Posts by xjy190 posts • joined Monday 2nd April 2007 11:29 GMT
In the army they used to and for all I know probably still can do you for looking uppity. If they didn't like your expression, or the look in your eyes, or anything at all about you, they charged you with "dumb insolence". And a good thing it was...
Throwing out this crap about ISPs being 'mere conduits" is a step in the right direction. Treating "perceived insolence" as the crime it is will solve our problems with bad apples. We need to be able to trust those under us to serve cheerfully so we don't have to worry about ending up with a knife in our backs.
Now to get rid of the idea that phones, buses, planes, roads etc are mere conduits... Anything subversive said on a bus must be considered the responsibility of the bus company, ditto roads, ditto phones.
Not to mention the terrorists manufacturing paper - iffy books? It's not enough to skewer the author or the publisher, we need to discourage the paper purveyors too! (And ink manufacturers...)
And all these failed marriages must be laid firmly at the door of the churches that sanctified them, or the local governments that gave them the stamp of approval.
And our eyes are not mere conduits for what passes through them! Pluck 'em out!
And the air these anti-social elements and terrorists breathe doesn't make our job any easier, either, for that matter...
So much to do, so little time to do it...
(Paris cos she's no "mere" conduit...)
No way! But you run off to Brussels as much as you like, and leave Riga to those of us thirsting for knowledge... Wish I was a BEREC bureaucrat - being paid a fortune AND getting to live in Riga. Not so much rules as drools.
(Paris cos ... well, pretty obvious really...)
Draping Paris around one of the goalposts would have stopped the young hooligan in his tracks.
Kjartan Slettemark, a Norwegian artist, travelled Europe in the 1970s using a picture of Nixon's face with his own beard superimposed on it as his passport photo.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43686206@N00/426134446/in/set-72157600008019734/
(Paris cos her beard would be very appropriate for Nixon's face...)
This is a story from the German Democratic Republic - a state with surveillance everywhere, files on everyone, employers' blacklists, meetings attended because if you didn't you weren't a good team player and god help you, empty slogans everywhere, police who could arrest you if you took photos or looked too confident, where the judges and politicians were bent , secretive and self-serving, and where the press and media were rigidly controlled by the state or a few powerful individuals.
Anyway, one night there was a big do at the Berlin Palace of Culture to celebrate Bertolt Brecht - a great German dramatist (Threepenny Opera, Galileo etc). The man himself was the guest of honour. Some bloke in an old leather jacket and three days' stubble showed up and was told to piss off by Jobsworth at the door cos he was shabby and the do was posh. So off he sloped - he knew when he wasn't wanted. After a couple of hours no Bert B. had shown up. Turns out he was the shabby bloke in the stubble.
Of course, it could never happen here, could it?
(Paris could she'd have been let in even with three days' stubble, nudge nudge wink wink)
I think that Reg knew he was doing a Public Service by publishing this.
The ignorance is terrific.
I love the Tory anecdote - who the fuck can afford £1000 quid to get back a dress?
Open Sauce...
And what's a British drum-banger doing trumpeting flattering lies about some US company?
Openness = open coffers for the rich...
Transparency = we can see right through you...
(Paris cos she's more attractive than this lot, doesn't get her knickers in a twist (heh), and doesn't pretend to be more than a pretty face...)
Philip V's right. He was unique. "He was almost the only journalist who..."
Perfect example of the difference between "sceptical" and "cynical". He "took nothing on trust", "checked it all out".
Straight as a die.
He wrote "as one having authority, and not as the scribes".
Dave P is right on. I could add that there are further disadvantages to being "rich" that should not be forgotten.
The longer a life, the greater the pain and humiliation. And the "richer" you're perceived to be, the more you are racked by fear and terror of the hordes of creeps out to rob you of what you haven't got. Including your own flesh and blood.
And while your lifestyle might appear to be "luxurious" it's all borrowed plumage. The "richest" often earn less than the "poorest".
And since the "rich" often own more debts than anything else, you can compound this over a lifetime into poverty outmiserying the most spendthrift malingering countries.
