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It's not a logical argument. It's a PR argument. It's something like the dead cat strategy that the various conservative groupings have deployed with great success worldwide. Because we're all talking about how this is illogical we aren't talking about the fact that anyone who uses Microsoft solutions should have expected something like this simply because Microsoft's interests (to monetize their operating system through advertising) are not aligned with your interests (to browse privately).

Corbyn also blames the Ukraine crisis on the west and ticked off Poland by saying that they never should have been allowed into NATO and instead "should have gone down the road Ukraine went in 1990". He thinks Britain should leave NATO, but recently backtracked, saying that there's no "appetite" among the public to do so at the moment and he'll respect that. Russia basically endorsed him today.

'Tacit repayment of Lend Lease by the British included several valuable technologies, including those related to radar, sonar, jet engines, nuclear weapons, antitank weaponry, rockets, superchargers, gyroscopic gunsights, submarine detection, selfsealing fuel tanks, and plastic explosives. Many of these were transferred by the Tizard Mission. The official historian of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, James Phinney Baxter III, wrote: "When the members of the Tizard Mission brought the cavity magnetron to America in 1940, they carried the most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores."'

The generous US government naturally wrote off the debt after WW2 ended - NOT. http://www.politics.co.uk/news...

I don't see the point, it's not like we're ever allowed to extradite Americans to the UK.

Yes, I'm being facetious, and you can argue that the (according to the US embassy in London) the US haven't refused a single extradition request to the UK's 10 refusals, and they do seem to say that the treaty is fair, but a UK MP says that there is a 7:1 disparity in US:UK extraditions. Which to me suggest that either UK citizens are far more likely to break US laws than their own, or that the required proof required for extradition requests is different between the two countries.

The other difference is:

Home office statistics reveal that since the start of 2004, not one single US citizen has been extradited to the UK for crimes alleged to have been committed on US soil. The traffic is very much one way, however.

Don't take this as a criticism of Americans, it just shows how our politicians will sell us off for a few favours.

"The criminals move in criminal circles and could get a gun [unlicenced] in a few hours, I expect."

CITATION NEEDED.

Provide some evidence of claims like this, because it sounds like something that would be convenient for your argument, but is totally unsupported by statistics (gun crimes in the UK are LOW) http://www.politics.co.uk/reference/gun-crime and have been declining since the middle of the last decade.

Typical uniformed idiot posting rubbish instead of checking the actual numbers - gun crimes has fallen over 40% in the last decade: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-winning-battle-against-inner-city-gun-crime-8463957.html

"Corporal punishment remains legal when used by parents, except in Scotland, which has legislated to ban parental corporal punishment."

http://www.politics.co.uk/reference/corporal-punishment

How dare you claim your country is not OK with corporal punishment?

yup, so true. One of our more respected news shows interviewed Coe (the olympic head organiser) and asked awkward questions like "so if someone turns up wearing a Pepsi tshirt, will they be allowed entry?" eventually they got an answer of "yes but only if its not obviously organised" - ie no crowdsourcing some non-coke advertising.

Reminds me of the Bavaria Babes (where brewer Bavaria gave bright orange dresses to a few ladies to go to a football match that was officially sponsored by rival Heineken), and the ban on Heineken's response of a helmet.

Frankly, its getting a bit silly when you have to ask if you can wear what you want to an event, and equally silly when the marketing people hijack that with a publicity stunt. But the most stupid is when a group of select sponsors get to take over the entire event in the first place.

The UK for all it's faults at very least hasn't got anything as bad as France's HADOPI yet, hasn't had anywhere near as bad web blocking orders as in Ireland or the Netherlands, and doesn't at least have as close to the amount of censorship as Germany. Oh, and Sweden is basically a wholly owned subsidiary of the RIAA now.

I'm so glad that the Digital Economy Act and s97A CDPA 1988 were figments of my imagination. I'm glad that the London police aren't extra-judicially working with the IFPI to block payments to sites they don't like, and aren't pushing Nominet into letting them seize domain names based on a mere accusation. On top of that, I'm glad the UK doesn't criminalise people for making harmless jokes on Twitter or for insulting people. While headscarves aren't illegal, the Police can remove and seize anything they think might be being used as a disguise. On the topic of censorship, the UK recently made it potentially illegal to draw stick-figure porn of overage people.

I suppose you can complain about our big brother state but really the reason we have a reputation in that respect is precisely because our population actually stands up and shouts about how unhappy we are with it, which is surely better than most other European states where it's at least as bad but just blindly accepted without much dissent.

