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Parents have very little influence on children: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2007/04/26/nedu26.xml
Thus, your point is defeated and your comment false.
Also see "The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do; Parents Matter Less Than You Think and Peers Matter More", which has a very extensive bibliography of research that proves that parents are next to irrelevant in how their children turn out.
Next time do some research before posting musings you pulled out of your ass.

Parents have very little influence on children: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2007/04/26/nedu26.xml
Thus, your point is defeated and your comment false.
Also see "The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do; Parents Matter Less Than You Think and Peers Matter More", which has a very extensive bibliography of research that proves that parents are next to irrelevant in how their children turn out.
Next time do some research before posting musings you pulled out of your ass.

While that is true, everyone except Canadians assumes they are just an informal 51st state.

OTOH, if I were France and had behaved like they have the last 60 years, then I'd be paranoid too. http://fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsam-lbj/nsam-336.htm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2005/03/27/wfran27.xml
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html= /archive/1998/05/28/wjup28.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osirak
http://beta.morons.org/tally-ho/article/read/11

There's plenty of stupidity in the USA too. http://www.slate.com/id/2077874/

While that is true, everyone except Canadians assumes they are just an informal 51st state.

OTOH, if I were France and had behaved like they have the last 60 years, then I'd be paranoid too. http://fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsam-lbj/nsam-336.htm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2005/03/27/wfran27.xml
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html= /archive/1998/05/28/wjup28.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osirak
http://beta.morons.org/tally-ho/article/read/11

There's plenty of stupidity in the USA too. http://www.slate.com/id/2077874/

is getting insane. With China the new carbon dioxide emissions leader we need to focus on finding actual new sources of energy. You know, so China will have some economic incentive to stop polluting so much, not that it would hurt for the USA to cut its emissions drastically as well.

We need to face facts: Assuming the global climate is as fragile as all of the chicken littles claim, the US and Europe ceasing all greenhouse emissions right now would do nothing to save us from our gradual slide into superhurricane seasons and worldwide desert conditions, simply because India and China are still developing and couldn't give two shits about all of our initiatives if any cost them money.

I'm still waiting on a testable model (no, not a replica of the globe, trolls) before I jump on this "global warming is both horrible and human-mediated" that so many people seem to have blindly latched onto, drawing absurd conclusions after equating correlation with causation and screaming as shrilly as the most terrifying of harpies when someone expresses so much as a single iota of skepticism at their grand new movement.

My point is this: Cutting our planes' emissions will do nothing but place further financial strains on us, leading to a relative inability to compete with other countries less concerned about the illusory monster of global warming. In addition to this, it will do nothing to make a marked decrease in our own production of carbon dioxide and other gases.

This is more government micromanagement that will do nothing but further bring us down.

"We must" is implicitly prefaced by "We can and,"

Only if you're brain damaged.

Try reading what Hawking said before you go making up this crap.

Huh. Enjoy your 4.2 million CCTV cameras in the UK, and the lack of ability to legally defend yourself.

America is certainly screwed up, and I hate a lot of the recent political developments here, especially 9/11. However, I'm afraid that in many ways the UK is leading the charge on terrible laws and policies by comparison. Of course, I'm sure your airports are much less of a cluster fuck than ours currently are.

Not trying to be irritating, I think both countries, and indeed much of the world, have tons of... umm... "room for improvement" with regard to politics.

You mean like Jo Moore http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2002/02/16/nspin16.xml who sent this by e-mail and who worked for one Tony Blair who had someone leak a document in Microsoft Word format which kept the name of everyone who made a revision and thus revealed its source.

I'd say the most burning question about WiFi would have to do with the laptops on the network!

Well, to be pedantic it is statistical. The UK's census data is available on the macroscopic and mesoscopic levels, but microscopic (ie: individual data) is held in confidence for 100 years. So IIRC, you can find out exactly how many Jedis (seriously) are in a certain census district (mesoscopic - usually resolves to a street, couple of streets or single apartment block) or in the county/country (macroscopic), but not how many are at 13 Anywhere Street, Somewhereshire (microscopic).

That said, I think a census has outlived its purpose. Inland Revenue (or the IRS for Americans) will likely have far more accurate data on how many people there are in the country (the original point of the census), and what they earn. The census itself these days, at least in the UK, is becoming a ten-yearly compulsory market research form, with various ministers and groups trying (thankfully with some lack of success) to add ever more invasive questions to it.

