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So let me get this straight, you're saying I know nothing about Italy, and the way things work there and yet you're completely ignoring the fact that Italy is perhaps the most corrupt nation in the Western world?

You're correct that many members of the judiciary have been out for Berlusconi, but not all judges follow that agenda.

If Berlusconi wanted to influence judges with the amount of money he has, and with the amount of corruption in Italy, then that would be an extremely trivial task for him.

Are you even aware that a particularly significant portion of the hatred by some judges against Berlusconi is actually down to bribing judges in the first place?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/5720385/Silvio-Berlusconi-dines-with-judge-who-is-to-rule-on-immunity-law.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/berlusconi-censured-by-un-over-bribes-case-597998.html

The rest just get harassed instead:

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/54904,people,news,anger-as-berlusconis-tv-channel-canale-5-films-judge-raimondo-mesiano-who-fined-him

If you're going to so arrogantly infer that someone is wrong, it might be a good idea to at least check your facts to ensure you're correct first, because clearly, in this case, you are not.

Seriously, anyone who can claim with a straight face that Britain has less freedom of speech than China (and hence is only beginning to take steps to elevate above it) is living in a fantasy world.

"When it comes to censoring publications and blocking online content, it is arguable that Britain has an even worse record than China." - Simon Singh, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/7294539/Simon-Singh-it-is-too-late-for-me-but-libel-laws-must-change-for-the-public-good.html

But yes, there may have been a trace of hyperbole in my post, on the internet. Gold star!

Seriously, anyone who can claim with a straight face that Britain has less freedom of speech than China (and hence is only beginning to take steps to elevate above it) is living in a fantasy world.

"When it comes to censoring publications and blocking online content, it is arguable that Britain has an even worse record than China." - from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/7294539/Simon-Singh-it-is-too-late-for-me-but-libel-laws-must-change-for-the-public-good.html

However, yes, there may have been a trace of hyperbole in this post, on the internet. Gold star!

Thanks. I've enjoyed our dialogue.

On your point, while I like the metaphor, we are not talking about real tapeworms. We are talking about human beings with a certain culture and a certain ideology that make them act like tapeworms. And we are talking about others who help them to be parasites through ignorance or not thinking they have options. How many kids join the military due to the "economic draft"?
http://www.workers.org/us/2005/economic-draft-0303/
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/War_Peace/Economic_Draft.html

And sure, many parasites got these wars going precisely so they could get a bit of the action, one dollar in their pocket for ever thousand dollars of tax payer money wasted. A key idea here:
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

A good sci-fi book on this broader theme of abundance and war is James P. Hogan's 1982 novel "Voyage from Yesteryear".
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear

As he points out there, the tapeworms as you mention will not get much support if everyone else has abundance. Besides, in a word of abundance, if some "lunatic" wants to build self-replicating space habitats on the Moon, why worry about it? There would be plenty of energy and stuff to go around, and it might provide some amusement.

So, ask yourself, why do people want to be tapeworms? And why do others go along with their plans?

I think key issues are "ignorance" and "want":
"A Christmas Carol: Ignorance and Want"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6MFN8yiVc0

But it is precisely abundance from the internet and robotics that may end ignorance and want.

So then, we are left mainly with the issue of mental illness to have people causing wars. Adequate vitamin D from supplements or sunshine can help relieve a lot of that too:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/mentalIllness.shtml

More resources for families could help relieve some of it too:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912/dobbs-orchid-gene
"Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care. So holds a provocative new theory of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind's phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail--but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society's most creative, successful, and happy people."

Hitler wanted to be a painter for example:
"Adolf Hitler painting may have hung in Sigmund Freud's surgery"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7221058/Adolf-Hitler-painting-may-have-hung-in-Sigmund-Freuds-surgery.html
Would he have turned to politics if he had not had to worry about selling his paintings?

Will the world always have a problem with bullies and the mentally ill who hoard w

Indeed, they are well aware. Shell fined $500 million for over-reporting gas reserves. If they were to report their real reserves and the rate at which new reserves were being found, their stock would nose-dive and our world's economy would collapse. We now consume close to 30 billion barrels of oil per year but find less than 4 billion per year. Our economy is completely dependent on oil. Think about how crucial the shipping industry is for our economy. How will it survive when it no longer has oil? How will we transport uranium, coal, natural gas, wind mills, and solar panels?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1321746/A-female-orgasm-at-the-touch-of-a-button.html

The procedure involved planting electrodes in the spine and using electrical pulses to modify pain signals passing along the nerves; the patient was conscious to help the surgeon find the best position for the electrodes. Dr Meloy said: "I was placing the electrodes and suddenly the woman started exclaiming emphatically. I asked her what was up and she said, 'You're going to have to teach my husband to do that'."

Not very much...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/5130427/Pete-Waterman-I-was-exploited-by-Google.html

"I can -assume- it wouldn't be healthy, but... well, it doesn't really ring home with me. It's not like "Oh shit, interstellar FTL would be like standing in front of the LHC?"

