"British politics is very simple. They have the Conservative Party, which is basically like our Republican Party, and the (New) Labour Party, which is basically like our Republican Party."
It's not that Thatcher broke people's will - it's that people in the UK only get agitated when it directly hits the wallet - like poll tax and the more recent fuel protests. I'm certain road pricing would result in mass protests if it was ever enacted (look at what's happened while it's still just an idea)
Interviews for passports don't impact the wallet that much, so people will grumble about it (as there is some cost), but there isn't going to be mass protest. Hopefully, there'll be enough grumbling that the Tories and LibDems will pick up on it and use the interviews against Labour.
other countries who consider the UK background checks unnecessary can still choose to admit you without a passport (like the nations of the EU do, for example)
We still need passports to go to EU countries.
So, yes, the UK looks like it's turning into a surveillance state, but that's an internal matter in the UK, unrelated to either national IDs or the issuance of passports.
Yeah, but the UK passport background check is directly related to the proposed National ID system (as you're going to need to prove your ID should those card ever come to pass, and one form of proof will be your passport). The surveillance state is relevant, as their is the likelihood that it will all be integrated into a single database.
You can be a citizen of both the US and UK, with 2 passports (or at least you can if you're considered to be a citizen of both countries "by birth"). If you're a dual national, you can also opt to have a "Cerificate of Entitlement To The Right of Abode" placed in your American passport, which makes your US passport "double" for a British passport at immigration control (I used to have this as a kid until my family moved back - now I carry both US and UK passports).
One thing to note about getting a UK passport while being a citizen of the US as well - the Passport Agency will send you a little letter before they send your passport out, pointing out that as you're also a citizen of another country you should double check that countries rules. All you have to do is send a little "go ahead" form back (I'm guessing it's so that the Passport Agency can't be blamed if you accidentally loose your other citizenship).
And you have to remember that you can enter the US only on your US passport (I'm not sure if there are any rules when entering the UK)
Both Tories and LibDems promise to scrap the ID cards, I'm pretty certain both have criticized the current passport nonsense.
Some governments do give power back to the people. People in the UK have had less freedom in the past, then the pendulum swung and people had more freedom, and then under New Labour it swung the other way and the people now have less freedom. As every opposition party is promising more freedom, I expect that the next lot will be giving freedom back.
Which means that the first resort would be to find a party that actually represents a large portion of the populations views and get that into power, not resort to armed struggle, which is what the GP is implying with the armed citizen line. If there isn't even a political party for people to rally around and vote for, why would they even think of resorting to violence?
I actually believe that the majority of the population in the UK is more or less centre right. A lot of people are embarrassed by this (as it is sooo unfashionable), so they would never even admit it to themselves, let alone others, so they have tacitly allowed centre right government for almost 30 years. I know way too many people who claim to be left leaning but when they say what they actually believe in it sounds like a Conservative party manifesto. If the population wasn't mostly centre right then somebody would have stepped into the vacuum. The LibDems try to fill that void, but they only have fairly minor success - they don't really have much in the way of actual policy, their success mostly rests on people's total disgust of the main parties behaviour as opposed to any strong political beliefs.
they'd had enough of being subjects of Parliament and the King,
That makes about as much sense as saying Americans are subjects of Congress and the (Female) President. We're not subjects, and we have a Queen - who has negligible power.
drawing up a true Constitution
Because a single piece of paper protects you how? We have already have a true Constitution, it's just not a single document. It's that "Constitution" that keeps the Queens powers to a minimum.
I wonder which government would be easier to tackle, given the severe restrictions of firearms in the UK versus the sheer inertia of the US population?
The UK - the police are usually unarmed (yeah, they could bring in armed backup - but then guns are more available than most people think so the population could get armed backup as well). The army are allied to the Queen and not the government, so while I could see them being brought in to help restore order I don't see them helping a fascist parliament staying in power (ie, I don't see them fireing on their own citizens, especially as the orders to fire wouldn't be coming from "the commander in chief").
I'd explore the possibility of moving to the UK, but not as a subject, and not without a guaranteed right to bear arms against a tyrannical government.
The population of the UK haven't been "subjects" for decades. As for a "guaranteed right" - what guarantee? A piece of paper will not stop "them" taking your guns away if they no longer respect the rule of law. You could say "not over my cold dead hands" - but if push comes to shove, do you really mean it? Tough talk, but I haven't see many armed uprisings in the US, even with a government at least as fascist as what the UK has at the moment.
