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another study confirms that water is wet.

Hey, that's just like, your opinion man.

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

Water isn't wet. Wetness is a description of our experience of water; what happens to us when we come into contact with water in such a way that it impinges on our state of being. We, or our possessions, 'get wet'.

>> Where is the bot that can pass a Turing test reliably?
Here's just one of the ones that have passed the turing test.
http://www.theguardian.com/tec...

>> Where in the world are actual intelligent networks?
>> Where is the machine that can learn complex tasks?
>> where is there a machine that uses something other than a human designed tree search to do things?
Many software applications based on neural networks and other self-evolving/learning AI alogirthms are already in everyday use not only learning complex tasks but also themselves coming up with new and better solutions to them.

>> I hear this crap about machine intelligence thrown out without any significant exemplars of said intelligence.
>> Show me something smarter than Eliza.
Uh how about you do your own looking? just try Googling stuff? Its not like this stuff isn't easily findable..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects...
http://www.extremetech.com/ext...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Appeals and security are all part of trial and incarceration costs. For re-offending, people do get sometimes get out of life sentences, even if you choose not to believe it. They are also able to offend while in prison against other inmates, guards and regular people via comms with the outside world (see any mafia story for details how this works). In same cases they continue to taunt their victim's family's from inside. All avoidable with a bullet to the head now.
A real world example for you. Chancey Luna shot and killed an innocent bystander in cold blood purely for laughs. He was convicted and sentence to life. In my country it costs $100k/year to keep someone in jail. For an 18 year old like Chancey, assuming he lives to the average age of 80 then were looking at $6Mil. Take inflation into account and that will easily turn into 20 or 30 Mil in 2072 dollars. Execute him now and you'll get out for under $1Mil in 2015 dollars.
The only reason a life sentence is cheaper is if your legal system extremely inefficient. I'd love to see the same calculations based on Indonesia or Singapore where they are little more efficient at this game.

Well, someone will bring this up

Nestlé bottling water in California

But the first thing I thought when I saw the story (in a campaign email) was "I bet it's a small fraction of the total water usage".

I can't believe that it takes over a gallon of water to grow a single almond. Maybe they should look at ways of improving that.

And of legislating that people should be given a sound thwack around the head for buying bottled water. It's a wasteful, stupid, con.

However, execution lets the convicted person off the hook the easy way compared to a lifetime of incarceration.

That's irrelevant, as the justice system is not to be a method for taking revenge, but to make society a better place to live in, with less crime.

The death sentence is flawed for other reasons. Almost all murders happen either in affect, or in a situation where the perpetrator thinks he can get away with it. In either case, having the death penalty will have no effect on whether a murder will happen or not. And it might lead to more murders, because if there's a death penalty in place, the perpetrator has nothing to lose by killing witnesses, cops, or anyone else who might get them arrested, now or in the future. The rational decision for them is to do anything not to get caught, including more murders.

Also, the costs of a death row inmate by far exceeds the costs of a long term imprisonment. (This is particularly true in the states that allow prison slave labor - which has a high correlation to the states that allow capital punishment). The many rounds of appeals that a death sentence automatically trigger cost a heck of a lot more than the room and board.

Then there are the cases of people who have been wrongly executed. One case is one too many. And a peer-reviewed study shows that as many as 4% of people convicted to die are likely innocent.
Unless there's a way to bring people back to life again, that in itself should be enough to put a stop to it.
But the unwashed masses want panem et circenses, and revenge, not justice. So the show goes on. And innocent people die.

:-) Let's see what Snowden brings home from the Russians, eh? Like you said, the documents he has are only a little more embarrassing than Anna Nicole Smith's immigration application.

...it's been done before and didn't work.

The referenced source from the wiki lists all the countries by their forested area (in thousand hectares), and in a handy spreadsheet no less. Add in the square km of the countries and you can calculate the percentages:

Country - percent - forested - total
Canada - 31.1% - 3,101,340 - 9,984,670
United States - 33.1% - 3,030,890 - 9,147,593
EU - 36.0% - 1,577,190 - 4,381,376

