(origin of life 'E'volution, not short-term mutation 'e'volution.)
Which theory of evolution claims to explain the origin of life? I don't know of any scientist that claims abiogenesis and evolution are one and the same, so either they're quacks, or you're misrepresenting their views.
And our natural tendency to assume that correlation implies causation has also left much of the population convinced that the world will end if they drop a mirror after tripping over a black cat and falling under a ladder on Friday 13th.
Firstly, walking under a ladder is a dumb idea, regardless of the luck it supposedly gives discouraging it is no bad thing. Secondly black cats signify good luck. Now to my point, I kinda like some superstitions, if I see a black cat, or find a penny etc. well, then I know I'll be lucky the rest of the day and be that little bit happier and more confident. As long as I know it's just my superstition, don't depend on it and ignore the more depressing ones what harm does it do?
One reason, I gather, that their press is so restrained when reporting on the lives of the wealthy is that they have to be very careful to avoid having somebody with deep pockets decide that they don't like having their private lives exposed...
You've obviously never read a British tabloid newspaper, have you? Go read copy of the Sun or the Mail to see just how wrong that statement is.
I'm not sure how you solve the problem of the estimated population of the earth in, say, 200 years if it continues increasing at the current rate.
People were famously worrying about overpopulation 200 years ago, I'm sure that 200 years in the future, we won't have run into a Malthusian Catastrophe, but people will still be worrying that we might.
However, it is likely that competition authorities in the UK and EU will probe the deal.
Is there ever any news of mergers that hit Slashdot that aren't probed by the EU?
It tends not to be news if two tiny companies merge to form another small company; that happens all the time without regulators getting involved, it's just not important enough to hit the/. front page.
We have. Look at the Pirate Party in Europe. The difference is here in the USA we have a flawed system... When you are advocating a third choice in a system designed for only two choices, its very hard to get a third choice accepted.
The American system is FPTP like the British one, we managed to get a Third Party, and a bunch of smaller ones. Why the USA hasn't developed "The Texas independence party" or "The New York First Party" etc. is beyond me. You guys should have parties from all 50 states represented in congress, where are all your local parties?
And just because you stand little chance of being elected isn't a reason not to create or join a smaller party. The Greens in the UK have all three main parties spouting their message because they were taking important votes in marginal constituencies. They've never had a single seat, but they've effectively won the argument. That's far more important than getting power, and it's a part of our strategy as well. We know we're not going to win a seat, but we can make others lose until they listen to our message (in case it's not obvious enough I recently joined the Pirate Party UK).
There are revisionist movements of course, but these are fringe groups who are having very little headway against the entrenched status quo.
I guess you've never hear of the Church of England, you know the UK state religion. Guess who's at the top? The Queen, yes a Woman; they also have women Bishops, their US counterparts, the episcopalians allow Gay priests. It's so marginal that it's only been around since 1534 when Henry the 8th Split from Rome and founded it so he could get a divorce.
I'm no Christian, but the notion that reformists in the Christian mainstream are "fringe groups" and are "making very little headway" is patent nonsense.
Yeah they have stalls at little markets around the place and give out free "stress tests". No writing to say what organisation, being intrigued and board found the stand, took one look, promptly voiced my opinion about their scam and went on my merry way.
I do the opposite, they frequent the centre of my city with clipboard and pen asking people to "answer a quick question" I always stop and take their survey then pretend to be interested taking as much of their time as possible. Turns out that they're actually interested in selling me books, so I ask lots of questions about the book. Never once do the mention Scientology. Eventually they refer me to a more senior member who more or less tells me to get lost. So I leave having wasted a good half hour of their time. That's a few lost sales there.
when i bought a nokia e71 it had a silent camera. they updated the firmware to include a camera click that can't be turned off (trust me i tried, silent profiles, registry settings, warning tones off and a 100 other methods that had worked in the past).
My DSi has a noisy camera as well; IIRC it even says in the manual that you can't turn the 'click' sound off. I get around this by plugging in my earphones to disable the speaker; couldn't you do the same with your phone?
Is there some kind of horrible joke going on in the goverment, like "Let's see how much we can destory democracy and piss people off before we're kicked out"? The the winner in the next election will have to try to set a new high-score....
I'm selling this idea to Endamol. We might end up with a totalitarian state, but at least we'll have the best reality TV.
