One election you're the big party with sidekicks, next election you're the sidekick or even thrown out of parliament, there's always a "nearby" party looking to take your place.
I'm under the impression that most coalition-countries have three big parties; liberals, social democrats and a third one that tries to balance between those two. Together they get about 60-75% of votes (and thus of those three, at least two are in the cabinet at any given time). Very seldom do they have enough manpower to get majority by themselves. So they form a pact with the communists, the greens and/or ultra-liberals (which together are about 20-30% of votes). But the big three are always the same..I suppose because of the "core voters" as Americans say.
Plus it lets you have more than one dimension in politics, some vote for an economic policy others for personal liberties and so on.
The cabinet decides what it wants behind closed doors; they trade not-so-important things for more important things, knowing that in the end the big things get through. This is hell, because even though the Greens only say that the only big thing for them is Environment, in practice they collect followers who find more mundane things important as well. To make it specially hard, Greens from different parts of the country have surpringly different priorities; in Helsinki (did I mention I'm a Finn) the biggest representative is also prominent talker for electronic freedoms and quite liberal.. while up north Greens might have many voters who earlier were rooting for communists (with all the stereotypes).
It's a bit murky where the lines are drawn, but sure, more options. And because of smaller numbers, the parties know better what their supporters want.
The only downside is that with all the compromising it's hard to pin responsibility. But I'll still take unclear respoibilities with options to do something with it than clear resposibilities but no options.
I'm under the impression that you're American, so this might not have occured to you; in a parliament-led country the Prime Minister isn't the absolute ruler. The changes to the laws and policies are pushed forward by a minister, who appears in the media frequently pimping and explaining why things get done as they are. For examble, the minister who was pushing the electronic voting machines (and used really badly formulated phrases when doing so) probably lost all chances of ever getting a minister-seat again.
In the end, I want to note that multiple parties also discourages mud-throwing. Even though you are competing for the same votes, after the elections you still have to work together and maybe form a cabinet together. If you first throw mud against a party and then form a coalition, the voters will see that as betraying all the values you preached just few months earlier (and the next elections are going to be a bitch).
Most European countries are ruled by coalitions. Apart of Italy, they tend to be pretty stable and last at least the four years till the next election.
The party that wins the election tries to find a party that makes it the majority in the parliament. To find such a partner, it has to make concessions and to promise not to go on ideological overdrive. The pressure to rule wisely doesn't come only from outside from the public and the lobbying interest groups, but also from inside the government itself.
I tend to think this is fairly wise way to rule a country. Sure, you can't make fast moves like you can in America, but on the other hand, the changes that happen are well thought out and not apt to be reversed after the next election. The instability of the cabinet brings, maybe contradictionary, stability to the country as a whole.
I'm under impression (which may well be wrong) that you have to be client/member for the collecting agency. Otherwise your share will get divided with other writers.
Also, there was also controversy few years back that the association that handled music compensations refused to pay them outside the country (Finland). If you are interested how book-compensations are handled in Finland, you should probably contact info at sanasto.fi.
I believe there is a lottery involved, so as to make bribery harder.
But keep in mind that in the Swedish system, there are four judges (three professional "everymen" and one trained lawyer) who handle the cases. The decision we ended up with was made in consensus; if the lay-judges were of different opinion than the copyright lobby sock puppet, they could have over-ruled him.
Of course, the sock puppet could have been really intimating, but it should have stopped platant abuse. To decide the case as he wanted, he would have needed support from at least one of the other judges (the lawyer gets two votes and the lay-judges one).
I don't know about the getting copies part, but Sanasto Ry was founded three years ago and the first thing they did was ask money from libraries. Finnish article from 2006
On Sanasto's frontpage, they mention that they got their demands. Sanasto's homepage
Ministry of Education has on November of 2008 named Sanasto, Kopiosto and Teosto responsible for dividing lending compensations for creators. Lending compensation is a copyright compensation for creators from books lend out from libraries.
(Opetusministeriö on marraskuussa 2008 nimennyt Sanaston, Kopioston ja Teoston tilittämään tekijöille tulevat lainauskorvaukset. Lainauskorvaus on kirjastoista lainattavien teosten lainaamisesta suoritettava tekijänoikeuskorvaus tekijöille.)
