Apropos that, one wonders who might be responsible for "Regin". [ur=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30145265]'Sophisticated' Regin spyware spotted[/url] Note the countries that have reported Regin - makes one speculated. But Austria? Why Austria?
I guess all are targeted but not nearly all report it. Katsung - where are you when we need you?
It could be a good idea to idle there more frequently. ;-) Or maybe it would make sense to have own channel for DnD Sanctuary?
Hi! I think the sites are very similar; half the time (more actually) I have no idea what people are talking about, me included - this applies to both!
What do you mean by "channel" in that context by the way?
Criticism of FIFA continues. According to Michael Garcia, the American Lawyer who conducted FIFA's own investigation in Corruption, Hans-Joachim Eckert, for FIFA, has misrepresented the conclusions of his report. This confirmed the suspicions of many and there is a growing clamour for the full report to be published. Both in the UK and in Germany there are calls for strong action by UEFA, raising the possibility of a boycott of the Russian-hosted World cup in 4 years time or even UEFA quitting FIFA.
External to Europe, in America is also dismay at the continuing inability of FIFA to put its house in order, or even admit that a problem exists. Spicing up the whole thing is an ongoing investigation by the FBI - see FBI moves ahead with FIFA corruption probe.
A mixture of ex colleagues and the BBC (they have shown a number of interviews of people in the project team and associated scientists). So I should really add that what I wrote is certainly not complete but I think it gives the general picture.
It seems that the probe did not have a "clean" landing since it bounced and travelled several hundred metres before it finally settled on the surface. It seems to have stopped in a tilted orientation and, worse, in a shadow so that the battery will not charge. The existing battery charge will last for about a day but before it is "curtains" but before that happens they may try to the probe by operating one of the screws intended to hold it in place in the hope that some of the tilt will be corrected. Someone suggested trying to fire the "harpoons" again - why not if you're going out, then go out with a bang. Whatever they could make it worse but since loss of battery is terminal anyway who cares. On the bright side it is reported that all of the instruments are working so that at least some data has already been sent back to earth. We should know by this time tomorrow.
In the meantime, for a giggle have a look at this rather charming animation from ESA which describes the initial landing process. I wonder what's in the sandwiches!
It seems to me that the American Government as a whole is dysfunctional in that it sets up conflicts in policy between the will of the people expressed in the two houses and the President.
We have some of that in Europe where the European elections have a different time-scale to the national elections and as a result the political views expressed by national delegations in the European Parliament do not necessarily reflect the political views in the countries they represent, as expressed in the national elections.
In the UK there was an ill fated attempt (thank goodness it did fail because it was a proposal shot through with silliness) to democratise the House into elected politicians serving terms of 12 years. Had it passed it would have set up potential out-of-phase political conflicts. I supposes similar dis-function applies in other countries.
Surely all this is just a way of Governments shooting themselves in the foot.
Yes - I've heard all the BS about "Separation of the Powers" and all that, but if something dos not work well it should be changed, not hidden behind legislation which advantaged political parties claim is Holy writ..
There are Muslim terrorists here in China as well. But in that case they are primarily Xinjiang separatists, and religion has a secondary role. There are a few Islamists, that have flocked to Iraq and elsewhere. China has had a large Muslim (and once Christian and Jewish) minority for centuries, Islam is pretty well integrated in the society.
Under the Cultural Revolution all religion was repressed, particularly the "native" ones (buddhism, daoism...). Now religion is only suppressed if the (local, central) government consider it a threat, in which case it can be be brutally so. Relatively to Western governments Chinese policing sometimes seem rather timid and slow, but at some point a decision is made and they come down much harder than Western police would. I think the Western approach is more effective, and China can learn a lot from the West.
As a matter of interest and if you can reply without being locked up, is China still communist and, as a related question would you think that communism is a religion?
The long awaited report on corruption within FIFA has been published.
Well sort of.
