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No, they explained why they guess that. If they did science they'd look at past records and see if they beached themselves in past periods of low ice.

Okay. What makes you think they didn't?

In this case we have periods with less ice then today and they didn't beach themselves.

Big claim. The article doesn't have many of the specific details. Can you show me:

1) At what time the ice extent is believed to be sensitive to walrus haulouts on land in late September
2) How think the ice needs to be to support the Walruses
3) The source data that you have that shows that the ice of that thickness was further from Alaska in periods in which there were no land Haul-outs

We also have periods of more ice where they did.

Are you claiming that all land haul-outs have the same cause?
Do you have any scientific basis for this claim?

So... you see the problem.

Not yet. These guys study these Walruses. They're not just guessing from that news article.

If you look at the movement of the tagged Walruses in the very low ice year of 2012, you can see that a "marginal" sea ice pack remains off the shore of Alaska that they remain with until late September, even though the sea ice extent has retreated far north.

This year even the marginal ice left that area by the start of September, and the Walruses headed to Alaska.

And the first link is that "A" Walruses beach themselves is linked to "B" low sea ice... which fails on analysis.

You haven't convinced me that your analysis is sophisticated enough. I think you're using Northern Summer sea ice extent, where extent is where there is 15% or more sea ice. The Walrus tracking that these scientists have been doing shows that a Walrus can haul out on a block of ice that is more sparse than that.

So you can't even get to "C" which is "because global warming"... Because the link between low sea ice and walruses doesn't pan out.

I don't think sea ice is the only effect on the ecosystem of AGW up there.

Acidification might be causing them to alter where they can find food.

Increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the ocean was also depleting the walruses' food supply, making the waters too corrosive for the clams and other shellfish that are their staple.

They have beached themselves with more ice and not beached themselves with less ice. So "less ice" = "beaching" fails.

Okay. Where is your Walrus- sufficient sea ice data?

I'd like to check it because it looks a lot like you're just fucking assuming that it is the same as the sea ice extent, and it looks like you're assuming that the whole hemisphere's extent is a good proxy for the near Alaska sea ice.

Do the fucking science and stop assuming things.

Quite

I take it you missed this "minor" incindent, then:: http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

Anyway, good building standards don't count if you can easily bribe the inspectors.

At the time the scientists were saying that a 5,000 year old ice shelf had broken off. Okay if it was 5,000 years old what broke it off the last time? the egyptians using slave labor to build the pyramids?

Really?

1) Larson B had been a stable ice shelf 200 metres thick with a surface area of 3,250 square kilometres for at least 10,000 years. (source)
2) Even if that wasn't the case you can still attribute climate change to a cause, and that cause doesn't have to be the same cause as previous climate change.
2 b) Climate change one to two orders of magnitude slower than the current climate change would not be expected to have the same mechanism.
3) It is not believed that Egyptians used slaves to construct the pyramids.

The weather changes it goes up and down and side to side.

Yes. And the current going up is primarily due to the enhanced greenhouse effect.

looking for a .01 degree change is like looking for a penny to pay a $1,000 bar tab. it matters yes but come on.

On the other hand a 0.8 degree rise has put a number of species at extinction risk, has displaced tens of millions of people per year, and kills about 150,000 people annually.

"The whole NSA thing has the masses much more cognizant of such things currently."

Especially for Microsoft and its products...

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

Any sanctions imposed in retaliation for a certain deed — such as Russia's invasion into Afghanistan, Georgia or Ukraine — must last until the deed is reversed.

That is certainly a valid argument... One that needs to be taken in to consideration, that said, if you don't let go (at some point), we end in a situation like we have with Iran where we can't impose further sanctions. Other matter to consider is that the best way to further democracy in Russia, is not to isolate Russia further. That'll just make it easier or Putin to control the media, etc.

I'm not saying we should lift sanctions against Russia anytime soon. In fact I favor threat of stronger sanctions. That said, why exactly does the US (as the only western country) still have trade sanctions against Cuba? Is that anything but old grudge. My point is let's not create more of those situations.

By the way, with respect to the Georgia conflict, if I remember correct the US was the only country to impose sanctions. EU talked about, but as I recall it never did anything, but talk... You can take that as a sign of EU weakness or a sign of lacking support for war-crazy Bush (as some Europeans probably do). With my country having followed Bush/US into Iraq on a lie, I don't trust want my politicians to trust the US or US intelligence.