Austria - 46.1% - 38,620 - 83,855
Belgium - 21.8% - 6,670 - 30,528
Bulgaria - 32.7% - 36,250 - 110,994
Croatia - 37.7% - 21,350 - 56,594
Cyprus - 18.8% - 1,740 - 9,251
Czech Rep - 33.6% - 26,480 - 78,866
Denmark - 11.6% - 5,000 - 43,075
Estonia - 50.5% - 22,840 - 45,227
Finland - 66.5% - 225,000 - 338,424
France - 23.0% - 155,540 - 674,843
Germany - 31.0% - 110,760 - 357,021
Greece - 28.4% - 37,520 - 131,990
Hungary - 21.2% - 19,760 - 93,030
Ireland - 9.5% - 6,690 - 70,273
Italy - 33.1% - 99,790 - 301,338
Latvia - 45.5% - 29,410 - 64,589
Lithuania - 32.2% - 20,990 - 65,200 -
Luxembourg - 33.6% - 870 - 2,586
Malta - 0% - 0 - 316
Netherlands - 8.8% - 3,650 - 41,543
Poland - 29.4% - 91,920 - 312,685
Portugal - 40.9% - 37,830 - 92,390
Romania - 26.7% - 63,700 - 238,391
Slovakia - 39.3% - 19,290 - 49,035
Slovenia - 62.3% - 12,640 - 20,273
Spain - 35.5% - 179,150 - 504,030
Sweden - 61.2% - 275,280 - 449,964
United Kingdom - 11.7% - 28,450 - 243,610

The EU's percentage is skewed up by the Scandinavian, Baltic, and Slovakian countries. Though Germany, Spain, Portugul, Italy, and Austria are right around the EU average. Anyway, can we just drop this stupid penis measuring contest? It's close enough to call it a tie.

A few years prior to his death, I was looking up some obscure entry to be startled to discover that Norman Wisdom, a nonagenarian British comedian, was alleged to have invented a key device referenced within the article. Corrected and thought no more.

However, someone had big plans for Norman, as after his death, similar sets of spurious facts had been seeded all over Wikipedia, some making it to his published obituaries - see

http://www.theguardian.com/media/mediamonkeyblog/2010/oct/05/norman-wisdom-wikipedia-mirror

Wonder if they're still there?

you would now that squeamishness is not associated with process but with the risk of failure in that process

Well, perhaps not. It may also be associated with pure and genuine mental retardation, self-inflicted mental retardation, not the one caused by actual brain damage or deficiency.

"We are assured that rapid progress will soon bring self-driving electric cars,

Uh....

hypersonic airplanes,

Well...

individually tailored cancer cures,

cough-cough

and instant three-dimensional printing of hearts and kidneys.

You see...

We are even told it will pave the world's transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies,"

Aww screw it.

Could there have been worse examples of "LOL those crazy promises!"?

You would think so. But apparently Assange enjoys broad public support in the UK, putting the government in a bit of a tough spot. As bad as they want to suck Obama cock, they're already under mounting public criticism just for spending so much to guard the Ecuadorian Embassy. If they openly extradited him the U.S., they would likely face riots in the streets.

Even extraditing him to Sweden had most UK politicians all but pissing in their trousers in cowardly fear. If they weren't such pathetic U.S. lapdogs, they would likely just let him go to Ecuador and be done with the whole mess.

Hurr durr we can spot water on a planet 120 light years away (you'll just have to trust us) but we can't find it on a planet we've sent landers to more than once. But we swear it's there. Fuck you science. http://www.theguardian.com/sci...

Turns out the biological lens of your eye blocks UV light, but if you get an artificial lens, your retinas can register UV light.

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

--PM

There are a lot of things in the USA that are not supposed to exist. Secret laws, secret courts, secret trade agreements. Secret police. Secret police blacksites. Secret "crowd control" weapons for the secret police to use domestically. Torture. Rendition. Off-shore prisons. Extrajudicial assassination.

Secret interrogation centers:

http://www.theguardian.com/us-...

Parasitic subsidies. "farm-subsidies-blatant-transfer-of-cash-to-rich"

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

The idea could work. Meet the seven people who hold the keys to worldwide internet security http://www.theguardian.com/tec...

It's funny when Google, Apple or Microsoft complain about privacy issues.

Google, sure. But not Apple or Microsoft. For companies like Google and Facebook, you are the product and privacy is a roadblock they work around. Microsoft and Apple represents a different kind of company that wants you to buy actual products from them, and behave far better in this area. When customers desire privacy, these will try to sell you products that delivers this.

This whole thing is just a way for Microsoft to try and generate a smokescreen of FUD around the fact that they are just like Apple, Google and Yahoo in that they actually give the NSA access to whatever they want, and have been doing so since at least December 2007.

