dieseltaylor

I do not think that The UK system is good. I approve of the Swiss system where power is from the bottom up,. And of course they use referendums. However I am not convinced even that system, best of breed, can necessarily be transported to a country and work. The reason for that is , if you like, education and control of news. is called " The lying US conglomerate Media" which is very interesting ten minutes showing how and why the population are manipulated to support causes. It gives very specific examples. In any event just as an example of misinformation here is an interesting article on misleading voters: http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/102.php It does not really matter what the subject is - the fact remains that in a democracy can manipulate the population if they have reasonable control of the media. And is it a surprise that media is being controlled by fewer and fewer organisations? Now if the mass of the population is not that clued up on lies/statistics/geography and history then the educated minority are screwed. : ) For all pratical puposes perhaps a monkish class of bureaucrats may provide a more long term view of govenmant, and better for not being chopped and changed every 4 years.

Did you discover what virus it was? The e-mail message may provide the header clue , if your wife can recall it , and if it had come from a friend it means their machine is spewing the stuff and also needs sorting.

There does seem to be an assumption here that democracy is inherently a good thing. And the US system the best, which it manifestly is not. Is there not a case for saying a society can have any type it wants provided it gives order and stability, and is not corrupt.

Looking back at images I came across this link to information I knew not! Hmmmm!

Pardon me but as a tax-payer I object to rich people evading tax. I cannot understand why any normal tax-payer would wish to pay more than a fair share. Please explain. Perhaps you do not read the correct resources or your view on legality is very narrow, Wikileaks was very good in showing documents where Barclays placed matched deals off-shore to save paying a couple of billion in tax. Just to make it clear there were no real loans taking place it was just back-to-back deals laundered through off-shore accounts. Now the majority of UK tax-payers, if they knew more, might take the view that Barclays is taking the piss and that what is legal and what is not is being exploited by sharks. In the US you may wonder why the Board of Lehman Brothers is not being sued by shareholders for corrupt practices. To whit when a section of the bank refused to buy contaminated slices of loans the guy was fired and the new boss was someone not versed in the area who was appointed from the Far East. The Lehman sellers for the contaminated loans then paid this new guy portions of their bonuses to take on the necessary slice of tainted CDO's. Which of course sunk the company in due course - and not very shortly afterwards. Dealers millions richer , Directors richer, shareholders screwed. It is interesting to consider that with all the so-called smart people on Wall St. that no one [ apart from those betting on a collapse] called foul. Now this is not really a matter of legality but I suggest if you are aware of a major threat to the well-being of the US your duty as a citizen demands you do something. Apparently there is not this onus In the US? Can that be right? If I am aware of a plot to bomb Wahington or New York it appears that making hay in the stock market is the appropriate response. Surely not! Or is there a difference subtle wrinkle I am missing?

At this time of year the New Scientist is normally good for a few articles on attraction. Perhaps the most interesting and amusing one was the finding that women were asked to dress oin their scruffy clothes, everyday clothes, and their most attractive dress. The pictures were then shown to a panel and invariably the women who was dressed in her nicest clothes was selected as the most attractive. The fun part was that all the photos were taken showing the face alone. So it would seem the inner confidence a women feels dressed for best is actually discernible in a picture. The second fun one is that wearing red, for both male and female, is a good move.

abneo3sierra I am surprised you should post such a lightweight link if you are seriously disbelieve in climate change. It is faintly interesting as a history of the greens. The question that I find most avoided by the anti- movement is the discussion about how recently has man been on the world and at what density was it ever populated. It is only around 8000 years ago that the UK became islands and at that stage the population was thousands. So what the hell has mass glaciation, mass tropicalisation over the last 4.5 billion years got to do with the survival chances of an animal that has been around for an tiny fragment of time. That there have been extreme winters and summers in the past thousands of years does not mean that the global warming is not a growing problem which will bring even more frequent extreme weather. The current climate just about supports the current population. Mankind changing climate in a way that increases the chances of more extreme weather is not a good idea. I am a great fan of being conservative and taking insuarance at bad things possibly happening. When it comes to millions of human lives then we should be very careful to reduce what are considered bad effects and to make sure there are many alternative technologies to help ride out any disasters. For disasters there will be. Unfortunately in this world there is little incentive, in fact every disincentive, to plan long term. Governments/politicians and corporations/executives all look to 4 years or slightly more as long term planning. There are exceptions such as China, Singapore, Japan and France where governments have planned long term. But what is saddening is that there are so few. The Anglo-Saxon capitalist model based so heavily on pay-back in short term time spans is a totally busted model.

