Slashdot Mirror

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00. html

Check this out: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00. html

The Guardian is one of the most highly-considered newspapers in England.

"From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all .

"Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.

"They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

"As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration."

Oh, I get it.. If people own guns it is a bad thing. However, the governments know how to control them and make sure everyone is safe.


I think the people of Uzbekistan, Turky, China , SUDAN, Mexico, Sri Lankan, and Ethiopia would disagree, if they had not been killed in massacres by there governments.

Heh :-)

I'm wondering if this suicide-attempt-on-film stuff is quite accurate anyway, or if there's an element of urban legend in here. I'm not sure how much it really matters to the main point of the article, but the Guardian had to apologise for making this mistake:

In this article we repeated a series of errors relating to an incident involving a person who, we wrongly said, was shown on CCTV attempting suicide in the centre of Brentwood in Essex. We published a correction and apology relating to the earlier article on August 4 last year. In part, this is what it said: "In fact the CCTV recording showed no evidence of a suicide attempt, but it did show a man carrying a large knife ... and it showed the man being disarmed by the police. We accept that and we also accept that the CCTV recording was not sold but released - on the understanding that the individual's identity would be protected - to demonstrate how a potentially dangerous situation could be avoided." We repeat that there was no film of a suicide attempt, Brentwood council did not sell the CCTV footage of the incident, and in addition the police did not calm the person down and rush him to hospital. We repeat our apologies to Brentwood council.

This page goes into the case in some detail.

His stated reasons for killing american civilians are:

he wants Sharia law across the world (succinctly: 'they hate our freedom')

Lie. He says our entanglement with Muslim countries prevents them from enforcing Sharia law. Not one mention of it in any other place is made.

he wants arab control of Israel (and considers US taxpayers to be military targets because they directly fund the Israeli military)

Lie. He wants Israel to leave Palestine alone, and to leave the Al-Aqsa mosque alone.

he wants to end all lending with interest (a policy which will just make inequality worse)

No, he says that allowing usury has allowed the Jews to take over our country, and points out it's been forbidden by 'all religions'. (He's right WRT Islam and Judaism and Christianity, I don't know about anything else.) This, however, is not one of the reasons he states for attacking us.

he wants to end interventionist US foreign policy

No shit, Sherlock.

he wants to convert or kill believers in false religions

No, he suggests we join Islam, to fix our 'moral decay'. He doesn't say anything about 'converting' us, or that he or we should or will kill non-believers.

Here are his actual reasons stated for attacking the US:

The US attacked first in a) Palestine, b) Somalia, supported Russian atrocities against them in Chechnya, the Indian oppression against them in Kashmir, and the Jewish aggression against them in Lebanon, c) control their own governments, preventing their own citizens from enacting Sharia (1), humiliate them, steal their wealth, and surrender to the Jews, d) we ourselves steal their oil, e) we keep forces in their lands, f) starved the children of Iraq(2) with sanctions, and g) gave the Jews Jerusalem.(3)

Then he's got some bullshit justification for attacking civilians, and then he moves on to the second question, what he thinks are our root problems of immorality and suggestions how to solve them. The last three of those have vague threats attached, and those last three are the things they listed as reasons for the attack in the first place. The rests have no threats at all.

The entire letter has two parts, defined very very clearly: Why are they attacking us, and what they are 'calling on us to do', with the first part being reasons for the attack, aka, 'crimes', and the second part just being suggestions to 'clean ourselves up' so we start behaving in a better manner.

If you don't understand this concept: If you get caught driving while drunk, the court may sentence you to attend AA. Or even just recommend it. However, failure to attend AA was not your crime.

Now, bin Laden's suggestions are somewhat stupid and naive about how the US works. Trying to imply that he will continue to attack us as long as we don't follow them all, however, is idiotic. He will presumably continue to attack us as long as we continue to do the things he said made him attack us. If he attacked us for some other reason, presumably he'd put it in as a reason. If he wanted to attach threats to the other suggestions, he presumably would have done so.

Pretending that he will continue to attack us until every suggestion is followed is idiotic fearmongering designed to make it look like all his 'reasons' were nonsense. The justification for the attacks were nonsense, the actual reasons really do exist and really are things the US has done, although certainly random people don't deserve to be murdered for that.

The letter is here. Feel free to actually read it. It's not formatted on the website, if you've got Word or another word processor you can paste it in and autoformat it to it laid out in easy to understand sections.

1) Which may be what you were talking about above, but you'd missed the point that he was saying the US supports their governme

Would you be troubled if America treated Jews the way that Israel treats it's Arab minority? Read this; http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/nimer_sultany/ 2007/04/dont_call_it_discrimination.html.printer.f riendly

In Israel a man who murdered thousands of women and children is elected prime minister rather than tried for genocide.

