Slashdot Mirror

So, the Moon contains even more than one teaspoon of water in 5 tonnes of rock.

Yeah, the article makes it clear that 50 parts per million is the highest estimate they can come up with. Also, it isn't water: it's hydroxyl (OH) groups on molecules in rocks, which is what you get when rocks forming in a wet environment.

This is the way geologists talk about things, but still, the reporting is almost as misleading as the recent pack of lies from the people who brought you Iraqi WMD's claiming there is vast untapped mineral wealth in Afghanistan (which Stephen Peters, the head of the USGS’s Afghanistan Minerals Project, is strangely unaware of according to the linked article from the Times.)

The discovery of hydroxyl groups in rocks on the moon at the 50 PPM level is scientifically interesting because previously lunar minerals were believed to be absolutely anhydrous: the way I was taught geology back in the day we were told "lunar minerals are just like Terrestrial minerals, except they have no water". That has now been changed to, "except they have almost no water". Ford Prefect would be pleased.

China was on it since 2008. At least. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3941656.ece
The Economist had an interesting story about it something like one year ago. I couldn't find it unfortunately.

Now Brussels has declared that tourism is a human right and pensioners, youths and those too poor to afford it should have their travel subsidized by the taxpayer.

and US goods getting tarrifs imposed on them because our government doesn't pay for tourism for poor folks. (It's amazing -- one doesn't even have to make this stuff up!)

This kind of changes the meaning of...

Nato warns of strike against cyber attackers

I suppose telemarketing and attempting to sell fake products is now considered an attack

Makes sense, since the whole notion of "cyber war" is really kind of fuzzy.

Including the definition of what "an attack" is or means.

By bombing them in the physical world, they avoid any ambiguity... the US is obviously at war with telemarketers.

Now, my next question is.... since when did the FTC's duties include use of munitions, and since when did they have authority to go out on their own and start bombing companie headquarters?

I guess the law that provides for it must be hidden somewhere deep in the pages of the health care bill, or some other secret law congress passed some time ago..

Unless you live in Pennsylvania, USA

York Canada
Lancashire, UK

We're more alike than you think.

There's a word for that: Communism

The GP author proposed only that large corporations -- which are already created by the state, and so are not free market entities -- be democratically controlled. He(?) did not propose that all economic decisions be made democratically. So, no, no communism here.

Last I checked, it doesn't work.

Well, Russia did rise from having no industrial base whatsoever to being a superpower and the first spacefaring nation -- and that while bearing primary responsibility for defeating the Nazis, fighting them on its own territory and suffering tremendous losses -- while under communism. I'm no fan of Stalin, and some of Marx's ideas were decidedly bone-headed, but it's a little simplistic to just say "it doesn't work".

Any chance it has anything to do with this? Although probably it's just some maintenance issue...

Strange. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7046487.ece
And all Muslims who I have spoken to basically are against it.

It is just like the majority of Christians are against molesting children, yet some still are willing to do it.

So 10% of the Christians want to change your behaviour? OK, if you say so, but then you go on to say it appears that Muslims want to convert everybody. None of the Muslims I have spoken to (even about religion) where trying to convince me to become a Muslim.

I would say that more Christians want me to become a Christian then there are Muslims that want me to become a Muslim. The fact that these people blow themselves up has nothing to do with Muslims. And the "live and let live" IS clearly in their vocabulary. I clearly states in the Koran that you need to repect other peoples belief.

Sure, that is not what the nutcases want you to read. Just like there are contradictions in other books, they exist there as well. Many Muslims have said that killing others because of their belief just shows that you are a bad Muslim. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7046487.ece
and http://islam.about.com/cs/currentevents/a/suicide_bomb.htm
From the last link:
The predominant theme in the Qur'an is forgiveness and peace. Allah (God) is Merciful and Forgiving, and seeks that in His followers. Indeed, most people who spend time on a personal level with ordinary Muslims have found them to be peaceful, honest, hard-working, civic-minded people

And there are a lot of "bad" Muslims who smoke, drink alcohol, eat pork and not pray 5 times a day, just as there are "bad" Christians and "bad" Jews. However your idea seems pretty clear made up as you talk about "they" and "us". Well, I am neither "They" nor "Us" in this case and If you are "Us" then I rather be "They" who seem to be more open minded. And I talk from experience.

