Slashdot Mirror

UK Newspaper Web Sites To Become Nearly Invisible

Given that we are talking about one Rupert Murdoch web site, this title is bad even for slashdot. The Times of London used to be an important paper, comparable to the New York Times. Then Rupert Murdoch bought it, and it rapidly ceased to be significant. (As far as I can tell, any news organization taken over by Murdoch rapidly ceases to become a significant news organization.) To say that this is all of the British press going silent is simply ridiculous. Try reading the Independent or the Guardian if you want a taste of the British news that is not going silent.

I expect it from the Sun, but the Times and Sky News should at least pretend to be unbiased.

James Murdoch makes a scene at the offices of the Independent: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/22/james-murdoch-independent-dodge-city
Adam Boulton, Sky anchor, frankly loses the plot during an interview. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/may/10/adam-boulton-alastair-campbell
Kay Burley, another Sky anchor, well I'm actually speechless: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/may/08/kay-burley-sky-news-twitter

Between 'em, they managed to generate over 1500 complaints to the broadcasting regulator: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/may/12/sky-news-adam-boulton

Rupert can go boil his head.

I expect it from the Sun, but the Times and Sky News should at least pretend to be unbiased.

James Murdoch makes a scene at the offices of the Independent: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/22/james-murdoch-independent-dodge-city
Adam Boulton, Sky anchor, frankly loses the plot during an interview. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/may/10/adam-boulton-alastair-campbell
Kay Burley, another Sky anchor, well I'm actually speechless: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/may/08/kay-burley-sky-news-twitter

Between 'em, they managed to generate over 1500 complaints to the broadcasting regulator: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/may/12/sky-news-adam-boulton

Rupert can go boil his head.

I expect it from the Sun, but the Times and Sky News should at least pretend to be unbiased.

James Murdoch makes a scene at the offices of the Independent: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/22/james-murdoch-independent-dodge-city
Adam Boulton, Sky anchor, frankly loses the plot during an interview. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/may/10/adam-boulton-alastair-campbell
Kay Burley, another Sky anchor, well I'm actually speechless: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/may/08/kay-burley-sky-news-twitter

Between 'em, they managed to generate over 1500 complaints to the broadcasting regulator: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/may/12/sky-news-adam-boulton

Rupert can go boil his head.

I expect it from the Sun, but the Times and Sky News should at least pretend to be unbiased.

James Murdoch makes a scene at the offices of the Independent: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/22/james-murdoch-independent-dodge-city
Adam Boulton, Sky anchor, frankly loses the plot during an interview. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/may/10/adam-boulton-alastair-campbell
Kay Burley, another Sky anchor, well I'm actually speechless: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/may/08/kay-burley-sky-news-twitter

Between 'em, they managed to generate over 1500 complaints to the broadcasting regulator: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/may/12/sky-news-adam-boulton

Rupert can go boil his head.

Fashion is an interesting case because it's exempted from copyright laws

Actually, it's not completely exempt because there have been numerous cases of copyright in the fashion industry. For example, Van Halen suing Nike over a criss-cross pattern on a line of sneakers Nike produced. Anthropologie has sued Forever 21 (see below for a separate case) over copyright infringement for nine garments. We also have Diane von Furstenberg suing Target (see separate case below) for copyright infringement as well as other issues.

There is the case of jewelry company Merit Diamond Corp that sued Samuels Jewelers and Rogers Jewelers because their design of certain pieces of their jewelry was copies of Merit's. A similar case involved Tacori vs Beverly Jewelry Company Ltd for copyright infringement of ring designs.

Most lawsuits in the fashion industry revolve around trademark and patent infringement such as the case against Paris Hilton, Coach vs. Target and Trovata vs Forever 21.

However, to prove your point about the fashion industry and copyright, see this article from the NY Times from March which talks about this very subject.

Kinda sad that the only way out of a two party system is instant runoff voting, and congress will never ever enact voting reform that jeopardizes the two party system.

People said the same thing about the British system, which has been two party since before the U.S. was formed, but it looks as though there may well be changes within one year. Change is not impossible, but the main parties who will lose out will fight it tooth and nail.

Little late to be practicing the "sacrament of forgiveness" for Copernicus, at least outside the framework of some ridiculous story about how we actually have invisible immortal bits.

But if the Catholic Church wants to do some good today, there are plenty of things it can help right out with. It could, say, help with promoting condom use in Africa. It could even improve the situation by shutting up about it and at least not hindering it.

They could take action against the sexual abuse of kids. For that matter, they could even improve that situation by not actively hindering investigations, and maybe even reporting such crimes to the appropriate authorities (hint: the appropriate authorities are NOT located in the Vatican) when committed by its own members.

