Slashdot Mirror

You're able to use Google, aren't you? Like all of this stuff it wasn't a secret. One example: "Bush rejects Taliban offer to hand Bin Laden over" http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5 - Heck - I guess I don't care if the US wants to be a war machine. It doesn't cost me much - My businesses are based in the Cayman Islands. If you're a US citizen, which I assume you are, you're the one paying for it. And the fact that the Taliban asked for evidence of guilt? Boy - Will you be surprised if you are summoned to a US court for an infraction of the law and the judge just says "Guilty" without trial. You'd be very happy if the judge says "Guilty, and we don't need evidence of your guilt." That's what is coming to the US (check recent legislation). I assume you know that no US law enforcement agency (FBI, etc.) ever issued an interpol warrant for Bin Laden (no evidence of guilt). Then the US murders Bin Laden to ensure no court proceedings would take place. Even funnier is the US armed and enabled Bin Laden in the 1980's so the Mushahadeen could fight the Russians. It's all political games.

The problem with ads is that they, like top 40 music, are much more heavily compressed than movies or newstalk. The maximum amplitude isn't any higher though. So what measure of "loudness" is it going to be? Because if it's amplitude, then this law will do precisely nothing.

I suggest implementing the Don’t Be a Dick protocol and sentence offending sound producers to “rehabilitation” imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay.

@ Prior to the iPhone, the standard practice for cell phones were for handset makers to make phones for carriers with their carrier branding on the case and carrier specific apps permanently installed on the phone. @

You forgot to add "in the USA". You could get unlocked, unbranded phones in Europe before iphone and sure you can get it after.

On Android you know which app has which permissions, but you don't with iOS.
Having this piece of news in mind, talk about Apple's "protect the privacy" is very ironic:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone-tracking-prompts-privacy-fears

I don't think you understand what privacy is. Privacy protects information that can identify a "person" specifically things like your name, address, phone number and government issued ID numbers. Privacy policies do not protect statistical information like what was contained in the log file. It does not identify a person. Devices do not have privacy rights and you agree to give access to your phone identifier number to your carrier when you sign up for service. The only time location because a privacy concern is if the location information is tied to your account information which was not the case for the log file.

You are doing disservice to consumers who actually have real privacy risks from using the Android platform. Don't forget that Google is an advertising company and not a consumer technology company. They do not view consumers as they customers. There is also the real risk of downloading malware from the marketplace because google does not have proper vetting processes in place.

iOS does not require a series of allow/deny prompts beyond location services in third party apps because Apple has a strict set of guidelines for what an application can access and they vet all of their apps in the app store. You can always go into location services in the settings app and turn location services for specific apps off and or turn off location services entirely.

@ Prior to the iPhone, the standard practice for cell phones were for handset makers to make phones for carriers with their carrier branding on the case and carrier specific apps permanently installed on the phone. @

You forgot to add "in the USA". You could get unlocked, unbranded phones in Europe before iphone and sure you can get it after.

On Android you know which app has which permissions, but you don't with iOS.
Having this piece of news in mind, talk about Apple's "protect the privacy" is very ironic:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone-tracking-prompts-privacy-fears

The Lynmouth flood, which might have been the inspiration for the Kate Bush video "Cloudbusting".

BTW one of the women who was competitive with the top men snooker players moved to something more profitable: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/nov/08/allison-fisher-pool-interview

Go figure ;).

It is classically disingenuous, hypocritical and opportunistic for the Conservatives to declare the Liberals would not honour Kyoto.

The main obstacle to progress on Canada's carbon reduction is the Harper Conservative government's devotion to the vastly damaging oil sands projects, and its greedy cronies in Alberta. But lying and manipulation is what Conservatives do best.

An extraordinarily offensive advertising campaign is currently running in Canada defending this ecological disaster with photographs of beautiful wilderness.

In the US, they just stop you from voting if you are in a group likely to vote the wrong way.

And we wonder why the US can't manage to get 50% turnout even in a presidential election year?

In Texas, student ID cards are no longer be valid for voting; neither are ID cards issued by the federal Veterans Administration. All those students and war vets need to do is go buy a gun: concealed weapons permits are acceptable at the polls.

