Slashdot Mirror

Uh oh. You may find yourself throwing out more than just that. This was slashdotted not long ago. Just search for "BIOS".

After reading this article in Der Spiegel http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful-toolbox-in-effort-to-spy-on-global-networks-a-940969-3.html my thoughts are about the differences between this and Watergate. Watergate was peanuts compare this, but Mr Nixon has to resign. Who has to resign now ??

Der Spiegel reported on the NSA’s access to smartphones and, in particular, the iPhone back in September. Today, these reports expand to the NSA’s apparent ability to access just about all your iPhone data through a program called DROPOUTJEEP, according to security researcher Jacob Appelbaum.

The NSA claims a 100% success rate in installing the malware on iPhones. Functionality includes the ability to remotely push/pull files from the device. SMS retrieval, contact list retrieval, voicemail, geolocation, hot mic, camera capture, cell tower location, etc. Command, control and data exfiltration can occur over SMS messaging or a GPRS data connection. All communications with the implant will be covert and encrypted.

It is unknown whether the backdoor was developed in cooperation with Apple, but Appelbaum doubts it. Video of Appelbaum's full speech is included in the article.

http://cdn4.spiegel.de/images/image-583917-panoV9free-akfw.jpg

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-941262.html

Luckily for the NSA, the guardian hasn't said anything about specific operations or people involved.

I think the Angela Merkel personal cellphone tap was a pretty specific operation. That seemed to be the "oh, shit!" moment for people worldwide.

The pros of the NSA have a full catalog of nice things for sale, and you can use it to gain access to mostly everything.

There is no major news agency in Europe reporting about this outside of Turkey.

Apparently reading newspapers is becoming a lost art.
France
Germany
Belgium
The Netherlands
Great Britain

The morally bankrupt tactics are on the part of al Qaida and its associates who deliberately slaughter noncombatants by many means. The blinkered views of some in the West are of aid to them.

You are fundamentally confused about the source of the war against al Qaida - it is their decision, they declared war and began attacks killing many people years before the US made a serious response. They want a war of conquest. They want to restore the "glory of Islam" by restoring the Caliphate government that was dissolved in 1924 after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and starting a world-wide conflict to bring all nations to the Muslim faith under Islamic rule. They want to take back lands formerly governed by Muslims, including the country of Spain, and al Qaida is not alone in that goal.

Alarm in Spain over al-Qaeda call for its "reconquest"
HAMAS Targets Spain

Please explain to me how it is the fault of the US that al Qaida and Hamas want to reconquer Spain?

This is about them, not about the US. You are simply mistaken.

... which allies exactly? Germany? France?

That *is* their business model.
I read up on this yesterday (German Language) and the situation is more complicated than it seems.
The providers affected are all over Germany, so various local courts were involved. The one in Köln really screwed things up: what the people are supposed to have done is Downloaded the file(s), what they were accused of was Sharing them and Köln went along with this. The difference is that the provider does not have to give out addresses on Downloads but they do if Sharing is involved. The actual "Abmahnung" letters which went out said nothing about Sharing at all. The Law Firm based their claim on the Downloads being in Cache so they were available for others. To make things worse, the largest provider in Germany (T-Online) is based in Köln. Other courts rejected that argument, others asked questions and the Lawyers withdrew their request.

I have a related problem at the moment - a couple of years ago someone accused me of sharing some other porno film, again T-Online was involved. My wlan is wpa2 with a 63-byte random, generated mixed upper/lower string and it accepts only one Mac address, I have checked both PCs which were on at the time for Trojans / Virii with a bootable scanner and there was nothing. Under German law there is no redress - if they claim it then I must have done it. I'm fighting this one out at the moment.

For me this is a reason not to use T-Online. My main account is now somewhere else but I *need* Internet for when I work at home and two independent providers (Cable and DSL) made sense back when the Cable provider was unreliable. I think I'm going to have to dump T-Online which means dumping Telekom for my phone.

You've gone wrong on a couple of points there. First, al Qaida and company do indeed want the entire world under Islamic rule. It is their goal. The Middle East is just closer to it since it has a majority of Muslims, a number of the countries already implement Sharia in some form, even if imperfectly. Indonesia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are also high on the list. You may have noticed that they are subject to various troubles as well, not to mention India.