Any organization that makes its living deliberately promoting delusion and superstition is not worthy of any respect of any type. Maybe they should try the "sacrament of reality" someday. Causes a lot less problems than trying to live by things that are not real, amazingly enough.

I think you'll find that it was Ken Livingston that introduced the living wage. Boris just increased it.

I think you'll find that it was Ken Livingston that introduced the living wage. Boris just increased it.

Are they doing everything? Probably. Were effective safeguards in place?

Were best practiced followed? Sure doesn't look like it. They continued drilling after the gasket came up in pieces. They just didn't want to stop. Also, they didn't have "a remote-control shutoff switch that two other major oil producers, Norway and Brazil, require.” Was this an unforeseen event? No. It was known to be a possibility. It was known to be a rather large possibility. Yet they didn't prepare for it.

You bring up car accidents. We don't shrug them off. You're liable for them. That's why you have insurance. In fact, sometimes, you're even held criminally liable.

You're arguing that it's okay for someone to completely externalize their risks. When you through your own negligence destroy other people's livelihoods as seen by the impact on the shrimping and tourist industries, your liable for that. The whole idea that BP is such a small company that damages should be capped at $75 million, while simultaneously bringing in quarterly proffits of $10 BILLION is absurd. They owe for the clean up. They owe everyone impacted by their negligence lost wages. If that's $20 billion, so be it. They can certainly afford it, while still turning a profit.

But I'm sure we should let the free market handle this. After all,these gods among men, deserve the profits they make while simultaneously ruining the lives of their lessers.

What if my laptop is encrypted because of PCI compliance? What if it is against the law in my country for me to compromise confidential information, but now Australia demands to see it? Does this mean American businessmen can't travel ao Australia with company laptops?

Or will Australia not search encrypted laptops?

Karma for this:-
Border Agents Can Search Laptops Without Cause, Appeals Court Rules
and
Taking your laptop into the US? Be sure to hide all your data first

But the US is not alone. British customs agents search laptops for pornography. And there are reports on the internet of this sort of thing happening at other borders, too.

Frankly, I think the fact that CO2 is a major problem has been sufficiently demonstrated. I'm no expert on the topic, but there's about a 95% or better agreement among the experts that it is a problem. You don't get that type of agreement from experts unless the issue is pretty much resolved. (When was the last time you asked for a 20th expert opinion before making up your mind?)

I don't understand your rhetoric over conflict of interest. I'm not sure who you're implying is going to benefit from climate change, after all it's not just scientists:

"Count a growing number of Colorado businesses among those deeply disenchanted with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over its stance that climate change legislation is largely based on junk science and will further derail the American economy.

Earlier this month, heavy hitters like Apple, Exelon, Levi Strauss and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. outright quit the nation’s leading business organization. Nike resigned from the Chamber’s board but maintained its membership, and companies like Duke Energy, General Electric, Alcoa and Johnson & Johnson have disavowed the chamber’s positions on global warming.

The U.S. military also considers climate change to be a real issue:

The Pentagon will for the first time rank global warming as a destabilising force, adding fuel to conflict and putting US troops at risk around the world, in a major strategy review to be presented to Congress tomorrow. The quadrennial defence review, prepared by the Pentagon to update Congress on its security vision, will direct military planners to keep track of the latest climate science, and to factor global warming into their long term strategic planning.

So, what I'm confused about is, if there's a real problem, what incentive do climate scientists have to mislead us about the cause of the problem?

As for the taxes issue, fuel is not the only source of CO2 emissions and yes taxes on fuel do indirectly tax CO2 and if fuel was not taxed in most countries, we would be in a worse situation right now.

As far as taxes being entirely ineffective, there's two reasons why that's unlikely. The first is that consumption is factor of demand and price. Increase the price and consumption drops unless demand increases. There are different demand curves depending on the flexibility of the demand and the alternatives. The second is that at some point alternatives which produce fewer emissions will become more affordable than the C02 emitting energy sources we use now. At that point there will certainly be deflation in the demand for CO2 emitting energy sources. So yes, a CO2 tax should actually reduce the rate of global temperature increase.

Example of alleged recent US espionage: Hilton accused by Starwood. It's extremely common for US firms to hire ex-employees of other firms to achieve a similar thing to what the Chinese are accused of here.

Oh? And you think they will want to again?

