $21,626. Three years ago he pleaded guilty to hacking into the school's Unix computer network."

And according to this article:

Nolan Waithe Grant was fired about two weeks after East Carolina computer services hired him to work on its help desk.

The article does not say why he was fired.

If you were able to talk to hispanics in their native language, you would learn quickly enough that they are typically far less ignorant (and less fat) than the average American.

If the Dems piss me off one more time though, all bets are off.

How many times has it been already, uhm?

In the 1990ies Clinton's campaign wore the patience of some supporters with talking about "Change" too much... "Clinton/Gore. For people, for a change." . He took office promising more change, only to strongly disappoint its most vociferous supporters immediately after.

And today's Democratic candidates? One's very motto is "The change we can believe in"... And the other selling herself as "an agent of change". And you keep falling for it...

And, oh, look — the boy-wonder from Chicago, whose first profession was "community organizer" (whatever the heck that means) — is all but nominated by your party. With "change" — the emptiest promise — being his "inspiring" slogan. Eeww...

Even ancient historians describing earlier events have noticed, that plebs leans to change for the sake of change — however useless or outright dangerous the proposed change may be... "One more time," — you said? Yeah, right...

So, you can't refute it, just call me a hippie?

Hmmm, well, I'm on lunch break, let's take a minute and do some quick googling, shall we?

Iraq NEVER had WMD

"In March 1986 UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar formally accused Iraq of using chemical weapons against Iran. Citing the report of four chemical warfare experts whom the UN had sent to Iran in February and March 1986, the secretary general called on Baghdad to end its violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol on the use of chemical weapons. The UN report concluded that "Iraqi forces have used chemical warfare against Iranian forces"; the weapons used included both mustard gas and nerve gas..."

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/cw/program.htm

NEVER had any link to terrorists.

"Turkish intelligence agents told the agency that Baghdad's support of the PKK intensified especially during the last three months when Saddam's arms and equipment were supplied to PKK bases in Iraq by the Iraqi command.."

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6465/is_199912/ai_n25746892

"Saddam has supplied the PLO] with rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank missile launchers and Russian-made anti-aircraft guns..."."

http://www.acpr.org.il/cloakrm/clk100.html

"For instance, how about their support for The Army of Muhammad, a known al-Qaeda subsidiary operating in Bahrain?"

"Nor was that Saddam's only support for an AQ subsidiary. Saddam put money into Egypt's Islamic Jihad."

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/03/14/saddam-supported-at-least-two-al-qaeda-groups-pentagon/comment-page-1/

"Beyond cash and diplomatic help, Saddam Hussein was the Conrad Hilton of the terrorist world. He provided a place for terrorists to kick back, relax, and reflect after killing people for a living. ..."

"Saddam Hussein's general store for terrorists included medical care, too..."

"According to dissidents, journalists who have visited, and even United Nations weapons inspectors, Saddam Hussein appears to have offered training to terrorists, in addition to funding, diplomatic help, safe haven and medical care. The Associated Press reports that Coalition forces shut down at least three terrorist training camps in Iraq. The most notorious of these was the base at Salman Pak, about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad. Before the war, numerous Iraqi defectors said the camp featured a passenger jet on which terrorists sharpened their air piracy skills...."

http://www.husseinandterror.com/

Apparently your definition of "NEVER" is not one used by the rest of the world!

Well, according to This page, you could lease a single transponder for about $335k/mo (average across the listed rates).

    I think for that much, it'd be cheaper to buy a few select pieces of land, put up a 100' tower on each. 100' towers at sea level will get you 28 miles. 100' tower on a 5000' mountain will get you 115 miles. If the sites happen to be so lucky that there's a 5,000' and 7,000' mountain to use, they could be used for 220 miles. :)

    Rather than buying land and building towers, you can always lease tower space. But, if you put up towers, you can lease that space, should you be in a good area for it.

    There's a whole lot of remote northern Canada, so it's hard to even guess at how many installations would be required.

SCO comes to mind. :) http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_/ai_n11445696

I was half joking, there isn't a specific law, except those on racial discrimination which are used to justify all manner of things from forced (or arranged as they call it) marriages to female circumcision to voodoo exorcism.