The City of London is indeed the heart of tax evasion. It directs tax evasion around the world.
You are absolutely a liar. I direct you to this Guardian story that explicitly states that as a fact.
You ridiculous comments about the Freemasons, etc is subterfuge trying to hide with disinformation the precise fact that the City of London is a world center of lawless scumbaggery and its apologists like you are the worst sort on the planet.

To us, it's an obscure shift of tax law. To the City, it's the heist of the century In David Cameron we have a leader whose job is to quietly legitimise a semi-criminal, money-laundering economy
Quote: But I've just read Nicholas Shaxson's Treasure Islands – perhaps the most important book published in the UK so far this year – and now I'm not so sure. Shaxson shows how the world's tax havens have not, as the OECD claims, been eliminated, but legitimised; how the City of London is itself a giant tax haven, which passes much of its business through its subsidiary havens in British dependencies, overseas territories and former colonies; how its operations mesh with and are often indistinguishable from the laundering of the proceeds of crime; and how the Corporation of the City of London in effect dictates to the government, while remaining exempt from democratic control.

Further evidence: The tax haven in the heart of Britain

"What they sell is escape: from the laws, rules and taxes of jurisdictions elsewhere, usually with secrecy as their prime offering. The notion of elsewhere (hence the term "offshore") is central. The Cayman Islands' tax and secrecy laws are not designed for the benefit of the 50,000-odd Caymanians, but help wealthy people and corporations, mostly in the US and Europe, get around the rules of their own democratic societies. The outcome is one set of rules for a rich elite and another for the rest of us."

You can read it in more detail here - http://www.theguardian.com/tec...

Yeah.... but sanctions really only send a message in the moment you apply them...

There, there. "It is complicated"... GP was accusing RethugliKKKans of wanting to end sanctions against Russia in exchange for oil. You seem to be supporting such a maneuver.

Also it doesn't make sense to carry a grudge forever... Sometimes it's better to just move along.

Any sanctions imposed in retaliation for a certain deed — such as Russia's invasion into Afghanistan, Georgia or Ukraine — must last until the deed is reversed.

Lifting the punishment prematurely — as Obama did in 2010 — simply sends the aggressor the following signal: outlast the current American Administration and you can keep, whatever you gained. Had Obama kept (and ratcheted up) the pressure on Russia instead of lifting the sanctions, imposing new ones over Russian attack on Ukraine might even have been necessary — for no such attack would've taken place...

Fortunately bozos like this doofus only have jurisdiction over a couple of square miles of land, not the entire global internet.

Wanker.

This guy has jurisdiction over more than 1/10 of the planet's land area: http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

Note the part about forcing .ru websites to have their servers in Russia where they can be shut down at the discretion of the leader. I suspect this will first be condemned by western countries, then copied.

If "peak oil" was in 2008 you better tell the Lefties at The Nation, they apparently didn't get the memo

Peak Oil Is Dead. Long Live Peak Oil!

A note to the Guardian might be helpful as well.

We were wrong on peak oil. There's enough to fry us all

Some of us made vague predictions, others were more specific. In all cases we were wrong. In 1975 MK Hubbert, a geoscientist working for Shell who had correctly predicted the decline in US oil production, suggested that global supplies could peak in 1995. In 1997 the petroleum geologist Colin Campbell estimated that it would happen before 2010. In 2003 the geophysicist Kenneth Deffeyes said he was "99% confident" that peak oil would occur in 2004. In 2004, the Texas tycoon T Boone Pickens predicted that "never again will we pump more than 82m barrels" per day of liquid fuels. (Average daily supply in May 2012 was 91m.) In 2005 the investment banker Matthew Simmons maintained that "Saudi Arabia cannot materially grow its oil production". (Since then its output has risen from 9m barrels a day to 10m, and it has another 1.5m in spare capacity.)

Peak oil hasn't happened, and it's unlikely to happen for a very long time.

Hopefully America will seize the territory from the Russians, enemies of the world.

I can see that already. Find a small rock in that see and build a shelter on it — nothing fancy, as long as a SEAL can survive on it for a day or two. Place a retired SEAL on it. Organize a referendum on the rock on whether or not the "residents" wish for their territory to become part of the United States. Claim the land &mdash and the surrounding waters — as American.

