DeeJ doesn't think so if they involve women.

#freesparkles

He's actually doing quite well. However, the audience members are exclusively young (mostly students) and seem more interested in bashing him for half-reneging on his tuition fees promise. Nobody seems to be actually listening to the answers he's giving. It's encouraging, too, since the Liberal Democrats are probably nominally the best party - if not the most dependable.

It's interesting to see how the media can play a massive role in how the public views a politician (most British media is Conservative-owned). The Lib Dems might get my vote in 2015, if nothing more than a throwaway protest vote.

Anybody else seem to have opinions of politicians/parties/public figures which differ from the norm? Also, does it make you feel as if the people who dislike them are "falling for it" or unwilling to listen to them?

Dune for reference which, at one time, I considered a big book.

I don't know how I'll manage this alongside the other six books I'm reading >.>

So, anybody else ordered some books/had them delivered/started reading one recently?

I just ate all my mother's chocolates - specifically After Eights.

I'm not sure how I should go about un-incriminating myself. I could either discard the box and the little paper wrappers completely by burying them in the garden, which I once did effectually when I stole and ripped up my auntie's hand-made birthday card.

Or, I could scatter said material near my dog's bed and blame it on him, as I did once, effectually, when I dropped my dinner.

From the Washington Post.

BEIRUT — The Obama administration’s Syria strategy suffered a major setback Sunday after fighters linked to al-Qaeda routed U.S.-backed rebels from their main northern strongholds, capturing significant quantities of weaponry, triggering widespread defections and ending hopes that Washington will readily find Syrian partners in its war against the Islamic State.

Moderate rebels who had been armed and trained by the United States either surrendered or defected to the extremists as the Jabhat al-Nusra group, affiliated with al-Qaeda, swept through the towns and villages the moderates controlled in the northern province of Idlib, in what appeared to be a concerted push to vanquish the moderate Free Syrian Army, according to rebel commanders, activists and analysts.

Other moderate fighters were on the run, headed for the Turkish border as the extremists closed in, heralding a significant defeat for the rebel forces Washington had been counting on as a bulwark against the Islamic State.

Moderates still retain a strong presence in southern Syria, but the Islamic State has not been a major factor there.

A senior Defense Department official said the Pentagon “is monitoring developments as closely as possible” but could “not independently verify” reports from the ground. The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Jabhat al-Nusra has long been regarded by Syrians as less radical than the breakaway Islamic State faction, and it had participated alongside moderate rebels in battles against the Islamic State earlier this year. But it is also on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations and is the only group in Syria that has formally declared its allegiance to the mainstream al-Qaeda leadership.

A Jabhat al-Nusra base was one of the first targets hit when the United States launched its air war in Syria in September, and activists said the tensions fueled by that attack had contributed to the success of the group’s push against the moderate rebels.

“When American airstrikes targeted al-Nusra, people felt solidarity with them because Nusra are fighting the regime, and the strikes are helping the regime,” said Raed al-Fares, an activist leader in Kafr Nabel, in Idlib.

“Now people think that whoever in the Free Syrian Army gets support from the U.S.A. is an agent of the regime,” he said.

Fleeing rebel fighters said they feared the defeat would spell the end of the Free Syrian Army, the umbrella name used by the moderate rebel groups that the United States has somewhat erratically sought to promote as an alternative both to the Assad regime and the extremist Islamic State.

Among the groups whose bases were overrun in the assault was Harakat Hazm, the biggest recipient of U.S. assistance offered under a small-scale, covert CIA program launched this year, including the first deliveries of U.S.-made TOW antitank missiles. The group’s headquarters outside the village of Khan Subbul was seized by Jabhat al-Nusra overnight Saturday, after rebel fighters there surrendered their weapons and fled without a fight, according to residents in the area.

Hussam Omar, a spokesman for Harakat Hazm, refused to confirm whether American weaponry had been captured by the al-Qaeda affiliate because, he said, negotiations with Jabhat al-Nusra are underway.

Harakat Hazm, whose name means “Steadfastness Movement,” had also received small arms and ammunition alongside non-lethal aid in the form of vehicles, food and uniforms from the United States and its European and Persian Gulf Arab allies grouped as the Friends of Syria alliance. Scores of its fighters had received U.S. training in Qatar under the covert program, but it was also not possible to confirm whether any of those fighters had defected to the al-Qaeda affiliate.

Another Western-backed group, the Syrian Revolutionary Front, on Saturday gave up its bases in Jabal al-Zawiya, a collection of mountain villages that had been under the control of the pro-American warlord Jamal Maarouf since 2012. A video posted on YouTube showed Jabhat al-Nusra fighters unearthing stockpiles of weaponry at Maarouf’s headquarters in his home town of Deir Sunbul.

