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Betcha Stephen Hawking might argue that... that is, if he was allowed to be born.

Ahem, since you draw the guy into the debate, are you aware of Hawking's position? Because that might surprise you. He is way more radical than just selecting the healthy ones, he goes straight for actively tampering with the DNA. He's in favour of stem-cell research too.

The contamination of a segment of Italy's Mozzarella cheese with dioxin in areas where the mafia have been dumping toxic waste

I've found marriage to be the only real mistake I've made in my life, and the data supports that. Fortunately with the rise of Web 2.0 and social networking, guys are more able now to get educated about what marriage means for men in the U.S., and consequently there's talk of a "marriage strike" by young men since the early 90s. Which makes sense. Anyway, modern data indicates men are happier if they never marry, and just stay in committed but unmarried relationships. I think women ultimately will be better off too: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/women-are-happiest-with-first-love-and-men-with-serial-monogamy-study-finds-577451.html "Men are happiest when they are "serial monogamists" - having a succession of faithful relationships but never getting married, a study published today shows."

Strains are showing in a variety of areas. And that is at current population levels. We intend to double our population as a species.

Desertification
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-gathering-sandstorm-encroaching-desert-missing-water-399653.html

China is losing a million acres a year to desertification. In Dunhuang, a former Silk Road oasis in the Gobi, the resulting water shortage has become critical. By Clifford Coonan (this in 2007 after reports in 2000 said they had turned the corner and were reducing desertification)

http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/desertific/

Fishing stock collapse
http://www.mpl.ird.fr/suds-en-ligne/ecosys/ang_ecosys/intro2.htm
From years of "miraculous fishing" to stock collapse

Although the oceans were considered inexhaustible in the last century, many fisheries today show signs of senescence. ... But numerous observations contradict this idea [that stopping fishing after collapse helps]. Only 7% of collapsed populations have recuperated their numbers after one generation. The example of codfish in Newfoundland is renowned. Despite a moratorium on codfishing following the collapse of stocks in 1992, the biomasss level remains still lower than that of 20 years ago, and no recovery has been observed.

Population growth in rich societies.
http://rickbutts.com/83/is-england-becoming-a-muslim-nation/
The average birth rate for native Englishwomen is 1.1 children per, while the Muslim women's birth rate [in England] is 3.4, or more than triple. By all measures and accounts England will become Muslim in the not to distant future.
This is in England. I.e., this population is resistant to lower birth rate effect.

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2008-05/2008-05-01-voa19.cfm?CFID=1180756&CFTOKEN=83044121
Hispanics Fastest Growing Minority Group in US
This is in the U.S. I.e., this population is resistant to lower birth rate effect.

I'm not saying islamic or hispanc are bad people. If it were not them, some other population would be the fastest growing one-- and it would become a larger and larger portion of the population over time.

There's a difference between opening up your laptop and taking a look, versus taking a copy to investigate later or, as in this case, confiscating the laptop.

The idea that they need to search for "illegal information" seems rather odd to me anyway - if someone wanted to bring in child abuse images, surely they would use less risky ways than passing them through customs? It seems more like a fishing expedition to get people for anything that happens to be dodgy on their hard disk.

What happens if a US traveller goes to a country that has less than liberal laws on adult images - perhaps that private image of your girlfriend tucked away on your laptop isn't legal there, or perhaps that video is banned? It's the information equivalent of people being imprisoned for poppy seeds in food and over the counter drugs, with the difference that it's a lot harder to make sure your laptop is scrubbed of everything that might be illegal in that country, compared with simply not taking physical objects (unless you don't take the laptop at all, which'd be simpler, but also a significant cost).

The Independent tends to make pretty good guesses about how things will go and they think it'll almost certainly be thrown back by the House of Lords. I'll be praying that they do. If it comes back though, I think it will die in its current form. Brown did everything he could to get this passed including stake the Labour Party's image on it and rumours of backroom deals that are bribery in all but name. If that didn't get him more than a majority by twelve, then hopefully it will fail completely the second time around. Putting our hope in the House of Lords to protect the common people! What have we come to, eh?

