Slashdot Mirror

This is from the same page at The Telegraph, UK:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/6049924/Zombies-would-most-likely-wipe-out-humanity-if-they-really-existed-claim-scientists.html

How much credibility does this site actually have?

I don't know why you would think that Europe won't intervene.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/4420446/Premature-births-cost-the-NHS-almost-1-billion-a-year.html

80000 premature births in the UK

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/prematurebabies.html

480000 premature births in the US.

Adjusted for population they look very similar to me.

The fact is that the NHS will treat every and all premature birth. It will also treat every and all pregnant mothers (unless you elect to pay to go privately) If there is skewing of the statistics due to infant mortality I'd think it was the other way with babies not being taken to hospital in the US until it is too late.

Tim.

The problem is, a third party service is required to spread the information. In the UK, there are at least 10 different websites, where you can search, book and print anything you could possibly need (including a bus service or a taxi at the destination), and if you're on the move already, you can just send an SMS, and they'll text you back with the information you need.

Well if you're looking at the booking side, there's two -- trainline and webtis.

Yes, themacboz had a (free) iphone app offering the information -- after all, it's just the informaiton on the various websites.

After the TOCs figured out they could make money, they shut it down, and launched their own at £5. Customers weren't impressed.

As one person on that page put it, "This strikes me as Ryanair marketing". I can't think of a worse insult.

I don't know if I would be called a "Rushie", but I am a Libertarian leaning Conservative.

It's not just the end-of-life counseling that makes us think of "death panels". It's the fact that countries that already have a "public option" or single (government) payer system are having to ration medical care. Of course, there will always be rationing of some sort. Right now the limiting factor is price and availability. Insurance companies can decide not to cover a medication or procedure due to price or necessity. For example, you wouldn't give a new hip of gastric bypass surgery to a patient that will die from pancreatic cancer in six months. If the patient doesn't like it, they can take the company to court and let a judge decide. The problem with a government run system is that you can not sue the government. If a government-based -insurance panel decides that you don't need a new hip or breast cancer medication, then you're simply SOL. You only option is to pay your taxes and die.

Here is a good quote from THIS article:

However hysterical some of the US attacks may be, the central core of the argument is indisputable: the NHS relies on the principle of rationing. Whatever resources there are should be distributed absolutely evenly (which may mean thinly) regardless of circumstances, and no one should receive what can not be made avaliable to everyone. If a given drug or procedure cannot be offered to the entire population (or to all those who might benefit from it), then it should not be offered to anyone at all because that would be "unfair". This doctrine is carried to its logical conclusion by the prohibition on top-up payments in which patients can be refused NHS treatment (even when they have paid for it through years of taxation) if they choose to buy medication out of their own funds. This is something that most Americans would find shocking and even positively immoral. And there are a good many British patients (and doctors) who would agree with them.

Is this how an American system would operate? Who would decides who gets what drugs? Who decides who DOESN'T get what drugs? What happens if a private insurance company is willing to pay for a procedure that a government panel has deemed unnecessary? That panel that decides to deny a potentially life saving drug or treatment is the panel that is referred to as death panels.

Personally, I think the government has to much power as it is. I certainly don't want to literally give them power over life or death.

Funny. He keeps getting reelected with double-digit margins, despite propaganda like you put forth.

This probably has something to do with the fact that he actually has his people enforcing the law, and doesn't waste money coddling criminals. Given the amount of ridiculous benefits we see in most prisons in the US that make prison a "no-brainer" for large numbers of people (see here: people actually trying to get themselves thrown in jail), I'd say I like the idea of making prison as unpalatable a concept as possible.

Of course, this isn't unique to the US. The UK is having the same debate. They just don't also have to deal with a well-funded and ridiculous propaganda campaign based on "legalizing" foreign criminals who jump our borders and cause crime while also having the debate on what prisoners should, or shouldn't, get while incarcerated.

