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You're wrong. There's enough problems of that sort with postal voting already (see particularly the claim about "Asian voting networks").

Do we not remember our origins with the ARPANET, a project nurtured in and entirely funded by America's favorite crypto-socialist organization, the Department of Defense?

We remember that perfectly well, but interpret it differently. The Internet is the result of a "spillover" of the dual-use technology. Developed by the DoD for itself, it turned out (or was wisely designed) to be usable by others. This was terrific and has since been matched only by GPS in popularity.

Mind you, ARPANET has paid only for the development of software and the standards — it did not pay for the pipes or other hardware, that today's socialists demand be upgraded.

Yours really is a non-argument here. I believe, you just wanted to see the words "crypto-socialist" posted.

It's not a question of arguing "the free market is failing" - the Internet's very existence is thanks to the government realizing "the market" had no way of getting where it wanted to be.

Creating and maintaining the standards (TCP/IP, 110V, HDTV) is perfectly within the government's domain. Utilizing those standards is up to the free market, which is what it did and continues to do.

I, as a user, don't care what Verizon wants; I want to pick which ones I'm using.

Verizon's walled garden will be broken up by the free market, just as AOL's was. Yes, I too would like the break-up to happen sooner, but if the price of the haste is introduction of more government regulation, then no, thanks — that is worse, than any harm Verizon can cause.

A large part of me blames this whole mess on the McCarthyism-induced confusion between socialism and communism in America. We've given ourselves just the right kind of collective brain damage to be unable to tell the difference.

McCarthy — despite his un-American methods — was right in principle: there really were plenty of Soviet spies in America, and Communism-sympathizers were getting sponsored by the KGB (and not just in America, of course; their influence set India back for a decade or two as well, for another example). This fact was well confirmed, when many of the KGB documents got opened briefly in the 1990ies. You will notice, how America's Communist Party disappeared together with the Soviet Union, with only a pale shadow remaining.

As for the distinction between Socialism and Communism — yes, these are distinct. Their true adherents tend view the former as a prelude to the (inevitable) latter, however, so mixing them up is not really such a fallacy... It is highly off-topic here, though.

http://timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_artic le/article1668405.ece

£85 fine for using the bathroom at a filling station without buying gas.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article15 52956.ece

But I don't expect facts to change your mind.

"As I made clear, both in the
preliminary discussions, and in the interview itself, I believe that
global warming is a very serious threat that needs equally serious
discussion and no one seeing this film could possibly deduce that.

What we now have is an out-and-out propaganda piece, in which
there is not even a gesture toward balance or explanation of why
many of the extended inferences drawn in the film are not widely
accepted by the scientific community. There are so many examples,
it's hard to know where to begin, so I will cite only one:
a speaker asserts, as is true, that carbon dioxide is only
a small fraction of the atmospheric mass. The viewer is left to
infer that means it couldn't really matter. But even a beginning
meteorology student could tell you that the relative masses of gases
are irrelevant to their effects on radiative balance. A director
not intending to produce pure propaganda would have tried to eliminate that
piece of disinformation.

An example where my own discussion was grossly distorted by context:
I am shown explaining that a warming ocean could expel more
carbon dioxide than it absorbs -- thus exacerbating the greenhouse
gas buildup in the atmosphere and hence worrisome. It
was used in the film, through its context, to imply
that CO2 is all natural, coming from the ocean, and that
therefore the human element is irrelevant. This use of my remarks, which
are literally what I said, comes close to fraud."

I don't think you're the first to be thinking along those lines. Corporations have been making attempts to restrict what types of media can play on a computer, under what terms, to the point of Sony's installing rootkits on its customers' computers. On the hardware side, the Trusted Computing concept helps limit users' anonymity. In politics, the free world is toying with laws requiring monitoring of innocent Net users to fight terrorism/porn/drugs, and countries like China are doing massive censorship. In looking at other hardware, we know that there's at least one US-government-mandated design feature -- the V-Chip for televisions -- and supposedly the Secret Service has subverted several brands of printer. Japan has even issued some draft guidelines for robot regulation.

