sonofsanta

Don't forget Pompeii! Although Kit Harrington's "look broody" acting was overshadowed thoroughly by Kiefer Sutherland's "ham it up like a field full of pigs!" approach to playing Evil Roman General Stereotype. Good film, so long as all you're expecting is Crap Gladiator + Volcano.

Well that's me out then. ATHEIST TILL I DIE (and not a moment more, as at that point I will cease to exist, experiencing nothing further, my consciousness evaporated like mist in the morning sun).

Brilliant Though I did think you were about to link the latest Jim'll Paint It request, of David Cameron and George Osborne celebrating the election victory in true Tory style. I'm not linking it. It is far, far too unsafe for work.

I cannot fathom a world in which this is not objectively terrifying, or deeply, deeply hypocritical. We must defend freedom of speech by persecuting those whose speech we disagree with? Equal rights, but some are more equal than others, right? And in what way is "neutrality" a bad stance for a government to take? It is not for them to decide, on my behalf, what I will and will not stand for. That's for me to decide. The people should tell the government what to do, but this is very much the other way round. If anyone can find a longer version of the speech for me to try and find any glimmer of context that might excuse it, I'd love to see it. I've quoted the biggest chunk I can find in order to put it in context, and it's just as scary as ever. The word "horrified" seems the only appropriate choice.

Hot Tub Time Machine 2: now I enjoyed the first one, silly as it was. It at least had something to say about living in the past and dwelling on regrets, even amongst all the silly jokes about penises and homosexuality. The 2nd one is just silly jokes about penises and homosexuality. Even my 14 year old daughter got bored after half an hour and went to bed. Terrible. Europa Report: a fairly accurate sci-fi movie, for once, as far as the science goes. Shame it's so slowly paced and ungripping. Can we all, please, just admit that the pretend documentary style of film is simply not conducive to the aim of entertainment?

BBC Sport - Formula 1: Refuelling to return from 2017 season Refuelling from 2017, free tyre choice from the four compounds in 2016, higher revving engines and wider tyres. Should be a nice little shake up. Commiserations to Daniel Ricciardo, though: the 2015 season is staying on a 4 engine limit.

It's nice to have Solitaire and Minesweeper back... but where's Hover?

He is young, yes, but I fear that horse has already bolted and we're stuck with this age group for leadership forever more, to appeal to the younger voters. Even though I, at 30 and a younger voter, would prefer someone older and with some experience and patience. Vince Cable is about the right age for where a leader should be, in my mind. I also fear Labour won't ever get into power on a purely left wing platform, and that even a centre Labour is more left than the Tories and is the best we can hope for while we're lumbered with FPTP.

Chuka Umunna withdraws Labour leader bid - BBC News Disappointed. I think Labour needs a new generation and Umunna was well placed to get Labour back to winning ways with his centrist approach. With Dan Jarvis ruling himself out as well (for perfectly understandable reasons) I'm not sure I like any of the horses left in the race :/

We do it with a server and mapped drives, works wonderfully. Takes about an afternoon to set up, no reason you can't do it on a virtual server, if not any old physical box will do so long as you have a Server Licence - and the cost of those is cheaper p.a. than any online hosting. Installing a PHP/MySQL Development Server for students on Windows Server 2012 - Part1 - Blogs - EduGeek.net Installing a PHP/MySQL Development Server for students on Windows Server 2012 - Part2 - Blogs - EduGeek.net

Ha, I can't see UKIP being happy with the individual endorsements they got Two racists and a pornographer. I'm convinced!

How does "the UK has been a 'passively tolerant society' for too long" work with "vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values including... tolerance of different faiths and beliefs." Does that mean that by introducing a law against tolerance he's undermining the British value of tolerance and is guilty of his own law? Holy paradox, Batman! "In addition, calling for the deaths of members of the armed forces". Well, there's our angle next time we have an Iraq situation; any PM that calls for our armed forces to be sent abroad and shot at is an extremist. Yes, I'm being facetious, but it shows how ludicrous any such law is. It's impossible to encompass the enormous variety of opinion and circumstance in the necessarily specific language of law. What, after all, is extremism? I guess I'll know it when I see it.

So I'd be taxed by the government if, for example, I had a three year old and a new born, and had the temerity to put the newborn into their own room so that they didn't wake the older child throughout the night? And that's assuming that the bedrooms in the council house are big enough to fit two beds in as well, along with all the space needed for clothing etc. How many children do you have to have before you're counted as a legitimate user of that third bedroom? Should you fit 3 in a room? 4, in two bunk beds, youth hostel style? How ridiculous. EDIT: according to @tmcd35's gov.uk link, you can fit 2 per bedroom. Still strikes me as an unfair charge under the circumstances.