I know I'm going to get modded offtopic at best here, but wasn't the point of the invasion to stop Iraq from deploying its extensive stockpiles of WMDs? Wasn't it supposed to be a pre-emptive strike to get him before he got America and its allies? Toppling Hussein was supposed to be a byproduct of that, but it was not the primary goal.

The officially given reason for the war was, as you say "to stop Iraq from deploying its extensive stockpiles of WMDs". The goal of regime change is not an acceptable reason for invasion under international law. Despite this, evidence has come to light showing that both the US and the UK had intelligence that told them Iraq did not have WMDs. Someone else mentioned "Al-Qaida" being connected with the invasion - yes, GWB did go on about claimed connections to Al-Qaida, however, Blair consistently denied any link. In the British media this claim is often thought to have been an attempt to use 9/11 as justification for the Iraq war.

If you want references, try "The diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning", the president told Mr Blair, In the memo, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is quoted as saying Mr Bush had made up his mind to take military action even if the timing had not yet been decided., and

Agreed. Would you say that this is step 5 or step 8?

Since 1998 number of people injured by firearms in England and Wales has more than doubled[24] from 2,378 in 1998/99 to 4,001 in 2005/06. "Injury" in this context means by being fired, used a blunt instrument, or as a threat. In 2005/06, 87% of such injuries were defined as "slight," which includes the use of firearms as a threat only. The number of homicides committed with firearms has remained between a range of 46 and 97 for the past decade, standing at 50 in 2005/06 (a fall from 75 the previous year). Between 1998/99 and 2005/06, there have been only two fatal shootings of police officers in England and Wales. Over the same period there were 107 non-fatal shootings of police officers - an average of just 9.7 per year.[25](PDF - Page 36)

The UN Human Rights Declaration (UDHR) may be Western biased, but that's what we've got, even if it is somewhat toothless. As a reference point, it's better than nothing.

I see the merit in your point on democracy, yet I'd choose American style democracy over any flavour of monarchy from the Middle East on any day of the week (and I'm not American).

Is China 'Evil'? I don't know, but it does seem to be run by a bunch of assholes, IMHO. The Basic Law in Hong Kong is a joke. The Chinese government routinely tortures and imprisons people for their beliefs. Corruption is a way of life. Censorship is way over the top. Last year there was that video of Chinese army soldiers shooting Tibetan refugees in Nepal.

I recognize that I may be biased since the bastards tried to poison us the other month.

here:

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/weekly_arti cle/imperfect-sound-forever.htm

and here:

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1 992325,00.html

OK, so that wasn't really fair. :-)

Here's the executive summary: http://www.quebecoislibre.org/000902-3.htm

Some more references:
http://wiki.ffii.org/Martin041109En
http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/15_2/15_2_1.pdf
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/21/business/wh o.php
http://www.guardian.co.uk/globalisation/story/0,73 69,665969,00.html
http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/again st.htm
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020805/newman200207 25
http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory .cfm?story_id=5014990

"Within the past five or six years, economists in particular have started to question the USPTO's practices, finding little correlation, if any, between patent proliferation and invention. Economists have identified many situations in which patents actually retard the introduction of new products. "
http://members.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html

TiVo is not a GPL-based entity. Just because they use Linux as the base OS of their otherwise closed-source, proprietary, DRM-encumbered, locked-down product, it doesn't mean that they have a business model based on GPL.

http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2 097354,00.html says "some of whom were as young as 12". So yeah, we're not even talking little kids here.

Interesting Guardian article explaining that the asus eee is the Intel Classmate - Intel's response to the OLPC.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/HTC_Touch.j pg

Plain and simple.

Finding the Higgs boson will confirm scientists' most complete theory of the universe and the matter from which it is created. "It's probably the closest to God that we'll get," said Jos Engelen, Cern's chief scientist.

From my point of view, the petrol (gas) price is good from an environmental perspective, even with petrol prices as they are, lots of people still drive to much and even drive places that would be reasonable to walk to. There aren't cameras on every corner, there may be more CCTV cameras in the UK than other places, but most of them are private ones, it is not a big deal for as long as it remains very time consuming and impractical to use them to track someones movements. I think guns being illegal is a good thing.

Political correctness can be taken too far at time, but that isn't really something to revolt about. What does concern me however, is when the government wants to do things like this.

In fact if you have read the forbes story, you should also compare it with
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,209483 9,00.html and the go on
trying different sources of information. Make it hard on them to spread their lies.

