this would make more sense as to why ID cards get asked for, you can't prove who you are, no alcohol/entry to venue serving alcohol. I can see the sense in asking for everybody's id's so nobody gets picked on and as a means of diffusing tensions in a situation. I hada chuckle when it happened to me in Los Angeles when I was there aged 35, much as I'd love to look 21 I don't think anybody would have knocked 15 years off my age... I suppose I was just pointing out that in places other than the UK drinking of alcohol seems to be tied into individuals proving their identity. I'd be interested to hear of how it works in other places as well. I've travelled round a few countries and UK and USA seem to be the most keen on checking ID/age. Mind you I've heard that Danish folk are/were (?) pretty fed up with Swedish teenagers on crazy nights out - in Sweden you have to be older before you can drink than in Denmark so loads of people come over and make fools / a nuisance of themselves (21 vs 18 years old maybe?) so I guess they must check IDs and age in Sweden as well...
Answer: there is no law that requires you to be finger printed if you want a pint. There is no government roll out of fingerprint checking before you can have a pint.
Slashdot is enjoying a nice hyped up headline, egged on by The Reg singing it up. Major towns and cities? one rural backwater population 40,000. We've had bigger towns voting for monkeys as their town mayor (Hull, go have a read). Have a sip of that nice warm beer and calm down:-)
Reading TFA, one town has trialed a system. Little Britain jokes aside, we have more than half a dozen towns here:-)
So we do have a law, the "Crime and Disorder Act (1998)" which requires town councils to reduce drunken disorder. One district council (in Yeovil, a nice little country place in rural Somerset, population 40,000) has decided the way to do this is to have fingerprint recognition, it's putting the pressure on pubs to install this system. It's using money from a government fund "Safer, Stronger Communities" through the Department for Communities and Local Government's Local Area Agreements. The government funder have already noted that its a local decision, not theirs, on how local town councils spend the money.
This "rollout" the article speaks of consists of ten pubs in a neighbouring small town considering it. Trust me, we have more than eleven pubs in the UK...
A couple of police forces elsewhere have "shown an interest" which suggests to me somebody's phoned up to ask how its doing. The district council representative (who you'd expect to be positive and not say "well we really wasted our taxpayers money on that one") has said the Home Office is considering trials in more towns (what does this mean? 5 pubs in each place?) - but the Home Office later in the article denies it decides how the budget is spent.
Bouncers do ask for ID for people they think are underage (under 18) in some pubs. But only those folks. I was amused when in the USA to be with a silver haired retired friend who was asked for his ID as well. I think he was quite amused and pleased that they were checking him in case he was under 21....
I blame the Vikings myself. Things were just fine till they came over, had a nice time, didn't take the hint and then told the rest of those pesky Europeans about the place.;-)
Check out size of US versus French portions of food (in restaurants for example). My impression is that French eat smaller portions of food.
Processed versus fresh food might also be a factor, has anybody done any research into the comparison of the amount of processed food people eat in different countries vs. less processed ingredients? Traditional French food is high in fat (butter, animal fats) but maybe it compares favourably in terms of processed crap? Is a portion of duck with fresh vegetables and boiled potatoes better than a Big Mac and fries with a processed milk shake for example?
You're right that children should be educated and taught to take on adult responsibilities but my understanding from the literature I've read is that children are not capable of behaving like adults - apart from not having the experience to make judgements their brains have not biologically matured and hence their actual thought processes work differently (please correct me with references if I've got this wrong, apologies in advance). If you've ever worked with teenagers and tried to have a rational argument with an upset one, you'll know what I mean:-)
My understanding is this is one of the main reasons that children are not treated the same as adults under the law: the belief that children were merely small adults (and had the same responsibilities, needs, and legal status) fell out of favour over 100 years ago.
Of course children can learn to behave in a more reasoned way and consider their actions more deeply if they are given time and respect and included in decision making processes, I agree with you there.
As another poster noted, maybe it's a support issue (and business model). If Tesco sells an open source set of tools and the support system is a text file which says "here's the address of the dev mailing list, please don't post until you've read the manuals and searched the internet for the obvious answer", then Tesco is in trouble a couple of days after they launch. Maybe they've gone with a company that has promised they've got a great phone/online support system. Maybe the software company are making their money from the premium phone rate support line for all those users?
So my question to you and the broader slashdot readership, which I ask in ignorance (my apologies): - is there a free/open source software company which has a comprehensive UK phone support and end user friendly online support system that could respond to Tescos stocking their software and promoting it to the general UK public?
