Or, as so well put in "Yes, Minister":

I was somewhat naive in those days. I did not understand
how the voters could be both for it and against it. Dear old
Humphrey showed me how it's done.

The secret is that when the Man In The Street is approached
by a nice attractive young lady with a clipboard, he is
asked a "series" of questions. Naturally the Man In The
Street doesn't wants to make a good impression and doesn't
want to make a fool of himself. So the market researcher
asks questions designed to elicit "consistent" answers.
Humphrey demonstrated the system on me. "Mr. Woolley, are
you worried about the rise in crime among teen-agers?"

"Yes," I said.

"Do you think there is a lack of discipline and vigorous
training in our Comprehensive Schools?"

"Yes."

"Do they respond to a challenge?"

"Yes."

"Might you be in favor of reintroducing National Service?"

"Yes."

Well, naturally I said yes. One could hardly have said
anything else without looking inconsistent. Then what
happens is that the Opinion Poll publishes only the last
question and answer.

Of course, the reputable polls didn't conduct themselves
like that. But there weren't too many of those. Humphrey
suggested that we commission a new survey, not for the Party
but for the Ministry of Defence. We did so. He invented the
question there and then:

"Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the danger of war?"

"Yes," I said quite honestly.

"Are you unhappy about the growth of armaments?"

"Yes."

"Do you think there's a danger in giving young people guns
and teaching them how to kill?"

"Yes."

"Do you think it is wrong to force people to take up arms
against their will?"

"Yes."

"Would you oppose the reintroduction of National Service?"
I'd said "Yes" before I'd even realized it, d'you see?

Humphrey was crowing with delight. "You see, Bernard," he
said to me," "you're the perfect Balanced Sample."

Weirdly, reviewing the table - the opposite effects seem to be occurring for two crimes - and two crimes only: Human trafficking and Kidnapping. Now, the evidence isn't strong here (at all!), but it's still odd they were able to detect such a strong trend with the other crimes, but not here.

I wonder if it's the case that these are strong statistics in countries bucking the trends, or is there some sort of a they're not real people/we don't deserve punishment for this at play? ...or nothing at all.

From the Microsoft release:

"At 9.3mm, Surface for Windows RT is just thin enough to still sport a full sized USB port."

So if it was any thicker, it couldn't have such a port?? I know they don't want to say it is thick, but no need to murder the English language in the process.

...but April only has 30 days?!

(for those with a logical "day -> month" progression)

Crystal meth is Methamphetamine (pure, in a crystalline form).

Desoxyn is also Methamphetamine ((S)-N,-dimethylbenzeneethanamine hydrochloride).

No essential difference (apart from dose).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine

Funnily enough, our penguins are the second of that name. The originals (now often referred to as Great Auks) lived in the northern hemisphere, and were eaten by polar bears. Unfortunately, they were also eaten by humans - who drove them to extinction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Auk

Exactly!

"One, two, three, for..."

Did we?? Neither this nor the previous version seem accessible...

Liquid crystal molecules (e.g., the cyanobiphenyls with aliphatic tails which form E7) have lengths of ca. 2 nm. These definitely respond to external electric or magnetic fields to spin and reorient (otherwise, you'd likely be looking at a fairly boring screen right now...)

The novelty here is that the researchers have formed a pivot about which the structure rotates. Further, they seem to have overcome any electrostatic attraction to the surface which would act to lock the molecule in place.

Interesting stuff.

Browsing further, the Science article seems to address this and indicates that they were fully viviparous (like us, I guess). Just reading the abstract now, unfortunately - though interested if anyone can chime in on the science?

Very interesting. I suppose it makes logical sense that sea living creature would find it difficult to safeguard eggs, and with its size these would be very noticeable (and nutritious!). I guess it is similar to whale sharks nowadays, which are ovoviviparous in their reproduction (wikipedia link as below): the "embryos develop inside eggs that are retained within the mother's body until they are ready to hatch. Ovoviviparous animals are similar to viviparous species in that there is internal fertilization and the young are born live, but differ in that there is no placental connection and the unborn young are nourished by egg yolk; the mother's body does provide gas exchange (respiration), but that is largely necessary for oviparous animals as well."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_shark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovoviviparity

However, the comment about single young is even more interesting - as whale sharks are even bearing very many (live) young. Maybe different again? (no expert here, just curious!)

I've just been over at the Met Eireann website, and stumbled across this interesting service recording lightning strikes each day. If I am reading it right, it seems there about 11 near Dublin over that day. Indeed, quite targeted to hit Amazon! Someone has been irritating Greek deities...

http://www.met.ie/climate/lightning.asp?ReportDate=06/08/2011

Yep, and from what I am reading this happened on Sunday (amazon.co.uk's accounts section was down then too, I guess it was related). We had surprisingly good weather yesterday - considering the forecast. No giant electrical discharges from the sky that I saw!

I live in Dublin, and that was some seriously targeted lightning. No sign of storms here, that I saw...