Slashdot Mirror

You might want to read this as a companion piece.

The sunspots stuff was discredited years ago, I'm sure you can find the information easily enough if you have a look.

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_ change/article2355956.ece
"...
However, further inquiries revealed that the C4 graph was based on a diagram in another paper produced as part of a "petition project" by the same group of climate sceptics. This diagram was itself based on long out-of-date information on terrestrial temperatures compiled by Nasa scientists.

However, crucially, the axis along the bottom of the graph has been distorted in the C4 version of the graph, which made it look like the information was up-to-date when in fact the data ended in the early 1980s.

Mr Durkin admitted that his graphics team had extended the time axis along the bottom of the graph to the year 2000. "There was a fluff there," he said.

If Mr Durkin had gone directly to the Nasa website he could have got the most up-to-date data. This would have demonstrated that the amount of global warming since 1975, as monitored by terrestrial weather stations around the world, has been greater than that between 1900 and 1940 - although that would have undermined his argument. ...
Other graphs used in the film contained known errors, notably the graph of sunspot activity. Mr Durkin used data on solar cycle lengths which were first published in 1991 despite a corrected version being available - but again the corrected version would not have supported his argument. Mr Durkin also used a schematic graph of temperatures over the past 1,000 years that was at least 16 years old, which gave the impression that today's temperatures are cooler than during the medieval warm period. If he had used a more recent, and widely available, composite graph it would have shown average temperatures far exceed the past 1,000 years.

"The crux case centres on a woman called Nishal, a 26-year-old Moroccan immigrant to Germany with two kids and a psychotic husband. Since their wedding night, this husband beat the hell out of her. She crawled to the police covered in wounds, and they ordered the husband to stay away from her. He refused. He terrorised her with death threats. So Nishal went to the courts to request an early divorce, hoping that once they were no longer married he would leave her alone. A judge who believed in the rights of women would find it very easy to make a judgement: you're free from this man, case dismissed. But Judge Christa Datz-Winter followed the logic of multiculturalism instead. She said she would not grant an early divorce because - despite the police documentation of extreme violence and continued threats - there was no "unreasonable hardship" here. Why? Because the woman, as a Muslim, should have "expected" it, the judge explained. She read out passages from the Koran to show that Muslim husbands have the "right to use corporal punishment". Look at Sura 4, verse 34, she said to Nishal, where the Koran says he can hammer you. That's your culture. Goodbye, and enjoy your beatings. This is not a freakish exception. Germany's only state-level Minister for Integration, Armin Laschet, says this is only "the last link, for the time being, in a chain of horrific rulings handed down by the German courts".

buying your drugs from the lowest bidder isn't always a good thing.

http://www.independent.co.uk/search/simple.do?publ icationId=55&includeSectionId=38&xsuccessUrl=index .jsp%3FtemplateName%3Dresult&xerrorUrl=index.jsp%3 FtemplateName%3Dresult&searchEngineName=lucySearch 1&includeSubSections=true&pageLength=25&articleTyp e=news&sortString=by_date_desc&maxRows=500&searchS tring=cannabis&searchType=independent

This newspaper used to defend the use of it. 180 degrees change of position once they were confronted with modern evidence.

Front page news a few weeks ago.

If one of the most prominent UK liberal newspapers, The Independent, is prepared to apologize for advocating the use of cannabis ( check the plethora of articles: http://www.independent.co.uk/search/simple.do?publ icationId=55&includeSectionId=38&xsuccessUrl=index .jsp%3FtemplateName%3Dresult&xerrorUrl=index.jsp%3 FtemplateName%3Dresult&searchEngineName=lucySearch 1&includeSubSections=true&pageLength=25&articleTyp e=news&sortString=by_date_desc&maxRows=500&searchS tring=cannabis&searchType=independent ) you should really question if it is wise to put that substance in your lungs.

The anecdotal evidence you present is funny, but that is why there is epidemyological studies: to laugh and marvel at the anecdotes while at the same time taking sound health policy decisions.