Kittens and bunnies were not mentioned I believe.

Try 12,000 years.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the incredibly rapid 2.5C temp increase in the last 50 years.

... that just happens to coincide with us digging up sequestered carbon and burning it by the megaton, pushing CO2 levels to ever increasing highs.

Nay, my good man, all is well. Continue whistling and dance that little jig you do so well.

Brain damaged caused by lead, mercury, fluoride and other chemicals do far more to increase crime rates than music and video games.

And unlike the theory behind music and video games causing crime, the theory that lead poisoning causes crime is hard science.

The evidence is clear, lead in the environment causes brain damage, and damaged brains are criminal brains.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/07/AR2007070701073.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-10-28-lead-crime_N.htm

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/ban-on-leaded-petrol-has-cut-crime-rates-around-the-world-398151.html

Seems like what we'll end up with then is no government paid for health care system. Given demographics, we just may not be able to afford it.

We could also see something like what the NHS is trying in the UK, preventing people with "bad lifestyles" from receiving treatment.

Seems like that would be self defeating. It would create a class of people who are forced, via taxes, to pay into a system that doesn't benefit them. That doesn't bode well for long term stability or viability.

As I said, a lack of rigorous thinking. Is it "proof by assertion day"? Do you have any evidence at all to back up the assertion Iraq oil contracts were given to US companies at below market rates? Ive never seen that documented anywhere.

Certainly. I said that I was able to provide references for everything I stated. Link. The Indpendent is a major British newspaper and you can be certain that this article would have been thoroughly jumped on by the UK government were anything not supported. Paragraphs three and four detail the proposed law that mandates oil revenues should be apportioned between Iraq and US companies. Ostensibly this is in return for investment in infrastructure, but the Iraq government has no choice in this and you can be certain the US companies are making a killing on it. A further story is here. These laws have now gone through and return on investment is forecast to be anywhere in the region of 42 to 162 percent. Standard market rate would be 12%. I recommend you read this article if you want a comprehensive overview of foreign countries expected gains from Iraqi oil reserves.

As far as Cheney getting deferred compensation from Haliburton... so what? That kind of thing is pretty normal for CEOs. I'm pretty sure they were obligated to pay him whether or not the company made money.

It indicates motive and bias on the part of the vice president. If someone gives you $1million US dollars a year, there is an obligation. He also retains a number of unexercised stock options giving him a strong personal, financial interest in the succcess of the company. As promised, I can provide references. Link. Note that this is based on a report by the US government's own Congressional Research Service. Cheney's defence has consisted of "I spent $15,000 on an insurance policy in case the company goes under so it doesn't matter to me". Where he found a company willing to take $15,000 in return for a potential $5,000,000+ outlay, I have no idea, but in any case, it looks to me like he has been paid well for services and is now fulfilling them. I don't know how can honestly look at the former head of a corporation, receiving massive annual sums, owning stock in that corporation who then awards huge no-bid contracts to that corporation on behalf of the government and think that it is all above board, but it certainly isn't me.

Surely you must be joking about the donations thing. Large companies in the US donate to both sides. That's the way the game is played. Yes, it's corrupt, but good luck changing it since both parties are swilling at the same trough

All I wish to say here is that my point was that it was corrupt. You are again thinking in partisan terms that I do not. That corporations hedge their bets and bribe both Republican and Democrats does not reduce the importance of the fact that bribery has taken place. I again remind you that I am not a US citizen and have not been subject to the divide and conquer brainwashing that affects the population there, in which pointing out the faults of one side excuses the faults of another. I belong to neither side, but care only about the american people themselves.

Denying oil to the Chinese? Okay, now youve crossed into never-never land. Oil is fungible. The Chinese don't need to buy oil from Iraq because they can buy it from the Russians. O

As I said, a lack of rigorous thinking. Is it "proof by assertion day"? Do you have any evidence at all to back up the assertion Iraq oil contracts were given to US companies at below market rates? Ive never seen that documented anywhere.

