Slashdot Mirror

Not what happens in practice in the UK - over here, we keep an illegal DNA database of innocent people.

explain why you singled out solar power for criticism

Wow, you really are devestatingly retarded, are you not? I just pointed out the very obvious fact that solar uses rare-earth minerals, and that the mining for rare-earth minerals is devestating for the areas where it happens. You can, for example, read this.. I did not insinuate, say or state that it pollutes more or less than this or that, only that it has devestating effects as a source of pollution.

If you can admit that fossil fuels are worse for the environment in every measurable way when compared to solar and EVs

The misunderstanding is all yours, created entirely using your own imagination.

I like that idea but it would paint the show into a corner. It would mean that the next doctor would need to regenerate into John Hurt. Logistically that would be risky.

Except they're already in a corner, and need a plot device to get past the established "12 regeneration limit" (which probably seemed like plenty back in the 1970s). If Moffat was going to try and sweep that under the carpet, he wouldn't have name-checked the Valeyard. A big show-down with Doc #13 would be a good opportunity to do a bit of temporal re-writing.

One option would be to have either #11, #12 or #13 die 'for real' and a new individual take on the title "The Doctor" which would fit some of the foreshadowing such the importance of the chosen name, the previous reference to 'The fall of the 11th' suggesting that its actually #11 who died on Trenzelore, the fact that Clara only met 11 Doctors when the whirly-lighty-thing was meant to contain all the Doctors past and future...

The 50th anniversary special in November is a good excuse for a bit of continuity wanking.

In the Sarah Jane Adventures, Death of the Doctor, The Doctor claims he has unlimited regenerations. http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/oct/12/doctor-who-immortal-reveals-bbc

I haven't seen the last 2 seasons of Sarah Jane Adventures, so that caught me by surprise.

we know (unless they changed it since he's the last timelord), timelords only get 12 regens (making 13 total lives)

Not anymore, the Doctor has had infinitely many regenerations for a while now.

Ya, i figured they might of done that with him being the last timelord. I just can't remember if that was in an episode or not. Cool, just read the article you linked and apparently it's in the Sarah Jane Adventures, which I have, just haven't watched the last 2 seasons. Guess I better get watching.

we know (unless they changed it since he's the last timelord), timelords only get 12 regens (making 13 total lives)

Not anymore, the Doctor has had infinitely many regenerations for a while now.

But even if you don't have genetic patents they still have an incentive... Patent for drug X that affect gene Y in this manner.. Or Patent for cheaply and accurately detecting gene Z.

Genetic patents are not really good because they patent the actual gene so nobody else can make similar and better drugs or tests for that specific thing... There in lies the evil...

If we take genetically modified crops... They are patented and they are suing people that reuse seeds from their last harvest...... Now lets say Company A gets a patent where they insert some new genetic sequence into a person... If that person then gets a kid then he will be infringing too?? Or how about if a virus would absorb a genetic-sequence and then spread over a population... Will the infected be patent-infringers too??

Patents on genes should not exist. It's a really dangerous thing that actually hinders development of new treatments and blocks actual research.

Do a google and read up a bit on the issues with genetic-patents... To get you started...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/24/gene-patents-scientific-research-innovation

Oh really?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/two-dead-after-police-car-chase-8554266.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2012/sep/04/azelle-rodney-shooting-police-chase-video

As usual some British asshole uses the word "yank" and "Cowboy" to describe something that's happening in his own backyard. This isn't a US problem, it's a police problem. If anything, UK police have an even bigger sense of "We're your mommy and daddy, do what we say" than they do in the US.

Ah. Erm: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/oct/08/april-jones-teenager-jailed-facebook

And yet it has been demonstrated that badger culls don't stop the spread of TB into cattle. If anything, they make it worse.

Something is wrong somewhere because yesterday in the Guardian there was an article about a UK government badger cull which starts tomorrow to stop the spread of bovine TB due to the large population of badgers. So you can't disturb their setts by digging but it is fine to send out teams of hunters to shoot them?

You're only hearing the most shrill and dumbest concerns. GMOs are as healthy as natural food, yes, that appears to be the case. It's the economics that worry me. A lot of us who are opposed to monsanto find the legal bullshit to be annoying, but the real apocalypse nightmare is the monoculture.