Really, compared to some of the actions of some governments, Google's use of email to compile statistical information is really not a worry. This is after all, the Internet. You're sending plain text via how many machines before it even reaches Google? If people are that worried, they should cut and paste their email as a PGP or GPG-encrypted block. The tools are widely available, and make cracking the message either impossible or so expensive it just isn't viable.

Since 1998 number of people injured by firearms in England and Wales has more than doubled[24] from 2,378 in 1998/99 to 4,001 in 2005/06. "Injury" in this context means by being fired, used a blunt instrument, or as a threat. In 2005/06, 87% of such injuries were defined as "slight," which includes the use of firearms as a threat only. The number of homicides committed with firearms has remained between a range of 46 and 97 for the past decade, standing at 50 in 2005/06 (a fall from 75 the previous year). Between 1998/99 and 2005/06, there have been only two fatal shootings of police officers in England and Wales. Over the same period there were 107 non-fatal shootings of police officers - an average of just 9.7 per year.[25](PDF - Page 36)

But don't forget. Amerika is evil, not China.

China ... is just peachy. As is "we have the right to nuke you all to hell" Iran. "We use chemical rockets, but we don't have WMD's" Saddam, and a few others.

Don't forget, it's Bush who is evil. Not China, not Kim Jong Il, not Ahmadinejad and his islamic cleric band, and not "I like to gas non-arabs" Saddam. Those are excellent, moral human beings. And let's not forget Assad, Saudi Arabia, the palestinians, the pakistani's, and quite a few other, very moral, human beings.

Obviously someone who provides religious justification for mass slaughter is a moral cleric, who just "has different values" from us (islamic values, something like 9/11 ?), and we should respect that.

Wow, that's messed up. I took one look at the source (Hello Rev. Moon!) and had to look up the original Daily Telegraph article. It's not nearly as sensationalistic as the Washington Times piece. Yeah, the Telegraph is a bit conservative too, but Brit conservative is like American left wing. It sounds like this case, where both parents have the same severe genetic condition, is not that bad, but the same doctor does claim that he would screen for hair color, because certain hair colors can be a cause bullying. By that logic, as anything out of the ordinary is a potential cause for bullying, anything could be used as a reason for abortion. I support a woman's right to choose, but that doesn't mean I can't criticize her for her choice if I think it's thoughtless and callous.

This isn't even up for debate

Not quite sure exactly what you think "isn't up for debate" - that environmental regulation "hurts the economy"? It's true - nobody disputes that dumping all of our crap in the ocean is cheaper that properly disposing of it. Generally, having breathable air and drinkable water are worth some economic loss - the "debate" is where to draw the line between the extremes of competing with China and hugging spotted owls.

Desptite whatever FUD you hear, we have a decent economy that created 176,000 jobs last month.

We have so much going wrong in this country after 8 years that even if we get a Democratic president and Congress, it will take 10 years to recover policy-wise after this administration is finally run out of office

That's funny; the current Republican president took an economy at the brink of recession and took it to booming in only a few years. I don't think it will take Democrats a decade to fix what isn't broken.

The environment isn't high school debate club; this is serious and it matters

True. That's why we need to stop pretending that there is 100% agreement an extremely politicized scientific issue when at least 10,000 climatologists disagree with the prevailing notion that man is responsible for the warming of the planet. It is irresponsible to pretend that we have a "consensus" or that "the debate is over" just because the prevailing truthiness supports your worldview.

Something's wrong when even the UN keeps revising figures on the extent of global warming - we're down to an upper limit estimate of a 17" rise in sea levels by 2100.

I can now sit back and observe the spectra emitted by my flaming karma - but, despite the prevailing notions on Slashdot, the United States has a strong and improving economy, and it is still very much debatable whether or not we will all be the proud owners of an above-ground swimming pool.

• The Real 'Inconvenient Truth'
• Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics
• The Deniers
• New findings indicate today's greenhouse gas levels not unusual
• Global Warming as a Religion
• I Was On the Global Warming Gravy Train (By David Evans)
• GREENIE WATCH
• (Streaming video) The Great Global Warming Swindle - Documentary Film
• 'The global-warmers were bound to attack, but why are they so feeble?'

Here is a 2004 article detailing a German invention designed to reprimand men for lifting the toilet seat.

According to this list of prostate health suggestions sitting to piss helps to completely empty the bladder.

