In most places erotica is legal for adults, so a complete ban on xxx sites seems unlikely. Even most countries that have web filtering havent't tried to block all erotica, because the sex industry does actually have lobbying power. Frankly, I like clear labelling. If I want erotica I'd like to be able to find it. If I don't want erotica then I'd like to be able to avoid it. Same as hydrogenated fats, and same as some people with GM soya. Why is the sex industry almost as bad as the food industry over trying to hide what the content of their products really is?
Well, quite. The article tries to pin it on the Wii, on the controller manufacturer, and on Ebay for selling the controller. Wasn't there some way they coulf blame it on Facebook too?
If we were to be highly sceptical we could point out that these guys weren't involved in the talks so could just be actioning their annoyance, or negotiating for their cut.
You don't need to be cynical -- they specifically state that that's the issue. From the RA:
In a statement released today, MEPs Lambrinidis (S&D, Greece), Castex (S&D, France), Alvaro (ALDE, Germany) and Roithova (EPP, Czech Republic) "deeply regret the fact that the Council is continuing its secretive stance, despite the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, which stipulates that the European Parliament should have full and immediate access to information at all stages of international negotiations".
It's the secrecy that they're objecting to, not the content (which they don't -- officially -- know).
They will almost certainly try, but with the Lisbon Treaty in place it will be a lot harder for them to get away with it. It looks as if this is going to be the test case to find out how much muscle the Lisbon Treaty actually has. Expect a very fierce power struggle.
Hardly a troll. Dysgraphia is a co-morbidity of dyslexia, so many (most?) dyslexics have precisely the symptoms described, and it may be caused by the same neurological condition (nobody knows). Try learning a little about disabilities before flaming their sufferers.
The real problem is that the big businesses (agriculture, meat packing, hospitality, commercial real-estate, etc..) want the cheap labor and won't let the problem be solved.
Or is it that Joe Public wants the cheap products and services that only cheap labor can provide, and won't let the problem be solved? It's just the free market in action.
Oh, I'm sure there's an equivalent benefit for str8 females. I just don't know what it is. Something involving chocolate, perhaps, or having the men of the local fire service do their housework for them naked? See, I have no idea, so I thought it best to stay out of that territory.
In Linderholm's "Mathematics made difficult" he speculated that there were two sorts of people, loud and quiet ones. Loud ones keep their mouths and anuses open and are isomorphic to tori (genus 2 because of the nose, but I think Linderholm missed that), whereas quiet people keep them shut and are isomorphic to spheres.
He was also scrupulous about making sure he was always chaperoned when with girls and women. Even if there were sexual desires (and there are other reasons for enjoying the company of children), the evidence is that they were properly managed.
BTW, I'm talking about over a much longer period --- I mean, you said yourself, "We've had socialised health care since 1948", so the state has been diverting increasing amounts of income from local initiatives for at least 60 years.
Well, if you are looking over a much longer period and talking about the state diverting resources from local inititives then you should really be looking at the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars and the government's attempts then to pay back a national debt that (as a proportion of GDP) would make today's economists' eyes water. Socialised health care seems to be a complete red-herring, particularly considering that the total spent on health care per capita in the UK doesn't seem much different from the total spent per capita in developed countries that don't have socialised health care, so it isn't actually diverting resources at all.
Yep. I've stopped doing voluntary work with children for just that reason. Well, not fear of being labelled weird, which I'm pretty much reconciled to, but the way it's now so easy for one stupid or malicious person to ruin one's life.
Well, judging the level of taxation by how late tax freedom day is, I don't think UK taxation as high now as it was in the early 1980s (I can only find general articles, though -- if anybody can point me to a record of when tax freedom day was in past years I'd be most interested). It looks as if the increase in spending on youth projects that I recall (but again can't find details of) in the 1980 s and early 90s happened at a time of falling taxation. So I think your argument is directly contrary to the facts, but I'd love to get my hands on the actual numbers.
We've had socialised health care since 1948. State funded youth programs came much later. So we managed to pay for socialised health care without any impact at all on state-funded youth programs because they didn't exist at the time.
