Übergeek 바둑이: Harold Shipman was a doctor.. he used his position as a weapon .. trust allowed him to kill over 200.

Guns don't kill, but the ease of access along with the ease of use makes killing easier for those of the deposition to kill. Along with it being considered by some a 'macho' weapon leads to it being a weapon of choice.

.. If a country is to have guns.. fine. But let full registration and analysis to make sure your not going to kill rather than defend with it.

Jared Loughner... anti government.. thought there was "mind control"...

Just plain nutter, or found a cause in 'politics'.

.... One interviewer questioned the Tea party and others on the right wing with their use of posters with pics of opponents with cross hairs say "the next target" .. it maybe that some just cannot understand metaphor's and treat everything as literal.

... The Bankers bonuses are due soon. Billions....

The best at the moment is a declaration that the banks will pay out less than they would have..

....MP David Chaytor has been jailed for 18 months for expenses fraud. yet the private firms hide behind the table... or under it... or behind the 'board'.

maybe we should bring back 'stocks'.

The USA's Fed gov report on the BP disaster came to the expected conclusion (except for the right wing conspiracy nutters)

... BAD MANAGEMENT AND COST CUTTING.

The only part that the Fed Gov has been criticised is on not enough regulation.

... In Northern Ireland people have been without drinking water through the lack of maintenance of the mains pipes by the private water company who's patch it is.

.. Cost cutting ..

yet profit margins and share prices generally are more important.

The Col:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bERkPQ6Elvw

The Col: Yes.. look for the ones wearing stockings!!

Deadly cat-flea typhus strikes in Australia
ANGELA POWNALL, The West Australian January 3, 2011, 2:10 am

Scientists have identified the first known cases of humans being infected with cat-flea typhus in Australia, four years after the R. felis bacteria was discovered in fleas in WA.

A nine-year-old girl became seriously ill in Melbourne and her younger sister and brother, grandmother and neighbour had to be taken to hospitalafter they were bitten by fleas carrying the R. felis bacteria from kittens the family brought into their home.

Microbiologists warned in the latest edition of the Medical Journal of Australia published today that many more Australians might have been infected by R. felis, but did not get the most effective treatment because the infection was not diagnosed.

Dr Stephen Graves, director of microbiology at the Hunter Valley Pathology Service in Newcastle, NSW, said GPs and hospitals did not use diagnostic tests that were available for R. felis, which could be treated with antibiotics.

"It's likely to be present all over Australia, I suspect. It's just that people haven't looked for it," Dr Graves said. "This little girl was really quite sick and in intensive care. She may have died if she had not got the right antibiotics ultimately."

There are numerous different types of rickettsia disease, which is a type of bacteria that is found in parasites such as fleas and ticks. Dr Graves said murine typhus, a rickettsia infection from rat fleas, was particularly common in WA.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/8588207/deadly-cat-flea-typhus-strikes-in-australia/

Bernice: It says copyright 2009 at the bottom an in the notes you'll see references to sources published after 2K.

Including such as ...
A hand up not a hand out: Renewing the fight against poverty (Report on poverty and financial hardship)

11 March 2004
© Commonwealth of Australia 2004
ISBN 0 642 71199 2
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/clac_ctte/completed_inquiries/2002-04/poverty/report/index.htm

A bit hard if the link is "10 years old"!!

Bernice: Aye.. because most Brits are just use flu to being just part of the yearly cycle of winter... they tuck up and drink honey and lemon!!

A 15 month-long Australian Senate inquiry, entitled “A hand up not a hand out: Renewing the fight against poverty”, identifies a continuing decline in income for many poor households and emphasises the central role of employment opportunities in tackling poverty. It highlights these points:
> Between 1984 and 1999, the top 20% of Australian income earners saw a 1% increase in their disposable income, while the poorest 20% saw a 10% drop;
> Twenty-one per cent of Australians — about 3.6 million people — live on less than $A400 per week, which is $31 less than the full-time minimum wage;
> One million Australians are considered to be poor although they live in households where at least one adult works;
> 700,000 children are growing up with neither parent working full-time; and
> The poorest 20% of the population use government services less than people in the next two population bands.

