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Iraq affair alone had around a million of civilian casualties by various credible estimates,

Thats quite a claim. Lets see whether it holds up
Wikipedia says (citing Iraq Body Count) that up to 12/2010, civilian casualties are between 99,000 and 108,000-- a combined total from insurgency, coalition, and US forces. If you look at the figures from Afghanistan, we see that about 75% of the casualties THERE were caused by "anti-government elements"; so if we extrapolate from Afghanistan to Iraq (not unreasonable IMO, unless you have more accurate figures), then we have a whopping 25,000 civilian casualties, over nearly 10 years, in a war where the enemy intentionally blends itself into the population.

This isnt exactly what I call war-crime material. Again, acquaint yourself with former wars-- we're doing way better than the historical record.

a typical conflict in the 19th century had less then 100,000 casualties on both sides, vast majority of them soldiers.

Which war are you referring to, and how long did it last? Antietam hit nearly 23,000 in a day, IIRC. And comparing a war from the 21st century to a 19th century war is disingenuous in the extreme; why are you discounting the 20th century wars (vietnam, WW2, WW1, etc)?

Manning was not ordered to do anything illegal or unethical AFAIK (unless you can link to such orders?) All evidence I have seen-- including the unedited (not wikileaks edited version) "Collateral murder" video-- points to an attack which was at the time believed to be against insurgents. The helicopter crew's own statements, commander's response, etc indicated their belief that there were armed gunmen whom they were attacking.

Do you honestly believe that the US military has a thing for attacking Reuters reporters? What on earth would the point be?

Do me a favor and tally up the civilian death toll from Afghanistan or Iraq, and then compare it to WW2 or Vietnam.
This graph seems to indicate that our civilian casualties are at an astonishingly low number, especially compared to the "anti-government elements", who have roughly 4 times as many civilian casualties. Collateral murder, indeed.

I can't say I am surprised.

Vodafone are a terrible company. They are one of the most expensive in the UK. They gouge me. I am changing as soon as I can. They claim to offer unlimited texts but if you send a text that is bigger than 160 characters, they charge you. They also don't pay taxes in the UK, they owe 4.8 billion in taxes but our government decided 'to let it go'.

Now in the UK we're facing cuts to public services, education, electricity rises. I'm not bitter. Vodafone is a bad business. You should change from them and warn people of the same. Didn't they have something to do with Egypt censorship too?

Their website is also littered with Java exceptions.

Vodafone = Incompetent

Not trying to be an Apple shill, there are many things they do that I'm not particularly fond of, but Time Capsule is one thing they got right.

Ah, well get back to us in 18 months.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha - QE3 is coming, the DOW was up, what, 160 points or so?

As long as Bernanke opens his mouth, he talks about printing money. As long as he talks about printing money - the DOW goes up, and you are talking about economics?

Pfffffft.

Money printing and inflation policy is not economics, but it surely moves prices up.

Here's a better source. With lots of quotes.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/04/shutter-happy-monkey-photographer

If you nuke them. The cyber kind of stops.

Well retaliation by force does appear to be part of the US strategies to combat hacking. The problem is that it is not always clear who is responsible. for example when Iran was hacked by the stuxnet worm there was speculation that it could have originated in the USA, Germany, Israel, the UK and I even read one suggestion that it was an Australian group.

Even though the USA thinks that a military response is valid I doubt if it would act in a similar situation, and I think it would have condemned any attacks by Iran when they did not know for certain who attacket them in the first place.

Also it is increasingly likely that if the US military or infrastructure is likely to be from a "non national" group, possibly even acting from within the USA. This makes a military response very difficulty.

You might want to re-read my post.

Or, alternatively, you might want to read the actual allegations against Assange instead of just parroting his defense lawyers' stories as if they were the undisputed facts. Here's some choice bits:

Her account to police, which Assange disputes, stated that he began stroking her leg as they drank tea, before he pulled off her clothes and snapped a necklace that she was wearing. According to her statement she "tried to put on some articles of clothing as it was going too quickly and uncomfortably but Assange ripped them off again". Miss A told police that she didn't want to go any further "but that it was too late to stop Assange as she had gone along with it so far", and so she allowed him to undress her.