TTVK:n mukaan vuokraaminen ilman kustantajien ja tekijöiden lupaa on laitonta, koska palvelu toimii internetissä, eli kuka tahansa voi käyttää sitä.
TTVK (Copyright-information and enforcement Association) says that renting without rights from publishers or writers is illegal, because the service operates over Internet, and everybody can use it.
Source.
How can you possibly argue over so eloquent argument?
Isn't the Long Tail theory the idea that you don't need as big percentage of population to support you as before because Internet allows for larger population to be aware of your products? There might only be one person in million who loves your music (and thus even USA would only have around 300 fans), but worldwide it means six million fans (supposing everybody had the same purchasing power) all who know of you thanks to the Internet?
I could see that this system would be largely infeasible for products with large physical dimensions, but for CD's or (even better) totally immaterial goods such as mp3's might well benefit from this sort of thinking.
Now, the question is how do you drum word-of-mouth when none of your fans have ever met each other IRL due to distances..
Re:Islamic groups are pushing censorship worldwide
on
UN Attacks Free Speech
·
· Score: 1
So would you be okay with him being charged if that was all he'd done?
He's in the City Council of the most metropolitan area in Finland, and while he was elected by a certain segment, he's supposed to serve all the people living inside the city limits; even the Muslims. I'm not sure should he be punished, but I think some investigation should be in order. Halla-Aho handled (and handles) the thing pretty poorly. On the least he should have removed the blog entries that could have seemed hostile and/or published them somewhere else than the page he also used for the campaign. I think it's likely that the trial doesn't find anything or they find him guilty but don't press for amends (as they did for the artist who made an artpeace about childporn, using actual child porn and putting that on exhibition).
Because I'm bored, I'm going to translate the announcement the prosecutor made;
"He [Halla-Aho] has written and in the Internet circulated text, where Islam and it's holy scriptures are connected to paedophilia. It is further presented, that robbing passerbys and parasitic use of tax moneys would be characteristic or genetic trait, special to these people."* That being said, I haven't read Halla-Aho's writing, only what has been written in the media. He seems like a character I would not like to associate with.
I'd also like to note that as Finland has a pretty extensive wellfare system, which was created under the assumption that the money stays in the family. The discovery that immigrants would also be eglible for unemployment benefits (apparently around 600 euros per month, but I wouldn't know) causes some problems. People view it as one thing to live here.. even to have citizenship.. and another to actually being part of the family. It's even worse for the Africans, who not only have black hair, but black skin as well. I think religion has pretty little to do with it (we have those crazy nuts of another variety up north), but people like Halla-Aho have noted that it hurts, so they go in for the kill.
That's pretty broad. It doesn't look like he's inciting anyone to violence
Keep in mind that he's not under suspicion for that thing alone; he has written these more or less agitating texts since 2003 (I said 2007 earlier, but while I was doing research, I noted I was wrong). Everybody just thought he was a bit loony before, but then he got to be in the Council, he continued writing, and then did that text about Mohammed and it broke the camel's back.
So not so much about the Mohammed-and-kids thing in special, as it just being the point where somebody noted that maybe we should do something.
[*Same in Finnish, in case somebody with linguistic skills wishes to challenge my translation:"laatinut ja internetissä toimittanut yleisön saataville kirjoituksen, jossa islam ja sen pyhät instituutiot yhdistettiin pedofiliaan ja jossa esitettiin, että ohikulkijoiden ryöstely ja verovaroilla loisiminen on erään kansanryhmän kansallinen tai geneettinen erityispiirre".]
Re:Islamic groups are pushing censorship worldwide
on
UN Attacks Free Speech
·
· Score: 1
A Finnish MP is being prosecuted because he had the temerity to point out that Mohammed had sex with a nine-year old girl called Aisha..
Disclosure; I'm a Finn.
