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Here is a link to the story

If you want detail and proper in depth reporting for free, try reading the guardian.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/wmdquotes.asp
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/kathleenparker/ kp20040410.shtml
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040618/D839DV0O1 .html
http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9902/13/afghan. binladen/ (note date)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,36 04,314700,00.html (also note date)
http://www.kultursmog.com/Life-Page01.htm
http://www.kultursmog.com/Life-Page02.htm
http://www.independentsforkerry.org/uploads/media/ kerry-iraq.html
http://clinton.senate.gov/speeches/iraq_101002.htm l
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FD03Aa02.h tml on on the "worldwide support we have squandered"

Losing? Lost :)
Land of the Free and the Brave
A German car salesman says that a year ago he was kidnapped in Europe, beaten and flown to a US-controlled jail in Afghanistan. Now the German government is collecting evidence to back up his story. James Meek hears Khaled el-Masri's account of life in America's secret offshore prison network

This says most of what you need to know about the Media Lab, I suspect.

Last week I was off the coast of Greece on my yacht ``Nippo-bux'' (I put the ``raft'' in ``graft,'' as I always say) with my close personal friend Al (``Al'') Gore. He asked me ``Nick--er, Hunter, how do you do it? You maintain a research staff of, in the words of Albert Meyer [an underfunded Course VI professor], `Science Fiction Charlatans,' yet you never fail to rake in monster sponsor bucks? I could fund Hillary's socialized medicine boondoggle in an instant if I had that kind of fiscal pull.''

I told him that it's merely a matter of understanding our sponsor's needs. Our sponsors are represented by middle-aged middle-managers who need three things: Booze, good hotels, and hookers. Keep 'em busy with free trips and the slick dog and pony shows, provide them with pre-written notes for their upper-managment, and the money will keep rolling in.

Do I worry that one day some sponsor will wake up and say ``Wait a minute--what the hell did I do last night? Did I shell out a million bucks to fund a LEGO Chair in the Media Lab? Tequila!'' Over the years I've learned not to care. I could pull the cigar out of W.C. Field's mouth and sell it back to him at a profit. And he'd thank me for the deal. I'm that goddamn good.

Originally, a large proportion of the Irish government's funding for university science research was going to be diverted into MLE. (Although to be fair the total funding was going to be enlarged as well.) Good riddance. Blame Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern. Evidently he got high on the media lab's promotional vapours. (Another gullible suit.) This isn't the first time he's pushed a grandiose, expensive, misconcieved pet project which eventually dies in an embarrassing fashion.

Apparently this has been seen in Holland among people who use greenhouses to grow vegetables, that for some reason the greenhouses weren't staying as warm as they used to. This effect is one of the strongest confirmations of dimming. Thad Beier

In Soviet United States, users are too much for spam and spyware.

Regards,
Kilgore Trout, CEO

When humans get to Mars, keeping it Antarctic-pristine will be the last thing on their minds. A leaked document the Guardian has obtained from the year 2600 spells out the whole remarkable story.

The difference is that influenza doesn't have a 20% mortality rate in the general population. Influenza rarely kills healthy adults. If SARS were not contained, it could have easily killed a lot more than 10,000. Imagine a respiratory infection that spreads as easily as a cold that kills 1 in 5 of everyone infected. I think we had good reason to be nervous at the time.

unlike French, which has an official language institute, an arbitrary organization's style guide does not dictate "correct" English in either of its major variants (although such things are useful reference points in both). try google searches for things like "BT are" site:co.uk or "GNER are" site:co.uk for a rather lengthy list of examples from British speakers, including folks like the Manchester council leader. i can point you to a substantial collection of press releases by British companies if you like, too. this is also certainly common practice in speech in England (or at least in London, where i lived for a good while). even a search in one of your own publications for, say, "BT are" site:guardian.co.uk yields a number of relevant hits (although to your publication's credit, most - but not all - i found before i stopped skimming google's second page are quotes from other people).

i will certainly concede that this practice is not universal in British English - Vita Nuova has recently changed their web site to treat the name a singular, for example - but then, such was never my claim. i claimed that British folks speak this way. perhaps i should have explicitly included the "tend to".