The Democrats believe that the level of poverty in Australia is unacceptable. The wealth gap between the rich and poor in Australia has grown over the past decade. Despite more than a decade of continual economic growth, this prosperity has left many in middle Australia standing still and many of the poorest worse off.

In recent times, the Government has even pushed through legislation which is directly contributing to higher poverty by reducing the incomes of many sole parents and people with disabilities.

http://www.democrats.org.au/campaigns/poverty_in_australia/

Greedy private landlords not maintaining their house and not caring how bad the conditions are in their accommodation. Several councils have had to get court orders allowing them to take over maintenance.

Capitalism at it's worse!!

Bernice: The actual figures came up at 2.5 million!!

Blimey!!

15/12/2010

The UK's skills shortage is affecting larger business growth, the Institute of Directors (IoD) has said. Its survey reveals that 31 per cent of employers are finding it hard to fill vacancies due to a lack of candidates possessing the necessary skills for a role.

This is echoed by the latest Report on Jobs from the REC and KPMG, which stated that businesses are finding a skills shortage in some areas, including IT specialists.

The IoD claimed that the hardest skills to find are in technical skills, management and leadership. In addition, the association found that 47 per cent of those surveyed said that some of their current employees also lack the skills required to perform their job.

"It is disturbing that at a time of economic weakness, the growth of the private sector is being held back by skills shortages," commented Miles Templeman, director-general of the IoD.

This has led to 58 per cent of employers claiming that the skills shortage is restricting the growth of their business through higher costs, stifled innovation and increased workloads for other staff.

http://www.womenintechnology.co.uk/news/iod-uk-skills-shortage-affecting-business-growth-news-800292413

.. In relation to why Australia might have to source out maintenance.

FEARS are mounting that major resource projects are at risk because of the intensifying skills shortage.

The number of business leaders calling for the government to urgently act to limit the economic damage from the skills shortage is growing.

Global ratings agency Moody's warned that Australia's energy industry, which is driving growth with more than $150 billion worth of new projects planned, has seen competition for labour and equipment "intensify dramatically".

Companies including Rio Tinto, Leighton Holdings and Transfield Services have called for more flexibility to bring in skilled foreign workers under the 457 visa program to fill labour gaps and relieve the building pressures that threaten to derail project timetables and fuel inflation in the broader economy.

* Sarah-Jane Tasker and Katherine Jimenez
* From: The Australian
* December 08, 2010 12:00AM
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/skills-crisis-risks-150bn-worth-of-projects/story-e6frg8zx-1225967252748

as I said.. big deal.. shortfalls just don't cure themselves overnight. UK businesses and the government analysis projected skill pools years in advance.

Bernice: Yes... Rationing was still in place, we were still rebuilding. As was Germany and many European countries. We were not poor, just we had come through years of being bombed. There was work, just some were pulled by the thought of having Xmas in the sun

As to the article being 2007... wow! big deal.

Australia admits.. we just ain't got the homegrown skilled labour force, so we want more Brits..

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/australia-relaxes-its-immigration-rules-to-persuade-skilled-young-britons-to-emigrate-461911.html

A bit like in the 1950's-60's when Brits were being offered to able to migrate to Aussie land for just £10.. 1 million Brits emigrated under that scheme.

Funny.. I thought that we were at war with France and Spain stretched our logistics had more effect than "cheating".

I mean.. it's not like you are playing Monopoly and cheat by knicking a few K.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK6jQZcqZB8&feature=related

..... Bill is lying again!!

Bwild: Depends on what level you are studying to. Basically .. you won.

... But we did get the madness of King George. Which, last I read was somewhat caused by the loss of the America's..... Him going nutz led to the birth of the modern treatment of mental health issues.

Artful Dodger: Is the zzzzzzzzzzzzz because they didn't teach much real history when you went to school rather than "duck and cover"??

In the 1950's.. America's so called Golden age, Most of the rest of the industrial world was rebuilding after being bombed and/or overrun by various countries armies. While American Conservatives are after a return to that golden period, they cannot. The divisions in Europe as agreed by the USA/Russia/UK have now gone. Imperial UK has given independence to much of the old empire. The USSR is gone. Billions spent on creating WMD's can never be regained.

The world has moved on. If American conservatives want to regain anything like that past period, they must follow one simple rule. Get over it.