What we're seeing is a convergence of trends towards locking down computers, making it illegal to build or sell a machine with the full power and freedom of a Turing Machine. Some argue (Okay, it's not a great source; just did a quick search) that restrictions like this are equivalent to Soviet Russian restrictions on the use of photocopiers.

The various restrictions being placed on computer users for various reasons threaten our use of an important tool, and are oppressive and insulting. Even if you personally are a savvy computer user, are you prepared (based on your proposal) to be charged a fee, photographed, fingerprinted, licensed, monitored, and otherwise treated like a criminal, because you weren't content with the toys your government allows lesser geeks to use?

http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_styl e/driving/features/article569961.ece

"As I made clear, both in the
preliminary discussions, and in the interview itself, I believe that
global warming is a very serious threat that needs equally serious
discussion and no one seeing this film could possibly deduce that.

What we now have is an out-and-out propaganda piece, in which
there is not even a gesture toward balance or explanation of why
many of the extended inferences drawn in the film are not widely
accepted by the scientific community. "

Clearly your strobe light isn't strong enough... I suggest you upgrade a bit...

More importantly, how much will the french pay in oil bribes to iran and the aliens?

"If you have a technical issue with Microsoft, it's faster to search their database with Google rather than their own search engine" Times Online. Get your act together guys!

I think "When you are George Bush and talking about evidence of weapons of mass destruction" is a better example. Clinton lied about a blow job, Georgie about something that cost half a million Iraqis and more than 3,000 US servicemen, so far, their life.

When Chinese president Hu Jintao came to the U.S. for a state visit last year, he visited Bill Gates before going on to visit GWB.

Mr Hu goes to Washington (after he's seen Bill Gates and the Boeing factory)

They're also listening to you as well.

The one watching may not be human.

NYC is the financial capital of the world or maybe it was. The rest of the state has already been decimated as key companies like Kodak and Xerox move out of state and wither away. NYC's politicians already sucked the rest of the state dry and its only a matter of time before they go down the tube with us. Companies aren't just outsourcing to other countries, many are just moving to other states. Up here in Rochester, the University of Rochester is now our biggest employer and the government is the only sector with any type of job growth.

Entertaining journalist too

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnist s/jeremy_clarkson/

"If you look around today on the web, the GIF format, even now that the patent has expired, is largely a minor file format and its use is largely fading still. "

Can you back up that statement? I don't think you can.

I checked a couple of semi-random big websites:
BBC News has lots of Gifs. I stopped counting after 10 on the front page.
The Times has lots of Gifs. I stopped counting after 10 on the front page.
Yahoo has lots of Gifs. I stopped counting after 10 on the front page.
Google has one picture on the page and it is a Gif.
Slashdot.org has lots of Gifs. I stopped counting after 10 on the front page.

These were the five first pages I tested. The first four are examples of massively popular pages and all of them uses Gifs. The last one is an example of a anti-patent zealot page. It uses Gifs.

Gifs are still everywhere and Gif is not at all a minor format, so your example is actually showing the opposite of what you were trying to say.

While obviously not a proper scientific theory, it does demonstrate that evolution is consistent with Christian beliefs.

Yeah this Times article I read:
 
  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/a rticle1426558.ece

  said how the females may be fashioning weapons to compete with the males to get animal protein as they are not as strong.

If you really want to be frightened read up on how close we came to losing the rights granted to us by Magna Carta. The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, passed with amendments that put in place safeguards, was a bill that had it passed as it stood, would have given Ministers the ability to alter any law passed by Parliament. The only limitations being that new crimes could not be created if the penalty was greater than two years in prison and that it could not increase taxation. We came within a whisker of Fascism in the UK... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_and_Regul atory_Reform_Act_2006 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/ cmbills/111/06111.1-4.html http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnist s/guest_contributors/article733022.ece http://www.saveparliament.org.uk/index.php This is real - they tried it once they will try it again...