Good luck finding a jury that'll convict. Hell read your own link, the reason the Law Lords didn't strike it down was because the Guardian had breached it on multiple occasions and failed to be even investigated, let alone prosecuted under it. The Law Lords basically said "We'll never convict anyone under this act, but it's not our role to repeal it, go and ask Parliament"
Not to belittle librarians, but I've never found any that could help me beyond the Dewey Decimal System or whatever particular system that library used. Asking for where to get further research was basically, "Here are the tools we have and how you do a rudimentary search using them. Good luck." It's gotten better over the years because now we can search multiple types of materials in one place instead of going to the card catalog, and the periodicals catalog, and the "Academic research" catalog ad nauseum. That has actually made librarians less relevant though, not more so.
I am a far more adept searcher than most of the librarians I've met, simply because I know what I'm looking for, more or less.
Not everyone who works in a library is a librarian. More and more counter staff are unqualified library assistants (cheaper to employ than librarians), most of your dealings are probably with these usually hard-working, but less knowledgeable people. OTOH, IIRC about a third of all librarians are going to retire in the next five years so there are obviously many who are also stuck in their ways, but your local library is changing. Watch out for us new professionals who are using platforms such as Google books, Google Scholar, and even Wikipedia (quick tip: don't read the article, or skim read for an overview but always check it's sources; they usually cover the topic far better) to aid in your research.
Being a/. reader you can probably tell the reliability of an online source far better than an ordinary reader, but I'm teaching my students (I work in FE) how to use search engines efficiently, how to recognise reliable sources, and how to cite them, simply because their tutors don't really have time, and in the case of the first two parts don't always know. It's an interesting time to be a librarian
While their altruism is to be applauded: working to preserve people's privacy, I would find this "concern" over Google books more credible if it wasn't being advocated by one of the groups of workers who stand to lose the most from having a vast body of literature made easily available to individuals (or as librarians might call them: customers) without having to go to their local library.
This sounds to me like nothing more than the librarians trying to keep their jobs. While I don't disagree with that, I would appreciate it if they wouldn't take us for fools and try to wrap this up as some sort of "mission" they're on. Some honesty and transparency would get them more support.
PS: Now if my local library could get access to Google Books, allowing me to anonymously get ebooks through them and Google would only be aware of my library's credentials, with my library protecting my privacy, that'd be a serious win.
I've just implemented* a similar feature in our library, if you search our catalogue for any title that's also on Google books it will have google books link\icon under the picture of it's cover (puled from amazon). It's really there as an aid to check book you want is correct, but there's no reason you couldn't stay and read the whole thing via our OPAC. If this topic had come up in a couple of months I'd give you a URL to our on-line catalogue so you could see for yourself, but I haven't upgraded that yet, and out IT dept. has asked me to wait until October before I touch it, but once that's done, our students (actually anyone who knows the URL) will be able to search our catalogue and read google books from the comfort of their own PC
Along with the roll out of ebooks to our students this term, there's a lot going on in the LIS world, it's a great time to be a Librarian, information systems and technologies are changing fast, and staying ahead of the curve is a fun challenge, but things like Google books provide a great platform for research and reader development, it's just a shame that so many public libraries are having their funding cut, when they have so much to contribute in this brave new world.
*Well technically our ILS provider implemented it, I just enabled it as default
Well, I guess some libraries don't use the written record anymore, and just have a barcode. But a lot of them still use the old pencil/paper checkout system.
Apparently the librarians association has an extremely short memory, or else they are all going senile.
Where the hell uses a pencil\paper checkout system?? Hell more and more libraries are moving past barcodes to RFID, at least that's the trend here in the UK. If there's a public or academic library in this country that still uses the old card system I'd like to see it. The only place I can see for it's use is small specialist member-only libraries with a very small focused collection and readership. Even then it'd be easier to use an Access database.
I recently looked into possibly going into the field myself, and found that my interest perhaps wasn't as unusual as I first thought, as there is a massive overlap with computer science and information systems, including a concentration in Informatics for people going for their Masters in Library Science.
Go for it, I'm doing a second degree in Library and information Science having done my first in Software engineering. At least here in the UK, there's a massive shortage of e-librarians, systems librarians, electronic information librarians (or whatever they've called the post). Furthermore, most of these types of post are springing up in the academic sector, meaning that someone else is responsible for getting your institution funding, you just have to get it for your department like in any other walk of life, and if you do go into a systems librarian type of post, even that is usually someone else's problem, you just have to secure funding for your own projects, and if you're trying out Facebook or twitter for reader development work (for example) no funding needed, only permission, and you'd be surprised how easy it is to get that, especially if another institution is doing something similar already.
