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I want what you are smoking... only $500m for fossil fuels..... http://www.theguardian.com/env...

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

Yes, they have backdoored their own software.

uhhh

Well, among other things, he revealed that:

1) The NSA intercepts and stores virtually all communications sent on electronic networks anywhere it can reach. Not just metadata. In the case of phone calls, they also speech->text them and make that archive searchable.

http://rt.com/news/172284-nsa-...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/n...
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

2) The NSA constantly works at ways to break into encrypted communications, including hacking into the VPNs of supposedly friendly governments.

http://www.spiegel.de/internat...

3) The NSA listens to the cell calls of friendly foreign leaders. (hopefully, also, unfriendly ones).

http://www.spiegel.de/internat...

4) The NSA may have worked to weaken encryption standards in order to make their task easier.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9...
http://www.scientificamerican....

5) The NSA has physically broken into the fiber plants of major public Internet companies (ie. Google), supposedly without their knowledge, in order to steal data sent only internally.

http://www.extremetech.com/int...

6) Major Internet companies, and all telcos, have willingly shared much or all of their client's communications with the NSA.

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/ar...

7) The NSA and foreign intelligence agencies share data in order to evade domestic spying restrictions.

https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

8) The NSA has hacked into at least one major supplier of SIM cards, in order to spy on calls made from the phones made with them.

http://news.softpedia.com/news...

Sure, recent congressional actions (Thank you, Sen. Paul!) have put an end to at least one program...

No.. It was high drama, nothing more.

The spying is still happening.

That's right... Nothing has changed. And Mr. Snowden hasn't been watching the elections recently. Right wing nationalism is all the rage and making a big comeback. Mass media says a lot about surveillance, but at election time the people still don't give a shit.

Except I'm not American. I am British by descent, and have lived and worked on three continents. But your point is irrelevant anyway: The term is commonly used outside the USA as well. For example:

UK:
http://arstechnica.co.uk/gamin...
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/new...
http://www.theguardian.com/tec...
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news...
http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2015/...

CA:
http://circanews.com/news/cord...
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/n...
http://www.chathamdailynews.ca...
http://www.canadiancordcutting...
http://shayne.tablotvweb.nomad...

AU:
http://www.computerworld.com.a...
http://www.theaustralian.com.a...
http://www.businessinsider.com...
http://www.cnet.com/au/news/co...
http://www.pcauthority.com.au/...

Just because you're ignorant of its usage, that doesn't mean the term isn't broadly used around the world in countries with large English-speaking populations.

In case you thought something happened, it didn't. All that showboating you saw in congress was exactly that.

I wish you were joking, TTIP is a full out assault on democracy :-(

ISDS is corporations wet dream - being able to sue the govt in a kangaroo court - not a normal court any time any govt decides to write a law to protect standards, rights, public services, health or the environment.

What are gov't for again? This isn't just laws for sale, this is democracy for sale outright.

This transatlantic trade deal is a full-frontal assault on democracy

You're living in the age of greatest peace the world has ever known.

Yes, that's true. And yet it's also true that cops are killing people on the streets of America, and frequently for no good reason. So like I said, I'm not going to bring a gun to a cop fight, if you get to that point you're already completely befucked, but it's still worth mentioning.

The denialism is strong with you, I fear.

Eat a bag of dicks up.

Here's the catch: while the OEM does not have to pay for Android licenses, there are quality assurance costs for Google apps such as GMail and Google Play. This makes it not feasible to have Android for super low cost phones. Manufacturers can be refused a license if they do not meet Google's requirements.

US says ‘no evidence of Russia’s direct involvement’

** Russian provided BUK-M1... then captured BUK from Ukraine army. There is also BUK driver "released" from separatists confirmed that (Where is he now??).

** No Russian involvement, so how separatist could launch the BUK. New theory:
http://touch.latimes.com/#sect...

U.S. intelligence agencies have so far been unable to determine the nationalities or identities of the crew that launched the missile. U.S. officials said it was possible the SA-11 was launched by a defector from the Ukrainian military who was trained to use similar missile systems.

Robert Parry confirmed that: https://consortiumnews.com/201...

2+3. Unverifiable. Also, fake photo, provided by SBU (Ukraine security agency), which claimed BUK no.312 launched missile downed the MH-17, is still in Ukraine service:
http://rt.com/news/174868-ukra...
http://web.archive.org/web/201...
http://www.sbu.gov.ua/sbu/cont...

The last photo was **DELETED** (silently).
The first photo, is interesting too.
This is the first, and **ONLY** photo which captured the smoke-trail of missile, provided by a pro-Kiev "witness", here some analysis from Dutch blogger (he may be hired by Kremlin, but his logic is interesting):
http://7mei.nl/2015/05/18/mh17...

