Sim-O

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Stop the War Coalition:

It is a disgrace that New Labour is still supporting these [Iraq & Afghanistan] wars. Gordon Brown has promised to schedule getting the troops out of Iraq, but there are still thousands there and the government has increased its war budget this year. The billions being spent on war could be used to invest in housing, pensions and services.

For all these reasons Stop the War is calling for the widest possible support for the demonstration at Labour’s conference on September 20th. Please tell your friends and workmates about the demonstration.

Bartholemews’ Notes on Religion:

American Buddhist blogger Precious Metal has received an unwelcome missive by email from UK libel specialist law-firm Carter-Ruck:

“We act for the Buddhist monks William Van Gordon and Edo Shonin and write in connection with an article entitled “A Mother’s grief: ‘The cult guru who turned my son into a zombie’” that was published by the Daily Mail on 25 May 2007 and which is also published by you…

The article contains a number of false and highly defamatory allegations of both our clients and has caused considerable damage to their reputation. We write to give you formal notice that we have issued High Court proceedings for defamation on behalf of our clients against the publishers of the Daily Mail and ask you to remove the article from your website as a matter of real urgency. The article has been removed from the Daily Mail’s own website.”

And the response?

Unless I receive a letter directly from a court/judge telling me to take the article down then it will remain online here. Under US law, as long as sources are named and I don’t edit the original article, I am protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution. So the original article, which was published on May 25 , 2007 by the Daily Mail (auther Jenny Johnston) is below…

…here.
It’d be nice if we had a libel law something like that, wouldn’t it? *sighs dreamily*

BBC:

Scientists in South Korea say they have successfully completed the world’s first commercial cloning of a pet dog.

Bernann McKinney, from the US state of California, stumped up $50,000 (£25,000) for five identical copies of Booger, her beloved pit bull terrier.

The puppy clones were unveiled at a press conference in the South Korean capital, Seoul, on Tuesday.

People get attached to pets, especially cats and dogs. That’s the whole point of having a pet. Some people take it too far, but that’s just my opinion. Sometimes the pet/owner relationship gets a little deeper (not in any pervy sense, just emotionally) when the pet does some heroic deed for the owner, as Booger did when he saved Bernann from a savaging by another dog.
But to say that a clone of any animal will be identical is pure bullshit.

I am no scientist so, as usual am ready to be corrected, but although the animal will have to same DNA, it will have a resemblance to the original, but will not be the same.

[Bernann] said: “Booger had a kindness in his heart and I believe that kindness is something that can be, I don’t want to use the word reproduced, but the best way Dr Lee explained it is we can give him his body, you are going to give him the love and environment to recreate the original Booger’s personality.”

You see, it’s not just about the genes, it’s about the environment too. Food, exercise, climate, experiences will all have an effect on the likes and dislikes, growth rate, attitudes and everything else that will shape the personality of those dogs. And ultimatley people who are cloned, if it goes that far.
Even if all things are equal, genes can still make differences. That’s what cancers and tumours are.

As heart warming as this story is, this woman has either been mis-sold or not had her expectations properly tempered. A personality is unique, whether it is an animal or a person, and that, cannot be recreated.

Flat Earthers.

Believers that the Earth is flat. Not round, sorry spherical, but flat. Most don’t believe the bit about it being carried on the back of four elephants, on a turtle. That would be ridiculous.

What’s prompted this post was this article on the BBC site:

Mr Davis [a flat earther] now believes “the Earth is flat and horizontally infinite – it stretches horizontally forever”.

“And it is at least 9,000 kilometres deep”, he adds.

James McIntyre, a British-based moderator of a discussion website theflatearthsociety.org, has a slightly different take. “The Earth is, more or less, a disc,” he states. “Obviously it isn’t perfectly flat thanks to geological phenomena like hills and valleys. It is around 24,900 miles in diameter.

Mr Davis, is a 25 year old computer scientist, originally from Canada. Not that that has anything to do with it. But being a scientist Mr Davis is in the position to know good science when he sees it.
One Question Mr Davis: Does the Earth stretch to infinity (And Beyond!) in all directions or just left to right? Either way, how come one can go in a straight line and then end up where one started from, as apposed to never being seen again? If the Earth stretches too infinity (And Beyond!) in all horizontal directions, you do realize that it would create a barrier in the universe? Nothing would be able to get past us without making an almighty thump. Sorry that was more than one question.