According to the statement, Miss A then realised he was trying to have unprotected sex with her. She told police that she had tried a number of times to reach for a condom but Assange had stopped her by holding her arms and pinning her legs. The statement records Miss A describing how Assange then released her arms and agreed to use a condom, but she told the police that at some stage Assange had "done something" with the condom that resulted in it becoming ripped, and ejaculated without withdrawing.

[...]

The following day, Miss W phoned Assange and arranged to meet him late in the evening, according to her statement. The pair went back to her flat in Enkoping, near Stockholm. Miss W told police that though they started to have sex, Assange had not wanted to wear a condom, and she had moved away because she had not wanted unprotected sex. Assange had then lost interest, she said, and fallen asleep. However, during the night, they had both woken up and had sex at least once when "he agreed unwillingly to use a condom".

Early the next morning, Miss W told police, she had gone to buy breakfast before getting back into bed and falling asleep beside Assange. She had awoken to find him having sex with her, she said, but when she asked whether he was wearing a condom he said no. "According to her statement, she said: 'You better not have HIV' and he answered: 'Of course not,' " but "she couldn't be bothered to tell him one more time because she had been going on about the condom all night. She had never had unprotected sex before."

The point is that this is what Strauss Kahn was calling for right before his arrest on trumped-up charges. And literally within days of a new IMF chief being elected, the prosecutor in the case (who had previously made a public arrest and called the case rock solid) suddenly drops the case and admits that the only witness is a joke. If you think that's all just a coincidence, well then, what can I say?

Here is another excellent article on exactly what Strauss Kahn was calling for (and why it scared the U.S. government so much). Of course, with their puppet in place as IMF head now, this plan has been quickly dropped.

OK, fanboy: excuse this one. This is the description of what happened *according to Assange's own lawyer*:

The appellant [Assange]'s physical advances were initially welcomed but then it felt awkward since he was "rough and impatient" They lay down in bed. AA was lying on her back and Assange was on top of her AA felt that Assange wanted to insert his penis into her vagina directly, which she did not want since he was not wearing a condom She did not articulate this. Instead she therefore tried to turn her hips and squeeze her legs together in order to avoid a penetration AA tried several times to reach for a condom, which Assange had stopped her from doing by holding her arms and bending her legs open and trying to penetrate her with his penis without using a condom. AA says that she felt about to cry since she was held down and could not reach a condom and felt this could end badly.

Source

Wikileaks spokespeople are completely unrepentant about people killed from Wikileaks dumps, so if death is the metric, Wikileaks is much worse.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/01/julian-assange-wikileaks-afghanistan

"The leak exposed massive corruption by Daniel Arap Moi, and the Kenyan people sat up and took notice. In the ensuing elections, in which corruption became a major issue, violence swept the country. "1,300 people were eventually killed, and 350,000 were displaced. That was a result of our leak," says Assange. It's a chilling statistic, but then he states: "On the other hand, the Kenyan people had a right to that information and 40,000 children a year die of malaria in Kenya. And many more die of money being pulled out of Kenya, and as a result of the Kenyan shilling being debased."

What a wonderful attitude, they are poor and they'd die anyway, so who the fuck cares that more died and were displaced? It's for the greater good!

Or something.

News International papers targeted Gordon Brown
Newspapers obtained details from the former prime minister's bank account and legal file and his family's medical records - Thanks to Jeff Jarvis for the story.

The hands-free issue is moot:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2008/10/17/cellphone-handsfree.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2012393/Distracting-hands-free-devices-dangerous-mobile.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
http://www.tgdaily.com/mobility-features/57097-hands-free-calls-could-be-just-as-dangerous-on-the-roads
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/jun/30/mobilephones.uknews
http://socialtimes.com/distracted-driving-dangerous-but-no-evidence-hands-free-laws-help_b69790
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/hands-free-cell-phone-usage-equally-dangerous-while-driving/
http://news.yahoo.com/hands-free-cell-phone-usage-equally-dangerous-while-170124007.html
http://www.infoniac.com/offbeat-news/hands-free-phones-more-dangerous-for-drivers-than-alcoholic-drinks.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2012393/Distracting-hands-free-devices-dangerous-mobile.html
http://www.iol.co.za/motoring/industry-news/hands-free-phoning-just-as-dangerous-1.1096622

Seems it was published everywhere except mainstream US media, which strongly indicates that it's true but contrary to corporate interests. I guess more accidents translates to more car sales. Ideally cars should be as safe as possible for the driver and passengers, but difficult to drive (i.e. small windows, confusing/distracting features, controls, and meters), and most importantly more likely to be written off from even minor collisions. Sounds about right. Too bad about the bad wrecks that kill people, but hey, business is business.