If "us" includes South Korea, there's plenty of evidence that they've done so quite a few times since the big one a long time back, including quite recently.

because of the pervasive censorship, and announces a strong anti-censorship stance, even in engaging in a hopeful (although a little hamstrung) effort to show themselves as friends of transparency:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/20/google-google-street-view

but on the other hand it engages in a strange, fossil pre-'The Graduate' sort of hysterical moral panic that doesn't even exist (as a compelling widely believed opinion) in western countries anymore:

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

even if you are so cynical as to say google has no real allegiance to transparency and truly fights censorship, that it's just a pr campaign, the contrast here is so galling as to nullify even the pr campaign on a surface level

therefore, this has to be a case of google losing some coherence in internal corporate guidelines. there's going to be some meetings, some people are going to get a stern email, and this decision will be reversed by higher ups

as to say this decision is hypocritical of google is putting it mildly

I really don't know where anyone would get the idea Texas is filled with racist dumbasses.

• Astroturfing by pharmaceutical companies - pressure groups, patient groups with suspiciously slick websites
• quack cures
• aggressive libel laws stifling scientific debate which in the old days would have been shielded from lawyers.
• looneys can find each other and associate more easily, and act aggressively to those who do not share their very strange view of the world - e.g. 'Myalgic Encephalitis sufferers' (an alleged condition that is neither myalgic or encephalitis and it is everyone else who does the suffering).
  
  Patients usually give you a clue that they are a looney though, which is very helpful. Favoured tell-tale signs are wearing tinted glasses, a soft neck collar or making notes in purple ink or with RANDOM capitalised words, or using one of those obesity scooter things. But if they seem relatively normal, I listen carefully and explain, because quite often they are right.
  
  BTW, I presume you were referring to this? Although some other conditions can do this as well.

It's just traditional formula.

He didn't have to spell the formula out in full. That he did it anyway, does suggest, he was perfectly "in" Christianity — as is the GP's point.

BTW, every President since has also been a Christian. The current one was, reportedly, quite devout too — at least, until he moved to the capital.

By Newsweeks metric no one is "conservative" enough.

"Overall, he slashed defense spending from 9.1 percent to 5.8 percent of GNP as he worked to withdraw from Southeast Asia—a process he described not as "victory" but with the Kerry-worthy euphemism "peace with honor.""

US defense spending by GDP

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/apr/01/information-is-beautiful-military-spending

4 percent.

The problem is not the 25% hardcore dipshits who will always lean this way.

You're a bit off on the percentages there buddy.

About 54% of the 973 polled Britons agreed with the view: "Evolutionary theories should be taught in science lessons in schools together with other possible perspectives, such as intelligent design and creationism."

In the US, of 991 adults responding to the survey, which was organised by the British Council, 51% agreed that evolution should be on the curriculum alongside other theories, like intelligent design.

- Guardian

It seems MOST people would prefer a bible-dictated curriculum.

Even FoxNews agrees:

For instance, about 38 percent of Americans would prefer that creationism be taught instead of evolution, according to a 2005 poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

In addition to encouraging you to RTFA, let me strongly encourage you to consider the political position consistently advocated by the paper that published the FA. The Guardian makes no pretense at all of being balanced, centrist, unbiased, or apolitical. This is the British newspaper (and web site) that developed a web site with the names and addresses of registered voters in Ohio, and encouraged their readers to write to them to exhort them to vote for John Kerry rather than George Bush. (Bush won Ohio by a handful of votes--which Ohio politicos attributed to the furious backlash the Guardian created, but that's another story.)

In other words, the Guardian article is an advocacy piece meant to alarm, rather than enlighten. If you're a Brit, this will come as no surprise--if you're as Internet-savvy as a SlashDot reader should be, you shouldn't be surprised, either.

The sun will come up tomorrow, even in Texas...
Despite the panicked anxiety of the writer (and the New York Times, here), it's not terribly controversial to emphasize the strong Christian views of many of America's founders. Which is not to say that America's Constitution is a statement of Christian faith--which is often how this argument is misconstrued. (A standard freshman year American History exam question is to compare and contrast the Christian and Deist views expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.) But it is interesting to know that in most U.S. states you had to be a professing Christian in order to run for political office--it provides a perspective on our First Amendment that is all-too-often missing when discussing what the "separation of church and state" means. (What it meant, then, was that no state could "establish" a church--in the way that the Church of England is established in the U.K., or the Lutheran Church is established in Denmark. They're supported by taxes, their leadership is appointed by government, etc.--they are state religions. Jefferson wrote about a "vast wall separating church and state" to reassure Baptists in New England that they would not face oppression by Congregationalists.).

Isaac Newton vs. military technology:
Well gosh--I can see the insidious hand of Sarah Palin here, too. Or...perhaps, it might be worthwhile to consider that the intentional pursuit of military technology as a means of achieving battlefield superiority has been a hallmark of U.S. strategy since the Civil War. Especially in Texas, home to Ft. Hood, Ft. Sam Houston, Lackland AFB, and most U.S. Air Force pilot training. To me (who majored in Economics and American History) that sounds like a pretty perceptive point to make. I'd include Isaac Newton, too--but presumably they decided something had to give. Oh, well.

