Firstly, they are not all accompanied by signs. Many trunk roads have fixed ANPR cameras which aren't marked. All the police's traffic cars (including unmarked cars) have ANPR cameras and don't have any signs. Even back in 2010 there were over 4000 ANPR cameras operating with absolutely no regulatory oversight.

Secondly, the cameras are hardly just used to "check for valid tax and insurance". Some are operated by the Ministry of Defence, FFS. Every plate checked has its location, time (and in many cases a photo) stored on the ANPR database. This data is held 'routinely' for two years, but you can bet your bottom dollar it's held in perpetuity if you are a suspected 'person of interest'. If it was just for checking tax and insurance there would be no need to store data for anyone who was taxed and insured.

Nor would there be stories like the one where an 84 year old peace protester with no criminal record is tugged because the ANPR database flags him as “of interest to public order unit Sussex”. The story goes on say that Sussex Police alone record over 1.2 million car positions a day.

The 'tax and insurance' excuse is just like the terrorist/child pornographer excuse. If you disagree with widespread invasion of privacy by the state you must be untaxed or uninsured, right?

How would you know? Under the RIP Act, the authorities can monitor any and all private communications without a warrant from a judge (merely with permission from -- for example -- "any customs officer designated for the purposes by the Commissioners of Revenue and Customs"), and no figures on how many people have been affected are available.

This wouldn't get around the law. Non-cookie based tracking is also covered.

The media may call it the 'Cookie law', but the article title's "No tracking law" is more accurate.

I give you.... ...the Microsoft Kin!

Launched May 13, 2010.

Discontinued June 30, 2010.

Now that's what I call long-term thinking!

In any case, he's a man named François Hollande.

I guess timothy omitted the cedilla for fear that slashcode would mangle it.

Germany seems to be doing OK, and they have strong labour protection laws.

In Greece, on the other hand, an employer can terminate any employment for any reason whatsoever with a month's notice. Not helped Greece much.

LOL.

Different countries in Europe have different employment laws.

If people in European countries think their laws are absurd, they can show it at the ballot box.

Yes.

To me, it's already like a magic book. A magic book that lights up has got to be better!

Elspeth Rosamund Morton Howe (Baroness Howe of Idlicote in her own right and and Lady Howe of Aberavon because she's the wife of Baron Howe of Aberavon) is 80 years old.

This might give everyone a clue as to why she's got no idea about the net, or about the wide acceptance of pornography in mainstream culture.

Thankfully, this bill has no chance of passing, as there's no money in it for any of Cameron's cronies. Anyway, I can't think of a single bill from the last ten years that started in the House of Lords that became law, never mind one from a cross-bencher.

BTW: she was created a baroness, and her husband was created a baron; they're not hereditary peers, and her father was the noted architect and writer Philip Morton Shand, so putting it down to inbreeding rather than her simply being out-of-touch, over-privileged and superannuated is maybe a bit harsh!

What/quoi?

Canada: 0.9% GDP growth last quarter.
US: 2.8%
India: 6.9%
China: 9.8%

More...

This 'Ajad' chappy (who he?) sounds completely unlike the previous US president who believed he was living in "the end times" and that the second coming of Christ would result in 'armageddon': a battle against the Antichrist in the Middle East!

Also, I'm pretty sure that Ahmadinejad hasn't threatened to nuke the US or Israel, as he claims that Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons.

LOL. Where did you get that one? Iran gets more than half of its energy from natural gas, and has the third largest consumption in the world after the US and Russia. It also has to import some to meet its needs!

No, you're still wrong. Free speech in the UK. Codified into law..

Perhaps you are right about the common-law interpretation of libel. But there IS free speech in the UK, codified into law. It may be more free in the US, but it does exist in the UK.

No, this is NOT a free speech issue. Free speech is the freedom to speak freely without government interference. If this dweeb had been the publisher of the bomb-making instructions then you might have a point. But he is not. His freedom of speech has not been curtailed.

In the UK you are free to drink a beer in the street or a park. We consider this to be an essential method of self-expression. You are not free to do so in much of the US. Ergo there is no free speech in the US. An equally silly statement.

You are of course familiar with the Detroit Sleeper Cell? Convicted of terrorism, to wit: recording a home movie at Disneyland. Convicted and acquitted on appeal. Not considered by anyone to ever have been a 'free speech issue'.

Please don't conflate a real shitty law with a fictitious old canard.

The UK has the Human Rights Act, of which article 10 guarantees free speech. Before this, rights to free speech were part of common law dating back centuries.

If you mean "the UK has no absolute free speech rights" you are correct. Try making threats against the President's life to see if you have absolute free speech rights.

But this case has nothing to do with free speech. He was convicted under section 58 of the Terrorism Act, which proscribes "collect[ing] or mak[ing] a record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism". Bullshit, of course (a tube map is likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism), but not a free speech issue.

People convicted in similar cases have been acquitted on appeal where the prosecution cannot show that the defendant intended to commit a specific act of terrorism. Wannabe terrorists, IOW. Doubtless this goofball will be acquitted on appeal too, but that won't be so widely reported, and if it is, the government have an excuse to pass more draconian 'anti-terrorist' laws.

Don't miss the fact that this legislation predates 9/11.

There has been no statistically significant warming in the last 15 years. The Earth is not getting hotter, it got hotter and then, a decade and a half ago, it stopped.

The first sentence is true, yet the second sentence is false.

Here's my favourite of the many debunkings of this myth. The third graph is particularly compelling, and will be even more compelling when the data for 2011 is added.

So here are two requirements for those wishing to conclude that global warming has stopped based on the interview with Phil Jones:

1. Accept the backwards logic that allows global warming to keep on stopping while temperatures keep on rising.
2. Ignore the real question of whether the last 15 years is consistent with a continued warming trend (which it is).

So no, global warming has not stopped. It takes some serious wishful thinking to say that it has.

Got a source for that?

This is a big story here in France but I've not heard that claim.

I'm really enjoying working with the Solar framework. It's well engineered and cleanly constructed.

Certainly worth a look if you're sticking to (or stuck with) PHP.

...or is this punishment simply too harsh for someone who perhaps didn't realize how seriously his actions would be taken by the authorities?

Considering that he was a serial offender, and had received an official caution from the police in 2009 for a similar offence, it seems unlikely that he didn't realize how seriously his actions would be taken.

If he'd done a similar thing by post, he'd still be going to prison.