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What, instead of forcing GMO's and patents on both local and foreign farmers? That would be welcome everywhere, perhaps in ways you don't expect.

Basically, if the law requires Vodaphone to comply with A, B and C then they have all right to be pissed if their competitors can ignore A, B or C without consequences.

In any language used by creatures living on planets, there will be a word for 'sun.'

It seems there (probably) exist 'ejected' planets which could sustain life.

http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/070910_sunless-planets.htm

Apart from that, it is likely to be difficult to make predictions with regard to language (Living without Numbers or Time).

CC.

http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/mobil/0,1518,516587,00.html

The sales seem to have been rather lackluster.

In a recent interview on with the german magazine "Der Spiegel" he just talked about parts of the industry he doesn't like. Namely excessive violence like GTA and uninspired sequels like the Madden games. He actually likes to play modern games like DDR or Guitar Hero.
interview in german: http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/spielzeug/0,1518,512371,00.html

Various sources talk about 18 villages that have "disappeared" on these Satellite images and 30 new ones around a Military Base as "proof" for forced relocations.

How can this be proof of anything? Just a reminder, Myanmar has a population of a little less than 50 million people. The only pictures I've seen (here and here) show villages of maybe five houses in the middle of a wood, so these 18 villages could've simply been abandoned. Sources speak of burnt down ruins... but is it really that far fetched to assume there might be accidental fires involved? After all Myanmar population is said to live a quite backward style of living (and that being the Military Regimes fault).

If the pictures that are public are the best evidence they have then I'd be highly critical of using them as a base for any kind of punishment (the fact aside that sanctions won't hurt anyone than the population).

why don't they invest those billions in new drivetrain, suspension, and rail technology.

The answer is easy. The current Bavarian prime minister (Mr. Edmund Stoiber) is leaving office in a couple of weeks. He has been fighting for the technology demo (and hey, it's not more than that because the train is not nearly going to reach is max speed enroute!) for some years. He finally managed to get this memorial risen for him. He always wanted to be as great as Franz-Josef Strauß after whom the airport is named, and who is said to have fathered the Airbus project. This maglev is likely to be named after him, one way or another.

The suggested project price is likely to be exceeded big time. The figure (1.85 bn Euros) is from 2004, and the current contract says final fixed prices will be presented in early 2008. Nobody appears to seriously expect the $2.6bn to be met.

Bavaria has become^Wbeen a banana republic, although it is nice to be living here. I just hope I won't hear the train from where I live (about 2-3 kms away from the planned track, across the autobahn). The departing plane traffic is bad enough.

Methinks this is an utter waste of (taxpayers') money, largely. There are two suburban lines from Munich railway mainstation to the airport. The trains take about 40 minutes per direction, either line (S1 / S8), halting at every second apple tree. The maglev is supposed to need only 10 minutes. The price will be hefty (in the 30-40 Euro ballpark), and the maglev will never, ever ROI. Even not in terms of the tech demo for selling the train abroad mainly because the Shanghai folks already copied the entire construction. The project is a dead horse, IMHO.

Munich's mayor Mr. Christian Ude seems to be the only person who can stop the nonsense. His alternative approach is an express suburban line that could reach the airport in far less than 40 minutes, making a 10-minute connection obsolete, for all practical purposes.

German readers may want to read on here, here, and here.

He's not an isolationist, he's a non-interventionist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolationism

"Not to be confused with the non-interventionist philosophy and foreign policy of the libertarian world view, which espouses unrestricted free trade and freedom of travel for individuals to all countries."

As for the rest of your fear mongering prattle, he is for free trade - just not the corporate welfare protectionist trade like NAFTA represents.

And no, when your country is $9 trillion in the hole and $50 trillion of entitlements is looming on the not-too-far away horizon, foreign entitlements (foreign aid) should not be the first priority. Besides, I bet a lot of countries can do without us sending foreign aid (why shouldn't they be able to stand on their own two feet?)

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00.html

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

See this link in TFA to help keep your bubble from completely bursting.http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,428830,00.html

I know it goes against /. rules to RTFA, much less check out links in TFA, but in this case I did.

Disclaimer: I was a paratrooper, and this intrigued me...I wish I could be a part of bringing this about, but my teflon kneecaps (from the last jump I ever made...#433) dissuade me from trying to keep up with the young ones now.

I wish them all of the success in the world for this, military AND civilian applications!
Fsck hang gliding, parasailing, etc...jump out of a C-130 at 20,000 ft. with a Gryphon and an O2 bottle and CRUISE like superman for more than a few very short minutes before having to 'pop the chute' and worry about the ground!

