Slashdot Mirror

Haha. I learned only this summer that the haggis is "marketed" to the US tourists as this small round animal. You could buy little haggis soft toys at the souvenir shops!

Sitation required? http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/nov/27/travelnews.travel

Another ridicule on the american tourist was the Edinburgh castle's tourist guide's anecdote about an american asking whether the coastline behind the bay (the Forth?) that you can see from the castle might be France?

> I am really curious if it thinks I'm gay (does it consider bisexuality?). Also, this could be useful as a dating tool; if you
> don't know if the object of your affections is gay or not, run them through MIT Gaydar, and then possibly feel more secure about
> asking them out.

I'm sure this'll go down well in Iraq:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/13/iraq-gays-murdered-militias

Then again, typically I can tell if someone is gay just from looking at their record collection...

1) the recycleables we send them are for various reasons. .... shredded plastics. Type 1, 2, and 6 plastics are recylced right here, most of which is sent to our local bottling plants and never leaves the state (unless the newly filled bottle does).
http://www.climatechangecorp.com/content.asp?ContentID=6132
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/09/recycling-global-recession-china
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1942906.ece
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Recycling/Problem-With-Plastics5jun03.htm



It IS carbon nuetral. The CO2 input into the gas is from already expelled CO2. They are not using any stored source of CO2 in the process, so they are not introducing CO2 that would not already have been released. That is the scientific definition of carbon nuetral! The energy in the system is entirely from wind. No additional oil or energy is required, nor does it remove from the economy another product that reqwuires more oil.
Oh, goody. With that logic, then we should be able to shut down the coal and natural gas input stream and get all the electricity as well as hydrocarbons that we want.
The doty process absolutely is NOT carbon neutral. If it was, then you would simply be able to capture it from the air. It depends on Natural gas and Coal being burned and having a relatively pure stream of CO2. What it does is increase the efficiency of the burning of coal/natural gas process. Now, that is not a bad thing. The more so, considering that we sending billions of dollar elsewhere to buy oil in the ground. BUT, to claim that it is carbon neutral is at best a W-level "disingenuous".

which serves to trigger the portion of the DMCA law (Britain probably has equivalent legal language now due to copyright "normalization" treaties)

And that's where you're wrong.
Like most US abominations, the DMCA is a US-only thing.

European laws prevent the adoption of any DMCA-like law in any country of the union. It does have something slightly similar though: circumvention is allowed unless it is done for illegal purposes; that means you're not allowed to spread information of how to break the protection of a certain service to render that protection ineffective and use the service for free, for example.

Well then you might want to contact your EU representatives and let them know. They appear to have gone and not only passed the EUCD . Since then, the member states have been scrambling over each other to make nasty implementations of the EUCD at home.

Besides, laws only apply to honest folk. The situation there at the BBC is that Microsoft toadies have been moving in and locking the BBC into anti-democratic technologies. M$ still hasn't made good on the legal obligations set by the European courts about media formats, players and browsers. All three violations come to play here in the BBC.

The time for putting up with Microsofters is over. They're killing services (e.g. BBC), jobs and the economy.

Not so! As I've pointed out several times, if your claim defames me, it doesn't matter (in an English court) that it's true because the truth isn't, and never has been an absolute defense there.

Yes, you've pointed it out several times. But, as the GP was saying, you're wrong. The truth is an absolute defence here; you were, however, correct in your OP when you said it is an affirmative defence, i.e. you have to prove it.

See this useful summary. Relevant quote: "There are defences in law for libel. The publisher could prove the statement to be true [...]".

In your original post, you say this:

It wouldn't matter. IANAL, but I've looked into this sort of thing. Here in the US, the truth is an absolute defense against slander or libel. That is, if you can prove that you told the truth, you've won your case because that's the way the law reads. In Britain, the truth is an affirmative defense.

This is all correct.

That means that you're allowed to prove that you told the truth, but it might not be enough to save you. British law considers statements to be slander or libel if they are harmful and/or defamatory regardless of the truth of the statements.

But these two sentences are wrong. I believe you misunderstand what an affirmative defence is.

Well, they do have some moral fiber: '100 drums were secretly buried somewhere in the southern Italian region of Basilicata. Clan members avoided burying the waste in neighbouring Calabria, said the turncoat, because of their "love for their home region"'. link Nice of them, eh?

