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Are you seriously going to contend that thousands of Catholics in Northern Ireland weren't beaten, killed, imprisoned, etc. during that conflict? Oh yes, Britain certainly has NO blood on its hands. It's not like they've invaded 9 out of 10 countries in the world at some point, or anything. Only those brutish Yanks would do that!

It's already started, there are more than a few people who are becoming "entrapped" in the online world, there was a guy who died (IRL) from playing games for too long: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1544131/Man-dies-after-7-day-computer-game-session.html

The lower demand for PCs in general is the fault of Windows 8.

That's a great concept, but very few people have time to just drive for the sake of enjoyment.

And there are people that enjoy driving for the sake of driving regardless of the situation.

Self driving car advocates want to take away manual driving from people that enjoy it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/9252275/Googles-robot-cars-pass-driving-test.html

Google is one off several firms racing to develop cars able to drive themselves. It is competing with car manufacturers as well as military firms to develop the technology. The web giant's executive chairman Eric Schmidt has argued that the fact that current vehicles rely on human drivers is a "bug".
"It's amazing to me that we let humans drive cars," he said in 2010 as Google ramped up its research,in partnetship with Stanford University.

What makes you think that ordinary ground based cars don't collide with buildings right now?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2204373/Couples-lucky-escape-speeding-car-crashes-UPSTAIRS-bedroom.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/9950976/Audi-TT-takes-off-and-crashes-into-house.html

The overall murder rate in the US is 2-3x that of Canada, and even greater than the rest of the "western" first-world democracies (Western Europe, Japan, Australia). The difference in firearm-related murders, of course, much higher.

I’m Glad That I Don’t Have Canadian Murder Rates Where I Live

The way more "violent crime" argument is apple and oranges. What the UK counts as violent crime is much different than what the US does.

England has worse crime rate than the US, says Civitas study

American Thinker should be renamed American Cherrypicker. Anyone who finds that site compelling is seriously lacking in the critical thinking department.

Some people are simply more critical of thinking that doesn't match their own.

Although the new technology may have an impact, it appears unlikely there will be significantly more restrictive gun control laws passed at the Federal level in the US. The public and the facts are against it overall. In various states, such as New York, Colorado, and California, there have been a number of new, highly restrictive laws passed, that at least in some cases are unpopular, are opposed by the police, and are unlikely to survive challenges in court. The brilliant governor in New York managed to get a law passed that outlawed even police weapons - New York is in the best of hands although California is a contender as well.

The idea that ordinary citizens can't protect themselves with guns is ridiculous.

Tough Targets - When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens
Stories That Happened In MI

What about the murder rate?

Murder by Numbers

Gun control's general effect on crime?

Two Cautionary Tales of Gun Control
Crime soared with Mass. gun law
England has worse crime rate than the US, says Civitas study

Self-Defense: An Endangered Right

The withdrawal of a basic right of Englishmen is having dire consequences in Great Britain, and should serve as an object lesson for Americans. Today, in the name of public safety, the British government has practically eliminated the citizens’ right to self-defense. That did not happen all at once. The people were weaned from their fundamental right to protect themselves through a series of policies implemented over some 80 years. Those include the strictest gun regulations of any democracy, legislation that makes it illegal for individuals to carry any article that could be used for personal protection, and restrictive limits on the use of force in self-defense. . . .

Political support for more restrictive nation gun control measures in the US has fallen.

USA Today: Support for gun control bill falls below 50%
During a manhunt, 69 percent of voters want a gun
NRA Has 54% Favorable Image in U.S
Dems push gun control agenda in DC, but not in battleground states

That no excuse, under the same rule you could pay women less because they have a period

Or you could pay women more because men behave better around women.

Yeah, I caught that in another reply already. Although that malaria figure has been shown to be massively under-estimated due to a lack of reporting.

However, there's still a way in which malaria is 'bigger' than cancer: there are many different kinds of cancers, not all of which can be fixed using a single mechanism. Each cancer is a separate and distinctive problem as far as medicine is concerned. Malaria, on the other hand, is only caused by a few parasites in one genus, and they cause the same symptoms via the same mechanism. Thus if you contribute to malaria research, your contribution will affect far more people than cancer research.

