Torurot

Sons of Anarchy... half the time it's hard to follow. Guys riding around on Harleys (what else) saying "gosh", "damn" a lot because you can't say "fuck" on whatever branch of US TV it's pitched at, but LOTS of shooting, killing and beating people is perfectly fine??? WTF

Clowns, nothing but clowns! Security "theatre" at it's worst Oz carrier Tiger Air takes terror alerts to new heights http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/22/oz_carrier_tiger_air_takes_terror_alerts_to_new_heights/ Don't doodle, it might cost you your flight

:up: A new LB in waiting?

:up: Both in & out This Is What Happens To Transgender Kids Who Delay Puberty by Zack Ford Posted on September 16, 2014 Updated: September 16, 2014 http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2014/09/16/3567886/transgender-puberty-suppression-study/ One study shows that using hormones to prevent the onset of puberty has positive results for transgender youth.

Hugh Grant or the other guy he often acts with and maybe Renée Zellweger when a Thai LB Hooker is in some scene in a Phuket hotel by the beach? Just can't remember the name of the movie :-( Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason??

Robert Fisk Scottish independence: Ireland since 1919 is a lesson for Scotland in what a Yes vote means http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/scottish-independence-ireland-since-1919-is-a-lesson-for-scotland-in-what-a-yes-vote-means-9727596.html The last divorce from the United Kingdom was painful and acrimonious, but ended in harmony and prosperity. So why should independence north of the border turn out any differently? Scottish independence: Will it really TEAR the HEART from IT firms? You keep the call centres, Hamish, we'll take the banks http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/11/scotland_votes/ By SA Mathieson, 11 Sep 2014 Scots may vote to leave the United Kingdom, ending a union lasting 307 years, on 18 September. Until a few weeks ago, the referendum on independence looked like an easy win for those wanting to stay in the union - or to use the parlance of the campaign, "no" voters. But a surge in support has put those planning to vote "yes" to independence ahead in an opinion poll for the first time. What does Scottish independence and the break-up of the United Kingdom mean to businesses, specifically those in and served by the sector you work in – tech? Some have been reluctant to express a view in public.

Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin

With all the murders in the world everyday why is this one so "fascinating"

RIP The Bond Villain with the metal teeth Richard Kiel was best known for his role as the Bond villain Jaws in the 007 movies The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. The statuesque 7 Foot 2". Richard Kiel, James Bond villain Jaws actor, dies at 74 1934 - 2014

With that picture of Africa, how about how much water there is All the Water on Planet Earth http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120515.html All the Water on Planet Earth Illustration Credit & Copyright: Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Howard Perlman, USGS Explanation: How much of planet Earth is made of water? Very little, actually. Although oceans of water cover about 70 percent of Earth's surface, these oceans are shallow compared to the Earth's radius. The above illustration shows what would happen if all of the water on or near the surface of the Earth were bunched up into a ball. The radius of this ball would be only about 700 kilometers, less than half the radius of the Earth's Moon, but slightly larger than Saturn's moon Rhea which, like many moons in our outer Solar System, is mostly water ice. How even this much water came to be on the Earth and whether any significant amount is trapped far beneath Earth's surface remain topics of research. Poll: Have you seen today's APOD image before?

Wigman?

A couple of "updates" MH370 investigators probe 1,000 'possible' flight paths With the underwater hunt for MH370 set to restart, the mission's Australian chief says he does not want to create 'false hope' but believes the plane can be found http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/11078785/MH370-investigators-probe-1000-possible-flight-paths.html MH370: Six key questions six months after Malaysian Airlines flight vanished without a trace What do investigators and the world now know about MH370: the plane, its pilots, the passengers, the search, the relatives and the company? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/11078698/MH370-Six-key-questions-six-months-after-Malaysian-Airlines-flight-vanished-without-a-trace.html

Beer in space "London Pride" @ 24.3Km http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/05/beer_in_space/ and for those of you who like a little bit of DIY project work "The LOHAN project" http://www.theregister.co.uk/Wrap/lohan/

Doesn't the same apply to England?

From elsewhere "The possibility of Scottish independence is finally sinking in, and the establishment is now running around like headless chickens. In addition to a new propaganda line of "dirty violent savage Scots can't be trusted to vote peacefully", they're now talking about delaying elections in the rump-UK if Scotland votes "yes": http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/03/calls-to-postpone-uk-general-election-scots-independence David Cameron will face calls to take the unprecedented step in modern peacetime of postponing next year's UK general election by 12 months in the event of a vote for Scottish independence to avoid the prospect of a Labour government that would depend on Scottish MPs. Amid warnings of a "constitutional meltdown" after a yes vote, which would place severe personal political pressure on the prime minister, a growing number of Tory MPs are saying they will call for legislation to be introduced to postpone the general election. It would be the first time since 1940, a year into the second world war, that a general election would have been postponed. One member of the government said: "You would see very quickly after the referendum calls for a delay in the election. You simply could not have an election that would produce a Labour government supported by Scottish MPs if the Tories had a majority in the rest of the UK. So you would say: OK Alex Salmond wants to negotiate the break up by March 2016. So we will have a general election on the new Britain in May 2016." There's a constitutional point here, in that the legitimacy of those Scottish MPs ends the day Scotland leaves the UK. But there's also a huge helping of partisanship, given away by the focus on the prospect of a Labour government, which taints the entire thing. And there are other obvious solutions: the next UK Parliament could dissolve early, rather than the current one sitting long. Or they could legislate so that all Scottish MPs were deprived of their seats when independence came into effect. It doesn't have to be a case of "vote 'no' or English democracy gets it". Meanwhile, if you're wondering how it has come to this, the BBC's Andrew Little has a fascinating essay on the history of Scottish independence http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2014/newsspec_8699/index.html and how the two nations have grown apart. The short version: its not Scotland which has changed, but London, and the Scots want out as a result."

