Slashdot Mirror

Except the Herald, Stuff, and Scoop. And those were the first three I tried. RNZ does too.

Your first link is a reprint of a Washington Post story. Second one starts with a middle-endian date format - must be a foreigner.
Third one is a press-release by an illiterate wanker with numerous spelling/punctuation/grammar errors including the humourous "bold-face liar". He prints lies in a heavy font?

Except the Herald, Stuff, and Scoop. And those were the first three I tried. RNZ does too.

The Internet Party NZ will be drafting an Anti-Spy bill live online on Sunday the 6th of August with the help of international guests who are experts in the field of state and private intelligence gathering practices, violations and mass surveillance.

What "benefit" does NZ provide to Apple? NZ didn't significantly contribute to the development, manufacture, or distribution of iPhones. All that happens is that iPhones arrive in NZ ports and New Zealanders buy them. And those activities are already heavily taxed through income taxes and sales taxes.

Please then explain why iPhones cost approximately 10% more in NZ than in the USA? Clearly there is some added value that had incurred in NZ.

Another approach called optogenetics is developed at the University of Otago: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories...

Nice generalisations.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1412/S00142/sobering-data-on-americans-apathy-about-cia-torture.htm
Perhaps you'd also like to reflect on how the rest of the world should respond to the USA being a documented majority of apathetic criminally-inclined cowards.
It would seem, by your analysis, that Americanism is not compatible with modern civilised behaviour, so we could just nuke the continent into oblivion because it hosts too many ignorant, reactionary twats.
I don't think so, but your argumentation is for shit. I pity YOU, Archangel Michael ! Hell - why did you think your nick was evenly remotely compatible with your condescending ignorant arrogance?
And for irony, you denounce Islam for teaching domination, and you wish to respond with similar or worse domination by eliminating even mainstream moderate Islam ... such mental gymnastics !!! :)

AC wrote: http://schaechter.asmblog.org/...

Communist! :-)
"Keith Rankin's Thursday Column - Where communism succeeded and capitalism failed"
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories...
"The programme revealed that we - ie humankind - had discovered a superior cure (to antibiotics) for bacterial infections around the same time that penicillin was being discovered. The research programme on bacteriophages (phages for short) began in Stalin's Georgia in the 1930s. To this day, our knowledge of each of the many thousands of phage viruses remains concentrated in a now rundown laboratory in Tbilisi, Georgia. The arrival of capitalism in the Caucuses threatens a repository of knowledge, built up over 50 years, that could prevent the superbug pandemic that threatens us all next century. ...
    Western capitalism has another kind of correctness that can be at least as disabling; a correctness based on profit, and an unwillingness to check the growth of an industry that is too lucrative to too many people. The story of antibiotics is becoming one of those stories. ...
    Another problem is that western capitalism is too much entwined in the English language. The literature on phage remedies was mostly in Russian. It's hard enough to get Anglo-Saxon western scientists to read in French, let alone Russian. After all, "reputable journals" are in English, are they no t?
    While there are some genuine reasons why phage treatments of bacterial diseases were overlooked in the 1930s and 1940s, the failure to develop a western research program into bacteriophage treatment in the 1980s and 1990s represents an inexcusable failure of western capitalism. By the 1980s, ther e could be no denial that antibiotic resistance was going to be a major problem in (if not before) the twentyfirst century. Yet, we just didn't want to know about what will probably turn out to be the most important medical breakthrough in the twentieth century; a breakthrough made in communist G eorgia, in Stalin's Soviet Union.
    It is embarrassing when western science is out-trumped, especially by the "communists". Usually, when out-trumped, we don't tell anyone. That's what happened here. Not only did we not have the nous to start a western programme in bacteriophage research; we looked the other way when the files of phials threatened to be destroyed following the breakup of the Soviet Union, and during the little reported civil war that engulfed Georgia a few years ago. So much for the knowledge economies of the west. How can such valuable knowledge be so cheap?
    It's not too late for western medicine to enter the post-antibiotic bacteriophage era. Our grandchildren will hardly thank us if we persevere with our corporate-profit-motivated conservatism.
    The Soviets were able, eventually, to admit that they were wrong to follow Lysenko. Will we in the west be equally able to admit that we were wrong to put all our medical eggs into the one antibiotic basket, in the process ignoring the most basic tenets of the theory of evolution?"

