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Good luck AI-bot.

Someone's already been prosecuted for importing a child sized sex doll into the UK.
http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

Adult ones haven't been criminalised (yet).

I can't see it happening. The moment you ban sex robots half the country will demand the law is repealed. It's not (just) men buying all those vibrators..

I'm genuinely curious about this analysis. Iran had an election in 2013 where the moderate candidate won with just over 50% of the votes with the US and UK reacting relatively positively and neither denouncing the election as unfair.

This makes Iran one of the most democratic countries in the Middle East (admittedly, it's not up against stiff competition for that title). Certainly, when you compare it to our "ally" Saudi Arabia who promote terrorism in Europe, fight alongside al Qaeda in their brutal war in Yemen and has an appalling record of human rights abuses, Iran does not appear to be the greatest threat.

Could it be because "the Obama administration has offered to sell $115bn worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia over its eight years in office, more than any previous US administration"? (Note that Trump is no better).

If Iran pumped billions into the US and UK economy, they might not be quite so high on our shit list.

...and terrorists, as used in Ukraine, Libya, and Syria. Prominent politicians including Howard Dean have lobbied for MEK, which was on the State Department's list of terror groups until people started asking why people like Dean weren't being prosecuted, when the government sent someone to prison for carrying a Hezbollah TV channel. Iran has been on the "regime change" list since they kicked out the Shah. Obama spent years threatening to attack Iran for a nuclear weapons program he knew they didn't have, and Trump hasn't been any better.

So, take these protests with a BIG grain of salt.

Fusion GPS, and what they provided was the basis by which the FBI went after Trump.

Er, no. In fact, exactly the reverse, Steele believed a cabal within the FBI sat on the file preventing it from reaching the top.

There were two FISA warrants on Manafort (2014 and 2015) that predated the dossier.

Getting a FISA warrant requires a woods procedura which essentially means that every claim used to justify the warrant must be independently verified so if the dossier were used to justify a FISA warrant that means the relevant facts were verified by at least one other source.

Furthermore, renewing a FISA warrant on a US person after 90 days requires proof that the warrant is actively yielding relevant intelligence.

So even if the Steele Dossier had been used to justify the investigation, the fact that FISA warrants were issued and then renewed shows that there was independent confirmation of the claims therein. That's not a a good road to go down for someone who wants to say the dossier is fake.

http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

You know these poll results are tearing the Donald up on the inside. "The election was rigged", furiously tweets #PresidentTweety. "I could have won the popular vote by campaigning differently! I didn't need no help from Vladimir... I mean Russian dictator Putin."

Actually, the real relationship of the poll results to this topic is how the activities of the paid trolls are proving how accurate REAL president Obama is. Good chance that when he says something it actually might be true.

The poll itself is rubbish. More like a name-recognition context than anything else. One fix would be to pair it with a poll for least admired people and report the net scores. An even better fix would require more work: (1) Stage one poll to get the top candidates, followed by (2) A runoff poll to pick a real winner from a reasonably small slate of candidates.

Hong Kong was leased to the British in 1898. Land could not be sold - because it wasn't owned by the British in the first place.

Nope, only some populations are genetically equipped for a vegetarian diet. For the rest, lack of meat causes brain shrinkage and mental disorders. And populations that originated from Europe tend to lack such genes -- and some, like the Inuit, are even more extreme.

That's vegetarian -- vegan diet is far more harmful. Especially for children, to the point of proposed bills that outlaw feeding children vegan.

Why should one take seriously an article that starts out with rightout lies from the start?
Borders between Schengen states had been dissolved since ages, Merkel never suggested external borders to be dissolved.

It's a reference to her decision to admit "Syrian refugees". Who were mostly not Syrian and not refugees.

Only 46.7% were Syrian, which means the rest were not

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the top three nationalities of entrants of the over one million Mediterranean Sea arrivals between January 2015 and March 2016 were Syrian (46.7%), Afghan (20.9%) and Iraqi (9.4%).[17]"

Six of of ten were economic migrants and not refugees

https://www.independent.co.uk/...

And most of the statements made were over the fact that EVERYONE had signed international agreements about refugees.

You mean like the 1951 Refugee Convention? Japan signed that too, they didn't accept let in a million people who are mostly economic migrants simply because they turned up.

https://www.theguardian.com/wo...

Merkel didn't have to do what she did.

1. Yeah, the dossier got blown way out of proportion (in no small part thanks to Trump's inability to let things go.. it probably would have been forgotten about early on if he and his supporters didn't keep bringing it up.) My only point though was that while the dems may have ran with it, they weren't the ones who initiated it.