According to previous reports in 2007, the mafia had managed to corrupt/bribe/threaten officials at the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment: An Enea manager is said to have paid the clan to get rid of 600 drums of toxic and radioactive waste from Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, and the US, the turncoat claimed, with Somalia as the destination lined up by the traffickers.

Worryingly, the arrested ENEA officials were also accused of seeking 'clandestine production of plutonium' on behalf of the Mafia. The countries or organisations the plutonium was destined for have not been named.

In Britain, the truth is an affirmative defense. That means that you're allowed to prove that you told the truth, but it might not be enough to save you. British law considers statements to be slander or libel if they are harmful and/or defamatory regardless of the truth of the statements.

As someone else pointed out, proving the truth of the statement is a defense. But I wonder why there is any need to prove that the treatments are "bogus" to avoid liability. The treatments are not people. There is no harm if they are exposed to "hatred or ridicule." Singh did not say "I think that these treatments are bogus, and that BCA members should be subject to hatred and ridicule for promoting such treatements."

Members of (the now-defunct) Flat Earth Society do no harm to those who believe the world to be spherical, even though such members are saying that the common belief is erroneous. Nor are such members harmed by the millions of science books printed that proclaim the world to be spherical, even though those books say that the members have erroneous beliefs.

In separating the message from the messenger, one says "I think you are mistaken, but I do hold that others should hate or ridicule you for it (I just think they should not adopt your position)." And really, unless there is evidence that the messenger was attacked, simply saying "I think you are mistaken" implies the rest.

Of course, the law in Britain may allow a sensitive messenger to recover, even when the message, not the messenger, was attacked. Britain's libel laws have previously come under attack before for "discouraging coverage of matters of major public interest."

In Britain, the truth is an affirmative defense. That means that you're allowed to prove that you told the truth, but it might not be enough to save you. British law considers statements to be slander or libel if they are harmful and/or defamatory regardless of the truth of the statements.

As someone else pointed out, proving the truth of the statement is a defense. But I wonder why there is any need to prove that the treatments are "bogus" to avoid liability. The treatments are not people. There is no harm if they are exposed to "hatred or ridicule." Singh did not say "I think that these treatments are bogus, and that BCA members should be subject to hatred and ridicule for promoting such treatements."

Members of (the now-defunct) Flat Earth Society do no harm to those who believe the world to be spherical, even though such members are saying that the common belief is erroneous. Nor are such members harmed by the millions of science books printed that proclaim the world to be spherical, even though those books say that the members have erroneous beliefs.

In separating the message from the messenger, one says "I think you are mistaken, but I do hold that others should hate or ridicule you for it (I just think they should not adopt your position)." And really, unless there is evidence that the messenger was attacked, simply saying "I think you are mistaken" implies the rest.

Of course, the law in Britain may allow a sensitive messenger to recover, even when the message, not the messenger, was attacked. Britain's libel laws have previously come under attack before for "discouraging coverage of matters of major public interest."

Better because they got the British Medical Journal to write it - link

Here in the UK, we have our very own Creationist Zoo that markets itslf to local schools as fulfilling curriculum requirements but pushes a strong and consistent creationist adgenda.

Meanwhile, a recent survey says that half of Britons either don't believe in evolution or say they're too confused to have an opinion.

At current recovery rates and tech level, yes, but that will get better, there's more there, and they are still finding big fields elsewhere, like the recent big gulf discovery..and who knows what they have squirreled away in the arctic, either known about and kept secret, or still to be found.

    Combined with more efficient vehicles,(a LOT more efficient, it's possible today with bog standard today's tech, every place BUT the US has a much wider choice of better mileage vehicles) and electric vehicles, and using what petroleum we have in blends with advanced biofuels, we could get by on a reduced petroleum supply load for even longer.

    And telecommuting, a few tens of billion in better data infrastructure could eliminate the need for hundreds of billions worth in commuting costs and pollution., which is cheaper and easier, transporting some electrons, or millions of meat sacks in heavy steel boxes twice a day?

    Giant office towers that are there just so folks can sit in front of a computer screen are *rather wasteful*, when folks can stay home and sit in front of a computer screen. All that commuting and having to keep those huge buildings running, proly 3/4ths wasted right there just because a lot of these companies haven't had the right incentive (that would be clubs to the head to get them to wake up) and cut loose from the Ebenezer Scrooge and Bob Cratchitt 1700s mentality of the necessity of BEING at the office all the time, and make better use of the tech we have now and enter the 21st century. Plus think of the sheer millions of man hours that could be saved not riding in a car or bus or train or even a dang bicycle back and forth and back and forth and back and forth to work.