.... and maybe start to spend less than 50% of the countries GDP on the military... which seems more important to them then their own citizens health.

Artful Dodger: Have you been living on Neptune to miss all the proof that has been published?

Mousetrap: ... Hitler's favorite UK paper.

The Daily Mail....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI

Conservatives where? The old west.. where the Red Indian was the enemy.

.... Bullets can't kill an idea.

.... where? Utah??

rod03801: ... true on that.. I did misread... bad nights sleep.

.. as for the subject line. .... No. It is not ridiculous. It's murder regardless of who you dress it that is being advocated.

... A bit like when USA citizens were giving money to the IRA and Sinn Fein. Some must of thought it wonderfully romantic. But the money was used to kill.

rod03801: Really.. how?

This business of TOP SeCrEt can be a baroque thing. I know for certain that a project I worked on over a decade back was covered by the OSA, I can't talk till I die about what I did and saw working on what was a military project. Yet at the same time I know for certain the information is already out there on several sites, and the tech that was developed back then is now in extremely common use in the civilian world every second 24/7.

How it works is certainly NOT secret in any way shape or form.

.... about 99.99999% of everyone on this site has at least one of the everyday items using the technology.

..... Is just the embarrassment factor for the USA? Golly.. Much of that everyone knew. Much of all the documents were probably known by one intelligence agency.. Israel for example has many spies in the USA and bought quite a few people from what's been in the news...

.... Yet where is the witch hunt on that fact?

Artful Dodger: Übergeek 바둑이 is right though. As a matter of example that you'd execute in cold blood a human.. it makes you no better then those who say they'll kill via terrorism.

rod03801: They tried that in WWII.. The French resistance is an example of those who would be tortured in the collecting/sending of info the Germans.

.... When a certain Chinese pilot (think I remember his nationality right) landed a MIG and through that action divulged USSR top secret technical data... was he handed back?

.. As a matter of observation. If the UK courts via an application by the likes of the MOD thought Assange was really causing major concerns to UK security. He'd be up on charges of treason.

... He ain't.

"No one said anything about executions. I just said kill them in battle. That's Not an execution. I never advocated anything near killing those who oppose me. YOu made that up."

v

"The US needs to execute by firing squad any US citizens that leak classified docs."

Vikings: ..... Military secrets?? .. what that the USA wants to spy on everyone? Or embarrassing war reports?

Vikings: ..... I've always said that freedom of speech involves some responsibility, as there is for any action.

So.. Is any free speech really free?

eg Some folks saying "kill, murder, maim" yet criticising anyone else for saying the same about their "precious" (to quote Gollum) .... kinda takes away the moral high ground they claim.

Wow.. alot of people here are into having people murdered.

.. but.... what about instead of getting others to do it... DIY!!

That is.. if you feel that strongly about the matter. Assange's UK bail address (for instance) is not exactly hidden.

Vikings: They'll evacuate and I'll get charged with disturbing the peace.

.. Try yelling "All Muslims are Terrorists" here in the UK and you'll get arrested for disturbing the peace and a few other criminal offenses.

rod03801: Yes.. I know he's not a 'US' citizen. I was being sarcastic over how some Americans are happy to use the "freedom of speech" bit to say anything without any responsibility towards what they say.

Try and watch some HIGNFY on youtube.. you'll understand!!

In the news, the wikileaks dude Julian Assange has been granted bail. The claims of him running off (by the Swedish prosecution) were described as not having any credibility considering Mr Assange's previous behavior of complete compliance with the Swedish and English Authorities.

The Wikileaks founder fears extradition to the USA as a more likely possibility than being extradited to Sweden.

... So much for Freedom of Speech.. A right protected by the USA constitution.. or so the right wingers keep saying when they have something to say.. even when that what they say is questionable or basically a lie...

....yet the truth is a punishable offense!!

