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lightbulbs to force their replacement with fluorescent tubes containing hazardous mercury (and which are ill-suited for many applications that require instant operation or even harness their heat), rather than leapfrogging directly to LEDs etc.

Of course they won't give her the interest!

Taking the average current account rate in the UK of 0.51% (11 Feb 2009, TheTelegraph)
(1,130,000,000 * 0.51) / 365 = $1,578,904.11

"My tax dollars at work"

Indeed

"Richard Gaywood" has got to have the most unfortunate name in modern usage.

Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii

This is just a press release, it's intended to neutralise the Conservatives open source policy announcements. Nothing is actually going to happen.

Slightly later this afternoon the Government, orchestrated by Tom Watson MP, is planning to slip out an announcement that it will to stop discriminating against open source software in its procurement in an apparent attempt to look hip.

When George Osborne advocated the change, the Government briefed that open source was bad for security. Most geeks seemed to disagree with the position of the Government's briefings. Gordon Brown has always been keen to be close to open source's ultimate enemy, Microsoft founder Bill Gates: Mr Brown was responsible for Mr Gates receiving a knighthood and has co-authored a newspaper article with the software entrepreneur.

While many hard-pressed businesses have decided not to upgrade to the latest version of Microsoft products, I'm told the Government has no plans to stop its negotiations with Microsoft though OGC Buying Solutions, the public sector procurement agency, to keep licensing new version of Microsoft products.

In other words, I think we can safely deduce that the Government's announcement is about out taking away a Tory argument and is unlikely to result in any actual change in Whitehall.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/1476548/Swedens-jail-reforms-are-put-on-hold.html

Quote: Almost as soon as he was caught, Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president, asked to be allowed to serve out his time awaiting trial in a Swedish jail. "Prisons in Sweden seem to be more comfortable than in other places,"

Why use fossils? Neanderthals are still with us, as Blackburn Rovers manager Sam Allardyce shows!

Why did this post get labeled troll? Honestly? The US has admitted to sneaking code into valve controllers made by a company that the US knew that the russians were discreetely and secretly buying, that would cause them to go wonky when certain circumstances happened, leading to a huge explosion on one of their main siberian gas pipelines. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1455559/CIA-plot-led-to-huge-blast-in-Siberian-gas-pipeline.html Why would it be different for cuba?

Now that the global shipping economy has collapsed.

Oh, yeah, and here is a good article on the subject.

Awesome. You obviously live in an area close to the city and where it's basically flat. Almost no one I know is in a position to do that.

I can tell this because, 10 minutes by car to you means 2 or 3 miles, this means you live in a densely populated area with heaps of traffic.

To give you some idea, travelling for 10 minutes depends on the direction I'm going. If I'm going towards the center of the city in 10 minutes I will cover 15km (9 miles). If I'm going away from it (where my work is), I'll travel about 25km (15 miles).

This is in peak hour.

Additionally, it's really hilly where I live, so only the most fittest riders do it, and they are usually professionals.

Even Lance Armstrong found it hard.
Lance Armstrong 'disappoints' at Tour Down Under as Allan Davis wins stage four

The issue is that this ignorant view may be perpetuated in America. I have never heard anyone in Europe utter such crap.

I wouldn't be so smug. According to this, the problem definitely isn't just isolated to the U.S.A......

What I never understood about the EO (when I still lived in the Netherlands *and* still watched TV) was that they were (and possibly are?) both the most moronic broadcaster when it came to spouting religious nonsense but also one of the best when it came to showing all sorts of nature programs from (amongst others) known and proclaimed atheists like David Attenborough. They could not refrain from editing his programs though as they contain all sorts of references to evolution. Would they not be doomed by their allmighty $deity and condemned to a hereafter full of fire and brimstone by associating themselves with unbelievers like Sir David?

There has never been a "this is probably the last year you can ski here" statement from climate scientists.

Oh, so the UNEP are not climate scientists?

The warning comes four years after a study for the United Nations Environment Programme predicted that more than half of resorts in France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria could be forced out of business over the next five decades as the snow line rises.

I'm sure the BNP said lots of things, but nobody listens to them. However Brown is the first mainstream poilitician to lend credibility to this. And being in a quite senior position, he ought to be aware of the EU laws which mean it's basically impossible to do it.

