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The next step is that it starts eating people directly, seizing their assets and imprisoning/shooting their bodies.

You mean like during the subprime crisis and thereafter, when heaps of Americans lost everything, or as in private-sector prison profiteering?

And it's not just the US government either.

Actually... I nearly only is.

And yet, the limeys are considering the PRISM for exactly what I am suggesting. It comes down to what makes more sense: simply throwing away all of this fuel and then relying on a mix of fossil fuels as well as AE, OR burning up what fuel that you have, so that your TRUE disposal costs go WAY down. And considering that we currently have more than 70,000 tonnes of waste in the USA, that is a LOT of money. OTOH, if we put in new reactors that make use of the old and current sites (minimal EPA studies), use the same factory produced reactors on these sites, and burn up the 'waste', then we can get down to below 10,000 tonnes on this. Now, costs are feasible.

Can't believe I just spent 10 mins reading this guy's wikipedia entry yet this is the most important piece:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jun/28/kim-dotcom-judge-raid-illegal

It's clear that the FBI acting on behalf of the MPAA/RIAA had an overzealous NZ police force keen to impress.

The really interesting item for me was how UMG submitted an invalid takedown notice on a video on Youtube on baseless grounds. I'm surprised that some of the artists didn 't sue the record company.

Except that they admitted to doing it? OMG! Wikileaks itself is a false flag operation!

Duh - "The Avengers" lost money. Every film that Hollywood makes loses money. Especially the ones with the biggest box-office numbers.

Didn't you know, the entire industry is funded by multi-billionaire philanthropists? The only reason they insist on you buying tickets is so they can count how many peoples lives they are enriching.

MS isn't going to hurt the industry as a whole, only the OEMs since it wont reduce sales, just shift them. There's not a lot the OEMs can do about it, they need MS and MS don't need them.
MS can treat the OEMs however they like and they will still keep lapping up whatever scraps they are fed because they have no choice now.

I think you underestimate the importance the IBM-PC clones has had on MS Window dominance (and on the ascent of the Open Source as well).

MS reaction (why am I not surprised?) is "me too", trying to walk Apple's way, but without the perception of "cool, trendy, fashionable" Apple has - so MS has something to lose by reducing the impact surface on its market, especially if it walks in the "hardware exclusivity" area (look how well XBox does - with "unexpected losses" April this year).

On the other side, the OEM-s are likely to consider more seriously other alternatives, e.g. android tablets, low cost all-in-one Android based PC-es, lowish//medium price desktop linux boxen, etc. Won't necessarily be easier for them, but they do have alternatives.

One on top of the other, I bet MS will be the one that's going to be hurt the most.

If you're interested in the process for the craic of the engineering rather than just being a NES fanboy, you could learn a lot from learning the history of the game "Elite" which pushed hardware and software boundaries phenomenally. In fact I'd be curious if anyone could come up with a more impressive game on that front. The best account I've read is in the book Backroom Boys (abridged but good version of the Elite chapter in the link) which I can heartily recommend not just for the chapter on elite but the rest is fascinating too.

The same Mike Daisey that advocates punching Facebook pre-IPO shareholders:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/may/19/taking-stock-after-facebook-ipo

Liar.

GP is not a liar: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa

Bush was (and is) a religious nutbar, and Christianity has a long, long history of religiously-inspired violence that recurs as waves of violently-inclined clergy come to power and preach in favor of same. This in no way excuses the fact that Islam is far more violent at the moment, though.

Religion is bunk. Violent, dangerous bunk. And fucktards like Bush are living proof of it.

Laws won't work. Even death by torture did stop infringement: http://torrentfreak.com/and-when-even-the-death-penalty-doesnt-deter-copying-what-then-110807/

95% of the people will give something back if given the chance: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jul/15/interview-dr-love-paul-zak Creating laws that don't work to try to cope with 5% of the population while ignoring, sorry not just ignoring but preventing the 95% from paying you is the fast track to the poor house.

Meanwhile IV Reich^W^W Israel has had nuclear weapons for decades and routinely "rattles its sword" at neighbouring countries, occasionally launching some conventional assault on them as well.

I wouldn't be surprised if Iran came up with something entirely new in the nuclear energy field and everyone dependent on oil profits wanted to stop them.

Just about every Western European country has more doctors per capita than the US. Yet they also have socialized medicine.