Are you sure on what you've put in? Because if so, that situation is having the bedroom tax applied to a 3 bed house where there's parents + boy + girl, so... 3 bedrooms. How do they figure one of them is going unused? Are they assuming you only use on bedroom for your kids, even when they're different genders? Not accusing you of anything, just trying to work out if I should be as shocked as I am if that is the case.

All you lot banging on about how hard it is to live on £26k are wasting your time. £23k is the new magic figure. Or will be, soon enough.

Given that my local MP has just been parachuted in from Lancashire, having lived in London and Gloucestershire, I'm not convinced there is a link between the local area and the MP anymore. I expect her to be a junior minister next time out and from then on she'll be a London MP, safe with her Lincolnshire seat. Career politics, and the rise of the political class, has already destroyed the local link. We may as well have PR.

This is why I suspect I'm more Lib Dem than I am Labour; practically, though, I can't see LD being in power any time soon (or ever), so should I side with Labour? My views on public sector match up with theirs (I very much liked the NHS part of their 2015 manifesto) but my views on civil liberties are much more LD. Of course, they'll all be different in five years time; if Chuka Umunna gets the leadership nod, Labour will be back to centrist Blairism, and Tim Farron would take the LibDems in a much different direction than Clegg... so not exactly a rush to decide. And, of course, my views will have evolved in the meantime.

Looking forward to a cheeky El Niño's this Christmas?

I don't disagree with you. I voted Green! I'm all about the left wing! But I'm feeling a little bit ashamed of how nasty people are getting. I always thought the left-wing was more on the side of freedom and choice than the right. If the people have freely chosen, so be it. We need to convince them to come back to us, not berate them for deserting us.

I agree with this. It was a democratic election, democratically won. Complaining about people being idiots for voting Tory, or comparing them to turkeys voting for Christmas, or telling them they're selfish... well, that's hardly going to win folks over, is it? For the supposedly "caring" side of politics, I am disgusted by the level of vitriol the left wing can muster.

Almost like you've spent too long looking at an LCD screen with a blue-tint to the light. But it must be the wifi! Think of the radiations!

As a friend said to me t'other day, though, some people aren't objecting to the cost of the benefits system or the fraud in it, but the social problem it creates, a new benefits underclass content never to work. Personally, whilst I agree that is happening, I think the benefits claimed are a symptom, not a cause. The real problem is rooted in an education system that tells non-academics they're worthless and provides no meaningful vocational training, a social system that seems to avoid the difficult cases (probably because it's so stretched they don't have time for them), and a prison system that doesn't rehabilitate. Attacking the benefits to stop the growth of this underclass is like attacking leprosy by chopping bits off: you've hidden the symptom for a while, but without dealing with the cause it'll only crop up again later. Furthermore, it's like chopping limbs off everyone to try and prevent leprosy in the few people who have it. You've harmed enormous numbers of genuine claimants in attacking benefits just to get at a few.

Only if in a queue of traffic waiting to turn right but prevented from doing so by oncoming traffic, right? That is, not just because you tried to jump the lights and are now parked across a junction blocking a lane of traffic from crossing, as I've seen in Skegness*. *conveniently, the traffic in that shot demonstrates what happened perfectly, although in that instance the lights are correct for the white 4x4 waiting. Just imagine that situation but with your lights green and a tourist still sat there stupidly in the middle, gesticulating at the red light facing him and protesting his innocence.

I don't think you should cross the white line until you can turn - they're taking the wossit by going over the line to force the issue. Quite a few junctions will time it so that traffic turning right can clear before it gets a red - e.g. in town here, oncoming traffic gets a red light whilst right-turning traffic stays green, forcing a gap in traffic to let you turn through before traffic from the junction gets a green.

Here's something else that annoys me, and annoyed me on my way home last night: at traffic lights, people who go over the solid white line on an amber light, and then stop dead as soon as the lights turn red. In the middle of the junction. Right in the way of where I want to turn right. The lights apply to the solid white line. If the light is red, you stop at that line. If you have already passed that line, the lights no longer apply to you so GET OUT OF MY WAY Bonus idiot points for doing it at junctions where they've painted crosshatch yellow lines, explicitly telling you never to stop there.