But... The problem here is how the dossier was used -- BY THE FBI This is a serious problem given the previous administration was from the "other" party and this dossier was seemingly used to justify a whole bunch of investigative activities. IF it can be established that the DNC or HRC's campaign shared this with the FBI on purpose, then anything the FBI investigated based on this document is tainted as a partisan political effort. IF this theory is true, it's going to make Watergate look like a failed fraternity prank.

2. I don't recall HRC claiming that Trump didn't win. She might not like it, and she might question why the electoral college is allowed to override the popular vote, but Trump got castigated because he was planning to not even concede the election should he lose. That's a whole different level.

Really? OK, OK, not exactly but she did say the following, recently: http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

Sure sounds like she was protesting the results to me. She's certainly implying that the Russians had something to do with this too. Are you getting the picture yet? This Russian thing was from HRC's campaign and the DNC.... It's important to realize this fact. Now add the dossier which they paid for.. Connecting the dots is easy from that point.

3. Being careful and being perfect are not the same thing. Muller is not magic and he can only work with the information he has at the time, and then adjust when new information comes to light. By all accounts, that's exactly what he did. Blaming him for not knowing something that was (at the time) unknowable is not really a great argument.

You said that Mueller was being careful about appearances. I'm saying that I don't think he was. I don't think he really cares what it looks like and where he could have at least attempted to avoid the appearance of bias in his team by including a token republican or two, he didn't. In fact, he had some uber-biased team members who arguably where not objective, who where involved in the Clinton E-mail investigation and letting her skate but now where busting down doors at dawn to serve search warrants in their investigation of Trump. Something smells in all this, but Mueller doesn't care about how it appears.

4. I'm not saying those articles are wrong. I'm just saying that the investigation may involve more than just interviews at the White House. There may be interviews to be done outside the White House. There may be evidence to collect and analyze that isn't in the form of interviews, and at the very least there's a report to write in order to present the findings.

The articles are true. They are quoting a lawyer. The question is if the lawyer is able to speak to the truth and if it's true what does it mean?

All I'm saying is this... IF this is true, that the interviews at the White House are done, then Mueller is likely done with the investigative part of his work. The process here is that you investigate and establish the facts as best you can before you interview the targets of your investigation. You don't start asking the target questions unless you have exhausted all other avenues of establishing the facts because it tips your hand and gives your target information about the investigation and what you know or don't know when you start asking questions.

So, indications are that IF this lawyer's statement is factual, it seems likely

What? Are you serious? The shockingly diminutive numbers of the alleged Russian campaign on Twitter & Facebook (they spent tens of thousands of dollars over a year! tens of thousands, I tell you!!11!!) were the artificially inflated result of a computer-assisted, paranoid review. I mean, they included among the suspected Russian trolls even those that have a cyrillic character in their username or that logged even once from Russia. Well that last one makes sense: I'm sure that Hillary Clinton logged from Russia more than once.
Jokes aside, to hijack the Brexit referendum, Russia allegedly spent up to 1$. Maybe Russians have loads of internet trolls, but Brexit, the Donald, racists, social warriors, divisions, the internet craziness are not their fault: they were all home-produced.

Instead of imagining, you should try googling. Already lamppost solutions are in use in Europe for those without garages in downtown areas.
http://www.independent.co.uk/e...
As for apartments, why would you assume that they will only install a handfull of charge ports? If the demand is there it will happen. Eventually laws will be passed to compel complexes to do just that.

As for running wiring to a garage: The point was that it's a one time expense. New homes will start to come pre-wired. Because it's designed into the house and done at the time of construction, this will reduce the cost to the consumer. Same thing with older homes. One time expense.

NO. Fuck it, it's not. It's a secular nation.

Don't confuse the state with the people. Besides, Sweden is likely to become markedly less secular in the future.

Europe's Muslim population projected to increase by 50m by 2050 in 'high migration' scenario

Not all countries would be affected evenly by future immigration, according to the Pew report. In the high migration scenario, Germany and Sweden would have the biggest increases because both countries took in the most asylum-seekers during the height of the refugee crisis two years ago. While Muslims made up 6 per cent of Germany’s population last year, their proportion would go up to 20 per cent by 2050. Sweden’s Muslims, who were at 8 per cent in 2016, would account for 31 per cent of the population in that same scenario.

Muslim population in some EU countries could triple, says report

Yes indeed, some parts of Europe could become quite religious in the coming years.

------------

...when it was a-ok to just bash someone's head in because he has the wrong imaginary friend.

"Antifa" ?

