Excellent technology frightened the merely mediocre. Who we let gain power. Handcuffs were applied by pigs. Who we let to gain power. That's all there is to be said.
There was a time when JPL and MRI lured the brightest from all over the world into the country. Now they all get scared away. If anybody wants to meet me nowadays, I call them back to Europe. There's no way that I'd be traveing to the US anytime soon.
I know quite a lot of stuff that'd be deemed harmful to the US. Like logic, evolution, security related stuff. Maybe not grammar. Screw that. 30 years ago that was a completely different thing. Jimmy Carter. A downhill race ever since.
Who actually does vote those into office that are eternally scared of the stuff they don't understand themselves? Could you please strip them off their right to vote?
Actors don't speak all foreign languages. In fact most of the time when you hear a American or British actor speak German or French in a movie it sounds rather atrocious.
I'm looking at you, Kevin Bacon in X-Men: First Class and Mr. Merovingian in the second Matrix movie. Please do not inflict it on them. Also faked accents are GODAWFUL!
I've yet to hear a non Scot to fake it convincingly. And there is enough Mockney in the world.
But in the past few years I think that a lot more movies have language befitting the setting with subtitles. But not for the main actors.
...that's what I have been told and I sort of believe it.
Jenaer Glas was quite sought after in the West. If we even had heard of it. And anybody who ever drove on the Transit remembers ORWO DER FILM AUS WOLFEN.That is still quite popular amongst photographic enthusiasts. Including the cameras. Booze was also quite nice. Books were dirt cheap.
I always bought books and records although I suspect the stuff I bought was barely tolerated so I usually put a Constitution of the GDR and Das Kapital(nothing by Trotzki, preferably) on top of the pile. No monkey guarding their end of the border would touch those two to look what's underneath.
Being classified and certified as Mostly Harmless by the GDR authorities propably also helped.
The GDR supplied top-notch high tech to the world. Optics, electronics, machines, the lot. Proceeds of course went mostly to the brothers a bit further to the east.
Funny thing is that due to the yoghurt eating, long-haired fleabags Germany was/is quite ahead on evironmental technologies/alternative energy/andsoforth.
I could very well be that the Green party has lined the German coffers with gold and Muesli.
Also that party grew up quite a bit over the last 20 years and I suspect that it isn't even in the slightest comparable to the counterpart in the US. Although the fundamentalist wing of Die Gruenen has a problem with being in power and the realist wing has a problem with not being in power. Fun times for all are guaranteed. Don't read German newspapers in the next few weeks. You've been warned.
No, in this case something we hold dear to our heart was touched indecently by Rupert Murdoch. If you look at it from this angle then it is a case of molestation and that's why we are up in arms.
WILL YOU NOT THINK OF THE ARRRRR?
A mirror is the last object I would consult on these matters. It is bound to go horribly wrong.
Besides, we've got TV for that nowadays. With a little bit of luck, although it is quite unlikely, you may get a glimpse of him. For some reason news programmes don't show true crooks anymore even if that is what they were created for.
So you might actually be onto something with your mirror method. At least in one case it is bound to give the right information.
In my experience an ass has two cheeks. Only a few unfortunate few have one or three. So the number two is inherent to the assness of the ass. So I'll base this on a posteriori experience in the Aristotelian sense.
Now let's examine the other object in question using the same method. A hat's pupose is to be worn on the head. So one would assume that an ass-hat is an object made from people's posteriors and formed into a hat.
So in conclusion we are talking about an actual hat or possibly, deducing by the use of the word, an ass-hat wearer.
In which case the vaccine is blindingly obvious. A hat stand and a firm policy of not wearing hats indoors.
Selling access to politicians seems to be common practice. We had a couple of scandals like that in Germany, too.
I don't think the timing is ominous. The incident was simply disgusting, it was news, hacks were involved, so it got reported. That's exactly what a newspaper is for. Only this time it seems no phones were hacked. More likely the usual mix of whistle blowing, dumb luck, bribery and snooping. The newspaper business will never be squeaky clean and it doesn't have to be as rotten as News Corps was.