Erm, it does not say that, not even by a long shot. The hypothesis that the universe has been created does not imply that it has a purpose. Also, if God created the universe who created God?
From this you deduce that we all have a fate or a point? Sorry, but I think you are deluded. It's called wishful thinking.

You confuse science with philosophy. You claim to be a fan, but it appears I have to explain it to you. Science will give you how, philosophy will give you the big 'why'. I'm glad you're trying to purposely define your own role in this world, but not all of humanity has been given the social and educational structure that brought you to where you are.

I do not pretend to prove my points can be scientifically proven. You should not pretend they can be scientifically disproven, as we've left the realm of science.

Moving on, in Genesis, God's act of creation was purposeful. This is the beginning that has meaning. You would have me get caught up in a circle-jerk of 'but who made God? but who made him? and him? and him?......' If the analogous scientific answer was obtainable, it would be fascinating. From the philosophical standpoint, getting mired up in such sophistry serves no point.

No, because delusions don't help them. The truth does.

The truth you don't have? What are you offering in it's place? If you don't have the truth, and the subject matter is unfalsifiable and of little interest to hard science, then what business do you have calling it 'delusional'? I have explained why Genesis was not, and never could be, literal.

The Bible, and likewise all religions, attempt to answer questions about why we're here and what we're supposed to do. These are not questions science helps with. The need for an underlying supernatural philosophical structure is evident by the essentially universal presence of religion on earth. This human need will be filled. It can be filled by a beneficial belief system that advances it's adherents*, and there are perhaps less than half a dozen main types which do so. This belief system can also be filled by a retrograde religion which stunts* the personal development of it's adherents. There are many of these. There are also a number of people who claim to have advanced beyond such superstition, but they often fill the same need with something just as senseless.

I admit it's theoretically possible that there is no God, and that this beautiful world and all it's inhabitants are merely fortunate accidents. I simply do not find it probable.

*I recall an article that explains this better than I can. If you have the time, please read As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God.

Even digital cameras have 'hidden' information.

Well, apart from the fact that my post was a bit of a dig at the fact that we seem to upmod only large websites, you are right. James Murdoch has been very ouspoken about the BBC, so you might start finding in the future that stories broken in the mass media aren't immediately published on the BBC (if he gets his way).

The BBC Perspective
The Times perspective (for as long as it remains up on the site), just for both sides of the argument.

Looking at the matter with an oversimplistic view is potentially harmful.

But, as many folk aren't interested in thinking harder, I'll endorse the basic idea that standing up for yourself helps. Note that bullying is a dynamic that requires victims to complete it. It should probably be referred to as the Bully/Victim Dynamic to help people remember this fact. If you don't stand up for yourself, bullies will target you.

If you look into what makes bullies feel like they have to dominate others, you will gain a much deeper understanding of bullying.

Again, I highly recommend this article for anyone interested in understanding bullying better.

Now, the source quoted in this /. article is appallingly fourth-hand and diluted. Here are some other sources:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article7133986.ece
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/health/18mind.html?pagewanted=print

And here's an abstract for the actual study (which took a while to track down): Mutual antipathies during early adolescence: More than just rejection

The Prompt Global Strike, a prototype that can hit any target around the world in less than an hour, was also launched the same day.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7106714.ece

Have they found that yet?

(a) this is an unprecidented engineering failure

Uh, yes, it is. Are you suggesting that "unprecedented failure" is an excuse rather than a condemnation?

(b) there were multiple safeguards

No, there weren't. That's the problem. Safeguards were left out. Failed tests were ignored , and the "blowout preventer" was known to be damaged.

(c) it's an economic necessity that we drill for oil

It's an economic and ecological necessity that we stop using fossil fuels. We should regard this incident as the same sort a wake-up call a junkie gets when he has a disaster while hustling for a fix.

(d) Murphy's law -- no matter how hard you try, eventually mistakes will be made.

Which does not alter the presence of criminal negligence.

