Slashdot Mirror

I'm all for saving electricity, but hate the false claims that the manufactures have. (i.e.18W florescent bulb is equivalant to 100W incandesent bulb - but when you replace it you'll see it's about as dim as a 40W ).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/6110547/Energy-saving-light-bulbs-offer-dim-future.html

I suggest you learn how to read studies, and then do so.

I'll start reading their studies when they stop selectively excluding data in order to produce the results they want.

I'll start reading their studies when they stop cherry-picking a time range for the study in order to produce the results they want. (The time range stuff is at the beginning of part 1; other issues are examined in that 4-part video series as well.)

I'll start reading their studies when they stop trying to avoid publishing in peer-reviewed journals, when they stop trying to sabotage the careers of scientists who disagree with them (same link), when they stop ignoring the objections of other scientists, and so on and so forth.

In short, why should I trust the conclusions of these "scientists" when they repeatedly demonstrate that they're interested in "proving" pre-determined results, often in exchange for large grants, rather than actually finding the truth?

I also wondered about this - maybe its something to do with the informal arrangement between the US and Sweden that he leaked before.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8202745/WikiLeaks-Swedish-government-hid-anti-terror-operations-with-America-from-Parliament.html

(sorry for linking to telegraph - came up first on google and I'm lazy!)

D

China is one massive real estate and banking bubble plus they are in the midst of an inflationary spiral they are barely able to contain.

Add anything to disturb that, like revaluation of the Yuan will cause the Mother of All Crashes.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8182605/Chinas-credit-bubble-on-borrowed-time-as-inflation-bites.html

To put it more simply, action against an existing regime is useless without organization. Organization depends on information. If you cut off the flow of information, you disrupt the organization, resulting in action that has minimal effect.

Euhm, have you been following the news ? This "disorganized" action had quite a bit of results ... (not that there's one hair on my head that believes these revolutions weren't planned for years, but for the sake of argument...). So organization ... pffft. Doesn't really matter. It's just a nice story "confirming" how "words are more powerful than the sword".

Action against an existing (non-democratic) regime is useless without violence. Violence on a large enough scale, mostly against innocents, people who have nothing to do with the government. That's what brings change. The terror the protesters bring, and the support that terrorizing anonymous strangers always seems to bring for any cause in our media.

The question that flows is simply "who can destroy more ?". In Egypt the answer was "the people", in Iran it wasn't the people.

And there's been more than enough of that.

Of course, this is much less sexy than "protesters/internet/twitter/bloggers overthrew the government" ...

And frankly, people seem to think that the revolution is over. This is shortsighted in the extreme. "Another victory for democracy" seems to be scheduled for tomorrow's headline, but this is far from certain : In Egypt, as in Tunisia, however the situation is different. Nobody cares for freedom, or at least, it's nowhere near the top of the priority list. The real cause of the "revolution" is low wages, massive unemployment (muslim nations make detroit's numbers look positively stunning), combined with rising food prices. In other words, the failure of the Mubarak government of providing the "bread and games" required to appease the populace. Of course, America is going to massively raise food aid to the Egyptian government in response to this, so that the new democratic government actually has a fighting chance. But there are huge conflicts waiting to be fought : most of all the muslim brotherhood vs ... well "sane Egypt" for lack of a better word. It mostly means everybody else. But this is a battle that still needs to be fought, and as soon as this party, and it's armed wing, Hamas, find out that they have nowhere near the support they think they have ... well, these guys are *not* known for handling rejection well, just ask the Palestinians.

The most stupid thing to do is to think that this revolution is about internet, freedom or any of that stuff. If we're really, really lucky, the American government might make it so that this is what gets written in the history books. Let's all pray the lie becomes the truth, for the entire middle east. But if Obama drops the ball even once ... there will be wars for decades and all there is to say is "God help us all".

Information about every Trident missile the US supplies to Britain will be given to Russia as part of an arms control deal signed by President Barack Obama next week. Defence analysts claim the agreement risks undermining Britains policy of refusing to confirm the exact size of its nuclear arsenal.

The fact that the Americans used British nuclear secrets as a bargaining chip also sheds new light on the so-called special relationship, which is shown often to be a one-sided affair by US diplomatic communications obtained by the WikiLeaks website.

