But best of all are Naples taxi drivers. The fact that the price you pay bears no relation to what's on the meter is the icing on the cake of a journey where the driver sees it as his job to get you to your destination as fast as possible. This can mean - as happened to me - driving the wrong way up an alley reserved for trams then crossing the reserve at the last minute (tram 50m away) back onto the road. You pay him what he asks as thanks that you're still alive.
Google never used illegal business practices and other restrictive methods to artificially increase their market share. If Microsoft had built up its empire fairly and squarely, no-one would be complaining anbout them. But they didn't. They're crooks and have been found to be crooks.
The problem is that no-one has yet forced them to give up the monopoly their crooked dealing have created; it's always been "pay the fine and keep the winnings".
I really can't understand why governments are going to all this expense to produce biometric ID cards etc. There's a much simpler alternative: just have a unique serial number tatooed onto every child's arm at birth - and onto the arms of those already born now - and there you have it. No more need for cards, passports etc. A unique person-number wherever you go. Simple, don't you think?
I can't understand why the nazis^h^h^h^h^hnice bureaucrats in our various interior ministries haven't already jumped on the idea.
After all, what's the difference between that and being forced to carry a biometric ID card and having to show it any time some cop, border guard, pharmacist, bank cleck etc. asks for it.
ID cards and freedom do not mix.
Of course there's a competing theory. It's in Revelations, and 2 Peter and loads of other places in the bible.
The National Union for Truth in Science (NUTS), have decided to press for all school astronomy books to bear a notice warning that the theory about the earth's being swallowed up by the sun in 7.6 billion years is only one theory and that "Hell and Damnation" is another, equally valid, theory that should be taught in parrallel.
School Boards in Kansas are, apparently, already working on a suitable text.
An inventor - James Dyson, say - comes up with a good idea, spends a while (years) in secret working out how it would work, files patent forms, sets up a company to produce the idea (or sells it to another company) and has to be able to recoup everything an make his fortune in the 20 year life of the patent - already a long time (how much 20-year old technology are you using besides Windows and its 640k?).
An author commits a novel to paper, probably after a couple of years research, persuades an author to publish it and lives on the royalties for the rest of her life and passes 70 years worth of royalties to her estate.
A songwriter does the same with a song that took him half a day to write.
A record studio get some dope off the street to sing a song on a record in the late 50s and the same singer whines that, in the UK, his right to live of his royalties on that record runs out after 50 years.
An RIAA member corporation advances a big royalty to an aspiring rock group to pay for recording and promotion of their record, which it claws back from said group's initial royalties (which in any case are probably only 40% for the first record in the contract, if the group's lucky) while the corp. takes its 60% from the first sale onwards. And the RIAA thinks they should continue to be able to make these enormous profits for 120 years for doing nothing.
When are governments going to stop pandering to these thieves.
French immigrants are not all muslims. In fact most of last year's rioters are not immigrants at all, they were born here and are completely assimilated, as much as the white French will allow them to.
When the French start treating their immigrants with half the civility that the US show theirs (now) there won't be so much rioting in French streets.
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But best of all are Naples taxi drivers. The fact that the price you pay bears no relation to what's on the meter is the icing on the cake of a journey where the driver sees it as his job to get you to your destination as fast as possible. This can mean - as happened to me - driving the wrong way up an alley reserved for trams then crossing the reserve at the last minute (tram 50m away) back onto the road. You pay him what he asks as thanks that you're still alive.
Google never used illegal business practices and other restrictive methods to artificially increase their market share. If Microsoft had built up its empire fairly and squarely, no-one would be complaining anbout them. But they didn't. They're crooks and have been found to be crooks. The problem is that no-one has yet forced them to give up the monopoly their crooked dealing have created; it's always been "pay the fine and keep the winnings".
I really can't understand why governments are going to all this expense to produce biometric ID cards etc. There's a much simpler alternative: just have a unique serial number tatooed onto every child's arm at birth - and onto the arms of those already born now - and there you have it. No more need for cards, passports etc. A unique person-number wherever you go. Simple, don't you think? I can't understand why the nazis^h^h^h^h^hnice bureaucrats in our various interior ministries haven't already jumped on the idea. After all, what's the difference between that and being forced to carry a biometric ID card and having to show it any time some cop, border guard, pharmacist, bank cleck etc. asks for it. ID cards and freedom do not mix.
Of course there's a competing theory. It's in Revelations, and 2 Peter and loads of other places in the bible. The National Union for Truth in Science (NUTS), have decided to press for all school astronomy books to bear a notice warning that the theory about the earth's being swallowed up by the sun in 7.6 billion years is only one theory and that "Hell and Damnation" is another, equally valid, theory that should be taught in parrallel. School Boards in Kansas are, apparently, already working on a suitable text.
An inventor - James Dyson, say - comes up with a good idea, spends a while (years) in secret working out how it would work, files patent forms, sets up a company to produce the idea (or sells it to another company) and has to be able to recoup everything an make his fortune in the 20 year life of the patent - already a long time (how much 20-year old technology are you using besides Windows and its 640k?). An author commits a novel to paper, probably after a couple of years research, persuades an author to publish it and lives on the royalties for the rest of her life and passes 70 years worth of royalties to her estate. A songwriter does the same with a song that took him half a day to write. A record studio get some dope off the street to sing a song on a record in the late 50s and the same singer whines that, in the UK, his right to live of his royalties on that record runs out after 50 years. An RIAA member corporation advances a big royalty to an aspiring rock group to pay for recording and promotion of their record, which it claws back from said group's initial royalties (which in any case are probably only 40% for the first record in the contract, if the group's lucky) while the corp. takes its 60% from the first sale onwards. And the RIAA thinks they should continue to be able to make these enormous profits for 120 years for doing nothing. When are governments going to stop pandering to these thieves.
French immigrants are not all muslims. In fact most of last year's rioters are not immigrants at all, they were born here and are completely assimilated, as much as the white French will allow them to. When the French start treating their immigrants with half the civility that the US show theirs (now) there won't be so much rioting in French streets.