Talk about a "rich" man's burden!
(Paris cos she's a poor little rich girl...)
Here in Sweden I almost got myself duffed up by two beefy young securipaths on a local train. They were harassing some poor old bloke (stoned most likely) who was sleeping all by himself in a group of four unoccupied seats. Only occupying one of the seats mind. Not allowed to sleep on the train. You'll have to get off at the next stop etc. It was very cold outside and he was obviously miles away from his cardboard box, so they didn't have to hit him to hurt.
So I objected, and asked what the point was. He wasn't bothering anyone and no one had complained. So then they turned on me for "hindering them in the course of their duties". I had lots of time so I argued with them all the way down the platform to the station house. And in the station house. If looks could kill. This being Sweden they had a rule-book to drag out. Intoxicated and sleeping, off you get. So I asked why they didn't empty the night trains every Saturday. Etc etc.
My words were civil enough even if the subtext wasn't - I work with words. One helpless old dosser, and one shrivelled old fart (me) against two burly young thugs?? Proportionality?
Anyway, I finally sloped off before the quiet one went from menacing looks full of hatred to doing me over.
The EU makes all this international now, and they're all outdoing each other in totalitarian invasions of privacy and integrity - and taking the chance to let little Hitlers loose on the rest of us.
Isn't it nice that the Soviet Union and East Germany aren't there any more so our lot don't have to try and pretend any more that they defend freedom of thought, expression, assembly and movement.
Go to Heath Row any terminal and count the bullet-proof vests and automatic carbines.
Try asking any cop what they think they're doing picking on you or some other non-uniformed slob. (Suit and tie counts as uniform, of course.)
While we're on about this kind of intrusive spying and assault... I think they should institute a social award (free lunches for a year on the state?) for all certified paedophobes. Affirmative action.
That would keep teachers fed for a while at least. And some grumpy old pensioners.
(Paris cos she's so young and innocent... Hollywood's Princess Die...)
Or not.
As David 63 asked in the first comment, what's naked or nude about being dressed up to the nines?
In Sweden, at least legally speaking, naked is naked. Cock or cunt visible, and cock preferably erect.
But even here things are going from bad to worse. People wearing swimming togs in the sauna, lads even wearing underpants under their trunks!
Recent local authority decisions now allow burqinis and topless to cohabit in some pools.
But looks like TaliBAN creep is sludging inexorably over us all.
(Paris cos she knows you're not naked if you're wearing a skirt, even if you've left your knickers at home)
It'll come, only it'll be made by Saudis or Iranians on a sandal-strap budget. Or US black ex-Muslims. Or a Bosnian. It needs the authentic ethnic frisson. The Muslim equivalent of Onward Christian Soldiers, religion and the parade ground permeating every pore of the body politic (BO!).
Like Israelis making Seed of the Patriarchs. Or Mel Brooks - America - the First 200 Years...
(Paris because Piss sorry Peace and much else should be upon her too)
I want Blunkett's dream to come true!
An anonymous armoured goon armed with a semi-automatic carbine at every bus stop, n tube and train station in the country (and abroad wherever possible). Strip searches performed there by teams of half-a-dozen poor fuckers forced to take the job by unemployment (security - the new armed forces). Another goon on every bus and in every tube and train compartment. The joys of free travel in the Free World. Oh, I forgot to mention the need to carry your ID at all times and to report your journey in advance so you can receive your one-off visa - for a three-stop ride to the high street.
Only then will I feel safe from all the baddies out to kill me and ship my inner organs to Iran for the Mullahs and their catamites, or to Afghanistan for Bin Ladin and his concubines.
Join me everyone, and get stuck in for Peace and Freedom!
(Paris cos she wants everyone to get stuck in, too...)
I agree with AC - they're in the prime of life. If retired then just retired from wage-slavery. Obviously rolling in it otherwise. Probably the house with the cellar was as big as Fritz's palace, too.
(Paris, cos she could think of fun things to do with her wrinkly bits and a Zimmer frame...)
... by throwing money at them.