Seems like the theory that socialized medicine results in few doctors isn't necessarily true.

It may be that it is possible to have government run medical care that provides good care, but none of the programs I am familiar with do so.

Canada provides good care. Germany provides good care. France provides good care. MANY countries provide good care. You can't just stick your head in the ground and deny that.

The 5 year prognosis for someone diagnosed with cancer is consistently among the best in the U.S.

It also is liable to bankrupt you, or at the very least destroy your financial situation. Also, while you may have a decent chance of surviving cancer in the US, good luck ever getting new coverage once you've had cancer. No insurance provider is going to give coverage to someone who had cancer unless they're forced to.

Obviously they can and Chinese outnumbering Americans 5 to 1 makes it easier. Given the numbers China should win as many medals as USA + all of Europe + Russia in any sport event. What's suspicious is a female swimmer (no matter the country) swimming the last 100 meters of the 400 m medley faster than the winner of the male race and about 4 s faster than her second placed contender (my estimate). That's unheard of (5 seconds slower than males is par) and passing the antidoping tests just makes people wonder if they used some doping we're not testing for. The male world record for the 100 m freestyle is 46.91 s, the female one is 52.07.

An interesting statistical and physiological analysis is here. The conclusion is "let's wait and see."

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/sep/05/publish-perish-peer-review-science

Sorry, what were you saying about being "right" more often than wrong? Peer review is a system, and systems can be corrupted or overwhelmed. That is exactly what has happened throughout the field. Tiny, closed off sub specialties are especially vulnerable to this effect.

In the OECD, we're near the bottom.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/dec/07/world-education-rankings-maths-science-reading

South Korea, Finland, Switzerland, and Japan are on top.

There is a correlation between those who believe the moon landings were a hoax and AGW cynics (I will not call them skeptics - a skeptic is what Richard Muller is - a person who works on evidence).

Anyone willing to believe in extreme conspiracy theories is, by definition, not working on evidence. They are starting from a conclusion and cherry-picking facts, factoids and tabloid/yellow journalism.

Only the skeptics are likely to be concerned with the results and there simply aren't many of those still opposed to AGW. You need only look at the posts of those hostile to AGW on Slashdot. This is a de-facto nerd/geek hangout, so unlike Yahoo's comment section, the intelligence here is higher than average. The comments, though, are vitriolic, political and dogmatic. They have nothing to do with the evidence or the data, despite the fact that - by definition - these are people capable of understanding both. If you cannot convince the right-wingers on Slashdot, you're not going to convince them anywhere.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/24/anders-breivik-facebook-hatred

No, US politicians (and basically only those at the federal level) are not doing anything about global warming. meanwhile, we're quietly putting solar panels on our roofs, buying more fuel efficient cars, converting to better lighting systems, and building out wind power. There seems to be growing interest in nuclear power (despite what the MSM is telling us), but again, that's up to the federal gov, not the population.

And China, not the US, is the largest contributer to AGW... since 2007.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jun/19/china.usnews

the fact is that 12 members of the general public

12 members of the general public found the Birmingham Six guilty. If a jury can be swung one way it can be swung the other.

Remember that statistically four of the 12 are what might be classed as dim and two are borderline retards.

The simple fact that a manslaughter trial took place is not evidence of serious shenanigans

Way to miss the point, coplicker. It should have been a murder trial.

It's true that the medical evidence was contradictory. But I don't believe that was due to incompetence.

And how about hiding Harwood's violent past: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/19/simon-harwood-not-guilty-ian-tomlinson

"No police officer has been convicted for manslaughter for a crime committed while on duty since 1986."

And the statute of limitations has apparently expired for ABH/GBH so another violent copper is still on the streets.

From the information submitted by the Swedish prosecutor, 4. feb 2011:

B. The aim of the EAW

5. Julian Assange's surrender is sought in order that he may be subject to criminal proceedings.

6. A domestic warrant for the respondant's arrest was upheld on 24th November 2010 by the Court of Appeal, Sweden. An arrest warrant was issued on the basis that Julian Assange is accused with probable cause of the offenses outlined on the EAW.

7. According to Swedish law, a formal decision to indict may not be taken at the stage that the criminal process is currently at. Julian Assange's case is currently at the stage of "preliminary investigation". It will only be concluded when Julian Assange is surrendered to Sweden and has been interrogated.