Due to economics, and monsanto's efforts, everyone switches to one strain of a food staple, the cheapest one obviously. GMO is clearly cheaper and has a huge competitive edge over natural. If we don't regulate it, whatever strain of corn is the most robust and cheapest, only insane farmers would plant anything but that one. Everyone switches to that best strain of corn, otherwise they wouldn't be competitive and would lose the farm, to be replaced by someone who DOES use that corn. We've already switched to most of our diet coming from corn, again due to economics and business and government 69ing each other. Corn is basically all we eat, and it could be all the exact same strain of corn. It works out for everyone until a bug arises that really loves that strain of corn. Suddenly, nearly all of our food is under attack. The cost of burning all the fields out there and replacing it with a new crop would be ruinous to the economy, and depending on how fast such a problem advances, may not be sufficient to avoid food riots.

Monsanto has no financial incentive to diversify, farmers have no financial incentive to diversify, we're the ones who need to tell them to diversify, but we don't, therefore government has no incentive to make them diversify. No one is thinking long-term.

It's not unprecedented that we allow a monoculture to get established and have it bite us in the ass either. GMO isn't required for such a scenario to take place, but it does help it since we've allowed monsanto to basically have a monopoly on GMO, and because GMO has such a competitive edge over natural.

Really makes me hate the idiots whining about frankenfoods: it takes all the attention away from the important issues and focuses it on paranoia. "Mad scientists are trying to give you cancer through your veggies!" is a lot more sexy than ecology mixed with economics.

It is a false urban legend that Apple is paying no taxes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/video/2013/may/29/apples-dirty-little-tax-secret-video Here is a great informative video from where they unusually, actually go to Cork Ireland.

They actually use a Tax loophole that allows them not to pay tax anywhere in the world. Its brilliant, what Apple do is not use a low tax island...they make the island disappear entirely. It woks because the US is concerned with where a company is Incorporated...where the Irish look where a Company is controlled...so Apple tell the US that they are Incorporated in Ireland...and tell the Irish they are controlled in the US, So Pay literally (proper use of word) NOTHING :)

So if by Urban Myth...you actually mean Fact you would have been right. The fact that you were modded informative shows a frightening trend.

"They paid taxes in the nations they made the money in. "

No.

Apple may have "deliberately or accidentally" misled Australians about how it sets prices here and should "correct the record or provide further detail", a Labor backbencher has demanded.

Backbencher Ed Husic, who has taken a leading role in an Australian parliamentary committee into IT pricing, said shock revelations from a US Senate committee raised concerns "the Australian inquiry has been misled, either deliberately or accidentally".

"I'd call on Apple Australia to either correct the record or provide further detail as to the way it actually prices its products for Australian consumers," Husic told the House of Representatives.

Husic said people may have "raised an eyebrow" at reports that Apple generated $6bn in revenue in Australia but "paid only $40m in tax – apparently because it racked up $5.5bn in costs", but "their eyes would've popped out" at the US revelations Apple had set up an offshore subsidiary that earned $30bn income but had apparently paid no tax to any government for five years.

And the two committee investigations were related, because Apple's complicated international structure has an impact on the prices paid for Apple products for Australians.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/28/australian-companies-forced-disclose-tax

Note that the "$5.5bn in costs" was mostly fees paid by the Australian branch to the offshore subsidiary. Basically a way to inflate prices and pump money out of the region.

One and the same. Obama's pick to head the FBI signed off on the Bush era domestic spying crap and torture. Welcome to the new boss, same as the old.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/30/james-comey-fbi-bush-nsa

But Republicans want to spend on wars in foreign countries.
Democrats want to spend on 'helping' Americans.

Are you fucking joking, trolling or high?

Seriously it has to be one of those options because if anything, Democrats have proven themselves to be as bloodthirsty as Republicans.

And before I get off topic on my rant, do note that the Bush era fuckwad who signed off on GWB's warrantless wiretapping and torture policies, is Obama's pick to head the FBI:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/30/james-comey-fbi-bush-nsa

Then what shall we talk about with respect to Obama:
Should it be his war on the 1st, 4th, or 5th amendment. His war on whistleblowers? Or just plain old war. Like tripling the number of troops in Afghanistan or conducting war with Libya without any congressional approval (goodbye War Powers Act, that little bit of post Viet Nam sanity designed to get us back to how the constitution says war is to started). Should we talk about how Obama tried to extend the Status of Forces Agreement in Iraq beyond the Dec 2011 expiration, failed, and as result pulled out the troops (and you fucking DNC hacks give him credit for ending Iraq when what he did was fail to extend it).

Maybe we should talk about Obama's opposition to the International Treaty to ban cluster bombs.

Maybe we should talk about how aggressively Obama has used the State Secrets Doctrine to shield torturers and those who spy on Americans. Maybe we should talk about why Obama as a candidate railed against NDAA, but recently cajoled Congress to pass it without any modifications, such as general estimate of how many Americans are illegally spied on.