What will be "the state of the nation",
the day Shrub is kicked out of office..

- middle east completely destabilized, with an iraq on the permanent brink of a civil war
- massive debt increase on the american taxpayer
- palestine far more worse than 5 years ago
- climate of distrust between russia an nato (usa) - decades of constructive diplomacy to strengthen
bilateral trust ruined.
- russia isolated and threatened from surrounding territories.
- cheney and friends got all the money
- defense spending as high as ever
- civil liberties almost gone (not only in usa, but also in consequence in many other
countries also - "war on terror")
- international treaties riduculed and reputation of united nations damaged.
- no evidency for any terrorist networks or the existence of phantoms like al-caida, ibn ladin
- again: cheney and friends got all the money..
- the us political system infested with neocon placed bots everywhere

some will remember what kennedy did when russia tried to plant
missiles on cuba - right in the face of the usa, and: the consequences this little encounter
almost had. now, will there be a "poland crisis"? And would this help the neocons?

I have a gut feeling one of the reasons the EU allows this is that the EU feels the relationship with the US would be damaged if they didn't. There's probably not a single nation in the EU at present that sees Iran as their Most Dangerous Enemy(tm). Everyone knows that Iran is at least 10 years away from any nuclear capabilities, including power stations, for crying out loud.

My first comment on your statement: Just because the EU does not see Iran as their most dangerous enemy, does not mean it isn't so. What other player in that region is more unstable, more bellicose towards democracy, and has denounced nations that support Israel? (which most, if not all, European nations do.) Iran is suspected in aiding subversive groups in Afghanistan (which is a NATO/EU effort as well as a US effort) and Iraq. Iran has an active nuclear program which could be set up to create atomic weapons.( if we take suggestion from another nation with an active program a few years ago with bellicose language and a shady track record, AKA North Korea. Who did indeed go on to make atomic weapons.)

My second comment is that the UN's watchdog, probably the most authoritative voice on atomic energy and weapons production, has stated the Iran is 3-8 years from the bomb.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2087272,00 .html

If we started saying "no" to the US, on the other hand, it could jeopardize trade and good-will with the US. In a big way, if you look at the US' track record of the last 7 years.

A larger snub was the Iraq war. France has refused participation and did a great deal of stonewalling; Aside from a small amount of 'no france' individuals; there has not been any effort by the government of the United States (other than freedom fries) to curtail our economic activity in Europe. As a parent poster noted, the EU has major purchasing power and a large number of companies in the United States do a large amount of business in the EU. I just don't see that argument as being very convincing. Also, by allowing the missiles they do alienate the Russians, losing their economic support (and they have treasure-troves of natural gas and oil.)

I appreciate your candor; but to me, the EU respects it own sovereignty. It would not allow useless or purposeless weapons to be placed on its soil, if it did not believe there is a real threat.

Maybe ignoring them totally is a lesson they will learn from.

Very interesting concept. Should work great. Just right after the next Star Wars trilogy. Yeah, right after that, and another X-Men flick. Yeah, then we'll start ignoring them, just right after those, and the next Lord of the Rings...

As a consequence of this the comedian Mark Thomas organised mass lone demonstrations, setting the world record for the number of political demonstrations in 24 hours. Unfortunately his original broadcast on the BBC is no longer available on their listen again facility (keep on the lookout for a rebroadcast - it was really very funny.

Details can be found on his web page about the demonstration zone and applying for a permit.

Following is a brief synopsis of his broadcast, for those with a mischievous sense of humour. I may have some of the details wrong, but you'll get the main thrust of it!

1. A law is passed (SOCPA) to restrict protest outside Parliament, with the presumed intention of removing the thorn in their side Brian Haw
2. After taking this to court it's ruled that the law doesn't apply to Brian Haw since he was protesting continuously since before its inception. In effect the wording of the law meant he is the only person on earth to whom this law does not apply!
3. Mark Thomas picks up on this and decides to have some fun with the new law...
4. ...comedy ensues
5. He ends up in the Guinness Book of Records for the most political protests held in 24 hours.
6. Since it's now a record, someone is going to try and beat it!

Call me a troll if you want, but the Bush administration has clamped down hard on free speech

Like the UK government, which has banned protests in parts of London unless you have a license for your free speech?

monitors just about everything,

Like the UK government, which is an enthusiastic participant in ECHELON, runs GCHQ, and used to spy on the National Council for Civil Liberties, CND, and other "subversive" organizations?

litmus tests public servants,

Like the Labour Party, which imposes pre-vetted "New Labour" candidates approved by Central Office, and forces locally chosen Labour candidates to run as independents? And even tried to do it in the high profile London mayoral election?

puts whoever it wants on various lists,

Like the UK government, which has lists of prohibited organizations and the people believed to have joined them?

puts others in prison without charging them,

As opposed to the UK government, which puts people in prison indefinitely without charge?

declares pre-emptive war with no legal basis,

As opposed to the UK government, whose Prime Minister lies to everyone in order to get the country involved in said war, and still gets re-elected after his lies have been documented?

and does it all while putting every citizen and their children so deep in debt they will probably never get out.