Not knowing who has a gun and who doesn't will have the largest effect.

Bingo. These types of criminals know that a law-abiding citizen will not be carrying a gun in a city/state which does not allow it. This is just one reason why violent crime is more prevalent in those areas, all other conditions being equal.

Those two are best buddies, if I remember my wikileaks correctly.

Yeah, thought so WikiLeaks 'to highlight Putin and Berlusconi's special relationship'

One controls the Italian Mafia, one controls the Russian Mafia.

I notice that the story linked above doesn't substantiate the claim. The only reference appears in a teaser (above the byline) which I'm guessing might have been written by an editor rather than by the reporter. It's a helluva rumor to start--I've been seeing all over the place all day.

I think the following explains a lot, including the sexual assault allegations.

"Julian is incredibly like-able, incredibly enjoyable to be with – if you are agreeing with him. If you criticise him, he is very abusive. He has a very high IQ but very low EQ [emotional intelligence]." - Now Wikileaks suffers its own leaks

“I am the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier and all the rest,” Assange wrote Snorrason. “If you have a problem with me, piss off.”

“I believe that Julian has in fact pushed the capable people away,” Snorrason said in an interview with Wired.com. “His behavior is not of the sort that will keep independent-minded people interested.” -- Unpublished Iraq War Logs Trigger Internal WikiLeaks Revolt

At least four other senior WikiLeaks activists have also left, including the site's former spokesman, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who accused Mr Assange of "behaving like some sort of emperor", adding: "Our raison d'être was transparency, but we were not transparent ourselves."

Mr Domscheit-Berg and other ex-WikiLeaks staff will tomorrow launch a rival site, OpenLeaks, which promises to be "democratically governed by its members, rather than one group or individual." - Now Wikileaks suffers its own leaks

Why would any number of governments need to conduct a conspiracy against Wikileaks when they already have Assange's ego working in their favor?

Many journalists have fallen for the conspiracy theory of government. I do assure you that they would produce more accurate work if they adhered to the cock-up theory. —Sir Bernard Ingham

  “the enemy is making a false move, why should we interrupt him?” -- Napoleon

I think the following explains a lot, including the sexual assault allegations.

"Julian is incredibly like-able, incredibly enjoyable to be with – if you are agreeing with him. If you criticise him, he is very abusive. He has a very high IQ but very low EQ [emotional intelligence]." - Now Wikileaks suffers its own leaks

“I am the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier and all the rest,” Assange wrote Snorrason. “If you have a problem with me, piss off.”

“I believe that Julian has in fact pushed the capable people away,” Snorrason said in an interview with Wired.com. “His behavior is not of the sort that will keep independent-minded people interested.” -- Unpublished Iraq War Logs Trigger Internal WikiLeaks Revolt

At least four other senior WikiLeaks activists have also left, including the site's former spokesman, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who accused Mr Assange of "behaving like some sort of emperor", adding: "Our raison d'être was transparency, but we were not transparent ourselves."

Mr Domscheit-Berg and other ex-WikiLeaks staff will tomorrow launch a rival site, OpenLeaks, which promises to be "democratically governed by its members, rather than one group or individual." - Now Wikileaks suffers its own leaks

Why would any number of governments need to conduct a conspiracy against Wikileaks when they already have Assange's ego working in their favor?

Many journalists have fallen for the conspiracy theory of government. I do assure you that they would produce more accurate work if they adhered to the cock-up theory. —Sir Bernard Ingham

  “the enemy is making a false move, why should we interrupt him?” -- Napoleon

Now that WikiLeaks has competition, it would make sense to try and stop that competition. When you have a site like OpenLeaks that is all about anonymously leaking information, trying to say that they are not trusted with that would possibly hurt them. I think it is good there are multiple sources doing this. I don't see what WikiLeaks problem is with it. If they are truly in this to spread information to the masses, then the more sites that do it, the easier it will be for the information to get released.

So far the publicly available formula for Wikileaks has been:
1. Accept stolen documents
2. Put them on the web for people to download.
3.?
4. Profit!

Maybe #3 really isn't a blank, and competition from other sites would endanger it unless they coordinated what documents to make available, and when.