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

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

This whole thing is just a way for Microsoft to try and generate a smokescreen of FUD around the fact that they are just like Apple, Google and Yahoo in that they actually give the NSA access to whatever they want, and have been doing so since at least December 2007.

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

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

> If they called the cops for every one of those, we'd have to move the classes to prison.

The moved the cops into the schools long time ago, so we're pretty much there already:
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

So, where are all the environmentalists demanding we build integral fast reactors as fast as we can?

"Why Fukushima made me stop worrying and love nuclear power "

You will not be surprised to hear that the events in Japan have changed my view of nuclear power. You will be surprised to hear how they have changed it. As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology.

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

Ocean acidification is a huge deal to environmentalists - I'm not sure where you're getting your information. And as it's driven by the same thing that causes Global Warming, dealing with carbon in the atmosphere is a twofer.

We know what causes Global Warming?

That much be why all our predictions have been SOOOO accurate.

From Jan 19, 2009:

President 'has four years to save Earth'

Barack Obama has only four years to save the world. That is the stark assessment of Nasa scientist and leading climate expert Jim Hansen who last week warned only urgent action by the new president could halt the devastating climate change that now threatens Earth. Crucially, that action will have to be taken within Obama's first administration, he added.

Soaring carbon emissions are already causing ice-cap melting and threaten to trigger global flooding, widespread species loss and major disruptions of weather patterns in the near future. "We cannot afford to put off change any longer," said Hansen. "We have to get on a new path within this new administration. We have only four years left for Obama to set an example to the rest of the world. America must take the lead."

Hansen said current carbon levels in the atmosphere were already too high to prevent runaway greenhouse warming. Yet the levels are still rising despite all the efforts of politicians and scientists. ...

Can we lose the Chicken Little alarmism please?

Personally I learned programming fundamentals in Logo, and by the age of 8 was programming in basic. I picked up a Kano for my 5 year old, who is fanatical about Minecraft, and I'm hoping Kano Blocks gives my daughter the same passion for programming that I got from Logo. (Plus she is learning Linux & about computer components) http://www.theguardian.com/tec...

It's even worse when their argument is based around the assumption that Payola is a good thing.

Yeah, I laughed at that as well. It's not like the record industry is the type of business anyone should want to encourage

http://www.theguardian.com/mus...

However, for the libertarian payola is simply an economic transaction between two parties and thus good.

It's even worse when their argument is based around the assumption that Payola is a good thing.

Yeah, I laughed at that as well. It's not like the record industry is the type of business anyone should want to encourage

http://www.theguardian.com/mus...

Yep, we have no idea who shot the video. When slashdot cannot keep up with the TV news...

http://www.theguardian.com/us-...

the paranoid conspiracy theorists

You mean the ones who have been pretty much correct about everything?
I mean really, "tinfoil hats" don't seem stupid anymore since we found out the mind control rays were real. Have a declassified document about energy weapons. These devices are being used against innocent citizens, just like the government did with its MKULTRA project. Sorry pal, but we have plenty of documented reasons to be concerned about government spying. FFS, the pentagon is militarizing the police because they're scared of "environmental activists". Care about recycling "too much" on facebook? Send in the COINTELPRO team guys, we've got another anti-american extremists. Fire pain rays at will.

Seriously, if you want to dismiss people now you're going to have to find a different slur than "conspiracy theorist" since they have far more credibility today than the governments do.

Reading the whitepaper, the whole thing seems like it's focused on promoting Arxan's services. It's entirely possible that the presentation itself took a different tone/direction, but the whitepaper itself was fairly contentless sprinkled with a few good points about older MITM attacks exploiting the In-App purchases for iOS and the high piracy rates on Android in China and Russia.

Really that last part is the thrust of the article -- high piracy rates for which they don't really offer any solution except DRM and always-online games. (To their credit, they do make the recommendation of "some sort of protection on the networking layer, in-memory layer, and on disk layer...as well as portions dealing with receiving and unpacking the player's saved game or state.")

Everything else was either misleading, fairly obvious non-suggestions, or just plain outdated information.

Examples:

- Whitepaper dedicates a section to lost revenue from a MITM attack allowing iOS users to get in-app purchases for free. The reference they use is a 2012 article from the Guardian talking about how Apple already fixed it. Specifically, this was relating to iOS 5 and has since been resolved. While Jailbreak options still exist, the whitepaper does not mention these nor does it discuss any other actual leak.Referenced Article

- Whitepaper has section on Flappybird clones which reads:

...However, by March 2014, approximately 60 Flappy Bird clones a day were being added to the iOS App Store...Worst of all -- a reported 79% of these clones contained malware.