According to IMF insiders quoted in this article http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/may/19/imf-pressure-appoint-non-european-head Lagarde basically is the banks, as far as bailouts are concerned. I've read elsewhere that she tried to get Lehman bailed out as well. We can expect a lot more of irresponsible lending, borrowing and bailouts with this lineup.

Ah, well, at least now that fondling IMF hand on your bum will only be after your wallet.

Are you referring to Syria, by any chance? You know, the Syria the Palestinians, to date, still embrace wholeheartedly?
If by any chance, you were referring to the Israelis, please provide some proof to back your allegations. Any of them.

You claim the Flotilla members were non-violent. That assertion has been proven wrong (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG0EfG8mnAo/).

You claim the commandos had been sent to slaughter them. That also is false. (same video, note the use of paintball guns)

You claim you do not put people on travel blacklists if they did not demonstrate willingness to commit violent acts against you, yet you did so. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/08/iranian-officials-travel-blacklist)
""The UK is working closely with its partners to prevent a wide range of individuals connected with Iran's nuclear enrichment and weaponisation programmes from entering our countries. These include scientists, engineers and those procuring components," Hague said in a statement."
scientists and engineers are put on travel blacklist by the British government? A government is exercising it sovereignty against civilians who had done nothing illegal or violent against it? good grief!

In short, most of your allegations are false. Please provide some shred of logic and facts to support such allegations in the future.

It seems that after the lotilla incident Israel allowed at least once shipment of shoes and clothes in Gaza -- the first one in three years! But maybe shoes and clothes are weapons
material...

Here's the 2003 memo, the new spin is that the tree-huggers tried to change the terminology.

When you add more energy to a large system, you don't just get even warming. Things get mixed. It's like heating up an ice-cream cake. Some parts that were warm will get colder than they were, as other parts melt into them.

Yep, increased heat means more turbulence, turbulance in the climate is weather.

It's why the term has changed to climate change instead of just global warming.

No, scientists are well aware the two terms have a different meaning, GW is CC in the positive temp direction. It's why the IPCC has had a CC on the end for over 20yrs. CC is actully the older of the two terms (at least back to the 50's), GW was first coined in a scientific paper in the 70's.

As far as changing the terminology for political purposes goes, the only concrete evidence I have of that is when Frank Luntz while working for the Bush administration tried to get people to use the term "Climate Change" exclusively. When it didn't work their plan B was to blame the "terminology change" on "tree-hugging scientists", from what I can tell plan B has worked quite well for them in the US.

to see that at least they are actually detecting and disciplining breaches, since I was already assuming the worst.

If they were to have the right security and ethical culture, it's not implausible that they have a high detection rate when running a full access log, hopefully cross-referenced to some sort of case allocation log, in which case 900 out of ~242k is less than 0.4% of staff in a 3 year period. On the other hand it is possible the 900 is only from audit sampling, in which case since the sample size is unknown the actual rate can only be anything higher than that.

Incidentally this is bigger news due to it's related nature with the News of the World investigation. Since the recent Slashdot story the "news" paper has been shut down and today there has been arrests of both the editor and a sub-editor at the time on suspicion of phone hacking and corruption allegations. The investigation and the story seems to be turning it's attention to allegations of bribes paid to the police for information, having hit what surely is as deep as the depravity goes on the phone hacking (I've said this a few times before and been proven wrong) by discovering targets included the phones of families of victims of the 7/7 London bombing, soldiers killed in Iraq/Afghanistan and murdered children.

to see that at least they are actually detecting and disciplining breaches, since I was already assuming the worst.