Certainly. I said that I was able to provide references for everything I stated. Link. The Indpendent is a major British newspaper and you can be certain that this article would have been thoroughly jumped on by the UK government were anything not supported. Paragraphs three and four detail the proposed law that mandates oil revenues should be apportioned between Iraq and US companies. Ostensibly this is in return for investment in infrastructure, but the Iraq government has no choice in this and you can be certain the US companies are making a killing on it. A further story is here. These laws have now gone through and return on investment is forecast to be anywhere in the region of 42 to 162 percent. Standard market rate would be 12%. I recommend you read this article if you want a comprehensive overview of foreign countries expected gains from Iraqi oil reserves.

As far as Cheney getting deferred compensation from Haliburton... so what? That kind of thing is pretty normal for CEOs. I'm pretty sure they were obligated to pay him whether or not the company made money.

It indicates motive and bias on the part of the vice president. If someone gives you $1million US dollars a year, there is an obligation. He also retains a number of unexercised stock options giving him a strong personal, financial interest in the succcess of the company. As promised, I can provide references. Link. Note that this is based on a report by the US government's own Congressional Research Service. Cheney's defence has consisted of "I spent $15,000 on an insurance policy in case the company goes under so it doesn't matter to me". Where he found a company willing to take $15,000 in return for a potential $5,000,000+ outlay, I have no idea, but in any case, it looks to me like he has been paid well for services and is now fulfilling them. I don't know how can honestly look at the former head of a corporation, receiving massive annual sums, owning stock in that corporation who then awards huge no-bid contracts to that corporation on behalf of the government and think that it is all above board, but it certainly isn't me.

Surely you must be joking about the donations thing. Large companies in the US donate to both sides. That's the way the game is played. Yes, it's corrupt, but good luck changing it since both parties are swilling at the same trough

All I wish to say here is that my point was that it was corrupt. You are again thinking in partisan terms that I do not. That corporations hedge their bets and bribe both Republican and Democrats does not reduce the importance of the fact that bribery has taken place. I again remind you that I am not a US citizen and have not been subject to the divide and conquer brainwashing that affects the population there, in which pointing out the faults of one side excuses the faults of another. I belong to neither side, but care only about the american people themselves.

Denying oil to the Chinese? Okay, now youve crossed into never-never land. Oil is fungible. The Chinese don't need to buy oil from Iraq because they can buy it from the Russians. O

Decomposing with bacteria would, assuming the article is correct, be an alternative to incinerating.

Then we also have the plastic problem in the Pacific Ocean. That stuff seems hard to recycle, but bacteria, provided it doesn't upset the ecology, maybe could be of help.

Well said sir. And, as the article explains -- far more even handedly than slashdot's biased summary -- the reason that CCTV footage doesn't help solve crimes is because no-one ever looks at it.

Indeed, my summary was biased. Because I do, in fact, thing that widespread state surveillance is a Bad Thing(tm). It actually confuses me that some people would actually vote to have a government install a system that catches the average citizen on camera 300 times a day. Or even approve of it in such large numbers.

It's a cultural difference between America and the UK, I've noticed. Americans react with horror to the notion of letting the government put up millions of cameras around the country to monitor the populace. Brits, apparently, think governmental surveillance to be a good thing.

>>Yes folks, slashdot's latest evidence that the UK is a surveillance society is a report that states that no-one ever looks at the CCTV footage. But our summarisers have never let the facts get in the way of a good knee jerk.

Oh, people watch the cameras, certainly. It's just not effective stopping crimes which happen around corners from the cameras. So the citizenry has placed itself under governmental surveillance for a 3% increase in catching people who commit street crime.

The UK citizenry has spent billions of pounds, and conceded a very major civil liberty to its government, in order to get a system that doesn't work -- and without much of a fight. That's what I consider to be the most troubling.

In America, 70% of people oppose holding the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay without trial.
In England, there seems to be, on the contrary, complacency or pride in losing fundamental civil liberties.

Basically, the more of an advantage you can give your guys, the more you keep them alive and able to continue doing what they do.

