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I am sorry to hear, but one personal experience doesn't make it a rule.

CONCLUSIONS. Delayed cord clamping at birth increases neonatal mean venous hematocrit within a physiologic range. Neither significant differences nor harmful effects were observed among groups. Furthermore, this intervention seems to reduce the rate of neonatal anemia. This practice has been shown to be safe and should be implemented to increase neonatal iron storage at birth.

source:http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/117/4/e779

I agree with a) Moreover, you can add c) to that: too many unnecessary Caesarians

As for b) please read this carefully: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/oct/16/sudden-infant-death-syndrome-children?INTCMP=SRCH From the same study you can conclude that putting a baby in a cot is dangerous, full stop.

Co-sleeping is as far as I know practised by the majority of human population, and has been practised for ten thousands and ten thousands of years. Think of it, from an evolutionary point of view, especially based on the very limited capabilities a baby has: what's to be expected: a baby in a crib some distance from the mother, or the baby sleeping against the mother's breast?

Or in short: co-sleeping is dangerous on the sofa or if you're severely drugged, or severely drunk.

Stop spreading misinformation, especially making them into facts while they are just misinterpretations of facts and hear say by doctors who probably want to move on to the next patient ASAP since time = money.

"I have twenty terabyte backups NIGHTLY. I am required to keep certain tables (files by another name) for seven years"

Tell that to News International ...

And freedom of speech certainly does NOT mean freedom from any consequences at all.

Free speech is meaningless if you go to jail for it.

Also, it isn't just 56 days without freedom, he is very likely to get beaten up and raped (*) while in there.

56 days of hell.

(*) Yes, that DOES happen in the UK not just the USA.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/may/02/male-rape-prison-jail-howard-league

Yes, well this is why all of the top physicists in the world are still interested in the question of whether or not it's possible.

Yes, because SR might not be the last word on the subject and we all hope it ends up being wrong in a way that allows FTL or our Star Trek fantasies will never be possible.

But according to SR, FTL is impossible. Not only does trying to transform from a sub-luminal to an FTL reference frame give undefined answers, it also would result in violation of causality.

Since you're obviously unfamiliar with this idea and may not trust WP as an authority, you can find many such discussions. Einstein's own book "Relativity: The Special and General Theories" discusses the prohibition against FTL as one of the first corollaries of the theory.

As I said not *all* models predict it as a possibility, however most of the current ones (as in, the ones since we've had particle accelerators that actually give us some meaningful information about these things) leave it as a possibility.

Most of the models you're talking about make no statement on the subject except in so far as they're based in part on Special Relativity which does.

No particle accelerator experiment so far has given any indication that SR is wrong. The one possibility for an experiment that did, OPERA, and which physicists correctly deduced threatened SR and possibly one of its underlying assumptions, such as causality, turned out to be a mistake. Their result could not be reproduced.

You're carrying around a popular misconception of Special Relativity. That's okay, I once too mistakenly thought SR did not really prohibit FTL, just doing it with a rocket or some such. Then I learned what the theory really said and what this really implied about causality, which SR assumes. You should do the same.

If his requests were ignored it was because he had no right to them under existing law. He would have been held due to making war as part of Al Qaeda regardless of his citizenship, much as non-German nationals fighting for the German army would have been held unless there was some special mitigating circumstance.

Yes, perhaps. Except that there is no evidence that some of these people ever had anything to do with al Qaeda. These were just innocent men who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or at least that's what all the evidence that has been presented appears to make them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/mar/14/terrorism.afghanistan

The tards in power aren't connecting the dots, even now.

When the tards in power have their agenda messed up by foreign competition they know exactly what to do. None of this is lost on them.

They have always understood the situation. The left supports it due to your second point; exporting industry to Asia while simultaneously erecting a vast statist regulatory regime for ourselves is optimal. Meanwhile, the right enjoys huge profit margins earned by manufacturing sans regulation in third world hell holes with disposable labor.

Unlikely he would be able to enter the country, based on what happened to the other guy: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/06/michael-savage-sue-jacqui-smith

By the way, this is an extreme decision. Don't take it as a normal occurrence. I've said some pretty off-colour things on twitter and I'm fine.

You're living in a country without freedom of speech right now.