First the party in power has to write a law that makes it a crime to have such a name.

The autism-vaccine connection was 'research'
purchased by a law firm for almost a million dollars.

WWII was indeed "ancient history" for most people alive now.

So then what was the middle ages or the golden age of Rome? The beginning of time? Sheesh, get some perspective.

There just isn't anyone out there who wants to come over and take over our country.

That's not the only way to wage war. How about militarily enforced embargos? Strategic attacks on power plants, water/food supplies, destruction of major transport facilities? Perhaps somebody else will want a turn to be the primary meddler in the mid-east or the one leading trade talks and leading the way in international law. It's not so far fetched... Giants meet to counter US power.

Clearly such mundane and well-researched explanations for warming as carbon-driven greenhouse effect must not be right, if far-fetched ideas like cosmic rays could be invoked to magically produce clouds that give us the explanation we hope is true.

A team of more than 60 scientists from around the world are preparing to conduct a large-scale experiment using a particle accelerator in Geneva, Switzerland, to replicate the effect of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere.

They hope this will prove whether this deep space radiation is responsible for changing cloud cover. If so, it could force climate scientists to re-evaluate their ideas about how global warming occurs.

Mr Svensmark's results show that the rays produce electrically charged particles when they hit the atmosphere. He said: "These particles attract water molecules from the air and cause them to clump together until they condense into clouds."

Mr Svensmark claims that the number of cosmic rays hitting the Earth changes with the magnetic activity around the Sun. During high periods of activity, fewer cosmic rays hit the Earth and so there are less clouds formed, resulting in warming.

Low activity causes more clouds and cools the Earth.

Here's more detail on Svensmark's experiment that prompted the larger test:

In a box of air in the basement, they were able to show that electrons set free by cosmic rays coming through the ceiling stitched together droplets of sulphuric acid and water. These are the building blocks for cloud condensation. But journal after journal declined to publish their report; the discovery finally appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society late last year.

+1 insightful. Don't have any mod points, but I wish I did.

One of the arguments he uses is that east antarctica is colder. Erm, but look at the ice shelfs on the western peninsula. Localized cooling doesn't indicate squat. It's great that the penguins return x days later. I'm sure that the bears up north are happy for them.

I'm still up in the air as to the extent of our contribution to climate change... but politicians like yes or no answers. I'd rather see us err on the side of caution on an issue like this.

According to Prevent Genocide International, No other factor [than ID cards] was more significant in facilitating the speed and magnitude of the 100 days of mass killing in Rwanda. About 1 million people butchered.

From the same page:

In Nazi Germany in July 1938, only a few months before Kristallnacht, the infamous "J-stamp" was introduced on ID cards and later on passports. The use of specially marked "J-stamp" ID cards by Nazi Germany preceded the yellow Star of David badges. In Norway, where yellow cloth badges were not introduced, the stamped ID card was used in the identification of more than 750 Jews deported to death camps in Poland.

They also provide a 'nice' table:

Genocide: Nazi Germany (1938-1945), Rwanda (1990-1994)

Mass Expulsion: Ethiopia (Persons with Eritrean affiliation 1998), Bhutan (Lhotshampas, 1991), Vietnam (Hoa ethnic Chinese 1978-1979), France (Alsace-Lorraine 1918-1920)

Forced Relocation: USSR (ethnic Koreans 1937, Volga Germans 1941, Kalmyks, Karachai, 1943, Crimean Tatars, Meshkhetian Turks Chechens, Ingush, Balkars 1944, ethnic Greeks, 1949)

Group Denationalization: Cambodia (ethnic Vietnamese 1993), Myanmar (Rohingya Arakanese 1992), Syria (Kurds 1962)

In regard to the UK cattle tagging ID card system, The Times reported:

David Blunkett, was no better. On the subject of identity cards he once said: No one should fear correct identification. Those words always remind me of one the more distressing details of the Eichmann trial: how he told his executioner that the fate of those killed in the Holocaust was sealed by their answers to the 1939 census on religious background recorded on paper for a Hollerith machine, an early mechanical computer. Quite literally, their cards were marked.

