Slashdot Mirror

There:

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/business-tech/science/120112/every-star-milky-way-galaxy-has-alien-planet
http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c2#/video/bestoftv/2012/01/12/nr-milky-way-100-billion-planets.cnn

You can feel even more special.

Seriously, we hear more concern out of our Religious leaders about allowing same sex marriage than we do the killing of 10's and sometimes 100's of women and children!

Most of your Religious Leaders are in fact political creatures just like most politicians. They might internally be thinking about the killings of 10's and 100's - but they preach what will be most likely to generate attention.

The average US citizen doesn't care about 10's or 100's of people dying in some other country at their hand. To make a point, where was the US outrage about the NATO strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. Pakistan is taking this latest attack so seriously that is has given US forces two weeks to vacate their main drone base!

It's a sad world these days, but leaders of just about all things, be they political leaders, religious leaders, business leaders - all have their own little agenda and they make just the right soundbytes and bring up just the right things to get to where they want to be. Sadly, those agendas very rarely seem to have the improvement of the world in general anywhere in the list.

Why doesn't the govt give Somalis money for acting morally?

Which government? The Somali government? It sounds like calling that a government is being charitable. Warlords might even be charitable. They just started allowing aid into the country for the worst drought in 60 years with 11 million people starving.

The US? We're not really big on spending money overseas except if it's Israel or bombing someone. And, truth be told, we have a terrible record of giving money and aid to bad people only to have to kill them later on after they've killed a lot of innocent people. Though again, the situation is pretty bad already. If there were a way to make the situation worse, the US would be hard-pressed to find it.

Anyone else? Not interested in Somalia or incapable of doing anything. Somalia has been a failed state for a while now.

Once upon a time, a crime had to be witnessed, or it wasn't a crime. And, in general, only an expert or an officer of the court was considered to be "reliable". Today, no witness is required, no experts and no officers of the court need be aware of any supposed crime.

I'm not aware of any time or place where that was true except under Islamic Sharia Law.

How many murders do you thing are actually witnessed by an officer of the court??? Surely you can't be suggesting someone should be able to stab you to death and rape your wife and get away with it just because no Cop or Officer of the Court was there to witness it?

What the hell did you really mean to say?

There is a general trend of alarmist hysteria surrounding nuclear power

You mean hysteria like this?

“Fukushima is going to kill 200,000 from increased cancers over the next 50 years.”

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/japan/110415/fukushima-death-toll-meltdown-chernobyl?page=full

It was all over the news and is a known controversy with the show about the continual racist comments.

Here is a news article about the show slamming Mexicans: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/mexico/110201/BBC-racist-mexican-stereotypes-top-gear and http://www.nowpublic.com/world/bbc-apologies-top-gear-racist-comments-about-mexico

Germans: http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Germans-up-in-arms-over.2686710.jp and http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/text/apps_aprjun2006_text.html

Gays: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6189163.stm

If you watch it all the time you must have known about the ongoing racist issues with that show. I'm guessing you don't actually watch the show at all.

I've backed up my statements and stand by every one of them as the truth.

Great news everyone. The war is OVER.

Yes, it's been Godwin'ed.

From http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/110320/libya-lybia-gaddafi-war-us-nato-jets-air-nazi-hitler: ...
Muammar Gaddafi says Libyans are armed for a long war and that allied forces were "the new Nazis." ...
The leaders of Britain, France and the United States will "fall like Hitler... Mussolini," he said. ...

At least 15 people have been admitted to hospital with symptoms of radiation poisoning after a devastating earthquake damaged Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant, Kyodo news agency said on Sunday.

http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2011/mox_reactor_coolant_loss

One hundred and ninty people have been reported as being in hospital with radiation poisoning, Slivyak said.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/japan/110313/japan-tsunami-earthquake

At least 22 people are known to have been exposed to radiation and were being treated in hospital; Japanâ(TM)s nuclear and industrial safety agency said that as many as 160 people may have been exposed.

Saudia is #3 but it's a far smaller supplier than #1 Canada.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/100726/top-7-us-oil-importers

That's because we get the a majority of our oil from Canada. Top 7 suppliers of oil to the US

More 9/11 hijackers were from Egypt than from Afghanistan and Iraq combined.

(but of course one shouldn't extrapolate too much from a sample of 1 data point)

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/egypt/110101/coptic-christian-bomb-attack-cairo-egypt-qaeda-alexandria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_massacre

The recent problems were ostensibly over the permanent "state of emergency" (sound familiar?) keeping Mubarak in power, but they were organized by the Muslim Brotherhood, so I can't really sympathize with them.

Exercise burns carbs and then fat. Trouble is, the carbs we take in our daily diet still outnumbers that which I burn from riding 10 miles each day.

Then you needed to eat fewer calories, and not just from carbs. Low carb diets work only when caloric intake decreases. (If you consume 3000 calories of fat and protein and burn 2000 calories, just what do you think happens to that other 1000 calories?)