BP is doing everything possible to fix the problem

No, they're not. "Everything possible to fix the problem" would have meant that they were taking the proper steps to prevent it, and prepared with the proper cleanup equipment if there were a leak.

In a sane world, after a fuck-up like this, BP would simply cease to exist, its corporate charter shredded and its assets nationalized for the duration of the emergency, and then auctioned off to parties who have demonstrated the ability to behave responsibly.

As someone else pointed out above, it seems the well was damaged weeks before the explosion - and it was the explosion safety equipment that was damaged. Despite this, TransOcean (working for BP), decided to carry on with the drilling.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7129225.ece

If this is true, then BP is to blame for not watching over TransOcean sufficiently but TransOcean should be charged with criminal misconduct or whatever the equivalent legal term would be.

The reason: its worth gambling something bad won't happen to ensure the company makes more money. Something bad happened, and now the citizens of those countries boarding on the ocean region the well is in get to pay the price.

Corporations have no inherent morality, nor any incentive to behave morally. Profits are the only motive. This is an excellent indication of this.
Its time to change this I think. The world can no longer afford these large corporations and the destruction they wreak on our environment. Of course, we need to learn to do with fewer luxuries if the environment can't afford them too.

In all fairness, we still have no idea what went wrong. I want BP to be dragged across the coals for this as much as the next guy, but the truth of the matter is that we still don't know why the BOP failed, given that it was designed and certified to protect against this very sort of disaster.

There's at least one survivor who claims that the BOP was punctured weeks before the blast, but that they were pressured in continuing operations regardless because they were running behind schedule and "time is money".

Your DNA reveals a lot about you and so unauthorised access to is a clear invasion of privacy, which could only be justified by any protection against crime it causes.

Furthermore, any national database which can act as a primary index for further information held on you is a genuine totalitarian threat.

The outgoing Labour Government, which has been repeatedly noted on /. for its frightening attacks on UK liberty, insisted that the retention of DNA of innocent people was necessary to stop serious crime. However, after 9 years of retaining the DNA of innocent people, this hadn't even aided in the solving of a single serious crime.

The new coalition Government is committed to only retaining DNA of convicted criminals and temporary retention for those charged with violent and sexual offences, a model already applied in Scotland.

It should be noted that DNA is retained from crime scenes and that DNA of arrestees is checked against that before being destroyed. This is a world apart from the blanket retention that the outgoing Goverment pretended was necessary to solve certain cases.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece

Raw data deleted.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7177230/New-errors-in-IPCC-climate-change-report.html

Documented errors in the ever popular IPCC report, simple one's that would've been avoided if good science had been used.

http://camirror.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/test/

CRU refuses to hand over data. I don't CARE if they felt it was a burden, they refused to hand it over even under the act.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/328/5979/689

Science Magazine used a photoshopped photo to "illustrate their point", but due to their lack of research for anything valid they found out it was photoshopped and later replaced it.

Phil Jones says there's no consensus. We learned from the e-mails that peer reviewed literature was being manipulated. Roy Spencer, former senior scientist for climate studies at NASA (among other credentials that are amazing but less related), also believes that AGW is false (see his new book "The Great Global Warming Blunder").

30,000 Scientists disagree with global warming, and are (somewhat silly but significant anyways) trying to sue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHW7KR33IQ

When the White House was asked about this, their response was "The debate is over".

No, the debate is not over. Yes, there are examples of HIDING, MANIPULATING, or using BAD SCIENCE with AGW.

The author didn't state it elegantly, but he still made the point -- Chinese industrial espionage is very real, is here now, and it is state-sponsored. China views hacking not only as a fast-track to becoming an industrial superpower, but they view it as a method of becoming a military superpower, too. A good part of China's military buildup involves locating and training talented young people, as well as hiring the already established hacker-underground folk for military purposes. They figure (probably correctly) that they are nowhere near capable of competing with the US military on a technological front, but if they can shut down our command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) networks (not coincidentally, this is also why they developed the satellite-killing missile), then they have essentially shut us down, especially for any military response to an attack on Taiwan.