Maybe this article might help. It talks about the beam power in terms of how long it would take to defrost a pizza (approximately 30 nanoseconds if the energy were diffused over the whole pizza, but it's also time-averaged to account for the pulsed nature of the beam).

In the late 90s a lot of web designers created the pages first in photoshop, and then cut up the images, and aligned them on the web page with tables (unless you were one of those web designers who eschewed images). It was common enough that in 99 Photoshop came with a feature to automate the image cutting.

For an example, look at Dell when it first launched. You might have been able to do the original layout in Pagemaker, but it would have been pointless because you would have had to do it nearly all over again because users can't look at a Pagemaker file in their browser. Each of the categories, like "Dimension Desktops", has to be an image because you can't have the image of a computer overlay the header of a table like that (even now it would be a pain). So you just worked it up in Photoshop, cut out the images you needed, and then did the rest in html. It sucked, but it's not like page layout for the web is all that great even today.

So in other words, they accuse the climate change scientists of of acting in their own financial interests by being alarmists

Being alarmist gets you book sales. Being alarmist gets you photo ops. And yes, being alarmist gets you a re-up on your grants.

They claim that scientists toe the climate change line to get grants, and yet can you imagine how much definitive proof against man-made climate change would be worth to businesses?

Any business offering such a grant would be massively targeted with protests, ads, etc by the left-wing lunatic fringe. Actively sponsoring such research would instantly, since most of the "scientists" are on government dole, mean that honest scientists who came up with the opposite conclusion would be kept out of publishing due to collusion (actually has happened if you read the CRU emails yourself).

The problem with this debate is that one side has to prove their claims, while the other side just needs to create doubt by using unsubstantiated and even sometimes completely discredited claims

No, the problem with this debate is that one side constantly insists the debate is already over and engages in propaganda tactics, while the other side that wants to see competent research that actually follows the scientific method, are derided and mocked and attacked.

In this case, claiming that the other side is on the "gravy train" isn't supported by any evidence at all, and yet there is no way to disprove it either. In all the leaked emails regarding this, where was the shred of evidence that anybody was trying to rort taxpayers money?

Admittedly this is cherry-picked, but in their own words. Pretty fucking damning.
"Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is ! " - Direct words of Phil Jones!

As for the money? Phil Jones wasted £13 Million of Brit taxpayers' money. The phrase "gravy train" actually comes from Prof. Ross McKitrick, University of Buckingham, who said the following:

"Climate sceptics are always accused of taking money from industry but it is now clear the money is on the other side.

"There is a huge amount of money on the global warming side. Institutions like the CRU have a very large budget but that would disappear if global warming ceased to exist.

"Scientists are enjoying a funding gravy train; there is so much money in climate research. Lots of areas of science are short of money but not climate change."

admittedly there are a lot of people who throw out stupid knee-jerk comments whenever something weather related happens, but that doesn't mean the science behind climate change is bad. We have strong indications that the weather is changing and it looks like we are the cause.
Please try to filter out the noise and check out the actual data and see if it makes sense, that's what I did.

Oh, and the increased ice on Antarctice seems to be because of the good ol' ozone hole.

"Meanwhile Sagar Island shrinks away from rising oceans. "
Really?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5067351/Rise-of-sea-levels-is-the-greatest-lie-ever-told.html
To quote: When running the International Commission on Sea Level Change, he launched a special project on the Maldives, whose leaders have for 20 years been calling for vast sums of international aid to stave off disaster. Six times he and his expert team visited the islands, to confirm that the sea has not risen for half a century. Before announcing his findings, he offered to show the inhabitants a film explaining why they had nothing to worry about. The government refused to let it be shown.
Similarly in Tuvalu, where local leaders have been calling for the inhabitants to be evacuated for 20 years, the sea has if anything dropped in recent decades. The only evidence the scaremongers can cite is based on the fact that extracting groundwater for pineapple growing has allowed seawater to seep in to replace it. Meanwhile, Venice has been sinking rather than the Adriatic rising, says Dr Mörner.
One of his most shocking discoveries was why the IPCC has been able to show sea levels rising by 2.3mm a year. Until 2003, even its own satellite-based evidence showed no upward trend. But suddenly the graph tilted upwards because the IPCC's favoured experts had drawn on the finding of a single tide-gauge in Hong Kong harbour showing a 2.3mm rise. The entire global sea-level projection was then adjusted upwards by a "corrective factor" of 2.3mm, because, as the IPCC scientists admitted, they "needed to show a trend".

"Meanwhile a UAB professor claims ocean acidification is yet another measurable effect of climate change. "
A professor. Hm, that's convincing. Yet somehow corals and shellfish are nearly THE OLDEST ORGANISMS ON THE PLANET, having survived MUCH higher CO2 levels than today, and much warmer (& colder) climates than today.

