Strange, the "PeTA kills animals" meme already showed up in Metafilter not so long ago in a highly suspicious one-link FPP also leading to the CCF. I don't feel the slightest sympathy for PeTA, but this looks awfully like Astroturf.
Within the EU there is indeed freedom of movement and establishment but you'll have to go through some red tape in most countries. Just because they are obliged to give you a residence and work permit doesn't mean that they are not going to make you go through the motions to get them...
As for your wife, most EU countries won't give too much trouble to the spouse of a EU citizen, especially if she comes from a First World country. EU legislation actually mandates equality of treatment for EU citizens, so she'll be treated just like the foreign spouse of a citizen of that country. Thing is, some countries, especially in Northern Europe, are putting a lot of hurdles on foreign spouses of their own citizens too. Holland, already mentioned, being particularly nasty.
As a rule, don't underestimate the trouble of relocating. English-speakers, in particular, tend to labour under the delusion that everybody will understand them and that, in any case, learning a foreign language can't be all that hard. Also, brace yourself for the red tape. European countries are not necessarily more bureaucratic (OK, they usually are), but the bureaucracy is different. Tax forms are different, health care paperwork is different, the whole approach to administration can be different. You'll find out that a driving license is not generally considered a valid ID, but that in many countries you'll have to carry a national ID card with you almost at all times, for instance. Banks work differently (with less paper involved, thankfully) and work contracts are also very different.
As for which country to go to, I wouldn't recommend Holland or the Scandinavian countries because of the hurdles they may put on the way of your wife. Spain is nice, but finding a decently paid job could be difficult. Italy has a reputation for difficult bureaucracy. So...Belgium, France (especially the South) and Germany (especially Bavaria) could be good choices, but beware the language problem. Because of that, I'd recommend you Ireland as the best option. Same language, plenty of work, and less red tape, with special treaties further facilitating things for UK citizens. They are also welcoming to US citizens, and if your wife can find some Irish ancestor (which she probably will), it may open her way to a burgundy passport too (BTW, this can work with ancestors from other EU countries, Italy and Germany in particular very generously handing citizenship to people with only very tenuous family links).
Actually, "La la la" wasn't half bad. But I think that Wogan and other Brits took very badly that it beat Cliff Richard's "Congratulations" (a summit of schmaltz if there was ever one).
As an aside, its singer, Massiel, wasn't supposed to take part in the first place, but the original Spanish nominee, Joan Manuel Serrat, wanted to sing in Catalan. This, as could be expected, went down badly with the Franco regime. Ironically, Massiel went on to become a left-wing icon...
Well, I guess the point is to show just how abominably ridiculous some ads featuring women are, that is, how some ad agencies mistake "feminine" with plain retarded.
I really hope that's the point, anyway.
Come on, not so long ago, Canadian Forces won a hard battle against, er, a fishing boat.
Then Canada paid those pesky Spaniards $41,000 in compensation, though...
Still, at least in this dispute, Canadians and Danes do not appear to take things too seriously...
BTW, who's in charge of abbreviations at the Pentagon? Hasn't he noticed that "ISF" (Iraqi Security Forces, I presume) sounds dangerously like "IDF" (Israeli Defense Forces)?
Well, some of you may find this article superfluous, but I can swear you there are millions of clueless people out there whom it wouldn't hurt to read it.
Actually, the graphics in this PopMech article are a little misleading. If I'm not wrong, this whole contraption is supposed to sit on top of a launch vehicle. It is just the final stage.
Basically, NASA has given up (for the time being) on reusable launch vehicles. So, to bring the crew to the ISS it will use a crew module on top of a rocket. However, by the looks of it, I think you are wrong, chimaera. It is a glider, as it seems to have a lifting body.
Otherwise, I completely agree with you and must point out that it looks a lot like the Crew Transport Vehicle that the European Space Agency wanted to develop from its Automated Transfer Vehicle (aka ISS Delivery Truck), but has had to keep on ice for the last ten years for lack of funds.
OK, Sokal would certainly have one or two things to say about Bray's paper (to read it, click on the "View as HTML" link): "a socioscientific construction of the climate change issue"? WTF?
BTW, I've googled both Peiser and Bray and, guess what?
Peiser is a social anthropologist. Bray is a sociologist.