We can go a long ways to dropping petroleum (and coal and natgas and..) demand without sacrificing any cool modern way of life, just by doing things smarter instead oif perpetuating obsolete tech because a few already rich people can skim so much profit from it. Heck, we could probably get by with very few new powerplants if they adjusted building codes (and mortgage loan approvals) to require a lot more insulation. The bulk of our electricity use is heating and cooling, and I know that this demand/requirement level can be dropped drastically, I used to be in that biz for a while, retrofitting for more energy efficiency.

    You can read a scosh about it here, superinsulation. It's amazing, you got to see it to believe it almost. You can get some serious savings by just *using* tech that has already been developed decades ago. It ain't sexy for wallstreet skimmers and gamblers that much, so it isn't pushed "in the market" as it could be, or for academic wanking research, but it IS possible. No new nuthin needs to be invented or funded by vulture capitalists or needs "government studies". Just double or triple our generic 50s and 60s level insulation that exists in millions of homes and buildings, along with a few other tweaks like better windows and doors and so on, and you'd be surprised how that works out for the electric bill.

    Easy enough done with a simple one page legislative bill and decent and credible sized tax credits, extended for some years. It could create a million new and actually *useful* jobs and save hundreds of billions in energy costs and dramatically reduce air pollution. But no one big company could get a monopoly on it, not a lot of patents to troll with, etc, so it ain't pushed, and dang sure the energy companies don't push it, cuts directly into the ole bottom line there. Lip service at best, they push what I would term 1/4 ass efforts, not even half assed. And they call that "good cents". I call it deliberate misdirection and marketing propaganda.

You want to see what really could be accomplished today, with both housing and transportation, check out some of the designs at the solar decathlon competition.

'If you have jury duty, you would be listening to the case being discussed, not your iPod.'

Well, usually:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/jul/10/claredyer.uknews4

"Last Wednesday a defence lawyer thought she caught a glimpse of a wire under the woman's head covering. On several occasions the judge had thought he could hear the faintest "tinny music", but dismissed it as his imagination. Finally, a woman juror sent him a note, claiming her colleague had been listening to her MP3 player during the defendant's evidence."

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKL1689542720070816

"Attorney General Baroness Patricia Scotland had "carefully" considered the case and decided not to press criminal charges, saying it would be too difficult to prove if the woman was guilty, a spokeswoman for her office said...The Crown Prosecution Service said there had been contempt cases where people had taken pictures using mobile phones in court, but it was believed to be the first of its kind involving a juror suspected of listening to music."

Is that how it works?

first of all, i'd like to apologise for "grammar", and for derailing the discussion. this should really be about stabbing weapons and not about gays.

"how it works" is I was trying to make a deft parallel between this shortsighted knife policy by one Scouts organisation with a shortsighted sexual orientation policy by another Scouts organisation. partly tongue in cheek, and partly to show that these organisations have done some pretty backwards things before. Unfortunately, the discussion turned into mostly knee jerk reactions about how I am such a "hate monger". dont' shoot the messenger; i figured it was covered so extensively that it would be a short stretch for most to make the connection. i know that most of my gay friends would have, and chuckled.

Feel free to pick out all of my grammatical errors; they are legion, and it appears to calm some down.

Both the EU and UK (Competition Commission and/or Ofcom) regulators will be paying a great deal of attention to the merger, given the high barriers of entry to the market place (i.e. it's not really possible) and the low number of competitors.

Gremlins !... better not feed it after midnight....
Now where's my good ol' American tractor...

Jungle Spider

A quick google / wiki couldn't give me any deep information about a "jungle spider". Is that guy really holding an unknown species of spider with his bare hands? That's pretty ballsy.

You compile your own kernel, right?

"There is absolutely no point putting a toilet bowl over a latrine or compost loo"

And now you know why GNOME and KDE act like they do.

(The article was written to be in the style of Guardian columnist Jack Schofield, so not having a goddamn clue is entirely in character.)

This also brings up the inadequacy of their "cloud" model for storage of annotations etc.: if you have any content you want to keep, you had better handle storage yourself, because nobody else can be trusted. This principle, of course, goes beyond Amazon, but is brought into focus here.

Are you saying that... RMS is right?