On March 16, 1986, the San Francisco Examiner published a report on the "1983 seizure of 430 pounds of cocaine from a Colombian freighter" in San Francisco which indicated that a "cocaine ring in the San Francisco Bay area helped finance Nicaragua's Contra rebels." Carlos Cabezas, convicted of conspiracy to traffic cocaine, said that the profits from his crimes "belonged to... the Contra revolution." He told the Examiner, "I just wanted to get the Communists out of my country." Julio Zavala, also convicted on trafficking charges, said "that he supplied $500,000 to two Costa Rican-based Contra groups and that the majority of it came from cocaine trafficking in the San Francisco Bay area, Miami and New Orleans."[3]

Former CIA agent David MacMichael explained the inherent relationship between CIA activity in Latin America and drug trafficking: "Once you set up a covert operation to supply arms and money, it's very difficult to separate it from the kind of people who are involved in other forms of trade, and especially drugs. There is a limited number of planes, pilots and landing strips. By developing a system for supply of the Contras, the US built a road for drug supply into the US."

...The contents of the actual report were largely ignored by the national media. In the 623rd paragraph, the report described a cable from the CIA's Directorate of Operations dated October 22, 1982, describing a prospective meeting between Contra leaders in Costa Rica for "an exchange in [the United States] of narcotics for arms, which then are shipped to Nicaragua."[11] The two main Contra groups, US arms dealers, and a lieutenant of a drug ring which imported drugs from Latin America to the US west coast were set to attend the Costa Rica meeting. The lieutenant trafficker was also a Contra, and the CIA knew that there was an arms-for-drugs shuttle and did nothing to stop it.[10]

The report stated that the CIA had requested the Justice Department return $36,800 to a member of the Meneses drug ring, which had been seized by DEA agents in the Frogman raid in San Francisco. The CIA's Inspector General said the Agency wanted the money returned "to protect an operational equity, i.e., a Contra support group in which it [CIA] had an operational interest."[10]
[edit] Testimony of the CIA Inspector General

Six weeks after the declassified and heavily censored report was made public, Inspector General Hitz testified before a House congressional committee.[10] Hitz stated that:

Volume II... will be devoted to a detailed treatment of what was known to CIA regarding dozens of people and a number of companies connected in some fashion to the Contra program or the Contra movement that were the subject of any sort of drug trafficking allegations. Each is closely examined in terms of their relationship with CIA, the drug trafficking activity that was alleged, the actions CIA took in response to the allegations, and the extent of information concerning the allegations that was Shared with U.S. law enforcement and Congress.

As I said earlier, we have found no evidence in the course of this lengthy investigation of any conspiracy by CIA or its employees to bring drugs into the United States. However, during the Contra era, CIA worked with a variety of people to support the Contra program. These included CIA assets, pilots who ferried supplies to the Contras, as well as Contra officials and others. Let me be frank about what we are finding. There are instances where CIA did not, in an expeditious or consistent fashion, cut off relationships with individuals supporting the Contra program who were alleged to have engaged in drug trafficking activity or take action to resolve the allegations.[12]

Hitz also testified that the CIA did not "expeditiously" cut off relations with alleged drug traffickers.[13]

Hitz also said that under an agreement in 1982 between Ronald Reagan's Attorney General William French Smith and the CIA, agency officers were not required to report allegations of drug trafficking involving non-employees, defined as paid and non-paid "assets"--pilots who ferried supplies to the contras, as well as contra officials and others.[12][13]

This agreement, which had not previously been revealed, came at a time when there were allegations that the CIA was using drug dealers in its controversial covert operation to bring down the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.[13] Only after Congressional funds were restored in 1986 was the agreement modified to require the CIA to stop paying agents whom it believed were involved in the drug trade.[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_and_Contras_cocaine_trafficking_in_the_US

Servant: Some do.. It's an acquired habit from the cold war. Plus the realisation that the USA can never be as 'big' as it use to be. Countries that were devastated through the likes of WWII have rebuilt or modernised, or both.

Artful Dodger: If you don't know... I suggest you give up politics, it being a matter of international affairs.

Vikings: The journalist who was killed in Iraq by a USA Apache Gunship. His death was covered up. Don't you think that the family of that person had the right to know how and why he died? Or that someone got it wrong in the USA military is justification to cover up the 'friendly fire' death via calling it "secret".

Yes.. I forgot the support to those in the cocaine business as well... deals to turn a blind eye and the like.

.. It's ok for the CIA to take part and make money in the opium trade which kills people daily.. Yet those who leak info on the likes should be executed....

