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The British taxpayer didn't put all that much into Wembley http://sport.independent.co.uk/olympics/article2369017.ece

I must have misinterpreted this or this.

I'm sure the Treasury isn't the same as the Bank of England - and while the BoE can create money at the flick of a pen, it tends not to flog dead horses if possible.

Mervyn King's no mug - he'd rather see a politician fall on his sword than deliberately create pretend money to save a cowboy bank.

I must have misinterpreted this or this.

I'm sure the Treasury isn't the same as the Bank of England - and while the BoE can create money at the flick of a pen, it tends not to flog dead horses if possible.

Mervyn King's no mug - he'd rather see a politician fall on his sword than deliberately create pretend money to save a cowboy bank.

The german mobile auction in 2000 raised over $50Bn (at today's exchange rate). The UK auction in 2001 raised £22.5Bn ($45Bn at todays rate)

These auctions are more profitable than wars - well, for the governments involved. Not for the poor suckers who "win" them and then have to find the cash

references:
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article272264.ece> http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/nao_reports/01-02/0102233es.pdf

In other news, 54% of companies that are about to IPO put out an excessive number of press releases with dubious studies that might get them attention.

Take everything with a grain of salt.

--Q

However, for those of us who live abroad, i would like to recollect the wise words of Napolean - "Never interrupt your enemy whilst he is making a mistake."

NO. Architecture is "work for hire." The architect can maintain copyright on the drawings and plans, and they might even have elements in the structure trademarked. They cannot prevent an owner from changing a building, but they can prevent the owner from saying it is a _ building when making changes.

You'd think so wouldn't you?

[Architect Calatrava suing city of Bilbao for allowing another architect to build a walkway off the bridge he designed]

I understand your point of view, and greatly respect the way the British have dealt with IRA thugs and other assorted murderous loonies. In that context, let me make two points.

1. If this list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_the_United_Kingdom is accurate, the most deaths from a single terrorist attack were 270 from the Lockerbie plane bombing. If you can remember back to that instance, you remember the consternation, chaos and grief that caused. Now, to put it in perspective, imagine 10 or 11 of those bombings happening at once in the skies over Britain. Oh, also, the two tallest buildings in London, which happen to be at or near the center of your economic infrastructure, are demolished.

2. Relative to the U.S., residents of Great Britain are more able to "live [their lives] as normal" because Great Britain *already accepts* a greater level of government intrusion as "normal". In the U.S., we don't have videocameras everywhere (not yet, anyway). The question of whether or not the state has the ability to tell us we can't own firearm in our own homes is a matter of great debate, not a settled question. Etc. etc. etc.

3. Finally, a related point: What you present as a fact -- i.e., the UK has gone about it's business as usual -- would be hotly disputed by many of your own countrymen. Articles like this http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,1759344,00.html and this http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1129827.ece suggest that this is a matter of some dispute.

This article http://www.espionageinfo.com/Ul-Vo/United-Kingdom-Counter-Terrorism-Policy.html also seems to dispute your contention. Excerpts: "Parliament ... responded to the rise of fundamentalist religious terrorist groups by passing the Anti-Terrorism, Crime, and Security Act in 2001, an action that was criticized by many civilrights groups ... After bombs exploded in two pubs in Birmingham ... Parliament passed the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act of 1974. The act allowed authorities to arrest suspected terrorists without a warrant and detain them for up to a week without filing charges against them. Suspected terrorists could also be deported from England to Northern Ireland. The policy of internment raised international criticism, as did the practice of "hooding," in which detainees would be isolated and forced to wear hoods over their heads. After an investigation by the European Commission of Human Rights in 1976, the practices of food and sleep deprivation, noise bombardment, forced standing at attention, and hooding were condemned by the body. Despite the commission's decision, the practices continued." etc.

Not trying to start a flame war. I just think the situation's more nuanced than you describe.

    - Alaska Jack

i think jon ive got it -- the designers who would make it better
are at a level too low in the hierarchy to make effective changes:

Q: There's a widespread perception that computers in general have taken on a
generic appearance, i.e., the ubiquitous beige box. Why do you think this
has been the case?

Ive: I DON'T THINK THE REASONS STEM FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF THE DESIGNERS
DESIGNING THOSE PRODUCTS THAT WAY. I THINK IT IS DRIVEN BY AN INDUSTRY
THAT HAS DEFINED ITS AGENDA AND WHAT IT BELIEVES THE PURCHASING CRITERIA
SHOULD BE. THAT, THEREFORE, DEFINES THE PRIORITIES FOR THE DESIGNER.

((THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, Interview with Jonathan Ive,
  Charles Arthur talks to the designer of the iMac, January 14 2002)

http://news.independent.co.uk/digital/features/story.jsp?story=114276

So we agree on some things.

I would even argue that subsistence farming is the root of a lot of African conflict.

Here is where I disagree. I don't see subsidence farming as so much a problem as is the ethnic differences. For instance in Nigeria, the Niger Delta is multi-ethnic but government policies favor some ethnic groups over others: Nigeria: Characterising the Niger Delta Struggle . In Botswana the San or Bushmen were being forced off their ancestral lands so mining companies can get at the diamonds there: Bushmen Driven From Ancestral Lands in Botswana . Luckily the Kalahari Bushmen win ancestral land case in court in Botswana. Now the question is is will the government follow the ruling. In the Congo the fighting was partially about it's natural resources of Coltan, gold, and timber among several other natural resources.

What is with this story referencing two very old (August for Ars, September for BizWeek) articles? Perhaps this article would be a bit more relevant: Google 'ready to take on Apple iPhone next year' Sheesh.

A small amount of scandals and people like you who swallow any sensationalist piece of news out there really cast things in an unfair light.

I think the problem is that the scandals get press coverage while good science typically does not. For example, there was a lot of talk a few years back about how the peppered moth study was flawed. However, there was almost no coverage of a later study which verified the claims of the original.

Another related reason is that the studies which the public is most often exposed to are funded by biased parties: political organizations, pharmaceutical companies, etc. In these cases, even if the data is valid it is often not presented in an unbiased manner. And I suspect all of these factors are reinforced by our seemingly natural tendency to believe conspiracy theories.

I can read just fine, thank you. And i presume that must be in the independent.co.uk article, because that's the only one that gives a "404: OracleJSP: java.io.FileNotFoundException". I checked the other links, and NONE of them contain that text.

And a quick check confirms it. Searching the Independent's site finds the article in question. The only one to contain the text you mention. The *correct* link is:

http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2934320.ece

NOT:

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2368999.ece

as you had previously linked to. So... learn to hyperlink?

I can read just fine, thank you. And i presume that must be in the independent.co.uk article, because that's the only one that gives a "404: OracleJSP: java.io.FileNotFoundException". I checked the other links, and NONE of them contain that text.

And a quick check confirms it. Searching the Independent's site finds the article in question. The only one to contain the text you mention. The *correct* link is:

http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2934320.ece

NOT:

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2368999.ece

as you had previously linked to. So... learn to hyperlink?

And for those of you who don't know, TGGWS is just BS. Start to finish, pure crap. Just about every scientist in it has said that they were misrepresented, the director is known for being a fabricator. It's the "Dinosaurs lived with adam and eve" version of science. Utter shit. And you are below contempt for spreading it. See:

http://flet.org/node/20
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/about_bas/news/news_story.php?id=178
http://folk.uio.no/nathan/web/statement.html
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/news.asp?id=6089
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2119695,00.html
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2368999.ece

and TONS of others. The data are misrepresented, words taken out of context etc etc. Wall to wall shit from someone with a vested interest in spreading FUD. I know some of you still don't think global climate change happens, and some of you think the earth is flat too, but the HUGE SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS is that the climate is changing, to some degree it's man made and we need to do something about it.

Slashdot readers interested in the news that the NYT is "free" might be interested in other free as in beer newspapers. Who could possibly resist the temptation to visit the best newspaper in the English language - The Sun. http://www.thesun.co.uk/
You can check out if it is going to be a Zoe McConnell day, which legend has it, augurs good luck.
The Miami Herald http://www.miamiherald.com/ is free too and available in a Spanish edition. Speigel (the English version) http://www.spiegel.de/international/ is free too, and the Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/ and the Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ are also free. Oh and the Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/ which could once claim to be the finest newspaper in the English language is free also. Robert Fisk appears in that one, I believe he finds some sympathy with some slash dotters. Private Eye http://www.private-eye.co.uk/ remains annoyingly non-free for cheapskates like myself and neither is Viz http://www.viz.co.uk/- which used to be funny once. Top Tip number eleven is quite funny. A very brief trawl of the internet should probably result in an appropriate newspaper for every possible shade of opinion.

I kinda thought he paraphrased greenspan ( currently popular in other news)

he wrote. "They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2970788.ece

Yeah. You'd never catch republics or democracies losing millions and millions of dollars. And do you really think the Federal Reserve wanted to cut lending rates to bail out all those NINJA mortgages? That cost them a load of money they're never getting back. Similarly for the European Central Bank, which spent billions artificially propping up share markets.

