The moose managed to flee the scene unharmed.Well thank God for this. :P
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/health/valerie-spruill-unknowingly-married-her-father-had-3-children
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh what is up with that town?
What do you guys think of Julian Assange??Free him.
I don't know if I buy the actual tweets, but the fact that Golden Dawn is fricken' scary I certainly buy into.Nazis,what did ya expect?
Economically, it's arguable that Greece is in as bad a mess as 1930s Germany. Which I know fires off Godwin's Law, but even so - GD are a worrying, worrying political force.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20961651
The home of democracy and land of the free doesn't want us to have a referendum?
I thought God chose him to be pope, surely that would be reason enough not to quit?
I thought God chose him to be pope, surely that would be reason enough not to quit?There are several precedents for doing so, apparently God can choose to kick people out again.
I thought God chose him to be pope, surely that would be reason enough not to quit?There are several precedents for doing so, apparently God can choose to kick people out again.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/07/clapper-secret-nsa-surveillance-prism (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/07/clapper-secret-nsa-surveillance-prism)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jun/07/uk-gathering-secret-intelligence-nsa-prism (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jun/07/uk-gathering-secret-intelligence-nsa-prism)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22809541 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22809541)
All this makes this: http://i.imgur.com/ffOqkI4.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/ffOqkI4.jpg) more worrying...
The best thing was the US defence of PRISM - "We were only going to use it to spy on foreigners outside of our jurisdiction..." LIKE THAT MAKES IT ANY BETTER?!
This isn’t really about porn though is it? This is the thin end of the wedge whereby my Glorious Leaders will soon decide which sites are right for me and which aren’t.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jordanzakarin/turkish-protestor-chorus-sings-les-mis
Les Mis, as practically applied by Turks. ;D
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23401076
Oh noes they are stealing all of teh porn.
Any thoughts on this? I like the idea of it myself. Also
"In addition, the prime minister will say possessing online pornography depicting rape will be illegal."
armadillo I'd always assumed that was already the case.
A third of women believe there are varying degrees of rape, according to new figures.
The same proportion also think if a woman does not fight back, then she cannot have experienced rape.
...
A quarter of the 1,000 women surveyed wrongly thought if someone was drunk it could not be classed as rape, while 60% thought it did not count if a woman does not say no.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23986595
"The spells and things that you're reading in the Harry Potter books, those aren't just something that are made up, those are actual spells. Those are things that came from witchcraft books," says Tess.
Yes! Harry Potter is actually non-fiction, I was right.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6057734.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6057734.stm) Lol, what a portugalwit.
Yeah, I've stopped watching the news already, just read it online.
Also, apparently Britain is armadillo http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/adam-ramsay/scotland-isnt-different-its-britain-thats-bizarre
I think it's an excessively negative view of modern Britain and an overly rosy view of the continent, which lord knows has enough of its own problems. I hope Scotland sticks with us, I like the place a lot... but that said, I agree with some of the stuff in the article (like taxpayer funded higher education and not having such a bad wealth gap). In many cases I'd advocate a different way of getting there to classical European social democracy though.
I do wonder whether an independent Scotland could keep up the free higher education. In the past it used to be a clear gap between pre-degree and post-degree salaries, so the extra taxes you paid would effectively 'pay back' your education fees. But now we've got more people than ever going to university and a high amount of graduate unemployment, so I'm not convinced it's a stable position.Well if they were to use our system it wouldn't help them at all, we still don't actually require graduates to pay their debts unless they can afford to and unemployed graduates definitely can't afford to. Keeping higher education free but restricting places (particularly to those degree options with low employability) would be a more practical solution. And I think they have had to do that up here already to some extent.
Afghanistan's Ashraf Ghani leads in early vote count
Former Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani is leading the race to replace Hamid Karzai as president, according to preliminary results.
Mr Ghani won 56.44% of votes in the 14 June run-off, election officials said. His rival Abdullah Abdullah had 43.56%.
Mr Abdullah, who fell just short of an outright majority in the first round, rejected the result.
Both men have alleged fraud in the election. Votes are being re-checked at more than 7,000 polling stations.
They represent nearly a third of centres where votes were cast and correspondents say recounts could significantly alter the result.
I'm also kind of hoping for a fairly measured approach to that side of it too..
So 269 = 255 and 646 = 649? This is going to change the math world forever. :oI must have missed something, or maybe I'm just not looking in the right place. What was the news story behind this?
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/517859/Jeremy-Clarkson-outrage-driving-Argentina-Falklands-War-numberplateSo 269 = 255 and 646 = 649? This is going to change the math world forever. :oI must have missed something, or maybe I'm just not looking in the right place. What was the news story behind this?
