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Although I feel like I shouldn't respond to such a blatant troll, since your post was modded up I have no choice but to respond here. (Since nobody else has gotten it right so far)

Calling the GP post BS is just plain wrong. Toxic waste was dumped in their waters, this is a fact. In addition, illegal fishing of their waters is a fact. Your response for the GP to "STFU" is simply uncalled for.

However, none of these facts justifies kidnapping and ransoming people who had nothing to do with those crimes. Many of the first Somali pirates probably started off with noble intentions, but after seeing the potential money that could be made by simply hijacking ships (rather than telling people to get lost) most pirates joined in and the ransoming we see today was born.

At the same time, the GP's suggestion that simply stopping people from illegally fishing and dumping waste in Somalia's waters will end piracy is obviously wrong. As the parent correctly points out, the motivation has become greed. With that said, that means the solution to piracy needs to be a two pronged approach: Stop pirates from hijacking ships, and expel foreign fishermen/polluters from Somalia's exclusive economic zone. If there are fish to catch and punishments for piracy, people will go back to legal methods of income.

So in the future, the GP and P should consider thinking about the other sides argument a bit and coming up with a more logical solution than their gut-reactions ("evil international community" vs. "evil pirates")

Such is not the case with Chinese nuclear technology. Read a shocking report about what happened to the victims maimed by Chinese nuclear experiments.

According to "The TimesOnline", "The nuclear test grounds in the wastes of the Gobi desert have fallen silent but veterans of those lonely places are speaking out for the first time about the terrible price exacted by China's zealous pursuit of the atomic bomb.

They talk of picking up radioactive debris with their bare hands, of sluicing down bombers that had flown through mushroom clouds, of soldiers dying before their time of strange and rare diseases, and children born with mysterious cancers.

These were the men and women of Unit 8023, a special detachment charged with conducting atomic tests at Lop Nur in Xinjiang province, a place of utter desolation and - until now - complete secrecy.

'I was a member of Unit 8023 for 23 years,' said one old soldier in an interview. 'My job was to go into the blast zone to retrieve test objects and monitoring equipment after the explosion.

'When my daughter was born she was diagnosed with a huge tumour on her spinal cord. The doctors blame nuclear fallout. She's had two major operations and has lived a life of indescribable hardship. And all we get from the government is 130 yuan [£13] a month.'"

It turned out recently that you don't own your books anyway.

Cogeneration (or combined heat and power) can increase the efficiency of fossil fuel plants by a factor of 2 (from 50% to 93% efficiency mention in this Times article). The downside is that the the piping infrastructure investment needed is huge. Maybe this data center powered heating scheme can give it a leg up.

You do realize that Top Gear admits to having faked the episode, right? It's an entertainment show; quit taking it so seriously.

Here's what Clarkson had to say about that particular canard:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/jeremy_clarkson/article5483422.ece

The company claimed it could run, even if driven briskly, for 200 miles, but after just a morning the battery power was down to 20% and we realised that it would not have enough juice for all the shots we needed. ...
And to make matters worse, we had the BBC's new compliance directive hanging over us like an enormous suffocating blanket. We had to be sure that what we said and what we showed was more than right, more than fair and more than accurate. ...
Tesla could not complain about what was shown because it was there. And here's the strange thing. It didn't. But someone did. Loudly and to every newspaper in the world. The Daily Telegraph said we'd been caught up in a new fakery row. ...
This was weird. Tesla, when contacted by reporters, gave its account of what happened and it was exactly the same as ours.

There are many legitimate reasons to fear religion, not the least of which is the way in which it warps the minds of the young.

There are plenty of reason both current and historic to fear religions which were much more immediate than the long term warping of childrens minds -- for example: stoning, burning, hanging, public flogging, child sex abuse cover-ups, ritual mutilation and torture.

And now for some flame bait:
From: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/jeremy_clarkson/article5483422.ece

"All of which brings me on to the curious case of the battery-powered Tesla sports car that I reviewed recently on Top Gear. Things didn't go well. The company claimed it could run, even if driven briskly, for 200 miles, but after just a morning the battery power was down to 20% and we realised that it would not have enough juice for all the shots we needed." ...