The UN, The Independent and many serious people do not afree with you and have the evidence to back their claims. If all what you have is your lucky grandad to back yours, well, lets say that you are in a bit of a disadvantage there.

Yesterday there was an article in the Independent about a large wave powered station off the coast of Cornwall. The thing that struck me as odd is that in the UK the 20MW station will supply about 7500 "homes" - always a strange piece of statistics. In Canada the 40MW solar station will supply about 10000. Is this purely down to different levels of power consumption on either side of the Atlantic, or is the exchange rate for Canadian Watts pretty bad?

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article234753 6.ece

Do you think Putin cares about the green party.

No evidence against man in child porn inquiry who 'killed himself'
The inquest into his death heard that computer equipment and a camera memory chip belonging to Commodore White had yielded no evidence that he downloaded child pornography, and a letter was written by Ministry of Defence police to Naval Command on 5 January this year indicating that there were "no substantive criminal offences" to warrant pressing charges. But the Second Sea Lord, Sir James Burnell-Nugent, feared that the media would report the case and on 7 January removed him from his post anyway ... the commodore was dead the next day.

In one case at Hull Crown Court last year, a distinguished hospital consultant was acquitted after it emerged that hackers had used his credit card on Landslide. The judge dismissed some police evidence as "utter nonsense".

Let the statistics speak for themselves:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/artic le2458855.ece
The real question is what will it take for America to wake up to reality? The Second amendment is a joke to most non Americans.

from The independent 18/4/2007

The massacre at Virginia Tech has, yet again, focused attention on the culture of guns and the ease of obtaining firearms in America, an unending source of amazement to most of the rest of the world. Roughly 29,000 people are killed by firearms every year - 10 times as many as died on September 11, 2001. Of the victims, some 11,000 are murdered, 17,000 use a gun to commit suicide, and almost 1,000 die in accidents. Some sub-statistics are even more disturbing. Every day three children under 19 die from a gun wound. Across the country, roughly 1,000 crimes involving firearms are committed every 24 hours. The rampage of Cho Seung-Hui, the deadliest mass shooting in US history, will merely add one suicide and 33 murders (at the latest count) to these grim totals.

Even if you want to cast doubt on his story, how about Khalid El-Masri? The guy who was detained in Macedonia for having a the same name as a terrorist, kidnapped using "extraordinary rendition," held for months and then dumped on a desolate road in Albania (too embarrasing to release him with an apology or any acknowledgement of their mistake).

This debacle resulted in a lawsuit and a costly souring of German-US relations. He was cleared of all charges and by all accounts it was a mistake. Are you going to defend that mistake too? This wasn't some "No-fly" list inconvenience of a few hours, this involved torture and violations of international extradition laws.

I reviewd the reference in this article http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife /article2449968.ece to find that the 'Independent' is nothing more than a collection of unreferenced and unsupported 'guess-work pseudo-science' of no value whatsoever other than to laboriously try to chase down what sources the publication might be able to conjure up to support its many allegations. See for yourself! tkjtkj@gmail.com

While futuristic men are out (in) being cavemen with computers that look, feel, and think (somewhat) like women; women will be going out and impregnating themselves.

Is this one neutral enough for you?

If you were able to watch UK Channel 4's "The Great Global Warming Swindle" [channel4.com], it's been pulled from YouTube for copyright issues. Pity. It was spot on.

From the artice in the Independent:

A Channel 4 documentary that claimed global warming is a swindle was itself flawed with major errors which seriously undermine the programme's credibility, according to an investigation by The Independent.

The Great Global Warming Swindle, was based on graphs that were distorted, mislabelled or just plain wrong. The graphs were nevertheless used to attack the credibility and honesty of climate scientists.

A graph central to the programme's thesis, purporting to show variations in global temperatures over the past century, claimed to show that global warming was not linked with industrial emissions of carbon dioxide. Yet the graph was not what it seemed.

Other graphs used out-of-date information or data that was shown some years ago to be wrong. Yet the programme makers claimed the graphs demonstrated that orthodox climate science was a conspiratorial "lie" foisted on the public.