And here is an example of a 'no pissing while standing' sign.

Of course the issue cuts both ways with the P-Mate, and other techniques to enable women to evacuate while standing.

While I'll agree that society (including US) has tendencies to over-obsessing about bodily functions I don't think they are any worse than suggesting that it's wrong for a man to piss whilst seated. Next thing you'll tell me is that I'm wrong to be disgusted when I see other guys leave a restroom without washing their hands (or just doing the quick, no-soap rinse).

I'm not some fanatic about germs, but personal hygiene is important. As far as sitting to piss, I generally stand. I'll sit if I feel like it.

This false dichotomy of "the right wants to stop violent fundamentalists, the left doesn't" is an invention of the corporate media and the political far right

I do not think it is an invention at all. While the legacy media and far right may very well be saying that the left "doesn't want to stop violent fundamentalists", it is the left itself that is allied with the mujahedin in many cases. While that may not apply to you (and I take you at your word that you oppose the mujahedin), it does apply to those leftists who wear kaffyehs, wave "palestinian" flags, and show sympathy for Hezbollah. There seems to be a rift in the left as to whether or not sympathy should be shown toward "oppressed" muslims. Hyper-"progresssive" Ken Livingstone, disgraceful mayor of London, stands as a shining example. George Galloway, another "progressive", outshines Livingstone in his support for mujahedin. So I don't see it as a false dichotomy at all. Rather, I see it as a problem that "progressives" must face, particularly in that mujahedin hate gays, oppress women, deny freedom of conscience, support slavery, perpetrate female genital mutilation, and foment imperialism -- all of which are positions that "progressives" have traditionally stood against.

Now, it seems that the "progressive" stand against those evils is weakening as more and more "progressives" ally themselves with the stated enemy of the United States.

We _all_ want to stop them by the most efficient means we can come up with.

The "_all_" may refer to you and your "progressive" friends, but it does NOT refer to "all progressives". Ken Livingstone, George Galloway, et al are opposed to your position. They regard the USA, not jihad, as the real threat. That is why these useful idiots forge bonds with the mujahedin and act as their apologists.

For starters, I wouldn't be willing to accept a huge number of civilian casualties in order to attack the machinery of what you call political Islam.

That position of yours makes the usage of "human shields" into an effective tactic. We need to be less concerned about civilian casualities if we want to defeat the mujahedin, because they have proven again and again, through words and deeds, that our love of life and mercy is something that they are fulling willing to exploit in the pursuit of our destruction.

To the extent that military action is called for, precision would be a lot more ethical _and effective_ than scorched earth. Our Rangers and Seals can sure as hell take out a terrorist enclave before they even know which way is up, and not even wake up the next door neighbors.

Their mujahedin can strap a bomb onto a six-year-old child and blow up our Rangers and Seals and score big points with our own "anti-war" groups at home by doing so. Our enemies know this. Why don't you? They are not afraid to kill themselves and their own children to destroy us, and if killing their children makes us look bad, then they regard that as victory. The mujahedin do not love life like we do. Take a look at this to read the mujahedin in their own words.

Casualties aren't going to make them give up, hell, they're blowing themselves up!

That statement comes from your failure to understand Arabic Muslim culture. The reason they are blowing themselves up is because those type of attacks are proving to be very effective at their stated goal: getting US soldiers out of "muslim land". Their suicide attacks receive effusive reporting from gutless legacy media in the USA who would love to have the Iraq war fail in order to score political points at their hated enemy (W). Do you think that sucide attacks would continue if we immediately killed Muqtada Al-Sadr and every human within 10 miles of him, and then *systematically* laid waste to Fallujah with promises of which cities would be next unless the attacks stopped? (Do you regard our enemy as unbreak

It's great that some sort of electromagnetic field might have a therapeutic value against brain tumors. But this news doesn't decrease the concern about cell phone/Wi-Fi radiation and brain tumors...quite the opposite...since something that has ANY demonstrated effect can obviously have a negative effect as well. The cell phone industry has maintained for years that there could not possibly be any effect on a living brain of cell phone radiation, even in the face of studies showing increases in tumors as well as negative cognitive effects. Now, perhaps, they will say that there are effects...but only beneficial ones...not those nasty bad ones.

he problem for people who don't accept the 100+yr old repeatable observation that C02 acts as a GHG is to point to an alternative explaination for the observed warming. In other words natural "forcings" have been accunted for, so where is the extra warming coming from if not from GHG emmissions?