That's what we're told all day every day in the public sector (you know, health, welfare, education and all that useless unproductive bollocks).
But as soon as it's the state-subsidized ie public private sector that's in deep shit, like the banks, insurance, or the military (defence??? Har-bloody-har...), then there's no end to the money being thrown at their problems. Billions. Out of the taxpayers pocket. Leading to even more cuts in health, education and welfare (bloody bleeding-heart leeches).
lol "defence industry" is right: "Killing people sure is lucrative. Got to make a million and it doesn't matter who dies."
Also, burning capital in this totally unproductive way helps to delay overproduction crises (market glut) of the kind shrivelling the balls of the bailout snivellers today. Imagine if all the military money was invested in making stuff for sale on the open market! Gluts every 2 months... So destroying capital is a necessary part of the capitalist life cycle. Which is why every deep crisis (the 1890-1900s, and the 1930s) has been followed by the ultimate capital destroyer, a world war. This opens up the way for fresh new profits on a reduced capital base. And opens up the public-private market for new weapons of course (so many of the old ones destroyed or rendered obsolete during the war).
Great prospects!
Despite all the blinkered comments here, the enemy is at home. If all the down-trodden and dehumanized youngsters ("our boys", aka workers in uniform) being used as cannon-fodder by US, UK, French etc imperialists decided to turn their weapons on their officers (fragging), on their generals and on their commanders-in-high-places, the world would be better for everyone. And especially for the wage-slaves (aka workers) being sucked dry to maintain the unproductive and murderous life-styles and policies of the capitalists and their boot-licking political stooges.
(Paris cos she knows that any problem can be solved by throwing money at it...)
Like spying on everyone, keeping records on everyone, restricting what you could do, and how you could do it?
Hm, thought not.
Anyway, Bert Brecht, a once-famous poet and playwright (you know, when people read stuff and knew what culture was) wrote about the Evil Communist government in East Germany where he was living:
"The people has displeased the Government...
So wouldn't it be easier
To dissolve the people
And elect a new one?"
But he was a Communist, and Evil, and so obviously had no idea at all what he was talking about...
A tip to Gordon and the rest... Declare the UK a penal institution, where everyone is under house arrest and wearing an ankle bracelet (except the politician and police and fat cats of course). You can be let out on parole if you can prove your innocence and are dressed correctly.
(Reading tips for those of us who can still read: 1984 by George Orwell, and Queen Camilla by Sue Townsend.)
(Paris cos she might be worth spying on, as opposed to me :-(
And drive her into the arms of you know who? And they'd treat her right and possibly even let her go back him to do a bit of moling for them.
The only people they sack are whistle-blowers and turncoats like Craig Murray, former ambassador to Uzbekistan, who start kicking up shit about human rights violations and the like. They pose no danger at all. Murray isn't likely to go running to the Uzbeki dictator with valuable information to sell, after all.
(Paris cos she's always losing things :-)
The 3 apps limit is only the start...
The Linux 5th column designing the coming IE Basick will only allow one tab to be open at any time, to save cycles and discourage indiscriminate and wilfully non-profit-making surfing.
(Paris cos she's indiscriminate and wilfully non-profit-making...)
@Mike Lovell again:
MASS....MARKET....ENTERTAINMENT...
or maybe you mean that every user should have access to the world's Windows engineers and architects?
And of course Windows engineers and architects are needed cos of the impenetrable hieratic world of Windows. All of them desperate to retain their monopoly (stranglehold) on all our IT systems.
So tard-is time travel back to DOS and forward to user-friendly gear.
(Paris cos she likes moving to and fro and likes leo-tards)
@ Mike Lovell
".. Although if you really don’t want it because your IT skills aren’t up to this..."
I almost shit myself reading this...
Who the hell should need IT skills for a mass market entertainment product??
This "IT skills, bitch!" is the line constantly hawked by Anti-Linux MicroShitters. And now they turn it on themselves!
Next they'll be hyping the IT skills needed for Windoze and Orifice.
Just like the good old days of DOS.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha... The snake eating itself arse-first...
(Paris will never have to disappear up her own arse...)