Apple on the other hand IS KNOWN to use tax avoidance, and we KNOW they made huge profits on which they paid very little tax, cheating people in countries all over the world.

Here is a quote from the Guardian "Apple is estimated to have avoided more than £550m in tax in Britain in 2011. Its latest accounts show UK turnover at just over £1bn and profit at £81.3m, generating a tax bill of £14.4m." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/9829894/Apple-shelters-almost-1bn-a-week-from-US-tax-man.html

I believe your favourite mega corporation right now famously borrowing money specifically to avoid paying tax :) iBonds I believe they are calling them.

Don't confuse revenue with profits, even though there's some horrible scheming going on. First, Apple UK had revenue of £1B, and a profit of £81.3M. They paid £14.4M in taxes, for a tax rate of 17.8% (because it's paid from profits). Of course, the scheme is Apple Ireland is overcharging Apple UK for product, so all the profits are hidden inside Apple Ireland.

As for iBonds - yes, that's because the interest rate on bonds is so low, borrowing is cheaper than repatriating the cash. First, Apple's one of the few companies with zero debt, so they can take on debt and be like most other companies. Second, interest rates are horrendously low. Third, repatriating the cash would mean paying taxes on that money, and the tax rate is higher than the interest rate. Thus it's cheaper in the long run for Apple to take on debt and pay a piddly amount of interest, than the repatriate the cash and pay more to remain out of debt than what they'd pay on interest.

Unfortunately, there's no easy way to fix it - most companies do this because it is cheaper in the long run to take on debt in the US than to repatriate cash.

Did you read that link before posting it? It links to this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/9740964/Margaret-Hodge-MP-apology.html

I think you mistook The Torygraph attacking a Labour MP for the hell of it for real actual factual reporting.

Google on the other hand IS KNOWN to use tax avoidance

Apple on the other hand IS KNOWN to use tax avoidance, and we KNOW they made huge profits on which they paid very little tax, cheating people in countries all over the world.

Here is a quote from the Guardian "Apple is estimated to have avoided more than £550m in tax in Britain in 2011. Its latest accounts show UK turnover at just over £1bn and profit at £81.3m, generating a tax bill of £14.4m." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/9829894/Apple-shelters-almost-1bn-a-week-from-US-tax-man.html

I believe your favourite mega corporation right now famously borrowing money specifically to avoid paying tax :) iBonds I believe they are calling them.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9784044/China-blazes-trail-for-clean-nuclear-power-from-thorium.html

I bet that the turbines can be built better to last much longer.

Perhaps, but better turbines also cost more. What does that do to the bottom line?

Solar energy is still much more expensive than nuclear or wind, although it's getting there.

Solar panels already pay for themselves. The question is, how long does it take. People will install solar roof panels even without subsidies if the payback period is short enough.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/02/how-much-does-solar-cost/

The gas thing, $10 billion sounds like a lot, but it's over 7 years or more, it's not as bad as it sounds

First, the U.K. spent a lot of money to build out wind. Now, the U.K. must spend a whole lot more money because the wind is not reliable. So, this money, whether it is as bad as it sounds or not, is in addition to the already a lot of money the citizens in the U.K. have spent.

See also: "The U.K. government's effort to expand renewable energy generation will boost household electricity bills by 54 percent by 2020."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-14/u-k-green-energy-plans-boost-power-bills-54-by-2020.html

wind is otherwise cheaper than nuclear anyway.

Nuclear is mostly expensive because of the lawsuits and delays. If wind power was plagued with similar levels of lawsuits and delays, cost of wind power would similarly skyrocket.

And wind power is not suitable for base load, whilst nuclear power is.

Also, although you probably can get that high pressure front effect sometimes, wind speeds are generally higher in winter.

The U.K. has already decided that wind power alone is not reliable enough to provide power, and natural gas backup is required.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/6957501/Wind-farms-produced-practically-no-electricity-during-Britains-cold-snap.html

Please provide a reference to support your claim that wind power generation will increase during winter... I'm keen to read it.