Some links relevant to the program...

The Stewart Report summary:
http://www.iegmp.org.uk/report/summary.htm
(there's a link to the full text there too)

ICNIRP Publications
http://www.icnirp.de/pubEMF.htm

Karolinska Institutet:
http://ki.se/ki/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=130&l=en

Long-Term Sickness and Mobile Phone Use:
http://www.acnem.org/journal/pdf_files/23-2-septem ber_2004/23-2_mobile_phones-hallberg.pdf
PDF; a paper co-authored by Olle Johannson. It wasn't directly mentioned on the program but I guess has informed his views.

Electrohypersensitivity: State-of-the-Art of a Functional Impairment:
http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/G78U43 45510209JQ.pdf
PDF; authored by Olle Johannson.

Powerwatch:
http://www.powerwatch.org.uk/

The telegraph article that seemed to be the source of the "teachers demand no wifi" section of the program:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2007/04/23/nwifi23.xml

This isn't supposed to be an unbiased list of views; it's just links relevant to the program (which in my view, wasn't unbiased). Anyway - read, look for more, and make your own mind up.

(posted AC; I don't need the Karma)

'two blokes jailed for leaking a memo where Bush tells Blair that he wants to bomb the Al-Jazeera'

This is ironic considering that Blair is not above leaking when trying to distract from some unpleasantness, sometimes even against his against his own people. Or when some bad news has to be got out it's best to do it over the weekend or in the middle of a terrorist alert. His current elder statesman act is equally ironic considering that it was Mo Molan who delivered the Northern Ireland peace and was then forced out of office by creative leaks organized out of No. 10 questioning her mental facilities.

'The leaks occurred a day after the arrest of Lord Levy and a day before No 10 admitted that Tony Blair had been interviewed by police for a second time in the cash for honours affair' Re:Hmmm

Stop blaming sat nav

Sir - Your headline "Sat nav directed me into path of train" (report, May 11) is inaccurate. It should have read: "Daft bat unable to recognise a level crossing when she sees one".

The sat nav directed her (apparently correctly) along a road that included a level crossing. It did not tell her to read the clearly displayed instructions for safe crossing, and she should be warned that it will not tell her to stop at traffic lights when they are red, either.

Ann Fearnhill, Faversham, Kent

Sir - Even driving at night, with lights and a basic knowledge of the highway code, recognition of a gated rail crossing would not be difficult. Once recognised, the reading and obeying of signs and crossing carefully should be matter of fact.

Stephen Fyles, Watford, Hertfordshire

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jses sionid=SSBSMFS3KGVEHQFIQMGCFFOAVCBQUIV0?xml=/opini on/2007/05/12/nosplit/dt1201.xml

Well if it is any consolation we will probably experience global cooling in a few decades just as we did about 4 decades ago. The strange thing is that not every time in the past has there been people running around with their heads cutoff screaming end of days because of the temperature change but for some reason we have that now and the only difference is that the temperature is moving in the other direction. And at the very least, the current global warming proponents are treading new ground with pushing their agenda by making death threats against those who don't agree with them. Who would have thought that denying human involvement in global temperature changes would justify such violence. A century ago global cooling caused quite a stir. It seems scientists don't ever know what is really going to happen to the global temperature but if the past few millennia are any indication it seems that nothing globally catastrophic will happen (maybe given enough millennia another Ice Age will occur but, just as before, it won't be anything we can help because we won't be the cause).

When she worked up in London she'd get home usually after 8 in the evening and be swearing about the commute, the office politics, everything. Always angry. We used to have to go on winter holidays to get some sun as she seemed to be affected by SAD. Now, she can be working outside in the rain all day and when she gets home she's smiling from ear to ear! Never been happier. Best thing she ever did!

I also have a mate who was a programmer and is now a Corgi Registered Gas Engineer. He says the money is about the same and there's less stress. You also get to meet different people all the time!

I reckon I might become an electrician when my current contract ends. Or perhaps learn a few building skills and help the wife with her gardening - build a few walls, put in garden lighting, water features, pergolas, that sort of thing!

Come on America, we all used to look up to you as the beacon of freedom, but now your country is being turned into a Tudor monarchy, within a few years there will be no freedom left, will the last one out please turn off the lights when you leave.