Piss-easy to bin the ads in FF.
Nuff said.
(Paris cos she bin there and done that, and takes the piss)
For double satisfaction - viewers have a chip sewn between their eyes that records all the ads seen. Every ad unreacted to by refusal to buy product would lead to punishment either fiscal or physical. Followed by a re-education programme using electro-stimulation Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. In this way a company would get instant feedback on ad campaign impact, a viewer would be taught responsible viewing in comfort of her own living room, the economy would benefit from a huge upswing in consumption, and the little piggy-wiggies in government would get a preprocessed population to mobilize in the battle against terrorism and deviant social behaviour. Win-win. Implanting the chip would be a free-of-cost service included in every TV or mobile or GPS or fridge purchased. On a no-chip, no telly basis, in order to maximize popular participation, leverage the benefits, and allow the viewing public to be given offers they can't refuse.
Life's good!
(Paris cos she'd be given special dispensation to have the mind expander implanted between her thighs rather than her eyes, for reasons so obvious I don't have to go into them here...)
Now all we need is a Tesla Nano for around 500 quid.
(Paris cos it's be nice with a Nano version of her for around 500 quid too)
The school and the company should have their arses fined off. Maybe they should be exterminated and their unloved ones receive threatening absenteeism letters for the rest of their lives a la Readers Digest.
(Paris cos at least she realizes when someone's dead...)
Who needs Stalinist, Nazi or Taliban Dictatorship when you have Freedom like this??
Now, whatever possessed me to entitle this "Brain gangrene"?
Fucking maggots... our Latin American comrades have got the right idea, labelling these reactionary thugs "gusanos" (maggots) - or they would have, only maggots have their uses in cleaning up dead flesh ... ah, so there was a connection after all. Silly me...
(Paris cos she might be wondering if Big Brother is related to Bigus Dickus...)
I like the enema with freezing water delivered through a hose-pipe! A combo of tar & feathers, the stocks and a pillory would be nice too. Seven years in jail... Being paraded naked around the town with a big dunce's hat on... This could be made into a film!
Wonder why the Electronic Freedom Foundation hasn't been brought in (yet)?
Playing doctor should also be punished by seven years in a playpen..
Re-education rules!! Only in the bad old days when the West had to pretend to have some moral superiority over the Evil Empire, this was called brainwashing (or, during the Cultural Revolution, as Christophe mentions, "re-education" - fie fie fie!).
The Law, Sir, is a Ass!
Wanna make a quick buck? Start a pre-adult entertainment industry... or show a teenager wrapped in a towel during the SuperBowl.
(Paris, cause she might strain at a gnat. but she'd have no problem swallowing a camel)
I say: "Go ahead, Make My Day". No workers around - all been sacked as a bunch of shiftless (heh) self-seeking idle trouble-making wankers - and we'll who does the actual fucking work of making all the goodies that the company sells to make its profits and keep the bosses happy.
Can you imagine the bosses working on the conveyor belt? The night shift?
End of capitalism and good riddance. Please, please sack the lot of 'em! Please!
In Poland there's a tradition of putting uppity bosses in a wheelbarrow and dumping them outside the factory gates. If the bosses are lucky. If they're unlucky, they get dumped out of a window.
(Paris knows about goodies she hasn't made herself and profits that come in and make her happy. But I'm not sure she knows what a wheelbarrow is.)
No-one's forcing anyone to buy a fucking Apple product! So if you don't like it, don't buy it. Enough people (not at all "fanbois" you bloody MicroShaft shills!) have preferred the ease of use and number of features the Apple gear has to beat the shit out of the competition - iMac, iPod, iPhone.
Of course they can be better and of course there's marketing jiggery-pokery going on, but hell, this is capitalism, so what do you expect??
I bought myself a non-iPod mp3 player cos of the sound and expandability and price (Sansa Fuze) and have regretted bitterly that I didn't check out the interface better. The combination of impossible and impenetrable organization first with Windows Media Player then with the Fuze has been driving me crazy. It's called ease of use and user-friendly interface. The time I've lost and the accumulated hassle and frustration just aren't worth the money saved or the storage flexibility gained (and that storage is worth a lot to me).