Republicans all sing from the same hymnal on this one: voting must be tightly controlled to prevent fraud. Never mind that there is no fraud. Indeed, the Brennan Center found that voter fraud is so "exceedingly rare" that "one is more likely to be struck by lightning than to commit voter fraud." Mickey Mouse was not allowed to register. Paul Newman did not vote from beyond the grave. Hordes of undocumented Mexicans have not stuffed ballot boxes (though a great many new, legal Latino voters have registered in Florida, Texas and other large states).

But why let the facts get in the way of rigging an election?

If we are only so lucky. How does a 4 degree increase strike you?
Global emissions targets will lead to 4C temperature rise, say studies

Research says that that is a cognitive illusion, that the smart ones AVOID the financial industry like the plague.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/oct/30/daniel-kahneman-cognitive-illusion-extract?INTCMP=SRCH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/apr/12/businessglossary110?INTCMP=SRCH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/feb/03/research.science1?INTCMP=SRCH

Research says that that is a cognitive illusion, that the smart ones AVOID the financial industry like the plague.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/oct/30/daniel-kahneman-cognitive-illusion-extract?INTCMP=SRCH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/apr/12/businessglossary110?INTCMP=SRCH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/feb/03/research.science1?INTCMP=SRCH

Research says that that is a cognitive illusion, that the smart ones AVOID the financial industry like the plague.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/oct/30/daniel-kahneman-cognitive-illusion-extract?INTCMP=SRCH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/apr/12/businessglossary110?INTCMP=SRCH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/feb/03/research.science1?INTCMP=SRCH

Grow up...and learn to use Google. http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/drivers-at-fault-in-majority-of-cycling-accidents-28489/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/dec/15/cycling-bike-accidents-study The vast majority of cyclist injuries and fatalities are due to driver error or the driver breaking traffic laws.

Then you'll need to get your information somewhere besides hotair.com.

I knew someone would get all huffy about that.

See, here is the issue. I would love to link to a more "reputable" source than HotAir, because some predjudiced people cannot look beyond a name at facts. But that leads us to a HUGE problem:

There isn't another source, even though there SHOULD be.

The facts of the matter are very clear are they not? The interference with the GPS, proven. The donations of Philip Falcone to the Democratic Party, well documented and public.

And yet WHO in the "reputable" media made this very easy and very pertinent connection for us? Is that not in fact the very role it is vital for the media to play, as watchdog for just this kind of ultra-slimy influence peddling? This is the easiest story in the world to find evidence to show to us all, and yet only Hot Air and other "fringe" media bothers to make the simplest of connection.

The real problem is that the "reputable" media is utterly lost to partisan concerns, death afraid that "their side" may lose something. I truly respect the role the media plays in shining light on the doings of politicians everywhere, and welcome weeding out corruption. But you cannot weed only looking at half the garden.

So until the point when the "real" media decides to start acting like JOURNALISTS again, I'm afraid you'll have to suffice with information from reputable sources linked together by media you obviously despise - because no-one else is doing that job. I would argue you should probably look at the facts of the matter rather than who is pointing them out; I can discern truth both on HotAir and on HuffingtonPost as required. If you were smart you would seek to do the same rather than get lost in the echo chamber.

It's not like I go out starting fights. But I will defend myself if I'm assaulted, robbed, or my home is broken into. This is not an "if", this is practically an absolute. If the odds are stacked against me where I can't go hand to hand, I will escalate my response in order to survive and/or protect other innocent folks.

Meanwhile in Britain, a man will likely end up in jail for defending his home by killing an intruder.

In the linked story, I would have likely done the same thing. If I ended up in jail, so be it. I'd rather life a good chunk of my life in prison than let someone I care about die, but I'd really prefer to live somewhere where there aren't laws that I believe to be rather insane to say the least.