Halla-Aho isn't an MP; he's a member of Helsinki City Council (while there have been rumours that he might run for the European Parliament in the coming election). He was elected to the Council from the list of the political party "True Finns" as an "non-tied" candinate (eg. he says he helds the same ideals, but doesn't have to follow the rules). That might tell you something about his political views in general.
And this trial isn't just because he called Mohammed pedophile. He's also wished that some politicans of other parties would get raped by immigrants. It's also alleged that his blogposts from 2007-2008 (from the time before his political seat) are "agitating people against a certain sect [in this case, immigrants] of society" - a law that was passed after WW2 because, you know, Hitler. Halla-Aho claims they don't count because he didn't yet hold a political seat, even thought those posts are a large reason why he got elected in the first place.
So not the best candinate to represent islamic yoke. Also; "jihadwatch.org" isn't exactly fair and balanced source.
Music CD's have usually over ten songs, of which maybe two or three are good - it's not very smart to buy the seven others! That's why iTunes is great.
On the other hand, when you buy a game, you buy one game - there's no air. On the contrary, you get manual (hopefully), game in a form you can lend or resell and nice status symbol in your bookshelf (all your friends will be jealous of your copy of Dead or Alive: Extreme Valleyball 4!).
Then there's the question of DRM, the digitally distributed version being of the same price or even more expensive than one bought from brick and mortar store (particularly outside USA) and, of course the question what will happen to the game if you need to repair your console or your harddrive gives up the ghost.
I don't really think that iTunes and Steam are comparable exambles for digital distribution.
There weren't any morally good Nazi soldiers. They were NAZIS. There were, however, good German career soldiers who served under Nazi regime.
Talking about "good nazi soldiers" is like talking about "good republican soldiers serving in Iraq".
LIVE is full of teenagers with nicks like ~uberKILL4H~, so I tend to give +3 modifier to anyone I see who actually knows how uppercases are supposed to operate.
Not to mention the whole "what if a word is common name in one part of the world, while obscene in other, such as Wanker"-issue which mr. Gaywood also mentioned.
Much more interesting than some (probably) teenager who has to go around shouting I'M A LESBIAN! DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT?! Anyway, isn't "gay" supposed to be the *positive* way to refer homosexuals? Instead of queers, fags or Eltonjohns? When did a word which is also a synonym for "happy" become so rude that people should switch names if they happened to inherit it..?
Americans for corporations having way too much power over there.
Nokia started it's existence as a water-operated wood-pulp mill. It's name originates from the town located near the river. It is in no way "American":)
But you are right; big companies tend to do bad things, even when they have declaration of human rights as part of their charter (as Nokia does).
My phone doesn't allow turning the camera sound off. I usually just keep my thumb over the loudspeaker when I want to take photos of sleeping people etc.
So you think the courts should be able to dictate to a private company that they have to put a price on software that the company wants to make available for free?
See: Predatory pricing. This court case should really have come eight years ago. While this isn't as much about money as it's about marketing and brand presence, the end result is very much the same; Netscape lost its marketshare followed by Microsoft halting the development of IE6 for five years. If Microsoft wasn't also the owner of Windows, this would be acceptable. But as we all know, companies with monopolies have stricter rules than smaller players. It's in the law.
Slurm Queen: "You'll be submerged in Royal Slurm, which in a matter of minutes will transform you into a Slurm Queen like myself!" Glurmo Half: "But your Highness, she's a commoner. Her Slurm will taste foul." Slurm Queen: "Yes. Which is why we'll market it as New Slurm. Then, when everyone hates it, we'll bring back Slurm Classic and make billions!"
The President of the Comission and the comissioners are chosen by the Council of Ministers (who are democratically appointed). They are then introduced to the European Parliament (who are democratically appointed). Who then democratically appoint the commission in to power (if not successful, the Council will find new people).
Just because you didn't personally vote for every single official doesn't make it nondemocratic. This is called a representational democracy. EU has nigh half billion citizens, and Comission has over 25 individuals. Most of the positions aren't exactly glamorous (Transportation or Regional policy, for example). In USA, people don't directly appoint the secretaries (and whatnot) of the president. In most of the member states of EU, you don't get to choose the ministers either; they are chosen by the party in power, and the positions may be given -without election- to anyone. The Finnish foreign minister (Alexander Stubb) serves without seat in the parliament, for examble.