One of the key findings of the lower court judge (whose ruling was upheld by the high court), after examining all the evidence: "Looking at all the evidence in the round, this person passes the threshold of being an "accused" person and is wanted for prosecution."

Read the ruling (which anyone commenting on the subject should have to read first). In particular, start at "Offence 1" on page 22. Of course, I think the key quote is right before that:

"The framework list is ticked for "Rape"" (concerning the arrest warrant)

That is not in the slightest bit accurate. Or, for a more concise but less referenced version, here.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to even admit to yourself what happened, let alone admit it to others, let alone go to the police? There's a reason most rapes go unreported.

I let my rapist walk me back to my car. What's the point in fighting *after* the fact? No, I never filed charges. I couldn't imagine going through that against someone who's *not* an international celebrity, let alone someone who is like Assange. Yes, it took days before I told anyone what happened to me, but it took about three months before I could manage to say "rape" without trying to couch it in terms like "unwanted sexual experience". You just want to forget about it. You just want it to go away. The last thing you want is to have to relive it and have everyone in the world trying to discredit you and treat you like some slut who's trying to "ruin some poor innocent guy's life". So no, I never went to the police. But if just a couple days after it happened I had happened to meet someone else who the *same guy* had done the *same sort of thing to*? I don't know how I would have reacted, but it definitely would have changed the picture.

Anyway, in case you actually care, here are the actual accusations against him. To which two British courts have reviewed the evidence and found the charges credible.

Hold on so what this article is saying is that once again the free market is taking care of us where the government has failed miserably? But thats not what the democrats tell me. The liberals keep telling me how bad the free market is at responding to, well, anything.

The free market is doing what it does best; taking existing technology and improving it in order to make money. However without the government most of these technologies wouldn't exist in the first place as very few companies are willing to invest in long-term research projects. Nuclear power was obviously developed with government funding, but (large scale) wind power technology was also (by the US DoE and NASA). Solar power developments are not so clear-cut, but the large-scale adoption and falling costs of these technologies are likely due to government incentive programs. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the role of the government.

Most likely lack of exercise to compensate for sitting most of the day contributed to the health risks.

The research has shown that sitting is bad for you regardless of other factors like weight, or whether or not you exercise regularly.

Why Prolonged Sitting Is Bad for Your Health: "adults who sat for 11 hours or more a day had a 40% increased risk of dying in the next three years than those who sat for less than four hours a day. Even after taking into account physical activity, weight and health status, researchers found that the unsettling association held."

Scientists' latest depressing find: sitting down is really bad for your health: "sitting for more than three hours per day cuts about two years off your life expectancy. They added that watching more than two hours of TV per day will cut your life expectancy down another year or so. An even bleaker discovery? Moderate exercise doesn't seem to offset the effects of this excessive sitting either."

It's called a right to bear arms. It's a right because it was considered necessary for the defense of our basic rights.

In addition, most gun related homicides stem from drug or gang violence - and a large percentage of those cases are using illegally obtained firearms.

Some of those "homicides" (depending on the statistic set you're using) may be self defense cases.

So, I'm going to argue that we shouldn't be banning magnets just because some kid is stupid enough to swallow one. I'm also going to argue that banning guns, opposed to banning Bucky balls, does more harm then good, if only because gun ownership does not correlate with homicide.. (Some recent numbers for you)

That illustrates the point nicely, actually. While not as bad as USA, chinas per capita CO2-emissions now matches those of the EU:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/18/china-average-europe-carbon-footprint

Their per-capita GDP is only about 1/7th of the EU, thus you could say pro dollar of valure created, China pollutes 7 times as much as the average EU country.

USA pollutes almost twice as much pro dollar of value created as the average European country, and come of even worse than that if you compared to EU-countries of comparable wealth.

Rapidly declining advertising revenues continue to be the industry’s core problem. The losses in 2011 were slightly worse than those of 2010 – 7.3% compared to 6.3%. Ad revenues are now less than half what they were in 2006.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/business/media/quarterly-profit-falls-12-2-at-times-co.html

The New York Times Company reported on Thursday that its fourth-quarter profit declined 12.2 percent as rising subscription and digital advertising revenue at its largest newspapers could not offset the continued drop-off in print advertising.