PROFIT!

Germany generated over half its electricity demand from solar for the first time ever on 9 June, and the UK, basking in the sunniest weather of summer during the longest days of the year, nearly doubled its 2013 peak solar power output at the solstice weekend.

cite

Germany is really leading the way.

Inequality that disfavours men is because of a set of social norms and conventions around gender that need to be challenged by men and women alike. That's what the modern feminist movement is about, no?

That depends. There was a Guardian article a week or two ago talking about a need to emulate the creation of a Swedish Feminist party in the UK.

What would this party look like? Well, for a start, no men would be allowed. Nothing personal, guys, but I believe women are central to their own emancipation.

The word feminist is used by many groups with differing views, with some looking to promote equality in general for both men and women, and some which are focused on women's right specifically and don't see a problem with excluding men from their movement. Unfortunately this makes it difficult to tell which groups are using the word feminist for which purpose.

The company that wants 4chan shut down also doesn't seem to exist; it looks like this was a publicity stunt by a social media agency.

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

Of course, if the Forbes link is too "right wing" for you, you might prefer the get the 97% bubble popped by a left-leaning source

I'd hardly describe Richard Tol as a "left leaning source". Do you think that leftiness is catching? That just by getting published in the Guardian you become a lefty?

Richard Tol disagrees with the 97% figure, but what does he think the real figure is?

The consensus is of course in the high nineties.

So, not 97%, maybe it could be 95%, or 99%.

There have been MANY examinations of the claim given the way the alarmists cling to it like drowning men clinging to life rafts. In the REAL world, you rarely encounter so many voices making shrill claims using the exact same percentage number for ANYTHING. It does not matter if some political people at NASA echo the claim (James Hansen, after all, was famously working for NASA at Goddard while hustling for AGW...)

Let mey point out a just one of the many dissections of that claim. If you do not want to read that in its entirety, try this brief summary.

Of course, if the Forbes link is too "right wing" for you, you might prefer the get the 97% bubble popped by a left-leaning source

Be VERY wary when lots of political activists all start chanting a slogan with a very-specific number like "97%"... it's rarely honest and usually scripted propaganda no matter WHAT party you think might be behind it.

Every dime spent on defense and prisons is a loss to infrastructure and progress.

Well, US prisons anyway.

The laffer curve is a fictional construct of corporate greed.It is laughed out of any conference of economists for it's absurd leaps of faith and lack of supporting evidence.

https://www.princeton.edu/~rvd...
http://scienceblogs.com/goodma...
http://business.time.com/2012/...
http://www.theguardian.com/bus...
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/L...
http://economistsview.typepad....

Fair enough. As an additional note, according to this article it is costing the U.S. $337 billion dollars!

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

Are we secure from the Putins though? He seems to have fun with the idea his nukes let him do whatever he wants.

Putin's doctrine is that Russia ought to "protect" both ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking people of any ethnicity anywhere in the world. That you don't see "polite" gunmen organizing a referendum in Brighton Beach is a sign, our force does deter Putin still.

I'm very glad, America is rearming itself, because Russia spent the past 20 years nourishing a buttheart like no one had ever had before. They lost the Cold War and they want a revanche. With a Nobel Peace Price dimwit in the White House, and a bona-fide lunatic providing foreign-policy expertise, this is Russia's hour...

GDP is of relevance to everyone, the fact you don't understand it does not change anything. GDP is a measure of the size of the economy, and if the economy is growing then that means there is more money in it. You're correct that that does not mean that as soon as the economy grows people will see instant benefit from it, levels of inflation play in too and companies will not start handing out pay rises left and right the second the economy shows signs of growth, so yes you can see GDP go up, but no people wont instantly see benefit.

I don't know why you say Ireland has a high GDP, no it doesn't, it has a smaller GDP than countries like Iraq, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan, maybe you meant GDP per capita? If you want to know why Ireland's GDP per capita is high but the people aren't seeing the benefit of it then it's simple- Ireland is a tax haven and like all tax havens they have a high GDP per capita, there's a reason Apple has many tens of billions sat in banks there - it's a low tax regime, but that money sat in banks isn't in the real economy, it doesn't feed down to employees because it's being held in banks simply for the purpose of being kept off shore. This is the price of running your country as a tax haven, you get a lot of income, but it wont be productive money for the economy - it wont be used to pay higher wages or any such thing. The UK is not a tax haven so is not in even a remotely similar situation.

