Since you mention the UK so often it would be nice if you bothered to find out something about it.
I am very happy with the NHS and so are the vast majority of the people here in the UK. Yes it may have it's problems but everyone would much rather have the NHS than private healthcare.
The number of people with a degree is, in most regions of the UK, well above 15% and in most cities above 24% of the population in 2001.
Most people in the UK who are working are earning above the minimum wage.
VAT is not charged on everything, most especially it's not charged on food.
And exactly the same effect is what allows the British Labour party to get away with enacting hard line Tory legislation that even the Conservatives wouldn't have got away with in power.
But you see, you are stringing together two things which aren't necessarily related
I agree they aren't necessarily related but if you read the comment I was replying to the poster had outlined a very clear relationship between a personal set of beliefs and an intention to impose them upon others through the passing of legislation.
I have no problem with people believing in things which I don't believe in or agree with but I'd rather they came by their beliefs through a logical and sensible process rather than taking on the beliefs of an organised religion and allowing the teachings of that religion to short circuit their own critical thinking processes.
In extreme cases it certainly would make me uncomfortable if those around me believed in a religiously inspired jihad against non believers but that would be less to do with any insecurities about my own beliefs and more to do with general worry about the nutcases surrounding me.
Sounds like a great idea to me, the only real hurdle I can see remaining is the source data these mashups use which, at least in the UK, are owned by the government but strangely not available for the use of the people.
The UK postcode database is one such example which isn't available except at vast expense but there are others, the most relevant currently being flood data which is gathered, at the taxpayers expense, but not available for use except, again, at a large cost.
Since the government clearly aren't that interested in listening the people who'd like this to change I'd like to see Google exerting a bit of pressure in this arena, they may not benefit directly but indirectly with free data I suspect there would be an explosion of mashups from which they could benefit.
A simple spreadsheet error in the zoo transportation department commands them to mail a large crocodile to a balcony at the top of a large block of flats. A party of innocent children are walking down the road under the balcony and are all hit and killed by a large falling crocodile.
The Israeli kidnap and asassination department are looking through their targets spreadsheet where a simple spreadsheet error has flagged your address at the top of their list. Next day you are kidnapped, tortured and killed.
A simple spreadsheet error in the town planning department lead them to construct an large and elaborate new drain system underneath your house down which your house, your wife and all your belongings are sucked never to be seen again.
Even if you don't believe in a god I fail to see how you are hurt by others who do . . . you might even have to put up with your politicians making laws based on it.
I think you've just answered your own question there really.
If I'm going to have to put up with people making laws which govern my life based on their whacked out beliefs in some man with a beard then I'm perfectly within my rights to point out what a stupid , stupid, stupid thing religion is and do what I can to prevent idiotic belief systems interfering with my otherwise logical and scientifically controlled life.
Further to this if you may have noticed a certain number of irritating religiously motivated terrorists making themselves heard lately, this is one clear method through which other peoples religious beliefs ae interfering with my life.
The first rule perfomance magicians must adhere to is not to reveal how any trick (their own or anyone else's) is done. I find it a bit rich for second rate magicians like Randi to make it their lives work trying to reveal the tricks of highly successful performers like Geller.
Why should any magician adhere to any such rule ? Especially ones which prevent them pointing out how other magicians are conning people out of their money by claiming to be something which they're not.
I'm sure a lot of Uri Geller type magicians would prefer not to have their scams uncovered but one of the first rules of life is not to allow parasites the freedom to feed off your fellow humans.
Enterprising drug barons can then experiment to see if there are any genetic black holes in the dogs drug sensing capability and possibly use this information to design a form a drug packaging which cannot be detected by the cainine customs cops.
Taking anti depressants, probably, isn't half as much fun as going out and getting smashed on a regular, e.g. daily, basis. Alcohol on weekdays and maybe a little coke and ecstasy on the weekend. cigarettes help keep it all together and mean you can spend half the working day wandering around outside which in it's self has a huge anti depressant effect.
I'm quite a consistent smoker on around 15 a day and yet not smoking on long flights has never been a problem, even for 10 or 12 hour flights. It seems that if there is no possibility of having a cigarette it doesn't bother me. Weird.
A late friend of mine who was a smoker recently died trying to swap his smoking habit for inhaling the exhaust fumes from car engines.
We're not sure why he did this but this morning I saw a large bill board advert which claims that there's more chemicals in a cigarette than in car exhaust fumes. I think my friend might have been led to believe that this meant car exhaust fumes were better for you than cigarettes, with, obviously, tragic consequences.
If this is the case I think his memorial foundation may well be suing the government soon for playing a major part in his death.
To be fair to the French they did give us ( the British ) the full specs of the Exocet and suggested methods of countering them and also didn't sell the Argentines the next version of them.