Here some fact:
* This is the **ONLY** photo about smoke-trail, despite several video from locals capture the moment of the planed burning.
* The photo was in BMP, no EXIF data (Bellingcats to "protect" the "witness", yes here have contact with pro-Kiev medias, blogger, too)
* His interviews contradicted themselves.
* Minor detail, the blogger of 7meil.nl wen to the room of "witness", taken a photo as "witness" described, and there is (electric) wires in photo, not like the "original" photo.

4. After the incident, locals, in some videos, cheering because they thought government airplane shot down. May be, the separatists think so, too.

5. Which satellite images!?
IF satellite images provided by Russian Government after the accident, there not claim that is fake (yet).
Meanwhile, the satellite images provided by Ukraine Government, to counter the Russian ones, was analyzed by Russians, that was faked

You had your arbitrary 'Instant Message Crash Bug' last week.

As always, Apple gets their own special version of the bug and they get it first.

I didn't see any mention of it on Slashdot, though, and I looked around for it. Maybe I missed it?

Wow, you are out of touch together with Nate Silver...

An argument last made famous by Mitt Romney supporters. Not that Nate doesn't get things wrong every now and then, but this kind of blindly dismissive argument against Nate's data-driven analysis has proven in the past to be a really great way to make yourself look foolish.

Speaking of which, guess what happened less than 2 hours after you posted this? :-)

How would an ISP block them, however? The only mechanism I know about would be DNS blocking, whenthe DNS server is supplied by the ISP.. Is there some new British trick where pages of certain sites could be selectively blocked? If so, how long before "politically sensitive" human rights pages would be blocked, or whistle blower pages?

CleanFeed, built by British Telecom to block access to child abuse imagery, sold to other ISPs, then inevitably abused as a blunt instrument to enforce copyrights. It's a two-stage filtering system: a list of IP addresses gets loaded into the ISP core routers, which diverts all access to those addresses through a proxy server; that server checks against a (secret!) list of prohibited URLs and lets the rest through. It has already blocked part of Wikipedia by mistake or misjudgement, and the government has already announced plans to filter "extremist" websites too.

TalkTalk, another of the named ISPs, bought a more elaborate setup from the People's Republic of China for millions of pounds, and push their "adult" content censorship system on all customers who don't specifically opt out. It's been a big political issue lately, with the current government wanting to force all ISPs down that route so you'd have to ask your ISP specifically to stop filtering your connection.

Gentlemen, we've given the prototype the codename 'Bennett Haselton.' At present it is capable of trolling up to 3.5 pbps across over a million sites at once.

+1 Funny, but Bennett is posting in English, whereas the article linked to by the AC above mentions, that the military's 2011 plans explicitly excluded English because that could violate the ban on government propaganda used on Americans: "none of the interventions would be in English, as it would be unlawful to "address US audiences" with such technology".

Russia, of course, has no such inhibitions and most of its trolls post in Russian — to be read by Russian-speakers inside and outside the country. Finding Russians capable of properly posting in English is about as difficult as finding Americans to post in Russian. Worse, Russians who have the sufficient command of a foreign language tend to be able to find better employment. In fact, the article about these trolls, that I read earlier, contained lamentations about how bad their Russian is too...

Russia has been late for pretty much every post Cold War new front party. Looks like they were late for this one as well. Israel's version of this was documented half a decade ago, and US version has been reported to be moving from using people to developing automated software back in 2011.

http://www.theguardian.com/tec...

Looks like they're late once again.

HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) continued to offer services to clients who had been unfavorably named by the United Nations, in court documents and in the media as connected to arms trafficking, blood diamonds and bribery.

HSBC served those close to discredited regimes such as that of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, former Tunisian president Ben Ali and current Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad.

Clients who held HSBC bank accounts in Switzerland include former and current politicians from Britain, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Kenya, Romania, India, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Lebanon, Tunisia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Paraguay, Djibouti, Senegal, Philippines and Algeria.

The bank repeatedly reassured clients that it would not disclose details of accounts to national authorities, even if evidence suggested that the accounts were undeclared to tax authorities in the client’s home country. Bank employees also discussed with clients a range of measures that would ultimately allow clients to avoid paying taxes in their home countries. This included holding accounts in the name of offshore companies to avoid the European Savings Directive, a 2005 Europe-wide rule aimed at tackling tax evasion through the exchange of bank information.