Here are just a few examples of the many, many already known about cases of Chinese espionage.
- The infamous Cox Report (regarding the PRC stealing our most advanced nuclear weapon designs)
- The well-known Google attacks
- A Boeing engineer was sentenced to 15 years for espionage, selling rocket technology to the PRC
- The FBI caught an American with very high security clearance and a Taiwanese-American selling classified information about weapon-sales to Taiwan to the PRC.
- The British MI5 released a report detailing all kinds of Chinese espionage. For example, high-profile UK businessmen have been approached by PRC spies with lavish gifts which include USB flash drives infected with trojans to steal information, and in 2008, an aide to Gordon Brown had his Blackberry stolen after a sexy Chinese woman approached him in Beijing -- a classic, almost too classic to be true, Soviet-style tactic. Other diplomats, too, have been sexually blackmailed by the PRC to divulge information.
- Here is a research paper by Northrop Grumman regarding China's cyber-warfare abilities, 88 pages filled with the stuff. Turn to page 67 for a "Timeline of Significant Chinese Related Cyber Events 1999-Present," let alone the details of the rest of the paper which shows the large effort by the PRC to improve their cyber-warfare and espionage abilities.

Here are some more excerpts:

MI5 Report

The MI5 report described how China’s computer hacking campaign had attacked British defense, energy, communications and manufacturing companies, as well as public relations companies and international law firms. The document explicitly warned British executives dealing with China against so-called honey trap methods in which it said the Chinese tried to cultivate personal relationships, “often using lavish hospitality and flattery,” either within China or abroad.

“Chinese intelligence services have also been known to exploit vulnerabilities such as sexual relationships and illegal activities to pressurize individuals to cooperate with them,” it warned. “Hotel rooms in major Chinese cities such as Beijing and Shanghai which have been frequented by foreigners are likely to be bugged. Hotel rooms have been searched while the occupants are out of the room.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1234669/Twice-suspects-extradited-U-S--fair-Gary-McKinnon.html

Ministers have always insisted the 2003 Extradition Act is fair and balanced. But figures slipped out by a Home Office minister last night under cover of the Pre-Budget Report show that between 2004 and 2008, 68 people were sent to the U.S. while only 34 people were sent to the UK.

I guess my google search could be wrong but I couldn't find anything to suggest more americans have been sent to the UK.

http://extradition.org.uk/ a couple facing 98 years for legally exporting chemicals that were later used to manufacture crystal meth. (The back story on this seems quite interesting especially the part where an appeal can be made to the court of european rights but only after scotland has granted extradition and thus making the appeal impossible).

mind who needs extradition
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2982640.ece

AMERICA has told Britain that it can "kidnap" British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.

A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.

Finally in an attempt to be balanced I found some american (or is it irish) opposition to the treaty.

http://www.irishfreedomcommittee.net/IFC_INFO/CAMPAIGNS/USUK_EXTRADITIONTREATY/extradition_treaty_ACTION.htm

This document [Treaty Doc. 108-23] -- signed under cover of great secrecy on March 31st, 2003 by US Attorney General John Ashcroft, and Britain's Home Secretary David Blunkett-- permanently erases America's symbolic image as a land where the oppressed of the world can escape to as a haven of freedom from foreign oppression.

This treaty will make possible the extradition and imprisonment of any American deemed to be "anti-Britain" or opposed to British military rule in Ireland. Under the terms of this Extradition Treaty, American citizens will be eligible for extradition to Britain to stand trial without proof of guilt and without judicial review. There is no statute of limitations to these offenses, which can be lodged on the word of a sole witness. The document at first glance upholds, but then proceeds to decimate, the political exemption clause; a cornerstone of America's diplomatic relations since Thomas Jefferson refused the extradition of an opponent of the French Revolution. This document is by far the most extreme US Treaty yet and will have drastic effect on any person who has ever spoken out against British human rights abuses at any time in their lives.

Ok thas my google search results , please show yours.

how about this for airport security: stop blowing up brown people and start working with countries other than china, canada, and mexico to ensure we're better global citizens...

Yeah tell the swedish cartoonist or the Dutch cartoonist Kurt Westergaard who get death threats for drawing political cartoons how they need to be better global citizens.... You cannot appease terrorists.