Übergeek 바둑이: Depends on the quality of the yellowcake.. It was deemed pretty rubbish so it might not be worth the while.

.... But then again, with so much of the USA GDP going on the military... ... well. It saves them the mining.

"When superpowers (or their dubious allies) make WMDs, who imposes sanctions on them?"

No-one. At least within the history of international affairs of the last century or so. As long as they have no no blood on their hands the superpowers didn't give a damn.

... one minute "quoting" wikileaks and the next posting an article condemning them..

......... ie they are just useful for propaganda attempts???

Artful Dodger: So this report you are quoting is saying that those killed or targeted by anti Islamic biased people asked for it?

The Tax Policy Center reported that the various tax cuts under the Bush administration were "extraordinarily expensive" to the Treasury:[30]

The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation calculated a score, or revenue change, for each of the seven major tax cut bills passed during the Bush administration: their combined cost sums to over $2.0 trillion from 2001-17. Extending these tax cuts into the future would carry a similar cost: the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently estimated the cost of extending them through 2017 at $1.9 trillion, not counting the costs of debt service, and not counting the cost of indexing the alternative minimum tax (AMT) to inflation to prevent it from undoing much of the cuts...if one takes into account the direct effects of the tax cuts, extra interest payments, and the extra "interaction" cost of reforming the AMT while extending the Bush tax cuts, the combined cost of extending the tax cuts through 2017 adds up to $2.8 trillion.


........ $2.8 trillion is quite a bite OFF the national debt... But that FACT seems to be forgotten.

.....Some policy analysts and non-profit groups such as OMBWatch,[4] Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,[5] and the Tax Policy Center[6] have attributed some of the rise in income inequality to the Bush administration's tax policy. In February 2007, President Bush addressed the rise of inequality for the first time, saying "The reason is clear: We have an economy that increasingly rewards education and skills because of that education".[7].....

...have pointed out that education fails to explain the rising gap between the top 1% and the bottom 99%, which has been the site of most increases in inequality. They point out that if education were to blame, a larger group would be pulling ahead of the rest of the population, and that wages of highly educated earners have fallen far behind those of the very rich. Furthermore, they point out that the U.S. is unique among developed countries in seeing such a sharp rise in inequality, while the composition of its economy and labor force is not - if education were to blame, one would expect the same trend across all post-industrial nations.[8] Bartels has asserted that the skill base explanation is partially used as it is more "comforting" to blame impersonal forces, rather than policies.[9]

The tax cuts have been largely opposed by American economists, including the Bush administration's own Economic Advisement Council.[10] In 2003, 450 economists, including ten Nobel Prize laureate, signed the Economists' statement opposing the Bush tax cuts, sent to President Bush stating that "these tax cuts will worsen the long-term budget outlook... will reduce the capacity of the government to finance Social Security and Medicare benefits as well as investments in schools, health, infrastructure, and basic research... [and] generate further inequalities in after-tax income."...

....In contrast to the claims made by Bush, Cheney, and Republican presidential primary candidates such as Rudy Giuliani, there is a broad consensus among even conservative economists (including current and former top economists of the Bush Administration such as Greg Mankiw) that the tax cuts have had a substantial net negative impact on revenues (i.e., revenues would have been substantially higher if the tax cuts had not taken place), even taking into account any stimulative effect the tax cuts may have had and any resulting revenue feedback effects.[13] When asked whether the Bush tax cuts had generated more revenue, Laffer stated that he did not know. However, he did say that the tax cuts were "what was right," because after the September 11 attacks and threats of recession, Bush "needed to stimulate the economy and spend for defense."[14]

In terms of increasing inequality, the effect of Bush's tax cuts on the upper, middle and lower class is contentious. Most economists argue that the cuts have benefited the nation's richest households at the expense of the middle and lower class,[15] while libertarians and conservatives[16] have claimed that tax cuts have benefitted all taxpayers.[17]b Economists Peter Orszag and William Gale described the Bush tax cuts as reverse government redistribution of wealth, "[shifting] the burden of taxation away from upper-income, capital-owning households and toward the wage-earning households of the lower and middle classes."/b[18]....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_George_W._Bush_administration#Tax_policy