Needless to say, lesser abuses than these are far more common.

The UK system is unbelievably scary. Going far beyond the punchcard Hollerith machine, our ID cards are backed by the National Identity Register, a database designed to merge all government databases and commercial data trails into a personal surveillance dossier that makes 1984 look respectful.

So scared is the Govt of the public finding out about this that they are secretly forcing passport renewers on to this Orwellian database from March 26th.

They are also forcing doctors to betray their patients' confidence and upload your private medical records to another insecure national database, again without telling you.

I'm sorry if you haven't been warned about this before: NO2ID has a budget around 1000 times smaller than the Home Office but you do still have a few weeks to protect yourself. Click the 3 links above and most importantly, read the NO2ID newsletter.

His ubernerdish countenance and ostensibly tiny penis (If you saw him on video getting pied in the face, you know that he has no sense of humor) have left him with a complete sense of insecurity.

Not quite. If you remember a while back....

From a few idle doodles, the experts were able to offer a thorough assessment of Mr Blair [GATES] as an aggressive, unstable man under enormous pressure, struggling to keep his irritability under control.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1463867, 00.html

Enjoy,

Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

"We didn't find the weapons we thought we would find or the weapons everybody thought he had. "

He tells correspondent Ed Bradley the real failure was not in the intelligence community but in the White House. He says he saw how the Bush administration, time and again, welcomed intelligence that fit the president's determination to go to war and turned a blind eye to intelligence that did not.

Having a paper-trail only works when the voting takes place in polling stations. Voting by SMS or over the Web cannot be secured - but this government is keener on improved turnout than accurate results, as witness the recent expansion in postal voting and the resulting Council of Europe investigation.

> And you somehow believe that the western world is immune to this indoctrination ?
> But somehow, when it's China involved, manipulation of information is the worst thing in the world. Take a look closer to home.

On the contrary, I agree with you. Look at Iraq.

We have a huge problem with a corporate media telling us what to think (Hi, Rupert), but we do have basic protections like free speech which the government hasn't taken away from us... yet. The Internet makes it wonderfully hard for them to even try it. Sure, right-to-a-speedy-trial and confessions-under-duress are taking a battering now, but thanks to free speech, we've at least got a chance. Your average Chinese doesn't, and I bet they've never heard of these:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25689-1901 558,00.html
http://www.faluninfo.net/
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-06-14-deat h-van_x.htm

but the whole concept still seems ridiculus to me

I don't know if I find it that ridiculous. Gambling has long been one of the primary sources of funds for organized crime. Various criminal organizations have long used gambling to launder money from other activities. There have been a number of articles published in various sources warning that funds raised from internet gambling are finding their way into criminal organizations. Plus there is the issue of loss of tax revenues. Also there have been studies in both the UK and US that show internet gambling attracts a much higher percentage of addictive or pathological gamblers (75%) vs. the 20% normally observed at casinos.

as they had resigned from the company before that law even came into effect.

You are assuming they are being charged under this new law. I have not seen any indication that this is the case. The US Atty General's statement is "connection with the creation and operation of an Internet payment services company that facilitated the transfer of billions of dollars of illegal gambling proceeds from United States citizens to the owners of various Internet gambling companies located overseas". There are US laws going back to 1961 covering wire tranfers of funds associated with gambling. This link contains a summary as of 2004 of these laws. It looks to me like these people are being charged with money laundering provisions under one of the older laws rather under the recently passed Safe Port law.

Will they ban the ever-popular french game, set cars on fire?

As a member of the "Man has [little] effect" crowd, I'd rather see everyone focus on issues that we actually have, rather than fabricating new ones.