How about profiling some of those "brown people" coming from countries on the watch list instead of insisting parents remove leg braces from their 4 year-old?

We know which countries the vast majority of the people coming after us are either from or traveling to for training, but we are so damn politically correct we let the real terrorists board planes.

Looks like it's mandatory.

it's red-meat propaganda for a Brit paper that still proudly waves a red flag.

If you'd like to read a right-wing serious British newspaper's take on events, try the Times (if it doesn't work, disable cookies and refresh).

[Also, note that the Church of England doesn't get any tax money (it probably used to, but I don't know for sure).]

Actually, you'd be surprised.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1082094.ece

I haven't researched it to ensure authenticity, but I remember it when it first came across.

No data was destroyed. A small part of a local copy of some data was deleted. The original data still exists

Yes, the data was destroyed and the originals no longer exist. See:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece

Now, whether or not this was incompetence or malfeasance could be an open question.

What makes you think the original data still exists when Phil Jones himself testified that they only had the "value-added" data, since losing the original data in the 80s?

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/availability/

"We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added data."

There could be many different sorts - e.g. mini blackhole:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1290235.ece

Whether it is a blackhole or not, whatever happened at Donegal was rather impressive. If it's lightning it'll be pretty amazing too.

There are various independent sources of this temperature data, of which CRU produced one. All the various independent sources are in very close agreement. What are you proposing to "start over" on?

I would like to see data sets with complete paper trails attached, and all source codes to all processing provided. I would like to see independent people like the "Climate Audit" guy be able to completely reproduce all steps in data processing without needing to file any FOIA requests. This shouldn't be controversial; if the AGW proponents want the governments of the world to suppress whole sectors of the economy, with costs in the trillions of dollars, then the AGW proponents need to provide absolutely iron-clad and maximally transparent data.

Luckily for me, it looks like this may be happening:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7039264.ece

You say that all the independent data sets agree. Can you point me to an independent data set where there is a full paper trail attached to all the data, and source codes are provided for all processing of the data? Bonus points if this data set was actually used in an IPCC report or some similar official report.

steveha

The Lib Dems advocate STV with voting for candidates, not parties ( http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7121275.ece , http://news.stv.tv/election-2010/analysis/176335-stvs-guide-to-stv/ ).

And the Alternative Vote Plus system (which a commission recommended under Labour) would also have people voting for candidates.

So yes, you can argue with your straw man, but the rest of us are proposing something different.

It's worth pointing out that the pound is at an almost one year low against the dollar, and is sitting below it's natural level against the dollar and has been for months because of the political uncertainty.

Should we get a coalition government or similar that takes decisive action in cutting the UK's deficit which has been put off in the run up to the electon, you can add a good 10% minimum onto those percentages as the pound returns back up towards it's natural level against the dollar over the next 6 months to a year.

The fact that there's a markup at all when the pound is so weak against the dollar is quite inexcusable particularly as Apple has a history of taking years to rectify pricing issues by which time they've usually gotten away with it even when they accept that it's wrong in the face of an anti-trust case such that it's too late, and a few percent adds up to a notable chunk of money on not exactly cheap devices like this. Make no mistake, ripping off British consumers has long been part of Apple's business model.

It's worth pointing out of course that it's not just Apple that does this, however there are some notable exceptions, from places we perhaps least expect them. Microsoft points for XBox Live / Games for Windows Live are actually cheaper in the UK than the US thanks to current exchange rates when you factor in VAT for example, however they certainly weren't when things were riding at $2 USD to £1 GBP. Microsoft puts a massive markup on other goods too however such as Windows, Office and so forth but it's commendable they haven't used it as an excuse to up prices like some companies.

Companies upping costs in the face of weakened exchange rates is fine normally, but when we already pay much more to start with? They can fuck off, I wont buy anything that's severely marked up. To give some examples of when the pound was strong, I bought a Nintendo DS for my girlfriend and an iPod nano for myself, but I didn't buy them in the UK where they were both around the £120 mark, I bought them when we went to Canada where they were the equivalent of £65- almost half price. It was around $2.10 USD and $2.30 CAD to £1 GBP at the time. That's why I have little sympathy for companies that raise prices when the pound is weak, because they're more than happy to charge us nearly double rather than reduce prices when it's strong.