The biggest German yellow press newspaper-lookalike has faced allegations of making up news as they go for years. This is not your Bat Boy thing but the biggest and most influential newspaper in Germany. Hated by many, read by even more. Their currenty billboard ads are quotes from prominent Germans(A list, B list, the whole alphabet) on their view on that rag. Quite a few of them are disapproving. That's how confident they are. Despite the allegations. Despite the opinionated reporting. In one fell swoop to clean up their public image they took the tits from page one to page three.
...and that is the newspaper that had the most scoops in the past thirty years. Which makes it an invaluable national institution, I suppose. Oh well, tits. They manage to make them boring.
Rupert Murdoch does not control Fox News. Fox News is controlled only by the sincerest desire to provide fair, balanced, truthful reporting. How could you possibly believe otherwise?
'tis true! Santa told me himself a couple of months ago.
Funny, I always thought he came from the North Pole not Australia. What's next? The Easter Bunny not being Catholic?
I'm heavily involved with a couple of huge European chemical companies and they found out that sustainability is the only thing that will keep them afloat for another century. They test if their reps are corrupt, if ethical guidelines are followed, that they don't leave a mess, how their employees fare worldwide, if they eed to get involved in education and how far away they are from their own goals. Which still is quite a bit. But still.
The frequent corruption scandals German industry faced and a few other desasters have caused a serious shift in what they think is needed. Stockholders don't quite get it but they are still doing fine.
Now I reckon this is also the case in other companies(I only consult those) so this makes Muroch Corp look like a bit of a dinosaur. You will not be able to steal, cheat, lie and sleaze your way to the top and can expect to end up with a slap on the wrist. Quite a few execs of Murdoch Corp are now facing charges, some are in jail. Also Murdoch had politics by the colloar for quite a while and now that public opinion swings the other side you can expect something quite drastic to happen in GB.
There's an old Fry&Laurie sketch on Murdoch, that's how long his sleaze has been public knowledge.
The interesting thing is they didn't prepare for this election as much as the other parties did. They didn't have the money for polls or a coherent programme weeks before the ballots were cast.
This whole thing was pretty improvised. They followed their gut and didn't stress the digital issues they have(since they are well known to those who actually care) and explored what else they can stand for.
There were a lot of pirates going ARRR, and ding-a-ling while they drove around on their bikes hanging up posters. Pieces of eight were not looted.
A train station that had been in planning for 30 years got protested and that's about it. The Occupy movement wasn't very strong in Germany. That's why. We tried sit-ins and teach-ins and bed-ins(well, our parents did) and being sprayed by cops is all hunky-dory but ineffective. The tendendcy to Get Things Done this country shows from time to time is actually quite impressive. Usually it involves football, peace, endangered bugs, availability of beer, freedom, slightly more vacation so to push us even further over the European mean(gotta lead at least one board, amirite?) and now social equality. It's very hard to argue against any of that.
I didn't. But I grew up facing the colourful side of The Wall.
Honestly, I don't know if I would have gotten into trouble on the other side. It takes a lot of courage to speak up especially when there is no certainty to actually gain something from it. Not all of us have the courage required.
The social justice issue may also manifest in the average age of you garden variety pirate. They have most of their lives ahead of them and are not way past their prime. So voting for young people in the hope they will look out for young people is not that far fetched, actually.
If the FDP kicked out all Foreign Secretaries who don't speak Ze Englisch, get rid of people of so interchangeable qualification that they can take care of our health system AND our economy and all the other people who weren't considerate enough to jump out of an aeroplane with a dodgy chute then they would actually be electable. The tragic thing is Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger has been the last true liberal in the FDP for decades. Her record for the last 20 years is spotless. If there is a voice of reason in this country then it is hers. Somehow the curse of Otto Graf Lambsdorff didn't affect her. An honest politician with a conscience. Who'd have thunk it?
Also I like how they only have a core programme and leave everything else up to their respective members. I THINK they make a very good junior partner in a coalition government event tho they still need to grow up a little bit.
They have a very good chance to become THE liberal party in Germany as opposed to the current one that is now imploding over errors made in the 80ies.
Due to the unique way we vote(one vote for a party, one vote for a parliamentarian) you can have your Pirates flavoured Red, Black, Green, Pink(but not brown or yellow, that doesn't quite blend).
I can totally see them occupy ten seats in the federal parliament. They are the right ones to oppose the gerontocratic old parties. Just like The Greens used to be in the 80ies.