The UK has the occasional protest, where people wander through the streets, accompanied by the police, a few of whom get arrested (for the wonderfully-vague "breach of the peace") and everyone goes home happy that nothing will change. Unlike peaceful places like Greece or France.

It's thanks to the fact we do have organisations like Liberty that these things are exposed for what they are attempts at but most the worst stuff our last government proposed that generated all said stories is dead now, the ID card database is gone, many CCTV programmes have been cut/scaled back, libel laws are being reformed.

ID cards went because they were expensive and ineffective (and no one wanted them)... although the database seems to still be around, although mainly used for foreigners. The DNA database is still up and running, despite being declared illegal, most of the "anti-terrorism" legislation New Labour introduced is still on the books aside from the bits the courts struck down (although they're mostly still on the books, just not being applied), including the various 'unreasonable stop-and-search' powers, and while libel-reform is in the works, and has some vague government backing, only last week the responsible minister pointed out to a meeting of the libelreform campaign that there's no guarantee it will happen any time soon. CCTV was never that big an issue (it was vastly exaggerated in the media), so I'll give you that one. Oh, and the UK also imprisons people for not disclosing passwords.

The UK's blasphemy law

Non-union auto workers are better paid than union auto workers, and yet union auto workers cost their employers a lot more

Let's take the logic of your argument:

(1) There is an exception to the trend which somehow invalidates the trend;

(2) With this exception, there exists a union which results in worse conditions for workers and worse conditions for employers. Yet workers still collectively choose to be part of the union. Why is that?

Do you really think employee-owned businesses need unions?

Is this a general question, or a question about the government? Because the majority of the government isn't owned by government employees. If the former, well, it depends - it's a matter for the employees to decide.

As long as we dont have a draft, or other corvee, the goernment can't compel you to work for them.

Glad we're agreed on that. Are we also agreed that draft is slavery and completely immoral?

If the government provides low pay and poor working conditions, quality of government services will suffer, and the same voters that are affected by that can decid they want more taxes and better service

The government as an employer can't be compelled by potential employees to pay any particular wage, in particular not a wage in excess of allocated budget. But government employees can collectively tell the government as employer to enjoy no work being done.

We're facing a crises in many states where the state government is bankrupt and simply cannot cut costs, because they can't pay their employees less

So the state's only cost is apparently necessary worker salaries?

- even when that is the will of the voters. That's a bad thing.

If the will of the voters were to hold a gun to Gates' head and demand enough money to fix the deficit, this wouldn't make the will of the voters reasonable or legal in a Democratic Republic. Neither is it acceptable to renege on contracts with individual workers.

You the voter initially accepted a representative who would allow a certain allocation of budget for state workers, and that allocation now belongs to those workers. You're essentially putting the same gun to these workers' heads and telling the same thing you just told Gates.

As for future contracts between government and government employees, that's a matter for negotiation between voters, government, existing employees (who might speak via their union) and future employees.

But, personally, I'd spend time cutting management fat and eliminating unnecessary departments, kick-backed outsourcing and bureaucracy, not campaigning to reduce workers' wages out of envy. That's not going to fix any problem with the mismanagement which caused the problem in the first place, is it, now?

"It is outrageous that decent, law-abiding people are regularly treated as if they have something to hide," Mr Clegg said.
"It has to stop."
He said the ID card scheme, national identity register and second generation biometric passports would be scrapped.
"We won't hold your internet and email records when there is just no reason to do so," Mr Clegg pledged.
"CCTV will be properly regulated, as will the DNA database, with restrictions on the storage of innocent people's DNA...

Would this ever happen here in the US (you know, the home of the free)?

...you shouldn't listen to student lawyers that still can't grow a mustache!

The Israelis have already shown that DNA can be replicated and an innocent individual could be implicated in a crime without his or her knowledge.

Only an ignorant fool would advocate what this guy is advocating!

Sorry, we already have Sith Lord in parliament

I agree, I've seen this in the UK too. Lobbying groups such as the NSPCC put out claims such as 20,000 images a week (they're a charity, but they're also lobbying for new laws, such as criminalising possession of cartoons that appear to depict an under-18 year old).

And not just child porn - we have politicians such as Martin Salter making claims about a porn trade involving women from Guatemala being raped and murdered on camera, in order to push his law that criminalises possession of images involving consenting adults (even when the acts are staged).

Not to mention the scaremongering put out by Government-funded groups such as the POPPY project to do with sex trafficking, in order to support the Government's own proposed laws on consensual prostitution.