So, why do you think that Bill O'Reilly, GW Bush, and (gasp, finally!) ExxonMobil disagree with you? Is it just because they're a bunch of envirowackos trying to destroy the economy?

Can't control things in Iraq and Afganistan so start a new war?

It certainly looks like so, unfortunately. They're stepping up rhetoric. The arresting of the Iranian diplomats was pretty rough. The US troops almost engaged with Kurdish security forces in the process.

You need only a some kind of border incident, retaliation and counter-retaliation and you are in a war with Iran. No need to consult the Congress.

That could easily escalate into regional conflight. The whole region between Israel and Pakistan could flame up. That would lead to huge number of casualties and wreck our economies.

Somebody shut Kissenger up or stop people listening to that corrupt old idiot - this didn't work last time either.

Good idea. It however doesn't look like he's behind this--Bush &co. are following William Kristol's "advice" (he is one of the leading neocons and staunch supporter of a regional war).

According to Seymour Hersh, Bush & Cheney were actually dead serious about using nukes against Iran's nuclear facilities. Fortunately the Joint Chiefs of Staff had enough sense to make them scrub the plan. Now it appears that Israel is planning a similar strike.

Hard to believe they could be that mad, though. "Pre-emptive" nuclear strike would mean that everyone would start to build their own for deterrence.

I hope the new winds of change don't just turn into a draft.

The supply lines to Baghdad go through southern Iraq--the heart area of Shi'ites. Now imagine that the war starts and the Shi'ites turn against the American (and other) troops. In addition to Sunni resistance, you would have to fight against Shi'ites, who are much more numerous. And now Iran could help them in earnest. You could run out of fuel and other supplies really quickly. Iraqi government nor police could help you, since they're mostly pro-Iranians. The worst-case scenario would mean that you could lose the army.

So, isn't it an appropriate time to move the clock ahead?

Your argument doesn't stand up to the realities of the UK charts. This won't help the labels to promote the latest hot, new thing (whose download sales are already included in the chart calculation, so long as their music is also available on physical media) half as much as it'll help bands from twenty years ago. Those bands' back-catalogue download sales to 40-somethings like me who are filling up their MP3 players with the music of their youth will quite possibly project them back into the charts.

As the first high-definition format to reach the U.S. market with support on Windows Vista, HD DVD will offer consumers unrivaled picture and sound quality, extending the entertainment experience far beyond that of today's DVDs. HD DVD will offer new levels of interactivity and the ability to stream HD DVD movies across a home network or enjoy them on portable video devices...

The important bit is that the law enforcement agencies never got their hands on the records of the 22 Million innocent people (including mine, as I own a German credit card). I don't mind the fact that the banks did a search on their own database.

Really? That's great!! Because our next search is going to be on all accounts that have ever purchased anything from allofmp3.com. You know, that legal in Russia but illegal in Germany website that sells MP3s from RIAA artists without consent or royalty payments. You wouldn't happen to be a previous customer of theirs... would you? Don't worry, we'll know soon enough. Besides, two years jail time isn't really all that bad.

Microsoft's representative could easily have chosen to say "In the future, by the year 2010, HD DVD and Blu-ray disks will certainly require such protection."

What he DID say according to TFA was "At the moment HD DVD and Blu-ray Discs certainly require such protection."

I don't know why he would be misinformed, or why, given the importance of this issue to Microsoft, he would be less than careful about what he said.

Most likely, current disks really don't play, because of some complexity in the interaction between Vista's DRM software and hardware that results in an illogical and unintended consequence.

If current disks will play, why on earth wouldn't he have taken great pains to say so and to stress the point.

"Wouldn't America be a better place if Disney were running it."

Well personally, I'm going to say no.

Second, prior to the invasion, Iraq was set to convert their oil exchange from dollars to Euros which would have had a pretty severe impact on the value of the dollar and hence the US economy.

If this was a large factor, expect an attack on Iran soon. Iran is changing over to the euro.