"Meanwhile Eastern Antarctica (the steadfast 'unaffected' part of Antarctica) begins to show signs of melting (via NASA and U of TX). "
http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/comment.php?comment.news.125
Contrary to media reports Antarctic sea ice continues to expand. Ice totals for November 2009 are significantly higher than 1979 when measurements began...Interior ice is also increasing but not due to warming as the models have predicted. According to NOAA GISS data winter temperatures in the antarctic have actually fallen by 1F since 1957, with the coldest year being 2004. All the while global CO2 levels have gone up and the main stream media has been reporting near catastrophic warming conditions.

"Feel free to keep using your local area to prove/disprove climate change. One day the facts will pile up ..."
Funny, I see the facts piling up regarding the falsification of data, the 'smoothing' of data, the "loss" of data, the irreplicability of results; I'm not sure the "facts" are quite piling up the way you believe they will.

But hey, that's the beauty of religion. Facts be damned, it's about faith.

I think it will be important in 5 years to say: We've got a climate model that's made correct predictions for the last five years, so you should trust that model as a good guide to the future.

They've made plenty of predictions. They're just always wrong. The IPCC was established in 1989 and published its first assessment report in 1990. In that report, they predicted an increase of 1.3 to 2.3 degrees C. That didn't materialize and in 1997, the IPCC had their asses handed to them in front of congress:

However, it was apparent that when the first so-called consensus was imposed upon the issue of global warming by the First Scientific Assessment of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, such an equilibrium had not been reached.

That report in 1990 stated, `When the latest atmospheric models are run with the present concentrations of greenhouse gases, their simulation of climate is generally realistic on large scales.'

The suite of climate models extant at that time predicted that the globe's mean temperature should have risen by then between 1.3 and 2.3 degrees Celsius. Slightly revised versions of these models provided the technical background for the Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed in 1992.

The observed warming since the late 19th Century has only been 0.5 degrees Celsius, or less than one-third of the predicted value. Critics argued, as I did before this committee, that there would have to be a dramatic reduction in the forecast of future warming in order to reconcile the facts and the hypotheses.

By 1995, in its second full assessment of climate change, the IPCC admitted the validity of the critics' position: `When increases in greenhouse gases only are taken into account, most climate models produce a greater mean warming than has been observed to date, unless a lower climate sensitivity to the greenhouse effect is used. There is growing evidences that increases in sulfate aerosols are partially counteracting the warming due to increases in greenhouse gases.'

Let me translate this statement. It means either it is not going to warm up as much as we said it would or something is hiding the warming. I predict that every attempt will be made to demonstrate the latter before admitting that the former is true.

So, the IPCC went back to the drawing board and returned with Mann's infamous Hockey stick graph. They declared DOOM. End of the world. Humanity was fucked. They extrapolated from 1998 temperatures (an unusually hot year) that climate change was 'for real' this time and was about to run out of control. When the skeptics got their hands on his computer model, they found that entering random data produced hockey stick graphs too. Oops.

So, uh, yeah, they've got egg on their face with that one. Nevermind that their prediction was wrong, again. Temperatures peaked in 1998 and haven't been that high since. In fact, it doesn't take a lot of searching to find examples of where their model predictions do not match reality.

In spite of all this, there are still people out there who believe in the IPCC. They cannot explain how this planet managed to have an ice age with atmospheric CO2 levels around 4200ppm during the Carboniferous period. They cannot account for three gigatons of CO2 that simply vanishes right out from under their noses each year. But hey, there's a consensus. The IPCC says so. So "the debate is over."

Nevermind Hansen's faked data. Nevermind the

More citations:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7177230/New-errors-in-IPCC-climate-change-report.html

http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/international/the-hottest-hoax-in-the-world

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7009081.ece

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245636/Glacier-scientists-says-knew-data-verified.html

http://digg.com/environment/Scientist_Admits_IPCC_Used_Faked_Data

Citation: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100020126/climategate-goes-serial-now-the-russians-confirm-that-uk-climate-scientists-manipulated-data-to-exaggerate-global-warming/

It wasn't an isolated incident. The Russians are now complaining that their data was misused as well.

No? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/britainatwar/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/6947586/Snow-covers-Britain-from-head-to-toe.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/7207536/Britain-may-be-forced-to-bail-out-Greece.html

No? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/britainatwar/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/6947586/Snow-covers-Britain-from-head-to-toe.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/7207536/Britain-may-be-forced-to-bail-out-Greece.html

No? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/britainatwar/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/6947586/Snow-covers-Britain-from-head-to-toe.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/7207536/Britain-may-be-forced-to-bail-out-Greece.html

How much money does the US owe China?

2 Trillion? http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timcollard/100011049/america-owes-china-two-trillion-dollars-but-what-does-that-mean/

How much money did it cost NASA to develop the space shuttle?

Maybe just send them a invoice marked "PAID"? :)

luddite!

"Me big science brain futureman, me bring home bacon without killing anything..."

And THAT my friend, is indeed the problem. Folks see Goldman Sachs and the other leeches lining up to cash in on "carbon credits" which is the biggest load of horseshit tried to stuff down the people's throats in decades, and they are sick of it.

If you were simply putting limits and forcing everyone to use less, like in the 70s gas crisis? That would be one thing. But when you have those pushing AGW all set up to become carbon billionaires while they fly around in their lear jets telling us we need to change? Well fuck you buddy, we can smell hypocrisy a mile away and we are about knee deep in it now.