And kept the rest of the Argentine fleet in port and well away from the task force leaving them only their jets with a minute or so loiter time in the war zone. I think this really emphasises the power of the submarine.
Also I think the Argentinians had at least one submarine too but this was chased away by the British anti submarine defenses.
Amusingly, and somewhat related to point 2, there is a lot of resentment in Ireland at the moment to a huge wave of immigration from Eastern Europe.
"Ah feck, these people are coming here for a better life than they can get back home in their own countries - it's not right I tell you ! We Irish have always abhorred such godless migration and habits."
I can picture these asshats in one of their castles or manors in the english countryside, with Richards suddenly going "Look, Mick! They're playing our song!", then Jagger stroking his chin while musing out loud "I bet we could make some money off of that".
The sentiment is no doubt correct but there's no chance these artistes would be found in any of their English castles, oh no they'd have to pay out in taxes if they did that and The Stones don't believe in paying taxes.
Shrinkwrap EULAS are an entirely different kettle of fish. You're not allowed to redistribute or change MS software because copyright law does not allow you to do this, you don't need a Eula to enforce that - it's the law anyway.
The GPL grants you extra rights over and above those you already have through copyright, if you don't accept the GPL then you don't accept the extra rights it gives you and you're stuck with the rights you have through copyright which don't let you redistribute the software.
Thats true but pubs should be given the choice of whether to be smoking or non smoking pubs, if people don't wish to breathe in smoke then they can just avoid going to the smoking pubs.
Pubs have already had this choice but most have chosen to remain smoking which reflects the wishes of the majority of their customers, I don't see why smokers should be forced to bow to the wishes of some vocal minority.
I'm guesssing you're an American ? I'm not saying that's the only reason you're totally misinformed and talking bollocks but it's almost certainly a factor.
I think you're talking about terraced houses ( terraces ). Semi detached houses share 1 wall with their neighbours and detached houses share no walls. Terraces are very common in the UK, an awful lot of them were built from the late 1800's onwards.
You know, it's becoming less and less surprising that one of the UK's biggest objections to the EU charter has been the idea of signing up to the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
I find this really amusing given the opposition from the Conservatives to signing that in the first place. "It will be a great thing for Britain, as a modern country it would be backwards and wrong of us not to sign up to this charter and the conservatives are stupid and wrong to say it would interfere with us making laws" Labour said. Now they seem to be saying "This Human Rights nonsense is getting in the way of us making laws, maybe we should drop it".
That way you miss out on the fun you can have being irresponsible, getting drunk and falling off fences. I don't recommend the falling off part especially but it's a boring world where people are too scared to do anything which may involve them hurting themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
Since you mention the UK so often it would be nice if you bothered to find out something about it.
I am very happy with the NHS and so are the vast majority of the people here in the UK. Yes it may have it's problems but everyone would much rather have the NHS than private healthcare.
The number of people with a degree is, in most regions of the UK, well above 15% and in most cities above 24% of the population in 2001.
Most people in the UK who are working are earning above the minimum wage.
VAT is not charged on everything, most especially it's not charged on food.
And exactly the same effect is what allows the British Labour party to get away with enacting hard line Tory legislation that even the Conservatives wouldn't have got away with in power.
I agree they aren't necessarily related but if you read the comment I was replying to the poster had outlined a very clear relationship between a personal set of beliefs and an intention to impose them upon others through the passing of legislation.
I have no problem with people believing in things which I don't believe in or agree with but I'd rather they came by their beliefs through a logical and sensible process rather than taking on the beliefs of an organised religion and allowing the teachings of that religion to short circuit their own critical thinking processes.
In extreme cases it certainly would make me uncomfortable if those around me believed in a religiously inspired jihad against non believers but that would be less to do with any insecurities about my own beliefs and more to do with general worry about the nutcases surrounding me.
Sounds like a great idea to me, the only real hurdle I can see remaining is the source data these mashups use which, at least in the UK, are owned by the government but strangely not available for the use of the people.
The UK postcode database is one such example which isn't available except at vast expense but there are others, the most relevant currently being flood data which is gathered, at the taxpayers expense, but not available for use except, again, at a large cost.
Since the government clearly aren't that interested in listening the people who'd like this to change I'd like to see Google exerting a bit of pressure in this arena, they may not benefit directly but indirectly with free data I suspect there would be an explosion of mashups from which they could benefit.
A simple spreadsheet error in the zoo transportation department commands them to mail a large crocodile to a balcony at the top of a large block of flats. A party of innocent children are walking down the road under the balcony and are all hit and killed by a large falling crocodile.
The Israeli kidnap and asassination department are looking through their targets spreadsheet where a simple spreadsheet error has flagged your address at the top of their list. Next day you are kidnapped, tortured and killed.
A simple spreadsheet error in the town planning department lead them to construct an large and elaborate new drain system underneath your house down which your house, your wife and all your belongings are sucked never to be seen again.
