Guided Missile

This was the type of interesting research that was happening, before the environmentalists ******ed all over our chips...

One way could be to replace all of the flowering crops that attract pollinators, with GM versions that express Bt, making them insect resistance and eliminating the need for insecticide sprays, if it is determined that insecticides are responsible for the reduction in bee population. The main problem with this approach is that the Government regulators in the EU have, under pressure from the environmentalists, made this technology unavailable and the companies spending billions on it's development, Bayer, Syngenta and Monsanto, have pulled out of Europe in favour of continuing the development of the technology in North and South America and Asia, where the regulators have a some balls... The other way is to control the diseases at the root of the problem, one caused by a fungus and the other by a mite. You could use chemical control agents in the hives, i.e. a fungicide and a miticide. The problem with this is that the regulatory authorities would demand data for any new chemicals, the cost of which would probably not provide a return for any company developing them. No environmental or academic organisations have the funds to do this, they can barely fund their tee shirt campaigns. The last way is to breed or allow bees to develop an immunity to the diseases that cause the reduction in bee population. This will probably happen over the next couple years anyway, if we do nothing, in my opinion. They'll also develop immunity to any effect, sub-lethal doses of insecticides they are exposed to cause, even the imaginary ones that the academics dream up to attract research funding, in lieu of actually doing something useful in the world. I can't wait for the solution the OP comes up with. I think it may be involve banning something...

You obviously haven't followed the link to the article in Nature. It's a news article, not a peer-reviewed scientific paper, FFS. Read it, it is about as scientifically informative as the gibbon that started this thread is...

Find me some scientific articles in a peer reviewed journal, or a study accepted by and reviewed by the EPA supporting your position and I'd be glad to comment, but I think any words I post will be countered by random non-scientific bullsh! t, you have been able to google up. I must admit, arguing with two chimps, is not my idea of scientific debate... ...but anyhow, organophosphates like chlorpyrifos have largely been replaced by much safer alternatives based on a naturally occurring insecticide, nicotine. They are known as neonicotinoids.

The above says it all, really... ...and I was in the industry when Ruckleshaus was director of the EPA. He was a lawyer by training. Read the following timeline, which I remember well and then you will understand why the EPA is reluctant to ban pesticides: Meanwhile, back to the present, 50 million Africans, young and old, dead from malaria, due to the DDT ban and you wonder why I rant at small-minded, easily-led, ignoramus's like you... ...P.S. Paul Muller, the chemist who discovered of the insecticidal properties of DDT, won the Nobel Prize in 1948. The real hero forgotten in this sorry saga of misguided environmental activists who succeeded in causing mass genocide...

The two-year EU moratorium on the three neonicotinoids concerned is surely a sensible course of action when their safety is brought into question by a learned body, is it not? The safety of these products is also being questioned by the US EPA, So surely caution should be the byword. Or are we to relax the controls (as we so often do in Europe and the UK) to allow indiscriminate use of these chemicals until they're discovered to be dangerous fifteen years down the line. DDT anyone? Or perhaps something like Dursban - prohibited for use in the US in 2000, but American companies continue to manufacture it for use abroad, including in Europe. Is that ethical? I don't doubt the integrity and competence of most scientists. After all, science is all about questioning and testing things rigorously, is it not? Unfortunately, many corporate capitalists of the world are all too eager to massage the egos of the Self-Important and Opinionated of the scientific fraternity into lending support and credibility to their most profitable current cause. It is apparent is that your political opninions are more aligned with North Korea than the US. Take a look at how well they feed and maintain the health of their population, without access to modern agricultural technology.

I don't want to be patronising, but if you are trying to present a scientific argument based on a single article from a magazine, you obviously don't have a clue. Every new product I have been involved in developing requires a host of tests, carried out in a scientifically objective manner, to prove that the chemicals used on our crops to control pests are safe to human beings and the environment. You have no idea the number of tests that the authorities require. What they shouldn't base their decisions on is the number of random people that sign a petition, nor the whims of an environmental pressure group on it's latest misinformed crusade. The cause of bee colony collapse is a very complicated issue that only science can solve, not politicians, lawyers, or you. The prime candidate for colony collapse disorder, in my opinion, is a virus spread by the Varroa mite . Google it and learn. Also ponder why, in Australia, where there is widespread use of neonicotinoids, to control insect damage to crops (where they are not banned), but no incidence of the varroa mite, bee colonies are healthy. Still, sign the petition. Buy a tee shirt. Write to your M.P. I, and many scientists like me, can't wait to leave this continent to you and the rest of the Green's. But, when you need a new insecticide to control the Varroa mite that may be soon be proven to be the main culprit for poor bee health, please don't ask us to come up with one. I'll be in the US, playing golf, eating honey, buying cheap food and cheap energy. Oh, and enjoying the environment...

Cut and paste? No, just a research chemist who has spent 40 years developing agrochemicals that help put cheap healthy food on your plate. FFS, this isn't a political issue, it's a scientific issue, best left to the scientists, not lawyers or politicians. They have already screwed up the safety of our healthcare. Please, not the cost and safety of our food, as well...