I'll make a wild leap and assume you're English (not a Britt; English) and get your daily news and political information from Daily Mirror. If you wish to do so, more power to you. But please don't spread your misinformation around like some sort of intellectual (haha) HI-virus. Thank you.
I mean what if everyone developed your mentality and decided..
If everybody developed my mentality, USA would have multiparty system, tea and cocoa would be commonly offered instead of coffee and copyright/trademark-system would look completely different.
The fact that I'm (we are) usually in minority with my (our) views doesn't mean they are wrong. Nobody ever says to me "well, if everybody had your mentality and decided not to vote [your local populist party, like Republicans and Democrats] then we wouldn't [be in Iraq/spy Finland/save every email sent in UK]. But we are in minority and majority will never protest against Echelon, Swedish FRA, patents or whatever we usually gripe about in Slashdot.
Actor and age when they started Doctor Who:
William Hartnell - 56
Patrick Troughton - 46
Jon Pertwee - 51 (He will always be Worzel Gummidge to me)
Wow. Those are really low numbers. I always thought Hartnell and Pertwee were on their mid60s with Troughton on 50s (with Baker I nearly 50). Did the people get that much faster older back then?
Haha, wikipedia has an interesting graph about this. Apparently they have gone from 4 USB-ports to 2, removed flash card readers, removed SACD support and removed PS2 compatibility (both hardware AND software).
But at least the harddrive is bigger. That's something, no?
I bought the XB360 recently. Brother went for PS3, basically because of BluRay. I'm repeatedly saying that he'll rue the day he sawed his credit card, and he laughs at me because I only have DVD-capability. Also, he claims, the best games are for PS3.
Slashdot Mirror
One election you're the big party with sidekicks, next election you're the sidekick or even thrown out of parliament, there's always a "nearby" party looking to take your place.
I'm under the impression that most coalition-countries have three big parties; liberals, social democrats and a third one that tries to balance between those two. Together they get about 60-75% of votes (and thus of those three, at least two are in the cabinet at any given time). Very seldom do they have enough manpower to get majority by themselves. So they form a pact with the communists, the greens and/or ultra-liberals (which together are about 20-30% of votes). But the big three are always the same..I suppose because of the "core voters" as Americans say.
Plus it lets you have more than one dimension in politics, some vote for an economic policy others for personal liberties and so on.
The cabinet decides what it wants behind closed doors; they trade not-so-important things for more important things, knowing that in the end the big things get through. This is hell, because even though the Greens only say that the only big thing for them is Environment, in practice they collect followers who find more mundane things important as well. To make it specially hard, Greens from different parts of the country have surpringly different priorities; in Helsinki (did I mention I'm a Finn) the biggest representative is also prominent talker for electronic freedoms and quite liberal.. while up north Greens might have many voters who earlier were rooting for communists (with all the stereotypes).
It's a bit murky where the lines are drawn, but sure, more options. And because of smaller numbers, the parties know better what their supporters want.
The only downside is that with all the compromising it's hard to pin responsibility. But I'll still take unclear respoibilities with options to do something with it than clear resposibilities but no options.
I'm under the impression that you're American, so this might not have occured to you; in a parliament-led country the Prime Minister isn't the absolute ruler. The changes to the laws and policies are pushed forward by a minister, who appears in the media frequently pimping and explaining why things get done as they are.
For examble, the minister who was pushing the electronic voting machines (and used really badly formulated phrases when doing so) probably lost all chances of ever getting a minister-seat again.
In the end, I want to note that multiple parties also discourages mud-throwing. Even though you are competing for the same votes, after the elections you still have to work together and maybe form a cabinet together. If you first throw mud against a party and then form a coalition, the voters will see that as betraying all the values you preached just few months earlier (and the next elections are going to be a bitch).
Most European countries are ruled by coalitions. Apart of Italy, they tend to be pretty stable and last at least the four years till the next election.