HSBC files show how Swiss bank helped clients dodge taxes and hide millions

HSBC’s Swiss banking arm helped wealthy customers dodge taxes and conceal millions of dollars of assets, doling out bundles of untraceable cash and advising clients on how to circumvent domestic tax authorities, according to a huge cache of leaked secret bank account files.

Routinely allowed clients to withdraw bricks of cash, often in foreign currencies of little use in Switzerland.

Aggressively marketed schemes likely to enable wealthy clients to avoid European taxes.

Colluded with some clients to conceal undeclared “black” accounts from their domestic tax authorities.

Provided accounts to international criminals, corrupt businessmen and other high-risk individuals.

So not only were they breaking US law, they were breaking EU law and the laws of various European governments, as well as Swiss banking regulations. The clients included members of outlaw regimes, international criminals, and citizens of countries who economies are in crippled in part because of corruption and the siphoning of national treasure by the elites.

So this is a story of international corruption on a massive scale. Nice to know that you are defending the "rights" of drug dealers, despots, crime bosses, dealers in blood diamonds, ...

And where's your evidence that these people who have high end robotics and AI skills in the apropriate research areas actually exist?

Because my actual job is in computer vision and I've spent time in the government sector, academia and industry?

I'm going to make one final attempt. Many academics graduate perhaps one or two PhD students per year. Sure not all are great, but there are about as many students graduating per year as there are academics in the system. there's your pool right there.

if you insist on URLs then here is one:

http://www.theguardian.com/sci...

there's your pool right there.

I like how you flat out ignored the bit about people with science PhDs going into banking.

But no, I'm not going to write my posts like a wikipedia article and cite every last nugget when you're clearly out to pick holes. I'm in the area, and I know the area. I'm not well versed with third party sources which tell me what I already know (why would I be).

You can either choose to believe me or you can choose to dismiss my own personal anecdotes as "not evidence" if you like. Makes no odds to me.

The Huffington Post was live updating the proceedings, and said this:

USA Freedom Act advances 77-17

In a stunning reversal from last week’s drama, the USA Freedom Act was passed by a vote of 77-17. The bill, which passed the House overwhelmingly several weeks ago will now move forward and is likely to receive a final vote on Tuesday.

The bill fell three votes short of the needed supermajority to advance last week but with the clock ticking on controversial provisions of the Patriot Act, supporters of NSA surveillance thought that the proposed reforms were better than letting the program expire entirely.

Rand Paul stated that the Freedom Act will likely get passed on Tuesday.

Wait... did we win or not? Isn't this just a 2-day repreive?

Please note this [1] is one of the bills being proposed (by the sitting Senate Intelligence Chair, no less):

The bill Senate Intelligence Chair Richard Burr released last Friday is bad enough for the way it expanded the existing illegal dragnet. I argued here Burr’s bill would give the Intelligence Community everything they lost in 2009 and 2011. [...]

So think about it - is this just a 2 day reprieve or 2 days so they can rollback more restrictions and make things worse than they are now?

[1] https://www.emptywheel.net/201...

It actually matches what he's said for a long time.

You mean it matched the rest of his false campaign promises.

Iraq was the 'bad' war

More campaign rhetoric - and they were both bad wars. If Obama had been president in 2003, he might not have launched a full scale invasion. Instead, he might have spent 7 months bombing the country in full violation of both the Constitution and the War Powers Act, as he did with Libya. Fun fact: Obama's own vice president vowed to support Bush's impeachment in 2007 if he had done the same thing with Iran. And instead of kidnapping innocent targest and torturing them, he would have simply murdered them with drones. And he could have funded extremists from Saudi Arabia and Qatar to come in as "freedom fighters", and we'd have had ISIS a decade early - fun for everybody.

But Obama's extension and expansion of the occupation of Afghanistan is a complete and utter debunking of the notion that he wanted to 'cut and run' from Iraq, and that's a fact that you and the Obamabots are just going to have to deal with. Do you guys meet for coffee on Tuesdays to discuss talking points?

The Huffington Post was live updating the proceedings, and said this:

USA Freedom Act advances 77-17

In a stunning reversal from last week’s drama, the USA Freedom Act was passed by a vote of 77-17. The bill, which passed the House overwhelmingly several weeks ago will now move forward and is likely to receive a final vote on Tuesday.

The bill fell three votes short of the needed supermajority to advance last week but with the clock ticking on controversial provisions of the Patriot Act, supporters of NSA surveillance thought that the proposed reforms were better than letting the program expire entirely.

Rand Paul stated that the Freedom Act will likely get passed on Tuesday.

Wait... did we win or not? Isn't this just a 2-day repreive?

so the early auto producers managed to get the US to redo all of it's roads.