Maybe the private option (Google) will put the public option (The Library) out of business. It's kind of a reverse of the healthcare debate.
There are still many many people in the UK that need public libraries in the UK in order to use Google; not everyone has an internet connection at home. I assume the same is true in the USA. Academic libraries are currently aslo going from strength to strength, I'm currently rolling E-books out to our students, as well as running research skills workshops teaching them things such as how to recognise a reliable source on the internet and how to cite properly.
The library isn't dead yet, and shows no sign of doing so, contrary to popular opinion, librarians are tech savvy and evolve with the times. Furthermore our jobs are both more rewarding and far more fun than any other information science jobs... I could make far more money doing something else with my Software engineering degree, but then I'd have to put up with the hassle and pressure of the IT industry. Why bother?
>>>.people may have an expectation of privacy where none actually exists.
Correct. And the summary is wrong about libraries deleting private information. I went to the library a few weeks ago, after having not visited the place since 1996, and they still had all my records on file. The question people should be asking:
"Does it matter?" In this case no it doesn't matter if they find-out I borrowed a copy of Judge Joseph Story's Constitutional Interpretation, but this could be dangerous if another Emperor Napoleon came-along and scoured through information to uncover his enemies.
Different Libraries and librarians do different things. I'm a librarian here in the UK, Every year in August I delete the records of all students who have left the college I work for over two years ago*. Indeed under the data protection act I'm required to remove all information about anyone from our system once we no longer have a use for it.
*occasionally a student record will still have a book or particularly high fine attached to it. I don't delete these until the matter is resolved.
I think that we'll have to agree to disagree here, I do however wish to address one single point that you made, because I believe it's potentially dangerous
An appeal to the majority is a logical fallacy.
In logic, yes, but we're talking about representative democracy. There is no way to determine an absolute right and wrong, so we use an appeal to the majority as our best guess. If you can't convince a majority of the people to respect your position and values, you're not supposed to wield power on behalf of the people.
Even in a representative democracy, sometimes leaders need to lead, and not follow popular opinion. The abolition of slavery and the end of the death penalty (to name but two) were brought about by parliament against the wishes of the population of the day. Since those acts popular opinion has followed. The same has been true of many causes throughout history.
Parliament, whilst there to represent the wishes of the people is also there to guard against mob rule. I believe it was Churchill who said that "the best argument against democracy is a five minute chat with your average voter". He had a point, I don't have time to inform myself on every issue from cucumber regulation to fox hunting. I may have a general moral opinion, but (in theory) our MPs are paid to study the issues and base a conclusion on all the facts, not just the press feeds us. You shouldn't make law based on what's printed in the Sun and the Mail...
Firstly, the Commissioners are the ones with real power. The directly elected groups are so impotent in practice as to be effectively irrelevant; such powers as they nominally do possess have been ineffective at influencing the Commission to any significant degree.
I'd say that the council of Ministers is at least as, if not more important than the Commission myself, after all it contains executive officers from all the member states, who will have to get directives through their respective countries legislatures. Secondly, the parliament did a good job of blocking Software patents recently. It has more power than you think.
Secondly, it's bad enough that our government is determined through an average of averages and that we don't directly elect the executive independent of the legislature, but anyone we send to be a Commissioner is one level further removed still.
That's a Westminster problem, we could have an elected executive as in the USA, even so the Commissioners are no more removed than the Lords, and are easier to replace. Indeed, incoming governments usually replace our commissioner with "one of their own" at the earliest opportunity.
Even then we send only one Commissioner, with all the others provided by other nations without our having any say at all and we don't get to choose which portfolio each Commissioner gets.
You mean they represent constituencies? Only the people of Sedgefield voted for Tony Blair, I don't remember people saying it was undemocratic that he was Prime Minister, or people complaining that because only the people of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath voted for Gordon Brown he should been Chancellor, the same goes for all UK cabinet portfolios. I don't get a say about who's the next home secretary, I don't see the outcry about how that's undemocratic. Sure there was some hoo-haa about Gordon Brown becoming PM, but whilst I would never vote for him, the people complaining just showed that they didn't know how the UK constitution worked.
Once again, you imply a false dichotomy, as if a nation is either "in" Europe or "out" of it.