Really, I know this sounds silly, but justify three choices. If you're going to offer people choices, and you want them to go to your site/ shop and pick one of them, then make it clear what differentiates the three. Otherwise people will choose the first one. Many people just want to type a letter, check the football scores on the web and buy something on ebay, email their friend. They don't give a damn that there are a 100 word processors/web browsers/mail clients out there.
I agree with you it's not a bad thing, very good point. I am so glad my retired dad just doesn't click on anything which says "free". I'd rather he was cautious than exuberant when it comes to trying out links to free software.
My response was rather to the parent posting - agreeing with the point you make much better than I do - that just because there is free and shareware out there, there are reasons people don't click on it. They've be warned to be cautious of unknown sites by the mainstream media and people are taking notice, which is good. My point to the parent poster is that what may be an obviously reputable source to them as an expert user is just another possible dodgy unknown source to my proverbial enduser less skilled retired dad.
Because the UK media have been telling people "careful about what you click on when go online, there are bad people out there". People don't trust little weird geeky sites which assume knowledgeable users.
It's way confusing out there for non-geeks. It took me a long time to explain to my dad the difference between "being online" and "the web" (...the blue E button isn't the internet, dad, it's a program you can see some of the internet with, yes I know it's weird it's called Internet Explorer but it's not exploring all the internet...). Hey I don't mind. Internal combustion engines confuse the hell out of me and don't even get me started on different washing cycles on the washing machines... technology eh?!
Lots of people trust the biggest supermarket in the country, it sells them food they trust, clothes they trust, and they sell computers these days. So they'll trust "Tesco software".
I wonder if some of the concern by the critics is that the software running the voting machines is opaque, and owned by a US company. US involvement in South/Latin America is quite a politically sensitive issue and the US has historically used covert and military actions to influence politics in the region. So I'm not suprised there are concerns - even if misplaced - over the MS software.
Imagine if there was a borderline vote in some US states and the voting machines were running a closed software package from a country that had potential influence and something to lose or gain over who got elected.
I can imagine concerns might be raised in the voting areas by some people.
That's a very fair point, and I guess in the same way a well made sports car might be constructed in a way that the components combine better than if you or I bought the components and bolted them together, perhaps improving with age.
I think the expensive computer case is in the very nebulous (but valid) territory of being worth as much as you want it to be worth, once the workers' and components costs are covered. Limited edition also gives it scarcity (therefore attractiveness) value. I'm sure they'd sell like hot cakes if some uber-cool media personality bought one and told the world it was the most desirable object they'd ever purchased...
People will always pay stupid prices for luxury items. Manufacturers will charge what they can in the market place. How much do you pay for a coffee in Starbucks? does the hot water and coffee beans *really* cost that much? how about those designer jeans that have the fashionable label? are they actually worth much more than Wal-Mart jeans? and why do the latest mobile phones cost so much then drop price so rapidly 18 months later? the transistors cost the same amount to produce...
It's all about consumerism, and how much people are prepared to pay.
How much it's worth might be closer to thinking about the craftsman's hourly rate and thinking about how many hours work is in there, and double whatever you come up with to allow for workshop costs etc.
"one of the main activities of magistrates courts in the UK is to jail single mothers for not subscribing to the BBC"
Have you got the percentage figures there? this sounds made up. Something to help me on the lines of: "Magistrates Courts in the UK undertook 10,000 court cases in 2005 and 5,500 resulted in single mothers being sent to jail for non subscription to BBC" would do me fine...... or did you just make this all up....?:-) I got suckered by a troll didn't I?
man, what did you watch at school? we were crazy about Dr. Who at primary school... (even if we had to hide behind the sofa when the Cybermen came on).. I've still got one of my school books from when I was six with a picture of John Pertwee being chased by Daleks:-)... lots of my friends' kids are completely obsessed by it these days, that 15 year break (something like that) means it's now got a whole new kid fanbase!
I guess it depends on whether you're going to launch 420 of them, and what an "accident" means:-)
A chunk of metal falling into the sea probably isn't too worrying, but a nuclear device exploding and showering particles over a city, mmm, slightly more problematic...
yeah well black powder powers the pretty fireworks and I am rather fond of those big long strings of Chinese crackers:-) but yeah the military bit we could have done without. Ah well, damn humans.
Hey, it's ok, I know it's not just Bush's fault, us old folks remember that Reagan wasn't so good either:-) (ducks and grins).