See also Dan Pink on true motivation via challenge, mastery, and purpose: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

The US focus on organizing an economy more and more around "artificial scarcity" enforced by police, military, and political power is unlikely to end well...

Luckily, our "Allies" are above that, but, what of the future with these people now?

Fact is the governments of the US ally countries don't care that the USA spies on them, they already know the US spies on them and their citizens, and some may have even helped to do it- it's been an open secret for at least a decade - UKUSA, Echelon and all that. The Australians even blabbed about it: http://web.archive.org/web/19990826082232/http://theage.com.au/daily/990523/news/news3.html
NZ too: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0105/S00104.htm
http://cryptome.org/echelon.htm
http://cryptome.org/echelon-baby.htm

Think about it - if they were really that pissed off they wouldn't have stopped the Bolivian ambassador's plane just because they thought Snowden was on it. Why for instance would France do that if France was so pissed off with the USA spying on them? Why wouldn't France instead give Snowden asylum? Heck they gave Roman Polanski asylum. So wouldn't Snowden be more deserving?

Therefore all the fuss they are making now is:
1) A show to placate the masses.
2) Haggling to get stuff/concessions/goodies from the USA

A note to the NSA cheerleaders. It should be obvious that you cannot allow your spy agency to freely spy on those who are supposed to regulate or rein in your spy agency. The NSA lying to Congress proves that they are out of control. And if the NSA gets away with lying to Congress and doing all that illegal stuff, that should make you ask who really is in control.

As for the NSA shills, you bunch are a despicable traitorous lot.

I stayed in Queenstown for a week and they were scattered everywhere around town, from the residential areas through to the town centre.
Though obviously there were more of them in the centre of town.

Arrowtown has the "old" red booth that I think you were thinking of . The newer ones were aluminium white and blue and a little more subtle. (They used to be a bit uglier though

Oh it's not that bad. And it's a good sight better than the yearly tornado season I live with now.
Actually I'd love to retire to a small farm. In NZ, or some other such place. Such as: http://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/0908/canterbury_plains_2.jpg
And NZ is at the top of the list because it's got all the climates I like and enjoy, and in such a small area, so can easily get to em. And it's got interesting critters.

Tornado season isn't going to wipe out almost all life and make the place uninhabitable for decades, perhaps centuries.

Christchurch is still in deep shit and that wasn't even a very big quake.

Oh it's not that bad. And it's a good sight better than the yearly tornado season I live with now.
Actually I'd love to retire to a small farm. In NZ, or some other such place. Such as: http://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/0908/canterbury_plains_2.jpg
And NZ is at the top of the list because it's got all the climates I like and enjoy, and in such a small area, so can easily get to em. And it's got interesting critters.

And there's another fucking wanker called John Key doing exactly the same thing in New Zealand right now, and getting away with it under the same banner of "Mum & Dad investors". Makes me fucking sick, repeating the same mistakes because we're too distracted to pay attention to even recent history.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4582922/John-Key-reveals-plan-for-asset-sales
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1111/S00245/john-keys-asset-sales-an-epic-fail-for-nz.htm
If we're REALLY lucky, that might get shut down by a citizen-initiated referendu,, but I'm not holding my breath.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC1209/S00050/antarctic-ice-area-sets-record-high.htm

A long long time ago, James Hansen ceased to be a credible scientist and became an activist. Right now, there is less sea ice at the north pole than any time since 1979. There were, however, several other times in the 20th century when people were worried that the ice would disappear. Hansen knows that but it doesn't suit his purposes to let us know. He just keeps pounding his simple, alarmist message. They should throw the bum in jail ... oh wait, they did. http://www.climatedepot.com/a/12518/Hansen-Back-in-Jail-NASAs-James-Hansen-Arrested-Again-Outside-White-House-at-Pipeline-Protest--Implores-Obama-to-act-for-sake-of-your-children-and-grandchildren

NZ won't have any problem extraditing them.
General piracy and making a profit of it are two very different things here.