If you want folks to get on board AGW? Get rid of the fricking leeches like GS set to cash in on everyone elses misery and assholes like the Al Gore that have quietly set themselves up to make out like fucking robber barons if they manage to get this shit passed. Otherwise expect the repubs to ride this anti AGW wave to a good decade or two of one party rule. There are enough people here sick of Nobama and his flip flops, hell I wouldn't be surprised if Caribou Barbie ended up the president.

LOL it was on BBC TV that the "expert that the IPCC got the "data" from was a geography students Dissertation

it was also splattered all over the Telegraph LINK HERE

the IPCC is so full of it that they have to use info from a student , which is not peer reviewed and is just an opinion of a pup in the greater scheme of things.

i think i'll take the word of the Indians and take my hat off to them for taking a stand against the UTTER SHITE that that IPCC spews! just goes to show the sheer desperation of them to use such flimsy nonsense especially after all the leeks showing the gaming of the numbers and the selective use of the Data

Try again. That wasn't the only error.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100023598/after-climategate-pachaurigate-and-glaciergate-amazongate/

They make a major claim about the affect of climate change on the Amazon. The problem is the original study was done by an advocacy group (WWF), wasn't peer reviewed, and wasn't even on the subject of global warming! It was a study on wildfires.

And keep going in that vein...

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/24/the-scandal-deepens-ipcc-ar4-riddled-with-non-peer-reviewed-wwf-papers/

These reports are NOT peer reviewed science and DO NOT belong in the IPCC report, which claims to be properly peer reviewed.

The IPCC fucked up big.

Obama Policies Will Bankrupt USA Tsarkon Reports
(Note: We are not a GOP-sters, Republicans or affiliated with any parties, and as George Washington warned against parties We do not believe in parties and, unlike most people, We evaluate every issue on a case by case basis and do not defer to the judgments of politicians who are corrupted and untrustworthy as a group.)

Obama is controlled by the same people as Bush see The Obama Deception documentary [youtube.com]

Yuan Forwards Show China May Buy Fewer Treasuries, UBS Says [bloomberg.com]
Anemic Treasury auction effects felt beyond bonds [reuters.com]
The Sherminator Kicks Some Wall Street Ass [dailybail.com]
China Angry That Fed Is Deliberately Destroying The Dollar [bloomberg.com]
China suggests switch from dollar as reserve currency [bbc.co.uk]
What are the reserve currencies? [wsj.net]
Anatomy of a taxpayer giveaway to investors [ml-implode.com]
Geithner rescue package 'robbery of the American people' [telegraph.co.uk]
Geithner just put only the rich in Titanics lifeboats [examiner.com]
Geithner Plan Will Rob US Taxpayers [cnbc.com]
A False Choice [viewfromsi...valley.com]
Bargain-hunting house buyers wearing on sellers ajc.com [ajc.com]
Time to Take the Steering Wheel out of Geithner's Hands [alternet.org]
Socialising and Privatising [freeradical.co.nz]
Fannie, Freddie to pay out bonuses [politico.com]
Fitch Raises Prime Jumbo Loan Loss Estimates Sharply [researchrecap.com]

Chinas central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund [ft.com]

- Russia on an new world reserve currency: It is necessary to work out and adopt internationally recognized standards for macroeconomic and budget policy, which are binding for the leading world economies, including the countries issuing reserve currencies - the Kremlin proposals read. [en.rian.ru]

- President Barack "The Teleprompter" Obama is deeply connected to corruption. Rahm Emanuel, his Chief of Staff, is radical authoritarian statist whose father was part of the murderous civilian-killing Israeli terrorist organizati

How about this as yet another example of the UK's failing sanity: Myleene Klass warned by police after scaring off intruders with knife

The youths approached the kitchen window, before attempting to break into her garden shed, prompting Miss Klass to wave a kitchen knife to scare them away.

Miss Klass, 31, who was alone in her house in Potters Bar, Herts, with her two-year-old daughter, Ava, called the police. When they arrived at her house they informed her that she should not have used a knife to scare off the youths because carrying an "offensive weapon" - even in her own home - was illegal.

I half expect that sometime in the near future, some poor person will be provoked into defending themselves, and they'll be hauled off to town square, where they will be placed into a pillory so the townsfolk can pelt 'em with rotten fruit. And I'm positive the original assailant will be free to join in.

I'm convinced the crooks in Britain have some sort of union, and a very effective one at that.

> Pursuing an attacker once the threat to yourself and family is clearly over is no longer self-defence.

Right, because having been chased once, criminals immediately become law-abiding citizens. No chance at all that they guy was running away to get some more buddies to come back and finish the job. I have no problem at all with someone who wants to ensure that crooks are available for the police to deal with.

Oh dear, a criminal getting a "permanent injury" from a victim. My heart is bleeding for him. Dude: you break the law, you're taking a chance. You'll get NO SYMPATHY if someone strikes back.