's ok, we gotta thank the Chinese for gunpowder and paper money, printing, rockets, a few other things over the last few millennia so I guess it all comes around turns around...
It wasn't just folks who were funded by the KGB that were scared of Ronnie Reagan. Remember President Reagan's joke broadcast on radio when he thought the mike was turned off?
"My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." (August 1984).
This got re-broadcast in the mainstream media around the world (I heard it on the BBC) and heck it scared lots of people. This guy was insane, he really really wanted to bring down nuclear war on us all. Parent poster is right there was a lot of negative feeling in Europe about Reagan and the US postioning in the 80s. Probably the other posters are right - the anti-American feelings were (and still are) probably a lot to do with the fact that people desperately *want* to believe in the USA and are so disappointed when their leaders come out with nothing better than the corrupt and hypocritical rubbish spouted by other tin pot dictators round the world.
...sort out your crazy lawyer system! How did you let all the stoopid and dangerous people get to be in charge of all you nice folks? We'd all be laughing around the rest of the world if it wasn't so stupid and also worrying, the way your legal-shark system prioritises name/IP/copyright chasing to the detriment of goodwill and common sense and energy spent on actual innovation. MacDonalds trying to prevent Scottish local butchers selling burgers they've made in their shops, Indian farmers looking over their shoulders in case they get sued off their land for growing the same Basmati rice they've grown since before Columbus sailed across the seas, sigh... you got to sort this madness out please.
If nothing else it means the open source projects and software are going to have even more ridiculous and unpronounceable newly constructed names....
For sure, good points made. I suppose it's hard work but satisfying reading Chaucer. I found I enjoyed going to an evening class in literature, I would have never have picked up the book on my own but really enjoyed it once I had a guide to take me through it.
Mind you I'm somebody who likes proper spelling and grammar. I think clarity of expression is important to help overcome misunderstandings. I'm very suprised that geeks who are so particular over every character in the code they write, understanding that it takes little to confuse a computer trying to interpret instuctions, are sometimes so lax about their spelling and grammar when communicating with other humans.
Good points made about teasing apart the problem. But as an ex-school librarian now working in academic side of learning, I'd humbly suggest kids aren't sponges, learning theory has moved beyond the model of children being empty vessels that can be filled up with wisdom. A little more complex than that alas. I sat in the same French language lessons as my friend Karim when we were 12 but he came top of the class and I came dismally bottom. We clearly didn't learn the same amount. As another poster has noted, learning methodology is very important; as you note, address the kids needs, make it relevant, accept that different kids have different abilities and different motivations. It's not like the kids are sitting round all day with nothing to do, they already have a full curriculum, you'll need to work out how to fit into that curriculum and maybe justify why you are asking the school to cut 30 minutes of Maths, or English, or Geography, to fit in your computer class.
Here in the UK we've had bombings and innocent deaths for the last 30 years due to the IRA - funded in part by the US organisation NORAID. The IRA used the Armalite as one of their preferred weapons.
Of course this isn't the only group to carry out terrorist activities here in the UK and the rest of Europe has had it's fair share of home grown terrorists from different political persuasions. Plenty of multicultural diversity here!:-)
"Muslims (the majority of whom are Arabic) are the only ones I've seen who go on a rampage just for printing a picture the "prophet" Mohammed."
Wow, local govt "commonly" banning books from their local library? sounds like your country is more restrictive than the UK. Eeek, good luck over there guys, sounds like you need to chase some of that proverbial freedom for yourselves! Question to library people - how common are book bans for libraries in local government in the UK? or nationally? really interested to know.
I used to work in a UK library, we were restricted in what we could stock because we only had a limited budget (obviously) but we had a pretty decent interlibrary loan system which could theoretically turn up anything in the world if a library was connected to the system, which meant most of the western world for all intents and purposes, and if the person was prepared to wait while systems stepped through requests to the various levels (latest Harry Potter: sure, just a waiting list because everybody wants it and we can only afford 20 copies; highly expensive science report on fisheries in Iceland: give us a few months while we try our national library then get our national library to talk to Iceland's national library...) Some controversial stuff wasn't kept on the shelves, as far as I remember because lunatics would keep stealing such books (because they loved or hated the stuff) - prime example being Mein Kampf by Hitler. But the books were in stock and if somebody requested it we'd get it to them.