Wikipedia seems to agree with you: the capacity factor numbers for winter are higher than for summer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_Kingdom#Variability_and_related_issues

wind is intermittent; but it doesn't melt down, and storage can be done with hydro, pumped hydro or electric cars

But you need to plan to replace the wind turbines about every 12 years, and this cost must be factored in to the cost of the power.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/9770837/Wind-farm-turbines-wear-sooner-than-expected-says-study.html

Hydro is mature. All the good locations already have hydro plants; and environmentalists are trying to get existing hydro plants torn out to benefit river wildlife, so just forget about building new hydro plants.

I'm pretty sure pumped hydro storage is in a similar situation... you need a giant reservoir uphill of a source of lots of water you can pump. Where can you build a new one of these, and will the environmentalists approve?

Using a decentralized group of electric cars as an energy-storage system is an interesting idea, but I don't think you can dependably store very much that way in the near future.

I have hopes for molten-salt solar plants, which can keep producing power after the sun goes down because the salt holds so much heat. And it would be cool if we could work out a good way to use hydrogen to store excess energy from wind or solar... but it takes a lot of electricity to strip hydrogen out of water, and hydrogen is tricky to store.

And just as you will face opposition to building more hydro, you will face opposition to building solar in the desert.

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/its_green_against_green_in_mojave_desert_solar_battle/2236/

Nuclear is more expensive than wind, and is also poor at load following; you normally find nuclear needs hydro as well; because it's so expensive to build it runs flat out and then the hydro does the load following- nuclear is better for baseload.

I agree with your final statement; nuclear is indeed better for base load and not good at load-following. But probably natural gas is a better near-term way to reliably follow loads.

By all means get renewables into the mix, but don't make the same mistake the U.K. made, wasting huge sums of money on a system that doesn't work very well. (Right when demand is most heavy in winter, the wind farms stop producing. Quote: "In winter, when the most intense cold period coincides with a high pressure front, most wind turbines do not work.")

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/article-2008055/Energy-giants-want-billions-windfarms.html

One no-brainer idea: homes and businesses in warm places (Arizona, Florida, Texas, etc.) should have solar panels on the roof. This will produce peak power during peak demand times (when everyone is running the air conditioning, the sun will be shining). This is only a tiny part of the overall energy picture, though, and will happen on its own as the cost of solar panels keeps falling.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/7778401/Mobile-phones-responsible-for-disappearance-of-honey-bee.html

Just a theory with some scientific data to back it up - but go ahead and ban the colour blue.

The rest of the world thinks that attitudes to guns in the United States are pretty fucked up.

No, not the entire world, although certainly many Europeans and leftists in general. But here is some material for you to gain some insights.

Tough Targets - When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens
Stories That Happened In MI

Two Cautionary Tales of Gun Control

Self-Defense: An Endangered Right

The withdrawal of a basic right of Englishmen is having dire consequences in Great Britain, and should serve as an object lesson for Americans. Today, in the name of public safety, the British government has practically eliminated the citizens’ right to self-defense. That did not happen all at once. The people were weaned from their fundamental right to protect themselves through a series of policies implemented over some 80 years. Those include the strictest gun regulations of any democracy, legislation that makes it illegal for individuals to carry any article that could be used for personal protection, and restrictive limits on the use of force in self-defense. . . .

England has worse crime rate than the US, says Civitas study

Cheers

As exactly thisis forbidden in our cÃfuntry and mine.

No it isn't. If we had a dispute in the pub we could ask the ten blokes sitting at the bar to adjudicate if we both agreed. I know "arbitration" is a big word - ask teacher on Monday.

What was your point exactly?

The bit in italics. Or you could try this.

Either CNET crossed his creepy line, or maybe he shouldn't have been doing some things in the first place.

UK and catholic ? Really ?

If you count the number of people/services attended then yes.