Early auto producers exploited the decades of lobbying already done by cyclists.
http://www.theguardian.com/env...

Carlton Reid
19th century cyclists paved the way for modern motorists' roads
Car drivers assume the roads were built for them, but it was cyclists who first lobbied for flat roads more than 100 years ago

Wooden hobbyhorses evolved into velocipedes; velocipedes evolved into safety bicycles; safety bicycles evolved into automobiles.

It's well known that the automotive industry grew from seeds planted in the fertile soil that was the late 19th century bicycle market. And to many motorists it's back in the 19th century that bicycles belong. Cars are deemed to be modern; bicycles are Victorian.

Many motorists also assume that roads were built for them. In fact, cars are the johnny-come-latelies of highways.

The hard, flat road surfaces we take for granted are relatively new. Asphalt surfaces weren't widespread until the 1930s. So, are motorists to thank for this smoothness?

No. The improvement of roads was first lobbied for - and paid for - by cycling organisations.

In the UK and the US, cyclists lobbied for better road surfaces for a full 30 years before motoring organisations did the same. Cyclists were ahead of their time.

When railways took off from the 1840s, the coaching trade died, leaving roads almost unused and in poor condition. Cyclists were the first vehicle operators in a generation to go on long journeys, town to town. Cyclists helped save many roads from being grubbed up.

Roads in towns were sometimes well surfaced. Poor areas were cobbled; upmarket areas were covered in granite setts (what many localities call cobbles). Pretty much every other road was left unsurfaced and would be the colour of the local stone. Many 19th century authors waxed lyrical about the varied and beautiful colours of British roads.

Cyclists' organisations, such as Cyclists' Touring Club in the UK and League of American Wheelmen (LAW) in the US, lobbied county surveyors and politicians to build better roads. The US Good Roads movement, set up by LAW, was highly influential. LAW once had the then US president turn up at its annual general meeting.

The CTC individual in charge of the UK version of the Good Roads movement, William Rees Jeffreys, organised asphalt trials before cars became common. He took the reins of the Roads Improvement Association (RIA) in 1890, while working for the CTC.

He later became an arch motorist and the RIA morphed into a motoring organisation. Rees Jeffreys called for motorways in Britain 50 years prior to their introduction. But he never forgot his roots. In a 1949 book, Rees Jeffreys - described by former prime minister David Lloyd George as "the greatest authority on roads in the United Kingdom and one of the greatest in the whole world" â" wrote that cyclists paved the way, as it were, for motorists. Without the efforts of cyclists, he said, motorists would not have had as many roads to drive on. Lots of other authors in the early days of motoring said the same but this debt owed to cyclists by motorists is long forgotten.

The CTC created the RIA in 1885 and, in 1886, organised the first ever Roads Conference in Britain. With patronage - and cash - from aristocrats and royals, the CTC published influential pamphlets on road design and how to create better road surfaces. In some areas, county surveyors took this on board (some were CTC members) and started to improve their local roads.

Even though it was started and paid for by cyclists, the RIA stressed from its foundation that it was lobbying for better roads to be used by all, not just cyclists.

However, in 1896 everything changed. Motoring big-wigs lobbied for the Locomotives Amendment Act to be repeal

As I originally stated, you claimed that someone else's opinion was wrong. Yet the opinion was never expressed by someone else, only imagined by you. This is the very definition of a straw man argument.

Nah. It was attacking a supporting argument to his spoken point.

That is, there is no consensus at all that global warming needs to be 'solved' or even how to 'solve' it if it does need to be solved. There's no consensus that it's a problem, which was implicit in that guy's response.

His point was that science journalists and scientists never could be fooled by similar claims, but they already post silly claims all the time related to AGW, like this one by a scientist, which was widely reported before being debunked by other scientists (and soon by time as well).

Every European is related to Charlemagne

an income of $70k/year?

Besides, the poorest and most downtrodden no longer own, they get to rent. And not houses, but trailers at inflated prices.

Those people who view one side as better than the other, because they are "less evil" are simply delusional.

There are more than two sides. Rand Paul — currently from the "Libertarian wing" of the Republican Party — may as well become a bona-fide Libertarian. At least, that would assure a Presidential nomination for him.

Whatever he does, his attempts to block the extensions of this "most unpatriotic law" gained him support from both sides of the traditional isle (as his other actions did before).

Libertarianism has been rising over the last few decades — one can see it from Slashdot's own poll as well as feel it in the increasingly shrill reaction Libertarian ideas get from Slashdot's resident Statists. Maybe, we'll have three major parties once again soon.