The Future of Terrorism: What al-Qaida Really Wants

They plan to take back lands formerly controlled by Muslims. Just one example: Spain

Alarm in Spain over al-Qaeda call for its "reconquest"
HAMAS Targets Spain

As to the US, there is no such thing as "Christian" rule. The US is a secular democracy. It is a nation of primarily Christians (of various flavors and piety) living in a democracy. There is no theocracy, there is no meaningful movement towards theocracy, and it is unclear what one would even look like since there doesn't seem to be a biblical model for it this side of Christ's return. So your post on that is nonsense.

Christian missionaries have been greatly beneficial to many lands. This is only one example.

Matthew Parris: As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God

If you look into the history of the last 100 years, you will see that officially atheist regimes were one of the great scourges of the planet. In their communist form they killed 100,000,000 people and brutalized and oppressed many more.

Jesus lived his life as an observant Jew, is recorded to have fulfilled many prophecies associated with being the Messiah, and made statements declaring himself to be God. Many of his followers preferred to die painful deaths rather than denounce him.

Many projects can't make any headway because numerous citizens' initiatives are blocking things like high-voltage transmission lines ... "It took over 30 years before a power line between France and Spain could be built," recalls an expert on the EU Commission ... In Germany there are also protests against virtually every major project of the Energiewende

The article offers a ray of hope that Europe might establish a process where permits are granted in three and a half years with only one court about to stop the process:

The EU has also taken a brash course on this front: The proposal would make it possible for the 200 top projects in Europe to receive a construction permit within three and a half years -- with only one court that would hear the objections of project opponents.

Of course imagine the outrage if this short-circuiting of the right of protest and judicial review were granted for other types of energy projects ...

Allow me to break it to you: The German Prism: Berlin Wants to Spy Too

This new hot on the heels of GHCQ targeting engineers to gain access to the systems of the companies they work for.

Looks like Slashdot, LinkedIn and other sites engineers frequent just earned themselves a NoScript->Forbid status. That Slashdot does not even have a cert auth SSL, for what pathetically little it does to secure your communications, is a crime for a tech orientated site...

"Elite GCHQ teams targeted employees of mobile communications companies and billing companies to gain access to their company networks. The spies used fake copies of LinkedIn profiles as one of their tools. .. The victims didn't notice that what they were looking at wasn't the original site but a fake profile with one invisible added feature: a small piece of malware that turned their computers into tools for Britain's GCHQ intelligence service." ref

Does any of this malware work on Linux?

Well, I worked at power generation industry. I personally worked at nuclear power plants (including Chernobyl, btw) and then I was employed at a green energy investment company and personally inspected quite a few solar and wind generation facilities. Right now Germany's power grid is in the constant state of emergency - they are literally working at the limits of their capacity to balance the loads. Transient violations of the N+2 rule are becoming commonplace. Right now everything doesn't fail constantly because Germany can buy reliable baseload from France and still has a pretty good nuclear baseload. And also abuses Poland and Czech networks to transmit power from southern to northern Germany.

Situation with France is particularly funny - France exports quite a lot of power to Switzerland but it flows through the German grid, greatly improving grid stability along the flow paths. And we're talking about quite a lot of power, more than 4% of Germany's usage. Oh, and Germany right now mostly exports the green power surplus to Netherlands and other countries.

So you can say whatever you want about green energy and smart grids, but everyone in the actual power production industry knows that it's a complete load of bullshit. Current grids can't work without a reliable baseload. And bullshit about "only to replace old coal powerplants" is only suitable for Greenpeace (it's well known that brain amputation is required to join them). Most of the new powerplants have been approved AFTER the nuclear pullout plans. And only _3_ coal powerplants are being dismantled completely, lots of others are going to be "retrofitted".

And finally, energy intensive industries in Germany are most definitely NOT exempt from rising prices. And it already affects the industry: http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/merkel-s-switch-to-renewables-rising-energy-prices-endanger-german-industry-a-816669.html

Incorrect on all points. Germany STILL depends on its nuclear reactors, they are NOT yet shutdown. But they already have a dangerous amount of grid instability that already causes very real problems for consumers: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/instability-in-power-grid-comes-at-high-cost-for-german-industry-a-850419.html

And to combat this, they're building 25 new coal-burning power plants. Some of them just came online: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/23/germany-to-open-six-more-coal-power-stations-in-2013/ (sorry for a link to Wattsup, but it has a really nice table).

Oh, and electricity prices in Germany already cause energy-intensive production to move elsewhere.

Yeah, right.

Just like I said, would never happen.