If a govmnt refuses to listen to its people, revolution is the only solution.
Seeing as most people can't be bothered to vote, I can't see there ever being a violent uprising.
Give the ballot box a try first. And seeing as there's been a rash of gun violence in London, I doubt it would be that difficult for the population to arm themselves if need be.
We already are a nation of suspects, being watched. All the recent alarm bells about "sleep walking into a surveillance society" have been too little, too late. The UK is a already a surveillance society, that we slept walked into. Now it's just a matter of degree.
This is actually the problem I have with people saying "the government should"
And it's all that "government should" nonsense that lets the government get away with all this. If people in the UK started taking more responsibility for both themseleves and the community they live then it wouldn't be such a mess, both literally and figuratively.
Instead, it's always the government that should be doing something. As though the government was somehow omnipotent and could solve every problem with just a snap of Tony Blair's fingers. As the government isn't omnipotent (or even that competent) we end up with our freedoms being taken away and none of our problems being solved.
because Europe has parties that are actually left leaning and get elected.
The UK doesn't. The two main parties are both centre right, and the Lib Dems don't have a coherent policy on anything (they're too busy trying to be the "true alternative" to have any policy other than "we will increase taxes").
So because OO.org is not suited to some business users it's unsuited for all business users?
Looking at your post, why are you using a spreadsheet to do that kind of graphing in the first place (even Excel)? You seem to be claiming that your particular use of spreadsheets shows that OO.org is not suitable for all business use, even though you are using it in a way that is non-representative of typical business use cases.
So why are managers and lawyers eager to go with proprietary software? Have you ever read some of the EULAs that go with various proprietary libraries? You have to play by those (often far more onerous) rules too. Proprietary software is a far larger legal minefield - the only benefit is that it's a legal minefield that the M&L's are used to.
Certainly, you are not saying, that Apple's FreeBSD-derived MacOS is less marketable, than Novell's Linux-derived SUSE (or whatever)...
The marketable bits of OSX are the bits that are proprietary. Seeing as Apple have (more or less) kept Darwin open then they could have just as well have used a GPL'd kernel (like Apple's own mkLinux).
If Novell released NovellBSD, they certainly wouldn't be putting some slick propeietary UI on top of FreeBSD. Without that, why would you buy it? There's certainly nothing stopping Novell from releasing a version of BSD, so why don't they?
The point is about the rules being too restrictive for some people.
There's nothing stopping anyone from writing their own (software patents not withstanding). If GPL'd software is too restrictive then proprietary software would be even more of a straight jacket. About the only reason that I can think of as to why the GPL would be "too restrictive" would be when somebody wants to exploit the works of one set of people solely for their own benefit and at the expense of another set of people.
And even if you ban all open source software, you can still violate the license of a commercial package
Which a point rarely made about proprietary software. Practically every piece of proprietary code comes with a different license, with an entirely different set of restrictions. It's a lot easier to make a misstep with proprietary software than it is with open source, and your risk of being taken to court (as opposed to just some public shame restricted to tech circles) is far higher.
A Co-Operative would be an employee owned business that would have some similarities with a commune. A bog standard job with share options wouldn't be.
And I am sick and tired of people equating idealism with communism,
It gets equated with it because it uses the exact same sort of language that was used by communists to promote communism in non-communist countries.
Seeing as that language didn't work for the communists, it's probably not going to work for Free software idealists.
Remember... democracy is all about transferring power to the weak and the poor.
Wasn't that communism's stated aim? I'm pretty certain democracy isn't about transferring power to the weak and the poor, it's about everybody getting an equal say in matters (which isn't the same thing).
Slashdot Mirror
Why are the UK stories being posted late at night in the UK? I want to go to bed, not read /. till the small hours.
Or alternatively:
"British politics is very simple. They have the Conservative Party, which is basically like our Republican Party, and the (New) Labour Party, which is basically like our Republican Party."