Combined with the fact dotcom was let in despite his criminal convictions making the government look bad.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1201/S00059/peters-calls-for-dotcom-immigration-inquiry.htm

We might have been sympathetic if he was making a small profit off file sharing but its a more than that and its little embarrassing hes in the country.

Here in New Zealand we don't really have Cable TV (except a couple of smaller areas). Sky TV (similar to DirecTV) has the whole Pay-TV thing sewn up.

However there is a free to air digital service called Freeview that broadcasts on satellite (PAL 576i) and terrestrial (1080i).

Sky has all the movie channels and all the sport as well as the standard Free-To-Air (FTA) channels, and Freeview has only the FTA channels with a couple of extra's. Sky costs about $100 a month and has only just added a DVR to their service (DVR's didn't really exist in NZ till a couple of years ago).

All the US web based services are blocked, so no HULU or Netflix, and no equivalent services. A couple of the networks have 'TV on demand', but their offerings are very limited. I can completely understand why people here in NZ torrent shows and movies. However a recent three strikes law has just been introduced....

My setup is a mythtv media centre with two satellite freeview tuners (to avoid program conflicts), and we find there are enough *good* shows to get us through the week. If I want to watch the latest Burn Notice, Chuck, or Doctor Who, I am resorted to either get them from iTunes (if they're even offered to our 'region'.) or 'find' them.

Oh yeah, about the internet connection. I pay $70 base rate just for the 6Mbps privilege (does include a $15 VOIP phone line), then $1 per GB of traffic on top of that. So if I use 30GB of traffic costs me $100 bucks. (~USD$70)

So if you haven't picked up on it yet, we're shafted down here. (So quit your whining).

If any of you work for Hulu or Netflix, please bring your catalog and come on down to open your store here....

Has mainstream media picked up on this? Scoop might be interested...

http://www.naturalnews.com/z030209_placebo_medical_fraud.html
http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17-09/ff_placebo_effect?currentPage=all
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269/
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2000/03/press.htm
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL9910/S00096/rankin-on-thursday-where-communism-succeeded.htm
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2004/jul/15/the-truth-about-the-drug-companies/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-26/glaxo-said-to-settle-u-s-drug-manufacturing-lawsuit-for-750-million.html

Wired on the orginal article:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/the-truth-wears-off/

Anyway, this New Yorker article once again underscores the folly of going to extremes against common sense or long standing cultural traditions, based on some new scientific report or another, without looking at the broad big picture on overall weight of all the evidence we have from a variety of perspectives.

But even when there is a wide variety of good science, often policy ignores it.
Problems with the recent timid vitamin D recommendation:
http://www.grassrootshealth.net/recommendation
Dr. Joel Fuhrman on how much money the USA spends on sick care for very poor outcomes:
http://vimeo.com/16682935

Go copponex yes yes yes

RE: Yawn Yawn Yawn

I think that leak about the contents of a July 24 2009 cable, which summarized the assessment of the US embassy in Honduras on key facts that were politically disputed by supporters of the (Honduran) coup regime provides important information to U.S. citizens relating to the actions of our U.S. Executive branch, and is significant. This leak has not been widely covered by the U.S. media probably because it does have political significance for U.S. citizens, as well as the citizen of Central and South America. It is certainly being covered elsewhere.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1012/S00018/wikileaks-honduras-us-busted-on-support-of-coup.htm

On the other hand, that same news outlet apparently brought back Sam Kinnison from the dead to do their wine reviews, which sort of makes up for it.

Not the only one at all. I wanted to see a photograph of an atom.