Channel 4 yesterday distanced itself from the programme, referring this newspaper's inquiries to a public relations consultant working on behalf of Wag TV, the production company behind the documentary.

Read on...

If you were able to watch UK Channel 4's "The Great Global Warming Swindle" [channel4.com], it's been pulled from YouTube for copyright issues. Pity. It was spot on.

From the artice in the Independent:

A Channel 4 documentary that claimed global warming is a swindle was itself flawed with major errors which seriously undermine the programme's credibility, according to an investigation by The Independent.

The Great Global Warming Swindle, was based on graphs that were distorted, mislabelled or just plain wrong. The graphs were nevertheless used to attack the credibility and honesty of climate scientists.

A graph central to the programme's thesis, purporting to show variations in global temperatures over the past century, claimed to show that global warming was not linked with industrial emissions of carbon dioxide. Yet the graph was not what it seemed.

Other graphs used out-of-date information or data that was shown some years ago to be wrong. Yet the programme makers claimed the graphs demonstrated that orthodox climate science was a conspiratorial "lie" foisted on the public.

Channel 4 yesterday distanced itself from the programme, referring this newspaper's inquiries to a public relations consultant working on behalf of Wag TV, the production company behind the documentary.

Read on...

The Independent reported the exciting discovery of a viagra like substance in East European heather flowers. Garden Centres across the UK are being besieged by men of all ages.....

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/ar ticle2411405.ece

I have to admit, I'm not a big fan of blaming any medium for the ills of society, but it's hard not to draw the conclusion that the message that some of our media sends us is less than unhealthy.

Commercial interests invariably mean that content creaters and broadcasters are almost always tunnel-visioned into producing content that is ever more graphic, explicit and/or biased. The result is a medium that too easily can either desensitise its audience or misrepresent facts. You'd have to be blind to miss that that's a serious problem.

Take just two examples: the fictional drama 24 and actual television news.

Firstly, 24. There's no doubt that 24 is one of the most popular US shows of the decade, and that Jack Bauer is a generational role model - a tough guy who'll do anything and everything in his power to do his job and protect his country - but it's almost impossible to imagine what 24 would have looked like even 10 or 20 years ago.

Compare the violence in 24 to that of, say, 1990s episodes of NYPD Blue or 1980s episodes of Miami Vice. It's like comparing chalk and cheese.

Then look at some of the dangerous messages that 24 sends us: torture is quick, torture is effective, and torture is fine when it's carried out for patriotic reasons. Whether you believe the last of these statements is down to your own moral compass (I can tell you that I certainly do not), but any expert will tell you that the first two are wishful thinking.

In fact, the show's messages on torture are so dangerous that "the US military has appealed to the producers of 24 to tone down the torture scenes because of the impact they are having both on troops in the field and America's reputation abroad." If even the US military can join the dots between Bauer's fictional planting a powerdrill into bad guys to get his info and the reality of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, illegal killings, etc, then you know it's time to be worried.

But, hey, if you're a TV executive and it keeps the viewers glued to your channel and your ads, then it's all OK, right?

Secondly, television news. We live in a world of instant global news, and it's a good thing. Or it would be, if the news that we got wasn't so watered down and/or distorted. Wars are bloody and brutal things, but you wouldn't know it from the actual footage that you see on your evening news reports, which (on the few occasions that they do show footage from war zones) invariably show clean, precise military operations, which paint a picture that's rosier than a flower show.

The realities of war - the death, the destruction, the senseless waste of it all - are kept hidden away, because if you showed that stuff people would soon get turned off... and change the channel. And if you're a TV executive putting out news that's so real that it makes people so uncomfortable that they'll watch whatever the competition has to offer then you've lost your ratings war, which is the only war that counts when it comes to selling those ads.

So, clean-cut, folksy, sham news is good, and hard-hitting, real, tell-it-how-it-really-is news is bad. The ridiculous subliminal message that war is no big deal that this sends is so messed up: if you showed the naked truth then more people would really start to take an interest, rather than burying their heads in the sand about the issues that will possibly shape their children's lifetimes.