This section has a reference that points to a McAfee threat report from June 2014 - as the section reads, "these" refers to the clones on the iOS App Store, however, the McAfee report clearly shows that this is Android stores that are plagued, not iOS. http://www.mcafee.com/us/resou... Page 6

- Whitepaper has a section on how hackers damage communities, which is not incorrect, however, they provide the following "helpful" tips:

• Learn how to tell when a hacker hacks
• Include banning as a feature
• Look for reports of hacking

While these are not bad suggestions, they're also absolutely common sense for mobile game developers, or just people dealing with problems in general.

The submitter is absolutely right that this could have been a really keen presentation, but based on what they produced in the whitepaper, it sounds like a business trying to drum up some more business for themselves with misleading and/or useless information.

++this. The "Three hops" rule, using a connection factor of 190 (the average number of friends on facebook), you're not a target of surveillance if none of the 5 million people that are friends of friends of friends of you are foreign nationals. http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

(You'll have to drag the slider to 190 to get the 5 million figure.)

I don't think they landed very well at all.

Some of them didn't bother to learn how.

A month later, they (Atta and Al-Shehhi) spent another $1,500 for three hours of flight simulator training at the SimCenter, near Miami. An instructor said they concentrated on turning aircraft, rather than practising the more difficult manoeuvres of take-off and landing, which he thought was unusual.

everybody knows the "wipe Israel off the map" quote was a mistranslation that has been covered many times (see here for a reputable source).

LOL, "he didn't say Israel should be wiped off the map, he said they should be wiped from the history books". Because that's so much better.

I'd say "wiped off the map" is an equivalent English idiom. It conveys the same basic concept that he was going for: to remove Israel from existing so completely that no one even remembers it was ever there.

"[Iran] did endure an 8-year-long war with what was then Saddam Hussein's Iraq"

That America backed by providing military intelligence and allowing Iraq to fly the Stars and Stripes on its oil tankers (thus making any attempt by Iran to blockade Iraq an act of war against America). At the same time, America blew an Iranian civilian aircraft out of the sky, lied about it not broadcasting on civilian frequencies and awarded medals to all sailors when the ship got back to port. Meanwhile, our erstwhile buddy, Saddam, was using chemical weapons that we failed to condemn as he was fighting a country whose democratic government we had toppled in 1953 and who were "inexplicably" pissed with us. So, yeah, can't trust those Iranians.

"Iran sponsors and funds numerous terror organizations and activities"

And America doesn't?

"Iran ... has stated numerous times ... that their policy is to annihilate a certain other country in the region, and do so by any means possible."

Aside from John McCain "joking" with his notorious "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" song, everybody knows the "wipe Israel off the map" quote was a mistranslation that has been covered many times (see here for a reputable source). But don't take my word for it. If you still don't believe it, ask a Farsi speaker. There is not even an idiom in Farsi for "wipe off the map".

And before you call them biased and say that "they would say that", consider the political leanings of my Farsi speaking friends (and countless other Iranians who came to the West). Clue: they all left Iran in 1979.

Read the original article again. OLD plants emit as much as 10% - new plants with advanced scrubbers emit no more than 1%. Here's the quote, emphasis mine - search for it:

"Some 99% of flyash is typically retained in a modern power station (90% in some older ones)."

That's not my statistic - if you don't believe it, follow the footnotes in the article.

As for the 50 mg/Nm^3, your limit is higher than ours if the 18.3 mg/Nm^3 is correct. The US burned 850x10^6 tonnes (850x10^9 kg) of coal in the year 2009. Even of we go with the 1% figure nationwide, that's still 11x10^3 kg of uranium and 27x10^3 kg of thorium up the stack. Refer to the quote from the same document, below:

"In the USA, 850 million tonnes of coal was used in 2009 for electricity production. With an average content of 1.3 ppm uranium and 3.2 ppm thorium, US coal-fired electricity generation in that year gave rise to 1100 tonnes of uranium and 2700 tonnes of thorium in coal ash."

This article seems to show that Germany is not so clean after all given the relatively large amount of coal it burns compared to its EU neighbors.