My head hurts. I'm going to lie down for a bit...

The crash risk is not the large one. The lack of physical fitness risk is estimated to be ten or twenty times higher than the bicycle crash risk, measured in expected lost years of life. If your set of bad outcomes to be avoided includes heart attacks, strokes, and similar deadly diseases of the unfit, then the safest vehicle on the road, is a human-powered bicycle (probably, a cargo bicycle -- slower, even harder to flip, even more exercise). E-drive gets you nothing, e-assist, you trade off reduced effort and increased speed against increased use.

Democracy (in the U.S.) died some time ago.

Sure did. Naomi Wolf: Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

You guys really oughta read that one if you haven't. And weep for the fallen.

I don't think anyone in the UK has a problem with Mrs Windsor.

I think a significant number of people in the UK oppose the system of monarchy, if not the arbitrary family we happen to have. The thing is, it's not an opinion that's aired all that often, because of the 1848 Treason Felony Act, which makes it a criminal offence, punishable by life imprisonment, to advocate abolition of the monarchy in print. ... which is pretty shameful.

Good luck finding a jury that'll convict. Hell read your own link, the reason the Law Lords didn't strike it down was because the Guardian had breached it on multiple occasions and failed to be even investigated, let alone prosecuted under it. The Law Lords basically said "We'll never convict anyone under this act, but it's not our role to repeal it, go and ask Parliament"

I don't think anyone in the UK has a problem with Mrs Windsor.

I think a significant number of people in the UK oppose the system of monarchy, if not the arbitrary family we happen to have. The thing is, it's not an opinion that's aired all that often, because of the 1848 Treason Felony Act, which makes it a criminal offence, punishable by life imprisonment, to advocate abolition of the monarchy in print. ... which is pretty shameful.

He's been demonised for opposing the media groupthink on some hot-button issues, e.g. this or this. His Conservative leadership failed because the media didn't like him, preferring the Blairite David Cameron. The central issue is that, to quote one left-wing blog, "Our vision of civil liberties is fundamentally different to that of Davis". I found this interview with him to be quite interesting.

In case you might not grasp the reality of the mission creep which inevitably follows the implementation of any system which potentially trivialises the access to private data, see here how the use of the Oyster card system, ostensibly used to streamline public transport in London, has transformed over the years. Bear in mind that the same system is now being promoted for other cities in the UK:

2003 - Civil liberties concerns brushed aside
2006 - Police increasingly access Oyster travel database
2008 - Security service wants full access to whole travel database 2008

Once it is in place, the use of the system will be extended, and it will be well nigh impossible to get rid of. That is guaranteed - unless you raise a storm over it, and truly punish your MP for their behaviour.

Remember: your MP doesn't care what you think. Except for the two or three months immediately prior to an election, they only care about the organisations who lobby them.

Here is some good reading material on the subject: http://it.slashdot.org/story/05/01/09/0833254/The-Tin-Whisker-Menace?art_pos=3 http://ask.slashdot.org/story/08/06/15/1732216/Tin-Whiskers-mdash-Fact-Or-Fiction?art_pos=1 http://nepp.nasa.gov/WHISKER/background/index.htm http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/apr/03/research.engineering

Sorry I am UK so made assumptions based on that - afaik nobody (major) uses Deep packet Inspection here yet. People have been dropping Phorm trials for the hot potato it is.

Once they do though (I see virgin still seem to be on board, which is worrying to me as cable is the only decent choice in the uk imho) then the users move to the next level (they already know how, but why bother when simple port 80 stuff works for now) ...

http://www.inputoutput.io/how-to-subvert-deep-packet-inspection-the-right-way/

I agree the ISP's will react in time, but my money is on the community moving faster than the ISPs. (look at how CSS, AACS and DRM in general is working out...)

I think the real answer (from ISP's) is legal downloadable media content with a compelling price. Convenience is the huge elephant in the room that media providers seem intent on ignoring. Yes, there will always be freeloaders but there are a huge swathe of people who would quite happily pay for the convenience of not having to trawl binsearch or tpb for the content they want.

There is a quite significant market in reasonably priced 'authorised' downloadable content (itunes, virgin on demand, sky box office etc) which proves the model works.

Cost of delivery vs price? The potential margin must be huge. At least comparable to that of physical media. if ISP's cache content locally they are laughing. If I was an ISP with a fat network that already had a content delivery arm (oh yes thats right Virgin) then I would set up my own 'iPlayer' knock off, I know - vPlayer.