What we have in the UK is healthy growth because it's sustained, and the fact it's sustained means companies can start increasing wages, and guess what? contrary to your parroting of now obsolete memes that's exactly what's happening. Throughout last year wage rises started to track with inflation, and through this year they've finally started outpacing inflation.

Yes there have been big issues with zero hours contracts and self-employment over the last few years, and this has been key in Carney not increasing the bank of England's base rate, but as bank of England minutes have shown over this last year it's now clear that even that trend is in decline- those zero hours contracts, and that self employment is now being replaced by real sustained employment. It's for this reason that a rate rise now looks likely next year, instead of in 2016/2017 as originally planned. I suggest you catch up on this years monthly BoE meeting minutes if you want to get an updated view of the situation of the healthiness of employment in the UK rather than the outdated view you currently hold.

The things you cite were true a year ago or just over, but in the last year it's become clear that this is real growth and as a result even salaries are increasing (they're certainly not decreasing as you claim- go check the ONS stats on the issue, or see here for example: http://www.theguardian.com/bus... - this is from April just as above inflation wage growth started, the pace has improved even more since then).

So I hate to say it but your whole argument is wrong, it's based on a lack of understanding of economics on a national level, it's based on a naive belief that improvement should be instant, and it's based on a simple lack of knowledge about what the underlying trends actually are in our economy.

Our GDP is growing, our wage rises are outpacing inflation, zero hours contracts are no longer growing, debts are not soaring, bailiffs are not doing record business. That's what I consider healthy growth- you're right, your theorised claims would not be healthy growth but they're not what's actually happening in the country right now, they stopped being true at least a year ago, your information is now completely out of date and incorrect.

Sources:

- Wage increases: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/...

- Reposessions:

Holy shit, you're right 8-(

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

I would guess these drones are not flying LOS, therefore disrupting video and telemetry would make it very difficult for a drone operator to effectively maneuver, make any interesting video, and even return the drone back to safety.

This is in the UK, where there are clear legal requirements if you want to operate a drone. People can be and have been prosecuted for violating them.

So it is highly unlikely that any such drones were flying without LOS at close range or that they would be used by any reputable commercial surveillance firm without permission. As the cases mentioned above demonstrate, someone who violates the rules may well wind up in court with a hefty fine, and the authorities aren't going to look sympathetically on any excuses about losing control of the aircraft or being somewhere it shouldn't be accidentally.

By the way, responding to drones by disrupting frequencies using jammers as you suggested would, as a minimum, probably land you in hot water with the communications regulators yourself.

GDP is of relevance to everyone, the fact you don't understand it does not change anything. GDP is a measure of the size of the economy, and if the economy is growing then that means there is more money in it. You're correct that that does not mean that as soon as the economy grows people will see instant benefit from it, levels of inflation play in too and companies will not start handing out pay rises left and right the second the economy shows signs of growth, so yes you can see GDP go up, but no people wont instantly see benefit.

I don't know why you say Ireland has a high GDP, no it doesn't, it has a smaller GDP than countries like Iraq, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan, maybe you meant GDP per capita? If you want to know why Ireland's GDP per capita is high but the people aren't seeing the benefit of it then it's simple- Ireland is a tax haven and like all tax havens they have a high GDP per capita, there's a reason Apple has many tens of billions sat in banks there - it's a low tax regime, but that money sat in banks isn't in the real economy, it doesn't feed down to employees because it's being held in banks simply for the purpose of being kept off shore. This is the price of running your country as a tax haven, you get a lot of income, but it wont be productive money for the economy - it wont be used to pay higher wages or any such thing. The UK is not a tax haven so is not in even a remotely similar situation.

What we have in the UK is healthy growth because it's sustained, and the fact it's sustained means companies can start increasing wages, and guess what? contrary to your parroting of now obsolete memes that's exactly what's happening. Throughout last year wage rises started to track with inflation, and through this year they've finally started outpacing inflation.