Groaniad

What gives these views real purchase is that Gordon Brown, when chancellor in 2007, promised "British job for British workers"

Torygraph

to remind him of the promise, which he made to the TUC conference in September 2007

This is nowhere near the first time this has been done. The same 'solve/prevent crimes' has been proposed for cameras, ballistic databases, etc... None have been more cost efficient than more traditional police methods. DNA is better as confirmation, not primary investigation.

"It is good technology. It solves crimes," said Don Pierce, executive director of the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, which has long pushed for DNA tests at the time of arrest.

I dispute Don Pierce's statement. It's simple enough, England has had this system up for years. They even have the more extreme DNA collection method - DNA is collected for all arrestees, no conviction or charges required.
Crimes solved by DNA evidence fall despite millions being added to database.

Figures show that for the past six years the number of crimes solved using DNA evidence has remained static at between 0.34 and 0.36 per cent - about one in 300 of all recorded crimes.

Are these T cells capable of 'reproducing' and having an unlimited number of descendants?

T cells are produced by the bone marrow. They don't reproduce on their own.

If the treatment works, how long will it last?

The lifespan of an average T cell is on the order of 10-20 weeks. I believe. Shorter in HIV patients.

Do the modified T cells have to come from the patient?

Who knows? But not necessarily. After all, you get plenty of foreign T-cells with a blood transfusion. But I don't think anyone is necessarily viewing this treatment as a 'cure' in itself.

Once you have a bunch of immune T cells, will they be able to eliminate HIV from the body?

That's not known. But they've done it, with positive effects. Note how 'cure' is put in quotes, as it should be.

The answers to these questions are the difference between this being a laboratory curiosity and this being the elimination of HIV in developed countries within 5 years.

That is ridiculous. It's neither.

Had a little time. Googled a bit for you. Please explain these:

Israeli forces moved about 110 Palestinians into a house, told them to stay inside, and later shelled it repeatedly

"The evidence we've gathered in two of the cases so far is exceedingly strong," said Fred Abrahams, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch working in the Gaza Strip. "All the research so far suggests they shot civilians that were leaving their homes with white flags." Along with the white flag incidents, Human Rights Watch is calling for an international investigation into widespread charges that Israel prevented medical teams from helping wounded Palestinians trapped in their homes and needlessly demolished hundreds of houses, including dozens in Ezbt Abed Rabbo. "This was not a rogue unit," said Abrahams. "The needless civilian deaths resulted from concrete decisions made by the military."

Israeli soldiers entering the village: attempted to bulldoze houses with civilians inside; killed civilians trying to escape under the protection of white flags; opened fire on an ambulance attempting to reach the wounded; used indiscriminate force in a civilian area and fired white phosphorus shells.

At least 40 people were killed and 55 injured when Israeli artillery shells landed outside a United Nations-run school in Gaza, UN officials have said. [...] The UN says there were no militants in the compound

Yay, a school!

About 500 people including patients were huddled in a Gaza City hospital that suffered a "direct hit" in an Israeli air strike Thursday, the international Red Cross said, condemning the incident as unacceptable.

And a hospital. It just keeps getting better, doesn't it?

Outrage as Israel bombs UN HQ, hospital, school and media building

The U.N. suspended food deliveries to Gaza and the Red Cross accused Israel of blocking medical assistance after forces fired on aid workers, killing two

Israel denies Gaza access to clean water

- all that, plus shooting children directly in the head: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4279102/Bullets-in-the-brain-shrapnel-in-the-spine-the-terrible-injuries-suffered-by-children-of-Gaza.html

Your country is a fascist state committing full scale genocide.

• Subscription based models like MMOs
• Sell a different service
• Trust that pirates will still buy your game
• Move entirely to consoles
• Move to arcades only
• Tie your games to hardware
• Ask fans for donations
• Offer tiers for pricing giving away more scarce goods
• Offer incentives to buy

However, what you are really asking is for someone who is complaining to do the job of the business department of the video game companies. It is their job to figure out how to make money, not the legal departments, not their customers. It wouldn't matter if piracy were never an issue, sitting around hoping that the previous generation's business model will work for you is the most certain way to be a dying company.

I would suggest that any game company that resorts to DRM really needs to fire their business people. It fails miserably in its intended purpose, pisses off paying customers, and costs more money (thus less profit) to implement. It is an abject failure, yet some brain dead idiots think they'll get it right "this time."