Note the words "decision making process" in my reply. The only way to remain in the EEA decision making process is in the EU, just ask Norway and the Swiss if they have any say over the 70-80% of directives they have implement to stay in the EEA
As I noted in my previous post, the two major benefits to European integration — the trade agreements and the human rights agreements — were both working, and working pretty well actually, long before the European Union came along. It's all the expensive, unaccountable crap that has been added since Maastricht that I object to.
What part of Masstricht exactly do you oppose? IIRC it actually seeded less sovereignty than the Single European act prior to it, whilst building on the same principles. It's only really remembered because of the political climate it was passed in.
And if you think I'm the only one,
An appeal to the majority is a logical fallacy.
or that my country
I also live in the UK, it's my country as well.
is the only place where the people would prefer the simpler, more transparently useful agreements of old, take a look at the results in every country that actually allowed its people to have a say on the Lisbon Treaty, and notice how many governments had to cut their people out of that decision-making process entirely because they knew damn well what the result of any referendum would be. Tell me again how Europe is democratic, would you please?
Straw Man, the EU has no say over whether member states give their people referenda on international treaties; indeed the Germans constitution bans them from doing it, whilst the Irish one makes them. No EU involved. Personally I'm ag
Why do people keep peddling this myth? Both the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers are elected bodies; it's true that the commission is made up of appointees, but they are appointed by elected member governments - a bit like the house of lords, except that commissioners don't get life terms. All in all it's just as, if not more (due to PR) democratic than our system here in the UK
If you really think that it's in Britain's interest to remove itself from direct access to and the decision making process of the world's largest free trade block, it's your prerogative. However, you'll excuse me if I choose to exercise my freedom of movement and move to another EU member state if UKIP ever look like forming a government. I want to leave before the inevitable economic crash that'll make the 'credit crunch' look like a walk in the park.
Slashdot Mirror
Yesterday,... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1415789.stm .
That link is from 8 years ago.
(origin of life 'E'volution, not short-term mutation 'e'volution.)
Which theory of evolution claims to explain the origin of life? I don't know of any scientist that claims abiogenesis and evolution are one and the same, so either they're quacks, or you're misrepresenting their views.
And our natural tendency to assume that correlation implies causation has also left much of the population convinced that the world will end if they drop a mirror after tripping over a black cat and falling under a ladder on Friday 13th.
Firstly, walking under a ladder is a dumb idea, regardless of the luck it supposedly gives discouraging it is no bad thing. Secondly black cats signify good luck. Now to my point, I kinda like some superstitions, if I see a black cat, or find a penny etc. well, then I know I'll be lucky the rest of the day and be that little bit happier and more confident. As long as I know it's just my superstition, don't depend on it and ignore the more depressing ones what harm does it do?
One reason, I gather, that their press is so restrained when reporting on the lives of the wealthy is that they have to be very careful to avoid having somebody with deep pockets decide that they don't like having their private lives exposed...
You've obviously never read a British tabloid newspaper, have you? Go read copy of the Sun or the Mail to see just how wrong that statement is.
I'm not sure how you solve the problem of the estimated population of the earth in, say, 200 years if it continues increasing at the current rate.
People were famously worrying about overpopulation 200 years ago, I'm sure that 200 years in the future, we won't have run into a Malthusian Catastrophe, but people will still be worrying that we might.
Do they have any website, representation or payment processing ?
I personally like http://www.jamendo.com/
However, it is likely that competition authorities in the UK and EU will probe the deal.
Is there ever any news of mergers that hit Slashdot that aren't probed by the EU?
It tends not to be news if two tiny companies merge to form another small company; that happens all the time without regulators getting involved, it's just not important enough to hit the/. front page.
We have. Look at the Pirate Party in Europe. The difference is here in the USA we have a flawed system... When you are advocating a third choice in a system designed for only two choices, its very hard to get a third choice accepted.
The American system is FPTP like the British one, we managed to get a Third Party, and a bunch of smaller ones. Why the USA hasn't developed "The Texas independence party" or "The New York First Party" etc. is beyond me. You guys should have parties from all 50 states represented in congress, where are all your local parties?
And just because you stand little chance of being elected isn't a reason not to create or join a smaller party. The Greens in the UK have all three main parties spouting their message because they were taking important votes in marginal constituencies. They've never had a single seat, but they've effectively won the argument. That's far more important than getting power, and it's a part of our strategy as well. We know we're not going to win a seat, but we can make others lose until they listen to our message (in case it's not obvious enough I recently joined the Pirate Party UK).