WikiLeaks sold classified intel, claims website's co-founder
One of the early members and co-founders of the tight-knit, secretive WikiLeaks operation charged today that the website and its co-founder, Julian Assange, sold intelligence information the site had obtained.

John Young, whose name was listed as the public face of WikiLeaks in the site's original domain registration, also alleged that the website is a lucrative business.

Young said he left the site in 2007 due to concerns over its finances and that WikiLeaks was engaged in the selling of documents.

Young was speaking today to WND senior reporter Aaron Klein on Klein's radio program on New York's WABC Radio.

"I think it is a money-making operation, no doubt," Young said of WikiLeaks.

"It follows the model of a number of other business intelligence operations. Selling intelligence information is a very lucrative field, and so they are following that model, usually cloaked in some kind of public benefit," he told Klein.

"But they are far from being the only one that does that," Young added. "It's a well-known business model.

See the inside story in "Intelligence Failure: How Clinton's National Security Policy Set the Stage for 9/11"

Asked specifically whether he was charging WikiLeaks with selling classified information and documents, Young replied, "Yes."

Klein then asked, "When you were at WikiLeaks initially, was your impression they were trying to sell information?"

Young responded, "Well, it only came up in the topic of raising $5 million the first year. That was the first red flag that I heard about. I thought that they were actually a public interest group up until then, but as soon as I heard that, I know that they were a criminal organization."

Now Wikileaks suffers its own leaks
Wikileaks is facing questions over its finances as lawyers for its alleged main source, Pte Bradley Manning, said they had not seen a penny of tens of thousands of dollars raised by the site to help pay for his defence and promised to them three months ago.
The development comes as a senior WikiLeaks activist told The Sunday Telegraph that she and others had resigned from the organisation because of their deep concern about its treatment of sources and "lack of transparency with relation to large sums of money".

This newspaper has learned that one of WikiLeaks's main funding channels, the Germany-based Wau Holland Foundation, has been issued with two official warnings by charity regulators after failing to file financial records.

It has also emerged that the online payment service PayPal, which last week cut off donations to WikiLeaks, suspended the site's account twice before, once under money laundering regulations.

WikiLeaks, which says its operating costs are about $200,000 (£125,000) a year, claims to have raised more than $1 million (£625,000) in donations

Although the GP post was a bit harsh, there is no denying that the BBC, one of the great institutions of British society, is biased as an institution. It has been admitted repeatedly by the BBC over the years on various matters (and you don't have to read it in the Daily Mail). Perhaps the first one I quote from 1994 helps explain the others.

Birts admits BBC has London bias - Friday, 25 March 1994
The BBC is too London- based and 'must make a huge leap forward in reflecting life, activity, culture and events in the whole of the UK,' John Birt, the corporation's director-general said yesterday.

In a speech in Glasgow, Mr Birt conceded that the BBC had 'developed far too much' in London, where more than 80 per cent of network television and radio programmes were made.

Yes, we are biased on religion and politics, admit BBC executives - 22.10.06
BBC executives have been forced to admit what critics have known for years - that the corporation is institutionally biased.

The revelation came after details of an 'impartiality' summit called by its chairman, Michael Grade, were leaked.

Senior figures admitted that the BBC is guilty of promoting Left-wing views and an anti-Christian sentiment.

They also said that as an organisation it was disproportionately over-represented by gays and ethnic minorities.

It was also suggested that the Beeb is guilty of political correctness, the overt promotion of multiculturalism and of being anti-American and against the countryside.

During the meeting, hosted by Sue Lawley, executives admitted they would happily broadcast the image of a Bible being thrown away - but would not do the same for the Koran.

BBC was biased against Thatcher, admits Mark Thompson - 02 Sep 2010
The BBC was "massively" biased against Margaret Thatcher and journalists allowed their left-wing politics to set the corporation's agenda, director-general Mark Thompson has admitted.
Critics of the BBC have long accused it of left-wing bias and a hatred of the former Tory leader.

Confirming their fears, Mr Thompson said: "In the BBC I joined 30 years ago there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people's personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the left.

"The organisation did struggle then with impartiality. And journalistically, staff were quite mystified by the early years of Thatcher."