They did not cut production. During 2008, a time of record high oil prices, in case you have forgotten, production fell by nearly 1%.

Historically, major increases in production had been achieved with the investment and expertise of western companies, working with Russian (OK kleptocratic) private organisations.

Putin then threw them all out / locked 'em all up. (By the way, where the money goes now is fairly obscure...Gazprom, for example, has subsidiaries in such oil-rich nations as the Caymen Islands, Cyprus...)

Surprise, surprise, production then fell. Was not reduced, just damn fell. Reminds me of, well, Venezuela, for example?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/venezuela/3183417/Venezuelas-oil-output-slumps-under-Hugo-Chavez.html

And what if it turns out not to be a myth?

And *what if* a solar flare hit the Earth and knocked out all communications? Quick, let's spend a trillion dollars and ruin the world economy to fix something not proven to be imminent, but do it "just in case" anyway...

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a MERRY Christmas... Despite the media hype you've obviously gobbled up as a good sheep, there is not the complete consensus on the issue that pols and the media seem to insist upon...

Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics

U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007

UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims

Scientists sign petition denying man-made global warming

The issues are not quite so clear-cut as you make them seem. Claim after claim of the alarmists has been debunked...

The Hockey Stick Graph

1998 was the hottest year on record. Not in the USA (try 1934

October 2008 was the warmest October on record? Nope!

Are GISS's data out of line with other sources of climate / temperature data?

NASA is not the only source of long-term temperature data used to evaluate climate change. Like NASA, the UK Meteorological Office's Hadley Center for Climate Studies depends on a network of ground-based weather stations using thermometers. Both are limited by their number of stations, the heat-island effects on many of the sites located in urban areas, changes in thermometer types over time and the loss of station sites over the historical periods being measured. Data gathered from these systems often has to be adjusted to remove "noise" caused by the local environment so it can be standardized for analysis.

The University of Alabama at Huntsville and Remote Sensing Systems provide data gathered by Earth-observation satellites. Satellite temperature data has the advantage of being gathered across the entire surface of the Earth, except for regions near the two poles, but it is unavailable for the period prior to 1978.

How do these other data sources compare to NASA?

According to Hadley's data, worldwide temperatures have declined since 1998 and the Earth is not much warmer now than it was than it was in 1878 or 1941.

Both the UAH and RSS satellite data agree with Hadley and show temperatures declining over the past decade with only a slight increase above the 30-year average between 1978 and 2008.

Round and round we go, when the alarmists will stop, nobody knows...

And what if it turns out not to be a myth?

And *what if* a solar flare hit the Earth and knocked out all communications? Quick, let's spend a trillion dollars and ruin the world economy to fix something not proven to be imminent, but do it "just in case" anyway...

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a MERRY Christmas... Despite the media hype you've obviously gobbled up as a good sheep, there is not the complete consensus on the issue that pols and the media seem to insist upon...

Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics

U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007

UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims

Scientists sign petition denying man-made global warming

The issues are not quite so clear-cut as you make them seem. Claim after claim of the alarmists has been debunked...

The Hockey Stick Graph

1998 was the hottest year on record. Not in the USA (try 1934

October 2008 was the warmest October on record? Nope!

Are GISS's data out of line with other sources of climate / temperature data?

NASA is not the only source of long-term temperature data used to evaluate climate change. Like NASA, the UK Meteorological Office's Hadley Center for Climate Studies depends on a network of ground-based weather stations using thermometers. Both are limited by their number of stations, the heat-island effects on many of the sites located in urban areas, changes in thermometer types over time and the loss of station sites over the historical periods being measured. Data gathered from these systems often has to be adjusted to remove "noise" caused by the local environment so it can be standardized for analysis.

The University of Alabama at Huntsville and Remote Sensing Systems provide data gathered by Earth-observation satellites. Satellite temperature data has the advantage of being gathered across the entire surface of the Earth, except for regions near the two poles, but it is unavailable for the period prior to 1978.

How do these other data sources compare to NASA?

According to Hadley's data, worldwide temperatures have declined since 1998 and the Earth is not much warmer now than it was than it was in 1878 or 1941.

Both the UAH and RSS satellite data agree with Hadley and show temperatures declining over the past decade with only a slight increase above the 30-year average between 1978 and 2008.

Round and round we go, when the alarmists will stop, nobody knows...