Clinton and the Republican 1990s Congress sold us Most Favored Nation and "Fast Track" status for China on the appeal that the US would be manufacturing high-tech gear like Cisco routers and selling it into the emerging Chinese market. Making China dependent on US manufacturing and retailers so we could dictate political terms to them, like not torturing Tibetan monks.

They got it. Then they flipped the script. Now the US is dependent on Chinese manufacturing. Stepping up the game, Bush and the Republican 2000s Congress sent us $9 TRILLION into Federal debt (after a Clinton left him with a surplus), making $400 BILLION in debt bought by China necessary to keep the illusion that our economy hasn't collapsed - an illusion rapidly vaporizing, even before China applies much pressure to force us to comply with their Communist mafia government's global expansion plans. Meanwhile the Chinese are not just torturing monks (or stopping us from torturing around the world), they're also sending weapons, including machetes, to fuel a slaughter in Zimbabwe.

They baited and switched us. And by "they", I mean a lot of Americans with Washington addresses, and now obviously Chinese bank accounts.

The main problem is that sites don't quote Wikipedia when using our information. For example, while working with the list of best-selling video games article, The Independent used our information about the best-selling video game franchises of all time, copying it verbatim, but not referencing us. Soon after, other sites like Gamasutra and GameSpot picked it up. So, we had reliable sources using information from Wikipedia, but not acknowledging it. Thankfully, nobody fell in the "trap". I contacted The Independent about the license breach, but they never answered.

It also happened later, when Yahoo! Video Games copied the list (although they updated a couple of numbers).

This would be solved very easily: those who use Wikipedia should reference us. Considering the license could be simplified to "link back to the Wikipedia article, where copyright information about the extract can be found", it is a shame journalist, bloggers and miscellaneous editors don't do that.

What's amusing about this is that the article in question talks about Baron Cohen's experiences with anti-Semitism -- but the journalist took it at face value that he worked at Goldman Sachs because hey, after all, he is a Jew...

Anyway, city workers compete mostly with each other for the same kinds of property.

Once they have moved into an area I would agree, but it's when a particular area changes character or price, it is obvious:

School lotteries in Brighton

240,000 Second-home owners targeted in bid to save rural areas from turning into ghost towns

Nottingham's forest of housing despair

But it is in Greater Nottingham "family areas" such as Lenton, Radford, Dunkirk and Beeston where buy-to-let blight has struck the worst. Estate agents turn what would elsewhere be a three-bedroom semi into a "five to six letting room property", and a four-bedroom house is marketed as "seven to eight letting rooms".

"Nothing is sold in the normal way," says Ms Fletcher. "With each student paying around £3,500 a year, landlords can earn about 8.5% on their investments. Even before tax relief, that's substantially more than the cost of borrowing, so they can outbid families. Estate agents have no interest in selling to parents with children. Investors pay more so there is more commission."

City chiefs crack down on buy-to-let

Even if people try and move to the other end of the country, houses in good area of the city are still expensive:

Highland House Prices

For Highland as a whole the median price for a previously owned house by 2006 was £136,000 - an increase of £33,000.

The Scottish figure was £114,000, a £24,000 increase.

Two of the most expensive areas for houses are Inverness Ness-side and Inverness South where median prices are about £140,000 and £160,000.

Now, that article is pretty funny. Take e.g. the first paragraph:

Indeed. Actually, it is over 100 of thousands global users... 158458 as of January, to be exact. Will the independent continue to be just another unreliable website full of mistakes, misconceptions and misleading entries?

If you manage to get past the first drivel, it's not bad. The overall conclusion seems be that wikipedia is quite accurate, though at times rather obviously slanted for biographies. (My favorite quote was the one about Tony Blair entering GB into many armed conflicts despite being a devout Christian. As if religious people are not infamously violent.

but the specific complaint about its volatility is at best uninformed.

Is it?

February 2006; Wikipedia under the microscope over accuracy

In January 2007 Blogger Rick Jelliffe reported that Microsoft had offered to pay him to edit Wikipedia's Open Office XML page on their behalf.

Just last week Phorm admitted that it deleted key factual parts of a Wikipedia article about the huge controversy over deals with BT.