Where the definition of 'terrorist cell' is up to the authorities, and in this case means 'animal rights activist'. It could mean anything according to this corrupt, overbearing government.

Animal terrorists are a red herring. In Britain 3% of the population is Muslim. A poll in 2007 found that 13% of Muslims aged 16 to 24 "admire organisations like al-Qa'eda that are prepared to fight the West". [*] This is a real enemy within and the police need special powers to deal with them.

Perhaps you are thinking of toxoplasma gondii? It's basically the opposite of what you describe -- mice lose their fear of cats, and run towards them instead, versus cats losing interest in predation -- but it's still a damned nifty trick for a unicellular beastie.

Anyway, what's all the fuss about the British National Identity Card Scheme and National Identity Register database?

Fixed that for you. The issue isn't with "ID card" in general (which can mean many different things), but with specific schemes.

Do the cards in Portugal:

* Cost £60 for a standalone card, or £120+ for a version that works as a passport? (Estimated costs including the necessary £30 processing fees for a private company to take your fingerprints etc.)

* Require taking of biometrics including fingerprints?

* Is it tied to a national database storing a range of information about everyone?

* Include £1000 fines for failing to notify the Government of a change of personal details such as name, address, gender, or for failing to report a lost or damaged card (e.g., see http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/06/id-cards-legislation-fines-tories , http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1537752/1000-fine-for-failing-to-update-identity-cards.html , http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7742619.stm )?

The British card seems to be a cheap piece of shit.

Indeed, although note it's far from cheap - the scheme is costing billions, and will require people to individual pay far more than any other form of ID that we already have (e.g., passports - which used to cost only about £30 a few years ago before they started converting it into the ID card. Now it's at £70, in a few years, it'll be £93 plus £30 processing fees).

. . . http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/5921266/Blue-MandMs-mend-spinal-injuries.html

. . . poor critter . . .

Perhaps Murdoch is simply quitting a game that heâ(TM)s losing. The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Daily Mail have consistently dominated the UK ABCes [website traffic]. Why not play a different game altogether?

In the long run The Times website is a likely winner. The Telegraph is loaded down with debt, and The Guardian is losing too much money for even the Scott Trust to support for long.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ should do the job

Deer don't have a 'point of view.' They do not conceptualize. They can not think ahead and imagine what it would be like to be killed and eaten.

Don't be so sure. I saw this programme and am damn sure that the horse in question knew the kind of thing that was planned for her. That's why she escaped - jumped over a fence she had not jumped over all the rest of her life.
I'm not suggesting that animals philosophise in French in terrace cafes - but I find it hard to believe that they have don't have some kind of "world view" that is based around life experiences with a few "abstractions" to fill in the gaps.

10 meters to 100 feet in depth, depending which source of the story you a reading.
Considering that the article I read earlier (that I can't find right now) reported it being up to 40-80 meters deep - I'd go with the higher number.

Thing is, about 90%+ of the garbage is smaller than a bottle cap, and most of it floats just couple of feet bellow the water surface.
So, just skimming it would do about diddly point squat as Capt. Moore had put it.

I can personally speak for the quality of British newspapers. It may, however, be of interest that this story has been picked up by these papers as well:
Liverpool Daily Posthttp://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2009/07/23/sin-bin-for-uk-s-worst-families-92534-24219445/
The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5888162/Worst-families-in-Britain-will-be-put-in-sin-bins.html
I gave their front pages a cursory look over and they seem reasonably solid.

I'm all or supporting industry, but I didn't think car boot sales were so high up on the agenda.
Assuming most of these cameras will end up on ebay or car boot sales within a week of being installed.
________
disclaimer: Not that I'm questioning the accuracy of the Daily Express, but I see nothing on this anywhere else, either on ed balls's own site, or even the slightest mention of it in his recent chat with the Telegraph
If this is already being trailed in 2,000 homes, I think those should be claiming compensation
Basically, WTF?!?!?!?!?

Hey, it worked for China didn't it?