Guns
TFA breathlessly tells Brit readers that:

The new curriculum asserts that "the right to keep and bear arms" is an important element of a democratic society.

One can understand that this would so shock a Brit that he might drop his second or third pint of Guinness Stout that he'd swilled that day. Which is to say, what a Brit might find commonplace (down two or three pints of Guinness Stout in the U.S. and you're a de facto alcoholic) in the U.S. is seen as entirely normative. Again--given that the entire point of the Second Amendment was a direct reaction to the abuses of British occupation forces prior to American independence--this is a pretty welcome emphasis on the impact of early American history on our constitution and present-day policy. Not to mention, of course, that in Texas even self-avowed liberals emphasize their support for "Second Amendment Rights".

Think critically--read critically
I'm far less bothered by this article (it's the Guardian, for heaven's sake, what would you expect?) than I am by the fact that SlashDot's editors include

http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/09/18/decade-under-ch-vez
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2004/06/16/rigging-rule-law-0
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/10/09/hugo-ch-vez-versus-human-rights
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/25/oas-report-chavez-human-rights
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/18/venezuela.humanrights

Venezuela may be becoming many things, but free is not one of them.

http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/09/18/decade-under-ch-vez
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2004/06/16/rigging-rule-law-0
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/10/09/hugo-ch-vez-versus-human-rights
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/25/oas-report-chavez-human-rights
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/18/venezuela.humanrights

Venezuela may be becoming many things, but free is not one of them.

Indeed.
http://blog.ju29ro.com/uploaded_images/hooligans-reuters-735894.jpg
http://www.ilga-europe.org/var/ilga/storage/images/europe/photo_galleries/budapest_pride_5_july_2008/budapest_pride_2008_hooligans__5/70616-1-eng-GB/budapest_pride_2008_hooligans.jpg
http://www.awitness.org/eden2003/kosovogenlg.jpg
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/images/paris_riots_day_9.jpg

What the fuck are you rambling about?
Are you actually equalizing legal police actions in western Europe during civil riots with homophobic fascists' organized attacks on gay-pride marches and examples of Serbian war crimes in Bosnia?
As a reply to a comment disagreeing with OP's (somewhat delusional) idea of the stance Europeans have regarding USian prison and legal system?

What the fuck have you been smoking and why aren't you sharing with everyone?

Well, Virgin being involved, I'd not be so sure...

>>Multiple investigations have found that the CRU did in fact not behave in "an anti-scientific sort of way".

Only if you read the headlines and don't know anything further about the issue. The reason their activities were anti-scientific is because replication of results is a key part of science.

In a field in which climate data and modeling are really the only thing you have, refusing to release data and models is anti-scientific. It's like claiming you invented cold fusion in physics, and then refusing to allow people access to your methods.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/31/climate-mails-inquiry-jones-cleared

"The parliamentary science and technology select committee was scathing about the "standard practice" among the climate science community of not routinely releasing all its raw data and computer codes - something the committee's chair, Phil Willis MP, described as "reprehensible". He added: "That practice needs to change and it needs to change quickly.""

"Willis said that while the committee recognized Jones's frustration, this was "no excuse" for not responding properly to FOI requests. "It is important in terms of scientific endeavour that that material is made available," said Willis. He added that the committee accepted that Jones had released all the data that he was able to."

Yes, it's absolutely true that other data and models are available (CR.org goes on about this endlessly), but the CRU people did their absolute best to weasel out of their responsibility to release these things. That's what the emails showed - Phil Jones and his merry band of scientists devising quasi-legal strategies to hide their data and models... in an anti-scientific fashion.

The Germans lost more aircrew and more aircraft because they had more to lose to begin with. Losses on both sides were proportionate to the size of the forces involved. And while the UK did ramp up aircraft production, it was because their armor production was virtually ignored. If Germany could deliver its armor to Britain and drive it inland quickly it would have been virtually impossible to defend against at that time.

As for resupply by air, I think the Berlin airlift proved what was possible in a focused effort. Yes, I realize there was nobody shooting and airfields were used, but I think it would not be impossible for a focused invasion to take an airfield in short enough order.

I already mentioned that regardless of the degree of bias, some bias is inevitable, as I said no matter how accurate an account is made of material involved there is no way that the forces or their commanders could *be* German in terms of disposition and tactics. At best they could only be British with a German accent in terms of representing the opposing mindset. Unless they all grew up in Germany, went through German training, followed German orders in a German way for German reasons, there is just no equivalency. Armies are not made up of equipment alone.