The following is what I could dig up on the effects of multi-lingualism. It does impact the brain in many different areas and there appears to be a growing belief that learning a new language at any age will have a pronounced impact on your ability to think and reason, but that if taught young the improvements are far more dramatic still. I didn't want to clutter the submission with this stuff, especially as these studies don't have nearly the same level of rigour as the MRI scans of the taxi drivers (where a whole host of variables can now be examined directly versus the somewhat more indirect studies done on polyglots). They're also a bit more controversial, with opposing studies claiming that the benefits either don't exist or don't exist in the way that is claimed.

http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/0012brain.html
http://www.sfn.org/index.aspx?pagename=brainbriefings_thebilingualbrain
http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/11/10/cognitive-ability-improved-when-bilingual/20740.html

(Press coverage adds yet another level of indirectness and potential sources of errors, but there's still some useful info here)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/science/31conversation.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3739690.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/feb/18/bilingual-alzheimers-brain-power-multitasking

The impact of music on learning is also not very well studied - I can find press links that talk about the research, but not much actual research.

http://www.livescience.com/5327-music-memory-connection-brain.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070801122226.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3095807.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12135590

However, the story gets MUCH more complicated...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15791973
http://www.mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/misc/amnesia.html

There IS a fascinating "reverse" case, where alteration of the brain resulted in a remarkable alteration in musical ability, but as far as I know there has been no real work done on what changes the brain has undergone as a consequence of the new obsession.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Cicoria

If anyone can add to the list, that would be great, especially for the different areas you were mentioning.

Been done and the consensus is that Nobel-winning physicists like ponies and limericks but not Higgs bosons.

Well, that's not strictly true. There has been a backlash against skinnier male mannequins and you do see them in some clothing stores. I blame the emos.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/dec/08/samsung-loses-iphone-4s-france?newsfeed=true

They only reason the plant became a risk was due to the land dropping a meter.

Where do you people get this kind of bullshit? The run-up was 13-15 metres, the typhoon breakwater (which btw was only intended to protect the harbor) was only 5 metres high.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Fukushima_I_Nuclear_Power_Plant

TEPCO knew about the risk of a 10-meter tsunami, and ignored it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/29/fukushima-daiichi-operator-tsunami-warning

Even TEPCO's own report says they fucked up the risk assessment:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/fukushima-not-prepared-tsunami-tepco-report-102155428.html

You didn't read about Anna Nicole Smith's take down of the Bahamian government? Obviously she was working for the CIA..

But seriously, the weather... I was talking about the people who 'leaked' the documents.

This is relevant because it changes expectations about what sort of safety preparation the plant should have received. For example, many have talked of TEPCO ignoring historical precedent (such as you have) while ignoring that the plant was to enter the process of decommissioning.

The license extension did not come out of the blue. It was a process drawn out over several years. TEPCO fully expected and hoped this to happen, they even re-analyzed plant seismic safety and concluded everything will be A-OK.

I disagree. There were cracks in the structure (here, the "pit"). These didn't impair the recovery effects, but they may have contributed to radioactive water leaks which the plant has experienced.

I give you official conclusions of the plant operator, as supported by facts and modeling, you give me speculation, i.e. bullshit.

Geography can greatly amplify or diminish the effects of tsunami (which is what happened in large part at Fukushima, but not at a nearby plant in Tokai). It's like saying North America's eastern seaboard sees extreme tides of 16 meters, just because a small component, the Bay of Fundy does.

Obviously, the terrain at Fukushima WAS and IS conducive to a tsunami upswell. So, keeping the scale about the same, it's like saying Palm Beach may get hit by hurricanes because Orlando was hit a couple times. IOW, not that much of a stretch.

Actually, they most likely did work selflessly and continually even when they were evacuated from the site.

Speculation. Worse, it ain't true.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/16/fukushima-workers-evacuate-radiation-spikes
Direct quote from the article, person cited is Yukio Edano:

The workers cannot carry out even minimal work at the plant now. Because of the radiation risk we are on standby

I wish I could be smug just laugh at India and its stupid corrupt politicians.

Unfortunately this kind of hare brained ideas aren't limited to the third world.

In Australia the filtering plan seems to be on hold for now, but you don't even need a slippery slope argument to know how batshit insane and scary the idea of a secret internet censorship blacklist is: http://nocleanfeed.com/

Or have we already forgotten the UK plan to censor social media during times of social unrest: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/aug/11/uk-riots-day-five-aftermath-live#block-33

Think of how easily that could be used in the style of the Arab governments to cripple organised protests against the government.