So go ahead and swallow shit for a few quid and an anti-Apple ideology thing. I'm not stopping you, and neither is Apple. Bitch and whine as much as you like. This used to be a free country. If you say Apple is crap just cos you can't reach the fruit, that means sour grapes. If the thing is crap why do you even bother trying to diss it instead of giving constructive criticism regarding your product of choice - a Tata Nano or Citroen 2CV...
(Paris cos she doesn't care about free and wouldn't give a fuck about what cheap bollocks you choose to waste your time on)
As my Finnish wife used to say after getting an earful of English repartee...
(Paris cos she might find this feature useful and must be kicking herself for not having it in the past)
He had it coming, regardless of the rights or wrongs. At least she didn't bobbit him, just shook her little tushie a bit.
Hope the cat was a Siamese :-) And whose cat was it, anyway?
Let's remember the big picture:
Dog bites man - no news (rape)
Man bites dog - news (castration)
Go, Larena!
(Paris cos she, like Mr Bobbit (now showing his stitched-back dick to punters in Nevada), knows a thing or two about self-advertising)
Why should IBM miss out on the friendly employers' "use it for five years and then we'll let you buy it for the price of a dozen similar machines at Morgan's - if they have any stuff that old..." scam?
Not only have they shown great restraint, they are also offering a relatively durable machine from a third party (heh) company.
God bless them and their hearts of gold.
(Paris cos she has hair of gold and also seems relatively durable...)
Megalomaniac motherfuckers trying to legislate life and the future. "Tide, Stop!!" "We're going to prohibit sex - and drugs - and rock n roll - and booze - and eyes and ears and mouths". If people disobey us, we shall exterminate them. Not even Stalin and Hitler managed that, although it wasn't by any lack of due diligence. Britain and the US, however, exterminated Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.
Canute got a lousy rap, by the way. He was a Great Dane! (Which Harold wasn't, but the Norman (northener, ex-Viking) Willy was.)
(Paris, cos she would never try to prohibit the motions of life, now or forever)
Ericsson hails from Sweden and probably assumes Swedish copper line ubiquity and cleanness. Maybe subconsciously (I mean, China is one of their biggest markets...). The battle for carrying broadband is pretty hot between traditional cable (TV) operators, fibre operators, and telecoms. This development gives the telecoms (Ericsson's major milch cow) a real boost. The good news is that this will stiffen competition so we might eventually get good connections at good speeds at less than gouging prices, regardless of the type of signal carrier.
(Paris, cos bonding and roots might be just up her channel...)
Love and Marriage, Love and Marriage...
... among the fields of barley
I belong tae Glasgie!
But
Maybe it's becorse I'm a Londoner
I eat
Boiled beef n carrots, boiled beef and carrots
cos it's goin roon and roon
We're all going on a Summer Holiday
with
My boy Lollipop
Like a Puppet on a String
Oh Diana!
I'm so young and you're so old
but I'm
Leader of the Pack
just
Imagine
Eleanor Rigby
and
Let's Do the Twist again
and Shout
Michele
God Save the Fuckin Queen
and
Don't Worry, Be Happy!
There - that'll see you through the Week - Bitches!
(I Swallowed a Goat
There's a Lump in My Throat
cos
I'm Horny, Horny, Horny, Horny
I'm Horny, Horny, Horny, Horny
I'm Horny, Horny for You Tonight
Take a Wheel and it Goes Round Round Round)
(I Love Parees in ze Spring Tahm...)
Breathing and fucking next...
(Paris, cos well, who'd want to pussycute her for this kind of thing...)
... on all their trousers!
Jump, you bastards, jump!
(Paris, cos she makes more palatable stuff come onto trousers...)