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120703-702076.html

Mediaset SpA (MS.MI), Italy's largest private broadcaster, expects advertising revenue in its home market to decline in the first half of 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/may/08/itv-advertising-sales-drop

ITV expected to report first decline in ad revenues for 18 months

http://www.exa.com.au/articles/autumn_09/

Meanwhile, free to air broadcasters have experienced multi-million dollar dives in profits and are writing their assets down as worthless. Channel 7, 9 and 10 are crippled by debt and funding problems in the face of declining advertising revenues and changing trends. Likewise, print media is experiencing huge decreases in both readership and advertising revenue.

http://www.filmneweurope.com/news/romania/declining-ad-revenues-at-romanian-tv

The deficit of the Romanian's public TV, SRTV (www.tvr.ro), decreased by 0.71% in 2011, to €36.7 million Euro, while revenue from advertising was 7.4 million euro in 2011, down 24.06% from 2010.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-15/sbs-admits-financial-trouble/3830502

SBS battling falling ad revenue

http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tutorials/digital-transform/print-editions-decline/

A steady decline in print circulation and a precipitous drop in advertising revenue in 2008 and 2009, especially classified advertising, have taken their toll on newspapers and newspaper chains.

Apparently you have not heard of China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Equador and Bolivia.

China embraced capitalism.
Viet Nam is mixing Capitalism with Marxism.
Cuba is embracing capitalism.
Venezuela is failing at constructing a Communist economy.
Brazil has prospered by not governing from hard left principals.

That leaves you with Ecuador(a mix of capitalism and communism) and North Korea(a completely failed state). That doesn't seem to match up with your paranoid narrative, though, does it?

And you have not heard of the latest developments in Marxism, created by Antonio Gramsci, Herbert Marcuse and Theodor Adorno.

The latest deveopments? From a series of authors who have been dead for decades? Care to elucidate what makes these particular dead men so dangerous to your worldview?

Cultural Marxism is alive and kicking in the West. Just go to an average university and see what books the philosophy/geography students read.

That's funny. I had enough philosophy for a minor, and I never once had a philosophy professor mention Marxism more than in passing. And geography? Care to list out the horrible things students are learning?

Check out what "moderate socialism" did to the economy of Europe.

Oh, you mean the debt based economic problems? How is that different from the US? How is it the fault of socialism?

The Bible says "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" What happened in the Middle Ages was a perversion of Christianity. AND IT HAPPENED 400 YEARS AGO.

WTF are you talking about? I never said anything about the Dark Ages.

Saying that "bin Laden is religious" is as relevant as saying "bin Laden has a long beard".

If you think that bin Laden's actions were due to something other than his religion, then you are so wildly misinformed that I'm not sure where to start.

The probability of a Christian commiting terrorism is the same as a long-bearded man commiting terrorism. Being "similar" to bin Laden in one aspect does mean one is a terrorist.

Holding an irrational belief as your core philosophy is always dangerous.

Pat Robertson is more a politician then a pastor; and he is a televangelist.

No True Scotsman fallacy.

You don't find this kind of rhetoric in Catholic churches.

You are wrong. Moreover, the Catholic church is quite comfortable in claiming that homosexual marriage will result in the destruction of the fabric of society.

The crimes primarily happened 30 YEARS AGO, during the ecclesial chaos that followed the revolution of 1968.

The crimes were horrific. The cover up by the entire Vatican heirarchy was arguably worse. And that cover up and and denial persists to this day. The Catholic church still wants to brush this under the rug.

On average, a Catholic priest less likely to comit such a crime then a publich school teacher, and a Catholic bishop is less likely to cover it up than a public school principal. But you conveniently focus on priests.

And those priests and bishops claim to speak with t

How's this "news for nerds?" Or someone explain me why it even matters?

(right... I started to feel I overstayed on /.)

It's news for nerds because it involves academic plagiarism. It matters because it affects a whole country.

I think (no... scratch that... I know for a fact) the last problem for Romania is whether or not the incumbent PM did or did not plagiarize his PhD thesis (there were 3 governments in the last 4 months...).

Also... I didn't see posts on /. about Greece problems... believe me, what happens in Greece has more impact on the whole world than what happens in Romania.

Actually, I just got a Nexus 7 tablet. M$ is done for. Apple should be scared.

I don't think they have any reason to be worried just yet given the shoddy build quality, screen washout/ghosting, stuck pixels and poor support. Maybe one day, but certainly not now.

Lol, an American calling someone else a xenophobe.

Way to go, Todd.