Why the BBC ignored the Holocaust: Anti-Semitism in the top ranks of broadcasting and Foreign Office staff led to the news being suppressed, says Stephen Ward - 22 August 1993
ANTI-SEMITISM in the higher ranks of the Foreign Office and the BBC during the Second World War led to a policy which suppressed news about Germany's attempt to exterminate European Jews, new research will show this week.

The attitude was reinforced by a belief that the British population was anti-Semitic and that anti-German propaganda about atrocities in the First World War, which was often fiction, had made the public sceptical of such stories. Early in the war the Government and the BBC agreed that this time, British propaganda would contrast Nazi 'lies' with British truthfulness and a 'good clean fight'.

The main reason being Chinese contracts just seem like Chinese lanterns, so ephemeral.

I know exactly what you mean. But there's a way to deal with risk. Make small investments and don't be greedy. Worst that can happen is you lose your investment - but if it wasn't that much to begin with, who cares. If you go all in though, you are a fool and deserve to be parted from your money.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4640262/James-Bond-style-jetpack-powered-by-high-pressure-water-invented.html

You can't tell from the article itself, but apparently that's from the newspaper's archives and the piece was written in 2006. Here is basically the same story from a different paper: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/3340027/US-scientists-back-autism-link-to-MMR.html - this one has a time stamp.

Dr Stephen Walker seems not to have published on the issue. Five years later that probably means he didn't get any results worth publishing.

The only article I've found so far that explains this mystery is this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/6028780/What-is-the-Feed-over-Email-system.html

But this seems to say it requires a special server. In which case it seems like this is just an encoded version of the 2008 service "feed-my-email". it still has to have a special server that the user must communicate with.

I'm sorry to hear your child has autism — I can only imagine the difficulty of coping with something so generalized and poorly understood by modern science. You are also right: extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof; Wakefield has none. He's been stripped of his license. His paper has been retracted. And now it's come out that it was more than lacking in proof, it was a "deliberate fraud," to quote to editor of the BMJ (Dr. Godlee).

Of the 12 children in his study, children who supposedly developed entercolitis and then regressive autism after the MMR vaccination, only one of the 12 had regressive autism. Three didn't have autism at all. Five had developmental problems noted in their records before their MMR vaccine. The development of problems wasn't nearly as sudden as claimed (often months elapsed). Nine of the children's bowel tests were reported as "non-specific colitis" despite testing normal. Many of the children were recruited from lawyers who were hoping to sue the vaccine makers (can we say 'confirmation bias'?).

Most of these latter revelations have just come to light. I can only imagine how hard it must be to be in your position, to want to find an answer for causation. Especially if your child did have entercolitis and then regressive autism. But you should be aware that there isn't a shred of evidence to support this claim. Not a shred.

Also, Dr. Gupta is bordering on irresponsibility (imo) when he says to Gates, "There has been a lot of news about is there a connection with autism, for example. What do you make of all that? Dr. [Andrew] Wakefield wrote a paper about this [in The Lancet in 1998] saying he thought there was a connection." He may be a journalist, but he is a doctor first, and he could have formed his question in a way that more clearly stated what he surely knows to be facts (that Wakefield isn't licensed anymore, that the paper has been retracted and proven to be fraudulent). It's this sort of undue politeness in dancing around the truth that leave doubts in the minds of parents like yourself.

I've seen children dying of measles (in Kaduna State, northern Nigeria), and it's a terrible thing to have to see. In the case of Nigeria, it's a rumor about infertility drugs concealed in vaccines that led to a lot of resistance-to-consent amongst certain communities, and there too the damage of such a provably fraudulent statement has been a long time in undoing. I know it's tempting, maybe even easier to just believe whatever some conspiracy theorist says, but it's important to trust in the thousands of scientists who are advancing the science of saving lives, rather than the few psuedo-scientists who are trying to advance their own notoriety and financial positions.

The answer is they have not done either of these.

You are talking out of your ass. Apple sneaked in a kill-switch into the iphone and admitted it after the fact back in 2008. They are freaking patenting it. If you don't think they sell it to you backdoored, you are just being insanely naive. But hey, that's how Apple makes money: their niche is stupid people.

The answer is they have not done either of these.