Look, Wikipedia is a good resource and one which I use myself; I just don't recommend citing Wikipedia directly while participating in serious discussion, or when publishing, or for one's homework. Wikipedia simply cannot, by its very nature, have the necessary gravitas to be considered a formal resource for facts. It can only help guide one to those resources.

There was some discussion in London a while back that the traffic lights at a number of junctions had their red phase increase and green phase decreased just before the introduction of congestion charging and then decreased once it was enforced.

I'm not sure the extent to which these accusations were justified (they were originated by the Evening Standard, which has a long, acrimonious relationship with the mayor. It's an interesting thought, though.

Read this
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/government-figures-missing-two-million-violent-crimes-454637.html

http://www.johnlott.org/

and stop with the straw man arguments

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A6D28BF0-554F-42A6-975E-5472D29C935D.htm
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/gaza-the-children-killed-in-a-war-the-world-doesnt-want-to-know-about-416597.html

How many links do you want? I can get you hundreds to the innocents killed by both sides. Which side is it that you think is targeting terrorists? They are both terrorists. Israel was formed by terrorists that were blowing up buildings etc. and now they face retaliation by Muslim terrorists that have no other way of combating the Jewish terrorism.

I condemn the Jews for their massacres just the same as I condemn the Muslims for theirs. Just because the Jews use tanks and gunships does not change the fact that they are just as bad.

Don't forget the press, which until now has pretty much given him a free ride. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/press-gives-obama-a-rougher-ride-over-free-trade-and-chicago-politics-791347.html

I'm not at all certain that Obama is the tougher candidate to beat -- he's looked good so far, but that's partially because the press hasn't been hounding him. That's beginning to change.

The bigger problem for both of them is that they both have to keep left to win the primary, delaying their inevitable tack back to the center to try to win the independent vote. But, McCain is already in the center. Part of their strategy is going to be to pain him as a right-wing extremist, but that's going to be a hard sell when bills with names like "McCain-Kennedy" and "McCain-Feingold" floating around. So, instead, they're going to trot out a tried-and-true political tactic: character assassination. See, for example, ahref=http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Howard_Dean_John_McCain_flawed_candidate_0302.htmlrel=url2html-25095http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Howard_Dean_John_McCain_flawed_candidate_0302.html>

China allows only twenty foreign films theatrical release each year.

There are periodic "blackouts" to protect the domestic product. China bans Hollywood movies to protect its own film industry Protection comes at a cost.

The domestic product competes against the pirated Hollywood DVD with a street price of $1.

It is the export product that makes money for the Chinese studio - meaning the Chinese studio has to "go Hollywood" to survive.

I've heard smokers make the same argument. By dieing young they save the NHS money in expensive geriatric care. It's probably true, since it's far cheaper to let someone die untreated of something essentially untreatable like lung cancer or a sudden heart attack than it is to keep them alive for years in a old people's home.

Not that the NHS sees it that way of course, they're discussing refusing operations for people who are obese or smokers.. Not all people with self control issues are punished though. Heroin is free on the NHS if you get yourself hooked.

Mind you most people end up paying for private nursing homes since the NHS ones are so grotty. And if the NHS refuses to pay for parts of your lung cancer treatment, you can't just pay for that part, you need to pay for the whole lot. So you don't have a choice about paying National Insurance, but they can decide not to pay for drugs that would keep you alive. If you don't like it, you need to pay for the whole cost of the treatment. It's sort of like an HMO that you're legally obliged to contribute to. In fact avoiding National Insurance can lead to prison since it legally considered a tax.

You'd think things like this and the obviously dismal state of NHS dentistry would put Americans off the concept of socialized health care, but quite often they'll joke about British teeth and then enthusiastically advocate it without seeing the link between the two.

On a related note, all persons with blue eyes are apparently related to one distant ancestor.

So no need to have three people involved to change the color of your kids eyes. Just turn off the switch in the OCA2 gene and you should get the desired results.

As a side note, it's nice to know I'm a mutant.