Or we can mock India for wanting to intercept and read Blackberry messages, and ignore the implications of legislation like the Patriot Act: http://politics.slashdot.org/story/11/12/02/1923207/patriot-act-clouds-picture-for-tech

Or have we forgotten the domain seizures to try to block pirated content with no due legal process: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/domain-seizures-defended/

Even extending to attempts to block a Firefox add on: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20060636-281.html

Blocking sports streams when they still cannot find a way of offering pay per view streaming of major sports events over the internet, where your only way of viewing a couple of hours of sports content a week is to sign up for an expensive cable package that gives lots of stuff you will never watch and THEN purchase an extra expensive add on for the sports content. And the US government is protecting that business model by seizing domains with no legal notice or court enforced legal process.

I would love to be able to just mock India, if we could afford to be that complacent...

Several people have mentioned Google Books versus the Guilds, but not much about individual authors who are in favor of a different copyright/distribution system. Ursula LeGuin's arguments against the settlement seem to boil down to, "It's mine!" and I didn't find many of the other names on the list of co-signers very impressive. Of course the Steinbeck estate got some media attention, but the man himself is dead.

One of the most radical things about this settlement for small authors, I think, is that it would establish a baseline of profit-- 37% that they got from Google Books, no matter how obscure they are. I knew a guy who broke onto some Amazon top 10 list for a few days, but he got less than a dollar per book, despite selling tens of thousands of copies, so he's going to have to keep his day job. I'm not sure what his agreement with the publisher was for subsequent editions, or if there was a limit to what they could print, but he will never have the clout that Ursula LeGuin does when she talks to publishers.

For the vast majority of minor authors, real success will depend on word of mouth. So I really doubt the motives of all these "big name" authors who have come out against the settlement. For the small guys, Google Books might actually help them get fairer contracts, and have better control of their copyrights.

And for god's sake, the blind people! This is really looking like giant corporations versus the handicapped. Who's going to ride into town and put this situation right?

From a Wired article:

But the court said that went too far, because the settlement was giving away the “property rights” of people without their consent, and the problem of orphan works was better left to legislators.

Judge Chin’s view isn’t novel: There’s a fairly broad consensus that the problem of orphan works needs to be addressed by Congress.

Oh shit.

Given their pro-starvation campaign, I'd say Greenpeacers are generally pretty well off, in global terms anyway.

I've been supremely unimpressed with the recent movies that shun the use of CGI. Replicating the over-the-top look that is the signature of CGI abuse using non-CGI approaches is beyond stupid, worse if you kill people in the process. CGI, these says, could potentially match everything you enjoy about model shots. The problem isn't CGI, the problem is that they don't want that look and changing techniques will not fix that.

The IAEA report you cite contains no new evidence, and was written by the new head who has shown he will say anything the American govnt tells him to. Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, this is American propaganda that you and many others have fallen victim too, just as you probably believed them when they said Iraq had WMDs. Isreal however does and would like nothing more than to start a war with Iran. Isreal and the U.S. are the real threat to peace in the area.

I received the email regarding this class action and, well, it's stupid. people knew how much they paid and what they were paying for and agreed to it. this whole thing is unnecessary.

From my perspective, it's dishonest when a ticket prices is advertised as £25, but there are so many fees that to actually get a ticket you end up paying £32.50.

Ticketmaster pay the venue for an exclusivity deal, which means the only option is to buy tickets from Ticketmaster, or the venue itself (which is often very impractical, or almost impossible). The fees make no sense -- buying four tickets often means paying four postage fees, four service fees and four booking fees.

Here's an article in a British newspaper complaining about it. I'm not sure if any rules or laws have been changed since 2009, I don't think so.

For instance, Iran has been training and supplying people to fight in Iraq against US troops.

Not really. Most of the people fighting US troops in Iraq were Sunni (Saddam, his Ba'ath Party and his military were mostly Sunni). The present governments of Iraq and Iran are both Shia and are closely allied (no doubt to the annoyance of the US)... removing the Ba'ath Party from power and installing a Shia government was a great move for Iran. There are even allegations that it was Iranian intelligence that tricked the U.S. into invading Iraq through the use of double agents and false intel: US intelligence fears Iran duped hawks into Iraq war:

Some intelligence officials now believe that Iran used the hawks in the Pentagon and the White House to get rid of a hostile neighbour, and pave the way for a Shia-ruled Iraq... "It's pretty clear that Iranians had us for breakfast, lunch and dinner," said an intelligence source in Washington yesterday. "Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the US for several years through Chalabi." .... "When the story ultimately comes out we'll see that Iran has run one of the most masterful intelligence operations in history. They persuaded the US and Britain to dispose of its greatest enemy."