Actually, most youth clubs and activities were organised by the private and charity sector -- Scogui, Boy's Brigade, random clubs in church halls, and so on. Those organisations are all feeling the economic pinch in the current recession, and a lot of them had religious connections and have been hit by declining religious involvement. I'd be interested to hear your theories as to how the worldwide recession and decline in religion are caused by UK socialised healthcare.
As sentimental as that is, for the last five years I've heard nothing but complaints about the color scheme.
Not from me -- I like the brown colour scheme. Still, when choosing an OS, colour scheme is quite low on my list of priorities. As long as it doesn't hurt my eyes...
Apparently, although it would be very unusual. The license covers the apparatus to receive any broadcasts as they are transmitted, including commercial, but I understand that if you don't have a TV and only listen to radio or watch on iPlayer then you don't need a license.
I'm not sure how relevant that is, though. Even if it were funded through taxes that applied to everybody, I still think there's a place for public service broadcasting. It's the nature of tax that you have to pay for something that you might not want to (otherwise there'd be no reason for it to be done through taxation). And I think there are things that public service broadcasting does that commercial can't (or at least doesn't) which serves a social benefit. Minority interest stuff that wouldn't attract funding (such as in-depth investigative journalism), stuff that's likely to hack off potential advertisers (such as in-depth investigative journalism, controversial programming such as the airing of Jerry Springer: The Opera), and so on. I think part of the problem the BBC has is that it's lost sight of that and is going after audience share. If it gets massive audiences then it's clearly treading on commercial's toes (and treading very effectively, as Radio 2's audience share shows). The place where it's distinctive, and earns the license fee, is likely to attract a smaller market share.
That is essentially how its critics are attacking. If something the BBC does has mass-market appeal they cry "unfair competition" and if it doesn't they cry "waste of license-payer's money". In the former case they have a point (sadly, because I would miss advertisement-free programming). In the latter case I don't think they do, because that seems to me to be exactly what the BBC and the license fee are for. Unfortunately, it's the minority stuff that they're cutting, and I think that will backfire. If they eliminate what makes them distinctive then it becomes a lot harder for them to justify the license fee.
Just to clarify, and to ensure you are not just an irrational paranoid, which are the specific cases where DNA evidence has led to wrongful convictions?
How would we know, if DNA evidence is considered decisive? All I know is that statements that are known to be misleading regarding the significance of DNA evidence are presented to the courts, at least in the UK. I don't know what the consequences are, but I can't help thinking that it's not right and wondering what the reasons are.
And busses that didn't stop to pick up passengers because the penalties for late running were more than the fares were worth. All down to making measurement the master, not the servant.
A real world example of targets being gamed to the detriment of everyone is the target in hospitals to get the time reduced from when someone comes into an A&E department and when they are seen. What some hospitals did was to simply get a nurse to go round the waiting room and greet people. Bang, patients interacted with by medical staff, times reduced, targets hit.
More infamously, if they slipped up and let somebody wait for longer than the target time, that person would be lucky to get attended to at all, because the hospital had lost that "point" already and so would concentrate on points that they could still earn. The UK government has largely replaced measurement as a tool of management with measurement as management, in the name of objectivity (making rewards and penalties automatic on the results of measurement, rather than the measurements triggering humans to look at what is going on). The results are not pretty.
On the bright side there is an increasing consensus that DNA evidence is a lot less useful than CSI: would have us believe.
No, that isn't the bright side, and you misunderstand the meaning of "useful" as far as DNA databasing is concerned. As long as the jury believes all that CSI stuff, DNA evidence is just as useful as everyone thinks for getting a conviction, getting the case closed, and making the police's detection statistics look good. The DNA evidence might not be so useful for getting the right person convicted, but that doesn't appear in anybody's performance indicators so that doesn't matter to anybody. Except to the poor sucker put away for a crime they didn't commit, but they're a convict now and nobody cares what they think.
Slashdot Mirror
In most places erotica is legal for adults, so a complete ban on xxx sites seems unlikely. Even most countries that have web filtering havent't tried to block all erotica, because the sex industry does actually have lobbying power. Frankly, I like clear labelling. If I want erotica I'd like to be able to find it. If I don't want erotica then I'd like to be able to avoid it. Same as hydrogenated fats, and same as some people with GM soya. Why is the sex industry almost as bad as the food industry over trying to hide what the content of their products really is?