There's a decent piece in today's Guardian about patents on software. Interest declared: I wrote it.

How about this: some of the documents were an insanely bad forgery. Humorously bad. They were easily recreated in Microsoft Word with the default settings. No settings need to be changed - the default margins, tab-stops, and font all matched up perfectly. Pixel-perfectly.

Read this and this and summarise just HOW exactly that the documents could be created in Microsoft Word is relevant. Also, you are completely wrong about "default settings" as anyone with a cursory knowledge of the debate would know.

CBS's mistake was in insisting the documents were primary sources, when they weren't. It still isn't clear whether the documents are forgeries or genuine, CBS just could not prove they were genuine, nor did they go through appropriate steps to find this out, this is why they are being punished.

Nothing Fox News has done has come anywhere near this

How about just making up a statement by Kerry and reporting it as news?

I first heard about advertising on people's foreheads in 2003 in this article.

Although it does look like this guys current $15,099 is slightly better than the £88.20 offerend in the Guardian article.

"The agency, Cunning Stunts, is offering students up to £88.20 a week to wear a corporate logo on their head for a minimum of three hours each day. The brand or product message will be attached by a vegetable dye transfer and the students will be paid to leave the logos untouched."

It is not the displacement you have to worry about, but rather the introduction into the ocean of a large volume of fresh water. See this article to read exactly what could happen.

Another good read on the topic is the piece by Zoe Williams in The Guardian titled The Final Irony.

Another good read on the topic is the piece by Zoe Williams in The Guardian titled The Final Irony.

If you check one of the links in the Betamax Wikipedia article you linked to, you'd notice this article debunking the Betamax player superiority as a myth.

The article has several good points, although it's sometimes hard to tell what can be attributed to hindsight and what can't. Anyhow I think it's safe to say that "Betamax > VHS" is a huge oversimplification.

I believe in intelligent design.

+1 Ironic

-1 Moronic

About 100,000 Iraqi civilians - half of them women and children - have died in Iraq since the invasion, mostly as a result of airstrikes by coalition forces, according to the first reliable study of the death toll from Iraqi and US public health experts.

the Guardian online section has an article on this speech. It doesn't mention communism though, concentrating mainly on the relationship between MS and Consumer electronics companies.

"Gates grins and bears it
The Microsoft boss endured a few jokes at the US gadget show, but the software giant is starting to overcome consumer mistrust, reports Jack Schofield"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,1384 586,00.html

So, unless our systems are far more fragile and easily corrupted than the Russian's (who didn't have any major problems) ours would have been fine as well.

Yeah

I still question just how fragile our system really was (is?)

Finkployd

The rumours were even the subject of the non-computing Pass Notes column in yesterday's Guardian. I'm definitely interested in whatever it is Apple are going to announce, but there is always the possibility that it's, say, a $600 Mac, or just a new word processor.

The rumours might be accurate in part, but perhaps terribly inaccurate in other ways - and could significantly undermine the true products if they're seen as inferior to the imaginary ones. If that's the case, I can see why people at Apple would be upset...

Actually, Benjamin Zephaniah's reasons were a bit more complicated. The long and short of it is what the 'E' in the OBE stands for, and its history. More details in this article, from the man's own mouth.

Yeah, I'd spend my vacation there! Unfortunately, Survivor has booked the whole place for the 387th season. You pay for your ticket, then they vote you off. The title is slated to be Survivor: Rip-Off Island.

Not to mention that I probably missed a few.

3.8 million in Congo

There are laws on the books forbidding murder in every country - yes. However, that doesn't mean they are followed (remember Iran has the fatwa against Salman Rushdie - and don't even get me started on China honoring copyright laws on the books). Furthermore, the people we are talking about are NOT concerned with national laws. They are adherents to a radical, and distorted, view of Islam which expressly sanctions murder of innocents (cf. Section V. Killing Women, Children, and the Elderly is Permitted for one example.