I'd watch what you say. It seems Britain isn't immune to changing either. Personally, I'd prefer Tudor over Islamic but that's just me.

Long-term users of mobile phones are significantly more likely to develop a certain type of brain tumour on the side of the head where they hold their handsets, according to new research.

Mobile phone use linked to tumours
The results seem to suggest health risks in people who have regularly used mobiles for over 10 years

A large-scale study found that those who had regularly used mobiles for longer than 10 years were almost 40 per cent more likely to develop nervous system tumours called gliomas near to where they hold their phones.

The new research, to be published later this year in the International Journal of Cancer, is the second study to suggest increased risks of specific types of brain tumours in regions close to where mobile phone emissions enter the head.

Not that small. For example most (75%) Pakistanis who live in Bradford in the UK are married to their own first cousins, and they have a high level of recessive genetic disorders as a result. In response to pressure from Ann Cryer MP, the UK has raised the age at which husbands/wives can be brought into the UK to 21 years, to discourage forced marriages.

Yep, it sure is.

As with all things in the UK, the education system was doomed as soon as the government, in the form of T. Blair, declared it's improvement to be a benchmark of New Labour's success. As soon as a politician makes a statement like that, showing improvement via statistics becomes infinitely more important to those in power than actually improving anything.

This has led to the situation where A levels, exam's initially designed to filter star pupils for University, are being passed by in numbers that render them useless for that purpose. If you ever get the chance, compare A level papers from now and ten years ago and you'll see the difference in knowledge required to pass and with GCSE's, the lower grade exams aimed at 16 year old's passable without any prior study of the subject they cover things are only going to get worse. And yes, you read that right, you can pass the vocational GCSE without any real need to study the subject and A level's are planned to head the same way.

And here lies the truth behind "improving" standards. It will always be easier to lower the bar than train the athlete to jump higher and when a government stakes it reputation on success in a field the bar will drop as low as is necessary to make sure it gets shown in the best light and re-elected.

Another telling quote as to the shape of things to come is from a long term physics teacher stating that education is now being re-shaped to produce a society of "critically aware" consumers. Whereas in 20th century industrial Britain it was considered desirable to have people that were multi-skilled and capable of looking after themselves, 21st century "New" Britain is a land of consumption where lots of highly qualified people who are totally incapable of doing anything beyond the one trick pony career they train for after school pay other one trick ponies to do anything more mentally taxing than changing a fuse thus pushing money from hand to hand and fuelling the service economy. The Chinese on the other hand need people who are capable of using their hands and their education will reflect that fact.

Check here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2007/04/15/nalevels15.xml

and rest assured that when selective schools are finally scrapped and the government's flagship Building Schools for the Future program replaces current schools with privately run bland, identi-kit, centres of mediocrity the dumbing down of Britain will be complete.

According to proponents of a burgeoning new genre of independent film - "open source" cinema - New Line's U-turn [in adopting changes demanded by the prospective film audience] foreshadows the future of filmmaking, one where audiences control what kind of movies get made.

Insightful? How about: completely untrue? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2002/02/24/nguns24.xml Read this and weep for the 1997 act when personal firearms where banned from private use.

Don't you realise why things like that happen more often in the USA than in Europe?

Don't be silly... http://www.gunowners.org/sk0703.htm

Which part of Europe?

England? Where guns are banned entirely...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2002/02/24/nguns24.xml

Or Switzerland? Where men are required to own weapons and women are encouraged to...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1566715.st m

These make a pretty good case for arming everyone!

If nobody, citizen nor criminal, had access to guns,

Great insight.

That reminds me of how polar bears are the misleading poster child for global warming as well: instead of dying at sea because there's not enough ice, they and their progeny are taking the artic by storm.

"Gimme a break. I thought the left at least gave lip service to freedom of speech."

Sorry, no breaks and this issue isn't about "free speech." It's about the fundamental lack of fairness in the real world. Sometimes you get fired for making a "nappy-headed hos" comment and sometimes you get your hands cut off to scare you from the vote.

All things considered, Imus got off easy.

"Deserve's got nothin' to do with it." - Will Munny

Most of these "wouldn't web be great" reports are written by people that are too Western centric to realise that most of the world does not have a good enough connection to use web apps.

I have just spent 40 minutes trying unsuccesfully to watch :- http://www.mediaplayer.telegraph.co.uk/?item=f52ee af7-6878-4ed4-a23b-fe68f2b73ad4/
I cannot and will have to give up. I do not think that I, or most of Asia (outside of Japan and South Korea) will be switching either.