There are revisionist movements of course, but these are fringe groups who are having very little headway against the entrenched status quo.
I guess you've never hear of the Church of England, you know the UK state religion. Guess who's at the top? The Queen, yes a Woman; they also have women Bishops, their US counterparts, the episcopalians allow Gay priests. It's so marginal that it's only been around since 1534 when Henry the 8th Split from Rome and founded it so he could get a divorce.
I'm no Christian, but the notion that reformists in the Christian mainstream are "fringe groups" and are "making very little headway" is patent nonsense.
Yeah they have stalls at little markets around the place and give out free "stress tests". No writing to say what organisation, being intrigued and board found the stand, took one look, promptly voiced my opinion about their scam and went on my merry way.
I do the opposite, they frequent the centre of my city with clipboard and pen asking people to "answer a quick question" I always stop and take their survey then pretend to be interested taking as much of their time as possible. Turns out that they're actually interested in selling me books, so I ask lots of questions about the book. Never once do the mention Scientology. Eventually they refer me to a more senior member who more or less tells me to get lost. So I leave having wasted a good half hour of their time. That's a few lost sales there.
when i bought a nokia e71 it had a silent camera. they updated the firmware to include a camera click that can't be turned off (trust me i tried, silent profiles, registry settings, warning tones off and a 100 other methods that had worked in the past).
My DSi has a noisy camera as well; IIRC it even says in the manual that you can't turn the 'click' sound off. I get around this by plugging in my earphones to disable the speaker; couldn't you do the same with your phone?
I do like how I can move the tabs around and even make a tab into a new window (although I find this happens way too often by accident).
Firefox has this as well, I just tried it on Firefox 3.5.2; never done it by mistake though.
Is there some kind of horrible joke going on in the goverment, like "Let's see how much we can destory democracy and piss people off before we're kicked out"? The the winner in the next election will have to try to set a new high-score....
I'm selling this idea to Endamol. We might end up with a totalitarian state, but at least we'll have the best reality TV.
I don't think anyone in the UK has a problem with Mrs Windsor.
I think a significant number of people in the UK oppose the system of monarchy, if not the arbitrary family we happen to have. The thing is, it's not an opinion that's aired all that often, because of the 1848 Treason Felony Act, which makes it a criminal offence, punishable by life imprisonment, to advocate abolition of the monarchy in print. ... which is pretty shameful.
Good luck finding a jury that'll convict. Hell read your own link, the reason the Law Lords didn't strike it down was because the Guardian had breached it on multiple occasions and failed to be even investigated, let alone prosecuted under it. The Law Lords basically said "We'll never convict anyone under this act, but it's not our role to repeal it, go and ask Parliament"
Google for Koha and Evergreen; both FOSS library software; I know we keep checking to see if they're viable platforms for our library yet.
Not to belittle librarians, but I've never found any that could help me beyond the Dewey Decimal System or whatever particular system that library used. Asking for where to get further research was basically, "Here are the tools we have and how you do a rudimentary search using them. Good luck." It's gotten better over the years because now we can search multiple types of materials in one place instead of going to the card catalog, and the periodicals catalog, and the "Academic research" catalog ad nauseum. That has actually made librarians less relevant though, not more so.
I am a far more adept searcher than most of the librarians I've met, simply because I know what I'm looking for, more or less.
Not everyone who works in a library is a librarian. More and more counter staff are unqualified library assistants (cheaper to employ than librarians), most of your dealings are probably with these usually hard-working, but less knowledgeable people. OTOH, IIRC about a third of all librarians are going to retire in the next five years so there are obviously many who are also stuck in their ways, but your local library is changing. Watch out for us new professionals who are using platforms such as Google books, Google Scholar, and even Wikipedia (quick tip: don't read the article, or skim read for an overview but always check it's sources; they usually cover the topic far better) to aid in your research.
/. reader you can probably tell the reliability of an online source far better than an ordinary reader, but I'm teaching my students (I work in FE) how to use search engines efficiently, how to recognise reliable sources, and how to cite them, simply because their tutors don't really have time, and in the case of the first two parts don't always know. It's an interesting time to be a librarian
Being a
While their altruism is to be applauded: working to preserve people's privacy, I would find this "concern" over Google books more credible if it wasn't being advocated by one of the groups of workers who stand to lose the most from having a vast body of literature made easily available to individuals (or as librarians might call them: customers) without having to go to their local library.