Snowden seeks to set himself above the law. His actions have said all that needs to be said on his behalf outside of court. The massive document theft and leak he engaged in isn't going to be considered "dissent." He should have gone to Congress instead of fleeing. He would likely still be a free man in the US had he done so, and Congress would still be alerted to his concerns, and have an opportunity to debate them. But so far it looks like Congress still backs the intelligence agencies overall even if there may be some new restrictions in the future.

What must be worse for him is that his actions are coming back to bite him on multiple levels. Like a twilight zone episode, he managed to create in his new home what he supposedly fled from and warned about. Now it will spread.

Implementing The Snowden Open Source Intelligence Agency Architecture Toolkit

"Practically all the attention to Snowden's leaks via the Guardian have focused on the leaks through either the lens of transparency and accountability, or the lens of betrayal and danger. But there is another way to view the leaks, and that is as an Open Source milestone. Snowden's leaks have revealed the product of uncounted millions of dollars of experience and research by the governments of the US and UK into effective intelligence agency architecture, infrastructure, and methods. Now that the documents describing them are publicly available, those documents form an intelligence agency architecture toolkit that can be used to analyze and improve the intelligence operations of any group or nation that wants to use them. So far there has been at least one public announcement of a country implementing elements of the Snowden Open Source Intelligence Agency Architecture Toolkit (Snowden OSIAAT): Russia. The Russian Communications Ministry and FSB security service have paired up to produce a regulation to begin upgrading the existing SORM internal electronic intelligence system to the Snowden style standard revealed in the leaks. Previously both Germany and Finland expressed interest in upgrading and expanding their internet surveillance capabilities. Snowden OSIAAT is likely to become a widely used means to increase the power and efficiency of intelligence services world wide. By the usual measures, Snowden OSIAAT appears to be another success story in the making for open source use in government."

The point is that Germany is staking its long term electrical generation on renewables over coal. Result of this policy has been not reduction in CO2 emissions and stable power generation, but massive problems, massive coal buildup and first increase in CO2 emissions in years. Reason being that they are betting big on jury-rigging wind power in Baltic sea to be base power.

It's an excellent example of what happens when politicians make an engineering decision based on advice and ideology from people with liberal arts education. Results turn up to be the opposite of those intended, with new concepts such as "energy poverty" tacked on top of it. It's why major infrastructure engineering decisions that require in depth understanding of the issue, such as water, power and logistics should not be decided by popular vote, but by people with education and experience in the field.

Vast majority of failures can be directly or indirectly attributed to such interference, Fukushima being the prime example of it, and German Energiewende being another. If engineers had their say, Fukushima would have been long ago upgraded to be a modern, rather than first generation plant sitting on fault line, Energiewende would have been similar to French, Bristish and Finnish solution of building up solid nuclear base and then slowly building up more exotic renewable technologies as they improve and so on.

Instead we have "nuclear is bad, even upgrading it is bad, coal is bad, anything that burns is bad, in fact let's put a whole lot of windmills in the Baltic sea and use those for energy generation!" which is what happened in Germany. Results truly speak for themselves.

Spiegel has a pretty good, albeit quite rosy article on the political side of things here:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/high-costs-and-errors-of-german-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288.html

Reality is actually worse, but few in Germany dare to talk about it, and Germany being as wealthy as it is right now does have the money to finance the massive shortfall by building up and running coal plants in parallel to compensate.

When did they ban perfume? Last time I flew was about 2 years ago, and I remember one woman who seemed to have spent the night before marinading in the same nasty ostensibly sunflower-scented old lady perfume that my grandmother wore.

I really, really hate flying...

I don't think there is an official ban on perfume, but one time I was on a flight an the flight attendent made someone change their seat because they wreaked of perfume and the passenger seated next to them complained.

Of course in more extreme situations, you might get kicked off a flight... Lest you think that's apocryphal, it actually happened in 2006 and 2010. Apparently most airline's conditions of carriage allows them to refuse passage to individuals with extreme body odors.

Actually, a new report from Der Spiegel suggests that Obama didn't know about the NSA spying on Merkel and stopped it as soon as he heard about it: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/us-ueberwachung-interne-untersuchung-beendete-spaehangriff-auf-merkel-a-930301.html (German, sorry)

Now, we don't know how much truth is in there, but things might not be as simple as your statement.

When spies are caught - and it's fairly frequent - they're usually just quietly kicked out of the host country.

That's not entirely correct. When caught, spies go to jail.