You are talking out of your ass. Apple sneaked in a kill-switch into the iphone and admitted it after the fact back in 2008. They are freaking patenting it. If you don't think they sell it to you backdoored, you are just being insanely naive. But hey, that's how Apple makes money: their niche is stupid people.

That "turn off your wireless network when you know you won't use it" comment sent me clear over to Google's side. The last thing I want is someone who believes that's the appropriate response to be poking through people's personals.

What makes you think that's not a Google recommendation? This is the same company who's CEO said that if you don't like what Google is doing, just change your name.

Actually it wasn't in a deserted road but in Talpiot commercial district in Jerusalem (See this report).
Because of the time difference it blew off an hour early which was (I think) 7:30am instead of 8:30am. 8:30am would have been a very busy time. at 7:30am it was quite deserted.
Also, there was no suicide bomber -- the car was left to blow up with a timer.

"It's ridiculous, but science is being bullied in the US..."

There fixed that for ya.

Nice...
You know, the UK isn't part of the US, right?
Further:

Some 36 per cent of teachers quizzed [in the UK] said they believed a divine hand played a role in the creation of humanity, while 28 per cent said it should be raised in lessons.

Creationism is a plague which infects more than the US.
From wiki:

In 1986, the then minister of education Kjell Magne Bondevik proposed new education plans for the elementary and middle school levels which included skepticism to the theory of evolution and would hold that a final answer to the origin of mankind was unknown. The proposal was withdrawn after it had generated controversy.

It would appear Norway managed to fend off that attack, but you know it's bad if the education head is even suggesting it.

Now, granted it's worse in the US, but that's mostly due to the autonomy that states and towns have in selecting their curriculum.

Do you even know what The Scarlet Pimpernel was about? Your literary reference-fu is weak.

It's not my characterization - I'm making a reference to what others have called him. I also don't think he's an angel.

I apologize. That's just the first I've seen someone say that and it struck me as just wrong. That's....actually worse that a UK paper's 'journalist' doesn't know what the book was about, to compare the two like that. Assange would be more aptly compared to Zorro, if Zorro was a douchebag.

Do you even know what The Scarlet Pimpernel was about? Your literary reference-fu is weak.

It's not my characterization - I'm making a reference to what others have called him. I also don't think he's an angel.

*cue eerie music* May 3rd!


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/8279133/Duke-Nukem-Forever-gets-release-date.html

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/11607

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/6491195/Al-Gore-could-become-worlds-first-carbon-billionaire.html

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/al-gore-joins-the-vc-game-as-kleiner-perkins-partner/

There's plenty more. Gore stands to make hundreds of millions, if not billions from various green projects but most notably from carbon trading. Of course, it's not a conflict of interest, a politician would never lie to fleece the public, he's just "putting his money where his mouth is", poor fella, so just give him a break will you? I don't think he has any friends.

That's the point - now you won't have to wonder anymore.

I think there is still plenty to wonder about...

Now Wikileaks suffers its own leaks - 12 Dec 2010

... a senior WikiLeaks activist told The Sunday Telegraph that she and others had resigned from the organisation because of their deep concern about its treatment of sources and "lack of transparency with relation to large sums of money".

This newspaper has learned that one of WikiLeaks's main funding channels, the Germany-based Wau Holland Foundation, has been issued with two official warnings by charity regulators after failing to file financial records. ...

WikiLeaks, which says its operating costs are about $200,000 (£125,000) a year, claims to have raised more than $1 million (£625,000) in donations in the first eight months of this year alone, before most of its highest- profile leaks were published.

Since then, according to one person connected with the group, further "serious amounts of money" have come in, mostly in small sums through the WikiLeaks website. However, in its four-year existence, the group and its associated organisations have never produced any accounts.

WikiLeaks promised to publish accounts in August, but did not do so. It now says it will provide them by the end of the year.

I doubt Assange opened the Swiss account to stash the Wikileaks cash so that it could be revealed as part of this next round of leaks. So... that sounds like a lot of cash.... with no transparency...

I sort of wonder if this is an olive branch from Wikileaks to the US government. After all, the United States has been pressuring Switzerland to allow investigators to peek inside Swiss accounts for awhile now.

This isn't an olive branch at all. The US Government already achieved much of what it wanted in 2009.