WHATEVER. You fucking Democrat asshats are the biggest bunch of hypocrites around. Your ONLY reason to exist is to normalize the executive power grabs and constitution destroying behavior of the GOP. The entire country would be better off if you collectively had a heart attack and died, because then a real opposition to the GOP could evolve. Your ilk though, you're all talk and all back stabbing.

Democrats: The New GOP. Fresh face, same shit.

But how do those funds get to those folks? Courtesy of Wachovia, Bank of America, HSBC etc.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/may/23/hsbc-court-threat-money-laundering-charges
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-31/money-laundering-banks-still-get-a-pass-from-u-s-.html

It's not so easy to transfer BILLIONS of dollars if those banks and their friends didn't help. There's blood on the hands of those who laundered the money for the drug lords. But only the small fry are going to jail.

So what is the war about really?

"The end result is a rash of petulant stories that insist Apple is desperate for new products, in trouble (with $150 billion dollars in the bank,"

It's sort of like having a small child or a puppy.

A small child or puppy with $150 billion of other people's money. And someday governments around the world will grow enough balls to take it back.

"I'd call on Apple Australia to either correct the record or provide further detail as to the way it actually prices its products for Australian consumers," Husic told the House of Representatives.

Husic said people may have "raised an eyebrow" at reports that Apple generated $6bn in revenue in Australia but "paid only $40m in tax – apparently because it racked up $5.5bn in costs", but "their eyes would've popped out" at the US revelations Apple had set up an offshore subsidiary that earned $30bn income but had apparently paid no tax to any government for five years."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/28/australian-companies-forced-disclose-tax

You seem awfully confident about the good sense of a legal system that orders 60 year old men to continue paying an allowance to their 30-something kids.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/17/italian-adults-living-at-home

Or that decides parents must continue supporting their kids until they find a job that "fits their aspirations".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/apr/06/philipwillan

The judges said a parent's duty of maintenance did not expire when their children reached adulthood, but continued unchanged until they were able to prove either that their children had reached economic independence or had failed to do so through culpable inertia. An adult son who refused work that did not reflect his training, abilities and personal interests could not be held to blame.
"You cannot blame a young person, particularly from a well-off family, who refuses a job that does not fit his aspirations," the judges said.

Facebook could well be fucked.

You seem awfully confident about the good sense of a legal system that orders 60 year old men to continue paying an allowance to their 30-something kids.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/17/italian-adults-living-at-home

Or that decides parents must continue supporting their kids until they find a job that "fits their aspirations".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/apr/06/philipwillan

The judges said a parent's duty of maintenance did not expire when their children reached adulthood, but continued unchanged until they were able to prove either that their children had reached economic independence or had failed to do so through culpable inertia. An adult son who refused work that did not reflect his training, abilities and personal interests could not be held to blame.
"You cannot blame a young person, particularly from a well-off family, who refuses a job that does not fit his aspirations," the judges said.

Facebook could well be fucked.

ORLY?

Maybe not so much...

As is common in this matter, you have things badly confused. Israel did nothing to Iran to deserve they way the new Iranian government turned on them. If you think otherwise, please provide a list. One hint to reduce the chances of you going down the wrong path again: the Palestinians are not Iranian, and the Iranians are not Arabs.

As to "untermenschen," that would be the view of post-revolution Iranian government, and many Arabs living in Palestine.

Reading Mein Kampf in Tehran

On Monday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry held an international conference. Nothing unusual in that: Foreign ministries hold conferences, mostly dull ones, all the time. But this one was different. For one, "Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision" dealt with history, not current politics. Instead of the usual suspects — deputy ministers and the like — the invitees seem to have included David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader; Georges Theil, a Frenchman who has called the Holocaust "an enormous lie"; and Fredrick Toeben, a German-born Australian whose specialty is the denial of Nazi gas chambers.

The guest list was selective: No one with any academic eminence, or indeed any scholarly credentials, was invited. One Palestinian scholar, Khaled Mahameed, was asked to come but then barred because he holds an Israeli passport — and also perhaps because he, unlike other guests, believes that the Holocaust really did happen.

In response, Europe, America, and Israel expressed official outrage. The German government, to its credit, organized a counter-conference. ...

Hamas video: Killing Jews is 'worship that draws us close to Allah'
The Jews Were Brought to Palestine for the Great Massacre

As to the rest, you should catch up on some reading and get back to me.