I can also see Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, our current minister of justice join them. Ever since the nineties she was the gal to watch. She has always been against government snooping, keeping IP logs for donkey's years, blocking IP addresses FOR TEH CIHLDRNS and strong on humanitarian issues. Her stance on ACTA is well known and frankly, she is everything that made the old liberal party electable(FDP). Hence my hope of her moving out of that moribund outfit.
Also the pink party is the only somewhat reasonable left-wing party left in Germany. The SPD has done the deadly shift to the centre hoping to find voters there and is bleeding voters to Die Linke. Sad but true, in a day and age when government tries to sell of all public property to the lowest bidder who will keep infrastructure in a shoddy state of decay to please idiot stock holders such a party is needed. It isn't needed in government, but it is a voice that needs to be heard. Also their core issue isn't bringing about socialism but social and financial equality. Or at least keep the difference between the haves and the have-nots as low as possible.
Germany spent 10 years eliminating safeguards in job safety and we have learned to embrace the personal risk. Trouble is, that quite a lot of people fall besides the tracks and that is not who we are supposed to be. If you work hard then you should bloody well be able to provide for your family without needing another job. Or benefits. That's not too much to ask for.
The SPD(original remaining mainstream left party) had been instrumental in shifting Germany into what we are now. I helped us through when everybody else was in a recession, but that was the cost.
I've not been brain-washed(much...we in the west have TV ads for that) and even I can see that.
...there still is a lot of nostalgia going on. And a few things Eastern Germany produced/had are sorely missed. While each child was guaranteed to get a spot in kindergarden(which, frankly, were the expected paedagogic trainwreck) it took the unified Germany 20 years to implement that.
The people who harbour nostalgia for that regime do so with rose-tinted glasses and from personal experience which wasn't neccessarily bad. If you behaved and accepted you supposedly could have a nice life. I on the other hand have been to the archives containing the steaming slimy paper trail of mindless cruelty, indifference, red tape and cynicism(all for the greater good of all, of course...well, most). I can tell you that you do not want to know what happend if you caught the attention of the powers that be.
The urge to vomit drives tears to my eyes.
On a personal level, the East had a very popular children's TV programme that aired early in the evening. It was also popular in the West(if you could) get it. I loved watching it as a kid. 15 years later I learned that the wife of the last head of state(may he rot in his grave) was heavily involved in the programming. If there was shortage of some goods then they weren't allowed to show it. If there was abundance of others then they should show that in a feast.
...also all of these parties have a lot of overlap.
Any combination of parties starting a coalition with another has already been tried. Amazingly most seemed to be functional.
This is why a new party like the PP doesn't NEED a party stance on everything. Besides, parliamentarians can and should have their own conscience and vote along those lines. The PP doesn't need a consensus on EU milk quotas, the recession(there is none in Germany at the moment) and other issues. The Green Party started like that and became a party with a complete programme within two decades.
There are safeguards against fragmentation. You need at least some percentage to actually get a seat in parliament. Most commonly that's 5%. That keeps the kooks out.
Also if a big enough portion of your population votes for a party that doesn't make it into government then government still has to take their needs into account. Otherwise you don't have a democracy but a dictatorship of the majority. Which never is a good thing.
Those things have become amazing in their raw computing power. The games are not quite there yet but taking a look at Glowball, Riptide or Shadowgun on a Tegra3 device you get the message.
Sadly the Transformer Prime seems to be made of Unobtanium. Slaughter more blue people!
Also it has been advertised that those things support this nVidia 3D shutter glass thingie although on such a small screen I don't think it is actually worth it. Since I have a pair of those anyway I will gladly hook them up once Asus has sorted out that Unobtanium problem.
My phone came with a 3G/WiFi hotspot tethering app preinstalled. Seems like T-Mobile/Germany is very relaxed about the tethering issue.
You can hook up a game controller to a tablet and some interesting games even support them. I can totally see quite a lot of indies who as of late have been developing AMAZING games(Bastion, Trine...) move to tablets which you can hook up to a TV via HDMI.
Just go to nVidia's Tegra Zone to see how far the bleeding edge tablets have moved on. There are videos of stuff that is easily on par with the current gen of game consoles. I'm truly amazed. It really feels like science fiction.