The party that wins the election tries to find a party that makes it the majority in the parliament. To find such a partner, it has to make concessions and to promise not to go on ideological overdrive. The pressure to rule wisely doesn't come only from outside from the public and the lobbying interest groups, but also from inside the government itself.
I tend to think this is fairly wise way to rule a country. Sure, you can't make fast moves like you can in America, but on the other hand, the changes that happen are well thought out and not apt to be reversed after the next election. The instability of the cabinet brings, maybe contradictionary, stability to the country as a whole.
I'm under impression (which may well be wrong) that you have to be client/member for the collecting agency. Otherwise your share will get divided with other writers.
Also, there was also controversy few years back that the association that handled music compensations refused to pay them outside the country (Finland). If you are interested how book-compensations are handled in Finland, you should probably contact info at sanasto.fi.
I believe there is a lottery involved, so as to make bribery harder.
But keep in mind that in the Swedish system, there are four judges (three professional "everymen" and one trained lawyer) who handle the cases. The decision we ended up with was made in consensus; if the lay-judges were of different opinion than the copyright lobby sock puppet, they could have over-ruled him.
Of course, the sock puppet could have been really intimating, but it should have stopped platant abuse. To decide the case as he wanted, he would have needed support from at least one of the other judges (the lawyer gets two votes and the lay-judges one).
On Sanasto's frontpage, they mention that they got their demands. Sanasto's homepage
Ministry of Education has on November of 2008 named Sanasto, Kopiosto and Teosto responsible for dividing lending compensations for creators. Lending compensation is a copyright compensation for creators from books lend out from libraries.
(Opetusministeriö on marraskuussa 2008 nimennyt Sanaston, Kopioston ja Teoston tilittämään tekijöille tulevat lainauskorvaukset. Lainauskorvaus on kirjastoista lainattavien teosten lainaamisesta suoritettava tekijänoikeuskorvaus tekijöille.)
TTVK:n mukaan vuokraaminen ilman kustantajien ja tekijöiden lupaa on laitonta, koska palvelu toimii internetissä, eli kuka tahansa voi käyttää sitä.
TTVK (Copyright-information and enforcement Association) says that renting without rights from publishers or writers is illegal, because the service operates over Internet, and everybody can use it. Source.
How can you possibly argue over so eloquent argument?
Yes, you are quite correct. I got my cables mixed. However, 6000 people are more than enough to support one artist/coder.
Isn't the Long Tail theory the idea that you don't need as big percentage of population to support you as before because Internet allows for larger population to be aware of your products? There might only be one person in million who loves your music (and thus even USA would only have around 300 fans), but worldwide it means six million fans (supposing everybody had the same purchasing power) all who know of you thanks to the Internet?
I could see that this system would be largely infeasible for products with large physical dimensions, but for CD's or (even better) totally immaterial goods such as mp3's might well benefit from this sort of thinking.
Now, the question is how do you drum word-of-mouth when none of your fans have ever met each other IRL due to distances..
So would you be okay with him being charged if that was all he'd done?
He's in the City Council of the most metropolitan area in Finland, and while he was elected by a certain segment, he's supposed to serve all the people living inside the city limits; even the Muslims. I'm not sure should he be punished, but I think some investigation should be in order. Halla-Aho handled (and handles) the thing pretty poorly. On the least he should have removed the blog entries that could have seemed hostile and/or published them somewhere else than the page he also used for the campaign.
I think it's likely that the trial doesn't find anything or they find him guilty but don't press for amends (as they did for the artist who made an artpeace about childporn, using actual child porn and putting that on exhibition).
Because I'm bored, I'm going to translate the announcement the prosecutor made;
"He [Halla-Aho] has written and in the Internet circulated text, where Islam and it's holy scriptures are connected to paedophilia. It is further presented, that robbing passerbys and parasitic use of tax moneys would be characteristic or genetic trait, special to these people."*
That being said, I haven't read Halla-Aho's writing, only what has been written in the media. He seems like a character I would not like to associate with.