UN agency stops aid imports to Gaza, cites Hamas 'thefts'
Looters strip Gaza greenhouses
Gazans seethe over taxes and blackouts
Sewage flood causes Gaza deaths
Hamas Bulldozes UN-Designated Historical Site to Make Room for Terrorist Training Camp
In Gaza, Hamas rule has not turned out as many expected
Rights watchdog accuses Hamas of torture, abuse of Palestinians
Hamas accused of routine torture of detainees in Gaza Strip
Palestinian Authority: Still Stealing "Hundreds of Millions," Hamas Taking Over
NY Times ignores Gaza's millionaires, hypes poverty, blames Israel (natch)

According to reports in the Arab press, a thriving smuggling economy in Gaza has produced no fewer than 600 millionaires. Hundreds of tunnels to Egypt have become bustling export and import conduits -- with the ruling Hamas elite siphoning off milli

No one believes they have a bomb,

Iran nuclear report: IAEA claims Tehran working on advanced warhead

Your "anti-Zionist" / anti-Israeli trolling does grow tedious at times.

Maybe launching destructive malware at Iranian infrastructure wasn't such a good idea.

If you are referring to "stuxnet," it wasn't launched against the Iranian infrastructure, but against Iran's nuclear program, which includes clandestine work on nuclear weapons.

Iran nuclear report: IAEA claims Tehran working on advanced warhead

I you think that Iran's behavior with just software is disagreeable, I don't think you want to see them with nuclear weapons.

UN chief denounces Iran to its face over calls to destroy Israel
'Cancerous tumour' Israel will soon be destroyed, says Ahmadinejad

Israel’s existence is an “insult to all humanity,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday, in one of his sharpest attacks yet against the Jewish state, which is currently debating whether to attack Iran over its nuclear program.

AFP - Israel is a "cancerous tumour" that will soon be finished off, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday told demonstrators holding an annual protest against the existence of the Jewish state.

"The Zionist regime and the Zionists are a cancerous tumour. Even if one cell of them is left in one inch of (Palestinian) land, in the future this story (of Israel's existence) will repeat," he said in a speech in Tehran marking Iran's Quds Day that was broadcast on state television.

"The nations of the region will soon finish off the usurper Zionists in the Palestinian land.... A new Middle East will definitely be formed. With the grace of God and help of the nations, in the new Middle East there will be no trace of the Americans and Zionists," he said.

Iran Steps Up Threats to Rub Out Israel

The main factor behind the upsurge in threats is the Iranian state-sponsored celebration of its annihilation policy towards Israel, which occurs on the fourth and last Friday of Ramadan every year.

The event is called "Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day," and involves mass rallies, speeches by Iranian leaders, chants of "Death to Israel," and placards bearing the same intent. Last week, Khamenei described Israel as a "cancerous tumor" and "the biggest problem confronting Muslim countries today," according to Iranian media reports.

"Many of the Islamic world's problems come from the existence of the sham Zionist regime," Khamenei added, in comments that are reminiscent of traditional anti-Semitic comments that could be heard everywhere before the Holocaust. . .

Also last week, Brig.- Gen. Gholamreza Jalali, who heads Iran's Passive Civil Defense Organization and is a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards, said there was "no other option but to destroy Israel."

Nuclear weapons have a form of "blow back" all their own due to the intense blast effects. Iran may discover this, as well as other disagreeable forms, if it continues down its present course.

The present circumstances are all the sadder given that Israel and Iran were once allies, until the Islamic revolution in 1979. After that, Iran declared Israel an enemy to be destroyed. The current bad relationship filled with Iran's barely veiled threats of genocide is entirely Iran's choice. Israel did nothing to deserve it.

Real pictures, real gold, real pollution, wrongly implicated source.

Every nation has waste, and most have electronic trash. It doesn't all come from the US, as implied.

Here's an excellent example. This Article says the waste comes from the United States and Europe. If you zoom in a little to read the label, it comes from "World Bank" 9032, which is in Sudan. So scrap electronics in Africa (as portrayed by the other photos) did originate in Africa.

There's actually a really strong market for reduction of electronic waste, where they do recycle precious and scrap metals from them. That market depends on skilled workers using real equipment, not scavenger kids processing them by hand, and losing valuable scrap in the dirt.

Easy enough. And an extra. POP is considered the defacto source for police services around the world if you're wondering.

This should be suppose an article about "agile" and the Universal Credit. After reading the article there is no information what-so-ever, except that the Universal Credit project has been admitted to be failing.

So why is Universal Credit an "agile" project?
Why it is failing?
What is Universal Credit anyway?