I have a hunch that bandwidth costs (From p2p at least) would be slashed, as everyone would just get the content of your own servers.

Meh, I'm rambling now.

Budwiser is no longer the number one selling beer in the world. A Chinese beer called Snow now holds that tittle. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/nov/22/china-snow-beer-bud-light

Actually, the evidence currently suggests that there is probably some neurological basis towards a predisposition to believe in religion. There is some evidence that tending towards belief in the divine would have benefited early groups of humans, thus creating an evolutionary drive towards belief. Studies of separated twins show that belief or not belief in the pair is not just random, inferring a genetic basis of belief. See for example Why do we believe in God? by Robert Winston, or Religion is a product of evolution, software suggests. There are many other papers in a similar vein.

So, maybe people don't choose to be feel religious after all, in much the same way as people don't choose to feel homosexual.

Hmmm... I wonder how many bales of abandoned cocaine are in that heap?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/oct/09/international.mainsection2
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/07/13/1183833752038.html

He had lunch with David Geffen whilst on holiday in Corfu (staying at the Rothschild estate, on their yacht).

There's no way to type that sentence without sounding tin-foil, but it is actually the case!

Surely, though, an EEC Directive can only govern issues pertaining to trade between EU countries?

This issue does affect trade, because it means the UK was banning material that was legal in other EU countries. From http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/aug/26/video-recordings-act :

"the reason why the act should have been referred to the European commission is because it constitutes a restraint on intra-EU trade, in that it entails that videos or DVDs which have not been certificated by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) cannot legally be imported from another EU country and then sold or rented in the UK."

Basically, I'm asking: is this bad lawmaking or just bad reporting?

I think the VRA is bad lawmaking in itself. And maybe if the VRA hadn't been rushed through in the first place as a result of kneejerk moral panicing over "video nasties", they wouldn't have made such sloppy errors.

Sadly it looks like we'll repeat it all over again, with scaremongering over "pr0n sold to children" and rushing it through with "emergency legislation".

Just an additional note on some good coverage on this - there's a good article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/aug/26/video-recordings-act

For some matters the Law Lords are the highest court in the land...

s/are/were/

The Law Lords ceased to exist with their final judgements on 30th July.
Their replacement, the UK Supreme Court will sit for the first time on 12th October.

See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/jul/30/law-lords-supreme-court
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6806362.ece
etc.

Indeed, the end of British civilization as we know it is at an end. Parents woke up this morning to find that pornographers are now beaming images directly into the minds of their children.

Only today I wandered into my local video store, hoping to find a copy of Grotesque, only to be confronted by a swarm of children, all rushing to buy copies of Terminator and Robocop. I overheard one child claiming how much of a novelty it was to buy DVDs in a shop, as opposed to just downloading them for free like they usually did.

If I'm really lucky, perhaps I'll be able to pick up an uncut copy of Buffy , before this emergency legislation is brought in.

The Guardian have made this claim too - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/aug/25/video-piracy-damages-1984-act - but I'm still sceptical (especially as the media often just copy stories from each other).

One possibility is that the VRA was used against video pirates, on the basis that video pirates may typically have been selling unclassified films (e.g., imports, uncut versions). In the same way that the "extreme" porn law now apparently is. But it`s nonsense for the media to present it in this way, since piracy is clearly covered by other laws. And if a video pirate can overturn a conviction, IMO it serves the Government right for using the wrong law for the job.

Scaremongering about children watching porn and now video pirates seems like a blatant biased attempt to push the assumption that this law is necessary - something I strongly disagree with, when it comes to the aspects of adult censorship.

Indeed. The sad thing is that this angle is completely being ignored by the press, who are instead running with wild scaremongering of "OMG, now people will be able to sell porn to young children!!!111"

Whilst the VRA covers age ratings, it also makes it illegal to sell an unclassified work to anyone, period. And since the BBFC can refuse classification for films or games, it's this law that allows censorship for adults. It's also routine that cuts are required - the film gets approved, but in the UK only if material deemed unsuitable even for adults is removed. So for now, selling uncut films will be legal.

There are other aspects too: for example, various regulations surrounding R18 material (material which is given a classification, but is considered taboo enough that there are loads of regulations covering where and how it can be sold, even to adults - a curious oddity is that it's not even legal to order R18 material online from a UK supplier, desite the fact that you could happily order it from abroad).