CIA knows but isn't telling.

That's about the same value as a can of coke has been spent on pre-brexit facebook ads. Either, the spend was much better hidden (see how the vote leave campaign channelled GBP625,000 through a 23yr old student) or brexit was not endorsed or funded by the Russians and simply fuelled by the stupid.

you're telling me it's a bad idea to stop kids from carrying a highly addictive device because they might get mugged or kidnapped. Now i'm sorry, but having a 9 year-old carry a $1000 device is providing them with more risk of being mugged, not less. If they need a mobile, give them a cheapy $20 feature phone. It's also much less expensive when it does inevitably get lost, broken or stolen.

Can't they just create a YouTube account, put their head into the microwave and cement it in?

With a little bit more effort, they could have succeeded. You know, all that work of cutting him out when all you really had to do is clog the tube and wait. Just think of the clicks and views that would've gotten!

I know I would've clicked. But so... bah.

Open trade and diplomacy only work when both sides act in good faith. When the only thing NK wants to negotiate is how much they'll get paid to go away this time....Well, it's obvious who the psycho is. The time frame for a good solution is long past. Being firm with NK, in the beginning, would have slowed this down. Previous presidents payed NK off, because they had other things they wanted to deal with. Paying them off was just easier. So that is what NK learned. Make a fuss, and Europe will wet its panties and beg the US to pay off the crazy man with the bad haircut. Wait, they're both doing it again...

There is blame to go around. http://www.independent.co.uk/v...

How is this "clean" energy? Cows are well known as one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions. How many cows are required to support this plant and are their greenhouse gas emissions factored in when figuring out how "clean" the energy is? If we have to start maintaining large herds of cattle to support these powerplants this is probably not a good thing.

If you bothered to at least google the matter instead of just making a cynical comment, you'd learn that you can actually find something like this in the soil.

What do you base your doubt on? Gut feeling or something substantial?

What? I need to "google" - for what is "normal" here? Just MF look around!

There is absolutely no condition in the past except magnitudes of extinction which is comparable to this situation right now and to call anything "normal" because there was something minor in the past is baloney, just a maybe unintentional attempt to console. It's on the same level as some new guy in some office claiming there is no global warming - or climate change is a hoax.

There is one species on this globe with some larger brain and creating with it this havoc comparable only with a few events in the past of this planet.

Yeah, google that:

http://www.independent.co.uk/e...
https://cosmosmagazine.com/pal...

Enjoy!

Maybe someday America will learn that you don't convince your adversary to stop being paranoid by threatening to attack them.

Well, every attempt to negotiate or appease North Korea has also lead to paranoia and weapons development.

You sure about that? http://www.independent.co.uk/v...

Late Wednesday, finance author Ben Carlson wrote: Bitcoin has achieved something I've always wanted to see in the stock mkt - a reverse 1987 (20% gain in a single day)

Whoever wrote that is an idiot. No we do not want to see that kind of volatility in the market, positive or negative. That is NOT a good thing. Any time something skyrockets that fast in price it is pretty much invariably because something weapons grade irrational and/or criminal

l is going on. This is what happens with

pump and dump

schemes and those rarely end happily.

What if... the Slashdot effect of thousands of amateurs exiting BitCoin would cascade into a run on BitCoin that would burn the pump and dump criminals responsible for this, the CDO & CDS scams, Madhoff, dot.com, the housing bubble, the rent-backed-securities bubble...?

But not by acting on a whim. You did read the post, right? Because that claim is a scurrilously false one. The actions being taken are after a long period of consideration and reflection, not a sudden burst of intemperate hysteria.

I know the post had a trollish tone to it, but that claim is not false.

It is false, because it assumes that the EU's decisions are based on a whim, when instead, their meeting was documented and you can read the transcript yourself. Anything but a whim. It might not be what you desire, you might disagree with them, but being accurate in your criticisms is nonetheless important.

The EU is practically expecting social media to delete this content almost before it is even posted. Explain to me, how the fuck are you supposed to do that without acting on a whim?

I believe your understanding of the expectations of the EU are in error, but I'll focus one your understanding of what acting on a whim is, which is the root of the false claim. If you want to be bothered by concerns that the EU is expecting action that is overly hasty, or presumptuous, that is one thing, but that is not something properly described as acting on a whim.

You don't do it to "win" a game. You do it to prevent the destruction that will result.

And how exactly is that supposed to work in this case?

I believe you'll want to read the article or the EU's press release or the remarks by the commissioners.

Right now, they are not entirely committed to a particular course of action, so I would not say they are in the position of having an "exact" methodology adopted. Which is fair, since they are endeavoring to proceed with deliberation.