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/517859/Jeremy-Clarkson-outrage-driving-Argentina-Falklands-War-numberplateMany thanks. I'd spotted the Clarkson story, but I didn't know someone had tried to tie up the other two number plates to the Falklands War as well.
I like our self deprecation. It's in many ways not a bad characteristic.
And suddenly, Republicans everywhere.
Say goodbye to any legislation whatsoever being passed for the next two years, America! Oh, and good luck even getting budgets passed, which now may not even happen. :P
They try for too much at once. It's got to be subtle and from the bottom.I think this is the core of the matter - they need to be pushing to get a few seats in state legislatures in Libertarian-leaning states (Colorado, Maine, possibly New Mexico Nebraska). They can then use that local government base as a springboard to get seats in Congress, if they can become popular by have ground gains. Instead they seem to be blowing their funds on the presidency or the senate which are much more distant goals, it's all about building up the ground game. That's what worked for the Liberals in the UK, though they've screwed things up since getting into coalition.
On another topic, Sweden have upheld their arrest warrant for Assange.
The way I see it, if he's innocent then why doesn't he defend himself against the allegations?
Well has Glaurung been to Russia yet?No, the closest I've got is the border station in Lithuania. Besides, I thought Putin had got all their gold already.
Another piece of good news (in my opinion): a court in Buenos Aires has decided that an orangutan, though not human, is sentient enough to be entitled to certain basic rights. More in a BBC News article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-30571577).
I'm imagining the legal mess if every scientific lab with monkeys in it was faced with attempts to push through Habeas Corpus writs.
Doesn't need to be on the exact people, there's collective guilt/debt etc not just personal.
EDIT: I'm hoping France bans Islam and possibly all public worship. To make that clear, being a 'x religionist' is still legal just do it in your own home.
I'm not blaming them for it, I'm saying its systemic.Yes, you are. Stop trying to pretend your views here are based on anything other than bigotry and cowardice, its utterly pathetic.
it's more like Charlie loses, killers lose, and we lose.I did not say we win, in fact I said we lose but also they lose as well. I was arguing against you saying that they win if we're simply under excessive govt surveillance.
| Years | Successful attacks | Known prevented attacks | Death toll |
| 2000-04 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2005-09 | 3 | 5 | 56 |
| 2010-14 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
@penty: Glad you know exactly where my thoughts come from, for a moment there I was thinking only I had access to that knowledge! Do you know what the word bigot means? It's a person that it intolerant towards a different view. This would include yourself. The word is near meaningless when we're talking about views that naturally oppose, as each is likely bigoted towards the other. I get my views from the same place you do, what I believe is right. As much as you do I have a right to believe whatever the portugal I want. Cowardice? Unlike you however I live in a place where the issues we talk about here are actually in effect. There is Muslim violence, there is anti-muslim violence. Have you ever seen someone get stabbed literally feet away from you? Have you been to a place where being white is such a detriment that you're only one of about twenty out of two hundred? I'm thinking no. I portugaling love Northants it suits me perfectly, I love the grime but damn it can get get rough.Yeah I know what bigot means, I'd say it doesn't apply to me as I'm not intolerant of other views. I find yours to be abhorrent but I wouldn't try to force you to change them. I don't argue against your views out of spite or any desire to be right, I do it because I very firmly believe that hatred does not lead to happiness, and therefore your life would be improved by letting go of it.
That's in no way the question I'm posing here for one. If you stabbed a Christian because you thought their faith was wrong then a Christian might get it into his/her head that stabbing an atheist is just retribution.
Sometimes (opinion, for some reason this seems to need to be made clear) collectives do need to pay (money, not evil villain style pay) for wrongs that they personally didn't commit. I didn't personally make anyone homeless but I pay taxes which house them and give them food credits which I'm also (relatively) happy to do.
Basically you hit the nail on the head Jub, Islamic terrorism here has increased (from 0) since Islamist terror began.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents#1970.E2.80.93present Here is a link to global terrorism. Boko Haram, Taliban, al-Quaeda, al-Nusra, ISIL come up time and again. In comparison there is very little non-Islamic terrorism. Granted this is at least partially because the west chooses who is the terrorist and who is the freedom fighter but I digress. I've not been through all of it by any means.
I do hate Muslims this is true
a Christian might get it into his/her head that stabbing an atheist is just retribution.
I'm giving a reason for people to think the way these people are.
they're defending their home/country/friends. Just doing it wrong but with the right intentions.
They would be wrong. Stabbing the atheist in question would be retribution.
So make ISIS pay, make al-Qaeda pay, make the Taliban pay, but don't make ordinary people pay. Terrorist attacks are supported or carried out by terrorist groups on the whole
Non-Islamic terrorism has also increased since non-Islamic terrorism began. Everything that begins increases since it didn't exist, by definition.