I would doubt any of you have a clue about the issues involved in the health of bee colonies and the ban on neonicotinoids will just delay the determination of the real reasons behind the decline in bee numbers, which the chemical companies involved, know far more about than the EU regulatory authorities and the academics relying on government funding. This is all just another example of the Luddites taking over Europe Yet again, the left wing loonies, without the brains to carry out an objective review of the science, pressure the clueless public into objecting to things they are too lazy to inform themselves about. The US profits from fracking for cheaper energy and GM crops and chemical control of crop pests for cheaper food. Meanwhile, Europe signs petitions and it's economy goes down the pan...

And how is, "You only sing when you're rimming.." homophobic?

I make fun of pretty much anyone, if it get's a laugh. I draw the line at anyone with a disability, but with opposing football fans, pretty much anything is fair game. I thought the Sian Massey chant at St. Mary's was quite funny and I must admit, I joined in. The fact that you make fun of anyone doesn't mean you hate them or any minority they represent, but hey, complaining about chants means no-one has mindless football violence to complain about, any more...

This might explain the desire of most of the posters on this site to move on...

The issue is not whether an individual like Stephen Fry, or anyone else for that matter, has the right to criticise a foreign nation with regard to their treatment of a particular minority. It is the fact that he tries to evoke the national pride in the way we, as a nation ran the last Olympics and wants the Prime Minister to lecture someone on their behaviour as if we, AS A NATION, have the moral high ground, apparently because there was a complete lack of gay bashing in the Olympic Park in 2012.

The issue is not whether an individual like Stephen Fry, or anyone else for that matter, has the right to criticise a foreign nation with regard to their treatment of a particular minority. It is the fact that he tries to evoke the national pride in the way we, as a nation ran the last Olympics and wants the Prime Minister to lecture someone on their behaviour as if we, AS A NATION, have the moral high ground, apparently because there was a complete lack of gay bashing in the Olympic Park in 2012. He should take a leaf out of Peter Tatchell's book, with regard to this issue, i.e.: In May 2006 Tatchell attended the first Moscow Pride Festival. He appears in the documentary Moscow Pride '06 featuring this event. "In May 2007 Tatchell returned to Moscow to support Moscow Pride and to voice his opposition to a ban on the march. On 27 May 2007, Tatchell and other gay rights activists were attacked. He was punched in the face and nearly knocked unconscious, while other demonstrators were beaten, kicked and assaulted.[35] A German MP, Volker Beck, and a European Parliament deputy from Italy, Marco Cappato, were also punched before being arrested and questioned by police.[36] Tatchell later said "I'm not deterred one iota from coming back to protest in Moscow."[37] On 16 May 2009, the day of the final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow, Russian gay rights activists staged a protest in Moscow in defiance of the city's mayor, Yuri Luzkhov, who had long banned gay demonstrations and denounced them as "satanic".[38] Tatchell was among 32 campaigners arrested when they shouted slogans and unfurled banners" What has Stephen Fry done in regard to this issue, about which he is so passionate? The usual, really. Writes an angry letter, and then hides behind David Cameron's skirt.

I can't recall anyone in this country doing anything about Hitler apart from appeasing him when he was persecuting minorities - apart from the great Winston Churchill. It was the invasion of Poland that finally started us off and that was nothing to do with our opinion of right wing policies of Germany in the 30's. Anyway, my point is that someone like Stephen Fry has no right lecturing Russian society on their attitude towards gays, given this countries appalling recent treatment of homosexuals.

Upset a left-wing, comedic ex-fraudster so much that he now professes utmost respect for a right wing British politician. He also seems to have forgotten how this country jailed Oscar Wilde at the same time that Russia granted Tchaikovsky a large government pension. Stephen Fry is really starting to get on my nerves, every time I see the smart arse, wallowing in demonstrating his ability to memorise the contents of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Undisputed king of the pub-quiz but an odious load-mouthed luvvie IMHO...

Spare us the self-righteous sermonizing on behalf of our country please Stephen and remember that after the 1948 Olympics that we hosted, it took nearly 20 years for England and Wales to decriminalise homosexuality. Scotland didn't decriminalise it until 1980 and Northern Ireland in 1982.

The distribution out of reserves from capital contributions (cash and stock) is free of Swiss withholding tax and will not be subject to income tax for Swiss resident individuals holding the shares as a private investment.

The transfer of capital that occured is from the share premium account and represents the "premium" that was paid for the shares over their par value, by the Liebherrs. Why did they do it? My guess, not being a corporate accountant but just thinking about their situation, is that it shifts the overvalue into distributable reserves, e.g. retained profits, so that they can take dividends out of the company when we have the cash, OR the reduction in value of their shares provides some form of tax relief for the Liebherrs. My guess, but I am sure we have an accountant on this board that knows more than me.... Um Pahars, where are you????

I think my favourite Tijuana Tim post was this classic: You just have to love him...a credit to ex-pats everywhere...

Bored out and shooting ball bearings. Killed the next door neighbours cat while testing it, I seem to recall...

Pretty much accords with my opinion, although it is tough for most of the herd on here, to be similarly objective... Can't wait to hear the bleating of the sheep... Spend, spend, spend... (After all, it's not our money...)

Pompous Windbag... Harry Truman dropped the bomb on Hiroshima..

Couldn't find a "tongue in cheek" emoticon...