The first commercial cloning happened back in August. And if you thought cloning a dog was odd, wait till you read about the crazy mormon-stalker-rapist-criminal-conspirator-minor-delinquency-contributor lady whose dog it was.

The source is here but dlisted really boils it down to the interesting bits for you if you do not mind the profanity.

The alternative will be Britannica.

I always tell people to check out conservapedia.com. It was started because Wikipedia is edited by YOU and YOU are too biased to provide neutral information.

Here's a section from their page on Barack Hussein Obama
(redirected from Barack Obama)

Doctors from the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons have stated that Obama uses techniques of mind control in his speeches and campaign symbols. For example, one speech declared, "a light will shine down from somewhere, it will light upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will say to yourself, 'I have to vote for Barack.'"[26]

Oh my God, this is terrible! Our president is using techniques of mind control on us! What does Wikipedia have on this subject? Not a thing. Because a light shone down on YOU, YOU experienced an epiphany, and YOU said to yourself, 'I have to censor Barack's Wikipedia page.'

Obama may be the first Muslim President
The argument that Obama is a Muslim is largely based on his Islamic background. It also includes:

• Obama's background, education, and outlook are Muslim, and fewer than 1% of Muslims convert to Christianity.[28] [29]
• (more bullet points)
• Contrary to Christianity, the Islamic doctrine of taqiyya encourages adherents to deny they are Muslim if it advances the cause of Islam.
• Obama uses the Muslim Pakistani pronunciation for "Pakistan" rather than the common American one.
• (still more bullet points)
• Obama has chosen the Secret Service code name "Renegade". "Renegade" conventionally describes someone who goes against normal conventions of behavior, but its first usage was to describe someone who has turned from their religion. It is a word derived from the Spanish renegado, meaning "Christian turned Muslim."[42]
• Obama enjoyed a bigger increase in voter support in 2008 (compared to 2004) by Muslims than by any other voting group, including blacks;[43] "Muslim turnout in the U.S. elections reached 95 percent, the highest Muslim turnout in U.S. history."[44]>
• "President-elect Barack Obama has yet to attend [Sunday or Christmas] church services since winning the White House ..., a departure from the example of his two immediate predecessors."[45]
• Many atheists claim that Obama is one of them, yet he displays none of the characteristics common to atheism: Obama has not expressed offense at prayer by others, he has not promoted the theory of evolution, and he has never expressed a disdain for religious belief.

Bet you didn't know he was a Muslim. But it isn't all about religion. They also get into flag pins.

Obama wore an American flag lapel pin after 9/11, but later stopped wearing it without adequate explanation.[58] Presumably it would have hurt him with anti-military campaign donors.In 2007, at critical moments in his campaign for the nomination, Obama had difficulties securing the support of anti-war activists.

Barack Obama has a remarkable gift for oratory, but does it mask a fatal indecisiveness, asks Janet Daley., "what I sense in Obama's love for abstract concepts and diffuse rhetorical devices is not so much the use of language as a facilitator of action, but as a way of disguising lack of decision."

Well, Janet, it would appear that you couldn't be any more wrong if you tried with both hands.

I would have read more of the article, but the sheer amount of EPIC BITTER in the comments crashed my browser.

Governments do have the choice of being moral and ethical. There is NO CIRMCUMSTANCE AT ALL I would want or expect the British government to shell civilian buildings using white phosphorous, against the terms of the Geneva conventions. Proportionate response is the key.

(Not that I'm saying Hamas is any better - they are deliberately targetting Israeli civilians, just with less effective weapons.)

Bullshit. When it looked like there was a possibility the Germans would win in WWII the British government incinerated whole cities of German civilians with incendiary bombs e.g. Dresden. And they were 100% justified in doing so, IMO. They had to destroy the German war economy and the only way they could do that was by bombing. Technology being what it was, that pretty much implied levelling German cities.

The type of plans necessary to create a functioning implosion device are state-held secrets and have only been seen by a select few with Top Secret clearance.

That makes me feel safer then. The MOD are very good at data protection.

Those are tall orders for any engineer!

Or a totally awesome challenge....

Governments do have the choice of being moral and ethical. There is NO CIRMCUMSTANCE AT ALL I would want or expect the British government to shell civilian buildings using white phosphorous, against the terms of the Geneva conventions. Proportionate response is the key.

(Not that I'm saying Hamas is any better - they are deliberately targetting Israeli civilians, just with less effective weapons.)