I'd also like to note that as Finland has a pretty extensive wellfare system, which was created under the assumption that the money stays in the family. The discovery that immigrants would also be eglible for unemployment benefits (apparently around 600 euros per month, but I wouldn't know) causes some problems. People view it as one thing to live here.. even to have citizenship.. and another to actually being part of the family. It's even worse for the Africans, who not only have black hair, but black skin as well. I think religion has pretty little to do with it (we have those crazy nuts of another variety up north), but people like Halla-Aho have noted that it hurts, so they go in for the kill.
That's pretty broad. It doesn't look like he's inciting anyone to violence
Keep in mind that he's not under suspicion for that thing alone; he has written these more or less agitating texts since 2003 (I said 2007 earlier, but while I was doing research, I noted I was wrong). Everybody just thought he was a bit loony before, but then he got to be in the Council, he continued writing, and then did that text about Mohammed and it broke the camel's back.
So not so much about the Mohammed-and-kids thing in special, as it just being the point where somebody noted that maybe we should do something.
[*Same in Finnish, in case somebody with linguistic skills wishes to challenge my translation:"laatinut ja internetissä toimittanut yleisön saataville kirjoituksen, jossa islam ja sen pyhät instituutiot yhdistettiin pedofiliaan ja jossa esitettiin, että ohikulkijoiden ryöstely ja verovaroilla loisiminen on erään kansanryhmän kansallinen tai geneettinen erityispiirre".]
A Finnish MP is being prosecuted because he had the temerity to point out that Mohammed had sex with a nine-year old girl called Aisha..
Disclosure; I'm a Finn.
Halla-Aho isn't an MP; he's a member of Helsinki City Council (while there have been rumours that he might run for the European Parliament in the coming election). He was elected to the Council from the list of the political party "True Finns" as an "non-tied" candinate (eg. he says he helds the same ideals, but doesn't have to follow the rules). That might tell you something about his political views in general.
And this trial isn't just because he called Mohammed pedophile. He's also wished that some politicans of other parties would get raped by immigrants. It's also alleged that his blogposts from 2007-2008 (from the time before his political seat) are "agitating people against a certain sect [in this case, immigrants] of society" - a law that was passed after WW2 because, you know, Hitler. Halla-Aho claims they don't count because he didn't yet hold a political seat, even thought those posts are a large reason why he got elected in the first place.
So not the best candinate to represent islamic yoke. Also; "jihadwatch.org" isn't exactly fair and balanced source.
As a non-American person I can tell you that the only thing I connect "syfy" to is "syphilis".. but at least it's brandable.
Music CD's have usually over ten songs, of which maybe two or three are good - it's not very smart to buy the seven others! That's why iTunes is great.
On the other hand, when you buy a game, you buy one game - there's no air. On the contrary, you get manual (hopefully), game in a form you can lend or resell and nice status symbol in your bookshelf (all your friends will be jealous of your copy of Dead or Alive: Extreme Valleyball 4!).
Then there's the question of DRM, the digitally distributed version being of the same price or even more expensive than one bought from brick and mortar store (particularly outside USA) and, of course the question what will happen to the game if you need to repair your console or your harddrive gives up the ghost.
I don't really think that iTunes and Steam are comparable exambles for digital distribution.
There weren't any morally good Nazi soldiers. They were NAZIS. There were, however, good German career soldiers who served under Nazi regime. Talking about "good nazi soldiers" is like talking about "good republican soldiers serving in Iraq".
Could we talk about Richard Gaywood who apparently can't use his name in Xbox Live, neither as a nickname nor as real name.
LIVE is full of teenagers with nicks like ~uberKILL4H~, so I tend to give +3 modifier to anyone I see who actually knows how uppercases are supposed to operate.
Not to mention the whole "what if a word is common name in one part of the world, while obscene in other, such as Wanker"-issue which mr. Gaywood also mentioned.
Much more interesting than some (probably) teenager who has to go around shouting I'M A LESBIAN! DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT?!
Anyway, isn't "gay" supposed to be the *positive* way to refer homosexuals? Instead of queers, fags or Eltonjohns? When did a word which is also a synonym for "happy" become so rude that people should switch names if they happened to inherit it..?
It's obvious acronym. Greetings from Finland.
Americans for corporations having way too much power over there.