Maybe that is why Twitter is so successful, the whole article is just a Twitter message: "Universal Credit, suppose to be biggest Agile Software Project, is failing".

Here is some more information:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/apr/29/universal-credit-pilot-scheme
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/30/universal-credit-iain-duncan-smith

Is it called "agile" because it's a "step-by-step approach" ?

This should be suppose an article about "agile" and the Universal Credit. After reading the article there is no information what-so-ever, except that the Universal Credit project has been admitted to be failing.

So why is Universal Credit an "agile" project?
Why it is failing?
What is Universal Credit anyway?

Maybe that is why Twitter is so successful, the whole article is just a Twitter message: "Universal Credit, suppose to be biggest Agile Software Project, is failing".

Here is some more information:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/apr/29/universal-credit-pilot-scheme
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/30/universal-credit-iain-duncan-smith

Is it called "agile" because it's a "step-by-step approach" ?

He committed no violence. And as a veteran, I'm sure he had a belly full of violence in his life and is more than likely sick of it. I'm inclined to believe that a veteran - especially one that has saw combat - would be much less inclined towards violence than the general population.

Statistics disagree

While overall the armed forces are less likely than civilians to offend, they are three times more likely to be convicted of violent offences; 20% of younger males (under 30) have been convicted of violence compared with 6.7% of civilians. Those who served in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan were 53% more likely to offend violently than those not on the frontline. Those with multiple experiences of combat had a 70%-80% greater risk of being convicted for acts of violence.

That doesn't mean that I agree with 'profiling' veterans, just that your assumption may be off.

Were HTC *that* committed?

I have no idea how committed they were to this particular model, I didn't get the memo, but they sure as hell better commit to something which is going to work for them:

With HTC's monthly revenues for the first four months of 2013 at under two-thirds of that for the same period in 2012, and first-quarter operating profits down by 99%, the company is struggling to cope with the growing power of South Korean rival Samsung

Making a product which everyone has decided they don't want isn't how you succeed in the long run. That's the sign of a company in its death throws.

If people are leaving like rats on a sinking ship, you only get so many more chances to do something which works. I can only assume this is likely to turn into a costly mistake.

Fast broadband speeds not guaranteed by living in city centre. Research shows slowest area in London includes Barbican, next door to the City of London, while fastest is Charlton in Greenwich via http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/mar/27/fast-broadband-speeds-city-centre

Bollocks. Modded you redundant instead of insightful. This guardian article also follows my views pretty closely.

I was doing a little research for a question below and wanted to make sure that I had the facts before posting (a sin, I know) but it did lead me to an interesting article.

What definition of the term includes this horrific act of violence but excludes the acts of the US, the UK and its allies?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/23/woolwich-attack-terrorism-blowback

It is worth reading and made me think a bit. That's always a good thing, right? So, I recalled reading some comments about it up-thread and figured I'd share the link with you as you too may find it interesting. One of the good things about the internet is that it enables people to bring questions like this to the forefront and enables us to discuss and learn. For those of us who recall the pre-internet days the contrast is startling.

So you're saying she was a Republican?

Backwards. The party with a vested interest in keeping people dependent on professionals who dole things out to them is the Democrats. That's the backbone of their entire constituency and the framework within which they describe everybody: needing a handout, or needing to be used to pay for handouts. Without playing middlemen to that one-way street, there would be almost not power in that camp. And so they seek to preserve it at every turn.

No, the guy to whom you replied got it right: Republicans are the most dependent on a culture of people dependent on professionals who dole things out to them. Red States are more dependent on the Government Dole than Blue States, because Red State policies create a constituency which needs a handout just to survive. Poverty-stricken, uneducated white people vote Republican more often than middle class educated people (who tend to vote Democrat), so Republicans seek to preserve a constituency trapped in poverty, voting Republican on social issues even as Republicans pull the economic rug out from under their collective feet.

Ahem

Interesting thing about the Daily Mail.

Press Awards: Daily Mail leads winners - Wednesday 21 March 2012

Paper lands eight awards, including newspaper of the year, campaign of the year and hat-trick for Craig Brown
Paul Dacre and the Daily Mail had a good night at the 2012 Press Awards, scooping eight prizes including newspaper of the year. . .

However, overall it was the Daily Mail's night, with editor-in-chief Dacre up on stage three times to accept the campaign of the year and Cudlipp awards for the paper's Stephen Lawrence coverage, as well as the newspaper of the year prize.

Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday writer Craig Brown was the biggest individual winner, becoming the first journalist to win three awards in a single night at the UK newspaper industry's annual awards bash on Tuesday.