"Tesla could not complain about what was shown because it was there. And here's the strange thing. It didn't. But someone did. Loudly and to every newspaper in the world. The Daily Telegraph said we'd been caught up in a new fakery row. The Guardian accused us of being "underhanded". The New York Times wondered if we'd been "misleading". The Daily Mail said I could give you breast cancer."

Jupiter

Ok, my sentence was badly worded. But you got it. So here are some older sources :
400 dolphins stranded at zanzibar in 2006
Another one in UK in 2008.
Other cases are mentioned. About the Military not caring, well, in the first article you can read the navy spoke person stating : "In the U.S. alone, a person is 10 times more likely to be struck by lightning than for sonar to cause a marine mammal stranding,". Such experiments help understanding what happens and help confront deniers.

First off, we know that NK does NOT have nuclear weapons.

In October 2006 North Korea successfully tested a nuclear weapon. See the following URL for one of thousands of news stories about the blast:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article666501.ece

With slipups of that magnitude, I'd say you're not building much of a foundation for your argument.

The Thai King has very little real power but he yields immense moral authority and is very popular. Thailand is legally a constitutional monarchy but in reality the situation is much more complex. They are supposed to be run by an elected gov't (which is usually a little bit corrupt) but that rule is enforced by the military and about every 10-15 years, there is a military coup (often fairly or completely bloodless) that throws out an exceptionally corrupt gov't and reboots.

In some ways, the Thai Gov't kinda reminds me of an unpatched Windows Machine that needs lots of reboots and eventually a disk-wipe to get working again -- but talking about the gov't structure itself doesn't really explain why insulting the King is a big deal.

Again, like I said... the King is a "moral authority". In many ways, he's the Thai equivalent to the Pope although more in the moral sense than religious sense -- he is a man who is loved by the people and is wished to be seen as "good" by most Thai's. Insulting the King (or Queen) is a personal insult to many Thai people and is one of the few things the Thai in general do not tolerate well overall. Insulting the King in Thailand is the equivalent of bad-mouthing the Pope while visiting the Vatican.

That said, I'd rather visit Thailand again anyday than the many countries in the world that are significantly less tolerant.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5994905.ece

I guess the Koreans may be selling this technology to Iran.

I would not be surprised if this article were wrong about that conclusion. The article is definitely wrong about the conclusion regarding sinus infections.

Ever since I was a kid, I've been prone to sinus infections. Every couple of years, I'll have one. They have never---and I do mean never---gone away on their own. I've left them for well over a week just to see. Never happens. By contrast, when I take antibiotics, whether that is after four days of symptoms or eight, the symptoms decrease dramatically within just a few hours after the start of the first round. Even if the infection would have gone away after a few more days (and I'm not convinced it would have), taking an antibiotic still means you get three or four days of your life back, and that alone is sufficient reason to consider such treatment.

Further, the doctor's view is dangerous. Doctors don't prescribe antibiotics for strep throat because of the symptoms. They prescribe antibiotics for strep throat because if left untreated, strep infections can turn into scarlet fever (which can cause kidney damage) or rheumatic fever (which has a 2-5% mortality rate). Failing to prescribe antibiotics if strep is suspected is madness.

Even in the case of sinus/ear infections, his few is dangerous. My ear infections have gotten painfully close to rupturing my ear drum. If I did not take antibiotics, there is a very good chance that I would have hearing damage today. As a musician, that would be a bad thing.

Now if you want examples of bad medicine, take a look at statin drugs. Heart doctors notoriously prescribe these to people with even moderate cholesterol levels to bring their levels down. While clinical studies do show that in patients with severely elevated cholesterol, heart attack risk can be reduced by some statins, other statins have been shown to increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Also, the side effects are much more common than they lead you to believe and are severe and debilitating. Both my grandparents have experienced textbook adverse reactions to statin drugs (peripheral neuropathy in both, sleep issues in one, confusion/anxiety/cognitive disruption in one). These side effects are very real.

Worse yet, studies show that these drugs don't reduce overall deaths because for every death they prevent from heart disease or strokes, you get an increase in deaths from other causes, including cancer. So basically it reduces quality of life while failing to actually increase the typical length of life....