The good news is I went and found it, the bad news is it's probably not as cool as I'd hoped: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/ED1009/S00122/university-of-otago-atom-breakthrough-represents.htm

Some years ago the New Zealand Green Party got tricked into supporting a ban on dihydrogen monoxide, much to the glee of the conservative National Party. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0110/S00440.htm

"Phage Therapy: Where Communism Succeeded and Capitalism Failed"
  http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL9910/S00096.htm
"""
While there are some genuine reasons why phage treatments of bacterial diseases were overlooked in the 1930s and 1940s, the failure to develop a western research program into bacteriophage treatment in the 1980s and 1990s represents an inexcusable failure of western capitalism. By the 1980s, there could be no denial that antibiotic resistance was going to be a major problem in (if not before) the twenty-first century. Yet, we just didn't want to know about what will probably turn out to be the most important medical breakthrough in the twentieth century; a breakthrough made in communist Georgia, in Stalin's Soviet Union.
    It is embarrassing when western science is out-trumped, especially by the "communists". Usually, when out-trumped, we don't tell anyone. That's what happened here. Not only did we not have the nous to start a western programme in bacteriophage research; we looked the other way when the files of phials threatened to be destroyed following the breakup of the Soviet Union, and during the little reported civil war that engulfed Georgia a few years ago. So much for the knowledge economies of the west. How can such valuable knowledge be so cheap?
    It's not too late for western medicine to enter the post-antibiotic bacteriophage era. Our grandchildren will hardly thank us if we persevere with our corporate-profit-motivated conservatism.
    The Soviets were able, eventually, to admit that they were wrong to follow Lysenko. Will we in the west be equally able to admit that we were wrong to put all our medical eggs into the one antibiotic basket, in the process ignoring the most basic tenets of the theory of evolution?
"""

So, with this as an example, what else has capitalism ignored as it relates to cancer?
Nutrition?
    http://www.drfuhrman.com/
Vitamin D?
    http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
Fasting?
    http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/shelton.bio.bidwell.htm
    http://www.healingcancernaturally.com/fasting-cure-for-health.html
   

"The programme revealed that we - ie humankind - had discovered a superior cure (to antibiotics) for bacterial infections around the same time that penicillin was being discovered. The research programme on bacteriophages (phages for short) began in Stalin's Georgia in the 1930s. To this day, our knowledge of each of the many thousands of phage viruses remains concentrated in a now rundown laboratory in Tbilisi, Georgia. The arrival of capitalism in the Caucuses threatens a repository of knowledge, built up over 50 years, that could prevent the superbug pandemic that threatens us all next century. ...
    While there are some genuine reasons why phage treatments of bacterial diseases were overlooked in the 1930s and 1940s, the failure to develop a western research program into bacteriophage treatment in the 1980s and 1990s represents an inexcusable failure of western capitalism. By the 1980s, ther e could be no denial that antibiotic resistance was going to be a major problem in (if not before) the twentyfirst century. Yet, we just didn't want to know about what will probably turn out to be the most important medical breakthrough in the twentieth century; a breakthrough made in communist G eorgia, in Stalin's Soviet Union.
    It is embarrassing when western science is out-trumped, especially by the "communists". Usually, when out-trumped, we don't tell anyone. That's what happened here. Not only did we not have the nous to start a western programme in bacteriophage research; we looked the other way when the files of phials threatened to be destroyed following the breakup of the Soviet Union, and during the little reported civil war that engulfed Georgia a few years ago. So much for the knowledge economies of the west. How can such valuable knowledge be so cheap?
      It's not too late for western medicine to enter the post-antibiotic bacteriophage era. Our grandchildren will hardly thank us if we persevere with our corporate-profit-motivated conservatism.
    The Soviets were able, eventually, to admit that they were wrong to follow Lysenko. Will we in the west be equally able to admit that we were wrong to put all our medical eggs into the one antibiotic basket, in the process ignoring the most basic tenets of the theory of evolution?
"""
  From:
    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL9910/S00096.htm

(I'm glad to see several people have posted links to phage therapy information.)

I happend to be reading an interesting book "Them and Us: how Neanderthal predation created modern humans" about how physical, social, and psychological characteristics now seen as uniquely human (ie hairless bodies) are direct results of Neanderthal predation and natural selection.