Indeed, extremists are documented liars and frauds, whose desire to push a narrative isn't burdened by a concern to be truthful, or even appear truthful.

No, not necessarily. There are a lot of people out there who are just plain stupid. Alex Jones actually eats his own horse shit, for example.

Alex Jones is a prime example of someone who by his own admission, isn't burdened by a concern to be truthful, or even appear truthful, so I wouldn't recommend him as a counter-example, but no, I wasn't saying they were necessarily such, let alone exclusively, I merely noted it as a quality they can possess on your mention of the subject.

Well, no, you're looking for a "plain and simple" cause is unfortunately mistaken, it isn't just echo chambers, though they are a problem, there is a more pernicious nature to the problems, as even if you have exposure, the capacity for self-deluding deception remains, still, I think we can hope for more, and work at it. Sure, it won't be easy. But again, who promised you it would be easy?

We're speaking in the context of social media here, and yes, it pretty much comes down to echo chambers.

I believe that's a mistaken myopia, as it doesn't get down to the foundation of the problem which extends beyond the context of social media.

When you're talking about the internet at large, then yes, you can expand well beyond that, including other media, like television.

Well, for me, it's not a matter of expansion, it's a matter of recognizing that this is nothing new under the sun.

2007: Joseph Stiglitz Praises Venezuela's Economic Policies
2017: Venezuela's president advises malnourished citizens to breed rabbits

He also thinks climate change will turn Earth into a Venus like planet with 250C temps and sulphiric acid rain in the near future. I think his illness is finally starting to damage his brain.

Indeed.

Regardless how you look at Uber they are criminals, they are screwing employees, they are screwing customers, they are screwing authorities and more!

I will never use Uber even if they are the last company on Earth.

Of course warrants should be mandated. Without monitoring and checks, the victims of police have little or no protection or legal recourse. To prevent abuse the police should be monitored and checked constantly in every way feasible while on the job. Here are just a few of the recent examples of police corruption and abuse.

- In Denver, the police are stealing cars.

- In New York, police handcuffed and raped a teenager. Then over a dozen other cops threatened the victim to prevent her from reporting the crime.

- Police steal more than criminals.

- In Utah a cop who assaulted and arrested a nurse for objecting to his inappropriate demands to draw blood from a suspect.

- In Los Angeles a cop was caught by his own body cam planting drugs on a suspect.

Angel upthread had a link to an Independent piece that argues the plant was doomed, with or without the tsunami. TEPCO was so half-assed with their maintenance that the earthquake took out the cooling pipes, making meltdown inevitable.

http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

Well, that is an obvious hit piece, you can tell by the over-use of adjectives placed to make everything sound like 'doom'. You just found an article that takes anecdotal statements and couples with ignorance. But even that article does not contend the melt down would have occured without the tsunami. There are many nuclear plants in Japan and they all did fine through the earthquake. There are 8 units at Fukushima, all the same basic design. 4 that got hit by tsunami had problems, the 4 right next to them that had the same earthquake but did not get hit by tsunami all safely shut down with no significant problems.

Nuclear plants have redundant safety features, even if one is out of service or alignment, there are others to accomplish the job. This article acts like one system not working would itself be a big problem, very wrong.

There are a million articles out there that claim to 'expose the truth'. But they make claims without providing the basis. Find any nuclear safety expert and you'll get a different, but accurate story. But I suppose you want to believe this one is true and therefore, despite no corroborating stories independently put forth by people with actual knowledge of reactor safety, you apparently have already decided to believe it.

Angel upthread had a link to an Independent piece that argues the plant was doomed, with or without the tsunami. TEPCO was so half-assed with their maintenance that the earthquake took out the cooling pipes, making meltdown inevitable.

http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

Maybe because it was pointed out that a couple hundred million in extra costs from regulation (higher seawall and better backup cooling power) could have saved Japan a couple hundred billion in cleanup costs?
Likely not, as later it became published that the pipes in the cooling system were to much damaged by the quake. AmoJ, /. reader, mentioned that a few days/weeks in other nuclear related threats.

Here is an article about it: http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

Half the world's coral has died the last 30 years.

Dark Korea is Best Korea!

I wonder why can black people use the N word freely among themselves, but as soon as a white person uses it, they're screwed to no avail?

Try this: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ta-nehisi-coates-n-word-hip-hop-rap-why-white-people-shouldnt-use-video-explanation-a8053001.html

Russia sells fossil fuels AND more land becomes usable with climate change. Climate change destabilizes the current world order, which is obviously the goal of Russia trying to nudge the US into an isolationist position and countries to withdraw from the EU.