As an example of military bias in wargames (though not specific to this context) I present the case of Lt. Gen Paul Van Riper. Whenever he innovated successes where he was expected to provide only token resistance to a supposedly superior force he was told things like 'but they would never actually do that!' He dared to try to think like the enemy instead of just being a scaled down version of the US force, and for that he was just countermanded until things went the way the other commanders wanted.

Do you really think that the hearts of Englishmen would be wholly invested in pantomiming the successful invasion of the UK by the Nazis? I can't believe it. I don't think that any wargame proves anything.

Do you think he's getting rich as head of GISS?

If he has any investment sense, yes. But there's more to being the perpetual head of a government agency than money. It carries a bit of power and prestige.

So far he's been more right than wrong about what he's said.

He made three claims: 1988 was warmest year on record (I gather the 30s are still contenders for warmest year on record through 1988, the estimates for those years is lower than 1988, but the actual temperatures may have been higher), second, that because global warming is large, it is caused by the greenhouse effect (I think it likely that the current global warming is caused in large part by human release of greenhouse gasses, but Hansen's conclusion is simply logically faulty), and third, that GISS models predict bad things will happen. The last point remains correct, I imagine, with current GISS models still predicting bad things will happen. Whether bad things actually will happen (or have happened for that matter) remains conjecture. If you look at his actual projection, his models overstated global warming. Two of the scenarios mentioned there, "A" and "B" overstate effective forcing from greenhouse gasses (GHGs) by something like 80% in the case of scenario A (which was intended to be an extreme scenario) and almost 10% for scenario B. The third scenario was a fixed level of forcing, there might be some AGW effect, but it would be bounded and reached by the year 2000. So we ended up somewhere between the weaker AGW scenario and a scenario of no effective AGW. There is a huge difference in what makes good policy choices in this region.

I can't rule out that scenario B was actually more accurate originally, but got sexed up for the 1988 congressional hearing. After all, even by 1988, Hansen had somehow acquired a reputation as someone who'd deliver reliable AGW testimony. He's also on record as saying some remarkably stupid and biased stuff for a scientist. Given that the CRU (which maintains other important global temperature estimates) has also suffered from biased management, we have to consider the possibility that our best estimates of global temperature are compromised and biased upwards by some unknown amount. While I know there are thousands of climatology papers out there, I have yet to see papers (aside from some critics of dubious provenance) either criticize or independently verify the estimates from these two groups.

In other words, Hansen's predictions are borne out by possibly biased GISS and CRU research. Now maybe there is independent verification of these temperature estimates. I'd be interested in hearing about that. But as it looks to me, Hansen gets to verify his own predictions and yet, he was still off in favor of the political view that he continues to wish to propagate.

• Moody's
• Standard and Poor
• Fitch

If any of those decided to downgrade UK governmental bonds, then the cost of borrowing the current debt would rise and it would be even harder to pay off.

During the election campaign a lot of noise was made about £8billion of cuts in public spending that the conservative party wanted to make, if UK debt is downgraded, the extra interest payments would end up costing another £10billion http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/may/07/how-safe-uk-aaa-credit-rating - more than wiping out any benefit to doing this and causing the public sector deficit to increase still further.

I don't like this situation; I think the ratings agencies have far too much power with no effective oversight, and I think it is a major failure in the UK political system that the government was able to generate so much debt in the first place, but simply calling the current situation 'neo-liberal propaganda' won't change this reality and certainly won't make it go away.

2/ The conservatives and Liberal democrats do a deal, and make a joint platform.

But if that happens the LibDems would be eviscerated. They'd lose almost all popular support and many of their current MPs would refuse to probably refuse to join a Tory coalition, fracturing the party. About the only credible reason to support them was to get voting reform, (and perhaps also as a left-wing protest vote against Gordon Brown) - as insipid Tory's they have nothing to offer.

What do you mean?

I'm surprised you are not familiar with the practice

If you want to deal with starvation, get a gun and a Hummer, and hunt dictators...

??

Not only are GM foods unnecessary, we still have no idea of the problems they cause, or in many cases choose to ignore them for the sake of profit. It's another form of pollution. Just like an oil spill. Only this might not clean up so easily.

The source for the quote, no matter how it's reported or by whom, is still the original source.