Here's an article summarizing the book:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0909/S00246.htm

A must read if you are interested in this topic.

many commentators are now levelling the accusation of fraud because that suits the purposes of much of the West...
so it is essentially Mousavi's supporters who are a smaller faction trying to undermine democracy with violence. If they get anywhere (and whatever you think of the GP, covert Western support or promises of support for his followers is extremely plausible), then it would just push Iran back to a more totalitarian state because they certainly wont win whatever the West would like to pretend. They don't have the support of the common people and, quite frankly, they appear to have lost the election.
Mousavi - good or bad (and he's no angel, just more amenable to Western interests), you can't just allow democracy when it elects the people you want elected.

In light of past US and British government/corporate behavior when it comes to securing rights to Iranian oil (i.e. Operation Ajax), the many fraud claims being thrown about reek of self-interest propaganda similar to that used in the plot to depose Mosaddeq - which any way you slice it was a very evil deed to secure oil rights. Anyway, today there is to much shit flying about (even more than in the Bush in Florida 2000 elections, at least on the international news circuit) to really know what the truth is. Best to step back and look at the big picture and Iran's history time line to put the current propaganda "news" into the context it deserves.

They fly direct!

(For fourteen straight hours)

I'll pick a few here:

Teh GAYS are coming to steal yer marriages!!!!11

Never heard this from a Republican

You are a liar. Bush's "re-election" (his first actual election) was won primarily because they snuck so many anti-equality laws on the ballots. The bigoted wingnuts came out of the woodwork and voted for Bush while they were there.

We're the party of fiscal responsibility!

I would have agreed with this last year. But since the current party has tripled the deficit, it turns out that it's true!

Yes, I am absolutely certain that Obama, in 100 days, managed to triple the deficit, compared to 8 years of Bush spending like a drunken frat boy.

I totally believe that, because, apparently, I am an idiot.

They're not prisoners of war, so the Geneva Convention doesn't apply!

Were any of these guys wearing a uniform? No? then the Geneva Convention does not apply. Why is this so hard to understand?

Because I have a soul, and the idea of shoving flashlights up little kid's asses in front of the kid's mother is abhorrent to me.

Oh, and here's a POW being waterboarded:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-13/cheneys-role-deepens/

Iraq had something, anything to do with 9/11!

I have never heard a Republican say this, yet it keeps getting repeated over and over as if it's true. And what do you know, many of the exceedingly ignorant and borderline retarded believe it.

Liar.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3119676.stm

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/08/21/bush-on-911/
http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/bush-team-peddles-911-iraq-link-torture
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-durang/lieberman-peddles-the-old_b_77198.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0314/p02s01-woiq.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10164478
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0511/S00247.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0321-02.htm

Not only that, it turns out we were torturing people to death and shoving flashlights up children's bums specifically to try and GET a fake link between Iraq and 9/11. Whoops!

How about this, then: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0511/S00173.htm

To quote from the article:

"We were told going into Fallujah that every single person going into the combat area that was walking, talking, breathing was an enemy combatant. . . It seemed like just a massive killing of Arabs. It looked like just a massive killing. . . Burned bodies. Burned children. Burned women. White phosphorus kills indiscriminately."

This is from the statement by a Marine who served in Fallujah. Elsewhere in the article, there is a discussion of the continued nighttime shelling of the city with WP. How can that be anything but indiscriminate?

And how about this:

"Bogert is a mortar team leader who directed his men to fire round after round of high explosives and white phosphorus charges into the city Friday and Saturday, never knowing what the targets were or what damage the resulting explosions caused. . . they ran through the drill again and again, sending a mixture of burning white phosphorus and high explosives they call "shake 'n' bake" into a cluster of buildings where insurgents have been spotted all week."

So, sir, fuck you.

http://www.tcf.org.nz/content/d543212c-ab29-42dc-8fa5-de14710785f6.html

Scroll down to "Google" and click, you can also read any of the other comments, they are overwhelmingly in favor of repealing 92A.

Scoop has extracted some choice quotes: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0903/S00207.htm

I did hear one report of a R vote flipping to D. It seems to have been a hoax.

And here and here are links to several stories of votes switching from D to R.

BlackBoxVoting has been doing some really thorough coverage on these occurrences and I would like to point out that in North Carolina & Tennessee, people are complaining about votes flipping from McCain to Obama. Some are saying this is a serious issue and not just isolated incidents of entropy.