Sorry, you seem to think Slashdot posts are journal papers :) That might explain why you use an unnecessary amount of words for the points you want to get across.

This, in fact the sum total of Baillie is quoted as saying in the sources CRN used

I've quoted this before in this thread, and you yourself mentioned that CRN's source was The Times in your post above:

“It’s been dressed up as though we are suppressing climate data, but we have never produced climate records from our tree rings,” Professor Bailee said.

“In my view it would be dangerous to try and make interpretations about the temperature from this data.”

Do notice the direct quotes. Baillie is the source. If you want to claim he's misrepresented, please bring that up with The Times.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7102743.ece

Do you see the danger now in claiming Baillie as the source?

No, not really - but feel free to continue ranting anyway.

No, actually, they didn't. The data that was released in those publications was "corrected". The original data was thrown out. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece

I'm also a scientist, and let me tell you, I keep EVERYTHING (as does everyone that I have ever dealt with). I have lab notebooks in my lab going back to the 70's, full of every bit and byte of data that we have generated, across countless comings and goings of post-docs, technicians, and research associates.

Actually, the more such stories make the point that those guys really _are_ looking at people naked, the better for the public at large.

The things have been handwaved to the public as just some magical things that see explosives and guns and not much else, and their operators are 100% profesional and would do no such thing as looking for anything else than guns anyway. (In fact, one politician in Australia even claimed that they'll produce just stick figures with just the areas to be checked marked, and nobody would see your body at all.) And obviously if you're refusing to let them look at you that way, you're probably a terrorist and don't deserve to fly. (E.g., Muslim woman barred from flight for refusing body scan)

Now it turns out that they aren't just for explosives, and they aren't that professional.

And I mean there's not just this, but also the guy at Heathrow Airport who pressed the button to take a ghostly snapshot of a female coworker's body. She seemed pretty traumatized by it too and won't go anywhere near the machine any more, so maybe now we can also have some sympathy for the others who are scared of them.

Or the actor who discovered some female employees there looking at a printout of his scans, so he autographed it for them.

The sooner Joe Average gets the idea that these kinds of things happen, and no matter what some politician says, those people aren't saints, the better.

Well, since iPads don't use IBM hard drives, pixie dust won't help.

Unless you think Jobs is actually growing iPads, in which case pixie dust might work there, too. Or not...

I'm an idiot. Austria != Australia.

Dubya, it's a dubyous honour to see you here on Slashdot.

You're insane if you believe the 5,000 barrels per day mark. First it was 1,000, then it was 5,000, now it is 25,000. I wonder how higher it will be next week?

That "1 centimeter" of oil you seem so unconcerned by is going to reap havoc on the ecosystem on a scale that's never been seen before, killing fish, wildlife, and much of the ecosystem in droves. The environmental impact is already massive, and there is talk of the gulf loop carrying the oil to the east coast of the US and possibly eventually onto Europe.

I knew it was a huge disaster when it was reported as such with the addendum of at least 30 days to fix. At least. How would they even fix something like that? Has anything like this been attempted before?

Same kind of disaster happened last August 21 out by Australia.

I don't know - can you point me to one of them?

Mann hockeystick #1: falsified (severe errors, this is the one Al Gore and IPCC referenced so happily)

Mann hockeystick #2: falsified (spaghetti cherry picking - although those without statistical knowledge still claim it's valid)

Briffa hockeystick: One tree in Siberia no science makes.

I know of no other tree ring hockeysticks. Basically, tree rings aren't good temperature proxies and most dendrologists know this.

However, the lead scientist involved, Michael Bailee, said that the oak ring data requested was not relevant to temperature reconstruction records.

Although ancient oaks could give an indication of one-off dramatic climatic events, such as droughts, they were not useful as a temperature proxy because they were highly sensitive to water availability as well as past temperatures, he added.

“It’s been dressed up as though we are suppressing climate data, but we have never produced climate records from our tree rings,” Professor Bailee said.