This especially includes video monitoring. The UK has a television tax, called the "television license fee". It's still a tax, and it's used to help fund the BBC and other government sponsored media. This tax is being skipped more and more with modern computers downloading video directly, and the DRM on British television is being evaded more and more and the broadcasts being retransmitted live, around the world. The problems of collecting the tax are compunded by home entertainment systems no longer being CRT based and easily detected by the scanning vans.

        http://www.theguardian.com/not...

When women use tools and weapons, it's often to stop further violence from their partners.

Also:

Some 83% of men had at least two incidents recorded; one man had 52. In contrast, 62% of women recorded as perpetrators had only one incident recorded, and the highest number of repeat incidents for any woman was eight.

52. That guy sure held a grudge. That most men have two or more incidents, and most women one, kind of shows who's the more forgiving (and ends up returning to get beaten again), and it ain't men.

That is total bullcrap. Instead of repeating the big lie, you could have just searched for it and found this study

While the vast majority of perpetrators of domestic violence are men, women are arrested in three of every 10 incidents and men in only one of 10, a study says

Men are responsible for most cases of domestic violence, but women are three times more likely to be arrested for incidents of abuse, research reveals today.

A report into domestic abuse and gender by Bristol University found that the majority of cases involved alcohol misuse, that women were more likely to use a weapon to protect themselves and that children were present in the majority of cases.

Previous research has shown that the vast majority of domestic violence perpetrators recorded by the police are men (92%) and their victims mainly female (91%), with many more repeat incidents recorded for male than female perpetrators. While the majority of incidents of domestic violence recorded by the police involve male-to-female abuse, little is known about the nature of incidents where men are recorded as victims and women as perpetrators, nor about the circumstances where both partners are recorded as perpetrators.

The new study, by professor Marianne Hester of the University of Bristol's school for policy studies and carried out on behalf of the Northern Rock Foundation, looked at 96 examples from 692 "perpetrator profiles" tracked from 2001 to 2007.

The research looked at 32 cases where women were the aggressors, 32 where men were in that role, and 32 where it was both partners.

It found that 48% of the cases were related to couples still in a relationship, 27% involved violence after separation and the rest involved couples in the process of splitting up.

Some 83% of men had at least two incidents recorded; one man had 52. In contrast, 62% of women recorded as perpetrators had only one incident recorded, and the highest number of repeat incidents for any woman was eight.

Men were significantly more likely than women to use physical violence, threats and harassment, and to damage the women's property; women were more likely to damage their own.

Men's violence tended to create a "context of fear and control", the researchers said, whereas women were more likely to use verbal abuse or some physical violence.

But women were more likely to use a weapon, although this was often to stop further violence from their partners.

All cases with seven or more incidents, most of which involved men, led to arrest

But in general, women were three times more likely to be arrested: during the six-year period, men were arrested once in every 10 incidents and women arrested once in every three.

Harold Blumenthal at The Fat Duck restaurant found that stocks made with pressure cookers were both faster and better-tasting once they understood the effects of diffusion laws on stock making.

His brother Heston speaks very highly of them, too. Not sure I'd want to eat at his restaurants, though:

2011: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-e...
2014: http://www.theguardian.com/lif...

RTFA and you might then understand the issue.

What they don't clearly say is the real reason they dropped the bans is because the bans would likely not be legal if TTIP were implemented.

TTIP removes the ability of the gov't and EU to protect people and the environment in many ways. ISDS allows companies to sue governments if some new law causes them to lose profits. In effect, new laws to protect people can not be written if they impinge on some corporations TTIP given right to make profit at any expense.

TTIP is insanely bad, it is undemocratic, written by The Commission and corporations in order to help corporate profits at the expense of jobs, health, public serivces and the environment.

What is TTIP? And six reasons why the answer should scare you - Comment - Voices - The Independent

UN calls for suspension of TTIP talks over fears of human rights abuses | Global | The Guardian

New trade deal with U.S. will open the door to inferior food pumped with growth hormones and pesticides warns Jamie Oliver | Daily Mail Online

TTIP will cost one million jobs: official | War on Want

Email MEP (not mp) (sorry UK only)

This capitulation is very much proof that there will be a race to the bottom with regards to standards, there will be a corporate orgy of cost-cutting at the expense of our health and product quality. All of this cost-cutting will of course cost jobs.

Stop TTIP, sign the petition

The new series of reports by 18 of the world’s foremost experts on endocrine science pegs the health costs of exposure to them at between €157bn-€270bn (£113bn-£195bn), or at least 1.23% of the continent’s GDP.

“The shocking thing is that the major component of that cost is related to the loss of brain function in the next generation,” one of the report’s authors, Professor Philippe Grandjean of Harvard University, told the Guardian.