Anyone who says this should be made to do a 4 week mandatory tour of the world, looking for this mecca of free speech that they seem to imagine exists. The US is among the top countries in the world regarding free speech, and countries with any sort of free speech are in the minority.

Go talk with the billions in India, Russia, and China about free speech and right to protest, and then contemplate that North America and Western Europe may have problems but are a far sight better than what about 70% of the world lives with. Bonus for those complaining about the 1% is when you realize that by living in these areas (NA, W. EU) you place yourselves among the top 5% economically in the world. You ARE the 5%.

Regarding the Occupy guys, what a joke. They illegally occupied private property for months waiting and hoping for a police response, and they finally got their wish after ignoring eviction orders. For all the flak Tea Partiers got, at least they got permits and permission for their demonstrations; why are the occupy folks exempt from such laws?

For the record, just because the national mall (or a park on Pennsylvania Ave) is "public property" doesnt mean you can break out a coleman tent, set up a bonfire, and declare it your residence indefinately. Public property means that everyone can have access to it, rather than you monopolizing it for your group for months on end.

The bottom line is, the UK takes racism more seriously than the US

The bottom line is the US takes free speech and the dangers of state censorship (or superinjunctions, or frivilous libel suits) more seriously than the UK, apparently. Im not aware of the US government being able to direct legislators on what they may not speak on, or preventing a news outlet from reporting on what is said in an open session of Congress.

Our culture is one of excessive indulgences and avoiding responsibility.

Ours was founded on avoiding recreating the type of government we fled from 200 years ago.

We had a similar thing in the UK with the riots a few months ago - there was a prison sentence of four years for someone who called for his friends to come to a riot on facebook, even though no-one other than the police turned up. The naivety is with the people that think it's acceptable to incite violence or make racist comments because it's on the internet. This is usually because they think thing like twitter and facebook are some big anonymous system and they won't get caught, whilst ironically in the UK this behaviour is currently less tolerated than similar crimes committed in person.

That protection is not necessarily absolute.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2003/nov/24/mondaymediasection6

I made a similar submission this morning regarding this issue.

This guy is being prosecuting for making critical remarks about British soldiers.

These guys were sent to prison for encouraging rioting on Facebook.

The BBC has more information here.

Everyone believes that Democracy won the cold war over Communism, but given what's happening in the west today, how true is that?

I made a similar submission this morning regarding this issue.

This guy is being prosecuting for making critical remarks about British soldiers.

These guys were sent to prison for encouraging rioting on Facebook.

The BBC has more information here.

Everyone believes that Democracy won the cold war over Communism, but given what's happening in the west today, how true is that?

You realize Adobe is discontinuing Mobile Flash right? Why should they invest any resources into a dying product? There may have been an argument around the time of the original iPad when we thought flash on mobile devices would live on, but now? That would be nuts.

Oh please. This is /doctrine/. Every company in China which employs more than three party members has a party office on site

economist.com says 13% of companies have relationships with the Party. It is not every company. I checked Huawei's background and here is the article that says there is no government involvement - no party in Huawei

Maybe nobody wants to create a diplomatic incident by mentioning that Huawei employees are sometimes actually Chinese intelligence agents. And they WERE caught red handed trying to steal info elsewhere. Why do you think they've been banned in India?
There's nothing wrong with their products/ source code. Plenty wrong with the their spies posing as technicians.
The PRC, by the way, IS completely abhorrent and counter to Australian values. Or human values actually.

They're baseless because there's no evidence. They're mud-slinging which appears to work due to the rampant fears of "Reds under beds". The allegations may be true, they may be false, but they're baseless and unsupported by evidence. Some Huawei might be intelligence agents (actually in such a large company, it's not improbable, but the same would apply to Cisco/Nortel/Juniper), some Huawei employees might also be space aliens sucking your bodily fluids. Hey, baseless allegations are so easy to make.

As for why they're banned in India, I dunno, possibly due to protectionism and/or corruption. Evidence, here's an article from the Guardian with a public figure Subramanian Swamy willing to substantiate those complaints about the Indian telecommunication spectrum auctions. Or is the theory that the India government found something nefarious, but didn't want to tell the world and get a leg up China more plausible?