Did Iranian agents dupe Pentagon officials?

"The revelation raises questions about whether Iran may have used a small cabal of officials in the Pentagon and in Vice President Dick Cheney's office to feed bogus intelligence on Iraq and Iran to senior policymakers in the Bush administration who were eager to oust the Iraqi dictator. Iran, which was a mortal enemy of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and fought a bloody eight-year war with Iraq during his reign, has been the primary beneficiary of U.S. policy in Iraq, where Iranian-backed groups now run much of the government and the security forces."

... and given that Iran is theocracy ...

I am driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did. ~ George Bush

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2005/10_october/06/bush.shtml
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2005/oct/06/georgebushgod

According to some, the covert war has already started:

* $400 million funding for CIA Iran covert ops program

* Assassinations of Iranian scientists (the ones we know about: Majid Shahriari, Masoud Ali Mohammadi, Majid Shahriari, Fereidoun Abbasi-Davani (survived), Darioush Rezaeinejad)

* Cyber attacks (Stuxnet etc.)

* Sabotage of military/industrial sites (bombing of Isfahan uranium plant)

* Assassinations of military personnel (the head of the Revolutionary Guards missile program)

* And now: 12 CIA operatives arrested in Iran

It's almost as if someone is trying to provoke a full on war...

Misogynist - a person who hates, dislikes, mistrusts, or mistreats women.

Casual sexism is misogyny

Hags, dogs, whores, bitches. It's amazing how much hate you can pack into a few syllables. How do you spot a woman-hater? By the way they talk about women, treat women, react to women, represent women. Bitching about women, slagging off women â" even the language used to describe such slander comes from misogyny. The ubiquitous verbal violence supports physical violence and nobody, male or female, minds. If I were called a Paki in the street, I would have some hope of it being taken seriously. If I were called a slag â" as I was last summer by a man on a bicycle, in Stepney â" nobody would consider it report-worthy.

When a workplace misogynist comes calling

Beauty and misogyny: harmful cultural practices in the West pp 115ff, dealing with the workplace.

Misogeny isn't just about the greek root word, and not all misogynists are looking to beat the pulp out of women.

Canada can barely manage with two languages.

Don't know about that, but Switzerland manages with four official languages. In the UK English is the default language, but there are minorities speaking Welsh, Scots Gaelic and Irish. In France you have (among others) native speakers of German, Basque and Corsican. Belgium (somewhat unsuccessfully) has to manage with three official languages: Dutch, French and German. Germany also has Sorbian as an official language in a (rather small) region. Spain has as co-official languages Basque, Catalan, Galician and Aranese. Etc.

The Swiss have a small population... under 8 million... while there are four official languages, 70 percent of the country speaks German, with the remaining population divvying up the other languages. Plus, Switzerland has a long history of mutual, voluntary union (helped, I think, because the population is small... it's much easier that way).

As for the UK, those minority languages have very small numbers of speakers. Less than 800K people speak Welsh. Scottish Gaelic tops out at under 60K speakers, and Cornish has at most, 2K people that can fluently speak the tongue. In a nation of 62 million, those numbers are insignificant.

In Canada, by contrast, an entire province of 7 million is dominated by a different language and culture. And that's why there's been a separatist movement for years. And going back to the UK, even there, where 95 percent of the population speaks the same language, there's a strong secessionist movement in Scotland. The Scottish Parliament is dominated by the Scottish National Party, a party dedicated to complete independence from the UK. Even with a common language, cultural differences can loom large.

And you're using Spain as an example of successful union of different languages? Would this be the same Spain where Basques have been fighting a revolution for independence for decades? The same Spain where referendums on Independence in Catalonia (with over 12 million Catalan speakers) have had overwhelming support for secession from Spain?

Canada can barely manage with two languages.