If they were to have the right security and ethical culture, it's not implausible that they have a high detection rate when running a full access log, hopefully cross-referenced to some sort of case allocation log, in which case 900 out of ~242k is less than 0.4% of staff in a 3 year period. On the other hand it is possible the 900 is only from audit sampling, in which case since the sample size is unknown the actual rate can only be anything higher than that.

Incidentally this is bigger news due to it's related nature with the News of the World investigation. Since the recent Slashdot story the "news" paper has been shut down and today there has been arrests of both the editor and a sub-editor at the time on suspicion of phone hacking and corruption allegations. The investigation and the story seems to be turning it's attention to allegations of bribes paid to the police for information, having hit what surely is as deep as the depravity goes on the phone hacking (I've said this a few times before and been proven wrong) by discovering targets included the phones of families of victims of the 7/7 London bombing, soldiers killed in Iraq/Afghanistan and murdered children.

The question is whether they stick to the road map.

They won't. Energy poverty isn't politically viable. The UK will be missing its ambitious targets. Read the actual report here, Chapter 1 - Overview pp. 44. Read the political reality here. Green claims of wind energy successes in the UK are not panning out.

Putting voters is the dark while MPs debate more energy cuts inside well lit and comfortably heated government buildings will not work. It won't work in the UK and it wont work in Germany.

The targets are a political fiction.

Commercial space flight has no vision beyond sending tourists to LEO and throwing more satellites into higher orbits.

Meanwhile, the founder and CEO of a commercial spaceflight company says:

'I'm planning to retire to Mars'

-- Elon Musk: Founder and CEO of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (Spacex) Citation: here.

If that's not vision, I don't know what the hell definition of vision you are using. I've personally toured the facilities of SpaceX, ULA, Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop Gruman, and JPL. I can tell you right now, the energy, enthusiasm, and drive at SpaceX is in a class of its own. That company, and its founder, has more vision for the space industry than the sum total of the other agencies I have listed combined.

Mark my words as an aerospace engineer: SpaceX is the future of successful United States space business, and they have the gumption and drive to pull off the stuff folks have been declaring to be impossible for about twenty years now. Just like Google lit a fire under the ass of stale computer companies like Microsoft and Apple, SpaceX is going to be the spark that fans a whole new flame and era of space exploration for the United States.

A private investigator employed by the News of the World made a record of the mobile number, password and pin belonging to the Sky Sports commentator Andy Gray, the high court was told today.

Suggest that they used more than default pin numbers, otherwise why write it down.

Not sure if you're being serious but Murdoch, I'll say allegedly and then quote and link an old Guardian article, was pro-Iraqi war and this was largely the editorial position taken by many of his media outlets, papers and television channels.

Rupert Murdoch argued strongly for a war with Iraq in an interview this week. Which might explain why his 175 editors around the world are backing it too, writes Roy Greenslade

Actually, it's not so much the employees that interest me; it's the paperwork. Specifically, what is going to happen to all of the News of The World's emails, accounts and all of those other records that might be of use to, say, a public inquiry or police investigation? I can't help but wonder whether this knee jerk reaction on behalf of Rupert Murdoch is a desperate attempt at damage limitation because knowledge of what was going on goes a lot higher up the ladder than just former News of The World staff.

As an aside, The Guardian has a rather interesting piece on the use of private investigators by UK media from back in 2007 when things first kicked off. The NoTW only came in fifth behind those other stalwarts of quality UK journalism; The People, The Daily Mirror, The Mail on Sunday and, the run-away leader, The Daily Mail.

Hugh Grant did a reverse sting operation on a journalist who stated that Rebekah Brookes was well aware about the phone hacking operations. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/apr/06/phone-hacking-hugh-grant-taped

If they're going to finally make cuts to the farm budget, why not cut the overall EU budget? Those f*****rs are increasing the size of their budget when most of the member states are slashing spending and imposing painful austerity measures. They're so out of touch; it's so offensive. What value are they bringing? That's right: none, other than some more expensive unnecessary buildings

Why would you think that a small box you find is a bomb? No, seriously - why the fuck would you think that?

UK People of a certain age look upon any strange object as a possible threat because of years and years of the IRA (and more latterly the RIRA) leaving bombs in rubbish bins (AKA "trash cans) and the like. Hell, they even left pipe bombs near schools and a pipe bomb could easily be a geocache!! Let's not forget that the US, through NORAID, funded these people too. War On Terror ... yer, now people are blowing the US up!

