Taken from http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2013/03/17/supreme_court_reaffirmed_canadian_balance_on_free_speech_siddiqui.html

Anti-hate laws undermine free speech.

No, said the court, they “appropriately balance . . . freedom of expression with competing Charter rights and other values — a commitment to equality and respect for group identity and the inherent dignity owed to all human beings.”

Anti-hate laws breed political correctness, stifle debate.

No, “hate speech legislation is not aimed at discouraging repugnant or offensive ideas. It does not, for example, prohibit expression which debates the merits of reducing the rights of vulnerable groups. It only restricts the use of expression exposing them to hatred.”

Hate speech is hard to define.

The judges have defined it — as that which “a reasonable person, aware of the context and circumstances, would view the expression as likely to expose a person or persons to detestation and vilification on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.” They also provided “a workable approach” to combating it.

Apply the rules “objectively” (their emphasis).

Interpret “hatred and contempt” “as being restricted to those extreme manifestations of the emotion described by the words ‘detestation’ and ‘vilification.’ This filters out expression which, while repugnant and offensive, does not incite the level of abhorrence, delegitimization and rejection that risks causing discrimination or other harmful effects.”

Look to the effect of hate speech on the target. “Is the expression likely to expose the targeted person or group to hatred by others?”

A no-holds-barred debate may hurt but it does not harm anyone.

“Preventive measures do not require proof of actual harm. The discriminatory effects of hate speech are part of the everyday knowledge and experience of Canadians.”

Provocateurs do not mean to malign the group they attack.

Good try, but “allowing the dissemination of hate speech to be excused by a sincerely held belief would, in effect, provide an absolute defence and would gut the prohibition of effectiveness.”

The court could have added that human rights codes are not the only limitation on free speech.

Libel laws don’t allow writers to say whatever they want about, say, Conrad Black. Why is that chill less corrosive of free speech than anti-hate laws? Are minorities less worthy of legal protection?

The Criminal Code, too, limits free speech. I may be marched off to jail for up to two years if convicted of spreading hate. Granted, the bar to prosecute is higher there than under human rights codes. Still, it makes no sense to criminalize speech and jail people for their words, rather than merely imposing a fine on them.

IIRC there aren't enough of them and they're too low mass to make up the dark matter. After a bit of searching I found this thesis. It looks like a good introduction to the area.

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1110.2757

Out of curiosity I went to the site. My initial impression wasn't good.

Time it took for the site to appear: 43 seconds
Time it took for the site to fully load: 80 seconds

I didn't bookmark it.

IANAQP either. You may find this article interesting. (I found it absolutely fascinating. Devoured all the non-math parts in 4 hours.) http://arxiv.org/pdf/1204.4325.pdf

Hello: The paper in question can be found here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1111.3328.pdf Apologies if this has been posted already.

http://static.arxiv.org/pdf/1109.4897.pdf
They claim accuracy to within +-20 cm.

From the paper on arXiv the time and error measurements are:
t = (60.7 ± 6.9 (stat.) ± 7.4 (sys.)) ns.
6.9 + 7.4 = 14.3, which is pretty close to 10 nanoseconds.

Sadly the neutrinos are being fired through solid earth.

http://static.arxiv.org/pdf/1109.4897.pdf They claim a measuring accuracy of +- 20 cm.

The original paper can be found on arXiv: "Measurement of the neutrino velocity with the OPERA detector in the CNGS beam" http://static.arxiv.org/pdf/1109.4897.pdf

Will 8.9 sigma do? http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1002/1002.1028v1.pdf It's not that easy of course. DAMA/LIBRA, CoGEnT and now CRESS are getting hits while XENON100 isn't. I'm interested in how this will eventually turn out.

I'm in the same boat. My first degree is physics, but now I'm doing my PhD is computer science. My particular interests are in particle physics, dark matter and astronomy/cosmology. The best place to scratch my itch I find is http://www.arxiv.org./ It's a preprint archive for physics, math, computer science and so-on. http://www.science20.com/ has some interesting blogs, but you have to be careful as there are a number of people there who use it as a platform to advance their own ideas. For more general science reading I have http://www.sciencedaily.com/ and http://www.astronomynow.com/ bookmarked. On the educational side I have Leonard Susskind's general education courses in physics bookmarked. They can be found at http://newpackettech.com/Resources/Susskind/.

Finding all of the existing physics is important as it helps calibrate the instrument and gives confidence it is working as expected.

I've been spending some time on arXiv looking at LHC related papers. So far they are saying, "No new physics beyond the standard model has been detected." WRT the Higgs, it hasn't been detected yet either. Tighter constraints have been put on it's mass - Due to the combined efforts of the Tevatron, LHC , LEP2 and DZERO. It's very early though. Experts in the field say we should wait until 2013-14. Scientists need the time to collect and analyze more data.