“Our brains need particular hormones to develop normally – the thyroid hormone and sex hormones like testosterone and oestrogen. They’re very important in pregnancy and a child can very well be mentally retarded because of a lack of iodine and the thyroid hormone caused by chemical exposure.”

There's nothing desirable about reduced IQs and massive health costs (unless you make money on healthcare or benefit from a dumb populace, that is).

The proposed ban was not based on sound science, just scare tactics from European greenies.

The proposed ban was largely the result of research showing that endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) have incredible costs to human health. We're not talking some vague feel-good argument about the birds and the bees -- we are talking about lost IQ points and health costs that run into the hundreds of billions:

The new series of reports by 18 of the world’s foremost experts on endocrine science pegs the health costs of exposure to them at between €157bn-€270bn (£113bn-£195bn), or at least 1.23% of the continent’s GDP.

As Ars points out, if even a fraction of the economic loss attributed to these chemicals could be reduced, the net result could easily be far more valuable than even the most wildly optimisitic projections for the value of the TTIP agreement.

Yes indeed. Whenever I read a story in the press that asks me to believe that a large group of people are utterly, totally evil and get their rocks off by being malicious psychopaths, I go looking for a reality check.

Digging through apparently endless links arrives us at this quote:

Peter Smith, executive director for product stewardship at CEFIC, which represents the European chemical industry, said the Nordic report attribution of health problems to EDCs was “arbitrary”. He said: “The link between exposure to a chemical and an illness has not been shown in many cases. The authors themselves say they have some trouble with causality.”

Smith said the delays to EDC regulation in the EU did not suit the industry. “Nobody is happy with the delays. But we would prefer it to be permanent and right rather than temporary and wrong.” He said case-by-case rigorous assessment was needed and that any precautionary action had to be proportional to the evidence of harm.

However, Professor Andreas Kortenkamp, a human toxicologist at Brunel University London in the UK, said the epidemiological work needed to prove causation is very difficult. For example, he said, analysing links to birth defects would mean having taken tissue samples from mothers before they gave birth. “But there is very good, strong evidence from animal and cell line test systems. The chemical industry only likes to emphasis the first part of that.” He said precaution was the only safe approach and said the Nordic report was good work.

In other words, the EU doesn't actually know these chemicals are dangerous to humans. They have some initial findings from animal studies that should be followed up on, and the chemical industry agrees with that, but heck if every mouse study translated directly to humans we'd all live a thousand years and be totally disease free by now.

So this entire dispute boils down to non-expert bureaucrats wanting to ban some chemicals early without clear evidence that they harm people, based on an abundance of caution, and the chemical industry saying "you should really prove your case first". Not entirely unexpected - EU regulators won't be the people who actually have to find alternatives and then do all the work to transition to them. They'll just issue a regulation, then go home and tell the wife/husband the story of how they fought the Big Chem to save helpless babies. The cost will get passed on the consumer. Skilled manpower and resources will be diverted from other things.

If they're right and the effects reproduce in humans - great, we got a few fewer years in which the chemicals were interfering with fertility. If they're wrong, well, the cost of that would be huge.

I don't see any clearly right or wrong side on this, which probably means the government should stay out of it. Mandate labelling at most, so consumers themselves can decide, at least until the scientific evidence of harm is stronger.

I don't recall anyone promising tax cuts during the last UK general election

e.g.

http://www.theguardian.com/pol...

Yes, the Tories won despite promising more austerity and that's the big difference between the UK and Greece. Regardless, if they thought it was affordable they would definitely not hesitate to use windfalls from taxing foreigners to buy off pensioner votes, for example. That's a very clear pattern in how governments do things.

And we spend 8% of government spending on interest not 25%.

You're right. I looked it up and it's 8%. I'm not sure why I thought it was 25%, perhaps I'm getting confused with some other country.

But the main point is, if a company wants to do business in the UK it should pay UK taxes on it's profits.

We're talking about a company that delivers things through the mail, here. What does "doing business in the UK" even mean? If Amazon were to have no offices or presence in the UK at all and just deliver everything via third party companies, would they be "doing business" there or not?

The problem with this sort of thinking is it ignores the consequences. Imagine a small company in the USA gets an order for its new widget from the UK. The company wants to sell, but ...... wait! The UK has screwed up laws. A single sale to a British person means the UK Gov will classify the company as "doing business" in the UK and suddenly all the companies profits are taxed twice. No can do, therefore, no sale.

So in practice that's not how the system works.

What about first employee in the country? Well, same problem. Google looks at the UK and says, hey, we'd like to hire people in Britain to do engineering and sales. But ..... it makes no sense, because hiring the receptionist for the new office will cost us a billion dollars in new tax, as suddenly our profits all get taxed twice.