Well, quite. The article tries to pin it on the Wii, on the controller manufacturer, and on Ebay for selling the controller. Wasn't there some way they coulf blame it on Facebook too?
If we were to be highly sceptical we could point out that these guys weren't involved in the talks so could just be actioning their annoyance, or negotiating for their cut.
You don't need to be cynical -- they specifically state that that's the issue. From the RA:
In a statement released today, MEPs Lambrinidis (S&D, Greece), Castex (S&D, France), Alvaro (ALDE, Germany) and Roithova (EPP, Czech Republic) "deeply regret the fact that the Council is continuing its secretive stance, despite the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, which stipulates that the European Parliament should have full and immediate access to information at all stages of international negotiations".
It's the secrecy that they're objecting to, not the content (which they don't -- officially -- know).
They will almost certainly try, but with the Lisbon Treaty in place it will be a lot harder for them to get away with it. It looks as if this is going to be the test case to find out how much muscle the Lisbon Treaty actually has. Expect a very fierce power struggle.
Hardly a troll. Dysgraphia is a co-morbidity of dyslexia, so many (most?) dyslexics have precisely the symptoms described, and it may be caused by the same neurological condition (nobody knows). Try learning a little about disabilities before flaming their sufferers.
I'm guessing you've never lived in a place with mandatory ID cards.
The real problem is that the big businesses (agriculture, meat packing, hospitality, commercial real-estate, etc..) want the cheap labor and won't let the problem be solved.
Or is it that Joe Public wants the cheap products and services that only cheap labor can provide, and won't let the problem be solved? It's just the free market in action.
Sure, it can be implanted in the lower intestine. When somebody wants to scan it, just assume the position.
Then you can't work. No work, no money. No money, you become disenfranchised
No, then you just start receiving Government handouts and they know you'll vote Democrat for the rest of your life.....
And how were you planning to vote, with no ID card?
Oh, I'm sure there's an equivalent benefit for str8 females. I just don't know what it is. Something involving chocolate, perhaps, or having the men of the local fire service do their housework for them naked? See, I have no idea, so I thought it best to stay out of that territory.
The diagram showing two interlocked loud people was scary.
In Linderholm's "Mathematics made difficult" he speculated that there were two sorts of people, loud and quiet ones. Loud ones keep their mouths and anuses open and are isomorphic to tori (genus 2 because of the nose, but I think Linderholm missed that), whereas quiet people keep them shut and are isomorphic to spheres.
He was also scrupulous about making sure he was always chaperoned when with girls and women. Even if there were sexual desires (and there are other reasons for enjoying the company of children), the evidence is that they were properly managed.
If you only make $15 an hour this should be an indication as to your worth.
You don't know what the benefits are. Maybe he gets to bone supermodels. Many men would accept a negative hourly rate for that.
BTW, I'm talking about over a much longer period --- I mean, you said yourself, "We've had socialised health care since 1948", so the state has been diverting increasing amounts of income from local initiatives for at least 60 years.
Well, if you are looking over a much longer period and talking about the state diverting resources from local inititives then you should really be looking at the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars and the government's attempts then to pay back a national debt that (as a proportion of GDP) would make today's economists' eyes water. Socialised health care seems to be a complete red-herring, particularly considering that the total spent on health care per capita in the UK doesn't seem much different from the total spent per capita in developed countries that don't have socialised health care, so it isn't actually diverting resources at all.
Yep. I've stopped doing voluntary work with children for just that reason. Well, not fear of being labelled weird, which I'm pretty much reconciled to, but the way it's now so easy for one stupid or malicious person to ruin one's life.
Well, judging the level of taxation by how late tax freedom day is, I don't think UK taxation as high now as it was in the early 1980s (I can only find general articles, though -- if anybody can point me to a record of when tax freedom day was in past years I'd be most interested). It looks as if the increase in spending on youth projects that I recall (but again can't find details of) in the 1980 s and early 90s happened at a time of falling taxation. So I think your argument is directly contrary to the facts, but I'd love to get my hands on the actual numbers.