In a separate video, Maarouf, addressing the Jabhat al-Nusra leadership, said he fled along with those of his men who had not defected, “to preserve the blood of civilians, because you behead people and slaughter them if they do not obey you.”

The loss of northern Idlib province could prove a crippling blow to the moderate rebels, whose fight against Assad’s regime began in 2012 and has since been complicated by the rise of rival Islamist groups with goals very different from those of the original revolutionaries.

Idlib was the last of the northern Syrian provinces where the Free Syrian Army maintained a significant presence, and groups there had banded together in January to eject the Islamic State in the first instance in which Syrians had turned against the extremist radicals.

Most of the rest of northern Syria is controlled by the Islamic State, apart from a small strip of territory around the city of Aleppo. There the rebels are fighting to hold at bay both the Islamic State and the forces of the Assad government, and the defeat in Idlib will further isolate those fighters.

Perhaps most significant, it will complicate the task of finding Syrian allies willing to join the fight against the Islamic State, said Charles Lister of the Qatar-based Brookings Doha Center.

“The United States and its allies are depending very strongly on having armed organizations on the ground to call upon to fight the Islamic State, and now those groups have taken a very significant defeat,” he said.

Although some groups have already been receiving U.S. support, it was never sufficient to tilt the balance of power on the ground, Lister said. “This sends a message that Western support doesn’t equal success,” he added.

The limited assistance program already underway is expected to be supplemented by a bigger, overt, $500 million program to train and equip moderate rebels that was first announced by President Obama in June and that has become a central component of the U.S. strategy to confront the Islamic State.

But U.S. officials have said it could be months before the program starts, and longer before it takes effect, thereby giving an incentive to the moderates’ foes to challenge them before any significant help arrives.

Although the administration has long voiced its support for the rebel fighters, direct U.S. aid to them has been slow and scant, with weapons shipments and a CIA training program limited by the need to vet the fighters for any ties to militants.

More extensive aid to the rebels has also been withheld in the interest of promoting a negotiated political solution that would remove Assad from power while leaving Syrian institutions, including the military, intact.

In public remarks last week, national security adviser Susan E. Rice acknowledged that the U.S.-backed rebels “are fighting a multifront conflict, which is obviously taking a real toll on them.” The expanded military train-and-equip mission, Rice said, “is, in the first instance, going to enable them to fend off ISIL, but it is also designed and originated with the concept of trying to help create conditions on the ground that are conducive to negotiations. And that means helping them in their conflict against Assad as well.”

Meanwhile, the extension of the air war to Syria in September has drawn widespread complaints from moderate rebels that their goal of ousting the Assad regime is being shunted aside in the effort to fight the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIL. Anecdotal evidence that the airstrikes have indirectly aided the Assad government in its efforts to crush the rebellion has further fueled resentment.

Besides southern Syria, where the Islamic State has not established a significant foothold, moderate groups are also still fighting in scattered pockets around Damascus. But the U.S. campaign against the Islamic State is focused on the northern part of the country, where the group has entrenched itself across vast areas of territory for more than a year.

Well, none of us saw this coming.

Do you know anybody like this? I know a girl in my form class, and it pisses me the fuck off to no end. We once got into an argument about the legalisation of drugs and she thought she'd won by dismissing the idea and saying "do you have any idea what a person on cocaine is like?"

Obama's stimulus, in Q2 of 2012, was estimated by the CBO to be $831bn.

The cumulative rate of inflation since 1933 is about 1550pc, which would place the New Deal at $825bn.

Does anybody else find this incredibly surprising?

From the Telegraph.

Anyone who criticises Sharia law or gay marriage could be branded an “extremist” under sweeping new powers planned by the Conservatives to combat terrorism, an alliance of leading atheists and Christians fear.

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, unveiled plans last month for so-called Extremism Disruption Orders, which would allow judges to ban people deemed extremists from broadcasting, protesting in certain places or even posting messages on Facebook or Twitter without permission.

Mrs May outlined the proposal in a speech at the Tory party conference in which she spoke about the threat from the so-called Islamic State – also known as Isis and Isil – and the Nigerian Islamist movement Boko Haram.

But George Osborne, the Chancellor, has made clear in a letter to constituents that the aim of the orders would be to “eliminate extremism in all its forms” and that they would be used to curtail the activities of those who “spread hate but do not break laws”.

He explained that that the new orders, which will be in the Conservative election manifesto, would extend to any activities that “justify hatred” against people on the grounds of religion, sexual orientation, gender or disability.

He also disclosed that anyone seeking to challenge such an order would have to go the High Court, appealing on a point of law rather than fact.