Now, if you want to ban Huawei because of something their government did, fine. States the grounds publicly and allow all public tenders to be conducted under the same rules. But don't be surprised if no company is able to bid. Meanwhile, for a project that's expected to cost around A$43 billion, this stinks to high heaven of some corrupted backroom dealings wasting Australian taxpayers money.

'It didn't show that these people who took aspirin were also more likely to take supplemental vitamins nor did it attempt to show exactly how the aspirin worked its "miracle."'
Supplemental vitamins don't increase life expectancy

Hmmm, that's odd, this "news" story reads like one of those ads trying to sell me something. Is this ancient Chinese secret or midwest housewife research?

Neither, it was on TV news last night. It's a peer-reviewed study with unexpected results. Here are a couple of more reputable sources than the stupid FA that I didn't bother reading:

Can aspirin really reduce the risk of cancer?
Studies Link Daily Doses of Aspirin to Reduced Risk of Cancer

Unfortunately, many folks seem to pick the least reputable rag they can find as a link for their submissions, often their own blogs.

Aspirin isn't for everyone. Kids under 16 shouldn't take it, especially if they have the flu, and if you have stomach or digestive problems, hemophilia, or a few other conditions aspirin can be dangerous.

I wonder if Naproxin Sodium prevents cancer? I stopped taking aspirin when the patent on Alieve went away.

Don't be silly, it won't be 200F in July.

If it was as much above normal in July, as it is currently in March here in Chicago, the daily high would be 127, with an overnight low of 94.

Fun stuff, isn't it?

I know it's kinda an interesting anecdote, but it's not as funny when heat waves kill tens of thousands.

We would be seeing similar problems in the US if we had a heat wave of 127 with a low of 94 for several days in a row. It's not the average Slashdotter that would have problems, it's the elderly, the already ill, the poor, the young, et cetera. Those who are already vulnerable to severe temperatures. And to say nothing of the brownouts due to a huge city like, say, Chicago all running the AC at full bore 24x7.

Unfortunately, the Corporate Apologists in America would be sure to point out that there is no climate change problem and it's "All Obama's Fault" (tm) in any case, so we'll get nowhere.

It's really starting to look like we won't wise up and do something about our environmental destruction until it's too late.

The interesting question is whether, if the US stops printing dollars, the existing physical dollars would become less valuable (no more state backing) or more valuable (no more state printing).

It would follow the pattern of every other country that stopped printing their own money and started using "something else". We have fine examples all over Europe from when all those countries changed to the Euro.

For a while, the dollars would not change in value. Then the backing country would stop honoring them so they'd drop drastically. After a (probably long) time, they would regain some value as rarities.

I don't know, how much can you sell a Dutch guilder for on the open market these days? Here, or here, or best answer here. Until 2032 a guilder in paper is still worth a guilder. Coins, not so much. Old siver and gold guilders are valuable, just like any old gold or silver coin. Run of the mill modern stuff? Less than the cost of the metal, probably. Just like the US penny currently.

I'm talking about this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/sep/17/metallica.guitar.hero.loudness.war
http://www.wired.com/listening_post/2008/09/does-metallicas/

Replying to a troll, and a bad-mouthed one as well, but the WHO figures are at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/mar/22/us-healthcare-bill-rest-of-world-obama

Somewhat offtopic perhaps, but effiency of large-scale projects is relevant here. Also if there is more money left over from essentials, and I consider healthcare an essential, there is money for R&D

true: Apple, directly or indirectly, uses child and slave labor to make consumer electronics.

true: So does everyone else.

true: You don't care.

If you want to cause change: Either mass-protest ALL of these companies and their products (good luck!), or do a startup if you have a better idea.

Otherwise: Stop pretending and continue loving your "precious" at all costs while screwing underage Chinese girls, you disgusting pedophiles.

As far as devices go, Apple has been the greenest and most friendly to manufacture. Not that I would have guessed the 12 years ago.

Bullshit

Apple is doing better, but only after people started saying "wtf".

I think Daisey using Foxconn's name in relation to the Hexane poisoning was probably the tipping point. A hexane poisoning incident did happen but it was a different company, Wintek. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/22/chinese-workers-apple-nhexane-poisoning Daisey using Foxconn's name made his monologue sound too much like journalism which it never was. But it was good muckraking.