Re: "control surveillance state is bollocks...."
The problem for the UK is the long term slide from a real judicial warrant to a bureaucratic warrant to a self signed police letter to your local council all "just having a look".
Recall:
Private watch lists:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/blacklist-thousands-of-construction-workers-denied-1469233
Less public review/press when caught legal vision
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2163799/UK-soldiers-beat-innocent-Iraqi-men-black-ops-jails-new-secret-justice-law-means-torture-hidden-forever.html
The "wish" lists:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/may/11/police-software-maps-digital-movements
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/government-may-sanction-chemical-incapacitant-use-on-rioters-scientists-fear-6612084.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9046668/UK-riots-paratroopers-are-trained-in-riot-control.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/apr/09/riot-control-chemicals-plastic-bullets
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2114601/Water-cannons-streets-months-Tear-gas-Tasers-police-wish-list-combat-riots.html
Going private:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jun/20/g4s-chief-mass-police-privatisation
Going "undercover" for a good few years :)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/20/undercover-police-children-activists

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/council-spending/9991351/Town-halls-join-rush-to-use-the-snoopers-charter.html
Many years ago if you where political a national task force would track you - telephone, car, protests, work, friends...
Years ago you faced the Forward Intelligence Teams (FITs) - maybe local but much more active with facial recognition.
What I find very chilling about this new vision for data collection and sharing is the low level of gov getting GCHQ like data powers e.g.. "council ... to snoop into the private lives of ordinary citizens"
Write too much about rates, parking costs, talking about a chauffeur-driven Mercedes expenses claim - the UK has few real whistleblowers laws.
Anyone with this new clearance been exposed e.g.. in an expenses claim story could go on a search deep into the private lives of staff until they 'find' something or a press contact.
With what your average isp keeps, anyone could rewind any digital life in the UK for a day, week, month based on working for a local gov?

If this is deemed as stupid as it sounds, especially in a supposedly free society and by a President that campaigned on unprecedented transparency, then this may be the start of something wonderful.

If you think that living in a free society with government transparency means you, and any random person that asks the janitor, librarian, or county judge, gets access to top secret intelligence data, encryption methods, war plans, nuclear release codes, the tax data from your neighbors, reviews of weakness in the security plans at the local nuclear plant, etc., etc., etc., then you haven't correctly identified where the label stupid should be attached in this discussion.

It would have been better to have started squawking about the Obama administration before the last election, don't you think?

Mr Obama's justice department has proposed that if documents requested by the public are exempt from freedom of information laws, federal agencies should be able to "respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist."

Transparency campaigners described the move as a "stunning" reversal of Mr Obama's pledge to run "the most transparent administration in history" during his campaign for the presidency.

In a joint statement, the American Civil Liberties Union, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and OpenTheGovernment.org said the plan threatens to "destroy integrity in government".

"It is very problematic," said Patrice McDermott, the director of OpenTheGovernment.org. "There are options open to them other than this nuclear option of lying to requesters".

The plan is the latest in a string of controversial moves by Mr Obama, who earlier this year even insisted on collecting an award for his commitment to transparency behind closed doors at the White House. --- Barack Obama accused of breaking transparency pledge

No, it was reported:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10005932/Boston-Marathon-victim-Jeff-Bauman-helped-identify-bombers.html

If you want to understand why Americans love their country so, go to a baseball game

A foreign company filing such a suit is a novel approach though.

Not at all, it's called, "forum shopping," and it made England a popular destination for libel lawsuits for a number of reasons.

Evidence submitted by the Media Law Resource Centre (MLRC)
New rules to discourage 'libel tourism' in Britain

I'll save you the suspense - you aren't getting it. The site exists to collect reports of defensive gun use by citizens. This phenomenon is claimed to not exist by some people, probably like you. Guns do more than protect people from other people with guns. They protect 80 year old men confronted by gangs, 89 year old women from home invaders, women fighting off multiple rapists, and enable a boy to save his family from kidnapping and sexual assault. This sort of thing happens regularly, but is often unreported. If you ban guns, then everyone is at the mercy of the strong and vicious. Things don't get nicer if you ban guns, you simply get more innocent victims. In fact, gun crime can increase. But then violent crime in much of Europe, including the UK, and Australia occurs at a much higher rate than in the United States anyway. The United States does have a higher murder rate than much of Europe, but there is some subtlety in that. European Americans commit murder at rates similar to other Europeans. Where do the rest come from? And no, the United States murder rate is not among the worst in the world, its actually in the middle overall, and much lower in many place in the US. Guns are a useful tool, make for pleasant sport, but they not magic as you seem to believe. I think you have a number of unexamined assumptions that aren't true.