Oh, well, you've got me there, the US economy has definitely been mismanaged worse than the UK.

I don't recall hearing *any* politician, regardless of the country they are in, but especially the Congressional ones, apologize, or otherwise admit they were wrong regarding these WMDs.

These British MPs voted against the war, so have nothing to apologise for. Don't go giving the impression that all the politicians everywhere were right behind George Bush.

Diane Abbott, Graham Allen, John Austin, Tony Banks, Harry Barnes, John Battle, Andrew Bennett, Joe Benton, Roger Berry, Harold Best, Bob Blizzard, Keith Bradley, Kevin Brennan, Karen Buck, Richard Burden, Anne Campbell, Ronnie Campbell, Martin Caton, David Chaytor, Michael Clapham, Helen Clark, Tom Clarke, Tony Clarke, Harry Cohen, Iain Coleman, Michael Connarty, Frank Cook, Robin Cook, Jeremy Corbyn, Jim Cousins, Tom Cox, David Crausby, Ann Cryer, John Cryer, Tam Dalyell , Valerie Davey, Ian Davidson, Denzil Davies, Terry Davis, Hilton Dawson, John Denham, Parmjit Dhanda, Jim Dobbin, Frank Dobson, Frank Doran, David Drew, Huw Edwards, Clive Efford, Bill Etherington, Mark Fisher, Paul Flynn, Hywel Francis,George Galloway, Neil Gerrard, Ian Gibson, Roger Godsiff, Win Griffiths, John Grogan , Patrick Hall, David Hamilton, Fabian Hamilton, Dai Havard, Doug Henderson, Stephen Hepburn, David Heyes, David Hinchliffe, Kate Hoey, Jimmy Hood, Kelvin Hopkins, Joan Humble, Brian Iddon, Eric Illsley, Glenda Jackson, Helen Jackson, Jon Owen Jones, Lynne Jones, Martyn Jones, David Kidney, Peter Kilfoyle, Mark Lazarowicz, David Lepper, Terry Lewis, Tony Lloyd, Ian Lucas, Iain Luke, John Lyons, Christine McCafferty, John McDonnell, Ann McKechin, Kevin McNamara, Tony McWalter, Alice Mahon, Jim Marshall, Robert Marshall-Andrews, Eric Martlew, Julie Morgan, Chris Mullin, Denis Murphy, Doug Naysmith, Eddie O'Hara, Diana Organ, Albert Owen, Linda Perham, Peter Pike, Kerry Pollard, Gordon Prentice, Gwyn Prosser, Ken Purchase, John Robertson, Joan Ruddock, Martin Salter, Mohammad Sarwar, Malcolm Savidge, Philip Sawford, Brian Sedgemore, Debra Shipley, Alan Simpson, Marsha Singh, Chris Smith, Llew Smith, George Stevenson, Gavin Strang, Graham Stringer, David Taylor, Jon Trickett, Paul Truswell, Desmond Turner, Bill Tynan, Rudi Vis, Joan Walley, Robert Wareing, Alan Whitehead, Alan Williams, Betty Williams, Mike Wood, Tony Worthington, David Wright, Tony Wright, Derek Wyatt -- http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,91738 6,00.html

Yeah, what a dictator. He was overthrown in a coup, and what did he do to the *lead organizer* of the coup (Pedro Carmona**) when he got back into power? Kill him on the spot? No, even worse: he was put under *house arrest*. Such strict, brutal house arrest that he was able to flee to Colombia. What a brutal dictator Chavez is!

Imagine how the US would react if Bush was overthrown in a coup and then got back into power. What do you think would happen to anyone even remotely related to the coup?

** By comparison, what was that great icon of freedom, the US-backed coup leader Pedro Carmona doing shortly after overthrowing the government? Why, his first acts were to dissolve the legislature, the judiciary, and abolish the constitution that was overwhelmingly approved in referrendum. But, in the strange world of the Right, he's a democratic hero, and Chavez is an evil dictator.

The MPA says that in 2005, piracy cost U.S. studios $6.1-billion (U.S.). In Canada, the CMPDA estimates its members lost $118-million the same year.