"It's very frightening that IFPI can get through the courts with something like this. In Turkey and China its the state that decides what information the people can access and what should be censored. In Denmark its apparently the record industry,"

That kind of censorship is certainly disturbing, this is truely frightening

Petition to the UK government:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/article775954.ece

At the end of the news story there is a link to a petition, add your name.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/sentenced-to-death-afghan-who-dared-to-read-about-womens-rights-775972.html

From the next acticle:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/lifeline-for-pervez-afghan-senate-withdraws-demand-for-death-sentence-777188.html

Lifeline for Pervez: Afghan Senate withdraws demand for death sentence

By Kim Sengupta, Jerome Starkey in Kabul and Nigel Morris
Saturday, 2 February 2008

The move follows widespread international protests and appeals to the President, Hamid Karzai, after the case was highlighted by The Independent and more than 38,000 readers signed our petition to secure justice for Mr Kambaksh. In Britain, the Foreign Secretary David Miliband, the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg and the shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague, backed the campaign, and there have been demonstrations in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

The first ruling by the Senate supporting the death sentence on Mr Kambaksh by a religious court in Mazar-i-Sharif in the north of the country, was proposed by Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, a key ally of President Karzai, and was seen as a severe blow to the 23-year-old journalism student's chances of avoiding execution. The new stance, in which the Senate calls its previous decision "a technical mistake", significantly raises hopes that he will eventually be freed.

Mr Kambaksh's family and friends had complained that he was not allowed legal representation at his trial, which was held in secret. Fundamentalist Muslim clerics say he should not have access to the normal right of appeal under the state because he was convicted of the religious crime of blasphemy. The Senate statement yesterday explicitly recognised that the student should have the right to a defence lawyer as well as the right to appeal.

The Senate statement, read out by Aminuddin Muzafari, secretary to the upper house, said: "The position of the upper house regarding distributing anti-Islamic articles, via an Iranian website, was that the upper house approved of the prosecution of such acts by the judiciary. The nature of the sentence, considering the judiciary's independence, would be up to the court itself.

"The upper house respects the rights of the accused, such as the right to have a defence lawyer, the right of appeal and other legal rights. But approval of the death sentence, in the statement published recently from the address of the upper house, was a technical mistake."

Mr Mojaddedi, who has been heavily criticised for proposing the ruling backing the execution, said: "I accept that justice is independent and only the courts are competent to issue such a ruling."

Mr Kambaksh can now petition the court of appeal against both his conviction and sentence, and, afterwards, the supreme court. If he fails there, he can appeal directly to Mr Karzai who has been inundated with emails about the case for a pardon. Mr Kambaksh's brother, Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, welcomed the new position adopted by the Senate. He added, however, that he might have difficulties finding lawyers to present the case at the appeal court after warnings from fundamentalist groups against people "allying themselves with the apostate". He said the only realistic chance of his brother being freed might be the personal intervention of Mr Karzai.

Ershad Ahmadi, a senior aide to Mr Karzai, said the President was "keeping a close eye on the case". But he stressed it was a "long, difficult and complicated legal process".

Mr Ahmadi added: "The decision by the initial court will be reviewed by a higher court and that decision will then be scrutinised by the supreme court. If they uphold the death sentence, the President can send the verdict back to the supreme court for them to reconsider. But if they stand by their decision the President still has the authority to pardon him."

Selim Mohammed Nasruddin, an analyst of the Afghan legal system, said the upper house had "taken a really dangerous step in saying this journalist

The Afghan Senate decided to go back on it's original decision

But the first story / headline is much more likely to bring in people from the RSS readers / aggregators etc. Not that internet censorship isn't a topic worth discussing; but the latest information is more useful than this misleading summary.

Sheesh.

On the plus side, I hear Dick Cheney increased the chocolate ration to 20 grams.

Me thinks 9/11 was the excuse need to tighten civil control in advance of the mass migration expected due to climate change.

Considering that some UK newspapers are already reporting that we are passed the tipping point we might expect the screws to tighten a bit faster soon.

http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2976669.ece

the fact of the matter is that we have no evidence initial exit polls disagreed with the count other than "a guy who says on his blog that he heard a guy on the news say that"

The exit polls were wrong too, giving Obama a smaller four-point lead.