Like this one? http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5901235.ece

This article nicely illustrates the French attitude to work. To quote:

In most circumstances, it is impossible for workers to receive French unemployment benefit if they have been employed in another country, but they need to do only one day of work in France to be able to make a claim there. And if they have worked less than 28 days, that claim will be based upon their previous salary.

So, an unemployed French banker from London goes back to France, works for one day in McDonalds and it entitled to about $100,000 per annum unemployment benefit! I wouldn't work either.

Ireland is, in many respects, a fairly civilized country

With its debt being about eleven times their GDP, which is huge even by European standards, Ireland may, indeed, be considered "civilized"... But only by those, who share the America's Administration vision of civilization...

Of note, for instance, is the fact that divorce only became constitutional in 1995.

And abortions are still prohibited. Unbeknown to most of Bono's "liberal" fans, moaning: "Why can't the US be more like Europe?"

A manly image is all in the accessories, so attach these: http://www.bullsballs.com/

But not these: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28527841/

However, you might just consider gluing $100 bills on it: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article5537017.ece

Speeding and parking tickets? That's it? Some of us have to put up with the U.S kidnapping our citizens whenever they want.

The point is, scientists rely on officials for funding, and certainly here in the UK at least the politicians would rather spend money on things like DNA databases and supression of it's citizens than anything that they see as such an inconvenience as science.

To put it into context with some figures, the British government is working on an ID card scheme which has been predicted to cost as much as £18bn despite no opposition parties being for the scheme and despite the citizens and many other top figures such as the ex-security services chief being against it. The government also cut £80 million of funding for science a year or so ago meaning we had to cut some important research projects, see here:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4138240.ece

Of course, Britain is only one of many countries but it's still a good example of how well politicians and science go together. If Britain's Labour government can spend £18bn on a scheme no one wants and which is essentially unworkable whilst telling scientists they have to cut £80m of projects, it shows how important science is to politicians.

Make no mistake, "officials" most definitely are at fault. There are plenty of scientists willing to do the science but they can't do it alone, without funding, in their garage.

Your argument: Ibuprofen is bad if taken in large quantities. If you suspect someone of having ibuprofen, search their bodies. That's a good argument and shows a lot of intelligence. In fact, I agree with you. Other substances should be held to the same standards, like table salt. Table salt is harmful in overdose. In fact, killers use it regularly on their victims. If you suspect someone to be in possession of table salt, strip search them to protect others. It is a deadly substance.

Just kidding. Your argument fails.

While I don't disagree you there. More codec support is always welcome. I think there are some advantages to running lossy codecs on portable players.

1) Capacity
2) Battery Life

Capacity isn't quite where we need to be for the average person to use lossless all the time. Assuming people have roughly 1700 songs on it (A reference on Slashdot! woot!). If each mp3 song is 5megs you need an 8gig player to hold that. The lossless copy, is what? 30megs? You'd need about 50gigs to hold that same data, which is around, but not exactly mainstream yet. This problem will be mostly solved in 2-3 years.

Battery Life, might be the harder problem to solve. Cause just reading the bits and processing them with always take more energy than the lossy copies. I'm curious to know the battery life difference if anyone has done an experiment with their player? But battery life will become more important as people are integrating their mp3 players with their phones. Who cared if your iPod ran out of juice. People care a lot more when their iPhone runs out of power.

Most guns are banned here in the UK.

And yet gun crime continues to rise.

Keeping guns out of the hands of people who want to hurt people is impossible and, to a large degree, pointless since although guns are very effective weapons they're far from the only weapons.

If I wanted to murder several people at once I'd have to overcome two barriers: my moral sense of right, and the inaccessibility of most weapons.

You don't have access to a car? It's easy to kill far more people, faster, with an automobile than it is with a gun. That's just one example. Weapons are and always will be readily available.

It's certainly not a given, but there is much more than 'zero credibility' behind the argument.

From the first hit on Google:

"The rush towards biofuels is theatening world food production and the lives of billions of people, the [British] Government's Chief Scientific Adviser said yesterday."

"These findings merit further discussion within religious communities, and consideration from those providing pastoral counsel to terminally ill patients with cancer," wrote lead researcher Holly Prigerson.