Slashdot Mirror
Cheers for the info!
this would make more sense as to why ID cards get asked for, you can't prove who you are, no alcohol/entry to venue serving alcohol. I can see the sense in asking for everybody's id's so nobody gets picked on and as a means of diffusing tensions in a situation. I hada chuckle when it happened to me in Los Angeles when I was there aged 35, much as I'd love to look 21 I don't think anybody would have knocked 15 years off my age... I suppose I was just pointing out that in places other than the UK drinking of alcohol seems to be tied into individuals proving their identity. I'd be interested to hear of how it works in other places as well. I've travelled round a few countries and UK and USA seem to be the most keen on checking ID/age. Mind you I've heard that Danish folk are/were (?) pretty fed up with Swedish teenagers on crazy nights out - in Sweden you have to be older before you can drink than in Denmark so loads of people come over and make fools / a nuisance of themselves (21 vs 18 years old maybe?) so I guess they must check IDs and age in Sweden as well...
Answer: there is no law that requires you to be finger printed if you want a pint. There is no government roll out of fingerprint checking before you can have a pint.
:-)
:-)
Slashdot is enjoying a nice hyped up headline, egged on by The Reg singing it up. Major towns and cities? one rural backwater population 40,000. We've had bigger towns voting for monkeys as their town mayor (Hull, go have a read). Have a sip of that nice warm beer and calm down
Reading TFA, one town has trialed a system. Little Britain jokes aside, we have more than half a dozen towns here
So we do have a law, the "Crime and Disorder Act (1998)" which requires town councils to reduce drunken disorder. One district council (in Yeovil, a nice little country place in rural Somerset, population 40,000) has decided the way to do this is to have fingerprint recognition, it's putting the pressure on pubs to install this system. It's using money from a government fund "Safer, Stronger Communities" through the Department for Communities and Local Government's Local Area Agreements. The government funder have already noted that its a local decision, not theirs, on how local town councils spend the money.
This "rollout" the article speaks of consists of ten pubs in a neighbouring small town considering it. Trust me, we have more than eleven pubs in the UK...
A couple of police forces elsewhere have "shown an interest" which suggests to me somebody's phoned up to ask how its doing. The district council representative (who you'd expect to be positive and not say "well we really wasted our taxpayers money on that one") has said the Home Office is considering trials in more towns (what does this mean? 5 pubs in each place?) - but the Home Office later in the article denies it decides how the budget is spent.
Bouncers do ask for ID for people they think are underage (under 18) in some pubs. But only those folks. I was amused when in the USA to be with a silver haired retired friend who was asked for his ID as well. I think he was quite amused and pleased that they were checking him in case he was under 21....
I blame the Vikings myself. Things were just fine till they came over, had a nice time, didn't take the hint and then told the rest of those pesky Europeans about the place. ;-)
Check out size of US versus French portions of food (in restaurants for example). My impression is that French eat smaller portions of food.
Processed versus fresh food might also be a factor, has anybody done any research into the comparison of the amount of processed food people eat in different countries vs. less processed ingredients? Traditional French food is high in fat (butter, animal fats) but maybe it compares favourably in terms of processed crap? Is a portion of duck with fresh vegetables and boiled potatoes better than a Big Mac and fries with a processed milk shake for example?
Kids aren't the same as adults.
:-)
You're right that children should be educated and taught to take on adult responsibilities but my understanding from the literature I've read is that children are not capable of behaving like adults - apart from not having the experience to make judgements their brains have not biologically matured and hence their actual thought processes work differently (please correct me with references if I've got this wrong, apologies in advance). If you've ever worked with teenagers and tried to have a rational argument with an upset one, you'll know what I mean
My understanding is this is one of the main reasons that children are not treated the same as adults under the law: the belief that children were merely small adults (and had the same responsibilities, needs, and legal status) fell out of favour over 100 years ago.
Of course children can learn to behave in a more reasoned way and consider their actions more deeply if they are given time and respect and included in decision making processes, I agree with you there.
As another poster noted, maybe it's a support issue (and business model). If Tesco sells an open source set of tools and the support system is a text file which says "here's the address of the dev mailing list, please don't post until you've read the manuals and searched the internet for the obvious answer", then Tesco is in trouble a couple of days after they launch. Maybe they've gone with a company that has promised they've got a great phone/online support system. Maybe the software company are making their money from the premium phone rate support line for all those users?
So my question to you and the broader slashdot readership, which I ask in ignorance (my apologies): - is there a free/open source software company which has a comprehensive UK phone support and end user friendly online support system that could respond to Tescos stocking their software and promoting it to the general UK public?
