Posts by Aron A Aardvark

OTT BBC RP

Anyone else find themselves cringing when BBC news readers start mangling 'Arfgarnistarn' and 'Parkistarn'? They sound like a right bunch of hawty pryckes.

Guns n Roses?

It's not really G n R, its Rose and the latest pick-up band he's put together to perform the classics. G n R hasn't existed for at least 13 years.

Daily Mail to do a 180 turn?

So if the EuroCourt puts a full stop to GM's extradition, can I expect to read a prominent piece in the Daily Mail on how the evil, federalist EU has taken away more of rights? I mean, don't our own splendid English courts uphold centuries of hard-won rights while evil Jean and Juan Foreigner only seek to consolidate their power over us.

Will the Mail also explain why EU federalism is bad but US federalism is a self-evident good thing and all things United Statesian are to be faithfully emulated here.

Maybe we should have a Russian-style law that simply prohibits extradition of its citizens? But that would of course be curtailing our criminal justice system to the English and Scottish jurisdictions and not somehow constructing a abstraction that crimes committed in other sovereign states should be actionable here.

Patsy?

Ah, another possible Oswald to be judged guilty in the courtroom of public opinion with no defence counsel or right to cross-examine his accusers and the evidence presented against him. Good ol' westernised media justice.

There was a list doing the rounds of around 14 micro-biologists who have died in strange circumstances over the last few years, the most famous being David Kelly. Suicide sounds like an occupational hazard but what are the chances? Is there a link between these deaths? Investigating let alone answering such questions would require a media with a spine that is not frozen into inaction by the two magic words - 'national security'.

guff

The problem surely, has been ridiculously high salaries and daily rates for IT personnel in the past. Companies now realise that IT is not rocket science and that there are plenty of kids willing to work for peanuts to get in the door. Anyhoo, offsite support 'n storage will make most of you superfluous within a few years, probably.

Someone above me on the forum said that the kids aren't interested in IT- I'd say the opposite is true. Every school leaver and sixth former knows how to do basic IT admin, build a website etc. That is the reason salaries have dropped.

Yes some of the job ads have absurdly unrealistic guff about their 'ideal candidate' but speaking from an HR pov, the recruiting manager is unlikely to get all his boxes ticked.

BTW. what's "strong experience"?!

National speed limit outdated

The idea of a national speed limit in the UK is now outdated and should be scrapped. Free flowing rural motorways and dual carriageways should have an upper limit of 80mph. Busy and jam-prone stretches should all be covered with variable systems. If that costs too much, then a lower limit of 50mph should be fixed.

Abolish all cameras as well. I can't believe so much money can be justified on monitoring speeding motorists.

Airport expansion

My take is that there won't be any further runways at Heathrow as the political cost of nearby villages could be too high. I expect to see attention refocused on Stansted and then Gatwick. The govt/BAA won't publicly say that of course.

We could dust off the plans for Maplin Airport off the Essex coast - nice new airport on a reclaimed island, Hong Kong style, complete with M12/M13.

Secrecy Overkill

"almost all the devices were marked at the lowest grade of classification, and even the remaining few are unlikely to have contained information of any significance."

And therefore there was no need for the information to be classified in the first place.

Such losses emphasise the urgent need for a root and branch re-examination of the British classification system in tandem with a review of the Official Secrets Act with a view to greatly reducing the number of classified documents and releasing as many as possible into the public domain. Anything over twenty years old should be automatically released.

Oh, Top Secret is definitely not the highest category. In a further byzantine twist to this bizarre system, there are further compartments of classification, adjuncts to top secret that require more strenuous background checks. Thus there are secrets held within secrets. And you wonder why the government can't do joined up thinking?

Bad luck kids, you got caught. That's the risk you take.

Children who presumably are capable and intelligent enough to maintain a small network of illegal files. The legal age of criminal responsibility in the UK is 10.

How are they not 'real criminals'? Would you object if I took something you made and sold it for my own enrichment? Doing it on a computer makes it OK?

It would be interesting to know were the profits were going. Perhaps it was the mafia.

Great Menace To Civilisation

Why the sudden deep and widespread pan Euro concern with filesharing? A few years back, the Great Menace To Civilisation was unsavoury types of porn. Yet no one was suggesting, despite the alleged evildoing, that dl’ers of that stuff should be given the boot. Presumably that was because abused kids don’t have a powerful industrial lobby group behind them and don’t represent lost profits to some multinational media behemoth.

And I’ve got to question since when did UK ISP’s become the hatchet man-enforcer for media multinationals?

Funny that - human lives ruined, kids traumatised, nothing happens. Sony/BMG lose a few quid and ‘something must be done’. Cynical? moi?

Props to Davis

Neo Lab are not socialist, not by any stretch of the imagination. Neo Lab is run by cabal of globalising, pro corporate, neoliberal thugs. Labour in name, that's all.

So Davis supports capital punishment. So what? I have often wondered if it is actually worth keeping the Sutcliffe's and Nielsen's alive at taxpayer expense. Of course, as an EU member, the UK cannot reintroduce the death penalty so it really doesn't matter who your view is on this.