Yes there have been big issues with zero hours contracts and self-employment over the last few years, and this has been key in Carney not increasing the bank of England's base rate, but as bank of England minutes have shown over this last year it's now clear that even that trend is in decline- those zero hours contracts, and that self employment is now being replaced by real sustained employment. It's for this reason that a rate rise now looks likely next year, instead of in 2016/2017 as originally planned. I suggest you catch up on this years monthly BoE meeting minutes if you want to get an updated view of the situation of the healthiness of employment in the UK rather than the outdated view you currently hold.

The things you cite were true a year ago or just over, but in the last year it's become clear that this is real growth and as a result even salaries are increasing (they're certainly not decreasing as you claim- go check the ONS stats on the issue, or see here for example: http://www.theguardian.com/bus... - this is from April just as above inflation wage growth started, the pace has improved even more since then).

So I hate to say it but your whole argument is wrong, it's based on a lack of understanding of economics on a national level, it's based on a naive belief that improvement should be instant, and it's based on a simple lack of knowledge about what the underlying trends actually are in our economy.

Our GDP is growing, our wage rises are outpacing inflation, zero hours contracts are no longer growing, debts are not soaring, bailiffs are not doing record business. That's what I consider healthy growth- you're right, your theorised claims would not be healthy growth but they're not what's actually happening in the country right now, they stopped being true at least a year ago, your information is now completely out of date and incorrect.

Sources:

- Wage increases: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/...

- Reposessions:

Nope, it most certainly is not.
All I can see here is the Soviet Union rising again. I grew up around the fringes (outside) and somehow it seems worse this time around.
Want a laugh? The Scottish Referendum and the Soviet observers are mouthing off that the whole affair was not "free and fair", that it had been manipulated.

This Vlad is sick of this garbage. Oh, and I was in the Ukraine a couple of months back. They have a right-wing lunatic fringe running at around 5% but most of them do not deserve this crud.

Yeah, and aliens could land too, and there will be nuclear war, and the world will end also!

Oh wait, you were being serious? You used the words "the way things are going" but that's not actually the way things are going. Based on current trajectories the UK is showing the healthiest growth of just about all rich Western economies and it's doing so whilst maintaining a reduction in deficit too.

Further, a number of studies suggest it's likely to see itself increase in global rankings overtaking France, and maybe even Germany in the next 20 years:

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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/busi...

So yeah, you may be right, maybe something drastic will happen and things will go into reverse again, but that's not what the current figures suggest so any such possibility is merely unfounded speculation.

Yeah, sure, Scotland could've chosen not to be part of that and that would've been their decision, but I think most Scots saw through the nationalist pessimism towards the UK and recognised that for all our faults, maybe things aren't so bad - we're growing faster than anyone else in the G7 and seeing drastic declines in unemployment to boot - find me a country without political issues, but as far as ours go they're pretty small fry compared to some of the issues some countries are having, we've been growing well for well over a year now and some of our neighbours are still slipping in and out of recession - right now and for the foreseeable future the UK is still a pretty good place to be.

Faster political change would be nice, many people think it's not happening at all, but it is. In recent years we've seen things like the exposure of the expenses scandal, we've seen the closeness of phone hacking and the political classes, we've seen an alternative voting system referendum that was lost, exposure of sexual abuse in parliament, we've seen a coalition for the first time in 60 years- now many people will view all these things are negatives, things that ended badly, didn't turn out well, but they're not, they're all part of a bigger picture- the tide is turning against entrenched Westminster, in the last 50 years most of those things listed above would've been unthinkable, the fact they're happening is evidence that the vested minorities that've had so much power for so long in Westminster are losing their grip. I'm normally a cynical, pessimistic person myself, but since I started to take a step back on this issue and piece it all together, rather than look at individual events in isolation, as well as looking at the wider world in general (i.e. the arab spring) it seems pretty clear that politicians are losing power to the people as part of a long slow, probably multi-decade process - it's slow but it's happening, and I'm optimistic that Westminster cannot and will not be able to carry on with business as usual for much longer- they're already faltering and I fully suspect that this independence referendum is another nail in the coffin for the old way of doing things.

God only knows I've hated my country long enough and thought about leaving enough times (thankfully I can easily obtain dual citizenship through my partner, or just make use of our EU membership to fuck off elsewhere in the EU) but right now I think the signs are good, I think change is happening, it's painfully slow but I'm not convinced this is something that you can fix overnight, I think it takes almost a generational change in politicians (which might explain why there has been some progress already- I believe last election that far more than half the MPs that were elected were completely new) but it's happening, and we're getting there.