The VRA was passed as a result of a moral panic in the 1980s over snuff films and video nasties. Those video nasties have now, since 2000, been legalised anyway as a result of a more relaxed BBFC. Will they take the opportunity to finally relax the law, and perhaps bring in something solely related at age limits?

Fuck no. In fact, we're hearing talk of "emergency legislation" (WTF? That's the sort of thing you'd associate with terrorism or war, not "But an under-18 might be able to watch Robocop"). And with the knee-jerk "OMG think of the children" angle being reported by the entire press - not just the tabloids, but also the broadsheets (the Guardian even have a nonsense article claiming that piracy is now legal! We wish...) and the BBC - you can bet that there'll be no debate. Indeed, in today's climate where the UK Government recently criminalised possession of some kinds of adult porn it doesn't like, my fear is that if they do decide to revisit the law, we'll actually end up with something even worse.

On top of that, we have the Government claiming that convictions under this non-existent law will still stand(!)

My first reponse to hearing this news was a big "ha ha", but the response from the press and seemingly anyone in power who matters has left me rather depressed about attitudes towards adult censorship in this country.

In london the tube is the most expensive

that article's title is sensationalist. As it says in the article, cash fares are inflated to promote adoption of the oyster card. These days pretty much everyone uses them. Very convenient and removes the need for cash & credit card transactions for travel.. the small shops all over london deal with the cash transactions instead

buses are £2 cash, £1 with oyster I'm not sure about tube fares but I guess its a similar ratio

Don't be so sure of your self.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2009/jul/06/nokia-mobile-internet-phones

The horror.

And try to mention the Nazi connections of George W. Bush, while you are at it. You see, his dad's dad had business-relations with some Nazis: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

So W. deserves to be said to have some connection with Nazis, let's put that right in the first sentence, in capslock. Everybody needs to know what a terrible guy his grampa was before they form an opinion on W.

Obama has met thousands of people in his life. One of them is Ayers. Whoopdedoo. If unimportant stuff like being president of some country doesn't get deleted from Obama's article, that for sure belongs in the Obama article. Capslock engage!

Tube: In london the tube is the most expensive public transport of the world. To eradicate privacy concerns you are told that you've got no privacy: the tube is covered with cameras. They are there just to easen your feelings of unsecurity and keeping souvenir videos of dead kamikaze bombers for later inspection.

Deceptive at best there - this is (a) from 2007, (b) solely in reference to 'cash fares' which represent something like 4% of tube journeys.

and don't forget the 100% privacy surcharge (already mentioned in that link you posted) for paying by cash instead of RFID in London

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/jan/03/consumernews.transportintheuk

Most people here seems to regard parking meters as normal and acceptable devices. Fact is that the SOIL is public. That means that the SOIL is YOURS. Now would you like to be charged for living into your house? I doubt it. So why can you accept that someone is renting your land? Here now you are debating which form of stealing is better for you. Like debating whatever is better to be eaten by a lion or a tiger.

*LONDON CASE* - Just in case my points need proof. London is the best example that the government is not able to get public transport done in a decent way. Those who had the pleasure to visit London had the pleasure to witness the outcome of this resignation policy, where citizen don't question for a long time the actions of their governors.

Tube: In london the tube is the most expensive public transport of the world. To eradicate privacy concerns you are told that you've got no privacy: the tube is covered with cameras. They are there just to easen your feelings of unsecurity and keeping souvenir videos of dead kamikaze bombers for later inspection.
Congestion Charge: You can't use your car if you don't pay. Basically 16$ flat rate to get into the city. Cameras with number plate recognition software will note every car entering the charging zone. At the end of the day number plates will be cross referenced against a database of payments made -and don't forget to fuck privacy.
Parking: Public parking in central london is practically non existant. Where it is available the rates are so high that made possible for a private parking industry to florish (usually 36$ per day, 3,60$ per hour). With the advent of decriminalised parking the practice is becoming much more widespread and as evidenced by the TV docu-soap 'Clampers', can be very arbitary: "clampers using threatening behaviour". Insane measures to clamp even bikes: Inside the Greater London area all footway parking is prohibited unless it is specifically exempted and signs indicate that you may park partially or wholly on the footway. -