Is this the social scientists' revenge for the Sokal affair?
And smallish bear, I don't know about Gyan, but the Torygraph is certainly part of the spin if it doesn't do proper journalistic work and research its articles. Especially if the "information" it publishes just happens to coincide with their whole unapologetically conservative political slant.
I think shane has a very good point. "Climate change" on its own is a very misleading, deliberately ambiguous term: of course there are factors other than human in climate change, after all, the Earth's climate has been changing continuously since well before the humans and will continue changing it afterwards. And of course, some of the factors involved (Sun radiation, orbital mechanics) dwarf in the long term anything that man can do. In the long term mind you: we are speaking in terms of tens of thousands of years there. So, indeed, climate change, in its wider sense is not principally caused by human activity, but human activity, however, is changing climate in a much shorter time scale of decades, rather than tens of thousands of years, not leaving time for either ecosystems or human societies to adapt.
BTW, chimaera would you care to share your sources with us? Because you make quite a few unsubstantiated assertions...(Mt. Pinatubo, the Monte Carlo simulation, etc.)
Oh, the sweeeet memories of engineering school and "optimizing the results" of experiments carried out with equipment which hadn't been properly calibrated in two decades.
Still, my great-grandfather had it even worse: he was supposed to write his physics PhD thesis on the N-rays (and no, this is not a self-link). After years of unfruitful work, he showed impressive integrity and switched to chemistry...
The last article is rather unpleasant, to say the least, as it seems to lay blame on about everybody but the actual killers, the Liverpool "supporters" who charged.
Anyway, the points generally raised about the inadequate behaviour of the Belgian authorities, police and judiciary at the time are rightful, though. At that time in the '80s these were inept at best, corrupt at worst, as the Dutroux case would ultimately reveal. That case started a period of unprecedented soul-searching, that, I think, will ultimately benefit that country.
While the crackdown on football violence in Britain was harsh, however, little seems to have been done against the underlying causes of that violence. To my (admittedly outside) eye his would appear to me to have merely moved the theatre of violence from the football stadia to British inner cities ca. 11 pm. Or to foreign beach resorts with less prevalent CCTV presence. Why is so little done about that, other than merely tending the wounds? There's a lot of talk about the "yob culture", yet binge drinking and pub brawls still seem to be accepted socially in a way that would be inconceivable anywhere else.
For the record, I'm neither Belgian, nor British, nor Italian...
Italy was a monarchy when it fell to fascism and so was Spain
Er, no, Spain was a republic at the time. It had become a republic in 1931, and the Civil War started in 1936.
But of course, monarchists were very overwhelmingly on Franco's side. Juan Carlos' father, the then heir apparent, even volunteered to fight, and Franco was happy enough to appropriate all the symbols of the Spanish monarchy, while playing the different branches of the royal family against each other. The result was that Spain, for almost forty years was that most rare of animals: a kingdom without a king...
SideDish, I see your point, but, even if it's true that the NY Daily News is hardly a beacon of political journalism, you can't deny that apart from the headline, the article isn't all that different from what the supposedly more "serious" media are carrying. Everybody, from the WP to CNN, is exploiting the "gay porn" angle for all what is worth. Which makes their fingerpointing at the "naughty bloggers" all the more hypocritical.
But, of course, this are the same media that spent months discussing semen stains and the shape of a former president's penis...
What does the mass media need to train its spotlight on a press-manipulation scandal that has been festering for a couple of weeks on the Web? Well, a bit of hotmilitarystuds.com fairydust, as it seems...
The curiosest thing is to suddenly see media pundits accuse the bloggers of going beyond the line in "exposing Gannon's private life" (all the while very pruriently listing the names of all sexually evocative websites linked to Gannon/Guckert). As if there had been anything private about it...
But a quote of media ethics pundit Kelly McBride amuses me to no end:
"Those are not tactics you would see practiced in most traditional newsrooms"
Oh, really?
You know you are in trouble when a bunch of amateurs and the Daily Show do a better job than the real newsrooms...
Wedge, I have been through that law. Have you? In fact, have you followed your original link? Because it in turn sourced its info from uruknet, which in turn sourced it from Slashdot, which in turn sourced it from an agricultural NGO called GRAIN. And, during this whole process a lot of information has been lost or distorted with nobody having much of a look at the law in question or asking any expert for an interpretation.