I honestly cannot fathom the moral fortitude of a pastor or other religious figure who counsels someone with a terminal disease instead of recommending them to a qualified physician.

What would possibly influence the pastor to have any informed opinion on how to deal with cancer? Is he a doctor or a pastor? Where in biblical teachings does it qualify a pastor or priest to lead someone through life with a terminal disease?

Imagine the outrage from a pastor if a doctor told his or her patient that praying accomplished nothing and that modern medicine was the only way to attempt to beat something like cancer. The pastor would be furious. These are the same people that try faith healing and praying away cancer...sickening...

Lastly here's two links for any bored person from The Times Online. The first one dealing with how the church handles diseases like HIV/AIDS, the second one discussing how atheism is America is rising.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5923927.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/andrew_sullivan/article5907453.ece

"These findings merit further discussion within religious communities, and consideration from those providing pastoral counsel to terminally ill patients with cancer," wrote lead researcher Holly Prigerson.

I honestly cannot fathom the moral fortitude of a pastor or other religious figure who counsels someone with a terminal disease instead of recommending them to a qualified physician.

What would possibly influence the pastor to have any informed opinion on how to deal with cancer? Is he a doctor or a pastor? Where in biblical teachings does it qualify a pastor or priest to lead someone through life with a terminal disease?

Imagine the outrage from a pastor if a doctor told his or her patient that praying accomplished nothing and that modern medicine was the only way to attempt to beat something like cancer. The pastor would be furious. These are the same people that try faith healing and praying away cancer...sickening...

Lastly here's two links for any bored person from The Times Online. The first one dealing with how the church handles diseases like HIV/AIDS, the second one discussing how atheism is America is rising.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5923927.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/andrew_sullivan/article5907453.ece

Could you elaborate on this please? If anything the UK seems to go out of their way to please immigrants, in particular of muslim descent.

Well, even the Skype founder said they overpaid... and eBay took a $900 million charge because of it.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article2570267.ece

Well, I'd personally like to thank the British.

It's been YOUR journalists who reported that the US Government knows the Chinese have an action plan. In the article published in the UK Times

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article2409865.ece

they go into the details that the Chinese have an action plan to cyberattack a US naval fleet systems.

Thank god you chaps still have a free press over there, and I thank my stars for the Guardian every day.

Obama's campaign was approached in the fall of 2008 by the NSA, to let him and Axelrod know that either the Chinese or the Russians hacked his campaign systems.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5105027.ece

So, he knows what he's up against. If you run any sort of port knocker or ssh logging at a target IP range, you know that near round the clock brute forcing is going on by Chinese networks. They now are distributing the problem into botnets to prevent being blackholed, but they continue at it.

Obama has Janet Napolitano to run this group. They will work with US-CERT, but their mandate should be defense, not offense. They could start by approaching the US Tier-1 providers and saying, in essence, we want to use tools from companies like Arbor Networks and others that track botnets to isolate better signatures and reject them at the national perimeter, sort of an IDP at the edge of major networks.

The NSA probably has access to all domestic US websites encryption keys, at least the ones that come from Verisign. So, inspect all encrypted traffic headed back to Chinese networks, on any port. If you can't decrypt it, consider it hostile. Shunt it.

I may get modded down as flamebait, probably by Chinese slashdot readers - but the fact is, we are at war with the Chinese.

Arrghhh... replying to my own post. But I did some more digging, and discovered why I never see any American rice for sale here. This article should shed some light on it:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/consumer_goods/article3948493.ece

Long story short: the Japanese stockpile all of the rice that they buy from the US. Now they've been given the OK to resell it on the world market to help with growing food prices in Asia (article is dated a year ago, so I'm not sure if it went through or not).

The thing is, people here remember the famine that happened after WWII. Because the country was not self sufficient in food and was blockaded, many many people died. In fact, after the war it took a long time to get the supply chains up an running. The law on the restriction of imports of rice was put in place to make sure this never happened again. Even though I am against protectionist market policies, in this case it makes total sense. A free market is one thing. Food security is something else altogether, and I think they have their priorities right.