The only reason one would have to doubt that climate change denialism is being promoted by foreign adversaries is the same reason one would doubt that our adversaries were trying to convince us Trump would be good: You don't like the implications and are too stupid to realize the damage will happen no matter what you believe.

Another example of sloppy management at Apple? Hackers Say They've Broken Face ID a Week After iPhone X Release.

Is body ID a good idea? Maybe not: Flight diverted after woman discovers her husband is cheating on her. Her husband was sleeping. She pressed the phone on his fingers.

It's still harder to fake than a finger scan, potentially saving planes from being redirected mid flight You leave prints everywhere and can be scanned while asleep or non compliant. You don't as of yet leave a highly detailed face scan everywhere and it won't work with your eyes closed or face contorted. You are required to use a password in any case. If the faceID gets a couple of fails you need to use the password to unlock even if you then provide the right face; this was demonstrated live on tv at the official launch.

"Bill Gates Pledges $100 Million To Find an Alzheimer's Cure, His First Commitment To a Non-communicable Disease "

The jury is still out, it still might be an infectious disease. There will have to be more studies.

http://www.independent.co.uk/l...

Apparently the Internet yields the same answer as his colon:

California breaks energy record with 80% of state's power generated using renewable methods

Not the majority every day, perhaps, but we're getting there.

Trump administration EPA adviser believes the air in the US is "too clean for optimal health".

https://www.independent.co.uk/...

https://www.visaliatimesdelta....

Oh really, the Russians? They are quite active these days, responsible for everything it seems. One could get the impression all 147 million Russians arent doing anything else than hack the West 24/7.

About 90 paid employees, in the most well-known Russian Troll farm, actually (reference: http://www.independent.co.uk/n... )

Possibly more in others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-russia-troll-farm-20171008-story.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/17/russian-troll-factory-activists-protests-us-election

Yeah. Poor USA. You always do the most and pull the heaviest chart.
https://www.independent.co.uk/...

Before we pat ourselves on the back, we should remember that the Trump administration just appointed a man to the EPA advisory board who believes that the air in America is, "a little too clean for optimum health".

No, I'm not joking. That's what he said. .

https://www.independent.co.uk/...

Brexit: Yes, they pushed hard for it. Take a look at "David Jones" for example.

I said 'UK'. And I meant cases like this

https://www.independent.co.uk/...

In 2010, Paul Chambers was convicted under the Communications Act after tweeting a joke about blowing up Robin Hood Airport in Nottingham. His conviction was overturned after a two-year legal battle

When someone talks about The CO2 Apocalypse, and out of the other side of their mouth chants "No Nukes Shut 'em All Down Now"...

Strawman argument. Who are those people?

Certainly none of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... or these http://www.independent.co.uk/n... or these http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/03/...

[The Russia collusion investigation will get Trump] eventually and so we go back to having a President that understands the perils of global warming.

If Trump is removed, Pence will become president. Pence very reluctantly says that human activities may have "some impact on climate", but says that doing anything to address it would be "the kind of restrictions on our economy that are putting Americans out of work and, frankly, are driving jobs out of this country."
http://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/pences-stance-on-climate-change/

And he goes on to say climate change is "just an issue for the left."

Ironically of all the complete shitshows calling themselves news outlets these days, the worst of them all actually started self destructing long before TDS was ever a thing.

(Or maybe it's actually not surprising, since it just means is they had a head start)

I strongly suspect this will, at best, make it *slightly* healthier. I mean, Coke Zero is probably technically healthier than Coke Classic, but neither are remotely as healthy for you as water.

Prof. David Nutt's work on a "synthetic alcohol" he calls alcosynth is likely to be vastly more healthy, because a) you are consuming the active ingredient in mg doses instead of gram doses, b) it doesn't release acetaldehyde, which is itself a deadly poison, and c) it "tops out", ie if it's designed to top out a 6 drinks, then 10 drinks won't make you any drunker than 6.

https://www.independent.co.uk/...

Science already invented a liver-safe "alcohol" millions of years ago. It's called "weed".

But only because it's a Sunni robot and not a Shi'ite one.

TFA doesn't say. In fact, it only mentions Saudi Arabia in the first half of the first sentence, and then abruptly veers into a shameless promotion of "Uptake" with plenty of vacuous statements by its CEO, and never mentions Saudi Arabia again.

Here is a link with some actual information. Here is another.

The robot's name is Sophia. Since she is female, presumably she won't be allowed to drive. But she is pictured without a veil.