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User: u38cg

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  1. Re:The over-65's swung it for No on Scotland Votes No To Independence · · Score: 1
    >>wondering how did this happen

    Because you looked at the polls and the betting markets and you thought you knew better. Once again, you were wrong. Remember a guy called Kerry?

  2. Re:This isn't scaremongering. on Scotland's Independence Vote Could Shake Up Industry · · Score: 1

    Most of those numbers are incorrect, if not downright false.

  3. Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa on Scotland's Independence Vote Could Shake Up Industry · · Score: 1
    Yes, but when you are running countries, you burn through billions pretty quickly.

    It is not the Bank's debt; it is the UK government's. You can read the DMO contracts if you like. And the debt does not have a monetary purpose: it is issued to finance government spending.

    You're right, sterlingisation can't be blocked, but full-on currency union certainly can. I don't think anyone in the Yes camp gets that no-one in Westminster is interested in entering into a currency union - not with Europe, and not with Scotland either. What's in it for them?

  4. Re:Of course they do on ISIS Bans Math and Social Studies For Children · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So why are so many terrorists engineers?

  5. Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa on Scotland's Independence Vote Could Shake Up Industry · · Score: 1
    The largest field discovered in the last 25 years produces 0.2m bpd - included in the 1.5m figure - and you think that supports your argument how, exactly?

    You make the assumption that the planet will not transition to a primarily renewables energy mix. Given that a number of renewable sources are already competitive with fossil fuels and investment at scale is only beginning in this sector, I would suggest that is a hell of an assumption to hang your country's prosperity on.

  6. Re:Ho hum on Scotland's Independence Vote Could Shake Up Industry · · Score: 1

    Yes, but a startling proportion of that 1/3 is vertical. Or loch.

  7. Re:Thinly veiled campaigning on Scotland's Independence Vote Could Shake Up Industry · · Score: 1

    Sadly, the chances are it will be cataclysmic. Scotland's spending and tax revenues balance at the moment only through using oil money. Oil will last for ten, fifteen, twenty years if we're lucky. Then we will be sitting on an NHS with an aging, sicker population. No-one - and I really do mean no-one - has a cogent explanation of how Scotland will deal with this.

  8. Re:Not going to be as rosy as the YES! campaign sa on Scotland's Independence Vote Could Shake Up Industry · · Score: 3, Insightful
    No, I'm afraid you don't understand a few things. Firstly, Scotland's oil is small beer on the global stage. The North Sea produces ~1.5m bpd, OPEC alone is something like 30m. Scotland could turn off the taps and the planet wouldn't even blink.

    So, the inrush of global partners wouldn't happen. More to the point, why would they rush to jump into bed with a government that has already stood up and said it is seriously considering reneging on UK debt? Which, by the way, is not the norm for newly independent countries and would be remembered by the markets. If they lent at all, they would certainly require paying for it. You really want to pay Greek interest rates on your government debt?

    Think Venezuela, not Norway.

  9. Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone on Scotland's Independence Vote Could Shake Up Industry · · Score: 2

    Correct. There is a missile in Bumfukski with Glasgow's name painted on it. Kicking nukes out the Clyde won't change that.

  10. Re:Thinly veiled campaigning on Scotland's Independence Vote Could Shake Up Industry · · Score: 2

    I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to consider the practicalities of a major upheaval.

  11. Re:at least the nuclear weapons will be gone on Scotland's Independence Vote Could Shake Up Industry · · Score: -1, Troll

    Even now, Putin is hovering over the list of first strike cities, ready and waiting to strike Glasgow and Edinburgh from the list. Let me save you, he whispers gently. Expel those weapons. You'll be so much safer.

  12. Re:Tax? on New Global Plan Would Crack Down On Corporate Tax Avoidance · · Score: 1

    While I agree with your philosophy, in practice what happens is that companies become massive tax avoidance holes. People put their personal wealth in investment companies, which simply accumulate and accumulate income with no tax being paid except on that which the owner withdraws, which once you've bought a house, farm, car, helicopter and country club membership is not all that much.