For reference, see the Russian spy ring trial in the U.S. a couple of years ago,

IIRC, the spies fled the country at the very last moment, otherwise they would have rotten in prison.

or the U.S. Embassy employee who was kicked out of Russia a few months back.

He enjoyed diplomatic immunity.

As an example: a while ago, russian spies where caught in germany; they do sit in jail.

Don't forget jealousy.

But anyway, I hear the European "union" is not a happy one.

Railing against the 'Fourth Reich': Anti-German Mood Heats Up in Greece

And someone is the family might be hearing the voices of ghosts of the past.

Germany shocked by secret service link to rightwing terror cell

And the "hired help" has caused some concerns.

Kohl wanted to reduce Germany's Turkish population by one half

Who can tell what will happen?

You don't think there are more possibilities than your binary choice? They can only be either looking for terrorists or "industrial espionage for fascist criminal gangster military/industrial complex profits"?

How do you know it might not have been for diplomatic intelligence given the growing possibility of the EU splitting up over the financial crisis and problems between Greece and Germany?

Railing against the 'Fourth Reich': Anti-German Mood Heats Up in Greece

How do you know it wasn't regarding internal policy discussions about Germany's recently revealed ethnic problems, one that will become relatively more important in the coming years?

Kohl wanted to reduce Germany's Turkish population by one half

Especially in light of the fact that Germany was home to one of the 9/11 terror cells?

The Hamburg connection

German prosecutors said the Hamburg cell consisted of eight members: three suicide pilots, three logistical planners and two others whose role remains vague, but who might also have become suicide pilots. The cell was active and embarking on the plot to attack US targets by the summer of 1999, the prosecutors said. Mohammed Atta, a wealthy Egyptian, is believed to have been a key figure in the Hamburg cell, but also the ringleader of all 19 of the 9/11 hijackers.

Or perhaps there was a concern about government links to neo-Nazis?

Germany shocked by secret service link to rightwing terror cell

An agent working for Germany's answer to MI5 was at the scene of one of the 10 murders carried out by neo-Nazi terrorists, the domestic intelligence agency has confirmed, fuelling speculation that the killers' movements were known to the authorities during their 13 years on the run.

Perhaps there is a concern about another country developing WMD with assistance from German companies?

HALABJA / ANFAL 1988 - 2013

in 2010 the German government stated in response to a parliamentary enquiry: “The responsibility for the events of Halabja lies with the past Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein.” Many documents and sources, though, not only suggest that German cooperation was essential for the Iraqi poison gas program. They also show that there was already some awareness about this in Germany back then. All the same, the relevant goods were delivered. ....

The German government is jointly responsible for the suffering of the people of Halabja. 70 percent of the equipment for Iraqi chemical weapons plants were delivered by German companies. German foreign intelligence service personnel had been present in at least one of these companies. Most parts to enhance Iraq’s rockets, grenades and missiles were delivered from Germany.

Since you want to follow conspiracy theories, how do you know that it wasn't a possible crypto-communist in the administration deliberately undertaking high risk activities with the US intelligence apparatus that were likely to be discovered, to expose it and cripple it prior to the end of the administration?

There are certainly many more possibilities than just the two you propose. The one thing obvious to me is that you are not a serious person.

If the big loss here is that people have to get to the airport an hour earlier and walk through a metal detector, as they have had to do during many periods in the past, that isn't much of a loss. It is also unrelated to the terrorist's goals.

The Future of Terrorism: What al-Qaida Really Wants

If the terrorists "won," then it happened decades ago, during the problems with Palestinian hijackings, and hijackings to Cuba in the 1960s and 1970s. Various security measures were put in place at that time, including metal detectors, and armed guards with machine pistols at many European airports. Then the terrorists apparently inexplicably lost, and the measures become lighter, and then heavier, and then lighter, and now heavier again.

The current security procedures that not that onerous, and people continue to fly despite them. If you think the terrorist goal is to make everyone arrive an hour earlier at the airport and walk through a metal detector, you fundamentally misunderstand their goals. Maybe you should read this for a start:

The Future of Terrorism: What al-Qaida Really Wants
 

Bin Laden's stated goal was not to turn the west to Islam. Why would he want a bunch of white devils screwing up his precious Islam. He hated us remember?

Islam is open to people of all races. It isn't a question of race, and I'm not sure how you got that.

In his letter to America, Bin Laden's first demand was for conversion to Islam. That is consistent with al Qaida's long term goal of bringing about Muslim rule of the world under their variety of Sharia law. Providing such a warning is also consistent with the demands of their culture in making holy war.

Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America'

(Q2) As for the second question that we want to answer: What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?

(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.

As to your Bin Laden quote, that is only to achieve an intermediate aim of reducing the US ability to resist their goals. The long range goal is the same - conversion to Islam, or destruction.

The Future of Terrorism: What al-Qaida Really Wants

Yes I better rethink my comments about MI5, MI6, BND and GCHQ.
All organs of the State are doing glorious work.
I will not longer recall http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/spy-scandal-german-intelligence-officers-detained-in-kosovo-a-592298.html
and have already forgotten http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2434435/Ministry-Defence-urged-make-repatriation-ceremonies-low-key-reduce-body-bag-syndrome.html

The English translation of the German magazine, Der Spiegel.

Portugal has had an interesting experience with Decriminalization: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060.html

Making drug users into felons is not a net positive for society, but man the prison industry sure benefits!

I'll say. And you know who's to blame, right? When will they learn? Appeasement is the path to peace, right?

Besides, the very idea of third world peoples having their own goals is absurd.

"Germany's Energy Poverty: How Electricity Became a Luxury Good" Spiegel 09/04/2013

German consumers already pay the highest electricity prices in Europe. But because the government is failing to get the costs of its new energy policy under control, rising prices are already on the horizon. Electricity is becoming a luxury good in Germany, and one of the country's most important future-oriented projects is acutely at risk.

Spending money on a bullshit "green" scams does not benefit mankind either. Green energy with Democrats in power is like defense with Republicans in power, a buzzword to facilitate transfer of taxpayer money to private hands.

A non-troll post that would probably not get the same treatment would have been written something like this:
"Green energy programs in the past have not been very effective. After spending $90 billion on them, green sources still account for only 7.3% of energy consumption. This will be just yet another waste of money."

These two texts don't purvey the same meaning though, the first one's contempt gives information that he thinks something like the policies are a failure on purpose. There is something interesting and I can relate to it, though maybe from a different perspective than the original poster. Yes bullshit "green" scam is a flamebait, there should be a way to insult democrats and subsidized corporations without the hidden implications from insulting the "green" word. Your message gets ignored in the end, you can write something better next time..

(addressing the issue rather than the meta-issue : from a radical left-wing and pro-environment perspective it seems the so-called green subsdizing is a scam, that looks like Germany's energy policy : huge, arbitraries subsidies and distorting regulations to favor wind and solar, that in effect are corporate welfare paid by everybody and leads to increased CO2 emissions because of the incoherence and actual strong reliance on fossil fuels to make it work. There's an awesome read here http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/high-costs-and-errors-of-german-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288.html )

They failed after being there for 500 years. The first 400 must have been warm enough to keep them there and in good health.

It was only later that the climate cooled, and they were forced to change their lifestyle, and finally leave Greenland.

So my point stands: When it was that warm in Greenland, it was certainly warm in Canada and Alaska. So where did the polar bears live, if warmer water is lethal to them?

.
PS. This article says the Vikings actually adapted to the colder climate, and ate more seal meat as their livestock dwindled over the colder years. They only left in the end because they couldn't trade for needed materials anymore.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/archaeologists-uncover-clues-to-why-vikings-abandoned-greenland-a-876626.html

in hoc to

Off-topic pedantry: the expression's in hock to...

No, no, it's not in hock, although that does rhyme -- read the slide! It says MyNOC .

It makes perfect sense. Chewing on the cables.

Cheers,

The global average temperature is still trending up.

Source 1
Source 2
Source 3

Many more available online.

I read your first sentence and stopped. When you begin with a lie the rest of what you say is probably crap. Is this a case that if you say it enough people will just refuse to look up the truth for themselves?

Instead of living in fear, many people are living in denial. Your statement, "quit being dicks on the international stage and stop being involved in political coups" has nothing to do with al Qaida's goals. Nothing. Bin Laden's first demand in his letter of America was that the US convert to Islam. The second was, in short, to replace the Constitution with Sharia law. It looks like you are projecting your political beliefs instead of observing what it is that they actually want. That is a recipe for failure, a recipe for disaster. It is more of the same: Westerners not listening to third world peoples, and their goals - a complaint I expect you would recognize. They are aggressive imperialists that want to turn the clock back 1,000 years to when their civilization was powerful, and directly threatened Europe with conquest, not some randomly aggrieved anti-colonialists.