Oh, and socialism is not communism. Communism is totalitarian, socialism is not necessarily.

*shrug* Prehaps you can do a bit better then a strawman/ad hominen attack?

How about actually read the current news? Rather then a book written in 1776?

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/art icle600750.ece

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/21/america/wea lth.php

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/analysis_an d_features/article2891171.ece

http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_38 43.shtml

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/m oney/2007/08/08/cnchina108.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedb ox

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/m oney/2007/08/07/bcnchina107a.xml

Big companies like Lenovo being bought out by China, or more recently the US government blocking China from buying Unocal (US blocking on average 10% of US companies being bought up by China).

Financially at least (and I'll agree that there are other considerations) the benefit of a university education goes to society at large, not to the student.

the $75k the Government stole from you

Render on to Caesar, what is Caesar's.

If you want to use government-issued money to invest in government-created corporations (many of which rely on government-created patents or copyrights for their business model) in a government-stabilized securities market, or buy real estate deeded and defended by the governement, you're in no position to call it "stealing" when the government demands some of its counters back as payment.

(Yes, yes, corporatate charters and most land deeds are issued at the state level, while money is a federal creation. We can argue seperately over which level of government can and should do what; for current purposes we can regard the whole thing as one large glob of government.)

Terra Firma is a private equity firm; they specialize in buying out companies, restructuring them and fixing management issues, and taking profit from the restructuring.

So, the NEW owners haven't yet had time to do much. Whether they will change or not remains to be seen - they've only had a couple of weeks on their hands...

Eivind.

Apart from when you said this...

Just listen to them bleating about how Muslim people don't 'integrate' and how the Muslim community doesn't denounce terrorist attacks loudly enough.

I wasn't complaining about them making generalisations, I was complaining that the generalisations were incorrect. There is a big difference. Saying that the majority of people in the UK are right-wing is a fact, as I have shown above. When Rupert--right wing--Murdoch says jump, the Labour Party asks: 'how high would you like Mr Murdoch?'

who voted for a Left Wing government

Wow, you think Labour are a left-wing government?! No. They're more right-wing than the Conservatives. Tony Blair privatises more than most Tory governments have done. Look at how the real left-wing gets along with him.

While that makes it the biggest "newspaper" it still doesn't let it reach the majority of the population. I'd like to see the Sun's sales numbers if it actually reaches the majority of the UK population.

True, the UK population is ~60million people, whilst the daily circulation of The Sun is 3,107,412 (Wikipedia's not a great resource, but will do for these purposes). But the majority of people cannot be arsed to buy a newspaper every day, but what we can do is get a ratio of right-wing bastards Vs. lefty-woofters by comparing the circulation of The Sun with its left-wing counterpart: The Guardian. So, The Sun has a daily circulation of 3,107,412 and The Guardian has 378,228 that's over eight right-wing Sun readers to every left-wing Guardian reader. We're not even taking into account the circulations of other right-wing papers like The Mirror or The Times.

Really all the proof one needs is the special relationship between Rupert Murdoch and the British Government, those who get the support of Murdoch have the support of the people (and in case you didn't notice: Murdoch is right-wing). Look at who won on the issue of the Euro, Tony Blair wanted the UK in but Murdoch said no and the whole nation is now brainwashed into hating Europe.

There was a tape and the word of some eyewitnesses. That's what was leaked. Nothing personal about anyone. If you know that the authorities are lying and hiding evidence, then no, leaking info is not detrimental to an ongoing investigation. It's what the investigation needs.

Here's an article where the police claimed there were no working cameras on the tube during the shooting:Before leak
And here's a later article showing a still from the camera which caught the non-running, non-bulky jacket wearing Brazillian being shot by police: After leak

Who's to say that this info would have ever come to light, either in public or in the investigation, without the leak?

If we are going to say that it's always wrong to leak info about an ongoing investigation then we have to trust the authorities to always do the right thing in regards to the evidence. So here are two examples (the wiretapping and the London shooting) where, clearly, we couldn't trust them.

It's a tricky question, but if I had to choose one extreme over the other I'd say all evidence in an investigation should be available all the time.

Don't forget that many of the original broadcasts from the Lunar surface are missing. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/artic le1218885.ece

Gummi noses to match the Gummi fingers for faking out fingerprint scanners, anyone?

http://web.mit.edu/6.857/OldStuff/Fall03/ref/gummy -slides.pdf

This sort of thing could make quite a fun party trick, to go with the recently reported cast of Napoleon's lover's breasts:

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article280262 8.ece

You can't take that article seriously. Read the By-Line.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/artic le2758829.ece

is a reprint of this:

The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness, by Chris Hedges and Laila al-Arian, appears in the 30 July issue of The Nation.