First of all, well, this isn't about either patents or GM plants. There are a number of different types of IP rights, and this whole fuss seems to be about the introduction of one, namely Breeder's Rights, which didn't previously exist under Iraqi law. It is, however, not a patent, but a rather different kind of animal. You can (with some legal juggling) get a patent for the process of genetically modifying a plant, as well as for the product of that process (that is, the GM plant). Breeder's Rights are however applicable for all new varieties, be they obtained by genetic modification or by good, old-fashioned selective breeding. The protection is, however, rather different to that accorded by a patent, and rather narrower.
As for this old chestnut:
Even if an Iraqi farmer had a good supply of non-GMO seeds, his crop is still in jeopardy. Once stray Monsanto pollen(tm) blows into his field and starts forming viable offspring, he is totally fucked. If he doesn't pay Monsanto's licensing fees, he's breaking the law.
You are quite wrong. This meme was started by the Monsanto vs. Schmeiser case, in which a Canadian farmer was fined for saving seed from fields contaminated with Monsanto seed that had found its way there from neighbouring fields. I read through that judgment, and found out that it was based on solid statistical evidence from Monsanto that it was nearly impossible for Schmeiser to have replanted the proportion of GM seed he used without knowingly selecting it.
I am not particularly happy about the current state of IP legislation, but that is also why I think that informing the public accurately about the subject is pretty important.
Strange, the "PeTA kills animals" meme already showed up in Metafilter not so long ago in a highly suspicious one-link FPP also leading to the CCF. I don't feel the slightest sympathy for PeTA, but this looks awfully like Astroturf.
posted by Skeptic 18 years ago
In "Curious Roving George"
Within the EU there is indeed freedom of movement and establishment but you'll have to go through some red tape in most countries. Just because they are obliged to give you a residence and work permit doesn't mean that they are not going to make you go through the motions to get them... As for your wife, most EU countries won't give too much trouble to the spouse of a EU citizen, especially if she comes from a First World country. EU legislation actually mandates equality of treatment for EU citizens, so she'll be treated just like the foreign spouse of a citizen of that country. Thing is, some countries, especially in Northern Europe, are putting a lot of hurdles on foreign spouses of their own citizens too. Holland, already mentioned, being particularly nasty. As a rule, don't underestimate the trouble of relocating. English-speakers, in particular, tend to labour under the delusion that everybody will understand them and that, in any case, learning a foreign language can't be all that hard. Also, brace yourself for the red tape. European countries are not necessarily more bureaucratic (OK, they usually are), but the bureaucracy is different. Tax forms are different, health care paperwork is different, the whole approach to administration can be different. You'll find out that a driving license is not generally considered a valid ID, but that in many countries you'll have to carry a national ID card with you almost at all times, for instance. Banks work differently (with less paper involved, thankfully) and work contracts are also very different. As for which country to go to, I wouldn't recommend Holland or the Scandinavian countries because of the hurdles they may put on the way of your wife. Spain is nice, but finding a decently paid job could be difficult. Italy has a reputation for difficult bureaucracy. So...Belgium, France (especially the South) and Germany (especially Bavaria) could be good choices, but beware the language problem. Because of that, I'd recommend you Ireland as the best option. Same language, plenty of work, and less red tape, with special treaties further facilitating things for UK citizens. They are also welcoming to US citizens, and if your wife can find some Irish ancestor (which she probably will), it may open her way to a burgundy passport too (BTW, this can work with ancestors from other EU countries, Italy and Germany in particular very generously handing citizenship to people with only very tenuous family links).
posted by Skeptic 18 years ago
In "Eurovision winning songs:"
Actually, "La la la" wasn't half bad. But I think that Wogan and other Brits took very badly that it beat Cliff Richard's "Congratulations" (a summit of schmaltz if there was ever one). As an aside, its singer, Massiel, wasn't supposed to take part in the first place, but the original Spanish nominee, Joan Manuel Serrat, wanted to sing in Catalan. This, as could be expected, went down badly with the Franco regime. Ironically, Massiel went on to become a left-wing icon...
posted by Skeptic 18 years ago
In "Cumming: The Fragrance"
Well, I guess the point is to show just how abominably ridiculous some ads featuring women are, that is, how some ad agencies mistake "feminine" with plain retarded. I really hope that's the point, anyway.
posted by Skeptic 18 years ago
In "Blame Canada!!!"