I guess the question is "who controls the cameras?" Is the footage made available to the public? Or, if the cops start beating the shit out of some Critical Mass bicyclists do the cameras suddenly all go on the fritz?

He wasn't wearing a heavy jacket. He used his card to get into the station. He didn't vault the barrier. And now police say there are no CCTV pictures to reveal the truth.

The police returned the three CCTV tapes saying that they were blank and no good to the investigation. But London Underground officials and transport unions have challenged this claim suggesting that the tapes have either been lost or erased.

The first officers on the scene after Mr de Menezes was shot took away all CCTV tapes but allegedly found them blank. .... The IPCC has already protested that the police have compromised their investigation by taking away vital evidence, including the tapes,

Extracts from a police report, however, claimed that examination of the platform cameras had produced no footage. It said: "It has been established that there has been a technical problem with the CCTV equipment on the relevant platform and no footage exists."

Laws are not retroactive

Sometimes they are - the removal of the UK's double jeopardy rule, for instance.

William Dunlop was convicted retroactively under this change in the rules - the law was changed in 2003, while he had been acquitted of the murder in 1991.

Britain faces big chill as ocean current slows
Jonathan Leake, Science Editor

CLIMATE change researchers have detected the first signs of a slowdown in the Gulf Stream -- the mighty ocean current that keeps Britain and Europe from freezing. They have found that one of the "engines" driving the Gulf Stream -- the sinking of supercooled water in the Greenland Sea -- has weakened to less than a quarter of its former strength.

Please, MODERATE UP THE PARENT!

The blog entry to which the guy is pointing is by the apparently well-informed fellow who wrote a Flu Wiki entry on influenza in general.

Interesting passages spring out, such as:

"[...] On Thursday they closed at 239p and yesterday they added a further 11p to 250p.The improvement marks something of a revival for the company's shares, which have sunk from a high of nearly 400p reached in 2003. The shares came under pressure on concerns that once a key contract to supply smallpox vaccines to the US had been fulfilled its prospects were limited." (Quoted from Times Online).

"Translation: M2 vaccine didn't work by neutralizing the virus but required assistance of T-cells. This means it would be insufficient for routine protection against influenza viruses."

"Translation: This one's the kicker. Vaccination against M2e worked in pigs to produce a good antibody response. Unfortunately, it set off a reaction that killed the virus-challenged vaccinated pigs faster than the unvaccinated ones."

This part of the policy (i.e., "communicate with the communications people") gives communications folks a "heads up" so they can (1) promote the publication via news releases, the press, etc. and (2) prepare for inquiries and feedback from the public, press, etc. This is what communications folks do in any organization, and they like to be prepared when the press comes knocking, for better or worse. An extreme worst-case example -- when a scientist is misquoted, quoted out of context, or otherwise impaled by the press twisting words (recall the backlash from articles like The threat from life on Mars that took an out-of-context quote and blew it out of proportion, creating a brief but intense controversy) the communications folks find it much easier to deal with the fall-out if they actually know beforehand about the publications, interviews, etc. that have the potential for high-visibility and public reaction. Spin control? More like objectivity control. The other half of the equation here is the press, which is famous for sensationalizing the unsensational... for example, turning a minor revision of an existing policy into an executive conspiracy.

Fair enough. My post title was a little overstated.

I do realise the importance of this discovery. I was pointing out, possibly not as clearly as I could have, that the article in question makes it sound like concrete hasn't been improved upon since the pyramids were cast, and that engineers hadn't come up with any other form of dealing with the inherent rigidity of concrete structures until now.

The pictured example looks to be at least 20 times as thick as my Grandfather's trick casting, which gives an idea of the scale of improvement (I doubt it's linear).

What will be fascinating will be to see how this technology combines with light transmitting concrete - we could be looking at a whole new class of building material.

Sometimes I wish I'd followed in my Grandfather's footsteps. Then I remember that I can't stand the smell of cement.