This concept of yours is based on...?

Oh, I don't know... Canada having a large secessionist movement among the French speaking population perhaps?

A nation... and that was the eventual goal of the whole EU dream...

Quite simply wrong. The EU, as a concept, was formed in the crucibles of WW1 and WW2.

The whole point of the Maastricht Treaty was, in the words of Herman Von Rompuy, the President of the European council, "Ever closer union". The proposed EU constitution was supposed to further cement this, until those pesky elections got in the way.

Henry Kissinger once said in the 70's "If I want to talk to Europe, who do I call". Rompuy says that you call him. And Jose Manuel Barrosso has plainly stated that the EU means turning power over to "supranational institutions of the EU". That sure sounds like a federal Europe to me.

OWS Goals

"The mainstream media was declaring continually "OWS has no message". Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online "What is it you want?" answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100 answers. These were truly eye-opening.

The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process.

No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create fake derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.

No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors. "

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/25/shocking-truth-about-crackdown-occupy?newsfeed=true

Don't know where you live, mate, but Murdoch's (Rupert and Prince James, the News International heir apparent) have control over London Times, The Sun and News Of The World (now defunct) and wrote the cheques and managed the managers who made all this possible.

Because all the non-Murdoch British newspapers are perfectly well-behaved? The various Dailys, other tabloids etc. have spent years breaking all sorts of laws (just look at the number of cases they've lost in privacy and defamation alone), and that's the stuff they've been caught for - not the daily set of lies, spin, manipulation and hypocrisy (like the Daily Mail trying to use it's greatest target of hate and contempt, the Human Rights Act, to blow the privacy of people ... giving evidence to an inquiry into breaches of privacy by newspapers). Even the Guardian's been publishing some dodgy stuff recently... Every day the newspapers seem to look more like part of the entertainment industry than journalism. The Murdochs wouldn't have been able to get away with all of their 'wrongdoing' if everyone else wasn't doing it as well.

Also, it's just "The Times", and has been since 1788.

What state is that?

I analyzed a study on this very thing. As it turns out, there are crops rotting in the fields. Farmers can't get people to pck for 15 dollars an hour plus benefits.

Obviously the rate changes depending on the area, but in every state along the border there are similar cases.

You are lying, or woefully misinformed.

Also, picking is, for the most part, seasonal. Where as McDonald is year around.

Alabama you say:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/14/alabama-immigration-law-workers

ATOS are not just an IT company but are involved in a highly controversial government contract in the UK to do with assessing whether the long term/terminally sick are suitable for work. Since they're paid by how many people they "get back to work" there are no surprises that over 40% of their "fit for work" assessments are appealed successfully. In some cases people they have assessed as fit for work have died of their illness before the appeal is heard.

The "doctors" working for them are being investigated and could be struck off the medical register:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/aug/13/atos-doctors-improper-conduct-disability

The solution proposed to the problem of so many appeals being successful is not to be more honest in the assessment but to impose a financial burden on appealing.

Could the desire to hide email trails be related to their unwritten internal policies possibly?

"Wrong. "A newly qualified teacher will earn a minimum of £21,588 (£27,000 in inner London) but could start higher up the scale depending on previous experience."

Yes, you're right, I should've been more clear. My intention was to point to the fact they're at the £30k mark a few years since starting teacher training. Fundamentally the point is much faster than most other new careers progress, hence why the average national salary is only £25k - if everyone else progressed anywhere near as fast that figure would be higher.

"Wrong again. Most primary teachers work at least a 50 hour week. They are often in school by 8 am and leave between 5pm and 6pm, and most bring marking home to do in the evenings (at least another hour per day at home). Secondary teachers tend to work similar hours. This is one of the reasons why I left teaching after doing it for three years."