Really, I know this sounds silly, but justify three choices. If you're going to offer people choices, and you want them to go to your site/ shop and pick one of them, then make it clear what differentiates the three. Otherwise people will choose the first one. Many people just want to type a letter, check the football scores on the web and buy something on ebay, email their friend. They don't give a damn that there are a 100 word processors/web browsers/mail clients out there.
I agree with you it's not a bad thing, very good point. I am so glad my retired dad just doesn't click on anything which says "free". I'd rather he was cautious than exuberant when it comes to trying out links to free software.
My response was rather to the parent posting - agreeing with the point you make much better than I do - that just because there is free and shareware out there, there are reasons people don't click on it. They've be warned to be cautious of unknown sites by the mainstream media and people are taking notice, which is good. My point to the parent poster is that what may be an obviously reputable source to them as an expert user is just another possible dodgy unknown source to my proverbial enduser less skilled retired dad.
Because the UK media have been telling people "careful about what you click on when go online, there are bad people out there". People don't trust little weird geeky sites which assume knowledgeable users.
...). Hey I don't mind. Internal combustion engines confuse the hell out of me and don't even get me started on different washing cycles on the washing machines... technology eh?!
It's way confusing out there for non-geeks. It took me a long time to explain to my dad the difference between "being online" and "the web" (...the blue E button isn't the internet, dad, it's a program you can see some of the internet with, yes I know it's weird it's called Internet Explorer but it's not exploring all the internet
Lots of people trust the biggest supermarket in the country, it sells them food they trust, clothes they trust, and they sell computers these days. So they'll trust "Tesco software".
I wonder if some of the concern by the critics is that the software running the voting machines is opaque, and owned by a US company. US involvement in South/Latin America is quite a politically sensitive issue and the US has historically used covert and military actions to influence politics in the region. So I'm not suprised there are concerns - even if misplaced - over the MS software.
Imagine if there was a borderline vote in some US states and the voting machines were running a closed software package from a country that had potential influence and something to lose or gain over who got elected.
I can imagine concerns might be raised in the voting areas by some people.
That's a very fair point, and I guess in the same way a well made sports car might be constructed in a way that the components combine better than if you or I bought the components and bolted them together, perhaps improving with age.
I think the expensive computer case is in the very nebulous (but valid) territory of being worth as much as you want it to be worth, once the workers' and components costs are covered. Limited edition also gives it scarcity (therefore attractiveness) value. I'm sure they'd sell like hot cakes if some uber-cool media personality bought one and told the world it was the most desirable object they'd ever purchased...
People will always pay stupid prices for luxury items. Manufacturers will charge what they can in the market place. How much do you pay for a coffee in Starbucks? does the hot water and coffee beans *really* cost that much? how about those designer jeans that have the fashionable label? are they actually worth much more than Wal-Mart jeans? and why do the latest mobile phones cost so much then drop price so rapidly 18 months later? the transistors cost the same amount to produce...
It's all about consumerism, and how much people are prepared to pay.
How much it's worth might be closer to thinking about the craftsman's hourly rate and thinking about how many hours work is in there, and double whatever you come up with to allow for workshop costs etc.
"one of the main activities of magistrates courts in the UK is to jail single mothers for not subscribing to the BBC"
... or did you just make this all up....? :-) I got suckered by a troll didn't I?
Have you got the percentage figures there? this sounds made up. Something to help me on the lines of: "Magistrates Courts in the UK undertook 10,000 court cases in 2005 and 5,500 resulted in single mothers being sent to jail for non subscription to BBC" would do me fine...
man, what did you watch at school? we were crazy about Dr. Who at primary school... (even if we had to hide behind the sofa when the Cybermen came on) .. I've still got one of my school books from when I was six with a picture of John Pertwee being chased by Daleks :-) ... lots of my friends' kids are completely obsessed by it these days, that 15 year break (something like that) means it's now got a whole new kid fanbase!
I guess it depends on whether you're going to launch 420 of them, and what an "accident" means :-)
A chunk of metal falling into the sea probably isn't too worrying, but a nuclear device exploding and showering particles over a city, mmm, slightly more problematic...
http://www.difrwear.com/products.shtml
looks like somebody's already selling them Bruce!
yeah well black powder powers the pretty fireworks and I am rather fond of those big long strings of Chinese crackers :-) but yeah the military bit we could have done without. Ah well, damn humans.
:-) (ducks and grins).
Hey, it's ok, I know it's not just Bush's fault, us old folks remember that Reagan wasn't so good either
's ok, we gotta thank the Chinese for gunpowder and paper money, printing, rockets, a few other things over the last few millennia so I guess it all comes around turns around...