Pedants need not reply...If you haven't went HALO, you have no concept of WTF is going on here!
The only possible better physical experience than HALO, is HALO with sex...but there is that whole windchill/cold temp thing to deal with!

Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen, the discoverer of X-rays, died of carcinoma of the colon in 1923.

He was 78 years old and his cancer was not radiation induced. Those kinds of cancers were more common before refrigeration reduced the need for cured meats.

There's been no established connection between GM crops and bee populations.

Oh, it's hard so say but there is evidence that's more convincing than cell phone towers.

bees eat pollen [which lack GM proteins]

Don't forget nectar, fruit juice and other stuff. They pollen for proteins, especially while "milking" to feed the queen, so any modified proteins will get into the population and effect the colony.

You don't need GM to kill bees anyway. Pesticides do the job too.

Well, for those who are interested, the Spiegel mentions that a cubic centimeter of that stuff would weigh about a billion metric tons on earth - what's your teaspoon made of? ;)

> While it was a really bad plan life pretty much kept on living.

Sometimes it takes a while for bad decisions to catch up with you. Sometimes 20 years* is only the beginning. You need to pay more attention to history, not Hollywood.

[*] - http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518 ,411056,00.html

Wow are you ever off base. You're comparing apples to water melons. The big thing you are over looking is the difference between one person carrying out this horible act on their own and a group of people condoning it while the legal system shrugs. The man who kills his wife faces the full weight of the criminal justice system. The family that asks a brother/cousin to kill their daughter who happened to get rapped faces no charges and the brother/cousin a lighter sentence (if any) than the crime warrants.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0214/p07s02-wome.htm l
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/05/18/iraq.hon orkilling/index.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,344374, 00.html
and also
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/16/world/europe/16t urkey.html?ex=1184040000&en=be57dfd1ac6ad029&ei=50 70

"It was a weapon that we believe was stocked from the ex-regime time and it had been thought to be an ordinary artillery shell set up to explode like an ordinary IED and basically from the detection of that and when it exploded, it indicated that it actually had some sarin in it," Kimmitt said.

Tests conducted by the Iraqi Survey Group (search) -- a U.S. organization searching for weapons of mass destruction -- and others concluded the mustard gas was "stored improperly," which made the gas "ineffective."

The Spiegel link is bad. Here's a better one: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518 ,363604,00.html

Take the BBC, for example, which did in fact report, on September 23, 2001, that some of the alleged terrorists were alive and healthy and had protested their being named as assassins.

But there is one wrinkle. The BBC journalist responsible for the story only recalls this supposed sensation after having been told the date on which the story aired. "No, we did not have any videotape or photographs of the individuals in question at that time," he says, and tells us that the report was based on articles in Arab newspapers, such as the Arab News, an English-language Saudi newspaper.

The operator at the call center has the number for the Arab News on speed dial. We make a call to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. A few seconds later, Managing Editor John Bradley is on the line. When we tell Bradley our story, he snorts and says: "That's ridiculous! People here stopped talking about that a long time ago."

Bradley tells us that at the time his reporters did not speak directly with the so-called "survivors," but instead combined reports from other Arab papers. These reports, says Bradley, appeared at a time when the only public information about the attackers was a list of names that had been published by the FBI on September 14th. The FBI did not release photographs until four days after the cited reports, on September 27th.

The photographs quickly resolved the nonsense about surviving terrorists. According to Bradley, "all of this is attributable to the chaos that prevailed during the first few days following the attack. What we're dealing with are coincidentally identical names." In Saudi Arabia, says Bradley, the names of two of the allegedly surviving attackers, Said al-Ghamdi and Walid al-Shari, are "as common as John Smith in the United States or Great Britain." http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518 ,265160-2,00.html

Here the original Spiegel Article(in German, of course).

Information about the draft law and what people can do to prevent it from being passed can be found at the following site:
http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/ (also in German)
What's scary is the range of people that are supposed to get access to the collected information,
it's not just the police but also "Nachrichtendienste" (news agencies!?) and "ausländische Staaten" (other countries, apparently any that ask)

I'm guessing this is caused by some lobby/bribe action of organizations like the RIAA/MPAA.
I can't think of one good reason of why this might be good for anyone,
criminals will just use bot proxies or other means to bypass the tracking/collection and in the end
it will just be the honest people that get f#cked because with general government incompetence
the the data will end up in the criminal's hand's and used for who knows what.