Of course, you'll always have people who'll deny everything. President Nixon believed that Nick Út's Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of the Napalm attack on Trang Bang was staged, despite there also being overwhelming supporting evidence, including television footage, that it was the simple truth. (A US President so out of touch with reality: who would have thought it possible?)

But without being shown the truth, how can

The movie The Great Global Warming Swindle is a fraud. The filmmaker has been convicted in the past of "creative editing". And sure enough, Professor Carl Wunsch from MIT, who is shown in key moments of the movie, is crying foul.

Another funny fact: many of the "scientists" shown in the movie are introduced as members of renowned academic institutions... which they left long ago. In other words, the movie is misrepresenting lobbyists as scientists. That should speak volumes about the integrity of the filmmakers.

As for the science in the movie, I'll let Real Climate debunk it.

I had to pick one post to reply to, so it might as well be yours...

The movie was produced by the BBC4 and is titled "The Great Global Warming Swindle.".

The movie was broadcast and commissioned by Channel 4 (not the BBC), and produced by WAGTV, an independent production company. Channel 4 and WAGTV each have somewhat chequered histories concerning the quality of their science documentaries.

Not that the BBC is the arbiter of fair and balanced documentary-making these days, either, but that's a whole other thread...

It shows an honest, reasoned response to the Global Warming Scare on a point-by-point basis from scientists and at least one journalist. The scientists all have credentials out the whazoo and are recognized leaders and contributors in their respective fields.

...which are generally not climatology. In any case, at least one of the scientists used claims to have been misrepresented. The producer of the programme has previously been chastised by the UK broadcast regulators for his biased editing of interviews with scientists in other, broadly anti-science, documentaries.

Further, as an undergraduate engineer, I spent plenty of time in college science labs doing experiments to acquaint myself with the scientific method. Working in simple straight-forward conditions:

• Indoor lab,
• Properly calibrated equipment,
• One simple, universally-accepted equation,
• One single variable,

we (me and all the other undergraduates) never got an exact match between the equations and the real world. There was always a fudge-factor.

This is also telling. It's no surprise that undergraduate experiments go that way, as at that point you're still developing your experimental skills. I'm hoping, though, that you don't believe that there was really only one single variable in your experiments, that there was no measurement (or calibration) error, and that you did incorporate the measurement errors in your calculations. These uncertainties often mount up (probably explaining your 'fudge-factor', in combination with undergraduate inaccuracy), and that is one reason why experimental results (and model predictions) should be cited with some estimate of confidence intervals - just as the measurements and predictions in the IPCC report from February are.

Breaking news today, Britons will be denied a passport if they don't submit to the world's most intrusive mass-surveillance system

People who refuse to give up their bank records, tax records & details of any benefits they've claimed and the records of their car movements for the last year, or refuse to submit to an interrogation on whether they are the same person that this mountain of data belongs to will be denied passports from March 26th.

The Blair Govt has already admitted that this and other data will be cross-linked so that the Home Office and other officials can spy on the everyday lives of innocent Britons.

Britons were already the most spied upon nation in Western Europe. Data-mining through this unprecedented level of mass-surveillance allows any future British govt to leapfrog even countries like China and North Korea.

Scotland has two major rivers, the Forth & Clyde. The Forth has a 6m tidal range & the Clyde has about 2m at the mouth of the estuary. Though the daily volume of water may not be as great as some other rivers, the water volume should still be large enough to completely power the electricity requirements for the populations surrounding each river.

Compare to what's planned for the River Mersey (tidal range 8-10m). This may generate a consistent two gigawatts of electricity - about 3x the requirement for the entire Liverpool conurbation (Merseyside).

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article3 28507.ece
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/6171 391.stm

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/artic le2264632.ece

"The United States Military Academy at West Point yesterday confirmed that Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan recently travelled to California to meet producers of the show, broadcast on the Fox channel. He told them that promoting illegal behaviour in the series - apparently hugely popular among the US military - was having a damaging effect on young troops." ..