You know what? I searched for "fail" in the Guardian's story and it doesn't come up. Maybe you've got it?

Because when you went to the paper, you instantly found table 3 with columns for both "all papers" and "that expressed a position". That's where you got your 2/3rds from. You can't say they ignored it when you got the figure from the published paper.

I am beginning to suspect that you are not taking me seriously, that you believe me to be pushing an anti-AGW agenda. Or if I'm being really cynical, that you are trying to push an anti-AGW agenda by claiming a pro-AGW position, but then being really condescending to others about it.

At any rate, I actually got it from a paragraph from this particular TFS link.

The survey considered the work of some 29,000 scientists published in 11,994 academic papers. Of the 4,000-plus papers that took a position on the causes of climate change only 0.7% or 83 of those thousands of academic articles, disputed the scientific consensus that climate change is the result of human activity, with the view of the remaining 2.2% unclear.

Not that which link I got it from really changes anything. Please note that I am not saying they did not look at 2/3 of the papers, only that they ignored 2/3 when calculating a 97% consensus. Or if you don't like "ignored", perhaps "did not include in the calculations" would work better for you.

Please note also that I am not automatically jumping to the conclusion that there is a sinister reason for not including them in the calculations. There is probably a really good reason. I am simply saying that unless/until that reason is brought up, some people will consider that 97% to have been deceitfully arrived at.

"If we look at the results, out of over 4,000 papers, 97% take the position that climate change is man-made."
"But what about these nearly 8,000 other papers?"
"97%!"
"But why..."
"97%!!!"

Well, you are technically correct, however, I went to two of the articles linked and both of them mentioned how many total articles they found in a search for "global climate change" or "global warming" and then they mention a number of those articles which take a specific stance...
For example, the THIRD sentence of one of the articles reads...

"The survey considered the work of some 29,000 scientists published in 11,994 academic papers."

Well, how about a 2nd Amendment solution to the cameras?

who needs guns when you have an old tire and petrol?

First set of key words being voluntary refusal. It isn't completely voluntary, is it?

The military has said that some prisoners are pressuring others to join the hunger strike, and that some of those being tube-fed occasionally eat regular meals or voluntarily drink nutritional supplements when they are removed from their cell blocks and are alone with medical personnel. . . -- American Medical Association questions Guantanamo force-feedings

I know I'm being idealistic and picky here. I am reading your links in full before I post. First, "some". So, not "all", not "most", not "half". Second, "pressuring". If this is in the form of "peer pressure", i.e. non-physical persuasion, is that particularly unexpected in a harsh "us" vs "them" environment? I refer you to the Stanford prison experiment and its UK counterpart as to how quickly that "us" vs "them" mentality can form even amongst random Western civilians, including hunger strikes. Third, "alone with medical personnel". So, however momentarily, they weren't in that "us" vs "them" environment?

Second set of key words being capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgment.

Almost 100 Guantánamo prisoners were classified by the US army as having psychiatric illnesses including severe depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, the prison camp files reveal. -- Guantánamo Bay files: Grim toll on mental health of prisoners

So we have almost 100 mentally ill people being kept in an extra-territorial maximum-security military prison instead of a (military, even) mental hospital?

100 out of 179 is a pretty big fraction. It is also oddly close to the number of inmates on hunger strike.

The ones that are left in Guantanamo are pretty much the hardcore. They were willing to give their life for the cause if need be. They have previously engaged in synchronized suicide attempts as a political attack. The suicide Jihad continues, just without bombs in this case.

Um. This might be a stupid question, and feels quite surreal, but: if they truly want to kill themselves, but this time without killing anyone else, and the only alternative (that we're willing to do) is - by our ethical standards - to perform torture upon them, why are we lowering our standards?

But to go on. From your link, "None of the five detainees believed to have killed themselves at Guantánamo Bay have any mental health issues noted within the files. However, all have a record of alleged disruptive behaviour and non-compliance. Most are among the 25 detainees who the files say went on hunger strikes." So we apparently have - had - at least five detainees potentially "capable of forming unimpaired and rational judgements" who killed themselves rather than submit to prison authorities.

Furthermore, "Yasser Talal Zahrani, one of three prisoners who killed themselves on 10 June 2006, was noted to be of low intelligence value", (note "value", so it's referring to military intelligence not personal psychology), "with "unremarkable" exposure to jihadist elements." So are we sure it's just the "hardcore" ones that are "willing to give their life"?