Here is the problem I have, "basically criminals" indicates that they didn't break a law, or didn't get charged with breaking a law, nor were they convicted of breaking any laws in a court of their peers, but instead someone either said "there ought to be a law about that" and the government is stepping in with strict monitoring instead of creating a law, or or prosecuting violations of the law.

As for Camera's, Britain now has more CCTV cameras in public spaces than any other country in the world and it seems the average Briton is being recorded 3,000 times a week. That point there doesn't bother me as much as violating the privacy of citizens in their own homes with a "well, the basically or might as well broke a law".

You're right about the Express being what it is. There are some other sources confirming the idea of "24-hour supervision", and encouraging other parents to snoop on them:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5888162/Worst-families-in-Britain-will-be-put-in-sin-bins.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/terence-blacker/terence-blacker-the-mad-democracy-of-snooping-1759137.html

Although I can't find any other sources about CCTV specifically.

Some more general information at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8165209.stm

Except when US soldiers are guilty of murdering British journalists, they're not allowed to be punished under British law. Can't have it both ways mate.

Frankly, yours and your countrymen's attitude toward other sovereign nations -- namely that the US is allowed to stomp around the world, murdering and pillaging with no reperecussions -- but if some idiot guesses that your Windows systems have default Administrator accounts with no passwords, then they should be made an example of, possibly facing death by electrocution or 70 years in jail, is disgusting.

You wonder why the rest of the world hates your country? Re-read your own post, the reason's right there.

a 3,000-year-old 30in high Bronze Age cone of beaten gold that was discovered in Switzerland in 1995 and purchased by the museum the following year.

Full story in a Telegraph article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/1388038/Mysterious-gold-cones-hats-of-ancient-wizards.html

And, no it doesn't run linux but it may be possible to imagine a beowulf cluster of them.

There goes any remaining chance of anyone actually using this search engine...

you got that right. It has received mixed reviews worldwide, generally underwhelming in comparison to the hype.
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/05/18/wolfram-alpha-gets-mixed-reviews/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/5319884/Wolfram-Alpha-review.html

I never knew the Chinese thought so very little of themselves.

I thought the Olympics proved that to everyone. >1 billion people and they can't find a pretty girl that can sing? Or gymnasts that are over 14?

I'm glad they put Premium PC in quotes because that's exactly what it is.

This article only proves that Apple's are expensive. That's it.

I could have written a article stating "Lamborghini made up a whopping 91 percent of the $200,000-and-up automobile market in June". Duh, because how many cars are over $200,000? But who'd you rather be, Lamborghini or Toyota? In 2007 Lamborghini sold 2,406 cars and made a ~70 million dollar profit. Toyota sold 2.6 million vehicles and made 14.9 billion dollars in profit.

Thanks Apple but you can keep your Lamborghini, I'll stick with my PC and my Toyota.

Thousands of "Lloyd's names" were signed up for a reinsurance reverse lottery, and lost. They lost the game in the 90's, and there is still fallout thirty years later. The important point is that people signed up to play (even if the game turned out to be rigged).

Gasoline will auto-ignite just fine, it's just much trickier to control when it ignites than with spark ignition or diesel ignition.

Mercades has a engine in development called the diesotto that does this.

Apparently they care more about freedom than having the highest quality images available. What more is there to say?

You could elaborate, I suppose... How exactly does rejecting images, which the author allows to be used within *.wikipedia.org, but not elsewhere, advance freedom?

One would think, they want their pages to be printable and (re)publishable, but in that case, the authors wouldn't be credited (there is no author's name printed, when you print the page) — contrary to the current license... No, their idea was to arm-twist image-creators (such as myself, BTW) into relinquishing rights, on pain of having their contributions auto-deleted from the site — most likely to advance certain agenda, that's so popular among a vociferous fraction of /. users (that copyrights are evil!)...