Did you pick that article on purpose? Because it sure pulls a nice Daisey itself. Forgetting to mention that Wintek has many customers apart from Apple, and that they used n-Hexane cleaning all products.

I think Daisey using Foxconn's name in relation to the Hexane poisoning was probably the tipping point. A hexane poisoning incident did happen but it was a different company, Wintek. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/22/chinese-workers-apple-nhexane-poisoning Daisey using Foxconn's name made his monologue sound too much like journalism which it never was. But it was good muckraking.

they takin our jaaabs

Queue jumping rapists more like it

What other culture besides these muslims condone rape and force rape victims to marry their rapist?

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/002-rape_adultery.htm

http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.couriermail.com.au/travel/news/queensland-woman-tells-of-her-jail-hell-in-united-arab-emirates/story-e6freqwo-1226028684306&date=2011-03-27

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/1856/bangladesh-sharia-brutality-raped-girl

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jan/04/france.jonhenley1

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7708169.stm

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-nsw/sharia-law-applied-secretly-in-sydney/story-e6freuzi-1226057808947

and, of course, this is where it is all going to end up:
http://weaselzippers.us/2012/01/05/australia-islamic-leader-wants-to-implement-sharia-law-in-heavily-muslim-suburb/

Do you want to have these people in your country?

No, seriously. Australia takes all sorts of refugees from all over the world. Having thousands of muslims forcing their way in is not good.

Someone knocks at your door. Your daughter opens it. A muslim man bashes his way in and rapes your daughter. Your daughter is now forced to marry this rapist or face death by stoning. How do you feel about this?
Just don't say anything to your local cleric or you will stand in the pit with your daughter as they stone her to death.

If you think this is complete horse shit then you either need to read more about the topic, or go live in a muslim country for a while

Australia has taken in the English, the Italians, the Greeks, and a whole host of other countries. So far as I can see they are friendly and welcoming to just about anyone. But. Can you blame them for not wanting a bunch of self admitted rapists?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2005/nov/15/usa.iraq

the stories checked out, and were real events... it just turns out that Daisey didn't personally witness them.

And that they didn't involve Apple products or Foxxcon.

wait... what?

This American Life checked the gross facts of his monologue, and THEY CHECKED OUT. Apple has had trouble with n-hexane poisonings, and child labor.

Sure neither of those involved Foxxcon, but they did involve Apple products.

"I am far from an apologist for Iran, but Ahmadinejad never said that he would wipe Israel off the map."

No, he just printed that on the side of long range missiles instead:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/sep/23/iran

So was it a mistranslation when it was printed on the side of long range missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads too, or?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/sep/23/iran

Your posts are usually insightful, but this was really one of your worst to date.

"The whole reason that Iran and North Korea even began pursuing nuclear weapons is because of that incredibly stupid "Axis of Evil" speech that George Bush made in 2003."

Not true at all. North Korea was involved in nuclear weapons development before this, as was Iran. Iran actually originally stopped post 9/11 because of concerns of how a vengeful and angry post-9/11 US might react to this. It certainly didn't start then.

"Due mainly to Israeli and U.S. propaganda, a lot of people seem to think that Iran is building nukes to attack Israel."

Well I think Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech about whiping Israel off the map was probably part of it too, some have suggested it was a mistranslation, but I think when they have also placed the slogan on a bunch of missiles it kind of clears up any misconceptions about whether it was a mistranslation:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/sep/23/iran

"But the fact is that Iran has never shown itself to be a particularly hostile or irrational nation in any military sense."

What military sense is that? when they tried to mine the strait of hormuz in 1988? or the war by proxy they've been committing in Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, and Afghanistan? If you mean Iran doesn't roll tanks across borders then yes you're right, if you're implying they carry out no hostile external military action then no, you're completely and utterly wrong. Iran plays things by the CIA rulebook - proxy wars and covert destabilisation.

"And even despite the anti-U.S. rhetoric that followed the revolution that overthrew the U.S. puppet shah and the U.S. helping Saddam Hussein during the Iraq/Iran war, Iranians have been surprisingly open to U.S. diplomacy in the past. They were even one of the first countries to offer the U.S. condolences after the 9-11 attacks, and in the pre-Bush years maintained a stable, if sometimes tense, relationship with the U.S."