The title was not US Govt. so your assumption was wrong not the title. I could have added firm into the title but it did not seem important : ) Treason - my personal opinion is that treason/ exonomic sabotage charges should be brought gaainst many in Wall St.. The damage they have done to the world is far more damaging than Wikileaks. Regarding Assange, he is an asse but he is our asse. In that I mean he is throwing light on that which some people would like hidden. I despair that all the good leaks that Wikileaks exposes are ignored whilst the US Government ones seem to get all the press. Perhaps people will realise how important it is that criminals both corporate , governmental, and private are exposed. Approximately $10 trillion is held in secret accounts around the world by private individuals - is it not right that there should be a means to expose them?

The activities of Anonymous have embarrassed and frightened those with things to hide, and those who attacked Wikileaks. So: Cyberactivists warned of arrest By Joseph Menn in San Francisco Published: February 4 2011 23:23 | Last updated: February 5 2011 00:40 An international investigation into cyberactivists who attacked businesses hostile to WikiLeaks is likely to yield arrests of senior members of the group after they left clues to their real identities on Facebook and in other electronic communications, it is claimed. Supporters of the internet group – known as Anonymous, which gained wide attention after it co-ordinated attacks that crashed the websites of some businesses that had broken ties with WikiLeaks – have continued to ambush high-profile targets, recently forcing government sites in Egypt and Tunisia to close. LEADING to ‘Hacktivists’ retaliate against security expert By Joseph Menn in San Francisco Published: February 7 2011 22:53 | Last updated: February 7 2011 22:53 The cyber-activist group Anonymous reacted quickly over the weekend to infiltration by a US security analyst, hacking into his personal online accounts and computers and distributing thousands of e-mails and other documents. The attack embarrassed researcher Aaron Barr, head of HBGary Federal, a contractor for US intelligence and other government agencies, while demonstrating that Anonymous has considerable technical abilities. However the full version is much more interesting, and even amusing. It is worth reading the full article about what this companies are into - gathering information against perceived opponents of their clients. Shortly after the overreaching CEO of Sacramento's so-called cybersecurity outfit, HBGary Federal, assembled an online attack plan against pro-Wikileaks supporters like Salon journalist Glenn Greenwald and prematurely bragged about "pwning" the upstart hacker collective Anonymous privately to his employees and publicly to the Financial Times, Anonymous quickly retaliated by raiding his drives, releasing 40,000 HBGary Federal emails, remotely wiping his iPad and engendering a scathing public disconnection from those who have known and employed him. Evidently, if you **** with the Internet bull, you still get the real-time horns. http://www.alternet.org/story/149943/%27anonymous%27_hacker_group_teaches_shady_cyber-security_companies_a_lesson_they%27ll_never_forget_?page=entire

http://www.canada.com/business/fp/China+grain+hoard+concerns+helps+lift+wheat/4281642/story.html However the physical hoarding is not necessarily a cause of higher prices as anyone can buy futures to increase the price for all.

What democracy were you thinking of as a role model? Singapore? Switzerland, Denmark?

http://www.alternet.org/story/149901/how_hosni_mubarak_became_one_of_the_richest_men_in_the_world_on_our_dime from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/04/hosni-mubarak-family-fortune

Dietrich - your analysis is fair enough but saying nothing is also an option : ) I do agree anyone can find dumb people in any ccountry. BTW are there any programmes on TV for clever people - we have a few on TV and radio. This is ABC and a scathing indictment on the US education system failing its students: And this is a lengthier film on Youtube which is a seven part video by PBS on the US education system. Rather startlingly it says that up to 50% of US teachers resign within 5 years! The Finnish system which is the highest rated has teachers training for 6 years and they must have degrees. Only 10% pass the initial teacher training assessment. The difference in pay between the two systems is marginal. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AK_11KajyY I saw only five of the series. And just to show where an easy fix might be: " Summer learning loss is the loss in academic skills and knowledge over the course of summer vacation. The loss in learning varies across grade level, subject matter, and family income. A common finding across numerous studies is that on average, students score lower on standardized tests at the end of the summer than they do at the beginning of summer (on the same test). Summer loss for all students is estimated to be equal to about 1 month (Cooper 1996), but this varies across subject matter: Mathematics - 2.6 months of grade-level equivalency loss Reading- Varies across SES. Low income students generally lose about 2 months of reading achievement. Middle income students experience slight gains in reading performances. For over a century, scholars have recognized that summer vacation is a period when students’ rate of academic development declines relative to the school year. All children lose academic skills during the summer months, and family socioeconomic status (SES) is highly correlated to the level of academic growth or decline in the summer months. Two-thirds of the academic achievement gap in reading and language found among high school students has been explained through the learning loss that occurs during the summer months of the primary school years.[1]" wiki

What gets my goat is the claptrap of the virtues of democracy and people getting choice - so like the UK invading Iraq?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Carton_de_Wiart what a life!!!