This sounds to me like nothing more than the librarians trying to keep their jobs. While I don't disagree with that, I would appreciate it if they wouldn't take us for fools and try to wrap this up as some sort of "mission" they're on. Some honesty and transparency would get them more support.
If I was worried about my job would I be linking to Google books and Amazon from our OPAC and on-line catalogue, further details in my post here: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1352889&cid=29266201
PS: Now if my local library could get access to Google Books, allowing me to anonymously get ebooks through them and Google would only be aware of my library's credentials, with my library protecting my privacy, that'd be a serious win.
I've just implemented* a similar feature in our library, if you search our catalogue for any title that's also on Google books it will have google books link\icon under the picture of it's cover (puled from amazon). It's really there as an aid to check book you want is correct, but there's no reason you couldn't stay and read the whole thing via our OPAC. If this topic had come up in a couple of months I'd give you a URL to our on-line catalogue so you could see for yourself, but I haven't upgraded that yet, and out IT dept. has asked me to wait until October before I touch it, but once that's done, our students (actually anyone who knows the URL) will be able to search our catalogue and read google books from the comfort of their own PC
Along with the roll out of ebooks to our students this term, there's a lot going on in the LIS world, it's a great time to be a Librarian, information systems and technologies are changing fast, and staying ahead of the curve is a fun challenge, but things like Google books provide a great platform for research and reader development, it's just a shame that so many public libraries are having their funding cut, when they have so much to contribute in this brave new world.
*Well technically our ILS provider implemented it, I just enabled it as default
Well, I guess some libraries don't use the written record anymore, and just have a barcode. But a lot of them still use the old pencil/paper checkout system. Apparently the librarians association has an extremely short memory, or else they are all going senile.
Where the hell uses a pencil\paper checkout system?? Hell more and more libraries are moving past barcodes to RFID, at least that's the trend here in the UK. If there's a public or academic library in this country that still uses the old card system I'd like to see it. The only place I can see for it's use is small specialist member-only libraries with a very small focused collection and readership. Even then it'd be easier to use an Access database.
I recently looked into possibly going into the field myself, and found that my interest perhaps wasn't as unusual as I first thought, as there is a massive overlap with computer science and information systems, including a concentration in Informatics for people going for their Masters in Library Science.
Go for it, I'm doing a second degree in Library and information Science having done my first in Software engineering. At least here in the UK, there's a massive shortage of e-librarians, systems librarians, electronic information librarians (or whatever they've called the post). Furthermore, most of these types of post are springing up in the academic sector, meaning that someone else is responsible for getting your institution funding, you just have to get it for your department like in any other walk of life, and if you do go into a systems librarian type of post, even that is usually someone else's problem, you just have to secure funding for your own projects, and if you're trying out Facebook or twitter for reader development work (for example) no funding needed, only permission, and you'd be surprised how easy it is to get that, especially if another institution is doing something similar already.
Maybe the private option (Google) will put the public option (The Library) out of business. It's kind of a reverse of the healthcare debate.
There are still many many people in the UK that need public libraries in the UK in order to use Google; not everyone has an internet connection at home. I assume the same is true in the USA. Academic libraries are currently aslo going from strength to strength, I'm currently rolling E-books out to our students, as well as running research skills workshops teaching them things such as how to recognise a reliable source on the internet and how to cite properly.
The library isn't dead yet, and shows no sign of doing so, contrary to popular opinion, librarians are tech savvy and evolve with the times. Furthermore our jobs are both more rewarding and far more fun than any other information science jobs... I could make far more money doing something else with my Software engineering degree, but then I'd have to put up with the hassle and pressure of the IT industry. Why bother?
>>>.people may have an expectation of privacy where none actually exists.
Correct. And the summary is wrong about libraries deleting private information. I went to the library a few weeks ago, after having not visited the place since 1996, and they still had all my records on file. The question people should be asking: "Does it matter?" In this case no it doesn't matter if they find-out I borrowed a copy of Judge Joseph Story's Constitutional Interpretation, but this could be dangerous if another Emperor Napoleon came-along and scoured through information to uncover his enemies.
Different Libraries and librarians do different things. I'm a librarian here in the UK, Every year in August I delete the records of all students who have left the college I work for over two years ago*. Indeed under the data protection act I'm required to remove all information about anyone from our system once we no longer have a use for it.
*occasionally a student record will still have a book or particularly high fine attached to it. I don't delete these until the matter is resolved.