I assume the case in question is this one: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timcollard/100020129/the-criminal-justice-system-is-just-not-cricket/

Munir Hussain found his family home in High Wycombe being burgled in a rather painful way. His wife and three children had been tied up and threatened with death. [emphasis mine] Munir himself, rather bravely, escaped by throwing a coffee table at the men, putting them to flight, and then chased after them. Thinking, understandably, that he might not himself be able to overpower and capture them, he armed himself with a cricket bat, and got hold of his brother Tokeer and, apparently, a couple of other people as well. There is no point in trying to apprehend criminals if you don't bring along the power to overcome them. [emphasis mine]

Don't know about you, but the last line makes a lot of sense to me.

On one side I know that (in this economy) there are many more ways to spend money than space.
But few things united the US as much as the space program.

When the political climate was different, the reasons for going to space were different.
Now that the Cold War is over, space has become a primarily scientific endeavor. I'm happy that science (instead of politics) is the motivator, but now it seems that politics is choking one of the greatest achievements of our species.

The idea behind this "private taxi service" to space could go either way. We all know how recent new aircraft have suffered delay after delay. But what if a more competitive environment brings innovation that otherwise would have been unattainable? After-all it was a competitive environment that pushed us to be the first on the moon.

What I am really sad about though is the lack of interest in the moon. I believe that a permanent, self sufficient (however difficult that might be) settlement on the moon should be a priority. And if we don't start soon, India or China might beat us to it.

While I believe that any mission to the moon is an international event, other countries/cultures might not share that view. I would prefer for us to set the bar in both - returning to the moon, and sharing that experience with the rest of the world.

You can't clone a chip, period. The devices which read them are tamper resistant and tamper evident. It's not been cracked yet. It's been done really well - unsurprisingly, because the stakes are so high.

Really?

You'd better tell the people whose chip cards have been cloned.

And Google turns up rather a lot of reported incidents of chips and their readers being compromised on a grand scale. Here are just the first three I found:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2963534/Three-fraudsters-jailed-for-elaborate-petrol-station-credit-card-scam.html

http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/Cards-compromised-in-petrol-station.4870282.jp

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1025761

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100024086/state-of-the-union-obama-gets-an-f-for-world-leadership/

Sea shepeard do great work, your terrorism spin is plain ludicrous.

In fact the Japanese whalers are the people breaking the law, as their blatant deliberate ramming and sinking of a sea shepard boat recently attests.

The rape of the seas thru bottom scraping overfishing is an upcoming disaster of epic proportions, and personally, I support Sea shepard 100%.

What drives your irrational dislike of them I wonder? I smell a financial incentive.

Even Greenpeace refers to Watson as "a violent extremist and an eco-terrorist". ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/5166346/Paul-Watson-Sea-Shepherd-eco-warrior-fighting-to-stop-whaling-and-seal-hunts.html )

I don't support whaling but I would also like to see Sea Shepherd blown out of the water (non-violently...)

I'll have my financial incentive now please.

Statistically, you didn't vote in the last European elections. That's where the democracy you speak of has gone.

The EU Parliament is a gravy-train. Your MEP most likely doesn't even turn up most days of the week, least of all on the days when stuff you care about is being debated.

If like a lot of people you're about to say "yes, I but don't even want my country to be in the EU", well, again, we all got to vote for our respective governments, and we voted for parties who wanted to join up. For those of us that didn't vote for our government, and even though they didn't get 50%+ of the votes, well, you still voted for your version of democracy. What's wrong in the EU/your country today got set that way 10+ years ago.

I'm not saying this is good, and I'm not saying I feel any more 'in control' than you do, but we are all to blame here. Democracy sucks like that.

* yes, I know my citations aren't brilliant, but I couldn't immediately lay my hands on better ones ;-)

I think the rampant PC game piracy (almost 80-90%) can be blamed for this somewhat.

Source? The recently released Call of Duty MW2 sold 15 million units. If that figure represents only 10% of the copies in existence, with the other 90% being pirated and not counted as sales, that means there are 150 million people playing the game. I'm convinced that the video game market is expanding, and will have increased social acceptance in the future, but I'm finding 150 million people a bit hard to believe. Furthermore, the same has sold more copies than it's predecessor, which only sold approx 14 million copies. More people are buying games.

Infinity Ward certainly doesn't seem to be suffering from rampant piracy. Perhaps people aren't buying Ubisoft's games not so they can pirate them, but because their products suck and treat customers like slaves.

While it's cheaper, does it really provide that much science? Sure, it's the most cost effective way to explore Mars, but does knowing the position, shape, and maybe the composition of a few Martian stones really help humanity?

Probes and manned space flight advance two different academic fields. Probes tell us what's in our solar system. That's useful for astronomers, perhaps some advance physics, and generates some neat pictures. Manned space flight is much more expensive because of the added challenges, such as life support, shielding, and returning to Earth, which advance biology and engineering a bit more. OTOH, many of the same technologies can be used for humans on Earth, thus making them more useful IMHO. They also would generate more interest in space, hence more funding, and have a greater potential for eventual economic payoff.