People want to live in a country without paying for its upkeep. What's next, city-states?

What's your point? That Scotland won't be "contributing" when it remains a part of the United Kingdom, somehow?

Your comment on "city states" sounds far more reminiscent of the direction in which London is heading. It's already approaching an entity in its own right within England, increasingly unbalancing the United Kingdom and heavily influenced by tax-dodging multinational companies.

The "City of London" (a historic title which refers only to the financial "square mile" rather than the other several hundred square miles of London itself) is notoriously undemocratic, prominent way, *way* beyond its nominal area, and interferes on behalf of its corporate paymasters in the working of the UK in general:-

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

You missed the real issue... while you still have a point. But the issue the article is about is not the prescription of antibiotics to humans but to cattle, that's actually why it talks about farmers

Cattle is fed antibiotics as a "preventive measure" just in case and with the aim of lowering production costs by avoiding diseases. Note that I haven't used quotes around 'fed' as they are literally doing that shoveling massive amounts of antibiotica in the the cattle's fodder.

You have clearly understood the dangers of prescribing unnecessary antibiotica to humans... now think about that at a ten of hundredfold scale which is what is happening right now

These antibiotics affect the public health in several manners:

1. 1) Antibiotic residues can be still present in the meat and animal residues (urine, etc) and enter the human body where it will be able to produce effects such as the ones described by you
2. 2) Already resistant microflora can contaminate the meat or reside in the environment the farmers are exposed too or can reach the outside world via urine and detritus or directly airborne

The issue is not new and actually already causing quite some trouble, deaths and huge economical costs: You may recall the bacteria 'Salmonella' that is practically ubiquitous in all poultry products that you can find in a common supermarket. This microorganism causes thousands of infections yearly and including deaths to such an extend that in warm EU countries like Spain it has been forbidden to use eggs and egg products in public establishments during the summer. These organisms are actually resistant strains that have been selected and thrive in the antibiotic laden bodies of industrial poultry.

Another source of concern is the proliferation of "superbugs" in the hospitals which are already causing intra-hospitalary infections to humans ending many times in chronic diseases which are expensive to treat

This goes to such an extend that here in Holland personel of risk groups (farmers, meat-industry workers, veterinaries, etc) are required to access the hospitals and sanitary instalations through a separate entry and are also held in isolated precincts

.And there is the risk of direct infections such as we saw with the bird flu or the 2009 Q Fever epidemics here in Holland, not to forget the Mad Cows episodes.

And the problem is not only the fact that these medicines are being used, the problem is the humungous scale of the operation as cattle's biomass exceeds the mass of the human population several times (!).

Summing up: We are wasting a valuable weapon in the fight against diseases and at the same time creating new and costly health hazards just to get some extra bacon. Most of which we directly throw away

Some interesting texts:

Antibiotic Residues - A Global Health Hazard [Nisha A.R.],

That ration might be valid overall, or with old statistics but when used for young people, its skewed quite dramatically in favour of males.

I saw a documentary about it on TV (so it must be true :-) ). this one was mainly concerned with the chinese dating scene and online websites etc.

I may have got the ratio wrong, more like 12:10, or :2 in the worst areas.

In the early 1980s there were 108 male births to every 100 female, only slightly above the natural rate; by 2000 that had soared to 120 males, and in some provinces, such as Anhui, Jiangxi and Shaanxi, to more than 130. The result is that more than 35 million women are "missing". Though China is not the only country affected â" India's situation is similar â" it has by far the widest gap; its one-child policy has exacerbated the problem.

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

You forgot the ace up the government's sleeve. The NSA has no problem bugging communications devices http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/12/glenn-greenwald-nsa-tampers-us-internet-routers-snowden

If Abbott lost his head? http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

Yeah, I realized that a bit as soon as I hit submit. I tried. 8)

The article sparked my thoughts of what I heard about the shrimp slave trade from Thailand, for example, and not just necessarily factory workers in Malaysia. Possibly what is going on is this race to the bottom via slave labor, 'forced' labor as the article says, prison labor, dissident labor, etc. In order to compete countries are taking this tack. But I was thinking with the outrage of slavery, maybe it's enough justification going in there with guns and outright killing the slavers. i.e. one country trumping up some reason to invade, hiring mercenaries, etc., etc. Not that I would advocate it as I imagine the situation would only get messier, but this is very similar to how gangs work. I just suspect someone is thinking about 'solving' the problem that way.