I feel your pain. I believe the only thing left to tell these people is "Piss off!"

How did I know that the tabloid Sun story would be on Slashdot, while the more level-headed, better-sourced Guardian piece would not?

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,209 2376,00.html

The BBC has insisted that the future of Doctor Who's executive producer, Russell T Davies, "has not yet been decided" in spite of reports today that he will quit the hit show after the next series.

A BBC drama spokeswoman said that Mr Davies has signed up to oversee this year's Doctor Who Christmas special and 2008's fourth series.

However, she added that his involvement with Doctor Who after that has not been confirmed.

"Discussions have not begun so we cannot say if Russell will be involved or not," she said.

A senior BBC Wales drama source told MediaGuardian.co.uk that Mr Davies may be preparing to leave the show.

"Russell has always said that he wouldn't be with the show forever and he has made no secret that the hours are quite exhausting," the insider said.

"But there isn't any way it would be axed even if he left. He loves the show and he does feel that maybe it would benefit from some new blood."

Today's Sun claimed that the show will be axed after the fourth series because of the decision by Mr Davies to quit as executive producer.

The Sun reported that Mr Davies and "senior staff have hatched a plot to hand in a group resignation in summer 2008 and that the show will end after series four".

It quoted a "source" who said that Mr Davies had become fed up over an exhausting workload of 16-hour days nine months a year.

Mr Davies has been the creative driving force behind the Doctor Who revival, which has been a resounding critical and ratings success, and his departure would be a blow for the BBC.

As executive producer he has taken on a "show runner" role, overseeing all creative aspects of the drama and in particular leading the team of Doctor Who writers, as well as scripting individual episodes himself.

The showrunner role is common on long running US TV drama and comedy series, but not often seen in the UK.

However, if Mr Davies does leave Doctor Who, the BBC will want to keep such a popular show going by bringing in a new executive producer to take over his creative responsibilities.

Look what the anti-Nestle protests did.

They worked.

Rivers have "dammage". The word you're looking for is damage. And, while I'm not sure you have a strong grasp of which building sustained more damage, collapses are as much determined by where the damage is than how much damage there is. Anyone who's ever played Jenga know this.

Picking on typos. My, how incredibly mature.
Jenga. Excellent example. When has THAT ever collapsed neatly, smartass?

I'll repeat this fact you conveniently ignore: Buildings do not fall into their own footprints spontaneously. To achieve such a highly coordinated feat, you need expert placement of demolition charges.

I dispute that "fact", which you have never given a shred of evidence for.

I gave you a five page article AND a link to a company's explanation of how their business works. Not to mention numerous videos that explained this.
It's not my fault you're too much in a hurry to troll to bother reading and watching them.

Why would the military-industrial complex (thanks for updating me on which perennial conspiracy-theory villain you're using!) destroy WTC7 so that it would collapse neatly into its own footprint, while failing to destroy WTC 1 and 2 the same way?

Did the towers fall over on the side, or did they collapse in a column?
Were the towers simply too big for their rubble to be contained in the area of their base?

Are you too fucking stupid to think this through on your own?

Why would the military-industrial complex be worried about protecting other buildings from damage when they were deliberately committing an act of terrorism?

They own these buildings, it was a conservative expenditure of ressources.
Gotta spend money to make money.

Why would they go to all the effort to make 19 predominantly Saudi nationals all appear at the same time on the four airplanes they crashed, with Arabic-speaking voices on the cockpit recorders, if they had no intention of attacking Saudi Arabia?

MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I think it's not surprising that people make that connection.

Why would they bother crashing planes into the towers if they was rigged with explosives to start with?

Obviously, so you'll think the planes caused the collapse. DUH! Are you fucking retarded?

Why did they arbitrarily restrain the attack to the WTC and Pentagon?

Because they needed a symbolic attack, they aren't trying to inflict real damage.
Why would REAL terrorist stop at this one attack? Why no follow through?

Why did none of the 100,000 WTC inhabitants ever notice the explosives being installed?

"maintenance crews" were performing "repairs" on the structures that collapsed in the weeks before the events. Portions of the buildings were off-limits to the public to the day the attacks occurred.

How come no one has come forth admitting to being a part of this gigantic conspiracy?

Because the CIA is more subtle than the KGB.
They killed over two thousand civilians that day, about THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND MORE SINCE (5K+ of those US military personel), and you think they'd stop short at killing one more if he didn't keep his mouth shut? Do you make mommy type for you? 'Cause you sound too stupid to tie your own shoes.

I think the more important question is--what, other than your political biases, leads you to choose a gigantic conspiracy theory over thinking that maybe you were wrong about building collapses?