Saddam did not "back" Radical Islamic terrorism any more than Islamic terrorism backed him - they were fellow travelers who found each other useful upon occasion. (see Weekly Standard article or, if you feel the source is too impugned despite the footnooting, how about the UK Guardian. Even the 911 report stated "Bin Ladin was also willing to explore possibilities for cooperation with Iraq, even though Iraq's dictator, Saddam Hussein, had never had an Islamist agenda-save for his opportunistic pose as a defender of the faithful against "Crusaders" during the Gulf War of 1991. Moreover, Bin Ladin had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic army." Chapter 2

So, while there is no evidence that that 9/11 was directly plotted by Saddam, there is a -lot- of evidence of other cooperation on a variety of traning and supply matters. Add into that Saddam's demonstrated willingness to use WMD on his own population and against Iran in a war he started, then the case for preemption becomes stronger. Not that the case is proven, but statements like "The current administration got all their facts about Iraq plain wrong" ignores the evidence out there (much of which is contradictory, admittedly) as well as the consensus pre-war intelligence estimates of the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, etc. etc.

yeah.. like cracking down hard on dissenters. I believe that when someone tries to overthrow a democraticaly elected government by force, a stronger word than "dissenter" is appropriate.

That was at first. Spain, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, the Philippines and Thailand withdrew their troops in 2004. And other countries are very seriously considering it after seeing it is not the parade they thought it would be.

Afghanistan? still ocupied by US forces and frankly it hardly counts as a country. Of the list many are third world countries ("out of power") that felt the pressure of Bush administration and contributed a very small number of troops, just for the photos.

Few first world countries contributed significant numbers of troops, mainly UK but in those countries the polls usually were much against sending troops like in Spain (even Foxnews accepts this). Blair doesn't get support from it's own party.

You couldn't even convince Canada and Mexico, your two neighbors. That should tell you something.

I'm writing this mostly on memory but you would have read it anywhere in the last year provided you don't just read one-sided media like Fox, CNN or Rupert "$20 a barrel oil" Murdoch's media.
But you really don't want to hear other people opinions, or you would already done.
And I didn't even touched the motivation of the war, that started pissing countries in the first place.

What if I just believe in Iron Maiden Airways :)

Granted there are some clean diesel engines available in Europe. Why aren't they here in the U.S.? Incidentally there's no reason diesel and hybrid technology can't be combined as well. I would expect to see such cars sometime in the next several years.

It is also worse then what the last generation of Petrol gets as well.

What the heck is "the last generation of Petrol"?

I'm not at all familiar with the three models you cited from Daihatsu and Toyota. Are they midsized (like the Prius), compact (like the Honda Civic), or subcompact (like the Honda Insight)? I just want to make sure it's a fair comparison.

Honda Civic Hybrid has better fuel consumption and better dynamic characteristics

Are you using the 2004/2005 Prius in your comparison, or the earlier ones? I think your information is old; here's an article to bring you up to date. Note that the Civic Hybrid gets worse mileage, and is slower than the Prius in the 0-to-60 acceleration department. Insight is a bit quicker and gets better MPG, but those things are tiny. BTW, when California has just increased fines for exceeding 100 MPH to $750, who cares if the top speed is 115 or 130?

No, we don't have to wait for abuse. What I am asking for is an example of how it can be abused. Once you leave the store with the RFID, how in the hell are they going to track you?

For example, if you buy clothes (which most larger supermarkets now offer), you may well be wearing them when you return to the store. Combine this with RFID readers in the shops to "prevent shoplifting" (which could just as easily be prevented by putting those items at the checkout), and you now have shops which can, if they wanted to, track customer's every movement. Just like mobile phone companies already do.