Don't forget the IRA and their fundraisers in various US cities, including Boston.

The IRA were nasty. They wanted to cause alarm and panic, and they didn't mind too much if bystanders got hurt. But unlike the Muslims they did issue warnings. The killing and maiming was a not the primary aim, the panic and disruption was.

Yeah, it was just bad luck when a bomb they planted killed someone wasn't it?

Please.

The PIRA had the Public Relations sense to claim that they always gave adequate warnings and/or that they only ever targeted members of the army or police, but there were plenty of civilians who were maimed or killed anyway.

When they bombed pubs in Guildford because they were popular with squaddies, oddly enough there were civilians in those pubs too.

I suppose they had to at least appear "reasonable" terrorists in order to continue fleecing their braindead supporters in the US, who might have balked at the thought that their money was paying to cripple women and children.

Then you can't remember very far and should probably avoid the topic given that fact.

"Really? What race am I discriminating against? What race am I? Go on tell"

Look, I don't play games. I have zero respect for people who like to pretend they're the good citizen, that they're objective, fair, sensible, rational individuals and that this is nothing to do with race because they "have friends who are muslim" and so on. I prefer to call a spade a spade, and you're likely discriminating against people who aren't white caucasian Westerners.

You are completely full of bullshit here. Do you really think that I somehow admire white Muslims or black Muslim terrorists but only feel outrage at brown ones?

If you hold a political view at least have the courage of your convictions to accept it and admit you're part of the far right and a fascist.

You are wrong, my politics are probably slightly left of centre. Read the Qur'an and listen to the words of Muslim clerics and you will see how anyone who believes in tolerance, equality, justice for all, and freedom of expression should opose Islam

The IRA were nasty. They wanted to cause alarm and panic, and they didn't mind too much if bystanders got hurt. But unlike the Muslims they did issue warnings. The killing and maiming was a not the primary aim, the panic and disruption was.

That is bollocks. The IRA (who were funded largely by Americans) were clearly trying to kill people. They did issue warnings, but those warnings were often misleading. The warnings often encouraged police to evacuate the public into areas where a real second bomb was waiting. This happened often enough, and with enough specificity, that the only reasonable interpretation is that the IRA wanted more people to die.

And fuck you very much for attempting to relativise the actions of a bunch of murdering scum.

Don't forget the IRA and their fundraisers in various US cities, including Boston.

The IRA were nasty. They wanted to cause alarm and panic, and they didn't mind too much if bystanders got hurt. But unlike the Muslims they did issue warnings. The killing and maiming was a not the primary aim, the panic and disruption was.

Any links to stormfront you want to share?

You could have done something useful like provide a link yourself, as it is trivially easy information to find, or a counter-point. Instead you go, predictably, to the smear. It would be great if you would make a positive contribution.

Al Qaeda magazine on pressure cookers: ‘Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom’
Boston Marathon bombs: al-Qaeda's Inspire magazine taught pressure cooker bomb-making techniques

Get a grip.

Politicians can use outside groups to intimidate opponents. There was a time when I would have thought this absurd in a nation like Canada, but the degree of hate the left is indulging today makes it plausible to me. Anyhow, reminding these people they need take care not to be associated with criminality isn't a bad thing.

You're only human...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9989623/Feeling-of-being-watched-hardwired-in-brain.html

"our arms are ready to fire and the exact coordinates are input to the warheads. Once we push the button, it will be fired, and the strongholds of our enemies will be turned to a sea of flames.''