Good on you Bam. Thanks for saving it. Such history... when you tell the youngsters of today they wouldn't believe you Edit, and thanks also to RxPharm for picking up the slack until the revival All efforts much appreciated.

There is a shed load of un-connectedness out there

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Note the Thai figure 4.1% Millions of Americans Living in Extreme Poverty http://www.cryptogon.com/?p=44853 September 2nd, 2014 Via: Brookings Institution: http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/08/poverty-america-global-context-chandy-smith In the United States, the official poverty rate for 2012 stood at 15 percent based on the national poverty line which is equivalent to around $16 per person per day. Of the 46.5 million Americans living in poverty, 20.4 million live under half the poverty line. This begs the question of just how poor America’s poorest people are. … Using an alternative dataset from the one employed for the official U.S. poverty measure, Shaefer and Edin show that millions of Americans live on less than $2 a day—a threshold commonly used to measure poverty in the developing world. Depending on the exact definitions used, they find that up to 5 percent of American households with children are shown to fall under this parsimonious poverty line. These numbers are intended to shock—and they succeed. The United States is known for having higher inequality and a less generous social safety net than many affluent countries in Europe, but the acute deprivations that flow from this are less understood. A crude comparison of Shaefer and Edin’s estimates with the World Bank’s official $2 a day poverty estimates for developing economies would place the United States level with or behind a large set of countries, including Russia (0.1 percent), the West Bank and Gaza (0.3 percent), Jordan (1.6 percent), Albania (1.7 percent), urban Argentina (1.9 percent), urban China (3.5 percent), and *Thailand * (4.1 percent). Many of these countries are recipients of American foreign aid. However, methodologies for measuring poverty differ wildly both within and across countries, so such comparisons and their interpretation demand extreme care. Related: The U.S. Is Now a ‘Third World’ Country http://www.blacklistednews.com/The_U.S._Is_Now_a_%E2%80%98Third_World%E2%80%99_Country/37636/0/38/38/Y/M.html Are 12 Million Americans Living on Less Than $2 a Day? http://blogs.ft.com/the-world/2014/08/are-12-million-americans-living-on-less-than-2-a-day/

Download the British English Spell checker for Firefox Tools addon type spell checker into the search box. Download, install, done

http://xkcd.com/1357/ make sure you hover. Love XKCD? Love science? You'll love a book about science from Randall Munroe Cartoonist tackles your Fermi problems in What If? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/30/what_if_review_randall_munroe/

So where do the military go for their fun?

When their lips are moving....

War, Lies and Audiotape The war between the United States and Vietnam cost over 1 million Vietnamese and 58,000 American lives. It left one country physically devastated and the other socially splintered. It began, President Lyndon Johnson told the world, with an "unprovoked attack" on American ships on the night of August 4, 1964. What we know today is that the incident that was reported to have taken place in the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam that night didn't ever happen. Yet three days later it was cited as the justification for the Gulf of Tonkin resolution: it authorised "the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression." The Gulf of Tonkin was the crucial turning point: in 1960 there were 900 American troops in Vietnam; by the end of 1965 there were nearly 200,000. Did President Johnson take his country to war on a lie, or was he misled? Fifty years on, journalist and historian DD Guttenplan explores these dramatic events through archive recordings and new interviews with the key players, bringing all the evidence together for the first time. A fascinating archive of taped White House phone calls transports us back to that day: we'll listen in on President Johnson as he discusses the situation with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and hear the situation unfold through conversations between key military personnel. Daniel Ellsberg remembers being in the Pentagon receiving reports of the incident on the day, and Jim Stockdale tells us his father's story: he was flying above the USS Maddox when the attack supposedly happened. We'll also hear from journalist Leslie Gelb and historians Frances Fitzgerald and Fred Logevall. See the BBC website for more on this programme. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p024wtvc

The racial makeup of various U.S. police forces. Graphic at the link. Think Progress has a number of things on the Brown shooting This Dramatic Newspaper Front Page Explains A Major Source Of Racial Tension In Ferguson And Beyond http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/08/24/3475069/a-major-source-of-racial-tension-in-ferguson-and-beyond-in-one-dramatic-front-page/