No, that is wrong. The "source for the quote," your source, is the source from which, or whom, you got the quote. The "original source" is the first person who put the words together. Perhaps the person being quoted, or perhaps someone along the way. Without first tracing the chain of attribution, are in no position to identify the original source. In the meantime you need to exercise some scepticism -which I know is a rare quality among climate deniers. :p

Intentionally confusing your source with a putative original source quoted, is species of academic misconduct which, at better institutions, will earn you a stern reprimand, or in aggravated cases, a disciplinary hearing. It is an academic misdemeanour, for example, if having found the Journal of Imaginary Studies Vol XX, page 42 being quoted verbatim in a textbook, you reference a quote you make as coming from "JoIS vol XX, at 42" without reference to your actual source (as quoted in ...). Your source is, and until you delve deeper remains, the source of information you had at your disposal when you made the quote.

If you want to claim that Baillie is misrepresented, and didn't say the things attributed to him, feel free to do so.

I already did. You know reading your source you could be forgiven for thinking that either Rob Wilson or Baillie actually said "oaks were virtually useless as a temperature proxy". This, in fact the sum total of Baillie is quoted as saying in the sources CRN used.

"[the ruling is] a staggering injustice ... We are the ones who trudged miles over bogs and fields carrying chain saws. We prepared the samples and - using quite a lot of expertise and judgment - we measured the ring patterns. Each ring pattern therefore has strong claims to be our copyright. Now, for the price of a stamp, Keenan feels he is entitled to be given all this data."

BRW, the source for that is the Guardian article.

Do you see the danger now in claiming Baillie as the source?

Nor is the phrase a direct quote from Rob Wilson. Tracing back the chain of attribution we see that it is actually Ms Devlin who formulated that sentence, the original source.

Well, there's an additional problem. It isn't just the resistance of people in general to paying somewhat more for electricity, heating, vehicle fuel, and so on. It's the very active and well-funded resistance of the fossil fuel companies that doesn't just parallel the denial of cigarettes causing cancer by Phillip Morris; it's the exact same P.R. firms doing the work.

That was the journalistic work of George Monbiot to which I referred:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/dec/07/george-monbiot-blog-climate-denial-industry

When I went back to using the term "deniers", it's not for people that are honestly doubtful, it's for the P.R. people funded by those firms. They include the "Heartland Institute", and Steven Milloy of "junkscience.com", much used by Fox News Channel through 2006. (At least a search of Fox News site just now found no hits on "junkscience" later than 2006, the year when Monbiot's book "Heat" came out.)

The active denial of cigarettes-cause-cancer lasted a good 20 years after the 1964 Surgeon General's report and likely added an extra million or more to the early-death toll, over and above the normal resistance that people would have had to breaking their addiction.

It's fair enough to say "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof", but the point of the letter that started this story is that researchers are not just having careful work demanded of them, their integrity and honesty - and careers - are being aggressively attacked.

"'* (ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.'

Most of the increase, sure. But how much of the total percentage? The impact the rest of nature has astronomically outstrips the impact humans alone have."

False. The impact the rest of nature has is, or at least was, mostly balanced. It varied from around 200 ppm during ice ages to 300 ppm during interglacial periods. Ice cores indicate it was at about 260-280 ppm in the middle of the 19th century. It is now at 380-390 ppm and rising by 2 ppm per year, or a little over 0.5%. Over a geological timespan that is _huge_ and entirely swamps out all natural cycles we're aware of currently. (If it didn't, those natural cycles would have prevented it from rising much above 300 ppm.) I tried to do some math awhile ago given the amount of fossil fuels we burn every year and calculated that ought to equal an increase of a little over 3 ppm per year. Perhaps i didn't do the math exactly right, or perhaps not all the carbon is making it into the atmosphere, or maybe the biosphere is trying to compensate but not able to fully do so.

"These changes are only 'unprecedented' if you describe 'modern times' as spanning only the last few centuries. The planet has undergone more severe changes than any doomsayer has predicted - life, including human life, has done nothing but flourish. If species X suffers, so be it. If species X happens to be humans, then so be it. Life adapts or GTFOs."

First of all, it is mostly unprecedented if you take a look at the timespan over which it is occurring. The change from 200 ppm to 300 ppm usually takes place over tens of thousands of years. We've seen an increase approximately equal to that amount just over the last 200 years.

Second of all, "Life adapts or GTFOs." Exactly. What part of realizing your actions have negative consequences and adjusting your actions to avoid those consequences isn't "adapting"? Yet when some people say we ought to adapt you're apparently telling them to STFU and stick with the status quo. The universe certainly won't care if species X suffers, but i'm pretty interested in making sure my species isn't species X.

"As always, follow the money."

You mean like the oil corporations that make billions in profit per year, would suffer from a switch to other fuels, and fund studies and lobby groups to prove that global warming is false? (BP: $240 billion revenue, net $16 billion. ExxonMobil $310 B, net $19 B. Royal Dutch Shell $278 B revenue, $19 B net. Chevron $273 B, $23 B net.) Who do you propose is offering more money than they are to prove that global warming is true?