For your entertainment:

• stop fucking up the rest of the planet just because you're greedy?
• if you stop with that whole "pushing our economic rules on everyone" crap too

You didn't cite a single source.

I thought I was pretty up-front about where those came from, and I don't think I presented it as my own, comprehensive research into the market intricacies of mobile platforms.

But if you wanted my search terms, I think it was something like, "piracy ios vs android" or "developer ios vs android". Going a little further for those who don't want to look...

First one was probably: http://www.diasks2.com/post/20172033158/ios-vs-android-a-comparison-for-first-time
or maybe
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/appsblog/2012/jun/10/apple-developer-wwdc-schmidt-android
or maybe
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2012/05/android-app-sales-piracy-matters-seasons-dont/

There are about a billion more if you care to read them.

Second was probably: http://www.develop-online.net/news/38848/Android-app-pirated-2300-more-than-iOS-edition
Though here's one that says 90% - http://keyeslabs.com/joomla/blogs/i-think-im-becoming-an-android/136-android-the-perfect-piracy-storm
and one that says they had 83%, if you prefer - http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/05/wired-uk-android-game-piracy/

Third was something like: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-ios-vs-android-fragmentation-2012-6
or
http://opensignalmaps.com/reports/fragmentation.php

Of course there are another 8 gazillion results for each of these. I said only what I saw.

That aside, many of these are topics we've covered extensively here on Slashdot. If you think it's all FUD, you're obviously welcome to discuss and I'll be interested to see it. I have no real vested interest in the results besides being a user.

Here you go. That's where the profits are going. Not to your pension. What the #$!@ has a pension anymore? My Dad, Mother-in-Law, and all my friends parents lost theirs.

Milk is a lot more tightly regulated than gas, and for good reason. You don't drink gasoline. Well, I don't anyway.

Finally, you're implying that we're all desperately suckling at the teat of gov't for the sack of our own incompetence (using the loaded term 'welfare state' is a dead give away). I resent this sentiment, because for some reason it's ok to go begging on bended knee to our social betters for enough food and medicine to die a painless debt but taking hold of a a good life is a no-no. Whoops, just loaded my own sentence.

Anyay reread that first paragraph I wrote. We could pay our national debt off tomorrow with what the 1% have in their overseas bank accounts. Funny how that works. How they keep us desperate, on edge, and begging. Almost like they meant to do that...

"...they are fighting because they think their God is telling them to..."

George Bush: 'God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa

Whichever one poisons school children?

You mean the poisoning where no traces of poison was found and no one got sick and died?

Oh, how about the one that sodomizes young children as part of a millennia-long tribal tradition?

You mean Bacha Bazi, which was illegal under the Taliban and punished by execution? And which has flourished since the Taliban were defeated, including the U.S. company Dyncorp pimping young boys to Afghan policemen?

The Taliban are terrible, but there are enough truths to hold against them without making stuff up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRMV7zi4h_k

But maybe US vice-president Joe Biden would agree about the founder of Wikileaks?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/19/assange-high-tech-terrorist-biden
"Asked if he saw Assange as closer to a hi-tech terrorist than the whistleblower who released the Pentagon papers in the 1970s, which disclosed the lie on which US involvement in Vietnam was based, Biden replied: "I would argue it is closer to being a hi-tech terrorist than the Pentagon papers. But, look, this guy has done things that have damaged and put in jeopardy the lives and occupations of people in other parts of the world."

See my other posts citing Chomsky on the double-think and double-standard in defining a "terrorist", which basically comes down to a terorist being defined as anyone whom somebody influential in the USA government does not like. And that apparently includes US citizens:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/07/drone-attacks-lawsuit/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/18/families-us-citizens-killed-in-yemen-drone-strikes-file-lawsuit/
"The wrongful death lawsuit, filed Wednesday, claims that the killings of U.S. citizens al-Awlaki, his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki and operative Samir Khan were unconstitutional. Khan was the publisher of the terror magazine Inspire. ... The lawsuit says: "The U.S. practice of 'targeted killing' has resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, including many hundreds of civilian bystanders. While some targeted killings have been carried out in the context of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, many have taken place outside the context of armed conflict, in countries including Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Sudan, and the Philippines." "These killings rely on vague legal standards, a closed executive process, and evidence never presented to the courts. ... The killings violated fundamental rights afforded to all U.S. citizens, including the right not to be deprived of life without due process of law," the lawsuit says."