Lastly, if, indeed, freedom was on the mind over there, don't you think, Wikipedia would not have allowed a scrubbing campaign aimed at keeping the page of our Glorious Leader free (there you go, maybe, this is the "freedom" you had in mind?) of mentions of his embarrassing associations and that pesky eligibility question? At the time of this writing, for example, neither the terrorist Ayers, nor communist Alinsky are mentioned on the page, even though pages of those individuals describe their impact on the President...

Er - maybe because the Slashdot summary was linking to more than one article, and the summary contained information from all of them? You do realise that different news reports may report different things?

TFS linked to the Register, which stated "Riot police stormed a man's 30th birthday barbecue for 15 guests because it was advertised as an "all-night" party on Facebook.". The Telegraph also claim "police feared it was to turn into a large-scale rave prompted by the internet invitations." Andrew Poole himself claimed that "But they kept on insisting I had advertised it as an all-night rave on the internet."

They also have a quote from the police:

"On this occasion, we were extremely concerned how the event had been advertised on the internet as an all night party and it was therefore necessary to take the appropriate steps to stop the event."

So yes, the police were aware of it being advertised on the Internet.

Knee-jerk stupidity, that's how

Perhaps you should RTFA before making your own knee-jerk stupid statements.

20th Century Fox Television claims the voice actors wanted 75,000 dollars per episode. Which is apparently close to ten times as much as usual.

According to whom? The Simpsons actors reportedly earn $400,000 per episode. Sure, $75,000 might be ten times what a voice actor earns for an episode of an afternoon kids' cartoon, but we're talking about a prime time show.

They do this in the UK too.
Whats more, they now add a £15 surcharge to speeding fines etc. to fund "compensation for the victims of crime". http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/5225133/Fined-motorists-to-be-hit-with-15-victims-surcharge.html
This comes as they are rolling out a huge expansion of speed cameras, including "ANPR" (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) which time your car point-to-point, over many miles, and handily also record your (and everybody else's) vehicle movements for 5 years at police central command.

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

Radio? Who needs it!

Back here on earth, more people are listening to radio than ever before. At least in the UK if not on earth, but that article is consistent with others I've seen looking at the US as well.

Has anyone actually found the damn report?

As somebody above helpfully said, there's a copy here. Fairly thin stuff, sweeping generalisations etc.

Maybe someone has already posted it but I couldn't find it, after Googling here's what I found: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/5817515/Teenager-causes-City-sensation-with-research-on-media-report-in-full.html

Here is a copy

No. They are suspecting North Korea

There's an inexhaustible supply of work thinking for people who can't or won't. (Sort of like there will always be work for sysadmins, because even here in the future nothing works.) The problem is that the work itself resembles being paid lots of money to dredge through sewage by hand.

Better to be paid lots for metaphorically dredging sewage with your hands, rather than next to nothing for actually doing it ... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/5077475/Is-this-the-worst-job-in-the-world.html?image=1 (image shows a dude cleaning an Indian sewer in his underpants - they have safety equipment but it's too cumbersome and hot to use).

This seems to be common on commuter railroads and subways. In New York City, the MTA has an entire "discipline department," whose job is the creation and enforcement of rules -- the rulebook is as thick as several of my engineering textbooks stacked on top of each other, and concerns everything from legitimate safety issues (employees cannot be intoxicated while on the job) to absurdities (procedures and times allotted for bathroom breaks, approved travel times when summoned for random drug tests, approved procedures for filing reports on infractions committed by other employees, etc.). It is also impossible for an employee to break any single rule, as one of the rules is "employees shall follow all the rules" and another is "employees shall be aware of all the rules." I am told that a typical disciplinary hearing involves 4-6 infractions, each of which is listed separately in the employee's work history if they are found to be in violation of the rules.