This is the country - the US, I mean - that has both a strong democratic tradition (CIA World Factbook) and the world's highest incarceration rate (International Centre for Prison Studies). What exactly does that say about us? (and yes, I know I keep using "us" and "we" and such, despite not being an American citizen, but the jokes about Australia/Canada/other being the "51st State" exist for a reason, and I was named and raised by a family that likes Westerns, so I associate even though I'm foremost Australian).

"Give me liber

I think a lot of the better educated in the US are starting to look with interest at Europe's social protections.

Eurozone suffers its longest downturn ever as France sinks back into recession...The eurozone is in its longest recession since it was created, after GDP fell by 0.2% in the first three months of 2012...

capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgment concerning the consequences of such a voluntary refusal of nourishment . . .

First set of key words being voluntary refusal. It isn't completely voluntary, is it?

The military has said that some prisoners are pressuring others to join the hunger strike, and that some of those being tube-fed occasionally eat regular meals or voluntarily drink nutritional supplements when they are removed from their cell blocks and are alone with medical personnel. . . -- American Medical Association questions Guantanamo force-feedings

Second set of key words being capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgment.

Almost 100 Guantánamo prisoners were classified by the US army as having psychiatric illnesses including severe depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, the prison camp files reveal. -- Guantánamo Bay files: Grim toll on mental health of prisoners

100 out of 179 is a pretty big fraction. It is also oddly close to the number of inmates on hunger strike.

The ones that are left in Guantanamo are pretty much the hardcore. They were willing to give their life for the cause if need be. They have previously engaged in synchronized suicide attempts as a political attack. The suicide Jihad continues, just without bombs in this case.

Although sometimes the torture is indeed deliberate policy. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/13/guantanamo-bay-hunger-strike-forced-feeding

On a related note, can you post any facts on whether the CIA had or has a policy of followup drone strikes on rescuers/funerals and/or of treating multiple civilian casualties as acceptable if it means another dead terrorist? E.g. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/world/asia/19pstan.html?_r=1&ref=world

I'm more than beginning to have the disturbing sense that the US government/military has stared too long into the abyss. Yeah, we know the bad guys are evil. Flying airliners packed with civilians into buildings is pretty damn obviously evil. But it's becoming less obvious how good those claiming to be the good guys still are.

The POWs in Guantanamo do get Red Cross visits. As to the rest of their status - in order to receive the full protection of the Geneva Convention as a combatant you have to obey the Law of War. Al Qaida doesn't do that, quite the reverse. Their basic strategy of directly targeting civilian noncombatants constitutes a war crime. They are quite rightly recognized as unlawful combatants. And do note, it isn't that this categorization is unknown internationally, but rather that various advocates refuse to acknowledge that it exists.

The black sites? Last time I looked they were for detention and interrogation.

Now, there are a couple of factors that make these discussions more interesting. First, is the fact that Al Qaida teaches its members to lie about their treatment and not cooperate.

Al Qaeda Manual Drives Detainee Behavior at Guantanamo Bay

. . . Police in Manchester, England, discovered the manual, which has come to be known as the "Manchester document," in 2000 while searching computer files found in the home of a known al Qaeda member. The contents were introduced as evidence into the 2001 trial of terrorists who bombed the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998. . .

The closing chapter teaches al Qaeda operatives how to operate in a prison or detention center. It directs detainees to "insist on proving that torture was inflicted" and to "complain of mistreatment while in prison."

Chapter 17 instructs them to "be careful not to give the enemy any vital information" during interrogations.

Another section of the manual directs commanders to teach their operatives what to say if they're captured, and to explain it "more than once to ensure that they have assimilated it." To reinforce the message, it tells commanders to have operatives "explain it back to the commander."

One consequence of this lying, and international pressure on their behalf, is that committed terrorists have been released who then return to Jihad again, killing who knows how many.

Recidivism rises among released Guantanamo detainees

(Reuters) - The proportion of militants released from detention at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay who subsequently were believed to have returned to the battlefield rose slightly over the last year, according to official figures released on Monday.

In a summary report, the office of the Director of National Intelligence said that 27.9 percent of the 599 former detainees released from Guantanamo were either confirmed or suspected of later engaging in militant activity

Second, as does sometimes happen in war, service members will occasionally exceed their instructions, lose control, or develop a mental illness, and then engage in behavior that constitutes a war crime. Some people want to pretend that those actions are deliberate policy rather than the illegal actions of an individual or particular group. One prime example is the incident at Abu Ghraib. It resulted in a number of American soldiers going to jail, including the infamous Lynndie England. An isolated incident by a small number of soldiers that took an extraordinary number of pictures in a very short time, and gave a black eye to the US military and the United States. The actual events were magnified by the work of the media - the New York Times put stories and/or pictures on the front page 47 times.