Written by an American, published in a UK newspaper (good luck finding one to print it over here).

Perhaps if you stopped watching Fox News or drinking out of the toilet you'd know this already.

Lancet had Iraqi casualties at 655,000 and that was over a half year ago and doesn't count military.

And of course, that doesn't count what we did in Afghanistan, where we spent months bombing civilian targets that lay along the pipeline routes, bombings that took place long before we went after Tora Bora and bin Laden. And missed.

Add the sanctions under Clinton responsible for at least a half-million Iraqi dead. Add the millions dead from the Iran-Iraq war, which we clearly instigated. Or the Gulf War, which we probably manufactured (see April Glaspie). The depleted uranium getting into everything, including the mothers breast.

Most of the Bush White coming out of Afghanistan since the invasion is destined for Iraq as well, so we need to consider that too.

It is genocide and in truth the number is way over a million, it's in the many millions.

Your saying otherwise is no different than the "good" Germans denying the "Holocaust".

Please, have the heart to become human again, and stand against this atrocity.

--
Censored by Technorati

Interesting someone(s) moderated this as flamebait: This is straight from Dawkin's the book. The first few paragraphs summaries how children stick steadfast to their parents religion, no matter what. Wonder how many of those flamebait moderators even read that far? It's not enough for them to disagree. They'd rather moderate it out of existence. This is why religious debate with "the faithful" is pointless, though points to Dawkins for having the guts to try. Points to him too for giving atheists permission to challenge zealotry.

Otherwise stuff like things happens: "George Bush: 'God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq'" http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2005/10/ 06/george_bush_god_told_me_to_end_the_tyranny_in_i raq.html

Not to mention...it's not exactly new news either.

-- The Guardian has a piece on the World's First Creationist Museum, opening soon in deepest flyover-state, USA.

"Nothing [in science] contradicts the Bible's account of the origins."

"But what, I ask wonderingly, about those fossilised remains of early man-like creatures? Marsh knows all about that: 'There are no such things. Humans are basically as you see them today. Those skeletons they've found, what's the word? ... they could have been deformed, diseased or something. I've seen people like that running round the streets of New York.'"

Only China and Russia?

Care to back it up? Everything I've read implicates tech companies in Europe and/or US. If you have information to the contrary, I'd like to see it.

And besides, even if it does not include the "West", is it not as newsworthy? More people have died in this conflict than in any other since WW2. We make a big fuss about Darfur, but not the Congo. Is it because we care more for them? Sudanese lives are more valuable? Or because it conveniently furthers the ideology of some?

If you did read the article you would have seen that half of it was quoting the government report.

It doesn't matter how much of the article quotes, when they mislead you on the important bits.

See:

http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2 048161,00.html
http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/holocaust. asp

We're talking about one school, but the Daily Mail mislead you into thinking this is widespread. They also don't mention that it's non-compulsory, and that the Government plans to address the issue by making it compulsory.

There may be a real issue here that kids are brainwashed with religion, but I wouldn't trust the Daily Mail's version of events, and also this problem doesn't just go for Islam - oddly, the Daily Mail never seems to complain that all state schools much have daily Christian preaching and worship (and they'd probably be the first to complain if it ended!)

Exactly. The man's name is Thomas Matussek, here's a text of his: http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/storyid.aspx?Sto ryId=3315
More stories on the topic:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,17811 40,00.html
http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/wunderbar/0,1518, 359568,00.html (in German)

Which is why there are no massive offshore spam server farms, piracy groups, or other such activities?

I believe those groups have some mighty big backers. The "piracy" groups, for example, are insuring market share for the ??AAs and big software companies where none would exist without it. And the producers are getting kickbacks from it as the authorities shake down the "pirates". The corruption goes all the way to the top. The pharmaceuticals derive some benefit from the spammers, there can be no doubt. To believe otherwise is to see not even half of the story. Rwanda? How long will your servers last before machete wielding Tutsis or Hutus come tear the place down? The hired help put into place to protect them will want control of it also, if they want to keep that protection. Russia and China will come around as soon as the states offer up some numbers in their favor. In fact, that whole copyright story is a non story. The content producers are looking for a bigger cut. The present situation nets them plenty already. Everybody is getting paid, maybe just a little more "indirectly" than you think, but money is changing hands, or, quite simply, allofmp3.com would not exist. Or they(Russia, China) will take over the planet and act in an identical manner. But the US must disparage them in public to maintain appearances that they are in some kind of competition, and protecting the interests of the public. Well, they aren't. The back door deals going on are insuring record profits for all those people behind the scenes. In fact, I believe all these publicly made complaints are pure show, as diversionary as American Idol.