The Future of Terrorism: What al-Qaida Really Wants

Claiming that an enemy that has managed to kill 3,000 people in a single day "isn't a threat" isn't rational, it isn't fear, it's denial.

We know, pretty much, since the mid-1800s (starting with Fourier) what effect that CO2 will have on our atmosphere. We monitor it both in amount and radioisotope and it matches expectations pretty much spot on.

By the way, here's a source that completely contradicts your assertion: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-hans-von-storch-on-problems-with-climate-change-models-a-906721.html One choice quote:

Storch: If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models. A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario. But even today, we are finding it very difficult to reconcile actual temperature trends with our expectations.

I rest my case. You are plain wrong. So, are you lying or ignorant?

Oh, is that why the lead author of the IPCC report explicitly said that their models don't match reality over the last 20 years?

Care to provide a source for that? What did he say, exactly?

Reality has proven the models wrong.

Again, according to what data? Something you read on a blog, or can you point to actual measurements (and please without cherry-picking endpoints -- that way you can manufacture any trend)?

Sure, and thanks for asking. This interview is what I'm referring to. Here are a few quotes from it:

SPIEGEL: Just since the turn of the millennium, humanity has emitted another 400 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, yet temperatures haven't risen in nearly 15 years. What can explain this?

Storch: So far, no one has been able to provide a compelling answer to why climate change seems to be taking a break. We're facing a puzzle. Recent CO2 emissions have actually risen even more steeply than we feared. As a result, according to most climate models, we should have seen temperatures rise by around 0.25 degrees Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past 10 years. That hasn't happened. In fact, the increase over the last 15 years was just 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.11 degrees Fahrenheit) -- a value very close to zero. This is a serious scientific problem that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will have to confront when it presents its next Assessment Report late next year.

SPIEGEL: How long will it still be possible to reconcile such a pause in global warming with established climate forecasts?

Storch: If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models. A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario. But even today, we are finding it very difficult to reconcile actual temperature trends with our expectations.

SPIEGEL: What could be wrong with the models?

Storch: There are two conceivable explanations -- and neither is very pleasant for us. The first possibility is that less global warming is occurring than expected because greenhouse gases, especially CO2, have less of an effect than we have assumed. This wouldn't mean that there is no man-made greenhouse effect, but simply that our effect on climate events is not as great as we have believed. The other possibility is that, in our simulations, we have underestimated how much the climate fluctuates owing to natural causes.

Back to my reply. You said:

The sun is accounted for! We can measure the solar irradiation, and it hasn't increased recently. The sun has been in the models all the time, and it needs to be to for them to match measured data, for obvious reasons. What kind of idiots do you take climatologists for? Yes, the sun has caused some of the warming, primarily during the first half of the 1900s. Now, it's the CO2.

Did you read the link I posted? Here, I'll quote it again:

“What my papers say is that the IPCC [United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] view is erroneous because about 40-70% of the global warming observed from 1900 to 2000 was induced by the sun.” --physicist Nicola Scafetta, Duke University

I'm not a physicist, so I'm not qualified to offer an opinion as he is. But if you have a good rebuttal for Scafetta's argument--and note that he cites the entire century, not just the second half--please do share it.

So, as requested, I have pointed you to claims made by actual scientists. Feel free to provide the same for your side--I'm sure there are similar quotations available online which would contr

Every gov knows what Russia, the UK and US do with their "Consulate" floors

Oh come now A., the club is bigger than that! The majority of countries get in on the spy game at some level.
The Germans: The German Prism: Berlin Wants to Spy
Very involved in the current crisis: Assad did not order Syria chemical weapons attack, says German press
The Finns and Swedes can't be left out: Supo wants expanded net surveillance powers
Nor the French: France 'runs vast electronic spying operation using NSA-style methods'
The club is bigger still: Think US snooping is bad? Try Italy, India orCanada
Thousands of Russian spies in US: ex-CIA agent
Gordievsky: Russia has as many spies in Britain now as the USSR ever did
Chinese Spies Targeting U.K., MI5 Warns
But of course! Chinese use honeytraps to spy on French companies, intelligence report claims
Germany accuses China of industrial espionage
Germany targets Russian, Chinese spies
Spies in Sweden mostly from China, Russia, Iran
Number of Foreign Spies on the Rise in Finland
Austrian capital ‘filled with Iranian spies’
Foreign spies targeting Polish shale - Natural Gas Europe
Spain arrests three suspected of spying for Iran
Russia warns Ireland it will retaliate in spy row
FBI releases papers on Russian Irish spies in US - ‘Ghost Stories’

Sometimes the trails can get very complicated.