It's the difference between a reputable used car and a cut and shut job. One will keep going for years. The other may just break in half and kill you. Trust your local nerd. Don't by Flashed computers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2010/may/03/usa-dickcheney There you go.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/09/france-telecom-staff-suicides-phone

Learn to do your own damn research.

But here you go:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/31/climate-mails-inquiry-jones-cleared

You went forward with an epic rhetoric on self-reliance and independence, trying to prove that social security or national healthcare service are useless and only good to tie him down and support the ignorant and irresponsible masses, but then you went on claiming that you "pay a premium on your health insurance". That alone contradicts everything you said because you either:

• Acknowledge you aren't and cannot be self-reliant if you wish to be safe from any calamity or
• Practice exactly the opposite that you preach, by claiming self-reliance and then go on spending your money on a system where you rely on some private entity to save you from your own problems

The thing is, no one in their right mind believes that social security in any form, such as unemployment compensation, along with national healthcare service are services that are in place to take away any semblance of personal responsibility. That is perfectly false and entirely baseless. In fact, if you look at countries who have implemented social programs such as the ones pointed out, you will always find people saving up for a rainy day and caring for their future. Social security and national healthcare doesn't take that away from anyone. After all, the purpose of those social programs is to act as a complement to each and every measure you yourself put in place in order to be safe in case of a disaster hitting, so that you avoid having your life go into shambles. And how easy it is for your life to get accidentally flipped over. Take, for example, the vast number of US citizens that, when the economic crisis started to be felt, were forced to live in tent cities. Do you believe that those folks were all irresponsible or indigents?

To put it in perspective, social security and national health care are nothing more than insurance services that are implemented to grant each and every citizen a set of resources (a financial buffer, if you will) which can be mobilized in times of need. As the system encompasses millions of people and can only be mobilized under specific circumstances (unemployment, health problems, etc..) then, in practice, that financial buffer ends up being practically limitless for each individual's needs. That is exactly opposite what you get from a private service, as it imposes restrictions on your compensation and forces each and every medical act to be under the scrutiny of an accountant and lawyer instead of a medical doctor, where it should be. Moreover, as it's a public service then you benefit from a service which doesn't have to support needless waste such as generating profits to shareholders (i.e., syphoning your contributions to investor's pockets) and supporting a large number of high maintenance executives and their bonuses. In short, social programs are nothing more than insurance programs but without any profit-driven restrictions, arbitrary limits and needless waste.

So, where's the need for so much FUD?

FTFA:

Some concepts of privacy, that we thought were rights, are going to have to give way as we find out that social networks are just a lot more efficient, and monitoring and digital ubiquity are all more efficient ways to enforce laws, for example. That's a big thing in Britain. I mean God only knows how many cameras they have on their streets. And they're using it in ways to fight crime that, frankly, I don't think is yet possible in the U.S. because of our privacy concerns.

Next time Carmen provides an example, she may want to pick one that actually has a track record which supports her views.

Unfortunately I believe this is all Internet karma for Mike Mann being a douche himself. Someone seriously needs to teach him the meaning of the Streisand Effect. He sent a C&D take down notice to a website who had made a satirical video about him. Now, no matter what your beliefs are about this issue one must agree that threatening legal action against fairly fringe websites and their lil youtube videos is dumb.

The article from the site in question.

Now the video has gone viral, been featured on Breitbart and Fox... so guess how guys like this Virgina AG even KNEW to go after Mann?
Sadly, scientists might be real good at their day jobs but apparently suck at handling PR etc. as now there is some Canuck who is doing the same thing.

If scientists are going to remain convincing they are going to have to resist the desire to get lititgous and instead fight back with smart and appealing campaigns of their own. Sorry but we all know better than most that this is how the Net works.

Except that his "lie" has been independently reproduced and been confirmed. Let me cite guardian.co.uk:

What counts in science, however, is not a single study. It is whether its finding can be replicated by others. Here Mann has been on a winning streak. Upwards of a dozen studies, using different statistical techniques or different combinations of proxy records, have produced reconstructions broadly similar to the original hockey stick. These reconstructions all have a hockey stick shaft and blade. While the shaft is not always as flat as Mann's version, it is present. Almost all support the main claim in the IPCC summary: that the 1990s was then probably the warmest decade for 1000 years.

For the cognitively challenged, you could try searching for "NATO Afghan killings" - just to get started.