Also it seems like fondleslab producers are moving away from integrating 3g/4g into their tablets since everybody has a cell phone anyway which is easily tethered to a tablet. 3G/4G simply doesn't justify the extra cost anymore.
Now all I need is a good enough reason to get rid of my current XOOM which is perfectly fine. I want a Transformer Prime more than I want my next breath.
OMG, thank you!
That guy narrating his version of the story was actually better than watching Episode 1. Which in retrospect now clearly and specifically appears to be a tangled mess of no focus whatsoever. Only now I understand how.
So how long has George Lucas to be dead so we can have this kind of movie?
It also saves a lot of confusion in court when you get cought driving whilst a little bit tipsy.
"Y'r honour, I only had one glass of wine. How's I expected I was slightly over the drunk driving limit, guv?"
"Use your breathalyzer, derp."
The same kind of reasoning is to be encountered when you enter the good ole US of A. They cunningly ask you if you are a criminal. That's actually a sneaky thing to do. Once you've entered the US they have the devil's own time to get rid of you if you had been convicted outside of the US. But if you omitted mentioning you were the notorious sheep-botherer of Lincolnshire then you've lied while filling out that form.
...and they can send you back based on red tape alone. No need to wait for any sheep buggery tho happen on US soil.
Why have fighter jets at all? Is it still worth buying expensive war machines with the asymmetric threats larger nations face now days?
Pakistan and India are still at each other's throats. And if that escalates it will be army vs. army. The only asymetric thing there is the availability of nukes. the Kashmir issue is indeed silly and I also think that that's money that should have been spent on infrastructure or education.
Wel, I guess an open alliance with their arch-enemy made them look for somebody more relyable than the US. Just saying.
If they need to use those planes in Kashmir Pakistan will go sobbing to the US. The possibility of war between India and Pakistan is still there and as likely as ever.
Slashdot Mirror
So he has got quite an uncommon sense of humour. His French swearing got my heckles up. Nobody talks like that.
Well, maybe the Canadians?
Excellent technology frightened the merely mediocre. Who we let gain power. Handcuffs were applied by pigs. Who we let to gain power. That's all there is to be said.
There was a time when JPL and MRI lured the brightest from all over the world into the country. Now they all get scared away. If anybody wants to meet me nowadays, I call them back to Europe. There's no way that I'd be traveing to the US anytime soon.
I know quite a lot of stuff that'd be deemed harmful to the US. Like logic, evolution, security related stuff. Maybe not grammar. Screw that. 30 years ago that was a completely different thing. Jimmy Carter. A downhill race ever since.
Who actually does vote those into office that are eternally scared of the stuff they don't understand themselves? Could you please strip them off their right to vote?
Actors don't speak all foreign languages. In fact most of the time when you hear a American or British actor speak German or French in a movie it sounds rather atrocious.
I'm looking at you, Kevin Bacon in X-Men: First Class and Mr. Merovingian in the second Matrix movie. Please do not inflict it on them. Also faked accents are GODAWFUL!
I've yet to hear a non Scot to fake it convincingly. And there is enough Mockney in the world.
But in the past few years I think that a lot more movies have language befitting the setting with subtitles. But not for the main actors.
...that's what I have been told and I sort of believe it.
Jenaer Glas was quite sought after in the West. If we even had heard of it. And anybody who ever drove on the Transit remembers ORWO DER FILM AUS WOLFEN.That is still quite popular amongst photographic enthusiasts. Including the cameras. Booze was also quite nice. Books were dirt cheap.
I always bought books and records although I suspect the stuff I bought was barely tolerated so I usually put a Constitution of the GDR and Das Kapital(nothing by Trotzki, preferably) on top of the pile. No monkey guarding their end of the border would touch those two to look what's underneath.
Being classified and certified as Mostly Harmless by the GDR authorities propably also helped.
The GDR supplied top-notch high tech to the world. Optics, electronics, machines, the lot. Proceeds of course went mostly to the brothers a bit further to the east.
Funny thing is that due to the yoghurt eating, long-haired fleabags Germany was/is quite ahead on evironmental technologies/alternative energy/andsoforth.
I could very well be that the Green party has lined the German coffers with gold and Muesli.