It's been a while in mainland Britain, but the memories of pubs being blown up in London, shopping centres around the country ... any soft target where people would otherwise just be going about their daily lives, well, it leaves an indelible mark. Maybe the kids can grow up differently now as the current crop of terrorists seem only keen on the big grandstanding attacks, and of course the IRA (& RIRA) never had anyone even nearly stupid enough to consider being a suicide bomber, though many blew themselves up by mistake.

Anyway, just don't leave any unattended bags or stuff when travelling around the UK ... and now you know why!

It's perfectly controlled.

My bad, a confusion... I intended to make a reference to Love parade 2010

And that wasn't the type of party I meant...

I know... just teasing. Even the reference to the too-tightly-controlled Love Parade 2010 doesn't mean I think of Germany as a country were such incidents happens on regular basis and nobody cares.

The telephone was invented by Antonio Meucci, an Italian. Alexander Graham Bell, himself, was Scottish, though he'd been in the US for four years when he did his telephony work.

Velcro is Swiss.

The nuclear bomb, I'll give you, though of the key people on the Manhattan project, Fermi and Segre were Italian, Teller, Wigner and Szilard were Hungarian, Bohr was Danish, Frisch was Austrian, Block as Swiss, Fuchs, Peierls and Franck were German. But at least Oppenheimer, Bohm and the finance was American.

If China introduces "regulation" that would stunt their free market, the free market simply circumvents it one way or another. It's the story time and time again in China

Good points all but, for the sake of fairness, this sort of thing happens all over, it's not an Asian phenomenon. Western companies set up anywhere they can to avoid regulations and indeed taxes. The US has a huge problem with corporate tax going overseas. And BP, as we know, had registered Deepwater Horizon in the Marshall Islands specifically to avoid those costly safety regulations.

So just saying, not much point focussing on China when it's the business mentality, wherever business happens, to do anything legally possible to reduce costs. "Legally", meaning the buck stops with government. The underlying problem is the culture of political influence via donations and so forth, that tilts the game.

Otherwise we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. Government would have just said "don't do that" and let those talented business minds sort out how to make money in a world where you can't pollute. There's no doubt they'd find a way. But it's too late now. Their hooks are in deep, and most efforts to regulate are met with threats to pull campaign funding.

I believe I saw an article in the Guardian this morning which stated that there was now evidence that they had also gotten into the voicemail of family of people killed in 7/7/2005 London bombings.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/06/phone-hacking-families-7-7-targets

Fair enough ;-). While writing the above, I checked http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age#Major_ice_ages (especially the five million year graph), and a link similar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere#Past_variation for past CO2, and remembering news like http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/12/climatechange.carbonemissions from a couple of years back. I'm confident that real science agrees as I hear compatible things from real scientists, but no time to dig up real scientific articles now, sorry.

Obsolete information. People are largely unaware of the full gamut of renewable energy technologies. Even so, the Department of Energy did an extensive study that said that Texas, Kansas, and North Dakota could supply the country's full energy needs from wind energy alone, but we're not just talking solar panels and turbines.

We could slash building energy requirements drastically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_solar_building_design
Move to peer-to-peer microgrids which by the redundancy of many diverse small energy sources would fill gaps in baseload, reduce the need for redundant large powerplants and losses to electric resistance: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/09/uk-island-micro-grid-wales
Consider alternatives for urban and suburban transit that would on today's grid be the equivalent of 300MPG cars: http://www.jpods.com/
For 24/7 baseload, use offshore wind and concentrated solar thermal: http://www.solarreserve.com/
Not to mention use solar thermal for hot water, a highly affordable approach: http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/water_heating/index.cfm/mytopic=12850

These are proven solutions with excellent working examples. You can also look at kites: http://ecoble.com/2008/08/26/wind-power-generated-from-kites/ for cheaper material costs or extending power generation to altitudes where the wind is constant, panels of windbelts for smaller-scale solutions as on http://www.humdingerwind.com/ and artificial photosynthesis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_photosynthesis

They're also making great strides towards net-positive fusion using lasers: https://www.llnl.gov/str/Petawatt.html

I think the full range of these makes nuclear strictly a question of how to use the remaining nuclear fuel to the fullest extent with less waste left over. I don't understand the enthusiasm for nuclear in the light of the above, or the recent disasters.