Heathrow terror suspect set to be extradited Pakistan today cleared the way for the handover of Rashid Rauf, the Briton alleged to have masterminded the plot to blow up trans-Atlantic passenger planes, after a surprise move by a judge to drop terror charges against him.

British officials have been trying to extradite the 25-year-old from Birmingham for five months.

The dramatic ruling by a court in Rawalpindi is being seen as part of an agreement to speed up his return to the UK where Scotland Yard detectives want to question Mr Rauf about the Heathrow plot and his possible links to the 7/7 suicide bombers in London. ......

The official also said they have been asked by Britain to reveal no more details about their investigations into Mr Rauf.

I thought it was now common knowledge that the whole thing was a sham.

What you refer to as "common knowledge" is more commonly referred to as disinformation.

Dry run was planned: U.S LONDON - The terrorist attack foiled by British authorities today was aimed at blowing up as many as 10 airplanes on transatlantic flights and plotters had hoped to stage a dry run within the next two days, U.S. intelligence officials said.

The actual attack would have followed within days. Early reports allege the involvement of the Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba, or LeT.

How Britain prevented another 9/11 A British government source said an intercepted message from Pakistan telling the bombers to "go now" had triggered the arrests. Security sources said they had been planning to break up the cells in the next few days, but were forced to move earlier to prevent huge loss of life; they believed the attacks were to take place in the next two days.......

The American news network NBC quoted an unnamed counterterrorism official as saying that more than one of the plotters had prepared a martyrdom video tape, while at least one had attended a terrorist training camp in Pakistan.

Police hunt 'two dozen' terror cells in UK The full extent of the terror threat facing Britain became apparent on Saturday night as security sources revealed that 'up to two dozen' terror investigations were operating across the country and that a number of suspects associated with last week's plot to bring down 10 airliners remained at large.

Pakistani intelligence sources alleged that one of the men arrested in connection with the bomb plot had been held following the London terror attack on 7 July last year.

British security sources also linked the present investigation to that atrocity, saying the operation that led to Thursday's arrests began days after the 7 July attack. There are also claims that voicemails discovered after the first attack link the two events.

Terror detectives 'find bomb kit' Police probing an alleged plot to bring down flights have found a suitcase containing items which could be used to construct a bomb, the BBC has learned......

A police source told the BBC the case contained "everything you would need to make an improvised device".

I believe this is the joke you are looking for:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1754775, 00.html

You have free healthcare? Where do I sign up. I currently pay nearly $1,000 a month for health care, not including my out-of-pockets and co-pays.

Canada.

Honest impartial police forces? Hmmm...I'll bet you don't live in a major city like Detroit or Los Angeles, do you?

Nope!

At any rate, let me say this:

You exemplify typical American ignorance. You are precisely the reason the rest of the world hates your people. If you can actually compare the police forces of Detroit and LA to say China, where they have Death Vans, or Egypt where the police can detain any person, without cause, for (renewable) periods of 45 days, then you've obviously never left your country.

And do you really intend to suggest that you have it as bad as 3rd world countries in the US? I hope not... so instead of bickering about semantics, try actually thinking about what the grand-parent poster said... because it's all true.

In first world nations we do have things like health care, trash collection, pensions, government assistance, plumbing, streets, etc, etc. Just because they don't function as well as you'd like, doesn't mean they don't exist, and cost a ton of money to support.

To remind you what you were actually replying to:

I'm personally sick of this bleeding heart crap where it's all "OMFG You make xx,xxx per year, but these people make $1 an hour making the things you buy, FEEL BAD FOR THEM!" I'm sorry, but their economy is based around a lower income level and just because YOU can't fathom living on that much, people around the world do it just fine.

Again, this is more of why no one likes Americans. A statement like this comes from a person who lives in a house, isn't afraid of being bombed on a daily basis, and who never has to worry about food, or water. Sometimes they do it "just fine", but let me see you live under those conditions and then make the post that you did. And just so you know... sometimes they die. Not from a heart attack from eating a giant bucket of fries everyday, but from starvation from having no food to eat.