And see also:
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/05/29/analysis-how-obama-changed-definition-of-civilian-in-secret-drone-wars/
"As the Bureau's own data on Pakistan makes clear, the very first covert drone strikes of the Obama presidency, just three days after he took office, resulted in civilian deaths in Pakistan. As many as 19 civilians â" including four children â" died in two error-filled attacks. Until now it had been thought that Obama was initially unaware of the civilian deaths. Bob Woodward has reported that the president was only told by CIA chief Michael Hayden that the strikes had missed their High Value Target but had killed 'five al Qaeda militants.' Now Newsweek correspondent Daniel Klaidman reveals that Obama knew about the civilian deaths within hours. He reports an anonymous participant at a subsequent meeting with the President: 'You could tell from his body language that he was not a happy man.' Obama is described aggressively questioning the tactics used. Until now it had been thought that President Obama was initially unaware of the civilian deaths. Yet despite the errors, the president ultimately chose to keep in place the CIA's controversial policy of using 'signature strikes' against unknown militants. That tactic has just been extended to Yemen. On another notorious occasion, the article reveals that US officials were aware at the earliest stage that civilians -- including 'dozens of women and children' -- had died in Obama's first ordered strike

Black and white prints are the safest picture types.

The LOC has restored color photographs from the Czarist Russia of 1910. The Empire That Was Russia

The idea that you could use color filters to record color images on stable black and white media is as old as photography itself. The difficulty was always in maintaining alignment and color balance in print or projection.

The color photograph can change the way you look at an entire era:

"Color Photographs From The New Deal (1939-1943)" , Bound for Glory: America in Colour 1939-1943

The details can be telling:

in the thirties, bulk flour and seed was sold in sacks printed in floral patterns and prints suitable for dress making, as you will see here,

What is it with the desparate need to never, ever blame wackos like this for their own acts?

What is it with people who refuse to see the point and divert to a completely different topic?

There is a big difference between 1 whacko with a machete and 1 whacko with a bomb/gun.

I, for one, much prefer living a society where guns are hard to come by so whackos can't just casually decide to gun down a lot of people. Not saying it never happens, but it happens a shitload less than in the U.S. per capita. In 2010 there were 8775 firearm murders in the U.S., which is 68% of all murders. Over half. Here in Oz, firearms account for 15% of murders.

I tend to think that making it harder for the average person to kill is generally a good thing.

or they can find another party with "Donate" button AND Google ads

The GOP has Google ads and a Donate page. I suppose you may reply and be pedantic and say that the button text is "Contribute" rather than donate, but the text "Complete the form below to make a donation." makes it pretty clear that the action is considered a "donation".

The British Conservative Party uses Google ads and they have a Donate page. The text "Why Donate?" "Make a donation" makes it obvious that this is considered a donation.

And that was just the first two that I checked, I'm sure you can find more examples.

Also, from The Fine Article, it appears that Google is being inconsistent:

the Greens candidate in the state by-election, Cathy Oke, has ads running on Google despite having multiple donate buttons on her web page. "We've sent them screenshots of the donate buttons on the ALP and the Greens sites and they've allowed all of those ads to run," she said. Google said in an email to Patten, seen by this website, that it "doesn't allow the solicitation of funds (donations) unless they're tax exempt". The Sex Party is an Australian political party and so, according to the ATO, donations are tax deductible. The party specifies this on its website.

He wants an ever increasing carbon tax to phase out pretty much all CO2 production, and transition to electric cars run by clean power.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/06/nasa-scientist-climate-change

Actually, he had something to say about it. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/video/2012/jul/05/stephen-hawking-higgs-boson-bet-video

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jun/12/diesel-fumes-cause-cancer-who "Reclassifying diesel exhaust as carcinogenic puts it into the same category as other known hazards such as asbestos, alcohol and ultraviolet radiation." The electric hybrid bit helps but yeah... diesel is bad. Stinks too.

How Google sees itself: http://i.imgur.com/cnqsX.jpg. Where do I even start? If governments were relly serious on attacking organized crime they would go against money laundering, all the way up to the top. Instead, we have this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18866018/ And this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs/ So, dream on...

When ever I read about Sony, I recall this one: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2007/may/28/sonyuserscrew

Special 'screw', indeed.