1. Voter complacency after Obama's huge lead in the polls. This would lead more independents to vote in the Republican Primary instead of "wasting" their vote for Obama. Also, some first time voters (like students) may have stayed away from the polls confident that Obama would win easily. This could easily account for 3% of the swing.
2. Females deciding to vote for Clinton in the last day. There were two events, both widely publicized by the MST that would have made Clinton more appealing to women. First, the way Edwards came to Obama's defense in the Saturday debate could have made both men appear to be anti-female. Second, the most widely publicized event of the primary was Clinton's teary moment that also might have appealed to females. The exit polls said the late deciders were a wash, they followed the trend of the entire vote. I think the two moments cited above nullified what would have been a swing towards Obama in the late deciders. I'd say this could account for 1 point in the overall 11 point swing.
3. The Bradley Effect where white voters lie to pollsters in bi-racial elections. This is the non-fraud explanation for the 7% discrepancy in the exit polls (Obama +4 vs. Clinton +3). We must give this 7%.

For example:

The Body Has A Mind of Its Own (broadcast Friday, December 21st, 2007)
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200712214
--
Toxic Homes and Household Toxins (broadcast Friday, December 14th, 2007)
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200712144
--
Exposed: the seven great medical myths
http://news.independent.co.uk/health/article3273183.ece
--
Testing Toys for Lead
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16951320

The truth is that this has been expected for a while. You cannot expect to have one rule for trade flowing one way and then try and exempt certain businesses just because you don't like them. European Governments are not allowed to reject all Genetically modified soya so the US can not reject all gambling.

Before Bush came into office the US had never lost a single case at the WTO. Now he has lost at least two. The last one I remember was against Europe with regard to an import tax on steel. Here is a link or two:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3291537.stm
http://themanufacturer.com/us/detail.html?contents_id=1726
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article77803.ece

In that case the US backed down fairly quickly as the tariffs Europe was going to impose were all designed to damage the economy in places Bush needed to get re-elected. One example given was taxing Florida oranges heavily and making them far more expensive than those from elsewhere. This is what every last tariff was designed to do. The European Union chose products where the same item could be obtained elsewhere for a competitive price (but not after a 30% tax hike was imposed on the US produce).

In this case turning Antigua into a file sharing haven will be an annoyance, but probably not as dire as what Europe was aiming for. This is especially true when you look at the amounts involved. In this case 21 million dollars per year is fairly small compared to the 2.2 billion that the last dispute could have cost had the US not backed down.

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/ad+hominem

As for the definition of the word "racist": There are only a tiny handful of peoples who are capable of producing a man who can win a Fields Medal or a Nobel Prize in Physics: Largely they are Caucasians [to include the Ashkenazim & the Lebanese Christians], Pacific Rim Asians, and [only] the very highest castes from the Indian Subcontinent; conversely, the finals of the 100 meter dash at the Olympics will always consist almost entirely of men who are descended from the tribes of West Africa [or at least the finals would consist almost entirely of such men if national quotas didn't unfairly and unnaturally limit and restrict the participants at the Olympics].

No one - not even the most ardent marxist academic - bothers to try to convince himself otherwise anymore.

But, of course, the modern definition of "racist" does not identify, as the villain, he who notices these differences - we all notice them - but rather the word "racist" has come to apply to anyone who has the temerity [or foolhardiness] to verbalize the observation.

On the other hand, that's not what the word "racist" is supposed to mean: A racist is supposed to be someone who believes that a government should enforce [with the barrel of a gun] an agenda which:

1) Involves seizing the private property of dis-favored races.

2) Involves setting aside educational appointments and business opportunities for favored races.

3) Involves denying taxpayer-subsidized goodies to dis-favored races.

4) Involves the racialization of criminal arrests, prosecutions, and convictions.

5) Involves the seizure of entire continents from dis-favored races.

6) Involves the enslavement of dis-favored races.

7) Involves the slaughter of dis-favored races.