Completely and utterly false regarding primary school teachers. I worked in IT support in schools for some years, and covered 171 schools, of those 130 or so were primary schools. Gone 4pm there was rarely a teacher in sight, they do NOT work until 5pm/6pm apart from on very rare occasions. The only exception would tend to be head teachers, or those who have volunteered to run after school activities for extra pay. You're more right regarding secondary though, although 6pm tended to be a push there, it was rarely anything other than the caretaker there at that time asking if you could basically fuck off so he could lock up and go home, again with only a few exceptions - i.e. parents evening. I'm not talking about some personal anecdote from a single school I worked in here, I'm talking about multiple years experience in over a hundred schools, having spoken to thousands of teachers in that period. I know precisely what kind of hours the average teacher does, rather than what they claim to do when it comes to pay/pension negotiation time. I often joke with my few friends that are teachers about how they're living the dream as they can get home by 4pm most days to play XBox whilst I don't turn up to join them until 6pm and they're happy to admit it in such an informal setting.

"Bullshit. Once you get above the cleaner level, ie for managerial and technical positions, public sector pay is less than the equivalent in the private sector. People accept lower pay in return for a better pension deal. This is why so many are angry now that their pensions are being cut by the current government."

Completely false, I did 6 years in public sector, and can say first hand that this is absolutely not true. Further, the cross-party (Labour commissioned, Tory and Lib Dem supported) Hutton pensions review, as well as numerous 3rd party studies have found that there is absolutely no evidence that public sector workers receive less pay. I know I didn't whilst I worked there, I couldn't have found more money for the job role I was doing at the time in private sector (IT Support), much less in fact. I did however leave for more money in private sector doing something for which there was no local demand in public sector - software development. Job for job it's a complete fallacy that public sector workers receive less pay in return for a better pension they get equal or better pay, better pensions, and better leave - I was on 30 days after 5 years service up from 25 days, and 15 days off on accrued flexi time as an option too allowing me 45 days off a year, if 15 of them were built up as extra hours elsewhere in the year such as working late. I'm not sure why people like you persist with this fallacy when so many independent (and objective as you can possibly get) reviews and studies have debunked the myth that public sector pays less. It doesn't instill confidence that you're talking with an impartial voice when you push such a long debunked myth:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/local-government-netwo

Yes that is pretty much spot on. A few years back this happened in the UK, but I am struggling to find a successful prosecution.

I received a 'warning' email, it simply showed my IP address and the name of a torrent file.

Good luck in our courts with that:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/feb/08/filesharing-prosecutions-digital-economy

"The best solution there is to not rip things off."

Yes, and if people do copy a few dollars worth of music rather than buying it it's obviously worth making them lose everything over.

"Yes, unfortunately the Obama administration really did screw that up."

Ah, you're a Republican, that explains a lot. You do realise that it was Bush who put them all their in the first place and held them without trial for the first few years before Obama took over and continued the fuckup don't you?

"But things are getting straightened out so that enemy combatants, terrorists, and the like who fit into the awkward space between domestic arrests and uniformed soldiers in combat elsewhere can go back to being tried in a military venue."

So which category do you put the innocent ones into who haven't ever been charged with anything and for which no evidence of them ever being wrongdoers go into? are they the ones you say "the like"?

"In the meantime, your assertions about conditions in Guantanamo are, of course, made-up BS, and you know it."

Really? Which ones? Are you telling me Cuba doesn't actually reach extremely high temperatures? are you suggesting the people at Guantanamo are allowed to walk pretty freely around the prison? That doesn't stack up to even US provided film of the place.

"And endless parade of journalists, Red Cross people, and the like disagree with you, having been there themselves."

Well, no actually:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/3179858.stm

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/30/politics/30gitmo.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/07/cia-medics-guantanamo-torture-red-cross

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6526589.stm

Still, nice try at outright making things up to cover the fact that once again you actually don't have a clue about the topic at hand.

"Who cares where they are? If they're in the middle of plotting, executing, or supporting efforts to kill us, and the country in which they're hiding has no will or ability to do anything about it, it's exactly the right thing to do."

So what you're saying is that al Qaeda was justified with 9/11? they were after all attacking a country that had for some time been plotting it's downfall. Similarly, I assume you'd be okay with an Iranian nuke hitting Washington for the same reason? Or is this another one of those issues surrounding your misunderstanding of "neutral" as in "It's fair if the US does it, but no one else".

"Ah, I see. So when a campus cop goes ove the top dealing with people blocking the street, that's a sure sign of actual, nation-wide policy, right?"