"Micro$oft does help the American economy and has aggressively stood up to Chinese thugs in Beijing when they demanded that Micro$oft censor links, on its search engine, to Tibet and human rights. I thank Micro$oft for its distinctly American approach to bashing Chinese thugs"

Sure about that?

oh and google makes a great spell checker for those complicated words like "pedophile"

1. Huh? To look it up, surely one would need to know how to spell it?
2. This here google thing, does it explain what upper case letters are for?
3. Whoosh!
4. That's how most people (at least the shellsuit clad rentamob who burn doctors' offices) pronounce it.
5. It's "paedophile" anyway.
6. Why do you think I put it in quotes, dumbass?
7. Did I mention whoosh?

to do the 2004 edition of the quiz.

According to the the guy who's maintaining the quiz it means:

"To know where to find anything is, after all, the greatest part of education."

I admit it's similar, but definitely more elegant.

coupla point from the FA

'Q2: How do you make the quiz Googleproof? "I do put the questions through Google, and change some to make it more unlikely that the answers will be thrown up immediately, but there is only so much I can do in that respect." Q3: What do you consider to be cheating? "There's nothing I would regard as cheating. If you want to do it entirely through Google, good luck. The only question is, will it reduce your pleasure if you do so?" That is, perhaps, the best question Cullen has posed so far, to which the correct answer is: "Yes."


also, in earlier years 'If you weren't sure of the answer to a question, but it had nothing to do with Bruges, Delft, Dickens or Austen, it was probably Queen Elizabeth.'

in even earlier years, success would be rewarded with half a pint.

I believe Alan Cox does this quiz every year.

Here is another Guardian article with some more information about the quiz, as opposed to the quiz itself, which is ridiculously hard. It tells a bit about the author (quizmaster) of the quiz and other bits of useful information like the fact that they take the quiz once before winter break and then once after winter break after having some time to prepare responses using any means available (including the Internet, which is one reason it has gotten harder in recent years -- the author wants to make sure that google is all but useless).

Anyway, I'd hate to have to take one of these, and the last thing I want to do over break is look up 180 obscure questions.

You haven't been keeping up with modern governments.

Ok, you don't live in the UK but this is exactly what you are saying they aren't thinking about.

They also want to bring in ID cards in the UK.. and then people wonder why were a little paranoid.

Other things they have done in the last couple of years include,

Detailing someone for an unlimited period without charge.
Removal of the right to trail by jury so some crimes.
Removal of the double jeopardy rule, where you can't be tried twice for the same crime.
Banning fox hunting (I don't agree with fox hunting, but then I think it should have been left to die out).
Banning hand guns.
Banning fireworks after 11pm.
Imposed an automatic fine of £60 if you don't get you car tax in time.
Reduce the age of criminal responsibility (famously reduced by the opposition leader about 10 years ago, making a 12 year old girl prostitute responsible for their actions)
And the list goes on and on and on......

They don't sort out problems any more, they just ban the activity and watch you.

The journey time with nuclear propulsion is said to be 20 years, but yes I forgot about the actual build time. I just re-read the article , they hope to launch in 2016. So it'll be 30+ years I have to wait!

And that's only if NASA select the mission.

The really sad thing is the UN has more blood on its hands than the US right now, and Annan got out of it without any real criticism.

I presume your talking about Oil for food scandal it's a bit early to say he got away without criticism or that he even deserves some if he does I will be the first to do so but to prejudge is not very intelligent a denotes partisanship.

If you discount the terrorist leader Saddam Hussein and his vast "Republican Guard" terrorist army, yes there were not terrorists there. I guess those guys meant diddlysquat in Iraq. Abu Nidal, one of Saddam's guests? I guess he was a peaceful Nobel prize winner.

In fact, the terrorists ruled before Saddam's aggression forced the US to fight back. Iraq used to be about 100% terrorist ruled. Now they only control dwindling pockets.