Nokia started it's existence as a water-operated wood-pulp mill. It's name originates from the town located near the river. It is in no way "American" :)
But you are right; big companies tend to do bad things, even when they have declaration of human rights as part of their charter (as Nokia does).
My phone doesn't allow turning the camera sound off. I usually just keep my thumb over the loudspeaker when I want to take photos of sleeping people etc.
So you think the courts should be able to dictate to a private company that they have to put a price on software that the company wants to make available for free?
See: Predatory pricing. This court case should really have come eight years ago. While this isn't as much about money as it's about marketing and brand presence, the end result is very much the same; Netscape lost its marketshare followed by Microsoft halting the development of IE6 for five years. If Microsoft wasn't also the owner of Windows, this would be acceptable. But as we all know, companies with monopolies have stricter rules than smaller players. It's in the law.
My first computer was IBM Aptiva (I was 12 years old). The operating system was Win95, and it came with IE3 and Netscape Navigator 3, IIRC.
The next computer I bought had Win98 with IE5.5 only.
I do wonder why Windows updates have to be done thru the browser. It's not like there isn't dedicated piece of software in Windows to do updates...
Haven't used Win7, but the few times I've used OS X I was always left confused; couldn't figure out if I had closed the browser or not.
Slurm Queen: "You'll be submerged in Royal Slurm, which in a matter of minutes will transform you into a Slurm Queen like myself!"
Glurmo Half: "But your Highness, she's a commoner. Her Slurm will taste foul."
Slurm Queen: "Yes. Which is why we'll market it as New Slurm. Then, when everyone hates it, we'll bring back Slurm Classic and make billions!"
The Commission of the EU is unelected.
The President of the Comission and the comissioners are chosen by the Council of Ministers (who are democratically appointed). They are then introduced to the European Parliament (who are democratically appointed). Who then democratically appoint the commission in to power (if not successful, the Council will find new people).
Just because you didn't personally vote for every single official doesn't make it nondemocratic. This is called a representational democracy. EU has nigh half billion citizens, and Comission has over 25 individuals. Most of the positions aren't exactly glamorous (Transportation or Regional policy, for example). In USA, people don't directly appoint the secretaries (and whatnot) of the president. In most of the member states of EU, you don't get to choose the ministers either; they are chosen by the party in power, and the positions may be given -without election- to anyone. The Finnish foreign minister (Alexander Stubb) serves without seat in the parliament, for examble.
I'll make a wild leap and assume you're English (not a Britt; English) and get your daily news and political information from Daily Mirror. If you wish to do so, more power to you. But please don't spread your misinformation around like some sort of intellectual (haha) HI-virus. Thank you.
I mean what if everyone developed your mentality and decided..
If everybody developed my mentality, USA would have multiparty system, tea and cocoa would be commonly offered instead of coffee and copyright/trademark-system would look completely different.
The fact that I'm (we are) usually in minority with my (our) views doesn't mean they are wrong. Nobody ever says to me "well, if everybody had your mentality and decided not to vote [your local populist party, like Republicans and Democrats] then we wouldn't [be in Iraq/spy Finland/save every email sent in UK]. But we are in minority and majority will never protest against Echelon, Swedish FRA, patents or whatever we usually gripe about in Slashdot.
So let the guy use Google without watching ads.
Actor and age when they started Doctor Who:
William Hartnell - 56
Patrick Troughton - 46
Jon Pertwee - 51 (He will always be Worzel Gummidge to me)
Wow. Those are really low numbers. I always thought Hartnell and Pertwee were on their mid60s with Troughton on 50s (with Baker I nearly 50). Did the people get that much faster older back then?
Haha, wikipedia has an interesting graph about this. Apparently they have gone from 4 USB-ports to 2, removed flash card readers, removed SACD support and removed PS2 compatibility (both hardware AND software).
But at least the harddrive is bigger. That's something, no?
I bought the XB360 recently. Brother went for PS3, basically because of BluRay. I'm repeatedly saying that he'll rue the day he sawed his credit card, and he laughs at me because I only have DVD-capability. Also, he claims, the best games are for PS3.