Conclusions: In london there is no other options but to be raped insane charges by local authorities. You take a bike, you can't park and risk clamps - You take a car you pay for using (congestion charge) and parking (if and when you find a spot) - You take the tube you are going to pay the most expensive transport system of the world AND you are still uncertain if you can reach your destination in time or whatever (It's like lotto, if you're lucky you get in time, if youre not lucky you're screwed since anything can happen, from detours to surface lines, delays or anything else - Also take for granted that when it happens you will find yourself dumped in parts of the city you never knew they existed before).

well i never considered the windows users but you may have a point.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/662254.stm is perhaps a more informative link.

cutting deaths from heart disease would raise the percentage of deaths from other things it miht be cancer or it might be old age. You are ignoring the effect of cutting heart disease would be longer life. For the individual this is generally a good thing although like in animal farm retirement ages are liable to rise.

Is it in the national interest for people to live beyond their useful working lives? In fact it might be a similar question does society wish to support unproductive drug users? Both groups might be considered a burden on society
It's a cynical point of view but why is it that the most powerful people seem to have the longest lives?

your final point about the patent-ability of modern drugs and the profits to be made in using them is also cynical and likely true. However my own daily dose of medications perhaps aspirin is one of the cheapest and most useful of the seven drugs I take each day. The other six are probably patent medicines costing much more.

you might be interested in the wholefoods problems brought about by the CEO.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8216685.stm (americans don't haave an intrinsic right to health care)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/aug/05/whole-foods-boss-junk-food (we sell a lot of junk says CEO)

To be fair to John Mackey he is being attacked and his company for saying some dangerous truths. He is convinced that a lot of what his stores sell isn't really what people should be eating if they want to stay healthy from my own rapid introduction to heart disease I certainly agree with him on that point. The point which seems to be getting him into trouble about health care really stems from the belief that if your eating a healthy diet you don't need a system doling out pills and potions to the masses. He's right that there is a huge cost to providing health care and he is also probably right in thinking it wouldn't be needed if we stopped eating junk. It's being painted as if he is saying americans should't get free healthcare and he is gettin his company trashed as a result, just unfortunate or perhaps he's upsetting the apple cart by pointing out that most of our food is killing us.

If it turns out that she has cheated, i.e. born a boy and had an operation then the fuss is justified

Actually, that's not cheating. If you've had an MTF operation and have been on hormones for > 2 years, you're allowed to compete in the women's section. The rules say so, for the very good reason that the hormones make your muscles go away. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/21/semenya-gender-discrimination

From the article:

Earlier this month, Apple rejected an application for the iPhone called Google Voice. The uproar set off a chain of eventsâ"Google's CEO Eric Schmidt resigning from Apple's board

I'm confused. I thought this was over a "conflict of interest."

It seems to me that you cannot make the implication that Apple rejecting an Google Voice set off the resignation of Eric Schmidt. More like, Google Voice exists and now that Google is directly competing with Apple, there is a conflict of interest forcing Eric Schmidt to resign from one or the other.

This is southern Ireland (Eire) the IRA became the Irish National Army in 1922, and don't have anything to do with the IRA in Northern Ireland

While that is true, the implication I take from your words is that the current (real/provo) IRA is not linked to Eire.

It most certainly is, for example Liam and Michael Campbell. The first successfully sued by the relatives of the Omagh victims for the 1998 bomb attack and the latter accused in court this week of having paid 10,000 (£8,600) to arm the Real IRA with guns and explosives from Lithuania http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/aug/18/arms-real-ira-lithuania-sting

It will be a total sham and a waste of time.

Votes are being sold for $10 a pop, nobody expects the elections to be fair so whoever wins election results will be contested, election ink safeguard is washable (then again, that may save some people's fingers), 13-year-olds vote, there are reports of people being hanged for voting and somehow Britney Spears is registered to vote.

But yeah. Sure...
A map and a bunch of anonymous SMS messages will SURELY fix all that.

Also, there was a local TV news story about Cash for clunkers meaning that dealers were running out of those cars...

That's really not true, though. The only thing they ran out of in the cash for clunkers program was budget. (Did they extend that?) These cars are all over the world .

Am I the only one who thinks this could be a good idea? It gives copyright holders a chance to adapt to the new - possibly better way - to distribute their material. I can imagine big studios (**AA spooks) vehemently demanding that the torrents be removed. But the smaller/indie ones would probably consider it. I mean, their stuff are being downloaded anyway, why not earn from that too?

And who knows, if this system works for the small guys, the big ones might even change their minds.

(Related article: All you can eat music)