It's not that Thatcher broke people's will - it's that people in the UK only get agitated when it directly hits the wallet - like poll tax and the more recent fuel protests. I'm certain road pricing would result in mass protests if it was ever enacted (look at what's happened while it's still just an idea)
Interviews for passports don't impact the wallet that much, so people will grumble about it (as there is some cost), but there isn't going to be mass protest. Hopefully, there'll be enough grumbling that the Tories and LibDems will pick up on it and use the interviews against Labour.
other countries who consider the UK background checks unnecessary can still choose to admit you without a passport (like the nations of the EU do, for example)
We still need passports to go to EU countries.
So, yes, the UK looks like it's turning into a surveillance state, but that's an internal matter in the UK, unrelated to either national IDs or the issuance of passports.
Yeah, but the UK passport background check is directly related to the proposed National ID system (as you're going to need to prove your ID should those card ever come to pass, and one form of proof will be your passport). The surveillance state is relevant, as their is the likelihood that it will all be integrated into a single database.
You can be a citizen of both the US and UK, with 2 passports (or at least you can if you're considered to be a citizen of both countries "by birth"). If you're a dual national, you can also opt to have a "Cerificate of Entitlement To The Right of Abode" placed in your American passport, which makes your US passport "double" for a British passport at immigration control (I used to have this as a kid until my family moved back - now I carry both US and UK passports).
One thing to note about getting a UK passport while being a citizen of the US as well - the Passport Agency will send you a little letter before they send your passport out, pointing out that as you're also a citizen of another country you should double check that countries rules. All you have to do is send a little "go ahead" form back (I'm guessing it's so that the Passport Agency can't be blamed if you accidentally loose your other citizenship).
And you have to remember that you can enter the US only on your US passport (I'm not sure if there are any rules when entering the UK)
And once that interview is done, you won't need to go through the interview again with subsequent renewals (assuming the rules don't change)
Both Tories and LibDems promise to scrap the ID cards, I'm pretty certain both have criticized the current passport nonsense.
Some governments do give power back to the people. People in the UK have had less freedom in the past, then the pendulum swung and people had more freedom, and then under New Labour it swung the other way and the people now have less freedom. As every opposition party is promising more freedom, I expect that the next lot will be giving freedom back.
Which means that the first resort would be to find a party that actually represents a large portion of the populations views and get that into power, not resort to armed struggle, which is what the GP is implying with the armed citizen line. If there isn't even a political party for people to rally around and vote for, why would they even think of resorting to violence?
I actually believe that the majority of the population in the UK is more or less centre right. A lot of people are embarrassed by this (as it is sooo unfashionable), so they would never even admit it to themselves, let alone others, so they have tacitly allowed centre right government for almost 30 years. I know way too many people who claim to be left leaning but when they say what they actually believe in it sounds like a Conservative party manifesto. If the population wasn't mostly centre right then somebody would have stepped into the vacuum. The LibDems try to fill that void, but they only have fairly minor success - they don't really have much in the way of actual policy, their success mostly rests on people's total disgust of the main parties behaviour as opposed to any strong political beliefs.
That'd be the government that has banned protests outside parliament, right?
Yeah, but, but they have that new e-petition service. Oh wait, they ignore that too, don't they?
they'd had enough of being subjects of Parliament and the King,
That makes about as much sense as saying Americans are subjects of Congress and the (Female) President. We're not subjects, and we have a Queen - who has negligible power.
drawing up a true Constitution
Because a single piece of paper protects you how? We have already have a true Constitution, it's just not a single document. It's that "Constitution" that keeps the Queens powers to a minimum.
I wonder which government would be easier to tackle, given the severe restrictions of firearms in the UK versus the sheer inertia of the US population?
The UK - the police are usually unarmed (yeah, they could bring in armed backup - but then guns are more available than most people think so the population could get armed backup as well). The army are allied to the Queen and not the government, so while I could see them being brought in to help restore order I don't see them helping a fascist parliament staying in power (ie, I don't see them fireing on their own citizens, especially as the orders to fire wouldn't be coming from "the commander in chief").
I'd explore the possibility of moving to the UK, but not as a subject, and not without a guaranteed right to bear arms against a tyrannical government.
The population of the UK haven't been "subjects" for decades. As for a "guaranteed right" - what guarantee? A piece of paper will not stop "them" taking your guns away if they no longer respect the rule of law. You could say "not over my cold dead hands" - but if push comes to shove, do you really mean it? Tough talk, but I haven't see many armed uprisings in the US, even with a government at least as fascist as what the UK has at the moment.