Etc etc etc.

So it's impossible for any classical liberal - one who believes that men should be judged not by the color of their skin, but by rather the content of their character, and who believes that governments, and their gun barrels, really ought not exist in the first place - it is impossible for him to be a "racist" within the bounds of any meaning which that word was intended to connote.

But, again, as I have said over and over in this little conversation of ours: NONE OF THE SEMANTIC DISTINCTIONS ARE OF ANY IMPORTANCE WHATSOEVER.

What is important is the underlying truth of the matter: Barring some unforseen tragedy [your being struck by lightning, etc], YOU WILL LIVE TO EXPERIENCE THE IMMINENT TRAGEDY [& CATASTROPHE] OF DYSGENIC FERTILITY.

In the meantime, perform your very small - yet almost infinitely important - role in making the future a better place for us all [both we who are already born, and those of us who are yet-to-be-born]: Go find the smartest girl yo

Great for those pesky situations when you need the CEO's password in a hurry - 35 seconds should do it in most cases.

:P

If people are inclined to believe that "sex crime" equals "registered sex offender" equals "pedophile" equals "baby rapist",

Massive numbers of children in rural Africa are dying from malaria because their parents heard rumors that mosquito nets are bad.

What are the odds of you getting hepatitis in this country?
Dude, I've had heppititis as a kid (no I'm not "high risk") and it is Not. Fucking. Nice.
For the sake of a pinprick that costs the NHS (or profit making insurance company if you are US'ian) a few Euros, its worth it. Both for your own health and the economy that has to look after you when you are puking and turning yellow for a month or two.

The mortality from chicken pox is off the bottom of the chart
But it kills and is nasty. A vacination costs fuck all so why take the risk.

I'm sure by next year, they're going to be calling for all infant girls to go ahead and get the hpv shot, because you can never be too careful about protecting your infant from STDs.
So you would rather thay die? Stop talking shite.
Cervical cancer is caused by a sexually transmitted virus and vacinations are going ahead here for kids without murmor. http://news.independent.co.uk/health/article3101929.ece>

so why subject your kid to that kinda crap?
Because you are a rational beleiver in science?

It's even less likely now than it was when I was a kid, because the infection rates are still dropping.
LOL! Why do you think infection rates are dropping? Because people are getting vaccinated YTC !

There's good reason to doubt. Maybe it's all a conspiracy to make us completely unsure of what's real.

Here are some reasons to doubt news stories:
http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/37/9592
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36694-2005Mar15.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21490838/
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article621189.ece

Major news outlets carried falsified stories in order to gauge citizen reaction. Of course, the catch-22 is that if you feel that the above stories might be fake, we're in the same boat--not knowing what to believe.

We too have elected a neocon.. (although I don't include myself in that "we", having campaigned for years against that guy and his policies.)

• Solar Thermal - The cheapest option out there at the moment. Heat up water. Keep it in an insulated tank until it's needed. Drive steam through a turbine. Works up to 16 hours a day which isn't perfect but it's better than "only when the sun's shining"
• Vanadium redox (flow) batteries - Charge a Vanadium electrolyte and pump it into tanks for storage. Pump it back the other way to release the charge. Highly scalable (just add more electrolyte and bigger tanks) to many MWh of power. Still pricey but could be competitive with more research funding and economies of scale. A great candidate for Google funding IMHO.
• Compressed air - Use surplus energy to compress air into an underground aquifer. Release it through a regular gas turbine when needed significantly boosting the turbine's efficiency. Not truly renewable as you're still burning gas but you still get the benefit of otherwise wasted wind power. The advantage of pumping water into an aquifer is that the constant hydrostatic pressure removes the need for variable regulation at the plant saving significant cost. Won't work everywhere though and the drilling cost would be significant.
• Pumped hydro - Well established and incredibly scalable (to GWh of power storage!) but not cheap to build.
• Supergrid - Spread your wind farms across a wide enough grid and the wind will be guaranteed to be blowing somewhere giving you guaranteed supply. Uses HVDC lines to minimize power loss over the large transmission distances involved.