Fair enough. I would disagree, especially as the use of mat in Russia is a public order offence in itself, but that's my opinion.

They called the head of the Orthodox Church a "suka" [http://www.russiaslam.com/glossary#ÑÑfÐÐ] (no Cyrillic on /. so if link doesn't work, try www.russiaslam.com/glossary and scroll down to the word that looks like "cyka")... that's pretty much definitely religious hatred.

Russians take religion pretty seriously, although I agree, a lot of the trial was for show.

While I don't support the incarceration of Pussy Riot, can you imagine what would happen if Anal Cunt barged into a service at, for example, St. Paul's Cathedral in London, and started singing and swearing and blaspheming? Don't forget, the Sex Pistols were arrested for performing God Save The Queen. One of the women who was convicted also took part in an orgy in a museum, and is part of a group that (amongst other illegal acts of shock-protest) shoplifted a raw chicken by inserting it into a woman's vagina.

I think three years is extremely harsh, but to dismiss the charges as "chanting an anti-Putin slogan" is massively oversimplifying the issue. Were it to have happened in the UK, I would not be surprised if there were a (short) custodial sentence.

I don't disagree with your main point though, corruption is rife, and despite attempts to rid the country of it, it almost certainly goes right the way to the top. Russian people have next to no faith in their legal system.

Only on fucking Slashdot would this be +5 insightful, not +5 funny.

As I see it, either a) Assange did rape one or both of the women who have complained, in which case he will be found guilty, and rightly, serve a sentence for his crime. Or b) he didn't do it, and he was set up. If he was in fact set up, then it stands to reason that he was set up by somebody with the wherewithal to ensure that the case is solid enough to lead to a conviction. Either way, if he was to face potential charges in Sweden, I can't see a case in which he would be found not guilty.

Of course, this is all moot, because the US would have him trussed up and Gitmo-bound within 5 minutes of landing on Swedish soil.

No, that doesn't mean that at all. That means that if a work is used for nonprofit educational purposes that should be CONSIDERED as a FACTOR in trying to determine whether or not it is an infringement of copyright. If I downloaded (in full) a recent Hollywood release and showed it to a class in art history (because there was a scene shot in an art gallery) without charging for it, I could fairly say that it was a nonprofit educational use of the film. However, it would fall down on the other three factors - the nature of the copyrighted work is not substantially in line with the purpose for which it was used, there was no need to show the whole work, and it is relatively likely that nobody in that class will go out and purchase the film having already seen it. "Educational purposes" is not the catch-all that some people seem to think it is.

Government disappoint electorate. More at ten.

Although I would agree that his original post wasn't racist, his follow-up comments calling people wogs and telling them to go and pick some cotton are fairly unambiguously so.

No, you're 100% freer.

Ignore that - my misreading. The correct complaints/appeals would go through here: http://www.lgo.org.uk/ if it had not been adequately resolved by the authority themselves.

http://www.justice.gov.uk/tribunals/sscs/

TFA actually states that social services made a decision based on evidence available to them. We do not know if that information is also available to us. While I, of course, believe in being innocent until proven guilty, there is an additional factor in that if this bloke has been convicted of a sex crime in the past, social services may have access to that information, but they are not allowed to pass it on.

Also, if he IS a paedophile, and suspected the police were closing in on him, then he can now turn around and say "yes, of course that kiddie porn is there; I told you it was". In short, I'm reserving judgement on either party for this one. If he's not guilty, then he deserves to be able to have that decided in a court, rather than have people making up their minds based on a news article. On the other hand, there may well be a very good reason that access has been removed. If there is, then let the courts rule that the decision made by social services is fair.

It's right that he is allowed to challenge, but it's also right that social services are allowed to make a decision based on what they believe at the time to be in the best interests of the child.

You needed to be a UK resident to provide a surety in the UK? I don't think Mr. Moore is a UK resident, but don't know. Anyone got any insight?

In the UK, it is being implemented in banks. There are places where to enter, you have to walk through (or drive through) a fine spray of this. They've started distributing it in areas with a high incidence of burglaries (round me), and the statistics the policeman who came round to instruct us in its use were fascinating (although I haven't verified them). He said that in the area they were first deployed, they were averaging 200 burglaries a week. By the end of the pilot, that was down to 2 a MONTH. Admittedly, this was as part of an anti-burglary drive, and so cause and effect, etc. The policeman also told me that although you could wash off earlier versions with solvents, this needed to be physically sanded off. How much that's just FUD, I don't know, but still...

The UV light is only intended to indicate that SmartWater is present, it's not supposed to be anything other than a quick, easy-to-check, sign that property has been tagged.

No, you've misunderstood. Although what you've said is true, the "high dynamic range" that the technique is named for is the range in real life, not the representation. In other words, HDR is a technique which can better represent a scene with a high dynamic range.