For anyone interested, the slave labor trade was reported in June.
http://www.theguardian.com/glo...

...is that our selfies are safer.

Texas conservatives have seized control of the state Board of Education, using it as a platform to rewrite education standards to reflect a more conservative, "Godly" point of view and to demand that textbooks be rewritten to conform with those standards.

http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/jay...

Or...

Texas proposes rewriting school text books to deny man made climate change

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

Actually, RBS plans to do exactly that in the event of a Yes vote:
http://www.theguardian.com/bus...

It depends on how the product was crafted per person.
On some consumer OS versions all you have to do is get under the consumer grade antivirus by not having to use in the wild malware thats been found.
That product has to avoid consumer grade antivirus behavior analysis, cosumer software firewalls over days and get the data out.
The 'out' part can be just as fun. A waiting consumer computer that looks like any other home computer in an empty home at the end of a city street with rental phone company records to match.
As for Linux http://www.theguardian.com/tec... (16 September 2014)
http://www.theguardian.com/tec...
has the line " can infect Apple OS X, Windows and Linux computers as well as Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Phone devices."
The issue is consumer grade antivirus has to have something to find and report back on. If the software is crafted per person and then removed in a short time that consumer grade antivirus option will never be a factor.
The other option is just to go for the keyboard or other cell phone input layer on the active cell device. A user can then encrypt, hide ip all they want at a software or higher hardware level but every keystroke is collected.
With a correct password any later software alterations would be part of the next expected, correct Linux checksums. The keyboard logger would not even have to use any internet network, it could just go very short range wireless avoiding all software/hardware packet sniffers efforts.

It depends on how the product was crafted per person.
On some consumer OS versions all you have to do is get under the consumer grade antivirus by not having to use in the wild malware thats been found.
That product has to avoid consumer grade antivirus behavior analysis, cosumer software firewalls over days and get the data out.
The 'out' part can be just as fun. A waiting consumer computer that looks like any other home computer in an empty home at the end of a city street with rental phone company records to match.
As for Linux http://www.theguardian.com/tec... (16 September 2014)
http://www.theguardian.com/tec...
has the line " can infect Apple OS X, Windows and Linux computers as well as Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Phone devices."
The issue is consumer grade antivirus has to have something to find and report back on. If the software is crafted per person and then removed in a short time that consumer grade antivirus option will never be a factor.
The other option is just to go for the keyboard or other cell phone input layer on the active cell device. A user can then encrypt, hide ip all they want at a software or higher hardware level but every keystroke is collected.
With a correct password any later software alterations would be part of the next expected, correct Linux checksums. The keyboard logger would not even have to use any internet network, it could just go very short range wireless avoiding all software/hardware packet sniffers efforts.

while 95% of the population still live in extreme poverty and could make more use of the billions wasted on this project

Nah, sorry, this argument doesn't work. Far more billions are wasted on completely useless military activity than the relatively miniscule space program of all nations put together - and the space programme at least has a use ...

As 'The Hawk' says, we urgently need to set up an off-world colony before the next asteroid strike wipes our species out. We had an unexpected visit from such an asteroid whizzing past inside the orbit of our geostationary satellites just a couple of days ago - this house-sized lump of rock was only detected for the first time about a week before it arrived. Who knows how long we've got before one of these things actually collides with us. Apparently such an event is now overdue in geological timescale terms.

More space programme please.

Well, that year.

Clearly this particular Puritannical (shallow, phoney) "moral" crusade must prevail. We must make certain that small children NEVER see a woman's nipple!

I'm sure that companies like Nestle could get behind that argument... wait; they already did!

What is the "less expensive" way to store & protect your anthrax, or other dangerous pathogen that you'd like to muck with?

You should have picked a better example. Remember just a while ago where a very well funded organization (CDC) with everything you mentioned misplaced some damned smallpox in a friggin' cardboard box?

It is a perfect example, right out of the article.

But since you brought up a well funded & "organized" agency like the CDC, who couldn't manage to care for their anthrax... Do you really want to move the research over to your neighbor's garage?

What is the "less expensive" way to store & protect your anthrax, or other dangerous pathogen that you'd like to muck with?