Not too many MicroShaft paid hacks around here -- yet. Otherwise it's the usual British love of junkshop "value". My brother for instance has never bought anything full-price in his life. My dad's favourite read was Exchange & Mart. My ex-sister-in-law did all her Christmas shopping for 2010 (say) at the 2009 New Year sales. What the hell can you do with punters like that? Go the fuck to Morgan's and buy 5-year-old seconds for Chrissake. If you're broke - fine, you can always build your own from a kit and save a quid or two and get better gear. But if you've got a bit to spare, why the hell whinge about good gear at reasonable (more or less) price for what you get? It's not a bleeding Rolls Royce!!
(Paris, cos her idea of junkshopping is a diamond collar for her poodle, whoever that may be for the moment...And she's probably never even heard of Exchange & Mart or been inside a real ethnic Lunnen junk shop...)
That doesn't get close -- Tata Steel etc is one of the hugest conglomerates in the world in private hands, based in India. They can more or less do what they like except murder people in full public view -- they use the cops and military for that. Think that the old Japanese invasion, then the German one and then the Chinese (not to mention the US post-world-war-2) were big? Think again. Tata is just dipping its toe into Europe with this one. Talk about the Ford T and what it did to the car industry. This is Ford squared. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if Tata in its softly softly manner were the ones to buy Ford -- maybe Ford and General Motors together if the price is right.
As AC just implied: Be Warned (and if you're paranoid and blinkered like Dazed and Confused: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid!).
(Paris cos she and Tatu should get together and buy up the US and Europe (and why not Japan?) while they're at it...)
Leave yer fucking mobile at home and buy a new one where you're going!
And what's all that cock about the whole of Europe being our Homeland now? My arse. Same charges everywhere. I euro an hour for data, and a euro for eight working hours, and free outside those hours at weekends. Lets have some bloody communications infrastructure!
(Paris cos she's got a nice infrastructure from what "they" tell me...)
That's the way to do it!
Oh no it isn't!
Oh yes it is!
Oh no it isn't....
Etc ad infinitum...
(Paris, who else?, cos she's probably already tried quanto nano-rings, or got someone to do it for her while she watches with mild curiosity on the other side of the glass, Bitches! :-)
Big Money wants Free Trade as long as it gets more from it, sucking the blood it squeezes out of poorer nations. As soon as it doesn't, it screams out for Protectionism or Corporate Welfare or Billion Dollar Handouts (hardly welfare crumbs there!!).
Bugger the lot of them. Jump, you bastards, jump!
The Big Money Media crowd have monopolized films, TV, music etc for far too long. Cartels, trusts, the whole caboodle. And now they've forced legislation on us extending "copyright" for ever. Copyright on the hundred dollar bills they keep raking in to fill their own pockets. Like the casinos in Vegas where it's illegal for anyone to give themselves a chance at winning against the bank in Blackjack.
Capital is killing itself from inside - it's huge gangrened carcass is yummy dead meat for the maggots to chew up and the parasitical insects to lay their eggs in. And as it swells up with the gore it guzzles, it provides more and more dead flesh for us millions of small grubs to gobble up and hollow it out till there's nothing left but rotting bones and a mange hide. Removing rotten meat and turning it into nourishment is doing everyone a favour. Except for the the rotting leviathan of course. But who gives a shit?
(Paris, cos I'd love to gobble up her healthy meat, too ;-)
Hang for a lamb, hang for a sheep.
Scrumping is theft! Hang 'em high!
Borrowing books from libraries - Communism gone mad!
Lending an un-DRMed paperback to a mate? 10 years in the nick, at the very least.
The Law is going mad. We should put the Law out of its misery ASAP.
Copywrong for ever and ever and ever and ever, amen.
Or as the anarchists used to say: "Property is Theft". Not that it got them very far, even if the sentiment is laudable.
(Paris cos her end is laudable)
First you gotta pay for an OS you don't want. Then you have to pay extra for an end-of-life OS you do want. On top of which M$ is cheerfully bundling this end-of-life OS with netbooks as if butter wouldn't melt in its gory jaws.
Surely this legacy juggernaut crap can't carry on for ever with the Sheriff of Nottingham holding the reins and seeing just how many true believers it can crush under the weight of this murderous taxation. Or are all M$ fans just terminal (heh) lemmings? Everyone else is leaping over this cliff, so why shouldn't I? Another plummet, another splish. Glug, glug, glug.