So the scheme you outlined is not workable. It'd just mean nobody does business with the UK.

The usual variant people demand is "tax only the profits made in the UK" but this is also so vague and poorly thought out as to be unworkable. Where are profits made, exactly? This is easier to see with a company like Google or Facebook. The physical location where profits are made is unknowable because many countries contribute to the whole. For Amazon people tend to say, it's the sales to people in the UK, but then you're asking for a sales tax not a profits tax, and the EU VAT changes have now put this in place (at massive bureaucratic cost).

Not necessarily. As prices increase, number of sales decrease and profit per sale decreases. I'm sure Amazon has done a lot of studies into these relations in the ebook market, and found the sweet spot that maximizes their profit. Increasing prices to pay taxes may result in lower profit than paying the tax out of their own pocket ... or they may leverage their dominance in the (e)book market to force publishers to cover the tax. This notes that Amazon forced UK publishers to cover their 20% UK VAT in 2012, even though they actually only paid the Luxembourg 3% VAT, with Amazon pocketing the difference themselves.

actually there ARE taxes on sales... it's called VAT and is charged at 20% of the price... Amazon can't avoid the VAT bill

They actually tried to avoid VAT on ebooks in most EU countries by setting up their servers in Luxemburg that had a 3% VAT on ebook sales, compared to e.g. 20% in UK. Other ebook sellers naturally followed Amazons lead, until it became public knowledge, e.g. as described in http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/oct/24/amazon-tax-loophole-ebooks . The latest development is that VAT on ebooks and similar is paid depending on the location of the consumer, as described in http://www.thebookseller.com/news/e-book-prices-may-rise-vat-law-kicks.

Except that you aren't...

Yes, UK is a net contributor (if we only tally the directly measurable, like budget contribution vs funds awarded

So Britain *does* pay in more than that it gets back then? With regards to measurements, contributions vs rebate are the only solid numbers you can judge against.

(oh, oh, oh.... and also it negotiates budget cuts, like in... 2014... or.... 2013... and if I go back the calendar I'll find this going on, and on, and on).

No, all Osborne managed to do was defer part of a payment for a couple of months. He then deducted the rebate (that they'd get anyway) from the bill & claimed that he "halved" what had to be paid. As much as he wanted to claim, there was no negotiation involved - he rightly got told to fuck off & play by the legally agreed rules that everybody has to follow. He then went home & used "statistics" to make it look like he got some sort of concession.

So...schooled? Or want more? Stop reading The Guardian and such, try the official documents of your government or from the EU institutions.

I presume you don't read the Guardian. They're largely pro-union & were one of the leaders in pulling apart Osborne's claims.

George Osborne’s top five budget claims – and how they could be shot down
UK to pay £1.7bn EU bill in full despite Osborne’s claim to have halved it
George Osborne rebuked for boasting he halved £1.7bn EU surcharge

For what it's worth, I'm British & will be voting to stay in the union.

Except that you aren't...

Yes, UK is a net contributor (if we only tally the directly measurable, like budget contribution vs funds awarded

So Britain *does* pay in more than that it gets back then? With regards to measurements, contributions vs rebate are the only solid numbers you can judge against.

(oh, oh, oh.... and also it negotiates budget cuts, like in... 2014... or.... 2013... and if I go back the calendar I'll find this going on, and on, and on).

No, all Osborne managed to do was defer part of a payment for a couple of months. He then deducted the rebate (that they'd get anyway) from the bill & claimed that he "halved" what had to be paid. As much as he wanted to claim, there was no negotiation involved - he rightly got told to fuck off & play by the legally agreed rules that everybody has to follow. He then went home & used "statistics" to make it look like he got some sort of concession.

So...schooled? Or want more? Stop reading The Guardian and such, try the official documents of your government or from the EU institutions.

I presume you don't read the Guardian. They're largely pro-union & were one of the leaders in pulling apart Osborne's claims.

George Osborne’s top five budget claims – and how they could be shot down
UK to pay £1.7bn EU bill in full despite Osborne’s claim to have halved it
George Osborne rebuked for boasting he halved £1.7bn EU surcharge

For what it's worth, I'm British & will be voting to stay in the union.

Except that you aren't...

Yes, UK is a net contributor (if we only tally the directly measurable, like budget contribution vs funds awarded

So Britain *does* pay in more than that it gets back then? With regards to measurements, contributions vs rebate are the only solid numbers you can judge against.

(oh, oh, oh.... and also it negotiates budget cuts, like in... 2014... or.... 2013... and if I go back the calendar I'll find this going on, and on, and on).