You should have picked a better example. Remember just a while ago where a very well funded organization (CDC) with everything you mentioned misplaced some damned smallpox in a friggin' cardboard box?

Seriously?

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

The Koch' brothers also funded the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatur project, which started out with key people being sceptical about global warming. But the data convinced them otherwise:
http://www.theguardian.com/sci...

right... and that's even to be expected. I don't fault the oil industry for funding research that furthers their goals. It makes sense.

The problem is with the public. You have less than 100 credible scientists worldwide that have a problem with the idea of Climate change being a problem created by human activity. And of those only a few actually flat out deny it entirely. The entirety of the rest of the scientific community world wide, scientists that number in the millions, fully support the idea. This isn't just a majority, it's a broad and overwhelming consensus. There are more scientists that deny Relativity, Evolution or Continental drift, than deny climate change. If you doubt the scientific consensus on climate change at this point you're just an ideolog that will argue your political point until the house burns down around you.

Seriously?

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

The Koch' brothers also funded the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatur project, which started out with key people being sceptical about global warming. But the data convinced them otherwise:
http://www.theguardian.com/sci...

right... and that's even to be expected. I don't fault the oil industry for funding research that furthers their goals. It makes sense.

The problem is with the public. You have less than 100 credible scientists worldwide that have a problem with the idea of Climate change being a problem created by human activity. And of those only a few actually flat out deny it entirely. The entirety of the rest of the scientific community world wide, scientists that number in the millions, fully support the idea. This isn't just a majority, it's a broad and overwhelming consensus. There are more scientists that deny Relativity, Evolution or Continental drift, than deny climate change. If you doubt the scientific consensus on climate change at this point you're just an ideolog that will argue your political point until the house burns down around you.

Seriously?

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

The Koch' brothers also funded the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatur project, which started out with key people being sceptical about global warming. But the data convinced them otherwise:
http://www.theguardian.com/sci...

Seriously?

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

The Koch' brothers also funded the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatur project, which started out with key people being sceptical about global warming. But the data convinced them otherwise:
http://www.theguardian.com/sci...

Correct, Lavabit tried just that ( http://nakedsecurity.sophos.co... ) and was held in contempt for it ( http://www.theguardian.com/tec... ).

Here the guardian describes how they put out more than 50million cars each: http://www.theguardian.com/env...

That article talks almost entirely about sulfur, which is only one aspect of pollution, and arguably less important for vessels/vehicles that spend their time hundreds or thousands of miles from populated areas.

They compare a car with annual use of 15,000km, carrying approximately 100 kg of cargo (1000 ton-miles), with a ship that travels 200,000 km carrying 150,000,000 kg of cargo (20,000,000,000 ton-miles). ie, based on equivalent use, one massive container ship is equal to 20 million cars. If that container ship produces sulfur equivalent to 50 million cars, despite using fuel with 2000 times more sulfur than terrestrial diesel, then I'd say they're doing a damn fine job of pollution control.

The poster says that existing ships are causing massive pollution, which articles say are killing many tens of thousands of people. And you link to info about a ship that isn't even built for you argument.

Just because B doesn't pollute does not mean that A also does not pollute.

Health risks of shipping pollution have been 'underestimated'

..., they actually rolled out something., Didn't a huge replacement project runs for years and years, soak up bazillions and then get cancelled? But maybe that's the 'clinical' side of things. Yes, here it us .. http://www.theguardian.com/soc...

Ocean going vessels to my understanding have basically no pollution controls on them nor emission standards that they must follow. Consequently they make up some of the worst sources of environmental pollution. Ideally they'd be nuclear powered, but even if they were to implement even basic pollution controls they'd make a world (pun intended) of difference.

They must obey the environmental laws of the port from which they hail. i.e. the flag they fly. This is why huge transport ships will often fly flags of countries that don't even have a port that could harbor the ship. This is where the term "Flag of Convenience" comes from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

In recent years however, many ports will refuse ships that don't meet that ports regulations. Some of the ships output was so horrible that places like California would see air pollution levels sky rocket just because a ship was in port. I read an article once described how a small number of those large ships (16?) put more pollution into the air than the combined output of automobiles in the world combined.

Here the guardian describes how they put out more than 50million cars each: http://www.theguardian.com/env...