Bush bought that Crawford mansion right before he ran for president, and just sold it now that he's not the perpetual campaigner anymore.

He never raised anything on that "ranch" except brush to cut. Hell, Bush is scared of horses, just like a fake cowboy. The ranch was purely a prop. And you fell for it.

Yes, it is apparently already being done on a large scale:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/3173346/Chip-and-pin-scam-has-netted-millions-from-British-shoppers.html

Princess Beatrice recently had her car stolen while she was under full security detail. One of the security people should have noticed that she left the keys in the car, but no one did.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/theroyalfamily/4165229/Thieves-steal-Princess-Beatrices-BMW-after-she-left-keys-in-ignition.html

> So please don't spout blatant lies people may believe you. Or hell just check snopes before you type.

Why the fuck would I want to check Snopes? I was referring to a quote attributed to Paul McCartney in a UK newspaper.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/4043946/BBC-pulls-Paul-McCartneys-Michael-Jackson-impersonation.html

---
Sir Paul later said: "You know what doesn't feel very good, is going on tour and paying to sing all my songs. Every time I sing Hey Jude, I've got to pay someone."
---

Of course, it's entirely possible that Paul McCartney doesn't understand the music business, or was misquoted.

I'm getting borred of this thread so if you see me stop responding, you know why.

What does that have to do with the use of the term "climate change" vs. "global warming"? Nobody ever titled themselves "global warming".

It means exactly as I said, they didn't call it Climate change until after global warming deniers gained traction.

Uh, no, that doesn't have anything to do with how the IPCC was created.

it got hijacked and turned into a political organization.

The IPCC was always intended to be a political organization. That's what the "Intergovernmental" is for. It's also a scientific organization. That's what the "Climate Change" is for.

Whatever, that's how it happened, it's a political organization and it's 80%of the ammo supporting Global warming despite a lot of the scientist objecting to how it portrayed their work.

That continues to be a libelous and wrong claim, and one that you repeatedly avoid supporting with facts.

Perhaps you need to look up the definition of libel. You keep using that word and I don't think you know what it means.

Which in turn, does not negate the utility of an emission cap.

Lol... I didn't say a word about an emissions cap. We both were talking about the artificial increase of energy prices hurting the economy. If you can get an emissions cap that doesn't do that, more power to you, I will agree to it. So far, you can't and inflating energy prices is what happens which ruins the economies. Look at Europe's economy, they had to bank all their wealth on the US because of their energy inflation which hurt their economy. When the US got hit, they went down in flames too.

Again, what matters is not the absolute amount of CO2 vs. the absolute amount of water vapor. What matters is the CHANGE in CO2 vs. the change in other radiative forcing agents.

Lol.. The change in the amount of Co2 and water effect the absolute amounts. The entire premise is that the absolute amounts are causing heat to build up and therefore damage to the environment that you have arbitrarily decided needs to stay the same as you know it.

More made-up numbers. 80 or 90 percent of what, measured by what?

The absolute amount compared to other gases in the atmosphere is irrelevant to how hard or easy it is to reduce the emissions rate of any particular gas.

Measured by the publicized prophecies of the al mighty science community and reported in the press.

Again, this is wrong. It's not relevant whether CO2 is a small or large fraction of the total atmosphere. What is relevant is how hard or easy it is to alter CO2 emissions relative to the fraction by which we've increased CO2 concentrations.

Actually, no. It is very relevant. Especially when you have reports like this. I noticed it didn't get much main stream media coverage.

Feel free to justify this with actual numbers.

I don't think I need to. Other entire countries are revolting on the idea and some blamed the global recession on it.

So can any model.

Well, it appears that the models are so flawed that they can show the exact same warming trends as being blamed on Co2 without even raising Co2 levels.

Didn't we discuss the sun and water vapor a w

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940CE6D7123AF933A15757C0A9659C8B63
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/1429096/British-cameraman-shot-dead-by-Israeli-soldiers.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/06/israel2
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/889281.html
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/cruises/item.aspx?type=photo&photo_id=0eY4akVfByfWH&tid=05YG14l3Yj8zn&pn=1
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=5480&Cr=unrwa&Cr1=

None of those are Reuters, none of those are BBC.

As my teeth lack enamel, most of them are now crowns. Due to a infection I now require these crowns (my front top teeth canine to canine) to be removed so this tech can't come quick enough!