Tsvangirai's position was put in jeopardy because he was allied with the US against Mugabe, and Mugabe was able to use his control of the media to twist it into some anti-Zimbabwe sentiment.

There is no possible way youre going to convince me that the curiosity of some citizens in the US was worth endangering the potential fixing of the disaster that is Zimbabwe.

You're saying that because zimbaweans learned THE TRUTH and Mugabe could use it to his advantage that secrecy was entitled? Tsvangirai engaged in talks with the US and supported sanctions against the country, wether that's a good or bad thing, it's not important in this discussion. The important thing is that it's represents the truth and if people get angry about it, wether there's a media spin or not, it's just how things are supposed to be.

I might be wrong, but you're claiming that secrecy should've been mantained so that Tsangivarai could effectively fight Mugabe while he lied to the people he represented? That's not good, that's not fair. I understand that you're on ONE side and that probably makes it hard to look it from a perspective. But life is not really us vs them. Just because I don't like Mugabe, it doesn't mean I'll blindly pretend all Tsvangirai's actions are ok.

People are supposed to make informed decisions in a democracy but you want your, let's say team, to be able to lie in order to achieve it's goals?

One liners might make someone look like they know more than they do,

Pot calling the kettle black. How many one-liners pop up stating "information wants to be free", nevermind that the founding fathers, the 2 sides in the confederacy, and the WW2 united states would have utterly disagreed with that statement on certain matters? People complaining about the harsh treatment of Manning seem to have lost sight of the fact that during the Civil or Revolutionary wars, he would have already been shot or hung as a traitor.

First off, I didn't say that information wants to be free. I just called you out on a lousy, unexplained and false example which was proven to be a piece of media propaganda a long time ago and it all started with this piece of crap article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/03/zimbabwe-morgan-tsvangirai

Second, founding fathers, blah, blah... Don't appeal to a mistic authority to try and support your non existent argument. You remind me of people who make a up quotes from the bible. By the way, I'm not a history expert but I think there were compulsory drafts during the civil war too. So does everything that happened then apply now as well? No. Null argument.

This isnt some new thing that is a distortion of the values our country stands for; people have long recognized that once you get back into reality, some secrets are necessary for the functioning of diplomacy and for the waging of military operations.

How successful do you suppose Neptunes Spear would have been if Wikileaks had gotten wind of the operation beforehand, pray tell? In what conceivable way is it a service to US citizens to ensure that its operations are unsuccessful, as such operations will be if such intel is leaked?

Sure, keeps spewing official crap. "Values America stands for"? Really? Fake patriot rhetoric won't help your case. Citizens will be lied to and everything will be kept secret to "protect" them from we-can't-tell-you-what dangers that lurk around.

With full secrecy comes no accountability.

Remember how this all started:
He said:
"All in all I think all the secrecy, and covert action makes us weaker not stronger."
You replied:
"Maybe look at the situation in Zimbabwe, and the fallout after the release of several diplomatic wires between Mugabe's opposition and the US, and then repeat that state

allegedly targeted too. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/06/families-7-7-targets-phone-hacking

I guess this is for Americans who think Fox News is the pinnacle of Murdoch's evil, or anyone under about 25! There's another Murdoch property, The Sun. Its circulation is still next-to-nothing in Liverpool 22 years after they published an infamous front page (THE TRUTH) lilbelling Liverpool Football Club fans. They blamed them for the Hillsborough football stadium crush, accusing fans of attacking the emergency services, urinating on dead bodies etc. For 22 years there's barely a newsagent in the city that will stock the paper, and it's the UK's biggest selling daily. News Of The World is (basically) the Sunday edition, and they are the first to call for lynch mobs whenever covering crimes against children

This is enormous news in the UK except of course in The Sun and the Times, both Murdoch papers. It's happening at a time when Murdoch wants to buy complete control of Sky, a deal which needs approval from the state. Our Prime Minister David Cameron pulls Christmas Crackers with the News of the World's former editor, who's at the centre of this scandal. And the NoTW's editor after her, Andy Coulson - Cameron appointed him as his party's communications director in 2007 - but he had to resign in January when it became clear he knew all about the illegal phone hacking. This man was in government until this surfaces.