Indeed it is. It is also probably because these militant groups are primarily based in more unstable and/or less well-off parts of the world, which also happen to be places where Islam is a dominant faith (note that there are also plenty of places with many Muslims which are not unstable or poor).
If someone close to you converted to Islam, would you then hate them?
Also, what should happen to the (presumably Muslim) family of the Muslim police officer? Are they collectively responsible for that murder just because they are of the same faith as his killers? Is he responsible for his own death, because his killers shared his faith?
Stop with your demonising, actually read what I'm saying before casting your judgments.Perhaps you should stop repeatedly posting inflammatory things about Muslims without clear enough explanation so you don't then have to backtrack later on. Because frankly I find it very hard to believe you.
@Penty: I'm also not intolerant of other views, I fully accept that people can believe in a cause so thoroughly that they're prepared to die for it, I know that people seek vengeance on others for no reason than they read about something that happened. I do hate Muslims this is true, surely the cowardly thing would be to deny it? Say: Oh no I only hate the evil ones, it's not true for me. I'm not patronising you by pretending otherwise. I also try as best I can to look at it from multiple angles, each of which are obviously tainted by my biases but believe it or not, I do try. Yes you're wrong, I don't value 'innocent' Muslim lives as much as other peoples (Innocent is also a weird word to use. If you mean innocent of causing violence, well I'm innocent but then my views are far from it, see what I mean. Because one can't know the thoughts of another it's impossible to tell who is innocent and who is not) and in this thread I'm not advocating anything. Another thing is that we have very different values and I'd also hate to lose mine, I've done that once already but that's a completely separate thing which I don't want to get into particularly. You're mixing things I've said in different threads. Which is bad because I'm the devils advocate, if I wasn't here there would be no sides it'd be a circle jerk of self congratulation on how morally superior you all obviously are.How are you not intolerant? You hate a group of people for identifying themselves with a specific but very broad religion (not even a specific set of values) and want France (and other western countries?) to ban all forms of public prayer. That sounds very much like intolerance to me without even mentioning the other views you've espoused about Islam in other threads.
In fact I keep politics all to one side completely when dealing with people irl because obviously I know that I hold rather extreme views.Is this because you're ashamed of your views, fearful of people's reactions or just that you want to avoid a great deal of fairly pointless argument? If its the latter (and I'm guessing it is) then I apologise for accusing you of cowardice. And I unreservedly apologise for not elaborating on why I was making a fairly personal attack in the first instance.
Is this because you're ashamed of your views, fearful of people's reactions or just that you want to avoid a great deal of fairly pointless argument?
Although Euro MPs and ministers have agreed to give states more flexibility, EU scientists will still play a key role in authorisations.
But the UK Conservative group in Strasbourg has criticised the new law, saying it "allows member states to proceed directly to national bans, rather than first seeking a more legally sound 'opt-out
So does this mean that Governments will have EU approved power to allow things and complete access on banning things?
@TTG4 Is GM still too new to have blanket use among countries with the tech to do it or are there (non-moral, I don't even get the morals against it anyway but ehh whatever) future implications such as, erm I don't know, weakening the crop through excessive engineering? Or would it be a good idea to modify everything to increase size, nutritional value, insect-proof-ness etc?
damn there's so much negativity towards it, for as far as I can tell, almost no reason.
Apparently blight is not just a thing from Warcraft 3 and kills loads of potatoes #JeSuisPotato.
Florida 'zombie cat' crawls out of grave
A cat in Florida has had surgery after apparently clawing its way out of his grave following a collision with a car.
Bart was discovered by its owner's neighbour in Tampa five days after he was found lying in the road stiff in a pool of blood, and was presumed dead.
He is now recovering after treatment for a broken jaw and ruptured eye.
What is it with the american police these days?I think there are two factors here:
Senate candidate in Florida admits drinking goat blood
A Florida candidate for US Senate has come under criticism after it emerged that he once killed a goat and drank its blood.
Augustus Sol Invictus admits he "sacrificed" the animal as part of a pagan ritual, but it was not "sadistic" as some of his critics have alleged.
The Libertarian Party candidate is unlikely to win the seat.
Meanwhile, in Minnesota people are smashing up cars with vegetables now:I was sufficiently curious to do the obvious physics calculations for this. A 1465 lb (666 kg) mass at a height of 80 feet (24.4 m) has a potential energy of 159 kJ. Assuming no significant air drag, the impact speed is 21.9 m/s = 48.7 mph.
Not a game I've heard of, should I have done? I guess what's always hard to know with these things is what answer you'd actually get if you polled everyone - whether silence means consent, apathy, or not having enough time & energy to speak.
Good to see Tim blazing the trail. Heh heh heh.In all seriousness this is better than some of the stuff our press people come up with sometimes.