I think there's a reason it's called the American Dream and not, for instance, the American Reality.
I think you've just answered your own question there really.
If I'm going to have to put up with people making laws which govern my life based on their whacked out beliefs in some man with a beard then I'm perfectly within my rights to point out what a stupid , stupid, stupid thing religion is and do what I can to prevent idiotic belief systems interfering with my otherwise logical and scientifically controlled life.
Further to this if you may have noticed a certain number of irritating religiously motivated terrorists making themselves heard lately, this is one clear method through which other peoples religious beliefs ae interfering with my life.
Why should any magician adhere to any such rule ? Especially ones which prevent them pointing out how other magicians are conning people out of their money by claiming to be something which they're not.
I'm sure a lot of Uri Geller type magicians would prefer not to have their scams uncovered but one of the first rules of life is not to allow parasites the freedom to feed off your fellow humans.
Enterprising drug barons can then experiment to see if there are any genetic black holes in the dogs drug sensing capability and possibly use this information to design a form a drug packaging which cannot be detected by the cainine customs cops.
Taking anti depressants, probably, isn't half as much fun as going out and getting smashed on a regular, e.g. daily, basis. Alcohol on weekdays and maybe a little coke and ecstasy on the weekend. cigarettes help keep it all together and mean you can spend half the working day wandering around outside which in it's self has a huge anti depressant effect.
I'm quite a consistent smoker on around 15 a day and yet not smoking on long flights has never been a problem, even for 10 or 12 hour flights. It seems that if there is no possibility of having a cigarette it doesn't bother me. Weird.
A late friend of mine who was a smoker recently died trying to swap his smoking habit for inhaling the exhaust fumes from car engines.
We're not sure why he did this but this morning I saw a large bill board advert which claims that there's more chemicals in a cigarette than in car exhaust fumes. I think my friend might have been led to believe that this meant car exhaust fumes were better for you than cigarettes, with, obviously, tragic consequences.
If this is the case I think his memorial foundation may well be suing the government soon for playing a major part in his death.
To be fair to the French they did give us ( the British ) the full specs of the Exocet and suggested methods of countering them and also didn't sell the Argentines the next version of them.
And kept the rest of the Argentine fleet in port and well away from the task force leaving them only their jets with a minute or so loiter time in the war zone. I think this really emphasises the power of the submarine.
Also I think the Argentinians had at least one submarine too but this was chased away by the British anti submarine defenses.
Amusingly, and somewhat related to point 2, there is a lot of resentment in Ireland at the moment to a huge wave of immigration from Eastern Europe.
"Ah feck, these people are coming here for a better life than they can get back home in their own countries - it's not right I tell you ! We Irish have always abhorred such godless migration and habits."
The sentiment is no doubt correct but there's no chance these artistes would be found in any of their English castles, oh no they'd have to pay out in taxes if they did that and The Stones don't believe in paying taxes.
Yes, although they're also known as end-terraces.
Shrinkwrap EULAS are an entirely different kettle of fish. You're not allowed to redistribute or change MS software because copyright law does not allow you to do this, you don't need a Eula to enforce that - it's the law anyway.
The GPL grants you extra rights over and above those you already have through copyright, if you don't accept the GPL then you don't accept the extra rights it gives you and you're stuck with the rights you have through copyright which don't let you redistribute the software.
Thats true but pubs should be given the choice of whether to be smoking or non smoking pubs, if people don't wish to breathe in smoke then they can just avoid going to the smoking pubs.
Pubs have already had this choice but most have chosen to remain smoking which reflects the wishes of the majority of their customers, I don't see why smokers should be forced to bow to the wishes of some vocal minority.
Typical new labour (p/m)uppet.
For ID cards, fox hunting ban, anti terrorism, smoking ban and foundation hospitals
Against transparent parliment and investigating the Iraq war.
I'm guessing his initial disagreements with the war were just a temporary abherration.
No, I fear it would prove a futile excercise.
I'm guesssing you're an American ? I'm not saying that's the only reason you're totally misinformed and talking bollocks but it's almost certainly a factor.
I think you're talking about terraced houses ( terraces ). Semi detached houses share 1 wall with their neighbours and detached houses share no walls. Terraces are very common in the UK, an awful lot of them were built from the late 1800's onwards.
I find this really amusing given the opposition from the Conservatives to signing that in the first place. "It will be a great thing for Britain, as a modern country it would be backwards and wrong of us not to sign up to this charter and the conservatives are stupid and wrong to say it would interfere with us making laws" Labour said. Now they seem to be saying "This Human Rights nonsense is getting in the way of us making laws, maybe we should drop it".
That way you miss out on the fun you can have being irresponsible, getting drunk and falling off fences. I don't recommend the falling off part especially but it's a boring world where people are too scared to do anything which may involve them hurting themselves.