Mr McIntyre. We’re not told what he does for a living. I have a picture of a gent that makes his own bitter, I don’t know why.
James McIntyre is what I would call a ‘moderate’ Flat Earther, compared to Mr Davis’ ‘radical’ flatness, thanks to the view that the Earth is round in one aspect, but flat in the other. The North pole is in the middle of the disc and the southern pole is aaaalll the way round the outside. Not so much a pole, more a ring.
Mr McIntyre: If the Earth is a flat disc, you should be able to see the edge and fly off the edge and take pictures and everything. It ain’t going to be hard in this day and age to get proof yerself without relying on the whispering government paid liars that are pretty much the whole of the worlds respectable scientific community.
Charter an aircraft and fly to the outer edges of the planet and have a peek, take some pictures, maybe even some video. Maybe then, maybe you might be taken seriously.
BTW: Make sure you take more than your poxy mobile phone to take the pictures and video with. You don’t want to be laughed at like them weird UFO people, do you?

Look at this, classic conspiracy theory logic

Q: “What is the motive behind this conspiracy?”

A: The motive is unknown although it is probably money

Q: “If you’re not sure about the motive, why do you say there is a conspiracy?”

A: Well it’s quite simple really; if the earth is in fact flat, then the governments must be lying when they say it isn’t.

That makes sense. If something is, and someone knowing what is is, says it isn’t, they are lying.
But why do these people say the Earth is flat?

Q: “The government could not pull off the conspiracy successfully”

A: Actually, they could.

The answer links to this post on the same forum where the poster reckons (by the accurate method of plucking figures out of his arse) it would take about $47,000,000 a year to keep the 45 key members of the conspiracy and a few ‘Ice Wall’ guards happy to keep the secret.

Q: “How are the world governments organized enough to carry out this conspiracy?”

A: They only appear to be disorganized to make the conspiracy seem implausible.

The US government couldn’t sort out Hurricane Katrina, never mind work with their nemesis, The Soviets, to keep everyone thinking we live on a ball, not a frisbee.

Q: Why hasn’t this site been shut down by the government?

A: Doing so would prove that the government is hiding something.

So they’re probably being watched though, to make sure they’re not gonna hurt themselves or others.

It’s great this place, have a look and a laugh.

You watch a medium/spritualist (whatever they call themselves) at work and a good one is fairly impressive. You know how it’s done, but when the patter is all there and you’ve got eye contact with the chap it all just flows and can be fairly convincing that ‘something’ happened. It’s not too often it’s written down so you can see, in your own time, how the victim is lead.

Martin, the Lay Scientist, had a bit of spare time and transcribed Youtube clip of ‘6ixth Sense’ charletan Colin Fry.

Old man, embaressments and Marmite.

BBC:

A government-funded documentary about police community support officers is to be probed by media watchdog Ofcom, the Sunday Telegraph has reported.

ITV1 show Beat: Life on the Street may have breached broadcasting codes by not making it clear it received £800,000 in Home Office funding, the paper said.

Ofcom rules say show sponsors must be clearly identified and not allowed to influence the content of programmes.

A Home Office spokesman said he was confident Ofcom rules were followed.

Two series of Beat: Life on the Street have been broadcast on ITV1, while a third has reportedly been commissioned.

Another programme called Border Force, about the work of the UK Border Agency, is due to be shown on Sky One later this month.

Yeah, fuck off B-BBC.

Via

The Canberra Times:

Previously undisclosed Treasury documents have shed new light on the beginnings of Mr Murdoch’s transition from an Australian newspaper proprietor to an international media player.

Secret Treasury files recently released by the National Archives show how Mr Murdoch faced strong opposition from the Treasury and then treasurer, Billy McMahon, when he applied to shift capital out of Australia to finance his 1968 bid for the Fleet Street weekly the News of the World.

Mr McMahon refused to allow Mr Murdoch’s bid to proceed, but intervention by Prime Minister John Gorton, a Murdoch ally, ensured the go-ahead was given.

BBC:

Under new laws approved by the Senate, illegal immigrants convicted of crimes will now face jail sentences a third longer than those for Italians.
…
The Senate was addressed by the anti-immigrant Northern League party’s Sandro Mazzatorta, who linked immigration to criminality.

“Foreigners committed 60% of the attempted homicides, 60% of the robberies (and) 82% of the muggings,” he said, referring to last year’s figures from the city of Brescia.

Make your penalties harsher for all citizens, not just immigrants, and then watch crime fall among Italians too.
Or is it a case of “foreigners coming over, taking opportunities for robberies away from Italian criminals. It shouldn’t be allowed!”?

Via

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