What's obvious is that the police often go soft or turn a blind eye to avoid being accused of racism.

And none of those is from the Daily Mail - for the benefit of lefty imbeciles like the one who modded me down.

Hm. I thought I had read that differently.

Actually, it seems to that both may be true:

> "No, that's not true," answered Sharanova, who had
> testified earlier Reiser and her daughter met when
> Nina went with a friend who was to meet Reiser at
> a cafe to act as a translator.

From: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20080214/ai_n21416688

Unfortunately, I can't post and moderate ;-)

This is simply not true. 1700 to 4700 birds die in the windmill farm in Alameda County near the Altamont Pass. Now, that's a ridiculously vague number, there are hundreds of windmills at that site, and it includes electrocutions, but that is not "infrequently". Enough that NIMBY ecos and politicans have placed a moratorium on commerical wind power in the county.

The state of the art is to make the windmills as large as possible - huge windmills turn more slowly and have economies of scale. Lot sof the Altamont windmills are small and turn quite fast.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20070111/ai_n17133835

Marijuana is not a schedule 1 drug, and it's not a felony to smoke it.

Sorry, but you're wrong. Marijuana is a schedule 1 drug according to the DEA: http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/scheduling.html . Perhaps you meant to say that it's utterly absurd that a drug like marijuana is in the worst schedule of drugs, despite the fact that marijuana is less addictive than alcohol, and has caused zero confirmed deaths since the dawn of history, compared to thousands of fatalities per year for aspirin overdoses. http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm

But you're right, smoking isn't a felony. Smoking usually requires possession, though, which is a misdemeanor or felony depending both on the amount and on the presence or absence of an elusive quality called "intent to distribute". Sadly, police officers have been caught planting this evidence on innocent people:

http://wcbstv.com/local/Undercover.NYPD.Officers.2.759420.html

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20070427/ai_n19063646

What treatment is available for thieving immigrants?

Drug related burglaries are the most common and easiest to solve. Do you think people steal because it is in their nature? People steal most often to feed themselves be it drugs or bread. The solution was in the link.

How is vigilante justice "non-thinking"?

Any system of belief that requires one to presume they are qualified to be "judge, jury and executioner" in any situation besides a well-founded belief that one's life or person is in danger cannot at the same time entertain thought that could be considered civilized let alone cogent.

Also, it is not a crime to black in Texas. Why would make such a racist statement?

1 in 3 blacks in Texas are in the criminal justice system and incarcerated 7 times more often than whites and more than twice as much for the same crime. I did not know I was required to post links to information that should be common knowledge to anyone who has read a newspaper about the death penalty case in the supreme court in the last year or so.

Humans have not been recording polar ice melt rates for 750,000 years you twit. An ice core is not recorded history. It is sampled history with no direct comparison for verification. Nor do they have the granularity of tracking a few months. There are no markers in the ice cores saying "the ice melted at a rate of x.xxx between May and August, then switch to x.yxyy from August to October...".

To quote the USGS: "This record can include temperature, precipitation , chemistry and gas composition of the lower atmosphere, volcanic eruptions, solar variability, sea-surface productivity and a variety of other climate indicators."

Do you see ice melt rate there? No. We can *ESTIMATE* or *PREDICT*, but we can not verify without actual measurement of ice melt rates. Period. You can cut my tree open and try to estimate how warm or cold it was, but the thermometer hanging in the window is a recording. I'll trust a dime store thermometer over an estimate based on cores - be they ice or trees - any day.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_n1_v15/ai_14902815

As to the original "summary":
"As reported in September of last year, the Northwest Passage was ice-free for the first time known to man. "

No, it was the first time since satellite records starting in 1978. More than semantic differences there. To wit "Those passages have been traversed in the past--with difficulty--including in recent years as ice cover thinned". Furthermore there is disagreement as to what exactly confines the "Northwest Passage".

Now, what you won't here from the disaterbators is that by all accounts, even a seasonal period of ice free Northwest Passage along the entire route is a *GOOD* thing. Shorter travel means less fuel and lower costs. A commercial route along the northern border of Canada is an economic boon waiting to happen.

Oh and the title is wrong. It isn't "on track". There was never a "track" for it to be on. We've been reading/hearing about it for a couple decades, and we've heard this each year for the last several.