For some reason this video comes to mind: Its a Small World

I.e. no problem, so long as we aren't spying on him.

Don't worry, they can spy back.

The German Prism: Berlin Wants to Spy Too

Maybe we in the USA are the only ones conscious of these egregious violations of the American ideal and tradition of open and accountable government?

Or maybe we're not. (Perhaps, in that case, more like the German ideal of open and accountable government, due to somewhat recent memories of other traditions.)

First, don't come crying when this gets modded "troll". Your post is offtopic and likely to provoke an emotional response, even more so given its source (citing The Blaze is only a small step above starting a sentence with "Glenn Beck said" and we all know what that does). For the sake of balance, here's a different view (which also would have served your point).

Second, because I'm in a mood to feed a troll, the EU-US debate on homeschooling is a complex one because of the huge differences in schooling systems and philosophy. A lot of European countries do indeed forbid homeschooling - I grew up in such a country and I support those laws. At the same time, I feel having similar laws in the US would be the most terrible idea. It's very difficult to explain this, and I'm half-expecting to get flamed to hell by American libertarians (again), but allow me to give it a try.

The country I come from has in its constitution not only a right for everyone to receive primary and secondary schooling at no cost, but also a duty for all children under 18 to complete secondary school (which means that one can drop out, but only when reaching adulthood). There are different "levels" of schools depending on the child's mental capacity; parents can start their child off at any level they choose (and there are professionals available to help with that choice), but if the child fails a year repeatedly (I believe it's 3 times), they'll have to go one level lower. In order to be legal, schools need to be accredited (and the criteria for accreditation are set by a politically independent commission), but in return they get subsidies that make them virtually free. Compared to what I heard from American parents and other expats who have children, the uniform quality of the free education in my home country is something rarely seen of in the US. As for religion, there is a (relatively small) number of hours per week dedicated to that, during which the classes are split up per religion. Parents are of course free to supplement these hours after school. Public schools are required by law to offer every student the religion of their (or their guardian's) choice, even if that means the school has to hire a part-time Islam teacher for only 3 pupils. There are also Christian schools who (I believe) don't need to follow this rule but otherwise have to go through the same accreditation. For atheists and such, in the public schools, the "religion" hours are filled with classes during which pupils are stimulated to develop independent critical thinking skills. These classes would typically pick a social issue (immigration, aids, drug addiction, poverty, the environment,...) for a few weeks and make the pupils read different standpoints on these issues, followed by an in-class debate; not a day passes by in which I don't wish Americans would get such classes.

So, in my home country, there is simply no good reason to homeschool your children: school is for free, you get to choose what religion your kid will be indoctrinated with and if you're an atheist you'll be happy to know they get pretty good critical thinking classes, and as far as the other subjects (history, geography, language, math, sciences) are concerned, the teachers are highly qualified and you'd have to be a polymath genius to offer your kids an equivalent level of knowledge and skills in the same subject areas. If you still want to homeschool nevertheless, then typically, something fishy is going on, like you want to keep your children out of society to brainwash them. Nobody is going to get better from that (especially not the children) so if you insist, you'll need to emigrate. Now in the US, thin

First, don't come crying when this gets modded "troll". Your post is offtopic and likely to provoke an emotional response, even more so given its source (citing The Blaze is only a small step above starting a sentence with "Glenn Beck said" and we all know what that does). For the sake of balance, here's a different view (which also would have served your point).

Second, because I'm in a mood to feed a troll, the EU-US debate on homeschooling is a complex one because of the huge differences in schooling systems and philosophy. A lot of European countries do indeed forbid homeschooling - I grew up in such a country and I support those laws. At the same time, I feel having similar laws in the US would be the most terrible idea. It's very difficult to explain this, and I'm half-expecting to get flamed to hell by American libertarians (again), but allow me to give it a try.