I actually agree with this, a massive chance was indeed missed post-9/11. When Iraq still had Saddam in power and was a viable independent nation with a strong military it kept Iran in check, and Iran was, as a result willing to try and outdo Iraq via diplomacy. When America invaded Iraq they took away the best counterbalance going to Iran and Iran gained confidence as a nation that felt it could then go it alone to gain influence in the middle east without politics.

"They're a country that seems to want to be liked on the world stage. But they're also a country that wants to send a message to the U.S. that they're not going to stand by and be invaded on some U.S. oil grab."

This is where I begin to disagree. Without the counterbalance of Saddam they have become overconfident, they do not care what the rest of the world things and their leaders have become drunk with power. The poor and poorly educated masses are abused as a tool to suppress the intelligent and afluent people who have gained a thirst for greater freedoms, they're now willing to murder en-masse if necessary. This is no longer a rational leadership, this is no longer a leadership that wants to be liked.

"You do those four things, and you won't need to cut off their banks to get them to the table. They'll be *running* to get to the table."

No they will not, because they still sincerely believe Israel must cease to exist as it does now, they will still support Hezbollah, and Hamas, they will still take advantage of the weak political leadership the US has created in Iraq and Afghanistan to try and exert greater influence in these places, and they will still pursue their nuclear agenda because they believe it is a rallying point around which they can bolster their waning political support.

The only way you will defuse problems with Iran now is with a collapse of their government from the inside and THEN go down the route you suggest, of a charm offensive. The alternative is to hav

No-one is going to read 329 warnings, but no-one is going to read sine tables either. Biomedical Informatics - and indeed any form of information clearing - is useful to the extent that we can avoid information saturation and filter down to what is actually important in some specific case.

There, of course, is the crunch. Services like PubMed are highly restricted, so the number of people with the skills to write data digestion software AND who have access to the data AND who have an interest (even a contractual one) to write such software is also going to be highly restricted. This limits the number of algorithms out there for analyzing the data and, in turn, limits the capacity of medical experts to make use of what is out there.

Has the full table of drug interactions been publicly published, in a machine-processable format? My suspicion is no. Given that repeat studies don't get published, as a matter of policy by journals, refutations of this analysis won't get documented and therefore any errors will be perpetuated. It doesn't help that medical journals are expensive to publish in and are biased in favour of sponsors. Further, because this is a meta-study, it is subject to the problem that 2% of scientists are guilty of misconduct and that patients are now so hyped up about side-effects that mis-reporting as a form of hypochondria may distort the results. It's not like doctors conduct tests to analyze these reports. There may not be any errors in this study, but if there are then neither we nor any doctor will know of it. The only obvious way to avoid that is to make analysis of the analysis a public affair.

And what if the table is fully accurate? Given that a tiny fraction of the publications ever get read, how many doctors will have a copy of that table? In paper or electronic form? Given the current economic climate and the tight budgetary constraints, it might take months if not years for the smaller doctor's offices to have databases containing the information. And longer for those databases to be usable in any practical fashion.

or the fact that a 320 slice CT generates so many layers of images that they can't all be carefully reviewed (and an abnormality may be so small it only appears in a couple of them)

That is so very, very true. And the problem is getting worse, not better. Scanners are improving all the time, the human brain is not, and the software used to convey data from the scanners to the brain is all that stands between the doctor and information overload. MRI scanners are up to 13T* - it's not altogether clear why as the 9.1T ones could see individual neurons, but there ya go - but since the bulk of hospitals use 2.5-3T MRIs and software is invariably written for the market, informatics on the BIG systems is primitive in comparison to the volume of data involved. Not that it's terribly good even for the smaller units.

*Yes, I know, 7.3T is the maximum that is authorized in the US for non-research purposes, but research scanners for living patients are much more powerful than that. And research is where you want the BEST informatics, particularly in this case because repeatability is going to be a serious problem.