[quote]That the U.S. had goodwill before 9/11 and then threw it away with the invasion of Iraq is a myth. [/quote]

You are the one reciting a myth. After 9-11, Le Monde proclaimed, "We are all Americans". The band outside Buckingham palace played the Star-Spangled Banner. All around the world, vigils were held, marches were held, and US embassies were plastered with flowers. Have you forgotten so soon? Well, perhaps polls will help remind you.

In some countries, positive opinions of America have more than halved.

The news, however, isn't about "viewpoint", or shouldn't be.

If you're a political commentary show, that's one thing. I wouldn't watch "The O'Reily Factor" or "Countdown with Keith Oberman" to get an unbiased reporting of the news, but really, your 9pm news broadcast shouldn't pander to a political agenda, even if the producers have mores based in that agenda.

It seems that nearly every news organization on the planet does so. Even the BBC is only telling you want they want you to hear.

So, is intelligent satire that lampoons BOTH sides, yet somehow manages to cover the news more clearly than most news outlets Kool-Aid? If it is, I'd rather be drinking that than the ditch-water folks like you seem to hold so highly. Face it, the news media has sold out to government and industry across the planet - and subscriptions are starting to feel it. Look at the viewer numbers for most national "news" programs! It's insanity, but with respect to news, the world culture has turned into the Jerry Springer show circa 1994.

• Mass Surveillance
  
• Police state
  
• Criminalized society
  
• Centraliztion and resale of citizens personal data - without their permission
  
• Fortunately, the inner-party elite that did this to us are about to be expelled
  

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2007-03-04-1 .html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2007/03/18/ngreen218.xml

I'm a Brit and I don't feel like I'm in the middle of a crime epidemic of any sort. People in the UK /DO/ very much care about rising CCTV camera numbers and various other issues. However, it's not clear what to do about these. The problem is that liberties are erroded so slowly that there's nothing to protest against.

The UK is obsessed with issues such as safety, anti-social behaviour, and crime. We are becoming a narrow-minded nation which has forgotten what common sense is and seeks to address perceieved social problems by combating the symptoms rather than understanding the causes. In many cases these problems don't really exist and in attempting to "combat them" we end up creating the problem we were seeking to avoid.
General examples:

-Safety:
a. I live in Oxford and on my way to work each morning I cycle through a field through which a river runs. The council has seen fit to destroy the landscape with several large signs saying "caution deep water." WTF? No shit.
b. My milk now has a sign on it saying "does not contain nuts"

-If you think CCTV is bad:
- We will soon have a network of cameras which can ID number plates and track vehicles.
- The government doesn't think that's enough so they want to add trackers to vehicles to know /exactly/ where they are. This supposed to be for purposes of extracting motoring tolls.
- The police now have the power to grant a co-called anti-social behaviour order or ASBO. ASBOs are generally granted against teenagers. Key thing is that the order doesn't have to go through a crimimal court so is easy to apply. The idea is that the order places restrictions as to what a particular person can do. e.g. not allowing them to mix with certain friends. The killer is that breaching the ASBO becomes a criminal offence--so meeting your mates is now illegal. Depending on the circumstances, such a breach could see you in jail. ASBOs don't work. In fact, kids who don't have one feel left out if all their mates do and so they break the law in order to fit in. Kids who do have one often ignore it. Then they end up with a criminal record. These kids are learning to treat the state as their enemy not their ally. About a year ago we brought out the super ASBO to combat organised crime.

- All these things (e.g. CCTV and speakers) are related: in the UK our rights are being erroded in the name of "safety" and "cutting crime." It is motivated by goodwill, but the result is that the government is arrogantly accumulating power in a potentially dangerous way. There is a patronising "we know best" attitude which is justified by vilifying certain social groups and creating an artificial climate of fear (Iraq war, anyone)? People in the UK *DO* care about these issues.

I take note that the EU recently announced the censoring of the following words: "jihad" and "terrorist."

Nobody's saying our lifestyle is unfair, consuming more resources than is justified by our population but, to make that argument on FAULTY DATA is criminal. Science should be conducted by scientists not by the courts. Remember the whole "Earth is flat" thing? Science was determined by the courts back then too. Guess we really havent progressed that much after all. Why dont you read the real DATA .... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2006/11/0 5/warm-refs.pdf;jsessionid=RR35B3DVK30UXQFIQMFCFF4 AVCBQYIV0

This is just more evidence of the vast bear conspiracy that's mauling our government from the inside out.