Funny, but the show's star disagrees with the idea that torture is productive:

"In addition, while Mr Surnow may not have any qualms about 24, it appears the show's main protagonist does. In a television interview last month, Sutherland said: "You torture someone and they'll basically tell you exactly what you want to hear, whether it's true or not, if you put someone in enough pain... Within the context of our show, which is a fantastical show to begin with, the torture is a dramatic device to show you how desperate a situation is.""

The biggest flaw in the Russian research is that "Half of the rats in the trial died, and results were taken from those that survived".

This research likely has other flaws, perhaps some that invalidate its results entirely. That's why it must be peer reviewed and retried, the absolute core technique that defines the scientific method. Now that it's been extracted from suppression, it can actually be part of science, regardless of how its results fare under legitimate scrutiny.

Thats interesting. Here's a little ditty on harmful emotions penned by some truly amazing monks (and these are my words, not their;s, it's from memory) and similar to yours, try to read it until the end:

Cultivation of states of mind is a cumulative process. One one engages in states of meditation that feed the loving connected aspects of the mind, those tendencies will grow. The more time you spend in states of lovingkindness, the more lovingkindness will grow inside of you. Similarly, the more time your spend cultivating states of agitation, aggression, greed, or anger the more those states will grow inside of you. For whatever your actions/intentions are in this moment, they will influence your actions/intentions in the future. This is karma.

Mystical gobbledeegook? not according to the latest research in many fields including neurology. A recent article, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/arti cle2171679.ece, provides a little info. Or you can check out the book 'destructive emotions' for a more thorough treatment. In short, the mind is plastic, and what you think and feel on a regular basis shapes the actual physical network of the mind. Just like learning a musical instrument changes the physical structure of your mind and they way your brain processes information, so does cultivating so-called states of mind. Which opens up exciting avenues of treatment for all kinds of people, depressives, addicts, blind ragers, etc. But it can also be used for bad things, like cultivating states of anger or aggression.

I dont know if playing vids makes a person worse, but I really doubt if it somehow makes a person better.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/36962.html
yeah, somehow i dont think anyone who disagrees should be put on trial for war crimes, literally.

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2 165452.ece
I also dont think scientists who disagree with the liberal position should be punished with losing their licences.

Bill - it seems you defend this abuse to peoples right to privacy - with a somewhat feeble put-down.

No government has open policy on Security Service costings - indeed they do best to keep it hidden.

e.g. Have you any idea of the "number of employees, bandwidth, and computing power" we currently use even in just here in UK at Menwith Hill?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menwith_Hill

All this surveillance is a tiny portion of the money used for defense/defence - the budget for it could easily increase by having funds re-appropriated.

However - you almost certainly will have your taxes increased to pay the extra expense they say will be 'essential' for your own protection - I mean given the billions spent in Iraq - would American government would refuse the funds to fight terrorism on their own soil?

Have you heard the range of guess-timates of how much the ID surveillance system was to cost here in the UK (being 'sold' as an ID card scheme)?

It is amazing the number of intelligent people who should know better who still defend this abuse of our rights to privacy.

This could be for several reasons e.g. inability to accept that government would do any wrong - perhaps seeing it as patriotic duty to go along with what they say.

One person actually worked for company with government contract on these systems - so need to look too far for reason he defends them.

When you ask, "Which program are we talking about here?" - I am sure you realise I was refering to the overall program - not simply one specific aspect like "filtering telephone call routing information".

Quote: "...any electronic surveillance that was occurring as [b]part of[/b] the Terrorist Surveillance Program..."

Do you HONESTLY think that internal domestic calls will be ignored by Homeland Security when terrorist cells can operate independantly - or will use courier for essential communication (else be caught)?

It is niavety in most extreme of you (or anybody) to believe this.

Do you TRULY think the 911 terrorists would use a phone to anywhere (especially Middle East) if they knew it was being monitored?

What you call "phone calls to their domestic girlfriends" could equally be phone calls to fellow members of terrorist cell - true or false?