The financial disincentive is the debt you must get into to train : a medical degree consumes 5 years, rather than the usual 3. In addition, the latter years of the degree have a much higher ratio of work to leave than a typical undergraduate degree course - in my 4th year, I had 4 weeks of leave, all of which were spent cramming for exams. In previous years, I had been able to work labour jobs over the summer to supplement my living expenses. By the end of my fourth year, I had an overdraft.

When I studied, there were no tuition fees, and students were still eligible for the "student grant", which together with student loans and a small stipend from my parents, kept my bank balance in the black until the end of that fourth year. Not without sacrifice - unlike my colleagues who seemed to be out boozing every night, my largest luxuries were a pizza and a few pints on a Saturday night. Oh, and a lack of crippling debt.

Fast forward to this century, where UK students are liable for tuition fees. My old alma mater charges £9,000 per annum - the maximum permitted. You can expect most medical schools to do the same. That's more than 3 years worth of the loans I took (adjusted for inflation, that £9,000 would have been worth about £5,300). My living expenses used to be about £3,000 per annum ; in today's money that's more like £5,000, which would give you a debt of about £70,000 at the end of it, assuming you have no source of income - which is not unreasonable, given that you are studying hard (9 to 5 every day, unlike the liberal arts courses with their 2 hours of scheduled lectures a week).

The average reported level of debt is £24,092 for 2011 ; however, tuition fees have only recently risen to their current levels ; prior to 2012, they capped out at £3,290 per annum. You can expect the attendance at medical school to drop like a stone this year.

That wouldn't help at all. The Islamists still want to convert the world to the Islamic faith and Sharia law, and unite it under a single Muslim government - the Caliphate - combining church and state. Read Bin Laden's Letter to America - they ultimately want the same for every country - convert to Islam and establish their flavor of Sharia law. They will keep killing people and overthrowing governments if they can.

Iran has threatened to cut off Europe's oil during winter with the expressed purpose that people freeze to death. That has nothing to do with Jews. You apparently don't understand the problems, can't identify a useful solution, and substitute genocidal fantasies in their place. That doesn't bode well for you.

No, people will pay even if they share. The idea that you need copyright to make a living from creative works is flawed.

Not just law. Also, the constitution. Also, the senate. Also, the house. Also, the executive. Also, the judiciary.

All of each represent a very small part of the society.

Also, pretty much anyone who is well educated, formally or otherwise.

Oh, I couldn't find data that showed the acceptance of copyright by level of education, is it online?

Also, pretty much anyone who has created significant IP.

Well, that's called "biased people". I'm sure horse breeders disliked the car as well.

Yes, we will. And if they manage to defeat the ideas of copyright and patent without a suitable replacement, we'll see how many great new movies and songs they get to enjoy as well. Because the relationship there is very solid.

But is it really? It's kinda hard to believe when e.g. film piracy has been rising and at the same time the MPAA was having record profits, year after year, when studies like this appear or when people pay millions for a product that doesn't even exist yet.

I don't doubt that getting money is sine qua non for the development of new content, but I find the claims that copyright is necessary for that money to flow to be far from proven.

Possibly they did. By many of the paintings, there are symbols etched/painted. These are generally ignored, but it is entirely possible that this was proto-writing and new research is going into studying them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/mar/11/cave-painting-symbols-language-evolution

Under the assumption that few will buy but all will share

Flawed assumption. File sharers buy, a lot: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pirates-buy-more-music

Yeah, it's not like the IAEA "declared its latest inspection visit to Iran a failure, with the regime blocking access to a key site suspected of hosting covert nuclear weapon research", or that "satellite images of an Iranian military facility appear to show trucks and earth-moving vehicles at the site, indicating an attempted cleanup of radioactive traces possibly left by tests of a nuclear-weapon trigger", or that there are six binding and currently in-force UN Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran, five of which invoke Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which authorizes force to compel compliance.

It's all pretty much just "propaganda". (And before you go spewing ignorance about how this is "just the same as Iraq", read this.)

If it makes you feel better to believe that the US and/or the West are what's wrong with the world, and that regimes like Iran are really innocent and have just been unfairly targeted by some evil cabal, then I really hope you get the world you wish for: a world where principles of liberal democracy and freedom are not projected and protected — even if imperfectly and with too many mistakes to count — and you'd then see what oppression and "propaganda" really are.