I think you need to stop watching Fox news. You seem to genuinely believe that it's okay if beatings/abuse/killings by people in positions of authority happen all over the US regularly as long as their superiors can deny responsibility, whilst if the Iranian government denies responsibility for some of the actions of the republican guard, it's different? Again, you really don't get this neutral thing do you?

Look, if I'm honest, I'm not really disagreeing with you that the Iranian leadership is pretty awful, I'm being difficult to make the point to you that it's not as simple as you think. I'm making the point that it's hard to criticise Iran on the human rights board when the US does have a far far less than perfect track record on it. By letting Iran onto the board, to call out the US on it's abuses it keeps Western governments in check - the last thing they want is to be embarassed over fuckups in their own country and get called out on it by someone as hypocritical as Iran, but without Iran being put in this position it would just mean countries like the US could continue with their abuses uncontested. A bit of international em

Everything about this story rings false.

it does?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/feb/21/religion.highereducation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_views_on_evolution

According to Guardian some British Muslim students have distributed leaflets on campus, advocating against Darwin's theory of evolution. At a conference in the UK in January, 2004, entitled Creationism: Science and Faith in Schools, Dr Khalid Anees, president of the Islamic Society of Britain stated that "Muslims interpret the world through both the Koran and what is tangible and seen. There is no contradiction between what is revealed in the Koran and natural selection and survival of the fittest."

"Carbon offsets" are just more bullshit to funnel money from the poor to the bankers.

But it's actually worse than that, because third-world governments are now evicting people from their land so they can plant trees to rake in some of that cash:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/22/uganda-farmer-land-gave-me-everything

The Global Climate Warming Change scam spreads evil wherever it goes.

I seem to remember scientists coming up with a complicated formula for humour. Which would let you divide by zero. Now that was funny!

I suspect, rather than actual scientists, it was more likely some rent-a-lecturer who accepts money from PR firms for putting their name to their latest "scientists have found a formula for something related to our clients product" wheeze.

Dr Cliff Arnall, I'm looking at you.

I can't speak for everywhere in Europe, but in the UK it's illegal to do, say or post anything threatening, abusive or insulting if you're likely to cause "harassment, alarm or distress", and it's also illegal to use a "public electronic communications network" (i.e. phone or Internet) to send a message that is "grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character" or do certain stuff online "for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another." And yes, these laws do get used.

Of course, it should be harder to convict someone for offending a public figure like the Queen (or senior politicians) because Article 10 ECHR should get in the way, but that doesn't seem to stop the police barging into people's homes and threatening them with arrest...

The Vogtle plant cost 13 Billion dollars as an example. There are plenty more where that came from (for example Levy county at 17 billion (including transmission). If I were feeling cynical I'd think that the fact you don't know this must show you work for the nuclear industry.

...in the long run.
Only about 15-20% of all of it's (100% renewable) power demand by 2050.

Construction of the first solar farm in that system is to start in Morocco next year.
It's amazing how those plans from about a decade ago coincided with recent regime changes in the region, isn't it?
Just one of those lucky coincidences I guess.

Solar cells are potentially made from carbon :
graphene - http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/carbon-based-solar-cells/
or carbon nanotubes - http://www.bitsofscience.org/solar-cell-carbon-nano-energy-3418/
http://inhabitat.com/carbon-nanotubes-could-create-better-solar-cells/

The other technologies like wind turbines and those steaming solutions are just alternative green solutions to solar cells that are often cheaper. When the solar cells are going to continue to get cheaper like they are and no new alternative pops out, then they will probably be the prefferable choice of green energy.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/20/solar-panel-price-drop
Their co-existence with new ways of storing electricity would make them even more practical.
New cheaper ways for making hydrogen:
http://www.gizmag.com/fukai-hydrogen-extraction-process/16674/
or carbon based supercapacitors?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110512150731.htm
My point is, that there are actually new advancements in every horizon, which make this article a bit outdated.

Actually, it already has been a problem
and continues to be

Please describe in exact detail the method used by corporations to select a politician.

It's called campaign finance.
Obama's 2008 campaign cost more than 1 billion dollars.

People who aren't corporate tools can't even get within a thousandth of those kind of numbers, even for lesser races like congress. Maybe state congress or city council, but nothing on the national scene unless it's from somewhere small with little influence like North Dakota.