Here are some examples of technology that was developed for space travel that has made its way into everyday life. Notice the disproportionate amount of advances that can from manned space flight as compared to probes. Of course, the ratio might be a bit closer to dollars spent in each area, but there's low hanging fruit to be had in both. If we concentrate all of our money in probes then we'll eventually be spending billions to see one novel technology that's useful for more than just building better probes, as compared to dozens of technologies that might result from developing a manned spacecraft.

You've been watching too much CSI. I believe what they mean is that they can see if a large heat source exists behind a cement wall. Walls are very good insulators and *stop* heat. With an infrared camera, you can barely even see through a sheet of glass! It's a passive sensor, detecting the heat that the object gives off, and giving that temperature a color in the image. To get an idea of heat blocking capabilities, turn on your reflector space heater, which is a incredibly powerful IR source, shine it at a window, and go outside. Chances are, you wont be able to feel *anything*.

Currently, the only way to see through walls, which *is* possible, is to use THz (link 1, 2), Xray, and UWB. These are active devices that transmit and receive reflected signals, then construct and image.

And, before someone brings up that infrared is in the THz band, "Low frequency versions of terahertz waves are known as millimeter waves, and they behave much like radio waves. At higher frequencies, the terahertz waves straddle the border between radio and optical emissions." from space.com. From the IEEE paper, "(0.6 to 3 THz) offer a greater degree of penetration through architectural and textile materials", so they're using the looow range.

If you're worried about people seeing through your walls, maybe you should turn off your wifi! :-o

I daresay often it's not the unskilled hands that's killing people in hospitals.

It's more likely poor processes. No checklists of important stuff. Not enough training, practice and preparation in critical areas. (and of course dirty hands ;) ).

See:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1527497/Ferrari-pit-stop-saves-Alexanders-life.html
and:
http://shimworld.wordpress.com/2008/11/19/operation-pit-stop-lessons-from-the-fast-lane/

The doctors took cues from two Formula 1 teams: McLaren and Ferrari. The Chief Medical Officer for McLaren racing team watched a video of a hospital handover, studied the footage then asked, "Why is there so much noise and people colliding with each other, doing things that don't need doing? Why not space them out and make an organised list of instructions?" When the doctors met with then Ferrari's technical manager, Nigel Stephney, who watched the video of the handover and he made the following observations:

        "I don't understand," Stephney said. "Who's in charge?" ... Stephney shook his head in disbelief. Then he asked more questions: did they brief and debrief? Were there check lists? Did they rehearse without a patient? Each time the doctors said no. Stephey explained: "It's not about having the best people and just putting them together--it's about a group of people who can work as a team." Staff were forgetting basic things -- even omitting to switch vital equipment to mains power on reaching the ICU, leaving it on the portable battery system. An hour later the batteries would run out and alarms would sound. Moreover, the medical teams had no briefing for what do do if things did go wrong, being left to use their initiative. Pit-stop crews, by contrast, knew exactly what to do if, for example, a wheel nut rolled away. (Take out the spare in their right hand pocket).

Offtopic: OMFG T_T.... I just wrote a full 2 page well researched and cited response to you. And was going back to the /. tab to hit send... I fail clicked the x button and closed the tab. That suuuuuuuuuucks. So... here I go again in a shorter version since I have to sleep. (I was probably being a windbag in anycase)

"So the guy I cited is probably reachable by email and I will see."
Only on /. does this happen. You get a retort and in response you try to investigate further rather than degenerating into name calling or, at best looking for info to support your side. Thank you.

I'm sorry about me misunderstanding the idea raw data. I perhaps am too used to mass media where you generally get opinions, and a scientist talking about trends is called data. Actual numbers and graphs with error bars using a variety of methods in a variety of places on the globe and so on seemed quite raw to me. I suppose you want to go to the ice cores and measure yourself or some such, I'm not certain what raw data would entail.

In anycase each graph has a link to the source which links to the methods and sources here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
Given what is available there I have no idea what more you could ask for. (methods, sources, people that worked on it, how they analyzed the data, lots more). Highly suggest reading/skimming it. And they even have reports written and available for you to look at going back to 2001, showing no links to CRU.
As well if you go here (link from the gistemp): http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/
You get direct access to meteorological data! Hell they even have a handy clickable map interface~ nice. (Since this is station data, without a time machine you can't CAN'T get any rawer data, unless you think NASA failed at reading their handwriting..)

About the CRU thing, they were stupid, it was regrettable. But do you think with how public the mass media got about this the scientists in the field don't know about it. I'm sure there are some things that have slipped through but after such a public debacle scientists are going to distance themselves from it. And they will make sure that CRU data doesn't fuck up any of their theories or conclusions. Unfortunately the public generally will get wind of a scandal and claim things like: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/ which is pretty horrifying for science. Imagine if this happened in other fields. Newton getting proven wrong does not show that apples fall upwards. Hell chemistry in its entirety would have been discredited repeatedly. I'm sure you can think of other examples of your own too.