The official statement from Mr Kim's regime kept up the barrage of inflammatory rhetoric, telling "all foreign institutions and enterprises and foreigners including tourists" in South Korea to "take measures for shelter and evacuation". It added: "The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching close to a thermonuclear war due to the evermore undisguised hostile actions of the United States and the South Korean puppet warmongers."

I have no idea if these are accurately translated.

freakin' corrupt gubbamint, shit on the little guy while letting corporate malefactors walk off with the henhouse.

'Fascist Dictatorship' is verging on hate speech.

Dictatorship of the Proletariat should be no more loved a term than "Fascist Dictatorship," but for some reason it gets a pass. That should be the last thing that happens, given the record - 100,000,000 killed in the last 100 years. (And don't look now - North Korea might just be warming up.)

The 1970s, when many of the communications were written, were probably both the high point of Communist and Soviet Power and the struggle between Communism and freedom. It is unlikely that Communism would have collapsed as soon as it did in Eastern Europe, and most of the world, if freedom hadn't endured in the West to give aid and hope to the oppressed, and some remember that.

So, when will Wikileaks start releasing Soviet and Communist archive material? Thats right, Assange probably doesn't consider them "bastards" to be crushed. Well, he going to Ecuador if he can, isn't he?:

The following human rights problems continued: isolated unlawful killings and use of excessive force by security forces, sometimes with impunity; poor prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; corruption and other abuses by security forces; a high number of pretrial detainees; and corruption and denial of due process within the judicial system. President Correa and his administration continued verbal and legal attacks against the independent media. Societal problems continued, including physical aggression against journalists; violence against women; discrimination against women, indigenous persons, Afro-Ecuadorians, and lesbians and gay men; trafficking in persons and sexual exploitation of minors; and child labor.

The "British billion = 10^12" went out of use in the 1970's. The Brits use the same billion=10^9 as everyone else.

No a billion is still 10^12. That has never changed. But because Americans usually get it wrong, the British now uses the American billion when speaking about money, but the real billion when speaking about everything else. Of course billions are rarely used for anything other than money.

I think you are a little out of date:

• The Times counting people
• New Scientist counting years
• The Daily Telegraph counting YouTube viewers

The Economist Pocket Style Book recommended 10^9 for "billion" back in 1986.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8570506/Police-covered-up-violent-campaign-to-turn-London-area-Islamic.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1374443/Police-hid-abuse-60-girls-Asian-takeaway-workers-linked-Charlene-Downes-murder.html
http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/muslim-paedophile-gangs-have-been-operating-%E2%80%9Cdecades%E2%80%9D-admits-former-police-chief
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/14/iran-gay-men-executed-hanging_n_1515207.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/07/iran-executes-men-homosexuality-charges
http://www.gaypatriot.net/2006/11/27/gay-holocaust-in-iran-4000-killed-and-counting/
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/03/26/disgust-over-muslim-wife-beating-book
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2012/03/23/19543371.html
https://www.google.ca/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=police+in+UK+scared+of+muslims&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&redir_esc=&ei=PpFhUd0HwpaIAojLgagO#hl=en&gs_rn=8&gs_ri=psy-ab&tok=YRHZtAg-ihnWR_44H-nTgw&pq=muslim%20wife%20beating%20canada&cp=11&gs_id=9oj&xhr=t&q=islam+acid+attacks&es_nrs=true&pf=p&client=ubuntu&hs=AVY&channel=fs&sclient=psy-ab&oq=islam+acid+&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.44770516,d.cGE&fp=d05afac0920070b6&biw=1390&bih=672r
I could post links for you all day but it would be pointless you love Islam because it lets you be a terrorist and get away with it because people are to scared to stand up to terrorists of the false prophet Muhammad. Your above post is exactly what your Muhammad stands for, way to represent he must be proud.

You forgot to post a link to that quote. Here it is:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7875584/Barack-Obama-Nasa-must-try-to-make-Muslims-feel-good.html

Let's remember:
"Mr Bolden said: "When I became the Nasa administrator, he [Mr Obama] charged me with three things.
"One, he wanted me to help reinspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.""