'A Quantum Diaries Survivor' is a blog by a physicist working at the LHC. His posts use real, recent data from the various experiments listed above. An entry posted today (22 April, 2011) is particularly relevant:

http://www.science20.com/quantum_diaries_survivor/did_atlas_just_see_higgs-78316

1 - Where did a singularity come from?

Problem, you can't rely on any matter or energy because they didn't exist yet.

Good question. No-one knows. Where did a supernatural god come from? "It just is that way." Is a valid answer to both questions.

2 - A singularity is a black hole? all the matter of the universe is compressed into a theorized pinhead that means the atoms can not move, therefor the matter is in a thermodynamic dead end. it can not change state.

Two problems: 1. The big bang doesn't have to start from a singularity. It can start from a small, dense hot object that isn't a black hole.

2. Atoms not moving is against the rules of quantum mechanics. Stephen Hawking showed that black holes are not a thermodynamic dead end in the 80s (or 90s.) He showed that black holes have a temperature and, over massive time scales will radiate their mass away as energy.

3- How long in time was the singularity stayed the way it was?

Probably some infinitesimally short time. (Like .000000000000000000000000000001 seconds. Give or take 10 to 20 zeros.) AFAIK there's no way the big bang could have been a stable object that had any kind of lifespan. It could only go boom.

(Does time stop in a black hole?, I dont know.)

It does. As you get pulled close to and over the event horizon you accelerate to almost the speed of light. So, yes, time dilates massively for you.

4 - What mystical force caused the explosion / expansion of the singularity?

As I said above, the BB doesn't have to start from a singularity. It can start from a small, dense ball-o-really hot stuff.

5 - I might be wrong on the name here but the hubble's constant of the expanding universe combiend with the gravity of the matter of the universe force would have to match to a accuracy ratio of 1 to 1 million million million in relation to each other otherwise the universe will

A - collpase on itself.

B - explode.

That's right. But, when you add dark energy to the picture, it looks like we live in an open universe where everything flies apart, the universe cools to absolute zero and becomes silent, empty and boring.

6 - With the BB I read you only get hydrogen / heiliem atoms. This means you should get a steady cloud of gas expanding at 10^70 the speed of light

Yes, hydrogen and helium were created in the BB. The expanding gas at 10^70 part is complete nonsense. No physicist would ever say that as we all know the maximum speed is c (the speed of light.)

As the universe expands, the gas cools. Over a billion years or so it collapsed into galaxies, stars, clusters, etc...

A - What causes the cloud to condense into galixies at the gas is uniformed.

As the gas cooled, it wasn't uniform. Small instabilities in density are magnified over time, creating what we have today.

B - Why wouldn't the gas collapse back to the sigularity?

This one I'm not so sure on. I think the expansion of the universe (Hubble constant) and the outward energy of the explosion ensure the gas won't collapse back in on itself.

Do you want me to go on about how gas clouds can't form galaxies because they require a working super nova / sun to compact them enough for gravity to hold them?

You don't need a supernova to seed these things. As I said above, the gas wasn't uniform from the beginning. Those mass fluctuations are enough to start the process.

BTW, look at a picture of the cosmic microwave background. The variations in color are the fluctuations I'm referring to.

Anyway, People have to use the BigBang theory because they have no other way to explain the universe and how they exist. And the other explanation they refuse to accept. So funding goes mainly/only? to such "research" hindering science other possibilities.

Research is based on theorizing, observation and proof. Roughly put, an idea is accepted if the experimental evidence confirms the idea being proposed. The (inflationary) BB is the best explanation we have that matches our observable universe - now and in the past. It rests on firm foundations: Isaac Newton's mechanics, electromagnetism, Einstein's relativity and quantum mechanics.

(WRT refusing to accept other theories: I believe in the process of science: Bring the idea forward. Propose experiments that can be done to verify your idea. Experiments is key. That's what makes or breaks a theory. Note that saying, "I believe strongly that..." is not an experiment. BUT, do your homework first: Review the literature in the field(s) in question. See why other ideas failed and why. Learn from them. If the idea has merit, scientists will consider it.)

Therefor when I stick my fork into the power socket and see sparks flying, that must be something to do with how the early big bang worked. (I am now moderated up). I hope this brief posting enlightens some people but I gotta work now. I do recommended for anyone to read a book "Dismantling the Big Bang". It does a much better job at ripping to pieces then what I can remember. Cheers

You didn't do a good job at all. You demonstrated that you have no real knowledge of how science is done on a day to day basis. You've also demonstrated you don't know any physics or astronomy. It seems your "education" comes from an anti-science book. You're parroting ideas from it with no real understanding of what you're saying.

Myrikhan

I'll bite too: Can you point us to a paper in a credible peer reviewed science journal that says the big bang is a fantasy? Scholar.google.com is a good place to start.