Viacome only gets what is pertinent to Viacom and not a byte more.

It would seem that demanding the whole 12TB shebang is excessive. If Google is eventually compelled to disclose YouTube viewing habits, then it should be restricted to only people who watched Viacom material. All other records are clearly not relevant in the slightest to Viacom's discovery.

Of course, if you had everything, wouldn't it be funny but totally coincidental if, ooh, it somehow, I don't know how, just sort of leaked and found its way into the safe of another large media company's legal office?

Yes we are all responsible and that's a big part of the problem.

"So to all you whiny Brits I have this to say to you. If you don't like it don't come here."

Indeed. I won't be visiting your country anymore. Canada - yes, Mexico - yes. Not you lot tho. I have American family btw but that doesn't stop me loathing what your country has developed into over the last 60 years. I can't stand the UK anymore either and would emigrate if my wife would agree. Both countries are one degree away from being China style totalitarian states.

At least you have plenty of guns over there so you can always get rid of the scum politicians and officials by force if push comes to shove.

Sophistry ahoy!

"you cannot steal something that is not there"

Can you steal electricity? I believe you can be convicted for that form of theft.

However, they were not being prosecuted under the Theft Acts. This was a civil case, not a criminal one. The claimant sought and was awarded damages. There was no prosecution, defence or possible jail time at stake.

The claimant would have a tougher time in court if the defendant turned up to defend themselves. That speaks volumes about the strength of their case.

@ss/elbow confusion

"That would require to actually hire smart people to do the job and not monkeys, and invest in education before releasing them on the crowd."

The TSA goon at the Nuevo Laredo/Laredo crossing asked me what ‘next of kin’, written in the back of my passport, meant. When I told him, he asked where he was. Now you’d have thought they would teach them that on day one at immigration school. When I left the US at Atlanta I was quizzed as to why the Laredo goons had written in my passport – something they shouldn’t do apparently. So I would agree that this security bunkum is all about little men swinging their weight around, looking like they’re doing something when in fact, they don’t know their @ss from their elbow.

CC = another protection racket from local gangsters, sorry, government.

The major Stagecoach-operated 'Citi' bus routes in Cambridge are frequent. However, due to Stagecoach's near-monopoly, tickets appear expensive. I pay £20 for a seven day ticket that gives me unlimited use of all Stagecoach's buses. Is that unreasonable? It may seem the better option if petrol prices continue to rise.

Interestingly, the Newmarket Road park n ride site was inside the perimeter of the congestion charge scheme. Talk about running a racket. That would've meant you had to pay, regardless of whether you were p n r'ing or going into town.

Let's face it, Cambridge is an old town that was never designed for horseless carriages, let alone the volumes the narrow roads carry today.

Sorry but he hasn't "done what he was accused of"

Presumably the USA's legal system still operates under the archaic principle of innocent until proven guilty? Let me say that I unequivocally reject the sham treaty under which this extradition attempt is being pursued. It makes a hollow mockery of our democratic traditions.

Please can someone specifically state the nature of the damage he is alleged to have caused? Of course, in McKinnon's case, I suspect that the US authorities may have exaggerated the "damage" in order to justify his extradition.

There are interviews with McKinnon in which he claims to have viewed hi-res satellite pix of large, copper-coloured, cigar-shaped craft. I think he found what he was looking for. That could be the reason the damages have been inflated.

An interview with Gary McKinnon is available here http://www.projectcamelot.org/gary_mckinnon.html

Good luck Gary McKinnon

Let's hope the final court of appeal sees the gross injustice in a treaty which permits British citizens to be extradited to the USA with no evidence required. What kind of sham democracy permits such a mechanism? The second rate pseudo democracy that is the UK. Shame on all the MPs who approved of such a despicable treaty.

And shame on the US DoD and NASA for preaching a mantra of 'national security' when you can't even be bothered to establish the most basic of network security procedures. You only have yourselves to blame for that one. You're just lucky it was Gary McKinnon who exposed your unbelievable security lapses and not an unfriendly foreign power.

Or am I being naive here and the US DoD and NASA were entrapping would-be hackers by not using passwords et al? Hmmmm.

PS: wouldn't mind seeing those great big UAP pix that McKinnon apparently saw at Building 8 of the JPL..

MTV should be sued

...as they haven't played any music in years.

The Boro

Altho The Boro, if memory serves, is awash with filthy drugs and criminal gangs which must of greater concern to the police and public, the record companies, no matter how large they are, are entitled to have their intellectual rights defended. I cannot see how anyone can justify bittorrents etc as they are overwhelmingly used for the unauthorised distribution of someone else's property.

So does anyone know the arrested parties and what their operation consisted of?

Breaking news: Sony to stop production of PS3

is not a headline I'm expecting to see but the top brass at Sony must think they've spooged $Bns on a turkey.

The Wii continues to outsell its rivals on a 3:1 ratio. Now let's hear some 'splainin' by the Sony faithful 'bout how their beloved device is going to be Console King "any day now".

Perhaps European gamers have had enough of subsidising the north America market by buying this overpriced toy-box.