Really hawkmek? who do you think Pešadija really is! : ) kidding

http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/gallery/index.php?showimage=5580 I am a member of this fine organisation : ) News It was a bestseller in the UK, and now our pocket-sized, full-colour cloud identification guide is coming out in the US, published by Chronicle Books. Besides teaching you to distinguish your Cumulus humilis from your Altocumulus lenticularis, the book also works as a game: you collect points for the different clouds you spot. You can buy the US edition of The Cloud Collector's Handbook at all the usual outlets, including [url deleted]here at amazon.com. (Or just go to your [url deleted]nearest independent bookstore.) And while we're on the subject, the handbook is also out in French and Japanese: [url deleted]Le Petit Guide Marabout des Nuages (French edition) [url deleted]「雲」のコレクターズ・ガイド (Japanese edition)

Perfection is not expected. However without knowing how many were interviewed in the clip it is not possible to see if this was a truly representative example. The pdf i linked to does provide pure data and it does suggest that despite its global clout that the US citizen is not that aware globally. More recent stuff from the National Geographic is suggesting that education times with globes is increasing. My personal view is everyone should be taught where nations are. I cannot see how difficult it is to look at a map and learn where countries are - in fact it should be the basic building block. If you subscribe to the neural concept of information storage [ mindmapping essentially] then having countries as early imprinted nodes makes adding more information much easier. An education system that does not teach what the world looks like and where major countries are at an early stage is fundamentally flawed IMO. I doubt that it is done in the UK : (

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geosurvey2002/download/RoperSurvey.pdf Not any country.

That was funny and also very very scary. I am not sure even in the Antipodes you could get that much ignorance. : ) Is it me but I am beginning to believe voting should be basic one man one vote and then multiply it out by education or voluntary exams. In the US they just use money but I am not sure I like that system as it rewards the rich.

Next! DETROIT/MILAN (Reuters) -- Ferrari said today it will use the full name of its "Ferrari F150th Italia" Formula One car from now on after Ford Motor Co. sued the Italian automaker over the use of the abbreviation "F150." Ferrari's F150 logo was too similar to Ford's F-150 pickup truck, part of the top-selling vehicle series in the United States, Ford said in a complaint filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Detroit. As of noon local time, Ford said it had not yet received formal notification of Ferrari's plans. "Ferrari has misappropriated the F-150 trademark in naming its new racing vehicle the 'F150' in order to capitalize on and profit from the substantial goodwill that Ford has developed in the F-150 trademark," Ford said in the complaint on Wednesday. For petes sake!

OK so perhaps the Yanks have a better idea of hpw confused the US population can be. But given the race car is not for sale, and their is no F1 racing in the US, and Ferrari is a good brand you would think Ford might benefit from any possible confusion. Still, stupidity and automakers .....

I had not even thought of this alternative steering! http://www.gizmag.com/vyrus-986-m2-factory-moto2-hub-center-racebike/17837

No matter how I look at this, it still seems like science fiction – a combat aircraft without a pilot that is capable of flying itself, making its own decisions, recognizing and neutralizing threats, and taking off and landing on an aircraft carrier. Last Friday (Feb 4), the Northrop Grumman-built U.S. Navy X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration (UCAS-D) aircraft successfully completed its historic first flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The era of the unmanned combat plane is fast approaching. http://www.gizmag.com/x-47b-first-flight-the-era-of-the-autonomous-unmanned-combat-plane-approaches/17817/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=51c3b77680-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email Advancing faster than I thought~!

Yaquinto did CM level games called Armor and '88 so if you can get them second-hand ...... Armor is a tactical-level game of ground combat in Europe during World War II. The strengths and weaknesses of the German and Allied units involved are accurately and playably duplicated by forty-nine data cards that display all information needed to move and fight. The system easily incorporates myriad details such as armor thicknesses at various points, shots from various angles, heights, and altitudes, and the effects of terrain. The rules cover the important aspects of small unit tactics - armor piercing shots, small arms fire, artillery barrages, air support, communications, gun depression, mines, barbed wire, pillboxes, smoke, and much more. The game system is shared with our earlier popular Panzer and "88" games, and the rules and components in all three games are compatible. The types of units include counters for infantry, anti-tanks guns, Panthers, Tigers, Armored Cars, Half-Tracks, Churchills, Shermans, Tank Destroyers, and much, much more. Armor is in the Yaquinto tactical trilogy along with 88 and Panzer. MBT uses the same system in the modern era. IDF uses the same system in Middle East wars. courtesy of boardgamegeek.com