Also that party grew up quite a bit over the last 20 years and I suspect that it isn't even in the slightest comparable to the counterpart in the US. Although the fundamentalist wing of Die Gruenen has a problem with being in power and the realist wing has a problem with not being in power. Fun times for all are guaranteed.
Don't read German newspapers in the next few weeks. You've been warned.
No, in this case something we hold dear to our heart was touched indecently by Rupert Murdoch. If you look at it from this angle then it is a case of molestation and that's why we are up in arms.
WILL YOU NOT THINK OF THE ARRRRR?
A mirror is the last object I would consult on these matters. It is bound to go horribly wrong.
Besides, we've got TV for that nowadays. With a little bit of luck, although it is quite unlikely, you may get a glimpse of him. For some reason news programmes don't show true crooks anymore even if that is what they were created for.
So you might actually be onto something with your mirror method. At least in one case it is bound to give the right information.
Thank god! No Rupert in stockings!
... gauge out ... inner eye
Oh noes! Now rule 34 applies! Must
In my experience an ass has two cheeks. Only a few unfortunate few have one or three. So the number two is inherent to the assness of the ass. So I'll base this on a posteriori experience in the Aristotelian sense.
Now let's examine the other object in question using the same method. A hat's pupose is to be worn on the head. So one would assume that an ass-hat is an object made from people's posteriors and formed into a hat.
So in conclusion we are talking about an actual hat or possibly, deducing by the use of the word, an ass-hat wearer.
In which case the vaccine is blindingly obvious. A hat stand and a firm policy of not wearing hats indoors.
That'd make you look like an ass-hat.
Selling access to politicians seems to be common practice. We had a couple of scandals like that in Germany, too.
...and that is the newspaper that had the most scoops in the past thirty years. Which makes it an invaluable national institution, I suppose. Oh well, tits. They manage to make them boring.
I don't think the timing is ominous. The incident was simply disgusting, it was news, hacks were involved, so it got reported. That's exactly what a newspaper is for. Only this time it seems no phones were hacked. More likely the usual mix of whistle blowing, dumb luck, bribery and snooping. The newspaper business will never be squeaky clean and it doesn't have to be as rotten as News Corps was.
The biggest German yellow press newspaper-lookalike has faced allegations of making up news as they go for years. This is not your Bat Boy thing but the biggest and most influential newspaper in Germany. Hated by many, read by even more. Their currenty billboard ads are quotes from prominent Germans(A list, B list, the whole alphabet) on their view on that rag. Quite a few of them are disapproving. That's how confident they are. Despite the allegations. Despite the opinionated reporting. In one fell swoop to clean up their public image they took the tits from page one to page three.
Rupert Murdoch does not control Fox News. Fox News is controlled only by the sincerest desire to provide fair, balanced, truthful reporting. How could you possibly believe otherwise?
'tis true! Santa told me himself a couple of months ago.
Funny, I always thought he came from the North Pole not Australia. What's next? The Easter Bunny not being Catholic?
This is not as far away as you might think.
I'm heavily involved with a couple of huge European chemical companies and they found out that sustainability is the only thing that will keep them afloat for another century. They test if their reps are corrupt, if ethical guidelines are followed, that they don't leave a mess, how their employees fare worldwide, if they eed to get involved in education and how far away they are from their own goals. Which still is quite a bit. But still.
The frequent corruption scandals German industry faced and a few other desasters have caused a serious shift in what they think is needed. Stockholders don't quite get it but they are still doing fine.
Now I reckon this is also the case in other companies(I only consult those) so this makes Muroch Corp look like a bit of a dinosaur. You will not be able to steal, cheat, lie and sleaze your way to the top and can expect to end up with a slap on the wrist. Quite a few execs of Murdoch Corp are now facing charges, some are in jail. Also Murdoch had politics by the colloar for quite a while and now that public opinion swings the other side you can expect something quite drastic to happen in GB.
There's an old Fry&Laurie sketch on Murdoch, that's how long his sleaze has been public knowledge.
SCHADENFREUDEGASM indeed(thanks, dintech).
The interesting thing is they didn't prepare for this election as much as the other parties did. They didn't have the money for polls or a coherent programme weeks before the ballots were cast.
This whole thing was pretty improvised. They followed their gut and didn't stress the digital issues they have(since they are well known to those who actually care) and explored what else they can stand for.