What was published was a report by Hans-Joachim Eckert, Fifa's independent ethics adjudicator, who wrote the report. A synopsis, that is, of the full report written by Michael Garcia, a former United States federal prosecutor.
When I started writing this post I was going to follow-on the above by writing something like "Bollocks" and pointing out that FIFA people have been mired in corruption for many years as evidenced by how many of them have been suspended from their posts. But then I would say that wouldn't I, being English.
But such words are not really necessary, Garcia has already objected to Eckert's interpretation of his (Garcia's) report :
For those that are interested and who can also get BBC television live or recorded, note that there is a programme on BBC 4 at 21.00 hrs (22.00 hrs (mostly) European time) entitled "The Sky at night" - see here.
Quote
Rosetta: A Sky at Night Special The Sky at Night
It is one of the most extraordinary space adventures in a generation - to land a spacecraft on a comet.
The European Space Agency's (ESA) Rosetta spacecraft has been hurtling through space for over 10 years, tracking down a comet called 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Now it is about to do something that has never been attempted before and land a spacecraft on the comet's surface.
This special episode of The Sky at Night puts the viewer right at the heart of the action, witnessing events as they happened from inside mission control. It reveals the latest images, explores the first groundbreaking science coming back from the comet and asks the astonishing questions that make this mission so captivating. Could Earth's water have come from comets? How do comets survive for so long? Could they have triggered the start of life on Earth?
The journey has been fraught with risk and at every stage the comet seems to surprise, but if the mission succeeds it will be a momentous day in the history of space exploration.
The lander adjunct, Philae, of the Rosetta Spacecraft has landed on a comet and is starting to send data back to Earth.
It's a remarkable achievement, given the number of things that could have gone wrong with the mission due to its complexity. This is a programme that took around 30 years to come to completion, from inception to landing, the last 10 years being the time in space that Rosetta has taken to rendezvous with the comet. The lander Philae will stay attached to the comet as, in due course, it swings near to the Sun and hopefully will give unique data on the gasses that are emitted as the comet app[roaches the Sun. The Philae will not, however, survive that particular encounter!
We (most countries in the world. I would guess) seem to be drifting into the equivalent of a state of war with Fundamentalist "Islam" (I use "" because there is now a lot of evidence about a backlash in the Muslim community against these extremists and one has to doubt that "Islam" relates to what the fundamentalist terrorists are about).
It has a parallel with what many Brits (including me by the way) felt about the Irish Terrorist Campaign in Northern Ireland. with their self-styled "war" against the N.I. status-quo. At a certain point one has to, I believe, stop treating terrorists like criminals and treat them as enemy combatants subject to the extremes of counter force that happen in wartime.
That's not an easy step and arguments like "not being brought down to the level of the terrorists" are very persuasive not only because of their logic but because civilised behaviour is what we fundamentally all want. But after a while repeated terrorist actions have an effect on the language and on the emotional reaction of the population at large and a "war on terror" becomes what people actually want, desiring a quicker end to atrocities. So there is a threshold between police response and a military response. When one's fellow citizens get hurt people start to take the matter seriously, not as something that happens so far away it does not matter.
Bush used the term "War on Terror" to add emotional weight to his military actions and also, it's clear, a legal basis for treating "the enemy" with the ferocity of war-time and the laissez-faire on methods used The recent attacks in Canada and the US were relatively minor compared to indiscriminate bombing and murders, 9/11, genocidal attacks and others but it seems that the threshold is reached rather quickly. The Canadian and US "terrorist attacks" may not have been planned as such, but by now we know the excesses to which they can lead.
Frankly I'm not surprised. This problem will require unpleasant solutions I'm afraid.
The photo that Jimbro posted is two edged - disgust at the depravity of an organisation that recruits people of such a long age, and the long term implication of brain-washing, and the disgust at the prospect of having to shoult such kids in combat. It's a no-win situation which begins to look inevitable.