Unfortunately as usual the greenpeace and anti-GM rent-a-mod luddites are against it because ... well I've no idea really

Because nobody has any idea about the long term implications of using GMOs, or what might be going wrong. They make them, decree they're safe, and then say unless there's evidence to the contrary, they must be.

GMO crops can affect biodiversity, and in the case of Monsanto pollute other people's fields even when they aren't using it, and when it's sent for food aid the recipients are told they can't keep seed to plant next year because they're not "licensed" to grow corn.

It's the law of unintended consequences, really. Except that people take the default position of "what could possibly go wrong?", until something does.

If you think people are against GMO food because they're luddites, then you're an idiot.

People are against it because there's no evidence it's safe either, and there's a lot that can go wrong with it. In fact, there's loads of examples where it has.

Genetically modified pigs have ended up in the food supply and contaminated crops.

It's like pharmaceuticals. The company who makes it has a vested interest in selling it, so if they take a few shortcuts, or leave out the evidence they don't like, or outright fabricate their evidence -- well, then we don't really know what we're getting, do we?

I'm far from a luddite, but I see an awful lot to suggest that people are doing this, doing a piss poor job of actually keeping tabs on it, and not always being up front about it when it goes wrong. With some things (say, thalidomide) you only discover the disastrous consequences after literally years.

Feel free to exercise your choice to eat those things. Me, I'd prefer to avoid it. There's just too many accidents and questions that I'm not convinced there are good enough answers yet.

Newspaper and websites want eyeballs so they can sell advertising and make money.

Naivete is one thing. Willful ignorance is another.

Climate sceptic mining billionaire's bid for control of Fairfax Media threatens its journalists' editorial independence

Gina Rinehart, head of Hancock Prospecting, has upped her stake in Fairfax Media and is fighting for seats on the board in what is seen as a growing battle for editorial control of the newspapers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/jun/27/gina-rinehart-fairfax-climate-change

Do you actually get better management by paying $100M per year than if you pay $1M per year?

Apparently, most shareholders believe that the answer to that question is "yes", especially at the biggest blue chip banks like JP Morgan and Goldman. Although you will notice that the Citi board, which has not done as well in recent quarters, received some fairly stern questioning of Vikram Pandit's bonus. In fact, I think that they eventually forced him to accept a substantial cut as a result of the worse than expected performance. Sounds like the system is working to me.

I thought Goldman Sachs were the good guys?

Since when? Goldman Sachs has always been a nest of vipers. Watch the videos of Lloyd Blankfein lying through his teeth.

And while you're at it, note how Warran "Wise Grandfather" Buffet always closes ranks with these crooks.

A Google search for "3D movie sales" seems to give quite consistent results:

• - "Hollywood was quick to jump on the 3D bandwagon, but ticket sales are falling." (The Guardian, UK)
• - "3D ticket sales are continuing to fall in North America" (Film Junk, NA)
• - "Despite a Huge Box Office Year, 3D Sales Are Slipping & Hollywood Worries" (BruSimm)
• - "3D ticket sales hit a record low in US" (TechRadar)

So your claim does not seem to hold water at all. In fact, just about every single source you can find will either show that 3D is consistently dropping across the board (not just 3D TV sales, but just about everything 3D), or will be some movie business people trying to convince themselves and others that 3D does rock, and people do want it despite the tanking sales..

What groupthink do you subscribe to, since your claims seem to counter reality? And why the accusations of groupthink against people who are pointing out the 3D failure?

This is a PR move by the FBI. It makes them APPEAR to be an actor for justice - it matters of little consequence, except those personally involved.

Another oxymoron for America? How about "Justice Department"?

4 Years - and not ONE criminal indictment perused against the "investment" and reserve Banksters. Surely, the FBI could better spend their time and resources to ensure that the entire country is safe from another criminal fraud, costing tens of Billions, no?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/05/06/why-can-t-obama-bring-wall-street-to-justice.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/20/wall-street-role-financial-crisis

http://www.propublica.org/article/why-no-financial-crisis-prosecutions-official-says-its-just-too-hard

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/nov/10/should-some-bankers-be-prosecuted/?pagination=false

http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=30979

BTW: The Fed knew about LIBOR fixing specific to Barclays and beyond... in 2008.
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/07/14/barclays-employee-to-ny-fed-2008-we-know-that-were-not-posting-um-an-honest-libor/

So what's our precious FBI doing about examining THAT evidence?