“In my view it would be dangerous to try and make interpretations about the temperature from this data.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7102743.ece

Guess who used lots and lots of oaks to make a spaghetti hockeystick.

If we disregard the falsified tree ring hockeysticks, science is suddenly back in the game - and with that comes the Medieval Warm Period (global as it was), the Roman warm period and a lot of other warm periods _warmer than today_. ... and all that, while we at the same time have huge UHI problems with our temperature record and never, ever, should graft those temperatures onto proxies (and guess who made THAT ... ).

Mann should never be allowed to publish anywhere again. He doesn't do science.

Actually Britain did repay its war/lend-lease debt to the USA. The final payment was made in 2006.

Stop giving money to nations that don't like us!

I'm trying hard to think of a nation that likes the US... Israel maybe? Even the "special relationship" between the US and the UK is now dead, apparently.

Everyone makes mistakes ... how many states are there again ?

Unless of course he was telling a future truth ... and this is perhaps how he wanted to accomplish that.

And frankly, in case anyone missed it ... Obama is a lawyer. A lawyer who went into politics. With all that goes with it. You'd think slashdot would support the candidate that cares about issues they'd consider important (not that I have too many illusions about McCain being different, but hey if there's a choice between someone in big content's bed versus someone merely flirting with them, I know what to choose. At least the next set of shitty laws would take longer in coming. Besides democrats voted in the dmca, if anyone's going to vote it back out it'll be the other party).

Also, you need more money to flow into the schools but people will vote down any tax increase to fund the increase.

That's depressing. In the UK when Jamie said on his TV programme that schools were spending an average of 37 pence per child there was significant pressure on the government (including a petition) to spend more. They increased the minimum to 50p (in 2005), which Jamie said was sufficient.

If you're not going to spend tax revenue on your nation's children, what are you going to spend it on? (Rhetorical question.)

Articles from centre-left (Guardian) and right (Times) newspapers:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/feb/20/channel4.food
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article432258.ece (disable cookies if it doesn't work)

I can totally see why this is newsworthy. I mean it's not like it's happened before.

/sarcasm

I love how you guys manage to blame it all on Clinton, and even Carter! But for the sake of argument, suppose it is their fault. Then why didn't Reagan, Bush, and Bush 2 fix it? W. even had majorities in both houses of Congress for most of his presidency. Instead, the Republicans added fuel to the fire. Neither Democrats nor Republicans stopped the madness.

Now, perhaps the Democrats can be excused on grounds of incompetence. After all, they're the party of blue collar workers. Finance isn't their strength, supposedly. But the Republicans-- they're supposed to be the financially responsible and savvy people. They sure don't look it, despite this recent revival of budget concerns over the new health care program and the costs of bailouts. In 2003 the neo-cons spent our wealth on their own agenda. That "War of Choice" did more damage to the budget than the bailouts and health care combined. They thought it could cost as little as $30 billion. Instead, the minimum cost of the Iraq War to the US is estimated to be $3 trillion. How could they have got it so wrong? In contrast, cost of the new health care bill and the bailouts, and stimulus spending is estimated to be $940 billion, $109 billion, and $862 billion respectively.