A Swiss Bank Is Set to Open Its Secret Files
By LYNNLEY BROWNING - Published: February 18, 2009
UBS, the largest bank in Switzerland, agreed on Wednesday to divulge the names of well-heeled Americans whom the authorities suspect of using offshore accounts at the bank to evade taxes. The bank admitted conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and agreed to pay $780 million to settle a sweeping federal investigation into its activities.

It is unclear how many of its clients’ names UBS will divulge. Federal prosecutors have been examining about 19,000 accounts at the bank, but UBS ultimately may disclose the identities of only a few hundred customers. ...

As part of the settlement, UBS agreed to cooperate with a broad summons issued by the Justice Department to turn over the names. Under the terms of a so-called deferred prosecution agreement, the bank and its executives could be indicted if UBS didn’t identify the customers.

UBS has said it is closing the offshore accounts of its American clients. But under the deal with the United States authorities, the bank must provide periodic written evidence of that to prosecutors. UBS earned $200 million annually from the business.

Prosecutors suspect that from late 2002 to 2007, UBS helped American clients illegally hide $20 billion, letting them evade $300 million a year in taxes.

So no, this isn't Assange helping the US, it is Assange doing what he can to screw people with secrets (legal or otherwise).

I'm sure there is a word to describe the overall situation.... i.. something...

Under mansion arrest: Country bolthole lined up for WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange... as he begs judges not to reveal his address

Now Wikileaks suffers its own leaks - 12 Dec 2010

... a senior WikiLeaks activist told The Sunday Telegraph that she and others had resigned from the organisation because of their deep concern about its treatment of sources and "lack of transparency with relation to large sums of money".

This newspaper has learned that one of WikiLeaks's main funding channels, the Germany-based Wau Holland Foundation, has been issued with two official warnings by charity regulators after failing to file financial records....

WikiLeaks, which says its operating costs are about $200,000 (£125,000) a year, claims to have raised more than $1 million (£625,000) in donations in the first eight months of this year alone, before most of its highest- profile leaks were published.

Since then, according to one person connected with the group, further "serious amounts of money" have come in, mostly in small sums through the WikiLeaks website. However, in its four-year existence, the group and its associated organisations have never produced any accounts.

WikiLeaks promised to publish accounts in August, but did not do so. It now says it will provide them by the end of the year.

Didn't they just drop the two-war doctrine?

Oh yeah they did
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7140418/Pentagon-abandons-two-war-doctrine.html

John Coleman, the founder of the Weather Channel who is a complete skeptic about global warming. Ironic that's all.

I wonder if they have a turnip to sell me.

Or how about this honkin' radish (being examined by Kim Jong Il himself!)

Of course he's depressed, whether he's innocent or not, the prospect of facing a long prison term is inherently depressing. Being innocent does not ensure that you won't end up doing time.

He also has had problems with his love life.

The US Army intelligence analyst, who is half British and went to school in Wales, appeared to sink into depression after a relationship break-up, saying he didn't "have anything left" and was "beyond frustrated". ....

Mr Manning, who is openly homosexual, began his gloomy postings on January 12, saying: "Bradley Manning didn't want this fight. Too much to lose, too fast."

At the beginning of May, when he was serving at a US military base near Baghdad, he changed his status to: "Bradley Manning is now left with the sinking feeling that he doesn't have anything left."

Five days later he said he was "livid" after being "lectured by ex-boyfriend", then later the same day said he was "not a piece of equipment" and was "beyond frustrated with people and society at large".

His tagline on his personal page reads: "Take me for who I am, or face the consequences!"

Bradley Manning, suspected source of Wikileaks documents, raged on his Facebook page

You might want read this link:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/4436934/Snow-is-consistent-with-global-warming-say-scientists.html

In short: Do not confuse weather with climate change. weather is a short term event. like this winter. climate is the global trend over a long period of time.

On the good side. scientists are expecting big changes to happen within our life time. So you should see with your own eyes if you were correct or wrong. Hint: Rising seas, famine and large human migrations.

I still haven't seen any evidence to suggest that Assange is the target of anything more than an obsessed media and a lot of public outcry

Clearly you have very constrained sources of news:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8212812/WikiLeaks-Julian-Assange-facing-US-prosecution-bid-says-Joe-Biden.html

Or maybe something more recent: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/us-turns-to-twitter-as-wikileaks-chase-continues-20110109-19jy5.html

t I also don't see a lot of convincing evidence that he definitely is the target of anything in particular

How much evidence would you like exactly?