Grim. Northamptons police force; most of the ones I've met have been nice but this is lowering my estimation of them as a whole.Grim indeed, but I would try not to let it reflect on your estimation of a particular police service, or police in general. They're human beings: none of them are perfect, and some of them commit crimes, like the rest of the human race. It would be interesting to know how the crime rates for police officers match up to those for the population as a whole. One would hope that police commit fewer crimes than the average person.
Who else would kill a far left nut other than a far right nut?CG: I don't know whether you're joking about this, perhaps because I have no sense of humour whatsoever about the whole situation at the moment. In fact I am extremely angry.
I found it odd that terrorist groups don't target MPsNot at the moment, but the IRA and INLA did - four murders of MPs between 1979 and 1990. This included the bomb at the Brighton hotel hosting the Conservative Party conference in 1984, which could easily have killed many members of the government. Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serving_British_MPs_who_were_assassinated) for reference.
BLM spawned because of the Obama organization's agenda to divide the races and "get back at whitey". It and the media don't work together, so no tinfoil hats, but the media definitely takes advantage of what they do.
Obama, well his wife more than likely, want to get revenge on the white man
Our findings revealed that men were preferred for male-dominated jobs (i.e., gender-role congruity bias), whereas no strong preference for either gender was found for female-dominated or integrated jobs. Second, male raters exhibited greater gender-role congruity bias than did female raters for male-dominated jobs. Third, gender-role congruity bias did not consistently decrease when decision makers were provided with additional information about those they were rating, but gender-role congruity bias was reduced when information clearly indicated high competence of those being evaluated. Fourth, gender-role congruity bias did not differ between decisions that required comparisons among ratees and decisions made about individual ratees. Fifth, decision makers who were motivated to make careful decisions tended to exhibit less gender-role congruity bias for male-dominated jobs. Finally, for male-dominated jobs, experienced professionals showed smaller gender-role congruity bias than did undergraduates or working adults.Link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262682077_A_Meta-Analysis_of_Gender_Stereotypes_and_Bias_in_Experimental_Simulations_of_Employment_Decision_Making
and the idea of not using this because gender or ethnic diversity is somehow more important than competency is pure retarded.This.
Pangolins are possible coronavirus hosts, Chinese scientists say
By Caitlin O'Kane
February 7, 2020 / 11:27 AM / CBS News
Pangolins are possible hosts of coronavirus, a study led by South China Agricultural University has found.
Experts believe the outbreak originated at wild animal markets in Wuhan, China. After analyzing more than 1,000 samples, scientists found that the genome sequence of the virus in pangolins was 99% identical to that from infected people. That means pangolins are the most likely intermediate host of coronavirus, Liu Yahong, president of the university, said, according to state media.
Pangolins, which look like scaly anteaters, are considered a delicacy in China and other countries, and pangolin scales are used in traditional medicine.
Rest of article: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pangolin-coronavirus-scale-anteater-possible-host-of-virus-chinese-scientists-say/
same here. There have been so many unnecessary deaths in the plague year that the death of a 99 year old I never met is not shocking. And of course in the UK right now there is sectarian violence in Northern Ireland and a hard right, very corrupt government passing bills.
I'm not as convinced as the author that change involves the abandonment of tradition, because traditions that stagnate don't become more precious and preserved, they become dead. Traditions that survive should change and be exchanged, that's the natural way human culture evolves over time.I noticed loud and confident people online ten years ago throwing around the term "appropriation" with a deep misunderstanding of how culture works. Cultures borrow, and as they borrow things they adapt them. The only thing rude is if they start to claim that their version is the true and authentic one and fail to acknowledge the inspiration (or if they borrow something they are being specifically asked not to borrow: I think the Navaho have said "do not copy old Navaho art with swatzikas on it"). That overlaps with the trope of the white person being a better Black person or indigenous person than the actual blacks and indigenes, as seen in Avatar, blackface minstrel shows, armed Americans dressing in war paint, et depressing cetera.
or the state of Turkey claims rights to things made by ancient Ionians and Dorians and Luwians thousands of years before there were any Turks on Turkish soilWell tbf, who else would?
If someone publishes a sacred story which the person who told it did not want shared, that's not something that the state or strangers should interfere with, but its definitely something which could reasonably end the relationship between teacher and student.
Well tbf, who else would?There are lots of people from outside the region who do Mediterranean archaeology and Precolumbian archaeology of complex societies. The history of this is tied up with colonialism, but it also means that a lot more interesting archaeology is done in Greece than say Sweden, because not just local but foreign money and labour are available. Distributing less exciting finds around the world also makes them available to more people, provides protection against local disasters or aniconistic violence, and limits the power of any one government to shape how they are studied.