So it's just the pinnacle of the bizarre relationship between the Murdoch press, our main political parties, and apparent public opinion. If advertisers and readers boycott the paper, which seems quite likely in the short term, you could only call it "a good start".

I guess this is for Americans who think Fox News is the pinnacle of Murdoch's evil, or anyone under about 25! There's another Murdoch property, The Sun. Its circulation is still next-to-nothing in Liverpool 22 years after they published an infamous front page (THE TRUTH) lilbelling Liverpool Football Club fans. They blamed them for the Hillsborough football stadium crush, accusing fans of attacking the emergency services, urinating on dead bodies etc. For 22 years there's barely a newsagent in the city that will stock the paper, and it's the UK's biggest selling daily. News Of The World is (basically) the Sunday edition, and they are the first to call for lynch mobs whenever covering crimes against children

This is enormous news in the UK except of course in The Sun and the Times, both Murdoch papers. It's happening at a time when Murdoch wants to buy complete control of Sky, a deal which needs approval from the state. Our Prime Minister David Cameron pulls Christmas Crackers with the News of the World's former editor, who's at the centre of this scandal. And the NoTW's editor after her, Andy Coulson - Cameron appointed him as his party's communications director in 2007 - but he had to resign in January when it became clear he knew all about the illegal phone hacking. This man was in government until this surfaces.

So it's just the pinnacle of the bizarre relationship between the Murdoch press, our main political parties, and apparent public opinion. If advertisers and readers boycott the paper, which seems quite likely in the short term, you could only call it "a good start".

This might be the straw that's very likely going to break the camel's back, but it's been a long running story now. Back in 2005 they were rumbled for hacking into voicemail of aides to the royal family, a good article from a US source, the NYT, here. The tl;dr version of that article is a minor uproar ensues but Newscorp contains it and is more or less successful claiming it as a one-off, rouge scenario, offering up the resignation of Andy Coulson, the editor, though he claims not to have known anything about it of course.

Now Andy Coulson makes the mistake of getting a job - head of communications, think Toby Ziegler in the West Wing - in the Conservatives, who get into government. This, combined with statements made by the private investigator who's decided he's not going down alone, adds enough fuel to get the fire burning again. The Guardian and Channel 4 get digging and out comes a documentary. A handful of celebrities are sniffing around it now, lo and behold Hugh Grant throws gas on the fire by bugging the bugger. All is forgiven Hugh, well played.

Accusations just keep mounting up and the picture is forming pretty solidly of a newsroom where such things were par for the course. An oft-repeated point directed at Coulson I'll paraphrase as "either he knew and he broke the law, or he didn't and he's grossly negligent" (not sure who started that, I think Ian Hislop). Coulson is given the boot.

The shit is flying pretty thick now and it just keeps coming. But it's all the royals, celebs and politicians. There is a sense that whilst it's overstepping the mark considerably, these are all public people and fair game. Milly Dowler, on the other hand, was a child and a tragedy. This is a recent turn in events and very quickly major advertisers have started to step away. I'll applaud Ford for being the first of the big advertisers to drop them, though I'm quite surprised it took so long. I suspect more shuffled away quietly.

News is now coming in that the police investigating the phone hacking have contacted the parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, the girls killed by the Soham Murderer. This was one of the biggest stories and national tragedies I can remember.

The News of the World really must not be allowed to survive this, it is a stunning failure of ethics, governance and plain decency on a huge scale with substantial evidence. If they can't be brought down for this, they clearly cannot be taken down for anything. Yet it's even proving difficult to remove the editor.

Ask the people of Liverpool where a tragedy where nearly 100 people died was used as the backdrop for some horrendous lies about the people there trying to rescue the injured and dying. There are so many other examples of low ethical standards from this rag and its stablemate the News of the World that it really doesn't take too much digging to find plenty of examples. I have never watched Fox News but if its journalists are of the same ilk as those on the Sun and the News of the World then I'm not surprised that they are widely despised.