Sorry to say this, but Microsoft will own you. They may well destroy your career and attack members of your family:

I was sitting on the XML Working Group and co-editing the spec, on a pro bono basis as an indie consultant. Netscape hired me to represent their interests, and when I announced this, controversy ensued. Which is a nice way of saying that Microsoft went berserk; tried unsuccessfully to get me fired as co-editor, and then launched a vicious, deeply personal extended attack in which they tried to destroy my career and took lethal action against a small struggling company because my wife worked there.

Only take Microsoft on if you don't care about your family, they will get personal, and everything they do is legal, as the state generally agrees with them. See the Mass. ODF affair for example, they've also been allowed to attack charities and bribe officials. Frankly, it seems their strong-arm tactics mean most legislators are scared of Microsoft.

Good luck. You'll need it.

It is not degrading. It depicts vibrancy, spirit, hustle and bustle. Have you actually seen it? For an interview with Loveleen Tandan, the co-director, see http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/oscars/article5772395.ece The crew that made the film very much seems to have lived and worked together as a team. Storytelling is universal and knows no boundaries, and movies are not tourism commercials. Have you seen trainspotting, a movie more in the director's backyard? I think it is pretty impressive that Slumdog went on to win Oscar accolades, and that those voting looked beyond their own backyard. I'll make sure to watch the movies you mention though.

Well, considering that a full-screen browser display on the windshield of your car would be distracting enough to require the car to steer itself, I'm gonna go with the self-steering car as being the closest to reality. Not to mention the fact that there's places where such technology has already been successfully used, on existing highways. Never heard of a full-screen HUD-on-the-windshield web browser though.

So, you were implying what exactly?

There is a serious discussion to be had about privacy rights and Google's objective to picture, reference and catalog everything. Some inside Google take the "do no evil" to heart. Street View blurs faces and license plates.

One would expect them to worry at least as much and blur the military bases of their own and friendly nations... You know, the gals and guys, who ensure that Google (and its, supposedly, privacy-minded insiders) can continue to exist...

You are a troll, but a successful one, if you have been successful fetching so many mod points. So I will bite it.

Basically, your thinking starts backwards. US has set up an example of free trade world and leads the whole world with an example of defeating Russia adhering to same principles as we believed 40 years ago. Your complaints look childish when US is really looking at making it happen. As somebody else has pointed out, Singapore, HongKong (and Dubai, he forgot to mention) have benefited a lot through free trade and all these places are in Asia. US is virtually milking money out of Saudi providing every service we could and it is in Asia....and so are all other oil producing countries. All these countries use aircrafts (both civil and military use) made by US. I could keep listing but probably you already got an idea.

One of the reason, Asia lacks an open approach to free trade, is they all have started pretty late, hardly 10-15 years before. There is a progress and they look upon US to lead. Your comments scare me as it would reverse the whole process.

For that matter, even US takes precaution to protect local industry, and a big example was auto industry. If we were as open as you believe, the European and Japanese automakers would have ruled us.

I would have appreciated your comment if you would have mentioned about Pakistan, where our funds indirectly reach extremists, making us look fool funding both side of war. The military of Pakistan is way too sympathetic to militants, as per some reports. While appreciating Obama's decision to link the aid to the results, I would love to see that we are not taken for a ride.

Other than this, I don't see anything terribly wrong with Asia.

Like the fact that the EU just extended music copyright to 95 years

Oh god.

Sir Cliff Richard: âoeOf course Iâ(TM)m pleased for myself, but the relief will be huge for those performers whose pension is largely made up of royalties from perhaps just two or three recordings in the fifties or sixties. Well done and thanks to the lawmakers for a good and just decision.â

That's the whole fucking problem. How is it reasonable that someone can entirely live off something they created 50 years ago? Jesus.

Meanwhile, the real issues at hand continue to get worse and go unaddressed. Like the fact that the EU just extended music copyright to 95 years (maybe in an effort to catch up with the United States?). Or the fact that people who collect digital music en masse couldn't possibly have bought it all in the first place. Or the important differences between illegal digital distribution and traditional theft of goods or money.

Unfortunately, while all of these are real and relevant issues, the people pirating on the pirate bay, in large majority, just don't care about any of them.