There were a lot of pirates going ARRR, and ding-a-ling while they drove around on their bikes hanging up posters. Pieces of eight were not looted.
A train station that had been in planning for 30 years got protested and that's about it. The Occupy movement wasn't very strong in Germany. That's why. We tried sit-ins and teach-ins and bed-ins(well, our parents did) and being sprayed by cops is all hunky-dory but ineffective. The tendendcy to Get Things Done this country shows from time to time is actually quite impressive. Usually it involves football, peace, endangered bugs, availability of beer, freedom, slightly more vacation so to push us even further over the European mean(gotta lead at least one board, amirite?) and now social equality. It's very hard to argue against any of that.
I didn't. But I grew up facing the colourful side of The Wall.
Honestly, I don't know if I would have gotten into trouble on the other side. It takes a lot of courage to speak up especially when there is no certainty to actually gain something from it. Not all of us have the courage required.
The social justice issue may also manifest in the average age of you garden variety pirate. They have most of their lives ahead of them and are not way past their prime. So voting for young people in the hope they will look out for young people is not that far fetched, actually.
If the FDP kicked out all Foreign Secretaries who don't speak Ze Englisch, get rid of people of so interchangeable qualification that they can take care of our health system AND our economy and all the other people who weren't considerate enough to jump out of an aeroplane with a dodgy chute then they would actually be electable. The tragic thing is Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger has been the last true liberal in the FDP for decades. Her record for the last 20 years is spotless. If there is a voice of reason in this country then it is hers. Somehow the curse of Otto Graf Lambsdorff didn't affect her. An honest politician with a conscience. Who'd have thunk it?
I reckon quite a few pirates do admire her.
Also I like how they only have a core programme and leave everything else up to their respective members. I THINK they make a very good junior partner in a coalition government event tho they still need to grow up a little bit.
They have a very good chance to become THE liberal party in Germany as opposed to the current one that is now imploding over errors made in the 80ies.
Due to the unique way we vote(one vote for a party, one vote for a parliamentarian) you can have your Pirates flavoured Red, Black, Green, Pink(but not brown or yellow, that doesn't quite blend).
I can totally see them occupy ten seats in the federal parliament. They are the right ones to oppose the gerontocratic old parties. Just like The Greens used to be in the 80ies.
I can also see Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, our current minister of justice join them. Ever since the nineties she was the gal to watch. She has always been against government snooping, keeping IP logs for donkey's years, blocking IP addresses FOR TEH CIHLDRNS and strong on humanitarian issues. Her stance on ACTA is well known and frankly, she is everything that made the old liberal party electable(FDP). Hence my hope of her moving out of that moribund outfit.
Also the pink party is the only somewhat reasonable left-wing party left in Germany. The SPD has done the deadly shift to the centre hoping to find voters there and is bleeding voters to Die Linke. Sad but true, in a day and age when government tries to sell of all public property to the lowest bidder who will keep infrastructure in a shoddy state of decay to please idiot stock holders such a party is needed. It isn't needed in government, but it is a voice that needs to be heard. Also their core issue isn't bringing about socialism but social and financial equality. Or at least keep the difference between the haves and the have-nots as low as possible.
Germany spent 10 years eliminating safeguards in job safety and we have learned to embrace the personal risk. Trouble is, that quite a lot of people fall besides the tracks and that is not who we are supposed to be. If you work hard then you should bloody well be able to provide for your family without needing another job. Or benefits. That's not too much to ask for.
The SPD(original remaining mainstream left party) had been instrumental in shifting Germany into what we are now. I helped us through when everybody else was in a recession, but that was the cost.
I've not been brain-washed(much...we in the west have TV ads for that) and even I can see that.
...there still is a lot of nostalgia going on. And a few things Eastern Germany produced/had are sorely missed. While each child was guaranteed to get a spot in kindergarden(which, frankly, were the expected paedagogic trainwreck) it took the unified Germany 20 years to implement that.
The people who harbour nostalgia for that regime do so with rose-tinted glasses and from personal experience which wasn't neccessarily bad. If you behaved and accepted you supposedly could have a nice life. I on the other hand have been to the archives containing the steaming slimy paper trail of mindless cruelty, indifference, red tape and cynicism(all for the greater good of all, of course...well, most). I can tell you that you do not want to know what happend if you caught the attention of the powers that be.
