I had the mistaken belief that all space probes / landers were nuke-powered.

From http://www.bbc.com/news/health...

While excess winter deaths are linked to low temperatures, hypothermia is not the main cause.

Experience shows that the majority of such deaths are due to heart disease, stroke and respiratory illness

Age UK's director Caroline Abrahams, said: "Excess winter deaths are preventable and today's figures are a damning indictment of our failure to address the scandal of cold homes in this country.

"We strongly believe that the only sustainable solution is investment to increase the ENERGY EFFICIENCY of our housing stock so cold homes become a thing of the past."

I've already addressed this. Clearly the UK is doing something wrong but the problem is NOT solely based on energy price. Other countries with as many vulnerable people as the UK cope with as high or higher energy costs.

If they need help, help them. It's not rocket science. But that doesn't justify given the able-bodied & well-off a free ride.

There are good ways & bad ways to give someone a helping hand.
And before you start trotting out Mitt Romney's 47% irresponsible, worthless, lazy, shiftless parasites, try to remember that MOST of the people receiving some form of social assistance in America HAVE JOBS, some more than one.

And that "1/2 pay no income tax" is a very nice way to lie with the apparent truth - if you're working, you're paying PAYROLL taxes. So yes, they have - to use a term I've frequently heard from the radical right wing - "skin in the game" and are as "entitled" to vote as anyone else.

Except for that horrible SCOTUS decision on Citizens United that means that really rich folks can subvert the will of the people with the judicious use of megabucks.
It's past time that the elections were publicly funded and corporate donations curtailed.

And Obamacare? It's better than the old status quo but far worse than the universal alternatives. A public option would be good; single-payer even better.
Why he didn't simply pitch & implement a Medicare-for-all plan boggles the mind.

Here's something else from the article - "Norway can afford to make the joke because there, people don’t tend to die of the cold. In Britain, we still do"

There are many places far colder than Britain with far fewer deaths - the issue isn't necessarily energy prices as Norwegian pricing for both petrol & electricity is much higher than the UK. And I've lived in civilized countries where, no matter how much you owe, your heat doesn't get cut in dangerously cold weather.
Why would the UK be so barbaric?

Subsidizing the legitimately poor is not at all the same as keeping them dependent and with some effort, you can curb abuses of the system.
You might as well argue that public libraries and discounted books are keeping people illiterate.

If that's your conclusion from what I wrote, your bird dog will do as all a favor by using your for target practice.

So add subsidies for the needy - and use some fucking decent building standards, for fuck's sake.
I've never lived in the UK but I do have many friends who have or grew up there - far too many homes are drafty and leaky beyond description.
Building better homes or patching up the crappy ones would be a great infrastructure project with lots of local employment, something Britain needs.
In civilized countries, you're not allowed to cut off someone's electricity during the winter months.

I'm not opposed to "inexpensive energy" but to subsidize fossil fuels for those who can easily afford it when it's the cause (or major factor) of conflict, pollution, death, and global warming.

There's also the tally of death & suffering, war & political instability that the West has caused in countries that they wouldn't give a flying fuck about, if there wasn't any oil buried under them.

We had inexpensive energy for a long time and it didn't fix all of society, so it's only one factor. And if every poor person could drive a car, traffic would be so slow that it would be quicker to walk.
Raise the cost or taxes on fuel and use it to build much better mass transit and subsidize the price of fruit & veggies, milk & meat produced domestically.
That will do more for the poor - with universal, single-payer, healthcare than simply having cheap gasoline.

It's definitely very easy to be the wrong race in the wrong place - and that place can easily be where you live and where you are in the MAJORITY and even in your own home, whether you're a street kid or a distinguished professor.

Just to give an idea of the stark difference between America and its closest peers, the incarceration rate per 100,000 population for most of the G20 countries, almost all of Europe and the advanced Western nations is from 50 - 150. There are a few outliers around 200 - 300 but none can encroach on the prowess of the lone superpower, coming in at over 700 prisoners (not incl juvenile delinquents) per 100,000 population.

So you want a full accounting of New York's stop-and-frisk program over its lifetime in order to be convinced?

"Why don't you move someplace else?" - I can't speak for those individuals but some refuse to be forced to leave what they consider their homes, even if there's better elsewhere. And there's no guarantee that things will be better. After the Civil War, there was a Great Migration of African-Americans out of the old South, numbering in the millions but until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, there were plenty of places within a couple hours drive of the Canadian border where segregation was a fact of life.
For over 20 yrs, we in North Am have been hearing stories about the racist resurgence in Europe. When Jean-Marie Le Pen advanced to the 2nd round in 2002, friends of mine from France who'd been living over here for a long time were embarrassed and exhorted their relatives back home to vote against him.
I suppose they could try moving to Canada but while that's considerably more tolerant than most places, there's an undercurrent of hostility there also and the current government appears to be VERY choosy towards certain kinds of immigrants.

You might be careful enough to not carry around anything that might incriminate you but cops who are out to get you don't need evidence and they don't need even to plant it or manufacture it. In too many places, even in the land of the free, they can act with impunity as Earl Sampson of Florida has learned.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new...

"At least once a week for the last four years, Earl Sampson, 28, has been stopped by Miami Gardens police — and searched more than 100 times, jailed 56 times and arrested for trespassing 62 times, records show.
They created this record," Sampson's boss and the owner of 207 Quickstop, Alex Saleh, told the Daily News Friday. "He's a good guy, a humble guy, a quiet guy. He's not a convicted felon."

This may not be your experience but it's the daily & lifelong experience of MILLIONS. Those pieces of paper you think protect you only carry weight because a great many, over the course of centuries, made the ultimate sacrifice for your benefit - but not everyone has benefited to the same degree, not even today.

If the cops are assholes and you live in the wrong part of the country, you don't even have to have anything incriminating.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/201...

Earl Sampson of Florida has been questioned 250 times, searched 100 times - and jailed over 50 times, for trespassing WHERE HE WORKS.
His true offense appears to be what, fortunately for him is no longer a capital crime, being egregiously "black in public".

The ruling is not phone-specific; the purpose was to search for a video that may show the defendant trying to strangle his girlfriend.
If that video was suspected to be on his tablet or laptop and those were protected by biometrics, the ruling would be the same.
In fact, at this point, the cops don't even know if the fingerprint will unlock the phone or not but armed with this ruling, nothing the accused owns that's locked with biometrics is safe.

How can you be charged with that?
The knowledge of WHICH fingerprint is the correct one ( or combination of fingerprints) is, just like your passcode, stored in your brain. They may be able to force you to swipe any or all fingers but, following the logic of the ruling, not to tell them which will work or what's the outcome of using the wrong one or wrong combination.

YOU did not destroy evidence - THEY did.