I'm not sure exactly what he gets in return
He got ITV with no questions asked (or at least no questions asked until it was too late and scuppered NTL's merger plans)
If a govmnt refuses to listen to its people, revolution is the only solution.
Seeing as most people can't be bothered to vote, I can't see there ever being a violent uprising.
Give the ballot box a try first. And seeing as there's been a rash of gun violence in London, I doubt it would be that difficult for the population to arm themselves if need be.
We will be a Nation of Suspects, watched.
We already are a nation of suspects, being watched. All the recent alarm bells about "sleep walking into a surveillance society" have been too little, too late. The UK is a already a surveillance society, that we slept walked into. Now it's just a matter of degree.
This is actually the problem I have with people saying "the government should"
And it's all that "government should" nonsense that lets the government get away with all this. If people in the UK started taking more responsibility for both themseleves and the community they live then it wouldn't be such a mess, both literally and figuratively.
Instead, it's always the government that should be doing something. As though the government was somehow omnipotent and could solve every problem with just a snap of Tony Blair's fingers. As the government isn't omnipotent (or even that competent) we end up with our freedoms being taken away and none of our problems being solved.
So, the question is, what is the driving force behind all of this?
Gordon Brown
because Europe has parties that are actually left leaning and get elected.
The UK doesn't. The two main parties are both centre right, and the Lib Dems don't have a coherent policy on anything (they're too busy trying to be the "true alternative" to have any policy other than "we will increase taxes").
Seeing as there's going to be an election before your passport runs out, you could always try and help get the buggers out parliament.
So because OO.org is not suited to some business users it's unsuited for all business users?
Looking at your post, why are you using a spreadsheet to do that kind of graphing in the first place (even Excel)? You seem to be claiming that your particular use of spreadsheets shows that OO.org is not suitable for all business use, even though you are using it in a way that is non-representative of typical business use cases.
Look at the full text from Merriam Webster
2 : to act as a spokesperson or promoter
That still implies payment. Look at every definition returned from a Google define query - each one implies payment.
So why are managers and lawyers eager to go with proprietary software? Have you ever read some of the EULAs that go with various proprietary libraries? You have to play by those (often far more onerous) rules too. Proprietary software is a far larger legal minefield - the only benefit is that it's a legal minefield that the M&L's are used to.
Certainly, you are not saying, that Apple's FreeBSD-derived MacOS is less marketable, than Novell's Linux-derived SUSE (or whatever)...
The marketable bits of OSX are the bits that are proprietary. Seeing as Apple have (more or less) kept Darwin open then they could have just as well have used a GPL'd kernel (like Apple's own mkLinux).
If Novell released NovellBSD, they certainly wouldn't be putting some slick propeietary UI on top of FreeBSD. Without that, why would you buy it? There's certainly nothing stopping Novell from releasing a version of BSD, so why don't they?
The point is about the rules being too restrictive for some people.
There's nothing stopping anyone from writing their own (software patents not withstanding). If GPL'd software is too restrictive then proprietary software would be even more of a straight jacket. About the only reason that I can think of as to why the GPL would be "too restrictive" would be when somebody wants to exploit the works of one set of people solely for their own benefit and at the expense of another set of people.
And even if you ban all open source software, you can still violate the license of a commercial package
Which a point rarely made about proprietary software. Practically every piece of proprietary code comes with a different license, with an entirely different set of restrictions. It's a lot easier to make a misstep with proprietary software than it is with open source, and your risk of being taken to court (as opposed to just some public shame restricted to tech circles) is far higher.
Had they used BSD-licensed wares, they wouldn't have had these troubles.
They also wouldn't have had a marketable product. If you decide to distribute GPL code then you have to play by the rules. End of story.
How is an employee owned business like a commune?
A Co-Operative would be an employee owned business that would have some similarities with a commune. A bog standard job with share options wouldn't be.
And I am sick and tired of people equating idealism with communism,
... democracy is all about transferring power to the weak and the poor.
It gets equated with it because it uses the exact same sort of language that was used by communists to promote communism in non-communist countries.
Seeing as that language didn't work for the communists, it's probably not going to work for Free software idealists.
Remember
Wasn't that communism's stated aim? I'm pretty certain democracy isn't about transferring power to the weak and the poor, it's about everybody getting an equal say in matters (which isn't the same thing).