Well hey haw...guy....Hmmm... haw....
Are you by any chance a relation to Lord Haw ... Haw?
Well, never mind.

So, what sort of "education" do you suppose Gulet Mohamed was seeking in Somalia at a time when numerous other Somali Americans were returning to Somalia for training in extremist Islam, terrorism, and to engage in Jihad? (A number of them became suicide bombers.) Do you have any thoughts on that?

Although the Somalis I've met or worked with seem pleseant enough, clearly not all of them are.

Take this for example from last month:

The FBI arrested Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a 19—year—old Somali—born American, for plotting to detonate a bomb as thousands of people attended the lighting of the Christmas tree in the centre of Portland, Oregon.
Anwar al-Awlaki: terror plots linked to Yemen-based cleric

The Somalis are not the only ones engaging in so called Jihad. This Pakistani American who performed some curious travel to Pakistan was also a menace - he tried to detonate a bomb in Times Square.

I'm sure you must have some "progressive" ideas on the matter. Do you want to torture them too to get an answer, or only white people?

The violent rhetoric in American society comes, almost exclusively, from the right-wing:
George Bush received about 8 death threats a day.
Barack Obama receives about 30 death threats a day.
Think about it.

I'm sure that if anyone were falsely accused of being a leaker, they would no doubt have swift access to just recourse. This is the West, after all.

No doubt they would, just as soon as the investigation is done. There must be evidence at hearings. This is the West, after all.

If someone ends up in a such a situation and reports the contrary, their testimony is likely tainted because they are a dirty rotten leaker.

Although one would hope not, it's very possible.... very possible.

Ultimately, we are all safer somehow.

I quite agree. Preventing the outing of informants against terrorist groups when they fund and train terrorists who attempt attacks in our cities is a good thing.

I'm sure that if anyone were falsely accused of being a leaker, they would no doubt have swift access to just recourse. This is the West, after all.

No doubt they would, just as soon as the investigation is done. There must be evidence at hearings. This is the West, after all.

If someone ends up in a such a situation and reports the contrary, their testimony is likely tainted because they are a dirty rotten leaker.

Although one would hope not, it's very possible.... very possible.

Ultimately, we are all safer somehow.

I quite agree. Preventing the outing of informants against terrorist groups when they fund and train terrorists who attempt attacks in our cities is a good thing.

I'm sure that if anyone were falsely accused of being a leaker, they would no doubt have swift access to just recourse. This is the West, after all.

No doubt they would, just as soon as the investigation is done. There must be evidence at hearings. This is the West, after all.

If someone ends up in a such a situation and reports the contrary, their testimony is likely tainted because they are a dirty rotten leaker.

Although one would hope not, it's very possible.... very possible.

Ultimately, we are all safer somehow.

I quite agree. Preventing the outing of informants against terrorist groups when they fund and train terrorists who attempt attacks in our cities is a good thing.

The danish can:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/denmark/1499735/Taxpayers-foot-bill-for-disabled-Danes-visits-to-prostitutes.html

In a move that has provoked angry protests but has delighted the country's legalised sex industry, the Danish government has launched an information campaign advising the disabled how best to go about obtaining erotic services.

...

In Aarhus, the second-largest city, disabled residents have been told that they may visit a brothel or call a male or female prostitute to their home once a month and pass the bill - which can be up to £300 - on to the state.

A lot of things that are banal and boring are marked Top Secret in order to prevent sub-contractors from hiring foreign workers... It's not that the information itself is or needs to be Top Secret but marking it so is a way to keep jobs local...

Nonsense. A lot of things labeled Top Secret are banal and boring because much of the day to day project work most people do is banal and boring even if it is top secret and involves technology, and has to be protected against disclosure due to the possible damage to national security. Project plans, status reports, engineering reports, budget updates, progress reviews, test reports, system design - none of them are exciting, but are necessary, and have to be protected if the purpose of the project is to be protected. If the purpose of developing a top secret device or process is to give your country a competitive advantage in some manner, such as war fighting, it doesn't make sense to have knowledge of the existence, cost, size, scope, or technical details compromised by employing a cheap typing service in some third world country, does it?