Come on, not so long ago, Canadian Forces won a hard battle against, er, a fishing boat. Then Canada paid those pesky Spaniards $41,000 in compensation, though... Still, at least in this dispute, Canadians and Danes do not appear to take things too seriously...
posted by Skeptic 18 years ago
In "[insert enemy target here]"
BTW, who's in charge of abbreviations at the Pentagon? Hasn't he noticed that "ISF" (Iraqi Security Forces, I presume) sounds dangerously like "IDF" (Israeli Defense Forces)?
posted by Skeptic 18 years ago
Debaser: You forgot Poland.
posted by Skeptic 18 years ago
In "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People With Email"
Well, some of you may find this article superfluous, but I can swear you there are millions of clueless people out there whom it wouldn't hurt to read it.
posted by Skeptic 18 years ago
In "Ramon Watkins, aka Prophet Yahweh"
OK, since when did US newscaters start to take inspiration from "The Daily Show". That guy acts like he's stolen his cue cards from Rob Corddry.
posted by Skeptic 18 years ago
In "Lockheed Martin"
Actually, the graphics in this PopMech article are a little misleading. If I'm not wrong, this whole contraption is supposed to sit on top of a launch vehicle. It is just the final stage. Basically, NASA has given up (for the time being) on reusable launch vehicles. So, to bring the crew to the ISS it will use a crew module on top of a rocket. However, by the looks of it, I think you are wrong, chimaera. It is a glider, as it seems to have a lifting body. Otherwise, I completely agree with you and must point out that it looks a lot like the Crew Transport Vehicle that the European Space Agency wanted to develop from its Automated Transfer Vehicle (aka ISS Delivery Truck), but has had to keep on ice for the last ten years for lack of funds.
posted by Skeptic 18 years ago
In "Fewer than one in 10 climate scientists believe that climate change is principally caused by human activity"
OK, Sokal would certainly have one or two things to say about Bray's paper (to read it, click on the "View as HTML" link): "a socioscientific construction of the climate change issue"? WTF?
posted by Skeptic 18 years ago
BTW, I've googled both Peiser and Bray and, guess what? Peiser is a social anthropologist. Bray is a sociologist. Is this the social scientists' revenge for the Sokal affair?
posted by Skeptic 18 years ago
And smallish bear, I don't know about Gyan, but the Torygraph is certainly part of the spin if it doesn't do proper journalistic work and research its articles. Especially if the "information" it publishes just happens to coincide with their whole unapologetically conservative political slant.
posted by Skeptic 18 years ago
I think shane has a very good point. "Climate change" on its own is a very misleading, deliberately ambiguous term: of course there are factors other than human in climate change, after all, the Earth's climate has been changing continuously since well before the humans and will continue changing it afterwards. And of course, some of the factors involved (Sun radiation, orbital mechanics) dwarf in the long term anything that man can do. In the long term mind you: we are speaking in terms of tens of thousands of years there. So, indeed, climate change, in its wider sense is not principally caused by human activity, but human activity, however, is changing climate in a much shorter time scale of decades, rather than tens of thousands of years, not leaving time for either ecosystems or human societies to adapt. BTW, chimaera would you care to share your sources with us? Because you make quite a few unsubstantiated assertions...(Mt. Pinatubo, the Monte Carlo simulation, etc.)
posted by Skeptic 18 years ago
In "Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass. "
Oh, the sweeeet memories of engineering school and "optimizing the results" of experiments carried out with equipment which hadn't been properly calibrated in two decades. Still, my great-grandfather had it even worse: he was supposed to write his physics PhD thesis on the N-rays (and no, this is not a self-link). After years of unfruitful work, he showed impressive integrity and switched to chemistry...
posted by Skeptic 18 years ago
In "The Heysel disaster."