Yes, it's baffling as to why the suicide rate is so high. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/5273786/Japanese-suicides-rise-as-world-recession-hits-countrys-businessmen.html

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

BBC reports that uSocial, a social media marketing company based in Australia, has launched a paid service to find followers for Twitter users for a fee of $87 for a block of 1,000. The company finds potential followers by searching through Twitter to discover areas of common interest to match people more closely. uSocial then send these potential followers a message, alerting them that there is someone on Twitter they might want to follow and the potential follower then decides whether or not to follow that person. "A woman who runs yoga classes is one of our clients," says Leon Hill, chief executive of uSocial,. "So are some religious organizations including one man that just wants to get the word out about God. Twitter started as a way for just friends to keep in touch, but as with any social media site once they get big, every business or marketer jumps on the bandwagon. It's an excellent marketing medium." Some commentators have expressed concerns that this sort of practice could lead to an increase in "Twitter spam", as users are bombarded with irrelevant tweets. "As a Twitter user, I only want to follow people whose tweets I like, and only expect to be followed by people who find my tweets worth the time," writes Harry McCracken, a technology expert. "I know that I'd rather have fifty engaged followers than 5,000 whose attention I had to pay for."

The Zack Morris phone wouldn't last ten seconds against the Dom Joly Phone.

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 organization known as IRGUN who is obsessed with gun control and compulsory service to the country in a capacity wh

You're so insistent on taking me out of context, I'm not sure it's even worth responding.

Ad Hominem.

Even among climate skeptics (at least, the subset of skeptics with scientific credentials in relevant fields), only a handful will go so far as to claim that the warming is imaginary.

Maybe you just don't hear them because they're being suppressed. example A
example B
And have you seen this?

Who is this "we" who wanted to cover the polar ice caps in tar 30 or 40 years ago?

Scientists clamoring for government to do something about Global Cooling
I never claimed it was a consensus, and I didn't mean to imply that.

the number of peer reviewed papers predicting warming outnumbered the number that predicted cooling by about 6 to 1.

Your link does not support this, but suppose I take that as fact. I for one do not care how many people say something is true. In 1300 everyone knew the Earth was flat and everything revolved around it. Just because there is some kind of "consensus" either then or now, doesn't mean it's true.

Remember, the cap doesn't even kick in until 2012, and the industries that are most affected will continue to receive a sizeable number of free carbon permits for at least a decade after that.

Finally some good news. If I work real hard, I can get a raise so that I can pay my taxes. *feel the sarcasm!*

Sure, if somebody burns down your house, it's suddenly "more economical" to live under a bridge than in the middle of a field.

We need to be mindful of the timescales involved here. Burning a house down is a very immediate thing, with no warning, and little that predisposes one to having such a problem to begin with. If you live on the beach, you run the risk of your house being flooded by a storm swell, global warming or not. If you're not smart enough to get insurance, that's what we call natural selection.

Frankly, I'm stunned that someone can simultaneously believe that "the market" is capable of uprooting thousands of coastal cities, and yet is so fragile that it will fall over the moment CO2 pollution gets a price.

I don't think the market will fail. It is very resilient. I'm not like the alarmists- I'm not predicting doom for the economy if we don't do what I want. It'll just be harder on everyone, and you yourself admitted we don't know for sure if it will be a huge disaster. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

It seems that, in your mind, no disaster is truly epic so long as there are survivors, and that it wouldn't be worthwhile to you to take a $1500 pay cut to avert any disaster that leaves a handful of humans behind.

Putting aside your slight on my reasoning and risk evaluation, I maintain that it is not an epic disaster. New York may have to move a few miles up the Hudson. I admit that this is not cheap. But I submit that no one will die in the process. A slug could walk away from the rising sea it's happening so slowly (if it's happening). So it's a choice between economic hardship now, for something that could happen in the future, because of something that we might be causing, or we continue to prosper, allowing businesses to finance R&D that could produce a cheaper cleaner fuel- which they will, because who wouldn't buy that?

A made-up number from Heritage, an right-wing propaganda mill built from the ground up to oppose any and all regulation.