  13. Re:Touchscreens don't belong on real computers. on What To Expect With Windows 9 · · Score: 0

    Have you considered growing the hell up?

  14. Re:Gotta say... on Farmers Carry Multidrug-Resistant Staph For Weeks Into Local Communities · · Score: 1
    Richy, this is the 19th century. 19th century, meet Rich. 19th century, Rich wants to hear about the good old days when a minor cut would routinely kill through infection.

    In all seriousness, better hygiene is doing most of the heavy lifting to control it. The problem comes when you're in a situation where that's not enough, like being in hospital with another health problem.

  15. Re:My wife just died of cancer this week on If We Can't Kill Cancer, Can We Control It? · · Score: 1
    Sorry, I meant that the spending capability is there if the financial case justifies it.

    And no, there aren't massive swathes of potential avenues of attack. There are only the pathways that bacteria don't share with humans where the drug has no other toxic effect. There will be new antibiotics - no question - but its questionable whether there will ever be another sulphonamide or penicillin.

  16. Re:Here's a crazy idea on If We Can't Kill Cancer, Can We Control It? · · Score: 1

    We did have a little thing called "smoking" which was quite popular in the 20th century. A second order effect was something called "industrialisation". Another second order effect was the fact you became ten times less likely to die of accident or disease. Yeah, certain cancers in certain cases are driven by environmental exposures, and other cancers have trends we don't have explanations for. From there to "it's getting worse" is an unsupportable leap.

  17. Re:didn't have to be worse.. on Sapphire Glass Didn't Pass iPhone Drop Test According to Reports · · Score: 1

    No. The iPhone was announced January '07. The glass replacement was decided in early May. The release to consumers was the end of June.

  18. Re:Here's a crazy idea on If We Can't Kill Cancer, Can We Control It? · · Score: 1

    A large part of the quadrupling is simply increased survival at all ages increasing exposure to cancer inceptions, plus better diagnostics of boring, non-dangerous cancers.

  19. Re:My wife just died of cancer this week on If We Can't Kill Cancer, Can We Control It? · · Score: 1

    Wrong. Antibiotics as a chemical class are pretty much played out. There is plenty of funding for research - big pharma would love a MRSA killer. The substances simply don't exist.

  20. Re:But what about... on High School Student Builds Gun That Unlocks With Your Fingerprint · · Score: 1

    (1) You don't know they would be dead. (2) If that criminal was rehabilitated and changed his ways society would be better off.

  21. Re:Great one more fail on High School Student Builds Gun That Unlocks With Your Fingerprint · · Score: 1

    Sorry, falls in particular is a ridiculous number to cite. Everyone that doesn't die of a heart attack or car crash or random shooting will have a serious fall before they die. It's pretty much what happens when you get old (indeed it's one of the main ways you find out that you're getting old). You're effectively citing the number of people who had health issues in the couple of years before their death.

  22. Re:didn't have to be worse.. on Sapphire Glass Didn't Pass iPhone Drop Test According to Reports · · Score: 1

    I did mean to keep writing there, but on the other hand I think it stands quite well as is. Jobs.

  23. Re:didn't have to be worse.. on Sapphire Glass Didn't Pass iPhone Drop Test According to Reports · · Score: 1

    That is *exactly* what happened when the first iPhone launched. Jobs

  24. Re:photons are not particles on Researchers Working On Crystallizing Light · · Score: 1
    Oh, it's quite easy to get the mods to find your comments insightful. Generally something pedantic will do it, especially if it involves something rude and untrue abut women.

    Actually, GP, had the right etymology - in Italian it would be scenari - but he did blatantly make up a plural that is not used in English. Hypercorrectness is a fault, not a virtue. It confuses your audience and leads them to doubt your accuracy. Kinda silly, really.

  25. Re:photons are not particles on Researchers Working On Crystallizing Light · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Your comment sounded kinda insightful, apart from your use of a made up word 'scenarii'.