So was the climate then "correct"? Is the climate 50 years ago "correct"? What is the "ideal" climate so we know we've reached where we're supposed to be...

Right now, I see a lot of the AGW proponents postulating a problem, but without being able to point to what the ideal should be, its awfully hard to judge whether or not there even IS a problem...

I'd rather worry about issues like mercury poisoning, sewage treatments for the developing world, sanitation in general, and the like rather than debating over the supposed problem of AGW when we're not even sure if the current average temperature is low or high...

and invested not only our money but our time working towards a poverty and disease free Africa.

I suggest you take a look at "White Man's Burden" by William Eastery, and possibly "The Mystery of Capital" by Hernando de Soto, and most certainly this interview of a Kenyan economist by der Spiegel: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518 ,363663,00.html

Here's the intro to the interview:

SPIEGEL: Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa...

Shikwati: ... for God's sake, please just stop.

I'm pretty sure if we started sending money and medication to Africa we wouldn't make that many enemies.

Sadly this is not true. Take a look at Somalia. And why is this the case? Because to a great extent American aid (and Western aid in general) bolsters autocratic regimes either directly or indirectly.

The basic premise of Easterly's book is summed up on wikipedia:

In 2006, former World Bank economist William Easterly published The White Man's Burden, an analysis of "why the West's efforts to aid the rest have done so much ill and so little good". In this book he questioned the 'utopian social engineering' that the development community brings to local communities and plays the idea of the White Man's Burden through current benign intentions (Bill Gates, Bono, Sachs, etc.) ultimately derived from a long history of meddling in others' affairs - that usually goes wrong.

In it Easterly directly links the War in Iraq with African aid as two parallels facets of Western arrogance. We think we can impose political order on Iraq through military power, and we think we can impose economic and social order in Africa through gobs of money. Both cases are complete disasters. The arrogance of the right is met only with the arrogance of the left. Both seek good goals - freedom and stability - but both are doomed not only to failure, but to exacerbate tensions.

Hell send the USACoE over to build some infrastructure (plumbing, power, telephones and maybe even internet) haliburton could even have the contracts. At least we'd be over-paying to do some good. We don't have to blindly throw money at it, that probably will just breed corruption, but if we help elevate EVERY country in Africa in to the 20th (yes I said 20th) century the world would be a much better place.

This is exactly the type of nation-building utopianism that Shikwati claims is ruining his country (Kenya) and ultimately the entire continent. Yeah - send over Haliburton to build up the infrastucture. This is essentially the game plan of western aid for the last 40 years. A "big push" that would in one fell swoop elevate Africa beyond the quagmire of poverty and on the path to economic development. It doesn't work.

If you want to do something that does work, we need to reform Western aid agencies so that they are accountable to the people they are intended to serve (Africans) and not to well-intentioned but clueless Westerners (like Bono). As de Soto argues the poor of the world already have something like 9 trillion in assets that - given legal infrastucture - they could leverage as capital to lift themselves out of poverty. Another good idea is micro-lending. It's also important to keep Milton Friedman's theories in mind: political freedom is inextricably linked to economic freedom which is in turn inextricably linked to prosperity.

I applaud your ideals, but you need to examine the Wests dismal history of failure before you call for more of the same. Billions of dollars in forein aid have not managed to stamp out malaria in 4 decades (DDT would have done the trick if the West hadn't penalized developing nations from using it, but that's another story). In one day we can get Harry Potter book 7 into the hands of every kid in the west who wants one. In 3 or 4

I doubt the part about buying the more expensive one since those 200€ don't come out of thin air and these days you get the 360 with all kinds of extra stuff thrown in (bundles I've seen were Kameo, PGR3 and a racing wheel or Guitar Hero 2 and guitar controller, both packs for 400€ each). I'd expect the PS3 to sell better right now because it's new and there's still more demand, not because it looks like the better option.

Either way, the sales of both the PS3 and 360 have been described as insufficient in Europe. Seems like the big game companies are really unhappy with those consoles.

Wasn't the title of one of the reports presented to Dubya prior to 9-11 "Terrorists plan an attack on American soil with commercial airliners" or something like that? Don't have to be a sci-fi writer to interpret that... So, "reading and complying with warnings" might be a place to start. And for those that think terrorism is an Islamic problem: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518, 476599,00.html (500 Terror Attacks in EU in 2006 - But Only 1 by Islamists)

Should we allow a muslim man to practice his belief that men are allowed to beat women who do not obey?