I mean the Independent is a pretty Anti-American rag, but it's the freakin' White House talking points compared to The Nation. It even talks about Haditha even though that story has been discredited as a hoax. How out of touch would you have to be to actually believe that American soldiers are shooting people in the back so that they won't have to fight them here?

Nutzo.

Are you kidding? You see this as a step down the road to reducing civilian casualties?

Uh, think again, buddy. When the people doing the firing are far away from the consequences of their actions, and when the people that they're targetting are little different from sprites in a computer game then, as research has proven, those people are more not less likely to be indiscriminate with their use of force.

One of things you learn from being in the field is that actions have unintended consequences, and it's often those unintended consequences that give veterans an appreciation of the true horrors of war and the real value of peace.

Do you think that the UAV pilot sitting in his comfy chair somewhere in Arizona will have the same insight into the war that these guys have had?

Ship of fools: Johann Hari sets sail with America's swashbuckling neocons
The Iraq war has been an amazing success, global warming is just a myth - and as for Guantanamo Bay, it's practically a holiday camp... The annual cruise organised by the 'National Review', mouthpiece of right-wing America, is a parallel universe populated by straight-talking, gun-toting, God-fearing Republicans.

By Johann Hari
Published: 13 July 2007
I am standing waist-deep in the Pacific Ocean, both chilling and burning, indulging in the polite chit-chat beloved by vacationing Americans. A sweet elderly lady from Los Angeles is sitting on the rocks nearby, telling me dreamily about her son. "Is he your only child?" I ask. "Yes," she says. "Do you have a child back in England?" she asks. No, I say. Her face darkens. "You'd better start," she says. "The Muslims are breeding. Soon, they'll have the whole of Europe."

I am getting used to these moments - when gentle holiday geniality bleeds into... what? I lie on the beach with Hillary-Ann, a chatty, scatty 35-year-old Californian designer. As she explains the perils of Republican dating, my mind drifts, watching the gentle tide. When I hear her say, " Of course, we need to execute some of these people," I wake up. Who do we need to execute? She runs her fingers through the sand lazily. "A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralise the country," she says. "Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that's what you'll get." She squints at the sun and smiles. " Then things'll change."

-FL

BP also cuts corners on maintenance, leading to spillage and fatal explosions.

The economic feasibility of urban farming is not really in doubt. Other countries run successful, organic farms in cities.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/artic le1217550.ece

The only thing new here is the high-technology used. Sadly, it may turn out that urban farming that does not use available space, but instead uses dedicated space, is not feasible. If high-tech does not change that equation (and it is unlikely it would), it is likely the backing of this project would vanish, and with it urban farming in the US.

Too bad, because if we don't over-engineer it, there are several good examples to choose from, most from countries we'd rather not acknowledge (which is probably our problem).

At least in North America and the EU, speaking out against political figures and government is not only legal, but gets you cred among ideologically like-minded people.
As long as you stay within the accepted limits of debate. Your views will be criticised as nonsensical and you won't be allowed on mainstream news channels (or if you are, you'll be "fox news"ed) - The 911 truth movement is an example. There's also the "ability" of the government to single you out for tax audits if you're a political opponent. So, it's not exactly a "free" society. You can even get jailed and tortured in this way. Here is an example.

You can still go to work the next day confident that you won't lose your job by government mandate.
Depending on what you say. Although not by "government mandate", there are other forces that can silence/control you in the United States. This is a recent example that's been on the news for a while now. The United States is not really run by the elected government anymore.

I find it hard to believe that Americans oppose Chavez because he's a dictator and because he's supressing freedom in Venezuela. He's not perfect but he's trying to free his country and South America from external control and so, the bottom line is that he's not "standing in line".

White phosphorus was used in Falluja - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4440664.stm and http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/artic le327094.ece

have four years left!!!

The CIA has been doing nasty stuff in Europe. Of course, torture is illegal, which is why the CIA uses extraordinary rendition and secret prisons in Eastern Europe, rather than torture people at home.

For your enlightenment:
CIA ran secret prisons for detainees in Europe, says inquiry
German ministers 'knew about CIA torture cells'
CIA jails in Europe 'confirmed'

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)

That relation is mentioned in the fine article as the headline, so it's not the fault of the Slashdot editors. It does seem that it's more of an encryption method than anything after reading the content of the article.