As opposed to ? ... The most power camera to orbit Mars since last Wednesday .. for example?
:-)
fantastic headline, "the most powerful camera ever"...
It wasn't just folks who were funded by the KGB that were scared of Ronnie Reagan. Remember President Reagan's joke broadcast on radio when he thought the mike was turned off?
"My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." (August 1984).
This got re-broadcast in the mainstream media around the world (I heard it on the BBC) and heck it scared lots of people. This guy was insane, he really really wanted to bring down nuclear war on us all. Parent poster is right there was a lot of negative feeling in Europe about Reagan and the US postioning in the 80s. Probably the other posters are right - the anti-American feelings were (and still are) probably a lot to do with the fact that people desperately *want* to believe in the USA and are so disappointed when their leaders come out with nothing better than the corrupt and hypocritical rubbish spouted by other tin pot dictators round the world.
...sort out your crazy lawyer system! How did you let all the stoopid and dangerous people get to be in charge of all you nice folks? We'd all be laughing around the rest of the world if it wasn't so stupid and also worrying, the way your legal-shark system prioritises name/IP/copyright chasing to the detriment of goodwill and common sense and energy spent on actual innovation. MacDonalds trying to prevent Scottish local butchers selling burgers they've made in their shops, Indian farmers looking over their shoulders in case they get sued off their land for growing the same Basmati rice they've grown since before Columbus sailed across the seas, sigh... you got to sort this madness out please.
....
If nothing else it means the open source projects and software are going to have even more ridiculous and unpronounceable newly constructed names
For sure, good points made. I suppose it's hard work but satisfying reading Chaucer. I found I enjoyed going to an evening class in literature, I would have never have picked up the book on my own but really enjoyed it once I had a guide to take me through it.
Mind you I'm somebody who likes proper spelling and grammar. I think clarity of expression is important to help overcome misunderstandings. I'm very suprised that geeks who are so particular over every character in the code they write, understanding that it takes little to confuse a computer trying to interpret instuctions, are sometimes so lax about their spelling and grammar when communicating with other humans.
Good points made about teasing apart the problem. But as an ex-school librarian now working in academic side of learning, I'd humbly suggest kids aren't sponges, learning theory has moved beyond the model of children being empty vessels that can be filled up with wisdom. A little more complex than that alas. I sat in the same French language lessons as my friend Karim when we were 12 but he came top of the class and I came dismally bottom. We clearly didn't learn the same amount. As another poster has noted, learning methodology is very important; as you note, address the kids needs, make it relevant, accept that different kids have different abilities and different motivations. It's not like the kids are sitting round all day with nothing to do, they already have a full curriculum, you'll need to work out how to fit into that curriculum and maybe justify why you are asking the school to cut 30 minutes of Maths, or English, or Geography, to fit in your computer class.
Here in the UK we've had bombings and innocent deaths for the last 30 years due to the IRA - funded in part by the US organisation NORAID. The IRA used the Armalite as one of their preferred weapons.
:-)
Of course this isn't the only group to carry out terrorist activities here in the UK and the rest of Europe has had it's fair share of home grown terrorists from different political persuasions. Plenty of multicultural diversity here!
"Muslims (the majority of whom are Arabic) are the only ones I've seen who go on a rampage just for printing a picture the "prophet" Mohammed."
I heard white Christian guys in your country have a history of burning black people alive / hanging them for wolf whistling at white girls? Careful about who you accuse of being savages, or making broad sweeping statements eh? generalisations are never good...
Wow, local govt "commonly" banning books from their local library? sounds like your country is more restrictive than the UK. Eeek, good luck over there guys, sounds like you need to chase some of that proverbial freedom for yourselves! Question to library people - how common are book bans for libraries in local government in the UK? or nationally? really interested to know.
I used to work in a UK library, we were restricted in what we could stock because we only had a limited budget (obviously) but we had a pretty decent interlibrary loan system which could theoretically turn up anything in the world if a library was connected to the system, which meant most of the western world for all intents and purposes, and if the person was prepared to wait while systems stepped through requests to the various levels (latest Harry Potter: sure, just a waiting list because everybody wants it and we can only afford 20 copies; highly expensive science report on fisheries in Iceland: give us a few months while we try our national library then get our national library to talk to Iceland's national library...) Some controversial stuff wasn't kept on the shelves, as far as I remember because lunatics would keep stealing such books (because they loved or hated the stuff) - prime example being Mein Kampf by Hitler. But the books were in stock and if somebody requested it we'd get it to them.