Exactly. The man's name is Thomas Matussek, here's a text of his: http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/storyid.aspx?Sto ryId=3315
More stories on the topic:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,17811 40,00.html
http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/wunderbar/0,1518, 359568,00.html (in German)

if anything, europe is way more agitated than the usa. this is because the eu expanded into old soviet bloc countries and a russian awakening from its post cold war hangover is feeling rather nationalistic about it's old sphere of influence. witness the latest conflagration in estonia over just a world war ii statue of a russian soldier being moved

plus the recent summit in samara resulted in nothing but serious discord

so russia and europe are seriously butting heads right now, but the usa? not so much

the cold war was characterized by an ideology which directly threatened the usa. communism was dead set on taking over the world. so it was a real global struggle. now, russia is just a garden variety autocracy. if russia went into chile or peru or bolivia in the cold war, the usa would get agitated: communism spreading. but russia could go over now and give tanks and kalishnikovs to these countries and it would be no big deal: there is no ideological oomph behind the gesture, no real threat in terms of ideas. communism has died, lost its lustre, no one seriously believes in it anymore

and today? today we have islamic fundamentalists who are dead set on putting large swaths of the world under sharia law. and the meddling usa is a prime enemy of that effort, so it will be targetted big time. in some ways this new world is less dangerous, because massive world war of huge armies and scary war machinery won't be unleashed at the slightest gaffe or bravado. but in other ways, the threat of fundamentalist terrorism is more dangerous, since if someone sets a nuke off in times square, there is no clear line of accountability. if russia nuked times square, red square would cease to exist too. if times square gets nuked today, who can you blame?

SPIEGEL: Some climate protection groups and politicians are calling on Germans to spend their summer vacations in their own country in the future.

Storch: That's just another one of those typically German attempts to save the world with symbolic acts. It makes us feel like better people and morally superior to everyone else.

SPIEGEL: What's wrong with reducing CO2 emissions?

Storch: It is in fact necessary to reduce CO2 emissions. There is no reason why we shouldn't spend our vacations on (the North Sea island of) Sylt instead of in the Seychelles, or drive more economical cars -- for the sake of preserving increasingly scarce resources if nothing else. But that won't enable us to stop climate change. As long as China, India and the United States continue the way they have been, what we Germans do is more or less irrelevant.

SPIEGEL: Is it even possible to prevent global warming at this point?
Storch: No. Because of the inherent time lag in the climate system, the greenhouse gases that have already been pumped into the atmosphere will undoubtedly lead to a certain increase in temperature in the coming decades. We can no longer completely avoid anthropogenic climate change. At best, limiting the temperature rise to two degrees is just about possible, according to optimistic estimates. That's why we should spend more time talking about adjusting to the inevitable and not about reducing CO2 emissions. We have to take away people's fear of climate change.

greenpeace just sold it's soul once again by cooperating with the german newspaper 'bild'[1] (equivalent of the english 'the sun') completely ignoring their dubios practises ( http://www.bildblog.de/ ).
Greenpeace Germany: "it's a great chance to reach 12million people on a daily basis".

[1] http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/0,1518,47 7547,00.html

"We still haven't ruled out other factors, such as pesticides or inadequate food resources following a drought," she said. "There are lots of stresses that these bees are experiencing," and it may be a combination of factors that is responsible.

You're a nice girl Kelly, but you're truly blinded such that you can't see. And yes, my mind is made by the blood of my husband's wounds from the first and second go-round's in Iraq. And if you think Iraq wasn't preparing to ally with Al-Qaeda, then you truly can't see the forest for the trees. Where were your brother & sister stationed in Iraq, and at what points in the war? It could make all the difference in their stories. I had Marines on the ground in Tal-Afar that took it back from Al-Qaeda. The same Marines that my friend T saved lives and limbs in. I had Marines on the ground in Fallujah that took it back from the insurgency, twice. Don't tell me that we haven't done good there and gained ground there, the peace shows the difference.

Do you truly not understand why we fight???? Perhaps you should read this from an Arab-German journalist in today's Der Speigel. Yankees, Don't Go HOME! Do you not understand that the civilians in Iraq need us there far more than we want to be there??? I mean - if you had family serving on the ground there, then they should be able to tell you how much we are needed. Who else is going to stop the mass murders of the Shiites and Sunnis by their opposing factions? LOL - not Saudi Arabia.