The papers have good reason to make us believe it's all out of control. I don't believe it. Yes, the pirates* fight amongst themselves also, like challengers to the alpha male. But over all things are looking pretty good for them, and they are afraid of the internet, and are desperately trying to control it. They are the ones trying to make it a one way street where only those authorized by them are allowed to upload anything. Our only remaining hope will be community wireless mesh or cloud with mobile, untraceable servers, like scud missiles. But the papers are yelling the sky is falling so that we will give up even more to the authorities. The stories about lumber and steel are smokescreens so we don't get mad over the price fixing that is really being done. All this needless complexity of giving a different name to the word "skimming" is really unnecessary. All they need to do is skim a little deeper into the service provider's river of money, and the providers can adjust their prices accordingly. But the control factor is very important to keep anybody from peeking into the smoke filled rooms where the dirty deals are being made. Any attempt to clear the smoke will meet with strong resistance.

It is fruitless to discuss any disagreement amongst the major power players here, as there really isn't any. I believe everything is going rather smoothly, with the possible exception of the control issue(as long as we remain on the wire, that's not a real issue either), despite what the screaming ninnies are all yelling about in the mass media.

*the real ones, the ones who make the rules. The ones people vote for to make the system work. The small timers you hear about in the news are insignificant fleas. They are "off the books" distributors. They are one reason that this and this happen virtually every single year.

Bates found that not only did thousands of the supposed porn buyers not go to get their porn; many of the sites had been set up purely for fraud. His checks were evidential tests that the UK police seem to have forgotten to take.

In the Guardian

And just in case you're wondering about the depths the Mail is prepared to stoop to bash the popular demon of political correctness, have a look at the following brief selection of lies they perpetrated just before Christmas. The Mail and its readers are scum.

Prefer their equivalent of CNN then? http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2 048161,00.html Or, if you like: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-2339118 8-details/Teachers+drop+the+Holocaust+to+avoid+off ending+Muslims/article.do But really, let's cut straight to the point: http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/holocaust. asp

Only a small subset of women would have this ability, and their male children will always be color blind, as noted here and here. The second article (from my hometown paper, so it must be infallible) quotes a researcher that there might be about 99 million women who can actually see the full tetrachromatic spectrum, or about 3 in a hundred women.

Say something indiscreet in public? Mysteriously you'd lose your job and no matter how hard you tried you just couldn't get past an interview for even the most unskilled job.

That's already happening with the no-fly list. A Princeton professor who gave a televised speech criticizing Bush's constitutional overreach found himself on the no-fly list afterwards. A guy who wrote a book called "Bush's Brain" about Karl Rove found himself on the no-fly list afterwards. 20 Wisconsin peace activists suddenly found themselves on the no-fly list .

The no-fly list is even being used to harass opposition political party members. Senator Ted Kennedy suddenly found himself on the no-fly list and had a lot of trouble getting himself off the list. The head of the TSA had to call him personally and promise to take him off the list before his troubles ended. In the same article, it talks about employees of the ACLU also ending up on the list.

Giving the government more secret and anonymous "lists" to deny people rights is not an invitation to abuse, it's a guarantee of it. The fact that systems like this from previous fascist governments are being implemented in modern-day America is one reason that people are arguing that America is on a well-planned transition to fascism.

George Monbiot wrote about this 2 months ago in the UK Guardian:

If we want to save the planet, we need a five-year freeze on biofuels

Oil produced from plants sets up competition for food between cars and people. People - and the environment - will lose

George Monbiot
Tuesday March 27, 2007
The Guardian

It used to be a matter of good intentions gone awry. Now it is plain fraud. The governments using biofuel to tackle global warming know that it causes more harm than good. But they plough on regardless. In theory, fuels made from plants can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by cars and trucks. Plants absorb carbon as they grow - it is released again when the fuel is burned. By encouraging oil companies to switch from fossil plants to living ones, governments on both sides of the Atlantic claim to be "decarbonising" our transport networks.

In the budget last week, Gordon Brown announced that he would extend the tax rebate for biofuels until 2010. From next year all suppliers in the UK will have to ensure that 2.5% of the fuel they sell is made from plants - if not, they must pay a penalty of 15p a litre. The obligation rises to 5% in 2010. By 2050, the government hopes that 33% of our fuel will come from crops. Last month George Bush announced that he would quintuple the US target for biofuels: by 2017 they should be supplying 24% of the nation's transport fuel.