Teeth regrown in mice, in humans "within a decade": 2000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/896134.stm

Toothpaste that fixes cavities: 2005
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1484271/Toothpaste-that-fixes-cavities-as-they-appear.html

Regrow dentine: 2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1584014/Dental-fillings-could-become-a-thing-of-the-past.html

http://www.odontis.co.uk/ was set up a while ago as a commercial venture, they seem to be leading in this area.

As my teeth lack enamel, most of them are now crowns. Due to a infection I now require these crowns (my front top teeth canine to canine) to be removed so this tech can't come quick enough!

Teeth regrown in mice, in humans "within a decade": 2000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/896134.stm

Toothpaste that fixes cavities: 2005
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1484271/Toothpaste-that-fixes-cavities-as-they-appear.html

Regrow dentine: 2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1584014/Dental-fillings-could-become-a-thing-of-the-past.html

http://www.odontis.co.uk/ was set up a while ago as a commercial venture, they seem to be leading in this area.

The government is definitely keeping information away from the public in regard the activity at Yellowstone National Park. Read "CNN Oversimplifies The Danger of Yellowstone National Park" http://justanothercoverup.com/?p=314 . This article literally traveled "around the world" and is still being read today - many times per day. To those of us who have been following these events, we know that something is brewing, especially considering that Yellowstone is over 45,000 years overdue for a major eruption, which is an "extinction level event." CNN tried initially to categorize Yellowstone as an "ancient Volcano", when in fact it is the only known "super volcano" on earth. It's also interesting that since this phenomena began, we can directly correlate the beginning of unparalleled corporate greed and the wealthy who are now engaged in building huge underground facilities that have for the most part been accomplished under secrecy so as not to alarm the rest of the population. Also note the President's purchase of land in South America atop the world's largest aquifer. You can't use "Google Images" to see the construction - as it's blacked-out with older images, but it's there, and there has to be a reason for it. Keep in mind that the ground has swelled more in the past three (3) years than it has in the past hundred years - a fact which has to be significant and demonstrates that the Yellowstone caldera is more active now than at any other time in our recorded history. When CNN attempts to pass-off such a blatant lie, we know they are hiding something, and you can bet the wealthy and those who have access to information we don't are hastily attempting to gather the funds to protect themselves at anyone's expense - including theft and murder on a scale that so far has been unparalleled in history. We need answers - but they won't be forthcoming. I predicted a major volcanic/seismologic event before the end of the year for the west coast or Alaska, as well as noting that the earthquakes were moving up from South America to the US. I wasn't disappointed: "Eruption of 3 volcanoes has scientists asking questions" http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/551521.html "How likely is it that three neighboring volcanoes would all erupt at the same time -- as the Kasatochi, Okmok and Cleveland volcanoes in the Aleutians did this summer? About as likely as a storm that only appears once in a thousand years, says Anchorage volcanologist Peter Cervelli, who'll deliver a paper on the subject this winter to the American Geophysical Union. In other words, seldom enough that Cervelli is now exploring the question of whether Alaska's triple eruption was only a coincidence involving three independent volcanoes or whether it was triggered by some common mechanism." On January 18th, 2008, I wrote "Volcanic Activity Appears To Be Working Itâ(TM)s Way Around The âoeRing of Fireâ UPDATED" http://justanothercoverup.com/?p=385 On May 6th, 2008, a Chilean volcano erupted that had been dormant for over 9,000 years. Is that a coincidence? "Thousands flee as Chilean volcano erupts" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/chile/1924533/Thousands-flee-as-Chaiten-volcano-erupts-in-Chile.html It's obvious that we live in interesting and dangerous times, however, it would be fair to everyone if the government would fill us all in as to what they "think" is happening - but we all know that will never happen. William Cormier

militarization of space.

You think that's scary, consider the militarization of the Cult of Climate Change. Cult leader Dr. James "Fake Data" Hansen with access to military command? That's much more frightening. There are factions of this cult that honestly believe, "We need to radically and intelligently reduce human populations to fewer than one billion" to stop global warming.

Are widely recognized as a good idea. I think electricity and heat backups should be the same. A generator and woodstove are not *that* expensive, and sure come in handy sometimes.....

The expense is not particularly in the capital outlay, but in the logistics of ensuring that you always have fuel laid in, and that your system is always ready to go at a suitably short notice.