I'm confused as to why the people voting weren't given access to an on site authority or technician that could verify this was occurring. I guess it's also possible this is something that will only happen once rarely but enough to do damage. It could also be attention seeking or insurance to claim fraud if the other side wins.

Diebold donated atleast $195,000 to Republican Party in 2000-2002.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/08/diebold_finally.html/
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0211/S00081.htm/
Senator Hagel: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0301/S00166.htm/
http://www.jonesreport.com/articles/011106_diebold_hbo.html/
http://www.jonesreport.com/articles/061106_hacking_democracy.html/

Diebold donated atleast $195,000 to Republican Party in 2000-2002.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/08/diebold_finally.html/
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0211/S00081.htm/
Senator Hagel: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0301/S00166.htm/
http://www.jonesreport.com/articles/011106_diebold_hbo.html/
http://www.jonesreport.com/articles/061106_hacking_democracy.html/

Let's be straight about this. The result was already in favour of the losing candidate. You can bet that if the vote was 1% more or less either way, it wouldn't have made a shred of difference. Those who believe that the US elections are for anything other than a fancy show are deceiving themselves. Exit polls don't lie, but diebold machines can very easily.

Scoop's special USA coup feature covers it all very well.

At the risk of extending this rather off-topic fork, I feel its important to correct a mis-truth in the above.

By removing the defence of reasonable force there is no longer a defence for smacking your child; how is that NOT illegal?

For clarity, the truth is that it has always been 'illegal' to smack your kids (ala 'assault anyone') but reasonable force has always been a valid defence for parents, in the course of disciplining their kids. No longer the case, making prosecutions much more likely to succeed. Net result is that we now have busybodies and narkers stepping in...

News coverage from when it became law: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10440080%5D

Noted as the most extreme law in the world on the subject: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0705/S00223.htm

A father gets a warning put on his police record for flicking his childs ear:
http://stuff.co.nz/4354765a10.html

The latter occurred because a bystander 'took umbrage' and an off-duty police officer phoned it in. The guy then winds up surrounded by 6 cops!

Sorry but I couldnt let you spread mis-truths about New Zealand Law. It is illegal to smack your child here, because there is no legal defence for what essentially is an assault in the eyes of the law. Splitting hairs further has no value.

Because then the Democrats can push into the forefront the fact that Foul knowingly lied to the UN in his weapons of mass deception speech.

Of every treacherous member of the Bush administration, Colon Foul was the one in the position to know best that what he was doing was lying. He'd made a speech in February of 2001 stating that Saddam Hussein "... has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors." Then in February of 2003 he told the UN that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in its possession less than a year after the first speech. The obvious question: How can we be expected to believe that a heavily sanctioned, cash strapped, impoverished Iraq either developed or purchased those weapons in less than a year? And ON WHOSE WATCH did they do so, if they did?

Please, powers that be, please please please put Colon Foul on the McCain ticket!

The AC was not joking. Precisely that has been done at least once, to gain public input on designing a law in New Zealand (the site, and Slashdot's not very accurate summary); the idea got a lot of interest from several other governments, including Japan, Germany, France, the US, and UK.

Haliburton/Cheney sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/world/middleeast/25reconstruct.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040607-644111,00.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/26/politics/main575356.shtml

Bush sources:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0207/S00104.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jul/10/qanda.usa

Obviously, you can also just use Google to find other sources.

These are not conspiracy theories. These are fact-supported TRUTHS. You could likely find some of the press conferences referenced in those sources on youtube, if you need video as well.

There's also this one, which actually appeared on a few billboards in New Zealand:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0310/S00003.htm

Continued attacks on coalition forces (UN Security Council surrogates, no less), continued WMD research, terrorst training camps, continued research into theater missiles and biochem delivery, cash payments to terrorists, no evidence of destruction of huge stockpiles of WMD, etc., etc., etc.