Yes, all the enemies of our Dear Leader GW Bush are TERRORISTS (tm). All despots, dictators and other figures on our bad side ARE DIRTY TERRORISTS WHO WERE PROBABLY INVOLVED IN THE 9/11 ATTACKS SOMEHOW, SEE THEY ONCE HAD A TERRORIST LIVING IN THEIR COUNTRY, SEE? WHY DON'T YOU LIBERAL TRAITORS GET IT?

I mean it's not like the US has ever harbored terrorists, right? (of coarse not, they ain't terrorists if they be killin' commies!)

So much of a risk that they have threatened to nuke us, and we didn't take it seriously.

That's right, North Korea threatened to attack us a month BEFORE we attacked Iraq.

In our small country , England , the Govt would charge the old lady , for scaring the burglar.

Nope. Only for shooting him in the back and killing him.

Mmmm, not the ol' dirty bomb myth again...

Considering the age of the planet, versus the age of the Human species, it will. Oil takes several tens of millions of years to form while under great pressures while the human species has only been on this earth for maybe 3 million years. Millions of years from now, oil will renew its self, and chances are heavily in favor of an extinction event occuring some time before them regarding the human race. So yes, petrolium will eventually renew, and will outlast the human race, because we will not be inhabiting the planet to extract the oil.

If you are reffering to the current oil reserves, (which I assume you are), then it is almost inevitable the impact on the human species due to inadequate oil supplies will take hold. Ranges on the peak date vary somewhat, with 2007 being the earliest generally accepted date. The USGS predicts peak extraction will occur around 2025, and this is considered a "best case" scenario. One only needs to look at previous data to confirm that M. King Hubbert was correct in his 1970 peak extraction date for the contidental United States. The CIA also performed a study in 1977 regarding the upcoming Soviet Oil Crisis (doc ER 77-10147). Interesting to note is the fact that this report was not declassified until January 29, 2001 even though the USSR had collapsed almost 10 years earlier.

Peak Oil is a well known phenomenon, only this time, it is taking place on a global scale, and not only on a reigonal basis. Due in part to the lack of sufficient energy, the Soviet Union no longer exists. The United States also outspending the USSR also contrubuted significantly to thier collapse. This situation is also being repeated with OPEC reducing the amount of funds held in USD in favor of the Euro and Pound Sterling, as well as Japan threatening a "Huge Dollar Sell Off". Enjoy the good times while they last, for they may not last long.

The former Baathists would disagree with you most strongly. Or if you happen to be an Arab journalist (Al-Jazeera). Or if you happen to be a doctor, nurse or aid worker in Falluja and might be counting the number of Iraqi casualties. You might want to read this for details.

If you truly feel that the political leadership of America is simply that evil, why aren't you forming a resistance movement to stop it?

I am, but the US govt won't let me into the US to do that ;-) Your worldview seems to be very polarized. There are other colors besided balck and white, you know.

Agreed whole-heartedly! But in Iraq you'll find some very dark greys...

I believe that Guardian Newspaper ran a small campaign a few months

I believe that Guardian Newspaper ran a small campaign a few months

I believe that Guardian Newspaper ran a small campaign a few months

I believe that Guardian Newspaper ran a small campaign a few months back in their science section about "Dr" Gillian McKeith, the author of "You Are What you Eat", a number 1 book and popular TV programme over here in the UK. It turned out she'd actually got her doctorate from an online institution (it may even have been Trinity Southern, I forget the name) - either way, it was "accredited" by the same bogus board as Trinity Southern (and if you've read her book, it's pretty obvious she has no clue what she's talking about - chlorophyll is apparantly "high in oxygen", and "the 'blood' of the plant will really oxygenate your blood." when you eat it...depite the fact there's no light in your gut...).

The Guardian's point was that millions of people were buying this book under the impression she was an accredited doctor, when in fact she was nothing of the sort. However good her advice may have been, she was still misleading the public over her credentials... see http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0, 12980,1285600,00.html

In a similar theme, the journalist in question got his cat a "nutrationalist specialist" certificate...