The country I come from has in its constitution not only a right for everyone to receive primary and secondary schooling at no cost, but also a duty for all children under 18 to complete secondary school (which means that one can drop out, but only when reaching adulthood). There are different "levels" of schools depending on the child's mental capacity; parents can start their child off at any level they choose (and there are professionals available to help with that choice), but if the child fails a year repeatedly (I believe it's 3 times), they'll have to go one level lower. In order to be legal, schools need to be accredited (and the criteria for accreditation are set by a politically independent commission), but in return they get subsidies that make them virtually free. Compared to what I heard from American parents and other expats who have children, the uniform quality of the free education in my home country is something rarely seen of in the US. As for religion, there is a (relatively small) number of hours per week dedicated to that, during which the classes are split up per religion. Parents are of course free to supplement these hours after school. Public schools are required by law to offer every student the religion of their (or their guardian's) choice, even if that means the school has to hire a part-time Islam teacher for only 3 pupils. There are also Christian schools who (I believe) don't need to follow this rule but otherwise have to go through the same accreditation. For atheists and such, in the public schools, the "religion" hours are filled with classes during which pupils are stimulated to develop independent critical thinking skills. These classes would typically pick a social issue (immigration, aids, drug addiction, poverty, the environment,...) for a few weeks and make the pupils read different standpoints on these issues, followed by an in-class debate; not a day passes by in which I don't wish Americans would get such classes.

So, in my home country, there is simply no good reason to homeschool your children: school is for free, you get to choose what religion your kid will be indoctrinated with and if you're an atheist you'll be happy to know they get pretty good critical thinking classes, and as far as the other subjects (history, geography, language, math, sciences) are concerned, the teachers are highly qualified and you'd have to be a polymath genius to offer your kids an equivalent level of knowledge and skills in the same subject areas. If you still want to homeschool nevertheless, then typically, something fishy is going on, like you want to keep your children out of society to brainwash them. Nobody is going to get better from that (especially not the children) so if you insist, you'll need to emigrate. Now in the US, thin

The Future of Terrorism: What al-Qaida Really Wants

Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America'

Q2) As for the second question that we want to answer: What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?

(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam. ...

(2) The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you.

(a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest.

We call you to all of this that you may be freed from that which you have become caught up in; that you may be freed from the deceptive lies that you are a great nation, that your leaders spread amongst you to conceal from you the despicable state to which you have reached.

(b) It is saddening to tell you that you are the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind:

(i) You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator....

HAMAS Targets Spain

Bonus:
UK: Muslim Gangs Enforce Sharia Law in London
AU: Muslim body wants 'moderate' sharia law but government rejects plan
SE: 'Separate laws for Muslims' idea slammed

The united states DOES do those things. Just not within their own boarders.
They are doing it now in Iraq and Afghanistan, they did it all the time in South America by funding and arming terrorist groups there.

Could you point out where the mass grave are that the US filled by deliberately killing entire towns? Where are the mass graves from the political opposition? You're simply wrong.

No, the US does not do what the Soviets and Germans did. That includes Iraq and Afghanistan. The reverse is true. The US put and end to Saddams filling of mass graves, and exposed them to the world. Some in the world oppose and protest putting an end to Saddam's reign of terror.

10 Years After the Fall of Saddam, How Do Iraqis Look Back on the War?

"Iraq, today, 10 years on from the war, from the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, is not what the Iraqi people hoped for and expected. We hoped for an inclusive democracy, an Iraq that is at peace with itself and at peace with its neighbors," Salih said. "To be blunt, we are far from that."

"But," he added, "it's important to understand where we started from. ... Literally hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were sent to mass graves. Ten years on from the demise of Saddam Hussein, we're still discovering mass graves across Iraq. And Iraqis are better off without Saddam Hussein -- the overwhelming majority of Iraqis are better off without Saddam Hussein."

Many more mass graves have been found since this next item:

Excavating Mass Graves in Iraq: The Bitter Search for Truth in the Desert Sand - 2005

Already some 300 mass graves have been excavated since the end of Saddam's reign of terror. Although exact figures on the number of victims vary depending on who is counting, the Iraqis estimate that at least 500,000 bodies lie in the mass graves. The evidence collected in the pits is not only important to give relatives peace of mind, but also to assemble evidence against Saddam Hussein when he stands trial.

You weren't feeding a troll, your post is a troll.

so can someone provide something directly from that,

That would be here , translated here.

Unless I'm not following the Translationese though, I can't see any mention of the Chinese in the network.

Why would any country trust a closed-sourced product produced by a US Technology firm?

Because the Chinese, French, Germans, British, Swedes, and Finns aren't much different?

Officials say Chinese spies have targeted every sector of the U.S. economy
Supo wants expanded net surveillance powers
The German Prism: Berlin Wants to Spy Too
Boeing Called A Target Of French Spy Effort

It's just that there is a combination of ignorance of the spying by other countries and disdain towards the US for not being quite European enough. Time will probably reduce that.