If you are really for liberty and freedom, first thing you would've done would be to abolish all the current western governments.
Not sure if you are an American, but you've heard of NDAA? If you are really an American for liberty and freedom, what's happening to your action on YOUR government who have been destroying YOUR liberty and freedom, and give you a grope on your and your children's genitals before you get on the plane?

Yes, the US and the West are what's wrong with the world, because these countries are not controlled by its people, but are serving the interests of big banks and corporations who give 0 shit of your liberty and freedom. The people who actually do care about liberty and freedom would study history and understand WHO is terrorizing the world (it's certainly not Iran).

Oh, and if my memory serves me right, isn't these "Guardian", "USA Today" sewage stream media the same group who pumped up the war machine for Afghanistan and Iraq? hmmm...

Yeah, it's not like the IAEA "declared its latest inspection visit to Iran a failure, with the regime blocking access to a key site suspected of hosting covert nuclear weapon research", or that "satellite images of an Iranian military facility appear to show trucks and earth-moving vehicles at the site, indicating an attempted cleanup of radioactive traces possibly left by tests of a nuclear-weapon trigger", or that there are six binding and currently in-force UN Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran, five of which invoke Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which authorizes force to compel compliance.

It's all pretty much just "propaganda". (And before you go spewing ignorance about how this is "just the same as Iraq", read this.)

If it makes you feel better to believe that the US and/or the West are what's wrong with the world, and that regimes like Iran are really innocent and have just been unfairly targeted by some evil cabal, then I really hope you get the world you wish for: a world where principles of liberal democracy and freedom are not projected and protected — even if imperfectly and with too many mistakes to count — and you'd then see what oppression and "propaganda" really are.

Sharing and buying are not incompatible:

As it currently stand the purchase once and give away free to everyone is not sustainable.

You're falling for the mental trap they've set up. That situation simply won't happen. People who share also pay: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pirates-buy-more-music

Hell, they buy it even before it's made: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66710809/double-fine-adventure/

The "copyright or bankruptcy" dichotomy is simply false. Maybe there will be less money to go around, but that's all.

You know who will really suffer? People who sell shit and don't take refunds, because pirates try before they pay. But should we really give a crap about them?

Copyright law has been twisted all sorts of ways, but this is the fundamental thing it is in place to prevent: allowing one person to take your work and broadly distribute it without your authorization.

And where I live 40 years ago people weren't legally entitled to criticize their government or leave the country. Laws aren't always right.

These things take time and money to make - not many people can do it out of the goodness of their hearts. Even game developers need to eat.

Two objections:

1. Postal workers need to eat too, should we ban email? Ensuring a profitable business model is not a valid reason to remove essential human rights.
2. The pirate/buyer dichotomy is false. Pirates buy plenty of content.

1) Is there an extradition treaty between your current country of residence and Saudi Arabia?

2) Are you a citizen of Saudi Arabia and is your country of residence a muslim country or one with very friendly ties with Saudi Arabia?[1]

If the answer is No to both 1) and 2) you're not going to get extradited to Saudi Arabia whatever you do.

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/12/malaysia-deports-saudi-journalist-prophet

Dang, first post got eaten. Anyways - on enforcing the law. I did some research. It bans the importation and manufacture of non-compliant bulbs. It doesn't make selling them domestically illegal, nor possession, etc... So unless you're running a factory or importing business, I don't think you have to worry. Just like the toilets. They aren't going to break down people's doors looking for them.

Even you can see the right answer. So why go with a wrong one?

Remember I only stepped in to explain the analogy. Didn't say I agreed with it. I think we can both agree that pollution, especially too much of it, can be bad.

But not from light bulbs.

Let's see: ~70k deaths from air pollution in the USA per year. The UK is 50k. Worldwide is 1.3M per year.
Lighting is 9% of electricity usage.
Eyeballing this and averaging the four sources, I get 24% of air pollution from energy production and distribution. EPA says 67% sulfur dioxide, 23% nitrogen oxide. I dropped CO2. That would be 45%. I'll stick with 24%.

