Everybody is talking about this like it's boring news and not really a big deal. I'm surprised the normally 'environmentally conscious' quasi-nerd-activist slashdot community isn't talking about the ramifications of this project.

Private ownership of water by large companies is going to be the cause of global wars, and already is in many water-deficient countries. When you give a private company the right to treat water as a commodity and own it, you create a monster. This is the basis for a very disturbing documentary titled, "Water Wars" which chronicles the abuse of citizens all over the world via. control of water supply. It is also the basis for a james bond movie, which I guess makes it seem like even less of a real threat.

It doesn't seem like a big deal for a country 'wealthy' in water as a natural resource to give it away to a 'needy' country -- but it's not being given away. Maybe we should focus on that. It is being commodified and sold, stolen for free from a country of people that don't realize they're giving away their future. If you don't think water shortages are an impending global catastrophe, read some of the comments about problems with desalination technology.

Fresh water is a resource we should be fighting to keep out of corporate hands, not laughing at.

You know what's funny about this, is we're going to end up with a situation where increases in the propulsion systems end up sending newer satellites past ones launched earlier before they complete their missions. We'll end up with a cloud of ever decreasing technological junk arriving at distant civilizations....

This guy is obviously a pedophile, the article points out he has a prior conviction of posession of actual child pornography. His defense that the images were just funny is a total lie -- and other people have pointed this out.

The problem I have with this case is that the guy is disgusting, his motives were obvious and so it is very easy to support his conviction. But with Cartoons, it could be argued that there is _no victim_ at all. And as much as I hate pedophiles, and I do - I don't believe that the images, real or cartoon, actually encourage pedophile tendencies.

Images of children being exploited sexually have been banned all over the world because the children have to be protected from those images remaining in circulation for their entire lifetime; images of children being exploited sexually encourage other pedophiles to exploit more children on camera for the purpose of trading images, etc. BUT with the case of a cartoon -- none of these reasons hold true, and more importantly, at best - they encourage pedophiles to draw cartoons of children being sexually exploited which, as i said, doesn't create any victims. Distributing actual child porn may encourage the creation of child porn, but it doesn't turn otherwise normal hetereosexual people into pedophiles. You have to be a pedophile to begin with to even want it.

Now that this guy has been charged, and this is obviously a precedent setting case - it will be easier to charge and dole out harsh sentences for people found posessing cartoon porn even if it is their first offense and they really aren't pedophiles. I mean, cartoons are sometimes funny and in the case of Simpsons porn - I know I've seen a few cartoons featuring Bart and Lisa that were funny and.... at least to me, not sexually exciting at all. I mean christ, they're cartoons.

It seems to me that they've gone after an easy person to hate, with a history of child porn collecting - to blindside people to the over zealous and really very useless law they've just created.

From DehydrationSymptoms.org

"The human body constantly feels the need in water"
"Most people believed that the dehydration is not their problem. They believe, that with dehydration can faced travelers in the desert, when his water is finished."
"Especially from dehydration affects the immune system cells, the breach of which raises the so-called immune disease. These are all chronic diseases: bronchitis, asthma, infertility, lupus erythematosus, scleroderma, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer disease, cancer. This is a complex disease, involving all the connective structure, where there are violations of all the biological processes of energy and lack of water."

so lack of water causes multiple sclerosis, cancer and infertility? I don't f&3in think so.

"Dehydration leads to violations of all food functions, its synthesis and delivery of substances, in accordance with the specific functions of the authority for waste disposal"

Better call the city to get the waste disposal authority.... wtf.

I can't stand content mills. Companies that pay horrible writers pennies to create articles on 'under represented search terms". They are completely destroying your ability to do internet research. Case in point: dehydrationsymptoms.org

My voice is my "passport".... baby.

You know what's really annoying? Going to the gym immediately after January 1st. It's disturbing how many losers sit around between christmas and new years going, "Yeah, this year I'm finally going to get in shape. Maybe I'll get a gym membership. I've never tried to before, I could right now but I won't -- I'm gonna do it in the new year. Make a new me!"

then for 3 months or so you can't even get on equipment because it's covered in sheeple livin' the dream, and then, like clockwork - they all quit.

losers.

I had my left phrenic nerve removed along with a large, gross tumour.

my pulse rate is now really high. coincidence? Nobody seems to know.

This sounds like it would be useful as a directed energy weapon, especially with the ability to compress waves over a distance.

This story is ridiculous. All life has evolved as a result of 'pressure' from the environment surrounding it. It's not a conscious decision on the part of the plant, it's a permanent adaptation. It's not going to just say, "Oh ok, now I don't need to do this anymore".

If we were able to obliterate all insect life on earth, would we be studying the Venus Fly Trap and the Pitcher Plant and saying, "Oh wow! These plants are still trying to capture insects we obliterated years ago!". I feel stupider having read that article.

This is kind of cute, but not really...

The person shows the elaborate process they go through to get the key pressed. I mean, if you were a paraplegic typing with a pencil stuck up your nose - you're still hitting the key. Or is the pen hitting the key? What if you white out just the key you need to hit so you can claim you knowingly hit it, but it wasn't marked.

I mean, cummon. This isn't worthy of slashdot. This is really lame.

"would make the US second-rate in education and basic research."

-- Wait a minute, somehow the U.S. is going to improve as a result of this beating out the 5 or 6 other countries that kick the 5#17 out of them for education and basic research? Awesome!