Looking at your site - I am sure you know what is possible now - and that technological advances in the near future will make this capability seem tiny - it will be "Better. Faster. Cheaper." ;)

Look at the cost of computing power and technology just ten years ago - compare to now.

e.g. In the United Kingdom, automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) average-speed camera systems are known as SVDD (Speed Violation Detection Deterrent) - the cost of storing journey data will be miniscule.

Quote: Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years. Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/transport/article 334686.ece

Are you one of those intelligent people in denial?

Garry Anderson - skilful.com

Livestock methane - which has higher AGW impact than C02 due to longevity - is a large component of yearly greenhouse emissions, as reported here

Maybe he didnt. Fortunately (for Jobs), the story doesn't end here.

From a more independent news source:

"Apple says Mr Jobs' option was subsequently cancelled and resulted
in no financial gain, but while the options were cancelled in 2003,
Apple granted Mr Jobs five million shares in exchange."

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/articl e1214598.ece

As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities.

It's the domino theory of island obliteration! As environmentalists always warned, once Lohachara falls, that's it for Egypt.

The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented.

Got that right, Geoffrey. I can't remember Lohachara ever disappearing previously.

Until now the Carteret Islands off Papua New Guinea were expected to be the first populated ones to disappear, in about eight years' time, but Lohachara has beaten them to the dubious distinction.

By quite a margin, as it happens. Lean doesn't say so, but Lohachara apparently vanished two decades ago. So much for Lean's scoop; the event took place back when Lean had hair, and several years before he emerged from a coma. Some locals aren't buying that global warming line, by the way:

Atanu Raha, director of Sundarban Biosphere Reserve, said the islands were getting eroded by oceanic currents, not by rising sea levels.

"Erosion and accretion are natural phenomena. Across the world islands submerge and new ones emerge. This is natural," Raha said.

Not according to Lean, who evidently believes all weather change is due to Meddling Humans. And that's all change, whether towards cold or heat. In 2004, Lean reported that "Britain is likely to be plunged into an ice age within our lifetime by global warming". Two years later, he asked: "So where has all the snow gone?" There's no pleasing Geoffrey.

UPDATE. This nonsense was republished in the NZ Herald.

UPDATE II. Lean has previously been convicted of sins of omission and other crimes against journalism.

UPDATE III. Jackalope Pursuivant: "I've seen worse cases of journalistic malpractice, but not much worse."

Want to do your part to fight "global warming", then dump that SUV for something that gets at least 25MPG and stop eating beef.

Polonium 210 was cancelled due to signal failure

If this was carried out by a state department, Putin will announce it's to be privatised

Published: 29 November 2006

They must be bemused in Chechnya. Because they had about 50,000 people blown up by Putin and no one gave a toss. They probably made countless attempts to interest politicians and reporters from the West, who said: "Hmm, you've had your hospital destroyed by a tank, have you? Well it's a bit 1940s I'm afraid. Have they killed any of you with rocket-propelled bird flu or a remote-controlled piranha - something a bit sexy?"

While Putin's army was destroying Chechnya, Tony Blair welcomed him to Britain, and described him as a "great moderniser". And that certainly applies to whoever killed Mr Litvinenko. Because there can hardly be a more modern way of murdering someone than with radioactive sushi. In many ways the two men are so similar that when Putin makes a statement on the incident, he might say: "This is not a betrayal of KGB values. It represents traditional assassination in a modern setting."

And if this was carried out by a state-run department, Putin will announce it's to be privatised so it can bid for outside contracts. By now they've probably already made a showreel to publicise their work called "Ready Steady Poison", in which a Russian version of Ainsley Harriott chortles: "Now you only need to add a pinch of this stuff. Too much is a waste. Not only that but it's a bit heavy on the palate, and just because you're killing someone, you don't want to drown out the subtle flavours of the salmon."