This chart shows Germany using 256 million short tons of coal in 2011. That's 232x10^9 kg. With German coal containing up to 13 ppm of uranium and up to approximately 39 ppm thorium (see the first liked article for the source of those figures), that means:

In 2011 German power plants emitted up to 30x10^3 kg of uranium (232x10^9 x 13ppm x 1%) and up to 90.5x10^3 kg of thorium (232x10^9 kg x 39ppm x 1%).

Note that US coal contains up to 4 ppm uranium while German coal contains up to 13 ppm. From the first article, "US, Australian, Indian and UK coals contain up to about 4 ppm uranium, those in Germany up to 13 ppm ...".

I really can't make it any clearer that ALL coal plants emit fly ash, and because of the vast amounts of coal burnt around the world, that fly ash represents a significant and easily detectable amount of radioactivity (not to mention the chemical toxicity) released into the atmosphere around the plants.

I think I've proven my point with reason and numbers to back it up - all you've contributed is disbelief and scorn.

You seem to be saying that they ordered the guardian employees to destroy the laptops to keep the information secret, I think even they knew that destroying these few copies wouldn't really do anything to curtail its distribution. At the very least their actions were a act of spite against others airing their dirty laundry. They may also have been a threat, kind of like a mob goon keying your car or forcing you to steal under threat of injury/death. In either case leaving the laptop with their victims would help drive home their anger, in hindsight I'm sure they wished they had simply taken the laptops as the act has become less of a threat and more of a rallying cry.

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

7: Called a Burmese man a "slope" (casual racism) - http://www.theguardian.com/med...
8: Described mexicans as ""a lazy, feckless, flatulent oaf with a moustache, leaning against a fence asleep".
9: Described malaysian cars as being built in the jungle by people wearing sandals.
10: Deliberately used the word N****r whilst recording a segment (rerecorded it when he realised he wouldn't get away with it)
11: Drove around India with a toilet seat in the boot of a jaguar as a comment on the sanitation
12: Drove around the american south with a car spraypainted with comments about rednecks.
13: Characterised Albania as being full of mafia dons
14: Did a fair amount of environmental damage in Botswana's Makgadikgadi salt pan
15: Nazi salutes in a BMW review along with comments that the Satnav only had directions to Poland.
16: casual racism again: Named his dog Didier Dogba (Black soccer player)
17: Ranted on prime time national TV (The One Show) that public sector workers who were on strike at the time - "should be executed in front of their families"
18: Homophobic jokes directed at George Michael (and others, various gay slurs in various programs)

etc etc etc.

A good chunk of this has happened in the last 18 months and _no one_ believes the claims about the argentinean number plate being coincidental, as it was registered to a completely different vehicle.

At the moment the NSA & GCHQ, and other agencies are at the behest of politicians that want to see all our communications are working against the security industry. If this continues I see a bleak future. But if we manage to get these organisations to support security I see a much better future.

Love the name, but then I'm approaching that demographic.

This isn't government control of the internet, and government control of the internet would be a very bad thing. How long do you think unbreakable encryption would last if the government had control? The FBI is already starting to take up a position that they want to ban it entirely.

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

> the Russians might have taken them more seriously than Bolden realized.

Kinda like that time some dumbass billionaire was showing off his superbowl ring and Putin thought it was a gift.

Renewable energy dominance is inevitable, solar energy is forecast to drop to 2c per kwh vs nuclear's 10c. Nuclear is not getting any cheaper. Wind turbines are getting taller and cheaper because there is a more consistent stronger supply of wind higher up and there is ongoing technical innovation. Wind is already going for under 4c per kwh without subsidy.

This is now:
Texas city opts for 100% renewable energy - to save cash, not the planet

Cheapest solar - SunEdison sells solar PV output at 5c/kWh ...

How Low Can Wind Energy Go? 2.5c Per Kilowatt-Hour Is Just

The relentless fall in renewables cost has a long way to go yet.

Battery prices are also continually falling:
EV Battery Prices -- The Disruptive Drop In Prices Will Continue

Amazon is to remove a ''non-compete'' clause from its employment contracts for US workers paid by the hour after criticism that it is unreasonable to prevent such employees from finding other work.
A company spokeswoman confirmed to the Guardian that the clause would be cut.
''That clause hasn't been applied to hourly associates, and we're removing it,' 'she said.
The company would not disclose the breakdown of its staff by geography or hourly pay and salary. No UK employment contracts for hourly workers contained such non-compete clauses.

Amazon further required laid-off employees to reaffirm their non-compete contracts in order to receive severance, reported the Verge.

Amazon to remove non-compete clause from contracts for hourly workers

"Or should it be Judas ?"