I suppose if Hitler had statistics supp

Airbus Whistleblower faces prison

Issuing ID cards is an old tactic dating from the colonial period to suppress national security - as in, regular serial bomb attacks. Both the British and new local governments used it, either to suppress independence movements, or to suppress communist/breakaway movements post-independence.

Regular bombings is not something that happens nowadays in the West, obviously. The United States, which is generally free of persistent domestic terrorism, may not have excuses to implement national ID and databases, but other countries may need it. Don't export your conceptions on first-world freedom to places where first-world safety don't exist.

And yet you, yourself are being intellectually dishonest by trumpeting your opinions as facts and your tinfoil conspiracy theories as truth.

Which one?

you immediately retreated to a "I'm really stupid, please enlighten my ignorance on Sunni-Shiite relations" position which you should have taken in the first place, since it was so God-awful clear from your first post.

And somehow I know more than the entire GOP ticket from the last election. I don't mind saying I was wrong - I misunderstood the relationship between Al Qaeda in Iraq and the militant Shia movements. I admitted it after I reread some things. Life goes on.

The Iraqi government is rolling in cash right now due to the petroleum deals(so much so that the US Congress is complaining of how much free money the Iraqis have and how much reconstruction the US is paying for).

They don't have 24 hour electrical service or sewage in much of Iraq. Much of their infrastructure is completely destroyed, and now their literacy rate is dropping like a rock. It's going to cost some money to build it back, and just as Iran did in 53, there will be a movement to stop the theft of oil profits from western countries.

Contrast this to Venezuela, whose oil rigs are falling into disrepair and whose production will plummet due to the lack of technical expertise available to the Venezuelan government bureaucrats after kicking out the Western energy companies and the reduction of reinvestment in new exploration. Nationalization is sexy and all to the global leftists, but it runs up against the hard reality of actually maintaining resource production (see: Zimbabwe after kicking out all the white farmers). Appointing paper pushers to do the job based on their political loyalty is a great way to send your country on a short road to North Koreaville.

Read the fine print. Oil companies are allowed to take 60 to 70 percent until their costs are recouped. Anywhere else in the world it's 40%. Once complete, American and British companies, who did not have to bid for access to Iraqi oil, keep 20% of the profits, which is double the normal rate of 10%. So, Venezuela is still doing better than Iraq. Their output has suffered under Chavez, but not as much as Iraqi output has suffered under the US.

Oil prices have gone down about $100 per barrel as well. That's an important fact to remember.

Also, a quicker way to dictatorship is to try and nationalize any of your industries and harm US and British investors. The CIA and MI6 will be up your ass in a heartbeat.

Do you think the US would just stand by and let them do it?

Yes. Do you know why? Because since oil is Iraq's lifeline, they will still sell it.

That's a logical fallacy. Iraqis, given the choice between extermination and dictatorship, will probably choose dictatorship, even if it's installed by the United States.

And it's not control of petroleum that the US is after as a strategic priority, it's the continuing free flow of petroleum to the world market. We don't care who owns the oil. We care that any one person or country isn't threatening to monopolize a large majority of the world's proven reserves, thus allowing them to destabilize the US and world economy, which is highly dependent on energy for transportation.

False. We want to make sure that we maintain control over the worlds proven reserves, in case someone thinks about threatening our empire. Then we have the power to cut them off and throw their society into ch

>Let me try to calm myself a bit. I can accurately be accused of trolling in a sense, which is to say I'm sensationalistic to get people to at least read something besides the same rhetoric passed to us from major news sites that, in my honest opinion, are completely dishonest.

And yet you, yourself are being intellectually dishonest by trumpeting your opinions as facts and your tinfoil conspiracy theories as truth. And that makes you different from a supermarket tabloid writer because...?

You are trolling. Period. Not in "a sense". So grow up. You started another post about al Qaeda having a grand opportunity with all these "militant Shiites", even though al Qaeda has traditionally terrible relations with Shiites, being a fundamentalist Sunni organization that has killed many innocent Shiites for terror and intimidation purposes. And yet when a poster called you on your ignorance, you immediately retreated to a "I'm really stupid, please enlighten my ignorance on Sunni-Shiite relations" position which you should have taken in the first place, since it was so God-awful clear from your first post.