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7875584/Barack-Obama-Nasa-must-try-to-make-Muslims-feel-good.html

Unless there are muslims to assuage on the Moon, we're not going back.

I'm afraid you've got a bit of a cock-up on the history front. You would benefit from reading a following, an excerpt of which is below: Who armed Saddam? - Some reality checks

Saddam's weapons came overwhelmingly from the Soviet Union & other Soviet Bloc countries (69% during this period), followed by France (13%) and China (12%) and a string of smaller suppliers. (For example, according to a 1984 SIPRI report, "During 1982-83, Iraq accounted for 40% of total French arms exports.") The figure for the US is 1%.

When it comes to Saddam Hussein's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs, the picture is a little more complex. It seems clear that France was far and away the biggest supplier for the nuclear weapons program. Supplies for Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons (which included dual-use materials also suitable for making agricultural fertilizer, pesticides, medicines, etc.) were bought from a variety of sources, which seem to have been primarily western European or Russian and primarily private rather than governmental. For one discussion of the role played by German firms, for example, in supplying Saddam Hussein's poison-gas and biological-weapons programs, see The leading role of Germany in arming Iraq

-----

A lot of the serious trouble in the ME has snowballed from the "Iran hostage crisis",

Change "Iran hostage crisis" to Iranian Islamic Revolution and you'll be closer to the truth. You would have made a huge mistake if you overlooked the role of ambition and scheming on the part of Persian, Arab, Muslim, nationalist, and socialist in the Middle East.

Blaming the woes of the Middle East on the United States and flashing pictures of Rumsfeld may be great fun, but it is also greatly off the mark. No American made Saddam use Oil for Food money to buy influence, weapons, and build 20 odd enormous palaces instead of buying medicine and food for his people. No American made Arafat steal a billion dollars from the Palestinians. There are plenty more examples of that. Much of their misery is self-made.

Reality doesn't seem to be a strong suite of at least some Britons. Like the Prime Minister.

Ultimately, claiming that the only way to ensure accountability is the profit motive is claiming that government itself doesn't and can't work.

You're right as far as I'm concerned. Once you decide government by its nature can't be held accountable, then nobody can be ultimately because government (or anything in its stead) perform similar roles and similar accountability issues whether for profit or not.

I'd say that the accountability problems of government are less due to the profit motive (though it does help) and more due to the vast size and complexity of modern governments.

For example, the UK government recently implemented changes in their disability benefits laws. They implemented some stringent medical tests (as I understand it) for determining whether someone had sufficient disability to qualify for incapacity benefits (which I gather among other things meant too disabled to work).

The end result was about two thirds of people came off the rolls completely (which ended up being more than 2% of the UK's total population!). More than half of those (878,000 people) excluded chose not to go through the tests at all. So how much of this was expected?

Apparently, the UK government had determined that more than a billion pounds were lost over six years due to fraud.

According to this news story, the average cost of incapacity benefits were almost 4,400 pounds per claimant per year. That ends up being about 3.8 billion pounds per year saved from the people who chose not to undergo the new tests for incapacity. It's possible that a measurable portion of that wasn't fraud, but I suspect most of it was fraud of some sort. Meaning the government was off in its estimates of fraud by probably a factor of 20.

This is what I think accountability means in a modern government. No one knows how much fraud there is, even to an order of magnitude. But when they put in accountability for it, a lot of the consumption magically goes away.

Why is that? Is it their diet? Or is being big considered attractive in their culture?

They live on Spam fritters, Spam "Musubi", etc.

Ref: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1578329/Spam-at-heart-of-South-Pacific-obesity-crisis.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_Pacific

How may more KG does being tall add over being a fucking huge fat fuck? Tall people get loads of advantages over short and earn more. Look here is a link to prove that, so it must be true. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/5887567/Tall-men-earn-more-than-shorter-colleagues-research-claims..html

Try talking to someone who's actually lived in Cuba and then escaped.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/cuba/9801095/Cuba-ends-exit-visa-requirement.html

"I wanted to go to Venezuela. But it turns out you have to have permission from them!"