The urge to vomit drives tears to my eyes.
On a personal level, the East had a very popular children's TV programme that aired early in the evening. It was also popular in the West(if you could) get it. I loved watching it as a kid. 15 years later I learned that the wife of the last head of state(may he rot in his grave) was heavily involved in the programming. If there was shortage of some goods then they weren't allowed to show it. If there was abundance of others then they should show that in a feast.
A totalitarian regime leaves NOTHING untainted.
The urge to vomit still drives tears to the eyes.
...also all of these parties have a lot of overlap.
Any combination of parties starting a coalition with another has already been tried. Amazingly most seemed to be functional.
This is why a new party like the PP doesn't NEED a party stance on everything. Besides, parliamentarians can and should have their own conscience and vote along those lines. The PP doesn't need a consensus on EU milk quotas, the recession(there is none in Germany at the moment) and other issues. The Green Party started like that and became a party with a complete programme within two decades.
There are safeguards against fragmentation. You need at least some percentage to actually get a seat in parliament. Most commonly that's 5%. That keeps the kooks out.
Also if a big enough portion of your population votes for a party that doesn't make it into government then government still has to take their needs into account. Otherwise you don't have a democracy but a dictatorship of the majority. Which never is a good thing.
Those things have become amazing in their raw computing power. The games are not quite there yet but taking a look at Glowball, Riptide or Shadowgun on a Tegra3 device you get the message.
Sadly the Transformer Prime seems to be made of Unobtanium. Slaughter more blue people!
Also it has been advertised that those things support this nVidia 3D shutter glass thingie although on such a small screen I don't think it is actually worth it. Since I have a pair of those anyway I will gladly hook them up once Asus has sorted out that Unobtanium problem.
My phone came with a 3G/WiFi hotspot tethering app preinstalled. Seems like T-Mobile/Germany is very relaxed about the tethering issue.
You can hook up a game controller to a tablet and some interesting games even support them. I can totally see quite a lot of indies who as of late have been developing AMAZING games(Bastion, Trine...) move to tablets which you can hook up to a TV via HDMI.
Just go to nVidia's Tegra Zone to see how far the bleeding edge tablets have moved on. There are videos of stuff that is easily on par with the current gen of game consoles. I'm truly amazed. It really feels like science fiction.
Also it seems like fondleslab producers are moving away from integrating 3g/4g into their tablets since everybody has a cell phone anyway which is easily tethered to a tablet. 3G/4G simply doesn't justify the extra cost anymore.
Now all I need is a good enough reason to get rid of my current XOOM which is perfectly fine. I want a Transformer Prime more than I want my next breath.
OMG, thank you!
That guy narrating his version of the story was actually better than watching Episode 1. Which in retrospect now clearly and specifically appears to be a tangled mess of no focus whatsoever. Only now I understand how.
So how long has George Lucas to be dead so we can have this kind of movie?
It also saves a lot of confusion in court when you get cought driving whilst a little bit tipsy.
...and they can send you back based on red tape alone. No need to wait for any sheep buggery tho happen on US soil.
"Y'r honour, I only had one glass of wine. How's I expected I was slightly over the drunk driving limit, guv?"
"Use your breathalyzer, derp."
The same kind of reasoning is to be encountered when you enter the good ole US of A. They cunningly ask you if you are a criminal. That's actually a sneaky thing to do. Once you've entered the US they have the devil's own time to get rid of you if you had been convicted outside of the US. But if you omitted mentioning you were the notorious sheep-botherer of Lincolnshire then you've lied while filling out that form.
Sneaky indeed.
Why have fighter jets at all? Is it still worth buying expensive war machines with the asymmetric threats larger nations face now days?
Pakistan and India are still at each other's throats. And if that escalates it will be army vs. army. The only asymetric thing there is the availability of nukes. the Kashmir issue is indeed silly and I also think that that's money that should have been spent on infrastructure or education.
Wel, I guess an open alliance with their arch-enemy made them look for somebody more relyable than the US. Just saying.
If they need to use those planes in Kashmir Pakistan will go sobbing to the US. The possibility of war between India and Pakistan is still there and as likely as ever.