Not only are the Bears breeding like rabbits, but now the Bear SUV's are causing global warming on Mars!

"but you are relying on unscientific methods..."

Really? Are you sure it's just unscientific speculation?

(apologise for including a fox news link, I think my point stands nonetheless)

"to conduct your 'survey' and concluding based on these biased methods (that you created) that your results are the only results possible"

My survey? Biased methods? That I created? All those articles aren't quoting me you know! I wasn't even alive for the 1958 study!

"Btw something which has 'exceptions' doesn't make 'fact' status"

Did I say 'fact' or did I say 'trend'? (problems with vocabulary recall?) I think you'll find it was the latter (and here's the link to my post if you're in doubt)... although, it is a fact that there is a trend, as the numerous research projects have shown. The fact that there are exceptions is what makes it a trend, not a law.

polar bears on the endangered species list? perhaps, but what do you have to say to this?

Polar bears 'thriving as the Arctic warms up'

If most of the earnings are generated in the ME they probably should think about giving back to the communities providing the jobs and not the USA whose only function appears to be providing mgmt and possible technical people and taking 35+ % of the profit in taxes.

Halliburton is not a 'make work' company, it's 'job' is to generate a return to the investors by providing services the customers are willing to buy & pay for.

If the USA restricts US based companies or artificially reduces or limits their ability to make a profit it would be easier for me to invest overseas directly bypassing US companies or actually physically relocating outside of the US to avoid some or all US taxes. ie Dubai is income tax free for both companies and individuals.

Capital funds will always flow to areas of best risk/reward. Any country with high risk or attempts to restrict the flow of capital will lose jobs, companies and living standard. ie Ask Zimbabwe

The UK Telegraph wrote about Dubai advantages for companies and employees.

I'm not sure what there is not to buy. People can be jerks. Why is it so hard to believe some intellectually challenged individuals cannot deal with his opinion differing from theirs and turn verbally abusive and violent?

As for your questions, there is much that you have been mislead about:

Polar bears may be listed as an endangered species, but their population is thriving. As to why they are listed as endangered, that could be political. It certainly doesn't match with the facts.
Ice glaciers may be melting up north but there is no melting occuring in the Himalayas according to local experts and the South Pole is actually growing mass.

I was in school when we were taught to fear the oncoming Ice Age. The media was just as hysterical then as it is now. Several decades of dropping temperature will do that to them. Now we have the opposite. Several decades of climbing temperature have people apoplectic with media induced frenzy. Thousands will go without water! Florida will be submerged! It's all just noise to me. I've lived through the oncoming Ice Age. I've lived through the fear of nuclear winter. But just because those theories were possible didn't mean they were true.

The more political this Global Warming issue gets and the more shrill the proponents get to be heard and obeyed, the more it turns me off. Let's worry about things we can control like pollution in our environments and alternative energy sources beyond oil. Let's find ways to feed the hungry and allow third world countries to develop their resources. This is not to you specifically, but let's ratchet the rhetoric and hysteria down. Please?

A recent book (reviewed here) denounces the entire concept of manned spaceflight as the useless "madness" of boys who never outgrew childish games. Milder critics of the space program ask why we should send humans into space when automated probes are supposedly more useful for their price. Not too long ago, Discover Magazine had a cover article asking whether, maybe, space is so innately dangerous (with all that radiation) that we should avoid going back until we have robots or gengineered humans (!) able to cope with it. Others such as Vox Day, hater of humanity, begin using their word processors to declare that "science has outlived its usefulness to Mankind." And here, we have NASA saying hold everything; we're afraid of the dust.

(An excerpt from the book:
"If there is a lesson to be learned, it is in the futility of seeking fulfillment in outer space. We need to judge ourselves by who we are, not by where we go... Hubris took America to the Moon, a barren, soulless place where humans do not belong... If the voyage has had any positive benefit at all, it has reminded us that everything that is good reside on Earth.")

"We're not worthy, it's not safe, nothing we've ever done is worthwhile." I see this line of thinking as suicidal for the human race. If transhumanism is a supposedly unrealistic fantasy of doing more things than have ever been done before, then shall we call this sentiment "subhumanism," the desire for people to set their sights below what's been accomplished already?