Cubans, like those of most other developing countries, will still find it difficult in many cases to get visas from wealthier nations like the US. Several European diplomats in Havana said their embassies have received a high volume of calls from would-be travellers unaware that they would still need a visa, despite a campaign in official Cuban media to clarify the new requirements.

Hmmm, so why are they not allowed to escape their "tyranny" now? Why isn't US granting landed immigrant status to every single one in Cuba wanting to leave tomorrow?

It is *all* politics. And if you just listen to the "survivors" and "escapees" and the like, you just know one side of the story. Just like that story about Saddam's mobile WMDs program, drug labs in semis and secret underground cities.

Economic migration is nothing new. It happens all the time. Everything else is bullshit.

As for political prisoners and asylum seekers, well, Julian Assange anyone? Lots and lots of other examples. There is no special countries.

PS. Childhood mortality rates in Cuba are lower than in the US, primarily because of universal heathcare in Cuba. US is the only wealthy nation in the world that does not provide healthcare coverage to its population!

Private health insurance means that everyone pays a premium dependent on their risk level. An NHS type system means people pay a premium based on their income level.

So with private health insurance I don't really care if you live an unhealthy lifestyle. With an NHS type system I do - my taxes will need to go up.

In fact in the UK there have been proposals to remove NHS treatment for people who injure themselves when drunk

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theoneshow/2010/02/should-boozers-foot-the-bill-f.shtml

I work for the NHS on the frontline, and binge drinking is a huge problem, but you can't charge drinkers, unless you charge the smokers and the fatties for the illness their choices cause. You'd even have to charge sportsmen who damange their ligaments running!

http://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2012-03-07/health-trusts-restrict-treatment-to-those-with-unhealthy-lifestyles/

A nationwide Freedom of Information request by the medical magazine Pulse revealed many types of surgery, MRI scans and IVF treatment are being withheld from obese people and smokers.

In the Anglia region, NHS Bedfordshire has barred obese patients from hip and knee surgery until they loss 10% of their weight or their Body Mass Index drops below 35.

NHS North Essex requires patients to lose at least 5% of their weight, and keep it off for 6 months.

While NHS Hertfordshire patients must have a BMI under 30, while smokers have to attend a stop smoking course to have any type of surgery.

Lawyers warn that health authorities risk being sued by patients if they can prove they've been discriminated against.

It's particularly risky in places like the UK where the rich pay most of the income taxes but the poor tend to have unhealthy lifestyles.

E.g.

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/tax-28258

In 2009-10, the top 1% of Income Tax payers were responsible for 13.9% of declared income before tax. Conversely, the same group paid some 26.5% of the money taken by HMRC in Income Tax. These figures are very close to those cited by Mr Redwood, albeit slightly different.

and

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9819607/Minister-poor-families-are-likely-to-be-obese.html

According to Department of Health figures, the poorest children are almost twice as likely to be obese than the richest.

Government figures published last month showed that 24.3 per cent of the most deprived 11 year-olds in England were obese, compared with just 13.7 per cent of children from the wealthiest homes.

There's a strong incentive for the rich to support an authoritarian model whereby NHS treatment is withheld from the obese and smokers simply because the rich are less likely to be in that category.

Incidentally if you add in VAT and duty on tobacco and alcohol you find that the poor pay about the same percentage of their income in tax as the rich

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/household-income/the-effects-of-taxes-and-benefits-on-household-income/2009-2010/data---the-effects-of-taxes-and-benefits-on-household-income.xls Table 3

Still despite that there is an incentive for NHS trusts to deny treatment to people with unhealthy lifestyles - it cuts down on the expensive medical care you need to provide.

It's like in the US where you pay your premiums and then get denied treatme

Right side of this picture:

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02522/north-korea-jong-m_2522857c.jpg

OMG! Everybody! Run!

The great leader is an Apple Fanboy http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02522/north-korea-jong-m_2522857c.jpg

That should end this stupid war: move some of Apple production lines to the NK/SK frontier and let Kim brag about being the first to get an iWatch.

Funny, it could be him doing all those photoshops.