At work, we have to have a separate emergency power system, housed in the opposite corner of the vessel to the main engines, on a separate fuel system, and hooked up to the distribution boards to re-power the vessel's communications, accommodation lighting, control room and certain critical subsystems (principally, the derrick's electrical braking system, and the fuel pump to the cement unit, the hydraulics for the anchoring and/ or DP system), but most importantly it also powers the back-up fire pump. (This is, naturally, housed distant to the main fire pump ; what would you do if you had a fire in the engineering space that housed the main fire pump? Die?) All of which adds considerably to the overall complexity of the system. We normally do a test run of the emergency generator system along with personnel muster drill, abandon vessel drills etc about once a week ; these system are utterly useless if their use is not routinely drilled until every person using the system knows that the system works, and what their roles in the system are.

Oh, am I making it sound a bit more complex than you'd wanted? well, that's the difference between playing at having a backup system and really having a backup system.

(Minor sideline : Like everyone else, I'm not best pleased when the alarms go for emergency drills in the middle of my sleep period. But I accept it as necessary, and routinely object to the scheduling of drills at fixed times in the calendar ; I think that they should be at random times, or at routine times plus as many random times. This makes me unpopular. So what?)

Your generator needs a fuel supply always laid-in sufficient for your anticipated outage ; you need to know where you're going to get additional fuel, and how long that is going to take ; you need to know how you're going to transfer fuel from your bowser (transfer container) to the generator's fuel system without the generator running (and hence, no electrical power ; or, do you select generator hardware which can be re-fuelled while running? P.P.P.P.P.P! [Loath though I am to cite the Torygraph, they come to the top of the list).

What to do about the exhaust fumes is left as an exercise for the student. Will you have power available for a ventilation blower? And have you double-checked on the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning? Static engines are very different beasts to the mobile engines that you're more likely to be familiar with.

Your wood-burning stove raises fewer issues. But elsewhere on today's Slashdot is a thread about someone who was off-power for 4 days, so do you have stacking space for (say) a week of wood? Fire-starting equipment? Really, fire-starting equipment that you can use in the dark. Oh, you forgot to put the candles in the same drawer as the matches? And the matches are wet. Aren't you glad that you practiced this in early autumn?

People have got lost navigating back from the woodshed to the main house. It may sound surprising, but it does happen.

"That could never happen."

It already has in the UK.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3684930/Corrupt-policeman-blackmailed-sex-offenders.html

Dude. He's buying lolicon doujins, not Nabokov. This isn't art and literature -- it's porn.

So the age old debate of how to tell art from porn has been solved? Of course not (and the terms are not mutually exclusive).

Well, two problem here. In fact, most anime characters are teens under 18. Age of consent in Japan is 14, which lets them get away with having high schoolers in sexual situations. Anime protagonists that are of age in America are frankly the minority, weird censorship laws on pubic hair aside.

What, did you check their birth certificates? How exactly do you claim to know the ages of fictional images?

Oh, just read up on Miller and shut up with the hysterics.

"Shut up, shut up" - that's all you censorship people know, isn't it? Why don't you shut up - I don't see any artistic or literary merit in what you post, so let's say no more posts from you, or else you get to spend time in prison.

Of course, it's probably true that images in museums wouldn't be affected, but then it's even more ridiculous if the same images become illegal when found on somebody's hard drive. A selectively enforced law is a bad law. And don't think that laws are never used in stupid ways - from images in art galleries, to 30 year old album covers on online encyclopedias.

The only hysterics here are from people who think cartoons are anything to with child porn.

Do you think that Americans would vote differently in the same situation? If an American city were controlled by a foreign military force, and during incursions foreign soldiers had killed hundreds of civilians over the years? That entire extended families had been wiped out by shell fire that was just "a mistake"? Do you really think the American public would vote for a moderate leadership under those conditions?

"I'd want an expert in sonar to call bullshit on this one"

Like a dolphin? They can most certainly tell.

The dolphin could give you an ultrasound and see if something is seriously wrong with your insides...

Or, pick a choice internal organ to ram and damage:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3323070/Killer-dolphins-baffle-marine-experts.html

Our sonar of course is a lot crappier.

Want to get away with torture? How about murder? Just claim you're doing it for the Invisible Sky Guy, or to get rid of those pesky body thetans.

Want justice? Work for peace. Want peace? Kill your God.