If Copyright were only 1 year, do you really think that people wouldn't still be pirating films by aXXo the day of DVD release?

The Pirate Bay is about theft, plain and simple. It may be true that the monetary losses are not nearly what the record companies claim, and it may be true that the media conglomerates are really out for money for themselves rather than to support the starving artists, but the propaganda is propaganda on both sides.

People pirate movies because they want to watch movies without paying for them. If you're one of the unique snowflakes that pirates movies because you bought every DVD on earth and just want a nicer and non-DRM format, that's cute. But you are not the majority. The majority are thieves.

I think once BOTH the *IAAs and the pirates have a little bit of self-realization is when some real work can be done on copyright. But the pirates are every bit as self delusional as the record labels right now.

I'm saddened by this not because I think the Pirate Bay operators are innocent but because I feel they're an easy target to set precedence on.

Meanwhile, the real issues at hand continue to get worse and go unaddressed. Like the fact that the EU just extended music copyright to 95 years (maybe in an effort to catch up with the United States?). Or the fact that people who collect digital music en masse couldn't possibly have bought it all in the first place. Or the important differences between illegal digital distribution and traditional theft of goods or money.

No, unfortunately, the IFPI/RIAA isn't going to figure out a way to cope with new awe-inducing technologies. The court system isn't going to earn any respect from its citizens. Musicians aren't going to be rewarded anymore than they already are. The free market will suffer from DRM. And people who depended on seeds and traffic for legal reasons from these sites are going to be left shit outta luck.

I feel like we're stuck with a bunch of dinosaurs concerned only with their self preservation when the fact is that they leach so much money from the system that they simply can no longer be a part of it. Songs cost $1 to download when they should cost 11 cents with ten cents going to the artist and one cent going to the host/distributor.

This trial isn't a solution and we all know how it's going to end. Work out solutions that really plague the system and piracy will go away.

All he gave us was an army of Democrat voters content to spend their lives suckling from the government's tit.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5733499.ece

Keep working, slashdotters! Millions of losers on welfare are depending on you!

I dunno: I haven't actually seen his notebooks. People who have looked at them, claim he misrepresented his data.
The London Times says so.
Here's their data.

But hey thanks for calling me a dirty liar when you know even less about it than I do.

I dunno: I haven't actually seen his notebooks. People who have looked at them, claim he misrepresented his data.
The London Times says so.
Here's their data.

But hey thanks for calling me a dirty liar when you know even less about it than I do.

Both the blame- One of the physicians who fueled the flames on this was apparently manipulating the data, check this out:Sunday Times (UK) article 8 Feb

Interesting that you should say this, since the doctor who published the original study was actually paid to do the study by the parents who wanted to sue over the alleged MMR-autism link. From the BBC article:

Mr Wakefield received funding to see if there was any evidence to support possible legal action by a group of parents who claimed their children were damaged by the vaccine. Some children were involved in both studies.

If that wasn't bad enough, alongside with other charges (see here), there are signs of him fixing the data in the study. Not exactly what I'd call a pillar of ethical and unbiased behavior...

The biggest down side for me, as I understand it, isn't so much having different pricing schemes for different traffic. It's the ability to re-direct or block traffic the ISP doesn't like. Let's say that Time Warner and Yahoo! enter a deal. Suddenly people who have Time Warner as an ISP can't go to Google. Or any other "competing" web-site. Or even if you can get to the competition site, it's 5x-10x or more slower than the preferred engine.

Carried out to extremes, it could mean that you could only visit Turner broadcasting (subsidiary of Time-Warner) sites in a reasonable manner, because they're the preferred sites. And they could block any content that might be seen as infringing on any of their corporate copyrights, regardless of whether it does or not (no DMCA counter-notices when the DMCA wasn't involved in blocking the material).

At its worst, it gives the ISPs the ultimate control over the content their users see, and how they see it. Would it get that bad? Honestly, I don't think so. But knowing that nowadays a lot of people get service from a single provider (cable, Internet, phone), a significant number of people might find the idea of switching providers tougher because of all the other changes...if they even have another option (besides dial-up or doing without).