Most commentators have suggested the killing couldn't be linked to the hierarchy of the Russian government because it's too clumsy and risky. But this is to underestimate government agents. The CIA's attempts to assassinate Castro included placing a bomb inside an attractive sea-shell, in an area of the beach that he strolled on, in the hope it would catch his eye and he'd pick it up. So by comparison this effort was dry and straightforward. Maybe the world's older secret service agents meet up in gloomy pubs to drink bitter and complain: "Youngsters today have it easy. In the old days, if you wanted to murder someone with sea-food you were up all night making an exploding whelk."

But this case represents more than one murder, because it's forced much of the British establishment to acknowledge that Russia has gone wrong. This leaves them in some turmoil, because when the Soviet Union collapsed this wasn't just seen as the demise of a tyranny, but the ultimate triumph for capitalism. Big business had won so freedom and prosperity would surely follow. Businessmen scrambled for their piece of this private wealth, and this was celebrated as an example of the new liberty. George Soros, the West's most quoted financier of the time, wrote: "It's robber capitalism, it's lawless, but it's very vital and viable."

One flaw in this logic was that most of the newly rich Russian businessmen had previously held senior posts in the Communist Party, which is how they got access to this new treasure. Which means the attitude of the country's new owners was: "Under the old system I believed it was my right to be pampered in luxury, while most people were poor under communism. But now I realise it's actually my right to be pampered in luxury, while most people are poor under capitalism. Truly we should be grateful for this historic change."

If you pointed this out at the time, you were scowled at like someone who suggests the week before a World Cup that England aren't going to win. Now, 15 years later the place is in chaos, to the extent that life expectancy for men has fallen from 65 to 59. Which must be another sign of the new freedom, because in the old days people were forced to endure six extra years of turgid communism, but in the f

kilodelta wrote:If we're only 3% different from chimpanzees, then 10% between humans is significant. It would tend to indicate that evolution is at play, which is something I've long suspected. Evolution doesn't happen all at once, it starts with a positive trait and then over time spreads out among descendants.Nope, your mixing your measurement methods: See for example this article: Another implication of the finding is that we are more different to our closest living relative, the chimpanzee, than previously assumed from earlier studies. Instead of being 99 per cent similar, we are more likely to be about 96 per cent similar.

From the article in the Independent referenced elsewhere in this thread:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_techno logy/article2007490.ece

"The scientists looked at people from three broad racial groups - African, Asian and European. Although there was an underlying similarity in terms of how common it was for genes to be copied, there were enough racial differences to assign every person bar one to their correct ethnic origin. This might help forensic scientists wishing to know more about the race of a suspect."

In short, this research supports the notion that race is a useful and scientifically supported concept. Indeed, virtually all new data coming in on human genetic differences go against the fashionable yet not-very-well-supported notion that "race does not exist". How strange.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_techno logy/article2007490.ece

This piece gets a few of the key facts correct where reuters went wrong, such as the already-mentioned "10% vs 10x" difference between individuals. It's a great read!

Another implication of the finding is that we are more different to our closest living relative, the chimpanzee, than previously assumed from earlier studies. Instead of being 99 per cent similar, we are more likely to be about 96 per cent similar.

I've seen a few of these fake corporate news stories, and usually it's pretty obvious that the story came from a company (particularly for regular viewers, since the local news reporters are typically not involved). As sneaky as this is though, I'd much rather watch corporate ads disguised as news than government propaganda disguised as news, something the current administration has been found to do.

Either way, it's pretty sneaky and low.

This is simply stupid. Is this supposed to be better than simply taking the issue seriously and stop dumping megatons of CO2 in the atmosphere each year? Is this the kind of harebrained scheme the climate-reactionaries seem to prefer rather than doing the obvious thing. Yes, I call then 'reactionary' instead of 'sceptical' because the word 'sceptical' implies that you have thought about things and still don't feel convinced, whereas 'reactionary' means that you have closed your eyes and ears and simply use your brain to think up any excuse for not accepting reality.

Yes, yes, I know, this is probably not thought up by one of the climate-reactionaries - since it actually seems to accept that our climate is actually changing, but it is none the less something along the same line of thought: anything to avoid having to address the real problem, because it might cost us money in the short term; never mind what happens in the future or to other people.