And the returns that we got on all this spending? It was hoped that the Iraq War would trigger a domino effect that would spread democracy throughout the Middle East and the Arab and Islamic worlds. This has got to be stupidest pie-in-the-sky, cavalier, woolly, misty, calf-eyed dreaming engaged in by politicians in at least 2 generations. I expect that sort of thinking from innocent 1st graders, not from canny, experienced, and supposedly intelligent politicians. I expect they'd damn well better do their homework. Find out everything they can and be damn sure they get it right before committing trillions of the nation's dollars and the lives of our soldiers to such a risky and provocative course of action. And they didn't do that. To learn that the allegations over WMD had been "sexed up" and were just flat wrong was embarrassing and damaging. And to see how Bush's government was treating analysis that didn't shore up what they wanted to think was shameful, disgusting, and scary. Not only didn't they do their due diligence, they arrogantly dismissed the work and reports of those who tried. That's how they could get an estimate not off by 2 or 3 times, but 100 times too low. I call that rampant and reckless disregard of the facts. That's the sort of crap I expect from stupid dictatorships, not from democracies. Dictatorships are the sorts of governments that are suckers for the sort of impressive seeming gigantic projects that cause more damage than good, ignoring all contrary analysis, or even branding such as treason. As for the rest of the world, none of the other troublesome nations have been frightened into making changes, and Iraq itself is still in danger of tearing itself apart in a bloody civil war, splitting into Kurd, Sunny, and Shiite areas. Indeed Iran is behaving worse than ever. Seems they might be figuring that Iraq cost us so much in both money and good will that we may be unwilling or unable to spend what it would take and rally a coalition to deal with them militarily, if it comes to that. We already had Afghanistan on our plate, there was no need to start another war just to "show the flag". There's the idea that we did it for the oil. Perhaps, but if so, that also was a strategic mistake. If invested in renewable energy, that money could have done much to eliminate our dependence upon foreign oil. And there's this little problem of Cli

Yes... it was mandatory for boys from 10 YO to 14 YO to join Deutsche Jungvolk and he somehow avoided joining then. Why did he decide to join Hitlerjugend in "42?

Resistance to the reich was possible; in fact only 100 yards from his house Hans Braxenthaler, a resistance fighter, was hiding out.

I'm not saying that every German who obeyed the Nazi's was evil - I'm not saying he should be put on trial; but I would think that someone who had been an active participant in guarding slave laborers from Dachau at gunpoint, and later watching silently as Jews were rounded up for transport to death camps in Hungary, isn't qualified to be the "moral leader" of anyone.

Aside from being sorry for his past, as recently as 2009 he re-admitted Holocaust denier Richard Williamson back to the church after Williamson had been excommunicated back in 1988

No, it's the same Jason group who warned of global warming in 1979.

Government that knowingly hold innocent people as prisoners and tortures them in prison for eight (8) years

404 error

This idea has been around for many years, Ben Gurion, said to be the 'father' of Israel wanted it done. The only reason I can come up with, to explain why it has not been done is that the people who run Israel, are deeply conservative.

Quote

"Hello,

There is plenty of empty land in the middle east, so is it a fight over who
has sovereignty over empty desert? Of course not.

The true nature of the conflict, is a water conflict, this seems particularly
silly when the surface of the earth is largely covered with the stuff.

The Jordan river is the main feeder of the Dead Sea, all the countries
bordering the Jordan river, extract water from the Jordan, the net result of
this is, over the past 50 years the Dead Sea's depth has fallen by 20 metres.

This to me, looks like environmental disaster in the making.

There is a radical solution to this problem.

A Google diligence will turn up several examples.

E.G.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article626646.ece

So where is the Evolutionary Psychology in all of this?

Simple....

If uncircumcised men were living in Israel instead of largely circumcised
ones, would they not have built a canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea,
already?

Does a largely circumcised society behave differently to a largely
uncircumcised society - I don't know, but there again, who does?

I suppose the true EPness of this question is, why did nature evolve male
human great apes with a foreskin and why do some cultures think that nature
made a mistake!

Regards

Peter

unquote

producing little creative output(in before Slumdog)

You fail an Internets. Bollywood "creates" nearly twice as many films as Hollywood, which are watched by many more people. I guess you wouldn't class them as real movies, since they haven't figured out that the real business is in marketing and moichandising.

No one is going to pay any attention to the guy who just writes a letter, so that is the wrong direction (but nice job trying to pigeonhole what I said). Of course you have to work to be a scientist. But once you start publishing conclusions that are based on some given set of data, it only increases your credibility if you are willing to actually share that data, and discuss the messy details of how you obtained it.

So the point is that things like institutional inertia and hoarding need to be minimized, not blithely ignored. So if a guy wants to go over some research data and check it for correctness, he can. Even if he is just some computer programmer:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7028418.ece

(By institutional inertia, I mean the thing where there is actually a science establishment that ends up directing where funding ends up, simply by existing; there probably isn't any way of eliminating it, but "he doesn't have a PHD so he won't be able to do anything with it anyway" should always be treated as the bullshit it is)