Same in the UK. And not just some mistake in the law, the law on child porn was explicitly raised in 2003.

Soon, it will also be illegal to possess a drawing of a 17 year old even though you can legally do it for real.

As another oddity: the law on "child" porn (or as it should be known, under-18 porn), has a defence for married couples. The new law on drawings - despite the insistence from the Government and lobbyists that this is merely applying existing child porn to drawings - doesn't have this defence. So, you can have sex with your wife, take a photograph of your wife, but making a sexy drawing of her will be illegal!

In fact, a 17 year old drawing a naughty picture of his or herself will mean they face a three year prison sentence. So much for protecting children! Child charities such as the NSPCC may claim they are trying to help children, but Dr Zoe Hilton wants your children locked up for drawing a picture of themselves.

I seem to recall a rather more blunt quote, but since I unfortunately cannot find it, the official ICO response to the proposals was:

20 October 2008
ICO statement on the Communications Data Bill A spokesperson for the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said: "This summer the Information Commissioner called for a public debate on government proposals for the state to retain citizensâ(TM) internet and phone records. The Commissioner warned that it is likely that such a scheme would be a step too far for the British way of life. Creating huge databases containing personal information is never a risk-free option as it is not possible to fully eliminate the danger that the data will fall into the wrong hands. It is therefore of paramount importance that proposals threatening such intrusion into our lives are fully debated. We welcome the fact that the government intends to fully consult the public on any scheme it brings forward. Precise details of the plans are unclear at this stage; the ICO will be studying the proposals once published and responding to the Government's consultation in due course."

Incidentally some may find the ICO's press release list (the source for the above quote) makes for some interesting reading. Surprised there is no follow-up to the debate though, I'd have thought he's try to get his oar in again.

Just kidding. They simply didn't bother with the debate: "Civil libertarians are outraged that the change came into force without a debate in parliament, having been brought in by statutory implement". (statutory instrument info).

So, it would appear that firstly they sneaked the EU directive in by calling it "commercial" legislation rather than a policing one. This forced themselves to implement it, but allows them to blame it on the EU, even though they were the ones pushing it through there. Back home, they proposed a Bill (which would result in an Act, a "proper" law by "proper" means IMHO), started the normal proposal procedure, but then didn't like what they were hearing so chucked it through as a statutory implement instead. Nice.

Oh and by the way, since people seem to be avoiding it, the names of the directives & law are, I think:
UK SI The Data Retention (EC Directive) Regulations 2009
(Also see Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000)
EU Directive is EU Directive 2006/24/EC[PDF]
(doubtless there's a raft of other legislation of varying degrees of relevance)

For example, replacing "first mover" by "new regime" and "second mover" by "insurgency":

"What is interesting are the lessons we can learn about how a fast [insurgency] can upset the normally strong barriers to entry that a [new regime's] advantage in a [country] can create. In short, the big lesson learned is that a window of opportunity exists for a [insurgency] to challenge a [new regime] in this setting early on when [democracy] has not yet diffused through the entire population - the [insurgency] can try to influence new users rather than get the small [democratic] base to switch over.

The [insurgency] has to have some sort of asymmetric advantage, such as [suicide bombings], in order to slow the build-up of network effects around the first mover and ensure that the [insurgency]'s product begins to build up a critical mass."

BTW this edited version could be illegal here (plan for a terrorist attack), but f**k it, IANAT.

Here's something for you to read.

http://www.news.utoronto.ca/inthenews/archive/2005 _06_17.html

Toronto has had record number of smog days this year. So your ideas of dropping pollution levels are certainly wrong. Smog days mean that particulate matter is passing above a threshold value at which breathing becomes difficult. Much of the smog "arrive here in prevailing winds from Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee". So it is coming from a fair distance away.

And I CAN say the US Govt isn't doing anything because it has pulled out from the Kyoto Protocol for the sake of $$$

Here

Here

and here

If you knew anything about the middle class of the Chinese, you would know that it is near impossible to own a car given the wages, the prices and the taxes. The middle class isn't the same as the middleclass in Western societies. Middleclass over there means you're just not peasant class. Which is hardly anything to be proud of.

In a global society, you can't point at others until you've pointed at yourself first.

A similar scheme (http://www.politics.co.uk/public-services/hodge-c hildrens-database-will-not-be-it-disaster-$7765060 .htm) is being planned for the UK. It follows the high-profile death of an abused child who was "known" to a variety of agencies who failed to communicate with each other. Whilst the motives appear to be virtuous, the possible implications of the scheme are serious and the benefits extremely dubious.