Have a look at this article - http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1 956569.ece. It's just an article imagining headlines at points in the future, and they are not all that unlikely either. It is not nice things that await us, even if you don't go with the worst possible scenario; so why do we resist doing what we all know we have to do in order to avoid the problems?

Linking medical, email, phone, bank & credit card records will be as simple as putting your new National Identity Registration number on those existing databases and allowing the Govt to query them.

Furthermore, you will be denied a new passport unless you give up this information, according to the ID Cards Act.

This comes two months after Gordon Brown was reported to be "planning a massive expansion of the ID cards project that would widen surveillance of everyday life by allowing high-street businesses to share confidential information with police databases."
He described how "police could be alerted as soon as a wanted person used a biometric-enabled cash card or even entered a building via an iris-scan door."

More details of how the National Identity Register will be the hub of Britain's Surveillance State.

NO2ID is an increasingly successful campaign, which has helped mastermind the recent publicity. We are highly respected in both Parliament and the media. Join the monthly mailing list so that you can keep one step ahead of the Govt's attempts to snoop on you.

Unfortunately, this threat is very real. Stealth data collection through passport interviews is planned to start within 6 months - although there is still time to renew. Please forward this information on to anyone you think might like to keep Britain a free country.

Tony Blair has called for all innocent citizens to be forcibly DNA swabbed. Since the Govt stated they would link the police databases to the National Identity Register (pg 5), this would mean our DNA, our tax/benefits records and detailed tracking of our car movements via ANPR will be cross-indexed into a single surveillance dossier.

Furthermore, you will be denied a new passport unless you give up this information, according to the ID Cards Act.

This comes two months after Gordon Brown was reported to be "planning a massive expansion of the ID cards project that would widen surveillance of everyday life by allowing high-street businesses to share confidential information with police databases."
He described how "police could be alerted as soon as a wanted person used a biometric-enabled cash card or even entered a building via an iris-scan door."

More details of how the National Identity Register will be the hub of Britain's Surveillance State

If you don't like the Sun why don't you read the story in the Independent http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_techno logy/article1771872.ece Or maybe Xinhua http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-09/29/conte nt_5155160.htm ? What about the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5388482.stm ?

"I think their terrrorist-to-civilian kill rate was lower than the military-to-civilian kill rate of their enemies. Sorry for the lack of citations on this part, but it's hard to track down these numbers."

You are 100% correct and the numbers are not even close.

According to the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs the ration for Israelis killed is 43 civilians / 119 military

For Lebanon , Hizballah claims it lost 74 combatant and Israel claims the number is closer to 500.
I will use the numbbers ussued by Israel.

The total number of Lebanese killed was untill a few days ago between 1,300 and 1,600 (the number keeps going up as more bodies are pulled from the ruble).

So working by Israel's claims their kill ratio is around 1000 civilian / 500 military.

Of course at this point some people start claiming it is the intentions that matter and not the number of civilians killed ...

During the Apartheid years Lady Thatcher said Nelson Mandela was a terrorist. But now her replacement is all buddy-buddy with Nelson.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1 222111.ece

Okay, The Independent (a British broadsheet newspaper, voted Newspaper of the Year) ran the front page "Israel's Verdict: We Lost The War" - see a JPG of the cover here.

Their website is subscription-based, unfortunately, but if you search Google News (The Independent should be the first link) then you can read the article on one of the sites it was republished on.

The BBC also reports, reaction from the mainstream British broadsheet press - neutral enough for you?

<sarcasm>Of course, terrorists don't drink unhealthy substances in the last hours before a suicide attack.</sarcasm>

Tony Blair will be addressing the issues with Fox today:

"The public attack is the most direct so far on the authority of the Prime Minister, who still refuses to join calls for an immediate ceasefire or rebuke Israel. Instead Mr Blair will today make the case for pre-emptive strikes against Islamist militants when he addresses Rupert Murdoch's senior executives in California."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/artic le1204523.ece

Read Orwell to see what a survelance society is like.

Read Orwell? Visit London!