He doesn't seem to have any say in the matter:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/mar/27/top-gear-producer-oisin-tymon-will-not-press-charges-against-jeremy-clarkson

I think some care should be taken that the guy doesn't get blamed for killing the show. Oison's triply a victim here. Bashed in the face by an abusive star, accused of killing the show by a rabid fanbase, and will probably be out of a job when the show ends.... hopefully employable.

+1 for Netflix. I think the show should move on. The BBC has limits and I think they're doing the right thing here.

overtake the USA power and begin a real massacre of white Alaskans

Yes, an actual massacre (like this) might be a good enough justification for foreign intervention — though not for an annexation.

But no massacre has happened — not in Crimea, not in Kharkiv, not Lviv, not Zaporizhya, not in even in Mariupol and Slovyansk (the two towns that fell under Russia's control briefly but were retaken).

Entire national guard battalions are formed in the East from people, for whom the first language is Russian — if they are willing to die for their country, maybe, the allegations of the country's plans to "hang them" over their language-preference aren't entirely truthful, huh?

Your fears might've been justifiable for a victim of massive state-propaganda a year ago, but by now — with Ukrainian "junta" in power for over 12 months and yet not one concentration camp, gas chamber, nor even a one-time mass-execution of Russian-speakers in evidence — the excuse is no more.

If you continue to believe — and even parrot — this crap, there must be something seriously wrong with you. Either you are brain-dead stupid, or a (paid) Putin's troll...

There are afaik no Ukrainian schools in Crimea

Not any more, that's for sure — because Russia shut them down.

All of your justifications are repeatedly demonstrated as non-sense and, even if they were valid, they would've justified only a wrong-righting invasion, but not a permanent annexation of any land.

Vatnik much?

Yes, he did. He admitted that he did. It wasn't in the take they used, but he admits he used it.

http://www.theguardian.com/med...

And especially fuck AT&T. Never forget Room 641A and their "retroactive immunity"

Yeah. Never forget. Remind others. Explain to the young.

Things have got to change, But first, you gotta get mad!
NSA and the Desolation of Smaug
I am Sam. Uncle Sam I am.
I really hated Men In Black
Am I the first to suggest... BLACKMAIL??
Sherlock Holmes: training wheels for NSA surveillance
Stick a fork in the Republic, it's done. HR4681/309 [failed submission]
The backbone, then [1980s] and now
Whatever happened to the 'old' NSA? Directive 18?
The Day Israel Attacked the NSA [failed submission]
Last Wish (aka The Pact)

Never mind the fact that their entire Internet product itself is based on taxpayer-funded technologies, Cory Doctorow makes the point nicely that these "anti-regulation" ISPs exist only because of current government regulations that give them the right to bury cables in other people's dirt. Never mind the government investments in infrastructure itself that they got for free.

What douchetards. I'd love to see all these regulations that protect their monopolies pulled.. actually not really- but I'd love to see more strings attached, just like cable television stations used to have to offer "public access cable" stations/equipment/studios, I'd like to see public access/municipal support to make these awful OP stories go away, finally.

Oh and fuck comcast. And especially fuck AT&T. Never forget Room 641A and their "retroactive immunity".

That episode guaranteed that no tin horn dictator will EVER give up their WMD program.

That seems logical, but Assad did just that:

Syria will give up control of chemical weapons

Instead of making their homework politicians try to control knowledge. Beside the fact that this ever backfired in history, it is also stupid in terms of the economy. Europe will rather sooner then later reduce its demand on coal and China is also doing it. Other natural resources are also limited and will not support the country for ever. You could see what happens to a country which has a ideological closed view of the world if you look at Venezuela. While it is important to give the poor schools and food, they messed it up, as they are totally oil dependent. In Australia this could go the same way, if the scientific community is frightened and leaves the country. By the way what do they think they can do about those Chinese studying in Australia, are their no longer allowed to take their heads with them?

I've heard those people in charge in AUS are Christians. Well recently, a British cleric stated that it is immoral to reject the gift of knowledge http://www.theguardian.com/env... and that is exactly that what they are doing.

India is one of the countries where tens of millions of Internet users have free access to Wikipedia Zero, but cannot afford the data charges to access the rest of the Internet, making Wikipedia a potential gatekeeper.

Awesome... Meanwhile, Heaven forbid Facebook or any other KKKorporation sponsors some poors' Internet-access. No, better they have no Internet-access at all!