In any event, American law allows employment restrictions based on citizenship where national security is involved, it doesn't take a security classification to do that. (Bummer, eh?)

It's hard enough just dealing with American citizens.

That's right, nothing evil about them at all.

Facebook has five hundred million users. Is each user really worth a hundred dollars?

I'm not a businessman but I'm not so sure this is the correct way to think about this.

Everything depends on how much the market is penetrated for social in two ways: users and advertisers. Can they grow that revenue/profit? And if so, to what point? If Zuckerberg sneaks it into China then I think you're looking at a potential to increase that significantly. Facebook hosts its statistics so you can guess if it's got a half billion in revenue yearly at half a billion users and it scales perfectly, that's a dollar per year per user. Can it get up to a billion users? It's probably clear that in the long run as the younger generation matures, that penetration will slowly expand ... but there's no guarantee that Facebook remains the de facto standard that far out. You need to consider future growth.

The other factor, advertisers and game publishers, could also be troublesome. Is this a "Honeymoon Period" for advertisers where they're paying an unsustainable amount to Facebook for the time being just to gain exposure? Could the above assumptions about scaling with userbase actually be false if advertisers aren't willing to spend more than they are now once more users join?

Consider that these numbers put Facebook's Net Profit Margin at almost 30%. That's very high for the industry. They're in the same region as Google and Microsoft but as I stated above can it scale?

One last thing, you seem to think that Facebook's worth is only its users. They are also a large company with almost two thousand employees and are building infrastructure. Include that on your assets sheet.

Facebook is going public soon. What are the chances that this 'leaked' report is designed to pump up the stock, and therefore Goldman's profit?

I think the SEC would come down pretty hard on GS if they did that -- they have before for less. Misleading investors is very serious.

now I know why we never returned to the moon

No, it's because the NASA administrator says that the president has told him that NASA's top priority is to find ways to make Muslims feel better about themselves . So, there's a lot of re-tooling going on, to make that happen.

What's another 2 trillion[1]?

The USA has already created many trillions since 2008, without hyperinflation of a "few thousand percent in one month". Seems like as long as they don't call it "printing money" nobody appears to notice or care that much.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=armOzfkwtCA4
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a7484bxHz7Bk

While it's still "printing money" if you lend money that doesn't exist, or borrow from a "financial smoke and mirrors scheme" to pay off a real debt, it seems as long as the smoke and mirrors are good enough, nobody asks too many questions about it. I doubt China would either - they'd take the trillions very quietly and try to convert it to stuff that's more tangible, before everyone else notices...

[1] Approximately:
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/02/chinas-debt-to-us-treasury-more-than-indicated/
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timcollard/100011049/america-owes-china-two-trillion-dollars-but-what-does-that-mean/

If the US would take such drastic measures, China would probably answer by selling their $2.5 trillions in foreign exchange reserves, most of them US Dollars. That would devalue the USD and EUR to virtually zero, bringing about economic turmoil of unprecedented magnitude.

Let's face it: China got us by the balls, and they are ready to squeeze them.

While we're talking drastic, how about we cancel 100% of the debt they hold - giving us free money essentially to buy down whatever inflationary pressure their 'dumping' produces. In this scenario they are left with nothing.

The china thing is way overblown in a global economy.

Who cares? The economy doesn't depend on that shit. What's more interesting is what percentage of actually useful items are made in China (which is still ridiculously high) and what's even more interesting is how much of that stuff can't be made here, which is to say almost none of it. If we stopped buying Chinese stuff for whatever reason you'd see toaster and eggbeater factories pop back up overnight. Or, more likely, they'd pop back up in Mexico again.

If the US would take such drastic measures, China would probably answer by selling their $2.5 trillions in foreign exchange reserves, most of them US Dollars. That would devalue the USD and EUR to virtually zero, bringing about economic turmoil of unprecedented magnitude.

Let's face it: China got us by the balls, and they are ready to squeeze them.

One name, Piers Corbyn, over at weatheraction, Corbyn just seems to get it. He's not much good for deciding if it'll rain on your picnic at noon, but if your looking for longterm trends he's the man.