>Of course I can't read that agreement in the ten minutes I took to respond. Let's say the language was clear and even well intentioned. What happens if Iraq wants to again nationalize their oil fields?

Why the fuck would the Iraqis want to nationalize the oil fields? The Iraqi government is rolling in cash right now due to the petroleum deals(so much so that the US Congress is complaining of how much free money the Iraqis have and how much reconstruction the US is paying for). Contrast this to Venezuela, whose oil rigs are falling into disrepair and whose production will plummet due to the lack of technical expertise available to the Venezuelan government bureaucrats after kicking out the Western energy companies and the reduction of reinvestment in new exploration. Nationalization is sexy and all to the global leftists, but it runs up against the hard reality of actually maintaining resource production (see: Zimbabwe after kicking out all the white farmers). Appointing paper pushers to do the job based on their political loyalty is a great way to send your country on a short road to North Koreaville.

> Do you think the US would just stand by and let them do it?

Yes. Do you know why? Because since oil is Iraq's lifeline, they will still sell it. And it's not control of petroleum that the US is after as a strategic priority, it's the continuing free flow of petroleum to the world market. We don't care who owns the oil. We care that any one person or country isn't threatening to monopolize a large majority of the world's proven reserves, thus allowing them to destabilize the US and world economy, which is highly dependent on energy for transportation.

> We didn't allow it to happen in Iran. We tried to stop it in Venezuela, but the coup failed.

Isn't it ironic? The Iranians have a populist revolution to only set up their own oppressive theocracy. 30 years later, the newest generation wants to have a populist revolution, only to have it squashed under the thumbs of the Ayatollah and the Revolutionary Guard, who at this point are starting to look worse than the Shah in terms of mismanaging their own country and citizens. The CIA had no involvement in the attempted Venezuelan coup, other than to indicate that the US government would rather have a military coup by halfway reasonable generals rather than another crackpot demagogue who is only interested in plundering his country's wealth for his own image and legacy. Which was perfectly fucking reasonable. Unless you happen to l

On the flipside, there is a compelling argument for figuring out alternative energy sources. The argument is based on strategy security interests and not flower power tree hugging cheerleading, or even well intentioned but somewhat speculative computer models. Read as an example the recent NYT article by Thomas Friedman. For those of you with the courage to read a message that has not been preapproved and prepackaged by the mass media, a much clearer exposition is here.

The absolutely immense cost of the US military (defense spending is the largest category after entitlement programs) is only part of the picture. How do you price in the wars that you loose? How do you put a price on the concessions you end up having to make having to backward medieval rulers - surely they are not satisfied with a bow or romantic stroll? We're arming with one hand, via petrodollars, the same groups and regimes that we end up fighting only a few years later. The Cold War ended when oil prices crashed driving Russia's economy into a tail spin. This was the defining moment of our generation! A

Kansas is super fucking mega crazy stupid

And Britain is worse...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/2711856/Council-officials-told-to-question-adults-in-public-park-without-children.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2261307/Toddlers-who-dislike-spicy-food-racist-say-report.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/2146670/Girl-guides-red-tape-deterring-adult-volunteers.html

Kansas is super fucking mega crazy stupid

And Britain is worse...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/2711856/Council-officials-told-to-question-adults-in-public-park-without-children.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2261307/Toddlers-who-dislike-spicy-food-racist-say-report.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/2146670/Girl-guides-red-tape-deterring-adult-volunteers.html

Kansas is super fucking mega crazy stupid

And Britain is worse...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/2711856/Council-officials-told-to-question-adults-in-public-park-without-children.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2261307/Toddlers-who-dislike-spicy-food-racist-say-report.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/2146670/Girl-guides-red-tape-deterring-adult-volunteers.html