On that note, I think that encryption of a transmission of matter in data form is extremely important. Can you imagine what an intercepted transmission of that nature would do? It would bring an entirely new meaning to identity theft. What about in a war situation, if the leader of the enemy was intercepted, and there was an extra copy of him, with memories intact, that was captured? It would change much more than you'd see on the face of it.

All in all, I think that it's not directly related to a transporter, but it could be used if one were invented. It really is not the best title.

When a government takes away your freedoms they don't willingly give them back.

• Does it minimize the tendency for excessive power to accumulate in DC?
• Does it maximize individual responsibility and freedom?

Gracious "guests" in the tiny fragments that remain of their original homeland, most of them forced into squallid camps.

Oh, that and being killed.

Snippet:

More than 320 civilians were among a threefold increase in the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces last year, according to Amnesty International. The human rights group's 2007 report says that over half of the more than 650 Palestinians killed in 2006 were civilians, 120 of them children and young people under 18. Amnesty defines civilians, "as people that are reasonably supposed never to have been involved in armed operations".

While Amnesty said that dozens of Palestinians were killed in the West Bank it pointed out that most of the increase resulted from aerial and artillery bombardments in Gaza after the abduction of the Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit in late June and in response to increased Qassam rocket fire on Israel. These included, for example, the shelling of a house in the northern town of Beit Hanoun which killed 17 members of the Athamneh family.

The report said 21 Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians militants in the same year, the lowest figure since the beginning of the second intifada in 2000.

Unfortunately, that may not be enough to keep you out of the CIA's clutches. For instance, there were these guys. Even assisting MI5 with counter terrorism may not help.

I get too much work from the .NET realm to ever diss Microsoft, because some of their stuff works quite well and saves me quite a bit of time. Some other products... forget it. I think however that when a corporation takes on more than (arbitrary number) say 40 workers, it becomes evil. And now Microsoft has fallen into that evil, and is joining with the empire that emits more greenhouse gasses than the USA, spies on our military, threatens minorities, pollutes recklessly, threatens the US with nuclear weapons, and is building up its military to challenge the US and Europe. Is the new evil empire a Microsoft-China alliance?

It depends on what you think of certain acts that are currently labelled as criminal. Surely nobody on here would seriously suggest that walking into a school and shooting anything with a pulse should be a legal activity. However, what of the person caught on camera smoking a joint? It wasn't centuries ago that alcohol was prohibited across the United States (with the associated massive rise in organised crime and general disregard for the law by many). At the moment in the UK, there are so many new invasive laws and ways of enforcing the law coming out that when someone defies them, you're as likely to see a "good on them" response evoked as any kind of public outrage. Speed cameras are a case in point. Sure, lots of people take the "well you shouldn't be speeding" line, but there are also plenty who would be the first to congratulate "Captain Gatso" on his organisation's efforts to destroy what they see as a threat.

Even amongst less shady organisations, car insurance companies are now beginning to say they will not raise premiums for drivers with three penalty points on their license. What was once a shameful mark to have on your license, is now so commonplace due to the mechanisation of the law and the prosecution of absolutely everyone who breaks the speed limit rather than those who are driving dangerously, that even the people who's job it is to assess your risk are saying they will not penalise you for breaking the law!

About UAVs, sure. Use them in situations when you'd use a helicopter - when you think there is a serious crime going on. But, in this country I fear that it'll just be another way for the government to not only spy on everything at once, but find whole new ways to extract yet more tax. With this, a proposed GPS tracking system for all cars to implement a pay-per-mile taxation system (don't drivers pay heftily per mile thanks to fuel duty at getting close to $9-$10 US per gallon?), the National Identity Register and the fact that we already have 20% of the entire world's CCTV cameras on this island, it would take someone with a big set of blinkers on to not think that maybe, just maybe, we really are sleepwalking into, if not an Orwellian surveillance society, then certainly into a state where the mechanisms for some real Big Brother-esque monitoring are all in place and just awaiting the right kind of government.

I hope the Democrats realize this is not only blocking President Bush, it will also block future President Hillary or Barack too.

And you think this would be a concern for them because...? It is possible to oppose something because it is obscenely wrong, not just because the other party is doing it.

A Global War on Terror". Just like most Republicans don't believe in "Man-Made-Global Warming"

Um, no. If you want a real analogy, the GWOT is like the War on Drugs: a self-perpetuating mess that does nothing but make the problem it is supposed to solve worse while wasting lives and billions of dollars. More so when the U.S. government is very selective in which terrorists it actually goes after.