The National Secular Society and the Christian institute – two organisations with often diametrically opposing interests – said they shared fears that the broad scope of extremism could represent a major threat to free speech.

Keith Porteous Wood, director of the NSS, said secularists might have to think twice before criticising Christianity or Islam. He said secularists risk being branded Islamophobic and racist because of their high profile campaigns against the advance of Sharia law in the UK.

“The Government should have every tool possible to tackle extremism and terrorism, but there is a huge arsenal of laws already in place and a much better case needs to be made for introducing draconian measures such as Extremism Disruption Orders, which are almost unchallengeable and deprive individuals of their liberties,” he said.

“Without precise legislative definitions, deciding what are ‘harmful activities of extremist individuals who spread hate’ is subjective and therefore open to abuse now or by any future authoritarian government.”
Simon Calvert, Deputy Director of the Christian Institute, said traditionalist evangelicals who criticise gay marriage or even argue that all religions are not the same could find themselves accused of extremism.

“Anyone who expresses an opinion that isn’t regarded as totally compliant with the Equality Act could find themselves ranked alongside Anjem Choudary, Islamic state or Boko Haram,” he said.

He added: “How many times a day do intellectually lazy political activists accuse their opponents of ‘spreading hatred’?

“The left does it, the right does it, liberals do it, conservatives do it, it is routine.

“Hand a judge a file of a thousand Twitter postings accusing this atheist or that evangelical of ‘spreading hatred’ and they could easily rule that an EDO is needed.

“It’s a crazy idea – the Conservatives need to drop this like a hot brick.”

A Conservative spokesman said: "Freedom of expression and freedom of speech are a vital part of a democratic society.

"In Government, Conservatives have always tried to strike the right balance on freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom to manifest one’s religion, and the need to protect the public. We have never sought to restrict peaceful protest or free speech, provided it is within the law.

"Our proposal to introduce Extremism Disruption Orders reflects the need to go further on challenging the threat from extremism and those who spread their hateful views so that we can keep that democratic society safe."

Fuck this country and fuck the Conservatives for this bullshit. I feel betrayed by my party, and I'll be writing a letter to my MP, who happens to be the Minister for Culture.

The Liberal Democrats would never have allowed this through. And, funnily enough, the Guardian has reported that the Lib Dems blocked the EDOs immediate implementation. Fuck Rupert Murdoch, too.

What happened to the days when we trusted our neighbours, and felt at home in our community? But no, nowadays pretty much every house along the street is locked out of fear for ourselves and our children, despite the fact that kidnappings are statistically much more likely to happen within families.

How did we get to this place in society, guys? With so many locks.

Stop stealing my presents, cunt.

From Betabeat

In college, it wasn’t rare to hear a verbal battle regarding artificial intelligence erupt between my friends studying neuroscience and my friends studying computer science.

One rather outrageous fellow would mention the possibility of a computer takeover, and off they went. The neuroscience-savvy would awe at the potential of such hybrid technology as the CS majors argued we have nothing to fear, as computers will always need a programmer to tell them what to do.

Today’s news brings us to the Neural Turing Machine, a computer that will combine the way ordinary computers work with the way the human brain learns, enabling it to actually program itself. Perhaps my CS friends should reevaluate their position?

The computer is currently being developed by the London-based DeepMind Technologies, an artificial intelligence firm that was acquired by Google earlier this year. Neural networks — which will enable the computer to invent programs for situations it has not seen before — will make up half of the computer’s architecture. Experts at the firm hope this will equip the machine with the means to create like a human, but still with the number-crunching power of a computer, New Scientist reports.

In two different tests, the NTM was asked to 1) learn to copy blocks of binary data and 2) learn to remember and sort lists of data. The results were compared with a more basic neural network, and it was found that the computer learned faster and produced longer blocks of data with fewer errors. Additionally, the computer’s methods were found to be very similar to the code a human programmer would’ve written to make the computer complete such a task.

These are extremely simple tasks for a computer to accomplish when being told to do so, but computers’ abilities to learn them on their own could mean a lot for the future of AI.
Elon Musk is not going to be happy about this.

Make them feel welcome.

Trussing Door has twelve letters.
Lemy the Lizard has thirteen.
Lemy is also green, and we know Door was incredibly envious.

Given the numerical proximity of twelve to thirteen, it's safe to say that Door was a very unholy individual, lacking faith and without proper moral guidance. Too close to the unlucky number, he was. And, as we know, he was a pathological fedora tipper.

Therefore, I have reached the vindicated conclusion that - since we are coming up to Hallowe'en - Lemy is the unholy manifestation of Door's godless spirit, which possess him and forces him to make ungodly claims about other users.

Pray for Door. Pray for his damned soul. 

Really.

I'll be your best friend.