That said, it is better than ten guilty men go free than a single innocent go to jail. This principle is the basis of our entire criminal system

Here is the link to the original Spiegel article:
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/tech/0,1518,452899, 00.html

Here is a link to read the *babelfish-translated* version of the above link:
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pag econtent?lp=de_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de% 2Fnetzwelt%2Ftech%2F0%2C1518%2C452899%2C00.html

Or, you could try the article translated into english by Der Spiegel.

Der Spiegel, a German newspaper, had an article in March where the phenomenon CCD might have to do with GMO's:

According to Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a professor at the University of Halle in eastern Germany and the director of the study, the bacterial toxin in the genetically modified corn may have "altered the surface of the bee's intestines, sufficiently weakening the bees to allow the parasites to gain entry -- or perhaps it was the other way around. We don't know."

babelfish translation of the article or the original in German

I would comment on your use of profanity, but I know it would not do any good. There is nothing insightful about your comment or the disgusting grammar it displays. First, pay attention to the title. Technology is the implementation of knowledge and is the reason why patents are important. It costs time and money, large amounts of R&D, to bring an idea to maturity. Without the incentive of recouping these costs, why should anyone raise an idea out of the pages of scientific journals and into your grubby little fingers?

Obviously, anything about China stealing US technology would be considered racist and FOXNEWSish, so how about what they are doing to Germany from the German perspective? Are you telling me a transportation system as complicated as a magnetically levitated train under development for 24 years can be replicated in 22 months because one guy cleverer than the next? You might find a gem in there about Airbus, a French company as well.

Just so you know, there is a blurb about Boeing, a US company, so I will not be surprised if you discount the article completely. That would, however, render you ignorant of the complete situation.

That's not a fair comparison. The Jews weren't firebombing embassies, let alone hijacking anything. Hatred against them was based on centuries-old religious and other cultural divisions, the need for a scapegoat for unrelated national problems, and a dose of bad science. Although anti-Muslim prejudice does have deep roots, and while you can argue we're unfairly characterizing a whole group based on the actions of a few, I can't think of any 1930s Jewish equivalent to the headline-making activities of Muslim fanatics. In fact, modern Muslims in Germany are making headlines for charming activities such as murdering family members for being insufficiently devout. If we mistreat Muslims it will be because we're overreacting to actual provocation by some part of that group.

As a matter of fact, I don't read the NYT / Guardian either. Just that the Globe and Mail lies around at this office that I take a look every once in a while.

I never saw "human interest fluff" on the front page of the Guardian Weekly.

I suggest that the Republic News, http://www.republic-news.org/ is better than the Globe and Mail.
Yes, a bunch of volunteers in Canada provide better stories than the leading for-profit Canadian newspaper. That's only possible because the Globe and Mail is so bad!

Also try http://www.spiegel.de/international

Back to slashdot...

Stephan

In this Der Spiegel article, Norway is mentioned as a regular stopover point for rendition flights. http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,388805, 00.html

on the subject and the situation inside the EU from Spiegel Online. No mention of Nazi Germany there ;)

which country would that be?

Germany? Not walking around shopping of course, but in inner-city parks it does happen.

At least this makes up for some of the islands reportedly lost to global warming: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,341669, 00.html.

The did not play one of the FF games. What they did, according to http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/0,1518,46049 7,00.html, is watch the movie "Final Fantasy XII".

Just one minute. Those pictures look doctored to me.

This picture was shot with the rabbit really up close and personal to the camera lens. So the rabbit will look larger than it is.

Now this looks even more fake. Notice how the hand of the person holding the rabbit is larger than his own head. That was obviously a doctored picture.

I guess this is the German version of the Giant Canadian cat.

Just one minute. Those pictures look doctored to me.

This picture was shot with the rabbit really up close and personal to the camera lens. So the rabbit will look larger than it is.

Now this looks even more fake. Notice how the hand of the person holding the rabbit is larger than his own head. That was obviously a doctored picture.

I guess this is the German version of the Giant Canadian cat.

http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/0,5538,PB64-SUQ9 MTg0NzMmbnI9Mg_3_3,00.html

Am I the only perverted soul who thinks this http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/0,5538,18473,00. html/ photo is just plain wrong? I suppose you have to do something with a giant rabbit...

The photos in the article use the most extreme, contrived camera angles to make the rabbits look even more huge.

I dunno about that, but this shot could get him in a lot of trouble with the law in some places.

Wow, thank you. I never would have clicked on the link to see the full first picture if I hadn't read your post.. And yes, it looks very odd. I got a hearty laugh out of it, that's for sure.

Ahh man-rabbit copulation. Maybe that's how he gets 'em so big. :)