The last article is rather unpleasant, to say the least, as it seems to lay blame on about everybody but the actual killers, the Liverpool "supporters" who charged. Anyway, the points generally raised about the inadequate behaviour of the Belgian authorities, police and judiciary at the time are rightful, though. At that time in the '80s these were inept at best, corrupt at worst, as the Dutroux case would ultimately reveal. That case started a period of unprecedented soul-searching, that, I think, will ultimately benefit that country. While the crackdown on football violence in Britain was harsh, however, little seems to have been done against the underlying causes of that violence. To my (admittedly outside) eye his would appear to me to have merely moved the theatre of violence from the football stadia to British inner cities ca. 11 pm. Or to foreign beach resorts with less prevalent CCTV presence. Why is so little done about that, other than merely tending the wounds? There's a lot of talk about the "yob culture", yet binge drinking and pub brawls still seem to be accepted socially in a way that would be inconceivable anywhere else. For the record, I'm neither Belgian, nor British, nor Italian...
posted by Skeptic 19 years ago
In "Princess Michael of Kent"
Italy was a monarchy when it fell to fascism and so was Spain Er, no, Spain was a republic at the time. It had become a republic in 1931, and the Civil War started in 1936. But of course, monarchists were very overwhelmingly on Franco's side. Juan Carlos' father, the then heir apparent, even volunteered to fight, and Franco was happy enough to appropriate all the symbols of the Spanish monarchy, while playing the different branches of the royal family against each other. The result was that Spain, for almost forty years was that most rare of animals: a kingdom without a king...
posted by Skeptic 19 years ago
In "The Boston Globe"
SideDish, I see your point, but, even if it's true that the NY Daily News is hardly a beacon of political journalism, you can't deny that apart from the headline, the article isn't all that different from what the supposedly more "serious" media are carrying. Everybody, from the WP to CNN, is exploiting the "gay porn" angle for all what is worth. Which makes their fingerpointing at the "naughty bloggers" all the more hypocritical. But, of course, this are the same media that spent months discussing semen stains and the shape of a former president's penis...
posted by Skeptic 19 years ago
What does the mass media need to train its spotlight on a press-manipulation scandal that has been festering for a couple of weeks on the Web? Well, a bit of hotmilitarystuds.com fairydust, as it seems... The curiosest thing is to suddenly see media pundits accuse the bloggers of going beyond the line in "exposing Gannon's private life" (all the while very pruriently listing the names of all sexually evocative websites linked to Gannon/Guckert). As if there had been anything private about it... But a quote of media ethics pundit Kelly McBride amuses me to no end: "Those are not tactics you would see practiced in most traditional newsrooms" Oh, really? You know you are in trouble when a bunch of amateurs and the Daily Show do a better job than the real newsrooms...
posted by Skeptic 19 years ago
In "The Ten Worst Corporations of 2004"
Wedge, I have been through that law. Have you? In fact, have you followed your original link? Because it in turn sourced its info from uruknet, which in turn sourced it from Slashdot, which in turn sourced it from an agricultural NGO called GRAIN. And, during this whole process a lot of information has been lost or distorted with nobody having much of a look at the law in question or asking any expert for an interpretation. First of all, well, this isn't about either patents or GM plants. There are a number of different types of IP rights, and this whole fuss seems to be about the introduction of one, namely Breeder's Rights, which didn't previously exist under Iraqi law. It is, however, not a patent, but a rather different kind of animal. You can (with some legal juggling) get a patent for the process of genetically modifying a plant, as well as for the product of that process (that is, the GM plant). Breeder's Rights are however applicable for all new varieties, be they obtained by genetic modification or by good, old-fashioned selective breeding. The protection is, however, rather different to that accorded by a patent, and rather narrower. As for this old chestnut: Even if an Iraqi farmer had a good supply of non-GMO seeds, his crop is still in jeopardy. Once stray Monsanto pollen(tm) blows into his field and starts forming viable offspring, he is totally fucked. If he doesn't pay Monsanto's licensing fees, he's breaking the law. You are quite wrong. This meme was started by the Monsanto vs. Schmeiser case, in which a Canadian farmer was fined for saving seed from fields contaminated with Monsanto seed that had found its way there from neighbouring fields. I read through that judgment, and found out that it was based on solid statistical evidence from Monsanto that it was nearly impossible for Schmeiser to have replanted the proportion of GM seed he used without knowingly selecting it. I am not particularly happy about the current state of IP legislation, but that is also why I think that informing the public accurately about the subject is pretty important.
posted by Skeptic 19 years ago
(limited to the most recent 20 comments)