(Paris cos I'd rather be under her than that bloody M$ juggernaut :-)
Greater and greater leaps...
And well-packed. Now we're getting somewhere...
(Paris, cos she's well-packed and likes embracing things, although she'd rather be coming somewhere...)
Hm, that makes:
14 magnets needing 2 plumber's mates
2 phillips screws
24 Torx screws (T6, T8, T9, T10)
If time was money you could buy a fucking great external hard disk instead for the sweat produced.
(Paris: plumbing, screwing, fucking, sweat - say no mowore! And wondering "what the hell am I up to now")
... these things ain't. Think a bit historically. Fridges were originally exclusive, like cars. Phones too. Anyone remember telegrams? Air travel?
Give these developments a decade or two, and only design and deliberate function-based performance alternatives will distinguish the machines. Basic form and function will only differ like radios and landline phones. And broadband & wireless will be everywhere, like roads and road signs.
Basic funding will be radio-style with a central collection system plus advertising (maybe). Unless the state decides that this kind of electronic connection is so fundamental to work and social and cultural interaction that it funds it all out of taxation, so people won't even notice it. Or do you ever hear anyone moaning about VAT, which is a totally unjust single-rate tax on rich and poor alike (worse than Thatcher's repugnant poll-tax).
The arguments between small chargers and free advocates will be like those about ways of funding public transport in metropolitan areas.
(Paris, cos she's a kind of celebrity infrastructure...)
... or penetrating article, as the case may be.
A star is unborn.
I'm just glad we're so many billions of light years away from the thing. Wouldn't like a close encounter with that if it had a 6 month ET, eh?
And what would the Aliens Office do with an immigrant that impertinant and assertive?
(Paris, cos on the other hand I might just like a close encounter with her thing...)
The thing that irks me most is the removal of iCards. And the inadequacy of the web Mail programme. The only area where Google doesn't knock spots off it is the management of aliases. (I haven't got into synching yet.) Oh, and the gouging which almost goes without saying.
You'd think that with the iPhone and iTouch they'd be able to knock together something a damn sight better - simpler quicker and full of stuff that others want to imitate.
Apart from that...
(Paris, cos she doesn't have to gouge or manage aliases yet. And she has a lot that others would like to imitate, like money to manage instead of aliases...)
The Tsarist secret police had lots of moles in the Bolshevik Party before the 1917 revolution, and a fat lot of good it did them. All members had to work like fuck spreading propaganda and agitating and recruiting, so to get anywhere the goons had to do lots of *useful* work against themselves. They even had a goon in the Executive Committee (Politbureau). He was in on everything. And a fat lot of good it did - he had to do more party work than anyone to get there and stay there, And the smelly gents didn't understand what he was telling them anyway.
But if you've got an old school tie you smell the same as the top honcho smelly gents, and can get in without a fuss - and be a useful mole. Burgess, Maclean and Blunt. Say no more, nudge nudge wink wink.
And the intelligence of the special smelly gents at the bottom of the ladder, with only their smelly old macs in common. Well, I give you this:
"Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder..."
(Paris cos no British Special Forces goon has shot her seven times in the head yet...)
All this bloody suspension is half-killing me heheh geddit?
Basically the Prince is a transmission belt between the Phoenix and the Hallows - not so much of an independent book at those. It's unfair to compare them. The Hallows deserves two films cos it wraps everything up. The earlier film is a crescendo to the finale.
And films and books are different, so get over it. The actors fit their parts well. The scenes are well presented. What's missing is a lot of the atmosphere, and the subtlety of the clash of principles beyond goody and baddy - who represents what and why. And a lot of the fear behind the horror - the Dementors! Together with a lot of the fun.
Anyway good on the books and good on the films and good on Rowlings. At last someone decent is rich, and has obviously put a lot of thought and work into what she's done. And given it to the kids!
(Paris cos she gives it all, too, and mainly for the kid in us! Not too sure about the decency, thought and work, though, although the fake president thing was fun.)