Using a straight blame - 70k deaths from air pollution. 17k would be from electricity generation. 1.5k for pollution from powering lights, on average. 28k worldwide.
So yeah, I can trace thousands of deaths to the pollution from light bulbs. Making matters worse - there's plenty of survivors affected - per 75 deaths there are '505 hospital admissions for asthma and other respiratory diseases, 3,500 respiratory emergency doctor visits, 180,000 asthma attacks, 930,000 restricted activity days, and 2,000,000 acute respiratory symptom days.' Per 75 deaths seems an odd measure to use, but it's what the article listed. That's a lot of lost labor due to the pollution.

As for the baseload vs peak - 'not many lights are left on overnight'? I refer you to this image. And coal power isn't entirely baseload - fire up another boiler, spin another turbine. It might have to be scheduled a bit more compared to hydro or NG, but it's there.

Look, it's not that we don't agree on some things, it's just that, well, if you're going to argue this stuff, you need to do it right, and denying facts isn't going to help. I lean majorly libertarian, but given the pollution levels in my town on occasion,

NATO officials are reluctant to publicly state who was behind the attack, but The Telegraph says China is to blame. The publication quotes classified briefings in which military officers and diplomats were told the evidence pointed to “state-sponsored individuals in China.” The Guardian agrees, quoting a security source who says “the belief is that China is behind this.”

If you're looking at a ranking like this one, then the answer is.. the sample size and actual differences in performance might not be large enough to make any substantive conclusions about the nations ahead of us.

For one thing, fewer than half of the "better than US" nations on that list have populations larger than 10 million (iceland has less than half the population of Rhode Island, even...). Next, the scores of the top 20 or so nations are within about 10%, so I'm not sure that being third vs thirteenth in the rankings is worth more than bragging rights.

Certainly, we should look at what everyone is doing and see what is working and what isn't, but it's not so cut and dry that what we're doing is significantly inferior to what other nations are doing.

The military has now also gone "corporate" (and been infested with Bible Thumpers) such that the old "work hard, fight hard, play hard" attitudes are muted.

I guess you don't keep up with the news: Military Chaplains Mull End of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

I'm pretty sure that "Bible thumpers" weren't involved in the normalization of open homosexuality in the Armed Forces. I think the phrase you are looking for is "political correctness".

Now our opponents AND clients are religious fanatics who BOTH hate "freedom".

Try reading Bin Laden's Letter to America. His demands before his followers would stop trying to slaughter Americans are that Americans convert to Islam, and that the Constitution be replaced by Sharia law. Most Americans would consider forced religious conversion on pain of death, loss of the Bill of Rights, including the 1st Amendment, the treatment of women, the fact that a woman's testimony in court could only be treated as at most half that of a man's, the execution of homosexuals, the prohibition of alcohol in addition to all drugs, and many other consequences of Sharia to be a significant loss of freedom. The Islamists literally do hate American's freedoms as an offence to their values. There is no corresponding movement of any significance to impose that type of law in America by Americans, all fantasies and polemics aside.

Maybe letting homosexuals serve openly will chase off some of the religionists. It should improve Sub Sailor recruiting! (I kid! I kid!)

I'm sure, I'm sure.

Homosexuals constitute approximately 1.7% of the general population. Something like 80-90% of Americans are religious. You would have to work that gay 1.7% pretty hard to make up for any significant loss of religious Americans due to institutional hostility to their faith. But cheer up! I'm sure that the Omama administration finally putting women on nuclear submarines, the navy's diversity policy, and open homosexuality can only combine to make the independant launch capable nuclear submarine force ever more capable and reliable in the hands of its diverse, navy chosen future leadership.
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Isn't the Constitution a myth that got replaced by corporate money?

No, the Constitution is the law of the land that the Islamists want to replace with Sharia or they will keep trying to kill us.

Read Bin Laden's letter to America.

First demand - Convert to Islam. After that, replace the Constitution with Sharia.

We can argue that Euros 58 million is too high and I'd probably agree, but in the end, NATO still has a network that needs security measures applied to it.

How much is 40m pounds stirling?

I read also that one of the reason to put them on the quake-threatened east coast rather than on the seismically more quiet west coast was that the dominant winds blowing eastwards meant that normal gaseous radioactive emissions were to be blown over the Pacific ocean rather than over populated areas. And it happened that during the Fukushima accident, the winds blowing mostly offshore did in fact prevent a much more serious outcome.