Pay? Nobody pays me to post. But I do like to see the discussion occasionally enter the realm of facts even if it aggravates some people.

After all, facts that contradict some political view are "flamebait."

Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship, they rule by an army inducing terror on a populace, not because the populace chose the leadership.

The problem is that in Muslim countries the political system they chose is invariably worse. Libya is worse than it was under Gaddafi, Egypt is worse now than under Mubarak, Iraq is worse than under Saddam Husain, and Afghanistan is infinitely worse off than it was under Soviet rule.

Yes, Saudi Arabia is bad, but anything that keeps the Muslims under control is better than letting them have their way .... which is not giving them freedom but allowing them to murder, kill, and rape others as well as killing eachother and removing freedoms under sectarian Sharia militias.

"How do you pick who can vote when the average person votes badly and selfishly?" That is the central question of Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie). One could easily argue many western states get pushed worse off over time due to democracy.

I'm not advocating any particular view here, other than maybe we could do with a little self introspection.

Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship, they rule by an army inducing terror on a populace, not because the populace chose the leadership.

The problem is that in Muslim countries the political system they chose is invariably worse. Libya is worse than it was under Gaddafi, Egypt is worse now than under Mubarak, Iraq is worse than under Saddam Husain, and Afghanistan is infinitely worse off than it was under Soviet rule.

Yes, Saudi Arabia is bad, but anything that keeps the Muslims under control is better than letting them have their way .... which is not giving them freedom but allowing them to murder, kill, and rape others as well as killing eachother and removing freedoms under sectarian Sharia militias.

And can read genes.

"How to spot a murderer's brain"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/may/12/how-to-spot-a-murderers-brain

Yep, just scan everybody's brain, then jail those who fit the pattern, or are the carrier of one particular set of genes.

Crime prevention at it's best.

In the UK figures for crime be it property, cell phone or card fraud via http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2013/may/09/mobile-theft-card-fraud-property-crime are dropping and with not too many guns being used in the commissioning of these crimes you would think that we in the UK have it good but that is not so. It is the general fear of being a victim due to the fact that a good number of people have more than one mobile phone and this volume and value of goods that can be moved on for cash creates a pool of wealth awaiting a sometimes violent harvesting by others. One topic of notes is the different crime figures for mobile (cell) phone crimes when broken down by age and sex. All crime is serious if you or someone in your family is a victim.

Fuck. You.

What I wish Tim Berners Lee^W^W^W W3C understood about DRM.

Patent licences are administered by a licensing authority (LA), which creates a standard set of terms for licensing. These terms always include a list of features that the manufacturers may not implement (for example, you may not add a "save to hard drive" feature to a DVD player)

How long do you think we have until the back button and close window button are disabled for video ads online?

As far as the intellectual quality of the boycott, I guess Stephen Hawking hasn't sat around and thought about it as deeply as you have.

Seeing as he is now being accused of hypocrisy over his continued use of Israeli technology, I'm guessing he didn't think about it very much. Great physicist, I enjoy his work, and fortunately he seems to bounce back from his previous mistakes. I'm sure he'll bounce back from this mistake too.

Gun ownership among everyone in the U.K. is low. It was so low in WWII that ``The American Committee for defense of British Homes has organized to collect gifts of pistols, rifles, revolvers, shotguns (and binoculars) from American civilians who wish to answer the call and aid in defense of British homes'':

http://twinbuttebunch.org/index.php?fuseaction=misc.sendguns

I'm given to understand that my grandfather sent over a Remington No. 4 which an uncle of mine had cut down to a pistol....

This article indicates a dramatic uptick in gun crime (89%) in the U.K. though:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223193/Culture-violence-Gun-crime-goes-89-decade.html

FWIW, I can't think of a single police force in the U.S. where regular police officers on patrol carry submachine guns.

Another article:
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/12/11/gun-crime-soars-in-england-where-guns-are-banned-n1464528

An interesting statistic is that a home is burglarized when occupied ~13% of the time in the U.S., while that number is 47% in the U.K. --- my father worked as a prison guard, and a recurring theme among people serving time for robbery was the importance of ``casing the joint'' because one didn't want to risk confronting an armed home-owner.

and here's an article which argues about statistical reporting:
http://www.theendrun.com/larry-pratt-british-gun-crime-stats-a-sham

and here're some hard numbers:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list

A government strong enough to protect you from everything, is strong enough to take everything from you.

William