So what's wrong with these programmes? Only that they are a formula for environmental and humanitarian disaster. In 2004 I warned, on these pages, that biofuels would set up a competition for food between cars and people. The people would necessarily lose: those who can afford to drive are richer than those who are in danger of starvation. It would also lead to the destruction of rainforests and other important habitats. I received more abuse than I've had for any other column - except for when I attacked the 9/11 conspiracists. I was told my claims were ridiculous, laughable, impossible. Well in one respect I was wrong. I thought these effects wouldn't materialise for many years. They are happening already.

Since the beginning of last year, the price of maize has doubled. The price of wheat has also reached a 10-year high, while global stockpiles of both grains have reached 25-year lows. Already there have been food riots in Mexico and reports that the poor are feeling the strain all over the world. The US department of agriculture warns that "if we have a drought or a very poor harvest, we could see the sort of volatility we saw in the 1970s, and if it does not happen this year, we are also forecasting lower stockpiles next year". According to the UN food and agriculture organisation, the main reason is the demand for ethanol: the alcohol used for motor fuel, which can be made from maize and wheat.

Farmers will respond to better prices by planting more, but it is not clear that they can overtake the booming demand for biofuel. Even if they do, they will catch up only by ploughing virgin habitat.

Already we know that biofuel is worse for the planet than petroleum. The UN has just published a report suggesting that 98% of the natural rainforest in Indonesia will be degraded or gone by 2022. Just five years ago, the same agencies predicted that this wouldn't happen until 2032. But they reckoned without the planting of palm oil to turn into biodiesel for the European market. This is now the main cause of deforestation there and it is likely soon to become responsible for the extinction of the orang-utan in the wild.

But it gets worse. As the forests are burned, both the trees and the peat they sit on are turned into carbon dioxide. A report by the Dutch consultancy Delft Hydraulics shows that every tonne of palm oil results in 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, or 10 times as much as petroleum produces. I feel I need to say that again. Biodiesel from palm o

Do the friggin study :

1)Get a few dozen lab rats (baby rats if you RTFA and are still worried),

2)Put them near a wi-fi base station for a few months

3)Dissect and observe if tumors have formed

4)Repeat as necessary, with other organisms if you wish (perhaps the uninformed media wh**es?)

Now tell me: where in that list is there ANY room for a bunch of moronic talking heads on an alarmist docudrama to offer their OPINION? Farking incompetent buncha loonies! Bah ...

Rants aside, people really need to grow up and get over this knee-jerk reaction they have with "radiation". In case it hasn't been said already, EVERYTHING emits radiation. Fancy names like gamma rays, xrays, alpha, beta, etc etc (ad nauseum) are just names that were given to things BEFORE we figured out the physical principles that governed them. Someone needs to construct an equivalent of the dihydrogen-monoxide parody for radiation methinks :P.

Anyway, I found a very nice website for laypeople that explains the behavior of water exposed to different parts of the EM spectrum (water is a good prototypical substance as it is so ubiquitous in our body): http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/vibrat.html.

A special focus on the microwave region (1mm to 30cm wavelengths) can also be linked from that page. A few seconds of Googling found the following articles:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061212/080748.s html - A year ow wi-fi is equivalent to 20 minutes on a cell phone :P.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/he alth/features/article665419.ece - The original article. Notable quote:

"When we have conducted measurements in schools, typical exposures from wi-fi are around 20 millionths of the international guideline levels of exposure to radiation. As a comparison, a child on a mobile phone receives up to 50 per cent of guideline levels. So a year sitting in a classroom near a wireless network is roughly equivalent to 20 minutes on a mobile. If wi-fi should be taken out of schools, then the mobile phone network should be shut down, too -- and FM radio and TV, as the strength of their signals is similar to that from wi-fi in classrooms."

IMO, the most comprehensive study was done recently by a Danish team: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061205/170444.s html and this is what came out of it:

A new Danish study tracked 420,095 people who've been using mobile phones for up to two decades or more, and found absolutely no evidence of a substantial cancer risk. The study is the largest yet disproving any cancer link, but the debate over the topic is like a b-horror film villain, who just keeps popping up after you're sure the last blow killed him. Science means little to the significant number of people who have made cancer via wireless their personal techno-bogeyman, so no study in the world is likely to change their minds and put this debate in the morgue.

Especially note the lines I have highlighted in bold.

Here's the original story for the Danish study in the Guardian: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/20 06/12/07/mobile_phones_dont_trigger_cancer_says_st udy.html

And just to assure the tinfoil pholks :P,

This worm or virus depending on who is saying it, requires Perl, XChat and write and executable access to be able to run. None of which applies to any self respecting Linux users computer. Yet another bogus Linux 'virus' article. Must be a slow day for real news.

"They are attacking the vulnerability of people's brains ", Graham Cluley, Sophos