"Consumed by fireball, the Afghan village devastated by Nato strike on Taliban" - The Guardian, September 4 2009

"Moeen Marastial, a member of parliament from Kunduz, said: "Local people are telling me 130 people have been killed despite all the promises of Nato to do fewer bombardments and reduce civilian casualties. There will be a reaction to this. It is a very bad day for international forces in Afghanistan."

and

"Nato strike kills 27 Afghanistan civilians" - BBC, February 22, 2010

"At least 27 civilians died in a Nato air strike in southern Afghanistan, the Afghan cabinet says, revising downwards a prior statement that 33 were killed"

and

"U.S. Admits Role in February Killing of Afghan Women" - New York Times, April 4, 2010

"After initially denying involvement or any cover-up in the deaths of three Afghan women during a badly bungled American Special Operations assault in February, the American-led military command in Kabul admitted late on Sunday that its forces had, in fact, killed the women during the nighttime raid."

and

"NATO strikes killing more Afghan civilians" - USA Today, April 16, 2010

"Deaths of Afghan civilians by NATO troops have more than doubled this year, NATO statistics show, jeopardizing a U.S. campaign to win over the local population by protecting them against insurgent attacks."

and

"NATO Investigates 3 Afghan Civilian Deaths" - New York Times, May 1, 2010

"The French military took responsibility on Friday for killing four Afghan children during a missile strike in early April, and NATO said it was investigating allegations of a military convoy gunning down two Afghan women and a girl in southeastern Afghanistan."

and

"NATO checks report of Afghan civilian deaths" - Reuters, May 1, 2010

"NATO said on Saturday it was investigating whether shots fired by its troops in southern Afghanistan had killed two women and a child traveling in car."

Of course, expending any effort whatsoever to consider the plight of those being killed in Afghanistan and finding out some facts - rather than making a false assumption and then using your error to defend killing innocent people - might have taken you almost as much time as you spent supporting the murders committed by "our guys."

What the hell, you guys have been neighbors all the time, you speak the same language, you are both developed countries; and all of the sudden the border security just climbs and climbs and climbs...? What reasons are there?

The Americans are insane.

Specifically, they are in the midst of transforming a free society into a fascist dictatorship.

Naomi Wolfe explains this much better than I could:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment

The originator of Boobquake, collected the results and posted an analysis on the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/apr/29/boobquake-earthquake-immodest-dress-iran#

Welcome To Fascism.

fdrill, baby, drill .... Bitch

Yours In Petrograd,
K.T.

Thanks for proving my point.

First, the annual moving averages in your graph shows iPhones already reaching more than half of the sales of iPods. That is, iPhone sales are already in the same order of magnitude as iPod sales.

Second, the trend of those annual moving average lines shows iPods reached a stable point long ago, while iPhone sales are continuously growing, which means that iPhone sales will most likely pass iPod sales in less than a year.

Third, the sales of iPhones almost reached those of iPods in 2009q4 and 2010q2. 2010q1 was Oct-Dec of 2009 (those are Apple's financial quarters). That quarter, as all q1 quarters, was greatly affected by huge sales of iPods as Christmas gifts.

Fourth, the iPod sales in that graph include the iPod touch, which arguably is closer to the iPhone than to the older iPods. Taking that into account, sales of iPhone OS devices surpassed classic iPod devices long ago.

Fifth, you took that plot from this article from the Guardian, and the whole point of that article is "WTF! How did Apple sell so many iPhones?"

All five points were derived from the plot that you gave me. Boy, did that backfire on you!

So your basically saying, that because they don't publish how can they be found for their crimes? I can see the validity there but what if the information is the harm?

The proposed filter of course had no baring on this, but just like we can't smuggle drugs into the country being able to transfer illegally obtained data should be stopped.

I go back to the argument that this filter had very little to do with porn, i think that was the easy "sell" but i believe it had more to do with things like the following

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/22/germany-china-industrial-espionage
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9144221/Google_attack_part_of_widespread_spying_effort

and my favorite

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8579276.stm

What I'm really afraid of is say the Chinese govt found to be involved with these efforts, Imagine irrefutable proof that the Chinese Govt was found funding hacking groups to aid in stealing corporate data for their own gain? We are literally talking about WW3 perhaps the end of the world as we know it.

I know that you can label it as a mad max like 2012 plant-x notion, but a govt being caught with their hand in the cookie jar is an act of War.

Also, you need more money to flow into the schools but people will vote down any tax increase to fund the increase.

That's depressing. In the UK when Jamie said on his TV programme that schools were spending an average of 37 pence per child there was significant pressure on the government (including a petition) to spend more. They increased the minimum to 50p (in 2005), which Jamie said was sufficient.

If you're not going to spend tax revenue on your nation's children, what are you going to spend it on? (Rhetorical question.)

Articles from centre-left (Guardian) and right (Times) newspapers:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/feb/20/channel4.food
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article432258.ece (disable cookies if it doesn't work)