We've had socialised health care since 1948. State funded youth programs came much later. So we managed to pay for socialised health care without any impact at all on state-funded youth programs because they didn't exist at the time.
Actually, most youth clubs and activities were organised by the private and charity sector -- Scogui, Boy's Brigade, random clubs in church halls, and so on. Those organisations are all feeling the economic pinch in the current recession, and a lot of them had religious connections and have been hit by declining religious involvement. I'd be interested to hear your theories as to how the worldwide recession and decline in religion are caused by UK socialised healthcare.
I can offer you a good price on 788340...
As sentimental as that is, for the last five years I've heard nothing but complaints about the color scheme.
Not from me -- I like the brown colour scheme. Still, when choosing an OS, colour scheme is quite low on my list of priorities. As long as it doesn't hurt my eyes...
Apparently, although it would be very unusual. The license covers the apparatus to receive any broadcasts as they are transmitted, including commercial, but I understand that if you don't have a TV and only listen to radio or watch on iPlayer then you don't need a license.
I'm not sure how relevant that is, though. Even if it were funded through taxes that applied to everybody, I still think there's a place for public service broadcasting. It's the nature of tax that you have to pay for something that you might not want to (otherwise there'd be no reason for it to be done through taxation). And I think there are things that public service broadcasting does that commercial can't (or at least doesn't) which serves a social benefit. Minority interest stuff that wouldn't attract funding (such as in-depth investigative journalism), stuff that's likely to hack off potential advertisers (such as in-depth investigative journalism, controversial programming such as the airing of Jerry Springer: The Opera), and so on. I think part of the problem the BBC has is that it's lost sight of that and is going after audience share. If it gets massive audiences then it's clearly treading on commercial's toes (and treading very effectively, as Radio 2's audience share shows). The place where it's distinctive, and earns the license fee, is likely to attract a smaller market share.
That is essentially how its critics are attacking. If something the BBC does has mass-market appeal they cry "unfair competition" and if it doesn't they cry "waste of license-payer's money". In the former case they have a point (sadly, because I would miss advertisement-free programming). In the latter case I don't think they do, because that seems to me to be exactly what the BBC and the license fee are for. Unfortunately, it's the minority stuff that they're cutting, and I think that will backfire. If they eliminate what makes them distinctive then it becomes a lot harder for them to justify the license fee.
Just to clarify, and to ensure you are not just an irrational paranoid, which are the specific cases where DNA evidence has led to wrongful convictions?
How would we know, if DNA evidence is considered decisive? All I know is that statements that are known to be misleading regarding the significance of DNA evidence are presented to the courts, at least in the UK. I don't know what the consequences are, but I can't help thinking that it's not right and wondering what the reasons are.
And busses that didn't stop to pick up passengers because the penalties for late running were more than the fares were worth. All down to making measurement the master, not the servant.
A real world example of targets being gamed to the detriment of everyone is the target in hospitals to get the time reduced from when someone comes into an A&E department and when they are seen. What some hospitals did was to simply get a nurse to go round the waiting room and greet people. Bang, patients interacted with by medical staff, times reduced, targets hit.
More infamously, if they slipped up and let somebody wait for longer than the target time, that person would be lucky to get attended to at all, because the hospital had lost that "point" already and so would concentrate on points that they could still earn. The UK government has largely replaced measurement as a tool of management with measurement as management, in the name of objectivity (making rewards and penalties automatic on the results of measurement, rather than the measurements triggering humans to look at what is going on). The results are not pretty.
On the bright side there is an increasing consensus that DNA evidence is a lot less useful than CSI: would have us believe.
No, that isn't the bright side, and you misunderstand the meaning of "useful" as far as DNA databasing is concerned. As long as the jury believes all that CSI stuff, DNA evidence is just as useful as everyone thinks for getting a conviction, getting the case closed, and making the police's detection statistics look good. The DNA evidence might not be so useful for getting the right person convicted, but that doesn't appear in anybody's performance indicators so that doesn't matter to anybody. Except to the poor sucker put away for a crime they didn't commit, but they're a convict now and nobody cares what they think.