In fact, people can lose weight on either low carb (preferable a vegetarian low carb, if one doesn't want to shorten one's lifespan, since a typical low carb/high protein diet has detrimental effects of coronary blood flow) or high carb diets. The problem is caloric intake, not the proportion of macronutrients in the diet. If carbs are to blame, why does Japan have one of the lowest obesity rates in the world and a diet still centered around rice? And why is that obesity rate increasing as the diet Westernizes and becomes less carb-centered? It's nothing to do with carbs versus protein or fats, it's serving size, sugar, and exercise patterns.

People seriously do not understand nutrition or how diet and exercise work.

Yes, and the belief in the effectiveness of low carb diets is just evidence of this.

Anyway, congratulations on decreasing your caloric intake and losing weight, even if it took belief in the effectiveness of pseudoscience to help you do it.

"Silvio Berlusconi claimed that complete freedom of the press was not something which should be guaranteed in any democracy"

http://www.globalpost.com/webblog/italy/ill-winds-blowing-sardinia

A portable phone with pictures is nothing compared to suddenly living in car-powered cities vs. agricultural existence.

Maybe it is not comparable to the agrarian hunter gatherer vs. industrialized society-gap, but everyone being able to film and upload in seconds does make an impact. (I headed here from the ongoing discussion over cops not wanting people to film them; some balance of power is shifting here).

The toys may not matter much in the lives of the individual, but neither does a car in itself. Living in a society where everyone has a car, and products can be moved about with ease, does make a difference - and so does living in a world where everyone can share anything with everybody.
The profit-motive and gadget-fever western society is so wild about right now is making huge, serious changes elsewhere:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/sms-fights-malaria-scourge-in-africa/
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/ghana/090527/africa-looks-cell-phone-banking
And that whole outsourcing thing we are seeing the tip of now...

If it's done properly, it's not a threat to liberty - require a warrant, etc. It's well-established, whether we like it or not, that our use of the roads by default gives up a bunch of rights - so it's not like this is anything new.

The issue here is that it's not going to be done properly. The British government is *very* willing to give police powers without warrants. For instance, their police can already get CCTV footage or hack into personal computers without a warrant.

Frankly, if they're already allowing that, it would be downright bizarre to deny police warantless access to licence plate tracking information. This is only, relatively speaking, a small incursion into citizen's liberties, but the British government seems to be engaged in a systematic plan of small incursions into the people's liberties, and it makes me glad I don't live there.

"I'm willing to bet that the Vatican would be most interested in hearing about/excommunicating those involved. Suffice to say that's not even SLIGHTLY kosher (for lack of a better word)."

Pedophilia isn't technically approved either, yet Church payoffs to shut up victims are totalling around a BILLION dollars in the US alone, the scandal is spreading, and the shell game of hide-the-pedo (as opposed to the duty to instantly turn over such predators to the police for public prosecution) is continually being exposed.

http://www.americancatholic.org/News/ClergySexAbuse/

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/europe/Sex-Abuse-Scandal-Threatens-Popes-Focus-on-Europes-Chritian-Roots-90097932.html

http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2010/03/17/sex_scandal_embroiling_catholic_church_in_brazil/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/opinion/25thur1.html

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/ireland/091126/abuse-report-catholic-church-dublin

I'd like to see all priests get what Father Geoghan got in prison. The enablers are as guilty as the predators.

They want money because when people send stuff it makes the situation worse rather than better.

Doubt it. The US lost not for any other reason except for the fact that the Vietnamese were fighting for their freedom. I don't know the original quote, but it's alluded to here (Posted by Gico Dayanghirang on April 2, 2009 11:16 ET). Consequently, that's why they'll lose Iraq and Afghanistan.

Are you saying that out of any extensive experience or did you just pull that little factoid out of your bum?

I thought National Geographic did a report on the underground electronics trade thriving in parts of Africa, but am not finding a link. Here is something from a site I don't know much about, but it matches what I have heard elsewhere about the underground trade in product made from 100% salvage material: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/ghana/090427/cell-phone-waste

The first time something breaks is just the beginning of the product life-cycle. The GP would have been better off with different phrasing, but I think this is what was being referenced. This African underground has been reported on television and the net.

The close of the nomination does not limit the consideration time for the candidate.

Since it's the prize that is being argued, read what the Nobel committee said about why they gave it to him. You may not agree with their decision but it is theirs to make.

“We want to emphasize that he has already brought significant changes,” Lundestad told GlobalPost, citing Obama’s focus on multilateral institutions, dialogue and negotiations, arms control and nuclear disarmament, as well as the environment. “All these things have already taken place and this already has had a very significant impact on international relations.”

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/worldview/091009/outstretched-hand-nobel-committee-gives-obama-boost

As for what has actually accomplished, please visit this page to see 100 of them in the first 100 days. There are more. I didn't feel like posting all of them. Argue what you will but if you don't bother to read and only focus on your will I suppose you'll never learn anything but faith in your own opinion. You seem to think that world events can be finished like cooking french fries at McDonlads. It just isn't that simple. Starting a negotiation between certain countries is an accomplishment at that level.
http://www.nsnetwork.org/node/1281