"I'm all for charging the PI with obstruction of justice, but unless News Corp explicitly told him what to do, their involvement in this is tangential at best."

Bullshit. As in, you clearly haven't been paying attention to the story but have nonetheless decided to have your tuppence' worth.

Glenn Mulcaire, the investigator at the heart of all this, has been saying through intermediaries for months that he was explicitly requested to unlwafully access voicemails by staff at the News of the World. Indeed, just this very evening he's released a statement to the Guardian detailing the pressure he was placed under by NotW staff to "obtain results." See, for example, just about any issue of Private Eye published in the past twelve months.

As it happens, we've now had news this evening that NotW execs, not content with accessing Milly Dowler's voicemails, were also involved in illegally accessing those of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells, two girls from Cambridgeshire who were murdered in the summer of 2002.

And there's more: Channel 4 news here in the UK tonight detailed how the NotW had placed a senior detective under surveillance during the reopening of a particularly nasty murder inquiry. This includes the allegation that Rebekkah Brooks, who's the current CEO of News International, was interviewed by police about this back in 2002, thus making rather a fucking mockery of the claim that NotW execs aren't in this up to their arse cheeks.

And there's even more: if rumours flying around London this evening are to be believed, we're going to be hearing similar allegations over the coming week including, but not limited to, how the NotW accessed voicemails of Gerry and Kate McCann, the parents of a young girl abducted a few years ago in what became a media shitstorm.

Google didn't have a problem with that until their servers got hacked.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/12/google-china-ends-censorship

So the government is unable to prevent people leaking sensitive diplomatic cables and embarrassing videos and documents...

Honeypot? I mean please, we're talking about Anna Nicole Smith here.. National Inquirer should sue for unfair competition, but they'd run up against sovereign immunity.

It's not just "eerily familiar" it's the very same people. see for example http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/19/ethicalliving.g2

climate sceptics are either paid shills, or nutters. That's not name-calling, that's just stating facts. Anyone who doesn't get that pumping the air full of greenhouse gases is going to warm the planet, (and yes the planet is warming, despite what some shills would have people believe,) and that warming the planet will change the climate (hence global warming is a driver of climate change — they are not the same thing, so no, people have not just switched from saying 'global warming' to 'climate change', refuting one of the many climate-denier lies) simply fails to understand basic physics. Or maths. Indeed it's a wonder such people can even read long words like 'anthropomorphic'.

If the sceptics are right, then what is their explanation for global warming? Just saying "it's not happening" is not enough here when it very clearly is happening. I am all ears for a theory that explains global warming better than the "it's the increase in GHGs released by burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of old-growth forests"

riaa is a terrorist org.

Hey, but Anonymous is working actively to aid the "Food Terrorists" in Orlando.

Some reason? The guy created the Lotus Notes. Compared to that Windows 3.1 should be hanging in The Louvre.

• "Survival of the unfittest | Technology | The Guardian"
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/feb/09/guardianweeklytechnologysection
• "Damien Katz: 70 Reasons Lotus Notes Sucks"
  http://damienkatz.net/2005/02/70-reasons-lotus-notes-sucks.html
• http://lotusnotessucks.4t.com/
• http://www.ihatelotusnotes.com/
• http://www.google.com.au/search?q=lotus+notes+sucks

I'll be right there by your side telling them to fuck right off and do it in their own homes or outside.

Which I'll appreciate. Will you be by my side telling them to fuck off when they start lighting up in parks, beaches, apartments, hotels, and college campuses?

First, name for me a country with an "all-expense-paid resort". Whoops, there isn't one! Because it doesn't work. Every single society throughout all of human history punishes criminals. To varying extents, yes, but always with a punishment.

So go ahead, name me a successful society that, in the original words, "is not punitive". I'm waiting.

Norway fits the bill pretty well.

(Of course, that's not to say it's necessarily the best system for them, but it's certainly a "successful society".)

First, name for me a country with an "all-expense-paid resort". Whoops, there isn't one! Because it doesn't work. Every single society throughout all of human history punishes criminals. To varying extents, yes, but always with a punishment.

So go ahead, name me a successful society that, in the original words, "is not punitive". I'm waiting.

Norway fits the bill pretty damn well.