An appeal to the majority is a logical fallacy.
In logic, yes, but we're talking about representative democracy. There is no way to determine an absolute right and wrong, so we use an appeal to the majority as our best guess. If you can't convince a majority of the people to respect your position and values, you're not supposed to wield power on behalf of the people.
Even in a representative democracy, sometimes leaders need to lead, and not follow popular opinion. The abolition of slavery and the end of the death penalty (to name but two) were brought about by parliament against the wishes of the population of the day. Since those acts popular opinion has followed. The same has been true of many causes throughout history.
Parliament, whilst there to represent the wishes of the people is also there to guard against mob rule. I believe it was Churchill who said that "the best argument against democracy is a five minute chat with your average voter". He had a point, I don't have time to inform myself on every issue from cucumber regulation to fox hunting. I may have a general moral opinion, but (in theory) our MPs are paid to study the issues and base a conclusion on all the facts, not just the press feeds us. You shouldn't make law based on what's printed in the Sun and the Mail...
No, it's not.
Firstly, the Commissioners are the ones with real power. The directly elected groups are so impotent in practice as to be effectively irrelevant; such powers as they nominally do possess have been ineffective at influencing the Commission to any significant degree.
I'd say that the council of Ministers is at least as, if not more important than the Commission myself, after all it contains executive officers from all the member states, who will have to get directives through their respective countries legislatures. Secondly, the parliament did a good job of blocking Software patents recently. It has more power than you think.
Secondly, it's bad enough that our government is determined through an average of averages and that we don't directly elect the executive independent of the legislature, but anyone we send to be a Commissioner is one level further removed still.
That's a Westminster problem, we could have an elected executive as in the USA, even so the Commissioners are no more removed than the Lords, and are easier to replace. Indeed, incoming governments usually replace our commissioner with "one of their own" at the earliest opportunity.
Even then we send only one Commissioner, with all the others provided by other nations without our having any say at all and we don't get to choose which portfolio each Commissioner gets.
You mean they represent constituencies? Only the people of Sedgefield voted for Tony Blair, I don't remember people saying it was undemocratic that he was Prime Minister, or people complaining that because only the people of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath voted for Gordon Brown he should been Chancellor, the same goes for all UK cabinet portfolios. I don't get a say about who's the next home secretary, I don't see the outcry about how that's undemocratic. Sure there was some hoo-haa about Gordon Brown becoming PM, but whilst I would never vote for him, the people complaining just showed that they didn't know how the UK constitution worked.
Once again, you imply a false dichotomy, as if a nation is either "in" Europe or "out" of it.
Note the words "decision making process" in my reply. The only way to remain in the EEA decision making process is in the EU, just ask Norway and the Swiss if they have any say over the 70-80% of directives they have implement to stay in the EEA
As I noted in my previous post, the two major benefits to European integration — the trade agreements and the human rights agreements — were both working, and working pretty well actually, long before the European Union came along. It's all the expensive, unaccountable crap that has been added since Maastricht that I object to.
What part of Masstricht exactly do you oppose? IIRC it actually seeded less sovereignty than the Single European act prior to it, whilst building on the same principles. It's only really remembered because of the political climate it was passed in.
And if you think I'm the only one,
An appeal to the majority is a logical fallacy.
or that my country
I also live in the UK, it's my country as well.
is the only place where the people would prefer the simpler, more transparently useful agreements of old, take a look at the results in every country that actually allowed its people to have a say on the Lisbon Treaty, and notice how many governments had to cut their people out of that decision-making process entirely because they knew damn well what the result of any referendum would be. Tell me again how Europe is democratic, would you please?
Straw Man, the EU has no say over whether member states give their people referenda on international treaties; indeed the Germans constitution bans them from doing it, whilst the Irish one makes them. No EU involved. Personally I'm ag
completely undemocratic anyway
Why do people keep peddling this myth? Both the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers are elected bodies; it's true that the commission is made up of appointees, but they are appointed by elected member governments - a bit like the house of lords, except that commissioners don't get life terms. All in all it's just as, if not more (due to PR) democratic than our system here in the UK
If you really think that it's in Britain's interest to remove itself from direct access to and the decision making process of the world's largest free trade block, it's your prerogative. However, you'll excuse me if I choose to exercise my freedom of movement and move to another EU member state if UKIP ever look like forming a government. I want to leave before the inevitable economic crash that'll make the 'credit crunch' look like a walk in the park.