Half of me says these guys need a reality check, the other half wants to go there.

Why bother going to Dubai anyhow? It is too hot, they only have sand and some fake islands

Plus, they have a really bad attitude about the most fun thing to do on a beach in the middle of the night.

Luckily we have the FDA looking out for our health and best interests (joke!).

You do realize that the FDA employees and their families use this medicine, right? They've got a bit of a vested interest in actually looking out for us.

Even to my surprise, a study from a couple years ago showed that Echinacea has been found to more than halve the risk of catching the common cold

More recent, better-controlled studies have said it has no more effect than a placebo. I mean, come on, READ the article you just linked: "The results in The Lancet Infectious Diseases conflict with other studies that show no beneficial effect." Here's one such study. Here's another. Here's a much more damning one, which found that "popular herbal medicines, including ginkgo, ginseng and garlic, can cause serious complications during surgery". Cherry-picking a positive study isn't doing research.

I'm sure if more research was done into natural and traditional remedies, many others would also be found to also have value.

Argument from ignorance and unstated major premise. You're implying that there HASN'T been much research done, either because you don't know or you don't accept the negative findings. You're quite wrong - herbal medicines and "traditional" remedies have been extensively studied and almost universally found not to provide the benefits their creators/practitioners claim. Hence the reason they're not allowed to claim to cure anything.

Problem is, if you can pick it from a forest or a field, there's no money in it for the shareholders... unless you can purify/extract/synthesize and patent it (after all, aspirin was originally derived from willow bark).

You claim that a company would not develop a medicine if it can't turn them a profit. Then you provide a direct contradiction of your claim. If no company had further developed aspirin, we'd still only get it from willow bark.

Luckily we have the FDA looking out for our health and best interests (joke!).

You do realize that the FDA employees and their families use this medicine, right? They've got a bit of a vested interest in actually looking out for us.

Even to my surprise, a study from a couple years ago showed that Echinacea has been found to more than halve the risk of catching the common cold

More recent, better-controlled studies have said it has no more effect than a placebo. I mean, come on, READ the article you just linked: "The results in The Lancet Infectious Diseases conflict with other studies that show no beneficial effect." Here's one such study. Here's another. Here's a much more damning one, which found that "popular herbal medicines, including ginkgo, ginseng and garlic, can cause serious complications during surgery". Cherry-picking a positive study isn't doing research.

I'm sure if more research was done into natural and traditional remedies, many others would also be found to also have value.

Argument from ignorance and unstated major premise. You're implying that there HASN'T been much research done, either because you don't know or you don't accept the negative findings. You're quite wrong - herbal medicines and "traditional" remedies have been extensively studied and almost universally found not to provide the benefits their creators/practitioners claim. Hence the reason they're not allowed to claim to cure anything.

Problem is, if you can pick it from a forest or a field, there's no money in it for the shareholders... unless you can purify/extract/synthesize and patent it (after all, aspirin was originally derived from willow bark).

You claim that a company would not develop a medicine if it can't turn them a profit. Then you provide a direct contradiction of your claim. If no company had further developed aspirin, we'd still only get it from willow bark.

But being the coldest year in the hottest decade doesn't mean it's getting colder.

Inconveniently, the hottest decade was the 1930s:

Recent days have brought to light four more highly "inconvenient truths" for our global warming alarmists. The first caused acute embarrassment to Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), exposing a serious flaw in its record of US surface temperatures since 1880. The error was so glaring that, on August 7, GISS had to post revised figures which show, instead of temperatures reaching their highest level in the past decade, that the hottest year of the 20th century was not 1998 but 1934. Of the 10 warmest years since 1880, it turns out that four were in the 1930s and only three in the past decade.

The significance of this is that James Hansen, the head of GISS, has been Al Gore's closest scientific ally for nearly 20 years in promoting the global warming scare. The revised figures relate only to temperatures in North America but the fact that the pre-eminent scientific champion of the orthodoxy has been promoting erroneous data has considerable implications.

Indeed, the recent EU decision seems to be just the 10 year extension beyond December 2009 referred to in this article from 2001, allowing traders to continue using both sets of units together.

Recently, a guy sleepwalked to death from his hotel room balcony:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3727373/Briton-sleepwalks-to-his-death-off-hotel-balcony.html

and another guy was acquitted of rape because of sleepwalking:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1085927/How-man-raped-cleared-sleepwalking.html