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Spam And Alston - From Luddite To Pin-Up?
templeton069 writes "Alston (the Australian Communications Minister) has been lambasted as the 'world's greatest Luddite' for a long time but the spam bill introduced to the Australian Parliament last week seems to have struck an almost magical balance with everyone from the Internet Industry Association, the Coalition Against Bulk Unsolicited Email and the Direct Marketing Association, suggesting that it is about as good as it gets. So what's the story -- can you go from Luddite to pin-up in one step? And more importantly, does the legislation provide a template for other jurisdictions to implement low-pain anti-spam legislation?"
happy birthday
Jenny needed to pee. It wasn't an extremely urgent need (at least not yet, anyway), but it was enough to cause her some discomfort. She had been bagging groceries nonstop for the past 2 1/2 hours, and it wasn't even an hour and fifteen minutes into her shift that she began to feel that familiar sensation of painful pressure weighing down on her urethra. Jenny was an attractive Caucasian girl, with a slim body and shoulder-length dark blonde hair. But now her cute face was beginning to show the strain caused by the increasing heaviness in her bladder.
A customer noticed her furrowed brow and pursed lips and asked her if there was anything wrong.
"Oh, it's nothing," she replied. "I just need to use the bathroom, that's all."
The customer chuckled and said, "Well, I hope you get to go soon."
Jenny said that she also hoped so and put the last of her groceries in the cart.
After he left, she turned her attention to the next customer, a rather dull, unintelligent middle-aged woman who couldn't decide whether she wanted paper or plastic. Jenny started to assist the dim bulb customer when she spotted her manager walking toward the checkout area. Jenny knew from the past two weeks that she was working at the supermarket that he was a bit of a loser, but she thought it wouldn't hurt to ask him if she could go relieve herself real quick. She politely asked the customer to wait a few moments and walked over to her manager to ask if she could go pee.
"Could you please take over bagging for me so I can go to the bathroom?" she inquired. "It'll only take a couple of minutes."
"Look, I have some work to do in the office," the manager snapped back in an irritated tone of voice. "You'll just have to wait." Then he quickly walked away.
Exasperated, Jenny went back to what she was doing. Geez, I was just asking, she thought. But then she figured she could hold it until her half-hour break, which was an hour and twenty minutes away.
As the minutes passed, Jenny continued the repetitive task of bagging groceries and trying to ignore her need to urinate, which was becoming more urgent. The fact that the store was getting busier didn't help either. I knew I shouldn't have drunk all that tea before coming into work today, Jenny thought regretfully.
When her break time finally came, Jenny was now very desperate to pee. But her manager was nowhere to be found and she couldn't leave the checkout area until he gave her permission. A minute later, he finally showed up again. Jenny hurried over to him and said it was time for her break.
"No, you don't get a break," he exclaimed unexpectedly. "The store's busy and we need more people up front."
"Please let me go," Jenny pleaded. "I have to go pee really, really bad!"
"Well, that's tough. You're just going to have to hold it until the end of your shift. You're not a little kid. Now get back to work."
As he walked away, Jenny stood there flabbergasted. She couldn't believe that her break was denied. She walked slowly back to her work area, trying not to pay attention her bursting bladder.
It was illegal for them not let to her take a half-hour break, of course. But Jenny didn't want to make a scene. Besides, she needed this job. The college scholarship she earned paid for the courses, but not books or transportation, and she was barely making ends meet as it is.
Jenny started bagging for the latest customer. Her shift wouldn't end for another three hours, and she knew that she probably wouldn't be able to hold it until then.
Nearly two hours passed as Jenny bagged more groceries and struggled to keep from losing control of her bladder. More customers started to notice the strained expression on her face and asked her about it. She said it was nothing and went filling up their carts. Jenny could not remember a time when she ever had to pee this badly! She was so desperate that she kept shifting foot to foot, and she desired to press her hands into her crotch, just to tem
Reference the Do Not Call List earlier.
No more Micro$oft bashing from me. Its like bashing at the special olympics.
It's all about addressing some huge issue that sways people. I'll give you a prime example.
Lets say that George W. Bush suddenly decided tommorow that he is going to run on the "Hydrogen Based Economy" platform. And he goes NUTS having meetings with all the huge US oil companys. And they start working immediately on all the hard stuff that will need done to get us headed in that direction and it is 100 percent provable that it is not bullshit. I would probably vote for Bush instead of Clark in the next election. Getting us off of oil and on to something we can hold the keys to is an important enough issue for me to vote for rainman the president.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Spam is bad.
But Dangerous paedophiles like Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc. must be stopped!