I read this and thought, haven't I seen this before? But no, apparently The Telegraph published a similar story in 2008 about another gentleman, living in england, who has also taken some amazing space photographs from his "garden shed." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/3526362/Amateur-astronomer-captures-dawn-of-the-universe-from-back-garden-observatory.html - interesting.

I do not agree that this was more than a dyslexic typo that went unchallenged for far too long.

It's a good thing the correlation between global warming and extreme weather disasters like hurricanes and floods in the same report is still on a sound foundation then. Oh, wait...

When the paper was eventually published, in 2008, it had a new caveat. It said: "We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses."

Ouch.

The climate is warming. The climate has been warming from 10,000-15,000 years, and we should be glad of that. It's hard to grow crops on a glacier. 15,000 years ago much of the US was under immense glaciers, as was much of Europe. Now they are not in our current Holocene epoch, which is why this is called an "inter-glacial period." There's are various natural cycles going on here, with spans of twenty and eighty thousand years roughly. My minivan's emissions did not cause the end of the Wisconsin Glacial epoch. After a few more thousand years the cycle will once again reverse - and the glaciers will return. When they do we're all going to have to try to fit into North Africa, Eastern China, and equatorial South America. I suspect the locals will have a problem with that when the time comes. And yeah, I know you know all this.

I am also aware that nobody has a good understanding of the dynamics of large chunks of melting ice, this is obvious if you look at how woefully the 2007 IPCC reports underestimated the loss of Artic sea ice .

I'm pretty sure that the dynamics of melting ice in large chunks and small are that if the ice gets too warm, it melts. The loss of arctic ice is attributed by NASA not to warming but to winds pushing the ice onto currents that conveyed it out of the arctic.

Nghiem said the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. "Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic," he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters.

Quit scaring people with your pseudo-scientific dendro-science. We're on to your game. The sky is not falling. Well, the sky is falling, but it's falling far more slowly than you say it is, and in the opposite direction. Let us sit under the magic warm-monger tree and contemplate understanding natural cycles a bit more thoroughly before we deliberately attempt to manipulate them.

Well, they are obviously too baffled to comment! Or maybe too flummoxed. Or the Daily Telegraph is the kind of newspaper that thinks "Lara Croft picks up six Guinness world records" is related to astronomy and just pulls headlines out of its...

The Nazi's did this already

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5194147/Farmer-brings-Nazi-cows-back-to-Britain-after-2000-years.html

Seriously, 1.3Billion seems like a lot, but 1/2 are peasants and most earn a pittence. See here http://my.telegraph.co.uk/dublinclontarf/blog/2010/01/15/china,_the_worlds_largest_market.

Nightclubs in London have been bombed: Link another.

At some clubs your ID will be scanned when you enter. At many, you will be searched (patted down) for weapons etc. How much security there is depends on the clientèle -- sometimes it's very thorough. However, this is usually to stop people taking knives (or guns) into clubs, rather than bombs.

I think small villages have been targeted in Northern Ireland, although that might have been by accident. For some reason, this doesn't make the news outside the region. This should be a national (or European) embarrassment, but nothing much seems to happen. There are even walls between streets in Belfast to keep the Protestants away from the Catholics, and vice-versa.

Nightclubs in London have been bombed: Link another.

At some clubs your ID will be scanned when you enter. At many, you will be searched (patted down) for weapons etc. How much security there is depends on the clientèle -- sometimes it's very thorough. However, this is usually to stop people taking knives (or guns) into clubs, rather than bombs.

I think small villages have been targeted in Northern Ireland, although that might have been by accident. For some reason, this doesn't make the news outside the region. This should be a national (or European) embarrassment, but nothing much seems to happen. There are even walls between streets in Belfast to keep the Protestants away from the Catholics, and vice-versa.

You really need to acquire a little empathy for the kid: he suffered a terrifying experience through no fault of his own whatsoever, at the hands of someone who would better serve the school by slapping burgers in the lunchroom. You think that boy is going to walk away from this unscathed?

Wow, if this is the worst kids these days have to go through, they live some good lives. I mean, as a result of this, he may have to pull out of his private school and enroll in a completely different private school. The horrors of life. Nothing like this. Although if you ask me, having to wear uniforms like they do at that school would be worse than what the kid went through. That's my opinion, though.

say the dutch or the swedes

right now, the dutch and swedish government are monitoring information and any chatter within its borders. terrorist cells, mafia organizations, pedophiles, and other possible criminals they have leads on. this is normal, this is status quo, and this will always be the case. why do you have a problem with this?