No, all Osborne managed to do was defer part of a payment for a couple of months. He then deducted the rebate (that they'd get anyway) from the bill & claimed that he "halved" what had to be paid. As much as he wanted to claim, there was no negotiation involved - he rightly got told to fuck off & play by the legally agreed rules that everybody has to follow. He then went home & used "statistics" to make it look like he got some sort of concession.

So...schooled? Or want more? Stop reading The Guardian and such, try the official documents of your government or from the EU institutions.

I presume you don't read the Guardian. They're largely pro-union & were one of the leaders in pulling apart Osborne's claims.

George Osborne’s top five budget claims – and how they could be shot down
UK to pay £1.7bn EU bill in full despite Osborne’s claim to have halved it
George Osborne rebuked for boasting he halved £1.7bn EU surcharge

For what it's worth, I'm British & will be voting to stay in the union.

He's comparing it to the US. In particular he's arguing our prison population will always be high because we've got so many non-white-people. Sweden's prison population is below 1/2 per thousand, or 0.0472%. We are at 0.94%.

As for the riots, when's the last time we went a full 20 years without a race riot? If you switch that to "race riot that killed people" the number goes to 25.

Or maybe the police will use it to blackmail/persecute people they don't like: http://www.theguardian.com/com...

I wouldn't trust the police to investigate any kind of sex related crime: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-328...

Not if ZuckerFucker has his say,

Compared to that bias, a blogger's personal agenda is nothing to speak of...

Wait...are you saying that James Taylor, a contributor to Forbes and Fellow at The Heartland Institute, is just another internet blogger with an agenda? No wonder that submission you griped about wasn't accepted.

Or perhaps it wasn't accepted because James Taylor is a lawyer, not a scientist, and his employers are known for saying things like "This is why the most prominent advocates of global warming aren't scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen."

That statement, and the billboard campaign that accompanied it, was so rational and unbiased that The Heartland Institute's corporate masters fled the organization in droves.

But you go on complaining about bias while promoting the "science" of lawyers working for corporate propaganda mills...it's actually quite entertaining.

Agreed. A better, and more recent one, which you might nat have seen would be this one.

July 16... wheeeee

Debunked by a blog post parroted by Bayer? No you're okay, I prefer peer reviewed papers thanks, you know, actual science.

"but here's the top link from google when I search: http://www.theguardian.com/env..."

Great. A newspaper whose assertion of a cold 2012/2013 winter is trivially disprovable by actual MET office records which show that much of the winter was spent above the already relatively warm (historically) 1982 - 2010 average:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/cl...

Even on the coldest weeks it only just barely crept below 0c reaching -2c on only two occasions at worst. The UK hasn't had a truly cold winter now since 2010. All our winters have been incredibly mild since that point. This is what an actual cold UK winter looks like:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/cl...

Here are the other recent winters:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/cl...
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/cl...
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/cl...

So you see, using the UK as a point to suggest cold winters in recent years is laughable. In 2013/14 we barely dropped below average for a single day.

Besides, your assertion on Australia isn't even correct. There are plenty of issues in Australia too, whilst it may not be on the scale of other places, there are issues. As such, it's still entirely plausible that neonicotinids are a major contributing factor, and the fact that Australia always has warm weather merely cushions the impact. To pretend it's not happening at all there is just an outright lie.

So maybe stick to actual science and data, rather than blogs and newspaper articles. You might stop looking so much like a Bayer loving shill then.

Agreed. A better, and more recent one, which you might nat have seen would be this one.

Well first off, you're linking to the debunked work of Chensheng Lu. And I don't know where you're getting your info about Europe's cold and mild winters, but here's the top link from google when I search: http://www.theguardian.com/env... Finally, you fail to address the fact that Australia is one of the heaviest users of neonics, yet they have not suffered any issues at all with bee colony collapses. Oh, and they're also free of the varroa mite incidentally.

Germany is a laggard in NATO, that fails to spend what is needed. Germany is still a consumer of security, not a provider of it. NATO troops have had to defend Germany for decades, and US troops are still present in Germany. Germany is the most unreliable country in NATO, look at how cowardly they behaved in Afghanistan. It was appalling! Over the Ukraine, Germany covers its eyes and pretends it cannot see what is going on, and tries to appease Russia The airforce is essentially grounded "Only one of its four submarines is operational. Only 70 out of its 180 GTK Boxer tanks are fit for deployment. Just seven of the German navy’s fleet of 43 helicopters are currently flightworthy." http://www.theguardian.com/wor... Canada has a more reliable military then that, despite spending much less money.