Another thing government could be doing to balance the substantial subsidies air industries have enjoyed is divert some of those dollars to rail and R&D into quieter and more efficient aircraft.

We don't need government money for that - private industry has been doing it for a long, long time. Here's just one example:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article5683480.ece

However at least the Catholic church isn't dismissing the idea's, which is a long way from the outright attacks made by more fundamentalist churches. The thing about this debate is that while fundamental theist's attack science and the theory of evolution using doubt, no counter-argument is made that has any impact on the faith of proponents of Intelligent Design.

Science and Religion are different bodies of knowledge, but not mutually exclusive because both use reason as a tool for different goals. There are scientific people who are religious and religious people who are scientific. Making a science based argument about the ignorance of Intelligent Design to someone who has a predominately religious background make both sides dig their heals in. That's why this debate has become so polarised.

I've found that having an understanding of the doctrine that supports scientific investigation and framing that discussion so that it attacks the underpinnings of Intelligent Design an important tool. Building and demonstrating an understanding of the theocratic aspects of this debate is an important tool to disarming the proponents of Intelligent Design and helping them understand why science is important to their faith.

A scientific argument explaining the shortcomings of Intelligent Design to a religious person really just reveals their ignorance of science and, as such, they feel ignorant of science but it's not important to them.

A theocratic argument explaining the shortcomings of Intelligent Design to a religious person reveals the shortcomings of Intelligent Design when compared to the discoveries made by a study of Evolution.

When confronted with one of these discussions I point out that Intelligent Design limits how far humanity explores nature, or in theocratic terms "the works of God". I go on to point out that there is nothing in the Theory of evolution that attacks Christian beliefs but, in fact, uses science as a tool to uncover the amazing wonder of how nature works, or in theocratic terms "the glory of God".

It's at this point that proponents of Intelligent Design start to join the dots for themselves. The insecurity they feel about Darwin's idea's attacking their belief system give way to the possibility that Intelligent Design could actually be a form of blasphemy, something that is important to a religious person.

I think it's important to frame the debate this way because the Intelligent Design position cleverly deceives religious people into accepting ignorance over education and promotes the notion that science aims to dispel religion. Science and Religion have to co-exist in society if we are to dispel ignorance and fundamentalism.

The police generally can't carry guns.

What do the British police need guns for when they are being provided with 10,000 TASERS? The Times or CNN.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/uk-terror-law-to-make-photographing-police-illegal.html
Here's some legislation that would make it illegal to photograph police officers.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5439604.ece
Here's an article about how the UK police can hack into your computer without a warrant.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/the_p_word/newsid_7852000/7852248.stm
Here's an article about how the UK police scour the internet for images of brits holding knives. If they find an image of you with a knife in public, they arrest you. If you are in your own home, they come to where you live, knock on the door and confiscate the knives.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4581871.stm
Here's just one of a multitude of articles, about the UK knife ban. For those of you who don't know, the UK is beginning to crack down on knives much like other countries in the world are cracking down on guns.

This list can go on and on and on. Quite frankly, if you're in the UK, you're living in a police state. Deny it all you want - the evidence is there for everyone to see. But hey, it's not really going to matter, because no one's going to do anything about it. The problem is only going to get worse and worse and you brits aren't doing anything to stop it. [On the contrary, by all appearances you're welcoming it with open arms.] Posting anonymously because the truth hurts, and sometimes people would rather lash out than deal with it.

Today's article by James Lovelock in The Sunday Times basically says don't sweat it (geddit?!) - because no matter what we do now, it's too late to avert the onset of a massive "heat age."

It's unclear whether he thinks the heat age will completely wipe out mankind by about 2050, but he's certain that our population will be decimated. He makes some interesting comparisons with wartime Britain and what will have to happen along the way.

But who cares? I mean really - it's not as if the human race has actually achieved anything much of any real note during its brief tenure of this planet. So I for one will continue to cook on gas, have a blast and book flights to Barbados as often as I can.

Mod parent informative.

This is exactly what is happening in the UK, yes I'm afraid it's us leading the way with this sort of thing again.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article5285340.ece

The authorities were dragged kicking and screaming all the way to the European Court of Human rights.

I despair at what my home country is turning into.