right now the chinese are monitoring chatter as well. the scale of the monitoring is many orders of magnitude larger than the liberal governments (adjusted for population even), and it is aimed at EVERYONE. what they consider criminal is: any pornography, simply saying negative things about the government, agitating for the rights of minorities in the fringes of the imperial empire, like tibet and xinjiang, or even just religious proselytization

in the liberal western governments, any potential criminals caught by surveillance methods will have an open trial, with free and vigorous representation, open handling of evidence, last as long as necessary, and then will receive a sentence that tightasses in the west always grumble is way too light. in china, the potential criminal will have a quick kangaroo court with mystery evidence where everyone in the room is a representative of the ONLY legal political party, and then the sentenced will get something like 11 years hard labor simply for asking for human rights, or death for shoddy business practices. meanwhile, the west bails out their asshole corporate sleazebags, and tolerates deranged lunatics protesting at funerals saying god is punishing the west for tolerating gays. THAT'S the difference between china and the west

chinese free speech:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/25/china-jails-liu-xiaobo

chinese corporate punishment:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/4315627/Two-sentenced-to-death-over-China-melamine-milk-scandal.html

western free speech:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church

western corporate punishment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citigroup#Federal_bailout_2008

now, when you mention chinese surveillance in the same breath as western surveillance, YOU LOOK LIKE A MORON for not realizaing these obvious massive differences in METHOD, PURPOSE, EFFECT, and CONTEXT

do you really want to continue down this retarded road of yours? go ahead. you're obviously a highly propagandized fool. let's put it this way: in china, criticizing the chinese government the way you are criticizing the west right now is grounds for a reprimand, and if you continue, incarceration. i have a strong feeling if you were in beijing right now, a chickenshit like you would not writing what you are saying

i know someone that just took a teaching position in shanghai. they made her sign a piece of paper saying she wouldn't criticize the government. chinese students can come here and write anything negative about the west they want. the west is not afraid of criticism. china is. we rule by consent, not by force. THAT'S the difference between the west and china. you are a moron for not understanding the OBVIOUS differences in scale and purpose

but you know what, you keep talking. i'll keep calling you a moron. i think you're a low iq cretin, but i support the principles of tolerance that exists in the west, so i support your right to type as much of your ignorant mental diarrhea as you want. we tolerate deluded wackjobs with deranged ideas in the west like westboro baptist church, and you. in china, its jail or death. know the fucking difference, fucktard

you forgot "execute mentally ill person" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/debates/6905283/China-executes-Akmal-Shaikh-was-the-execution-justified.html I find China deeply worrying on so many levels, I just wish when I go out to buy a new laptop of mp3 player I had a choice not to buy stuff from china. But I don't even more worrying.

Ah yes, another attempt to sell the big lie that CO2-induced global warming is causing sea levels to rise.

many places in Africa ... still experience hunts for supposed witches. Or "witchcraft" generally, for that matter.

In fact, right here in the USA vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was seen receiving protection against witchcraft.

How many have you met, out of 1.2 billion, that you can speak for the Chinese people? Have you met those in prisons or those who can't get jobs because of their political beliefs? What about those who can't practice their religion? What about those who censor their beliefs so they can keep their jobs? What about those in Tibet? In Xinjiang? What about those protesting against the government all over China, because their rights are ignored and trampled by a political establishment which has no responsibility to the people (because they can't be voted out of office)? Why must the Communist Party jail democracy advocates and censor the Internet, if their people don't want it?

Let me answer your self-righteous question with another self-righteous question. Of these trampled down masses that are protesting the government, how many have you met? Are they not capable for speaking for themselves? Hare dare you engage in the soft bigotry of ascribing your own motivations to the actions of the oppressed! /sarcasm

But seriously, are the Tibetans that yearn to be free of Beijing, yearning for a democracy, or merely the return to the theocratic feudal state and their god-king that ruled Tibet for millennia?

Are the religious minorities calling for elections, or are they merely wanting to be left alone?

Are the Uyghurs calling for elections, or the end of a government policy of encouraging the migration of Han from the populous east to the less populous west?

Are the Chinese government protests calling for democracy, or merely an end of corruption?

But the facts are overwhelming: Democracy and freedom are desires and values universal to humanity.

And yet authoritarianism is on the rise across the middle east. Do you truly believe that if the Saudi family were toppled today, and election was held, that anything like a Jeffersonian democracy would spring forth, or would it merely be another Iran or worse?

And speaking of Iran, here is a country that not only toppled one dictator, the Shah, but then sought to install a shill democracy, the Islamic Republic. Even now would the Ayatollahs be under threat if they just counted the votes? I think not. And if Ahmadinejad were somehow replaced, would the protest continue, or would they be diminished? An interesting question that neither of us can answer.

The people of South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, India, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa and others, representing almost every other non-Western culture, have adopted it with great success. Only those who are forcibly repressed by their government are denied it. And all over the world, nearly 100% of the most prosperous, stable countries are democracies.

Account for Russia then? It's 6th in GDP by Purchasing Power Parity, yet is only nominally a democracy. Not only have they moved backwards from the joyous day in 1991, they have positively skipped happily back towards oligarchy and totalitarianism. Putin is wildly popular in that country, and yet he has done all he could to dismantle the democratic process.

Turkey is a country that has a history of military coups, including a plot this past year, and threatened one back in 2007. Hardly shining example.

To say the people of China lack the motivation or ability to seize it for themselves is patronizing and insulting.

Nice try.

Did corruption in Chinese universities cause the suicide of a brilliant young academic?