Is that a valid criteria for invading a sovereign country? Let's rephrase the semantics for a comparison:
Continued attacks on any country we want (whether the UN approves or not), continued WMD research, BlackOps and CIA training camps (Google Iran Contra for a historic example), continued research into theater missiles and biochem delivery, cash payments to terrorists (we used to fund Saddam's regime and worse), the world's largest stockpiles of WMDs including chemical and biological weapons, etc., etc., etc.

So by your criteria any nation on earth not allied with the USA would be justified in a pre-emptive strike to help defend against our potential threat. Is it any wonder that Iran is developing nukes as fast as they can? It is the only way they can hope to stop us from invading. America is the most violently aggressive government on earth.

There are fabrics that can withstand a running chainsaw, and they are in common use.

Likewise, stab or cut-resistant Vectran fabric is now relatively common. I've worn turn-out gear which is designed to resist that sort of damage, and while it's expensive, it isn't prohibitively so.

The cost of setting up a plant is hardly "cheap" and what happens when coal becomes scarce? It IS a finite resource - unlike the sun.

Once again the cost of setting up a nuclear power plant is in the billions. Fissile materials are also finite, when they begin to run out we'll see huge increases in price. See the case of oil now.

I also take issue with your point that nuclear energy is "green". Even if we say that plants are entirely safe (Which seems to be the Slashdot consensus) there are many other issues. First of all, what does one do with the waste? Plutonium 239, the most common material used, has a half life of 24,000 years. That's longer than civilisation has so far existed. None of our current methods of storing waste are viable and many have been proven useless.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0606/S00198.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cumbria/4589321.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7068041.stm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jul/18/japan.justinmccurry1

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003816157_webhanfordleak01.html?syndication=rss

Let's not forget the insane amounts of energy required to both commission a plant, continually mine and transport uranium and then decommission it.

I don't understand how you can argue that replacing our dependence on finite resource that pollutes the environment with another finite resource that pollutes the environment is a good thing. I suggest you read the recently commission Garnaut Review (Professor Ross Garnaut is an economist at the Australian National University) which states that nuclear is a non-viable option and the world must develop renewable sources of energy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garnaut_Report. Or the Stern review (also made by an economist) which reaches a similar conclusion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review. I do believe these two in particular have a broader depth of knowledge surrounding economics than you do.

The wording of the argument sounds a lot like the "No true scotsman" logical fallacy.

Face it, both muslims and christians have done horrible, unspeakable things. This in no way says that your average muslim or christian is about to cut someone's head off or burn someone at the stake. Also, those awful things that muslims in very conservative societies are doing are very similar to what certain parts of christianity are doing. Anyone who cherry-picks their literal interpretations of a book written centuries ago is going to get *something* wrong.

I liked the last pope better than this guy. As I recall, the last pope was the one to pardon Galileo and admit that science may have some merit...

Right... because there wasn't a single shred of possible evidence to NYT's claims.

A little old, but as I was saying: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0309/S00106.htm/

I don't need to say much other than, this is the company we employee to make these machines and we expect fair and working products? http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0211/S00081.htm http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2004/04/63298 /case

I don't need to say much other than, this is the company we employee to make these machines and we expect fair and working products? http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0211/S00081.htm http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2004/04/63298 /case

> Because you dont need a hospital? Or First aid?

Yea, right.

To be competitive with oil they have to be 1/10th the price of current cells (actually more like 1/15th or 1/20th if you count fairly, at an equal taxation rate) and last for fifty years, at full capacity.

Not really, if you include the massive subsidies petroleum gets, billions of dollars being spent daily in Iraq for instance, oil is way more expensive. If solar, wind, and other alternative sources of energy were to get as much tax payer money the costs of them would drop.

As you point out, large scale installations of solar cells could be an environmental nightmare when they start wearing out.

But then again computers, cellphones, and all of the other electric and electronic gadgets have the same problem or similar ones. A lot of the fighting in the conflict in the Congo is over coltan, a mineral cellphones are dependent on. Even oil shares blame for conflicts. The conflict in the Niger Delta is in a big part over oil.

Perhaps it's just updating global timezone definitions ?

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0709/S00031.htm/

I distrust M$ as much as most of you here, but let's get some facts before we run our mouths off, eh ?

Oh, wait, that'd be against the /. credo, right ?