bookwyrm
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Posts posted by bookwyrm
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I gotta disagree Snowtiger - Tank Girl is one of the all time best movies ever made!
You've got Ice-T as a cop reincarnated as a killer kangaroo, Lori Petty being cute in a wide variety of ways, Naomi Watts as Jet Girl (mmmmm, Jet Girl!), a cameo by Iggy Pop and Malcolm McDowell slumming it yet again! What more could you possibly want?!?
All it's missing is Rutger Hauer!
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Blues was good, but hands down it has to be Renata the Knife.
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Music
in Network 54
Did you realise both Stiff Little Fingers and Vice Squad had albums out last year? Highly reccomended.
And don't forget that some of those bands will be playing Wasted this year (the replacement for Holidays in the Sun).
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Hopefully.
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Quote ([M8]-HARRY @ Jan. 14 2004,07:41) Quote It is a valid point about the dole, but you need to extend it to include all the people who were born in Australia who sponge, and who's only contribution to Aussie culture is to complain about the bloody abo's.
Besides, unless you're an aborigine you can't really take the moral high ground in objecting to people trying to change your culture.
Fair call.
But there is more to aussie culture than just abo's, like poms drinking warm beer, but thats another cultural lesson/rant for another time.
I was just pointing out that you weren't the first culture there, is all.
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An interesting article in the paper by some little asian chick. Saying that new proposed imigration laws mean that people have to go to rural areas. And she had the hide to say.
WELL HELLO! CANT SPEAK THE LINGO TO A GOOD STANDARD, GO BACK TO WHERE YE CAME FROM.Quote This makes it much harder for those that cannot speak english She has a point, though. Most rural areas are unlikely to provide the language tuition they need, whilst at the same time isolating them from help from their own communities. Besides, I don't think most oppressive regimes are likely to provide English tuition to the people they're oppressing just in case they want to leave.
Quote Ever tried ringing your bank's phone banking service and gone throught the buisness to speak to an operator? Well over here you seem to get some aisian or indian person who can master a few words of english, then doesnt understand what your having trouble with, gets confused because of the accent/language problem (maily the lingo prob, accent is a minor issue). Then leaves you forced to stand in an endless que at a bank waiting to get served only to be told. "you could have fixed this up over the phone"
If there ability to speak english was better it would be no worries.That's probably because the telephone services were farmed out to India to save money, it happens a lot over here as well. Besides, you'll find most second generation immigrants speak English very well.
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But then real cops don't tend to like people stepping on their toes either.
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Well, if you do make it over here we'll have to see about getting some of us Brits together and meet up.
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Of course, there's one problem with lofting uranium into space...what if the shuttle carrying it explodes in the atmosphere?
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Quote ([M8]-HARRY @ Jan. 13 2004,08:02) Second. A few things that have been getting around in our media.
Uni students are protesting that all the people in the camps should be made legal. Ok, sure most of them will be made legal at some stage. My gripe is some will just go in the doll (social security) do bugger all and stuff up our aussie culture.
*allows outcry for last bit of last sentence*
Stuff up our aussie culture! i hear you say. Well sad but true yes. A bunch of towl heads banded together and took out a court order against shop owners in a large shopping complex, and basically the shop owners couldnt hang christmas decorations as they found it offensive to their culture. They didnt have the decency to talk it through in ENGLISH to the shop owners they just sent the court order. Then when the appropriate "tinted people celebration" came around they had stuff all over the show. NOW HOW IS THAT FAIR!
and its not an isolated case.You do have some good points there, but like I said before you have to be very, very careful about what the media is feeding you. All viewpoints are biased, and the media more than most.
It is a valid point about the dole, but you need to extend it to include all the people who were born in Australia who sponge, and who's only contribution to Aussie culture is to complain about the bloody abo's.
As for the christmas thing...well, it happens. It's happened over here and in the US as well. Mostly we just rename it a 'winter festival' and carry on as usual. BTW, turn about is fair play - you can claim to be offended by their celebrations and demand the same thing citing their court order as precedence. However, it's usually more fun to just co-opt their holidays.
You'll also find out that this sort of thing is an isolated case, far outweighed by the number of immigrants who are quite willing to integrate into a new culture. But, of course, Local Asian doesn't object to christmas decorations probably won't sell as many papers.
Besides, unless you're an aborigine you can't really take the moral high ground in objecting to people trying to change your culture.
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Quote (encanta_anima @ Jan. 13 2004,11:41) Few countries NEED democratic processes to begin with. The situation you gotta look at is how the political climate AROUND the country in question is looking. Right now, there are a lot of western influences in the areas around Iraq. I DO believe that after Saddam's death, there would not have been enough support for the current regime amongst the people and it couldn't possibly have continued. This is due to that it always comes as a major poitical shock when a long term leader dies. Olof Palme in Sweden was murdered 1986, and depsite Sweden being a fairly well managed country, the political havoc caused by this was still prominent.
See? It's sad to see this many peop,e being THAT convinced of how the story REALLY was all due to propaganda.. Because most of the people here appear to be victims of propaganda.Except that Iraq, unlike Sweden, didn't run on popular support. Popular uprisings got put down with bloody efficiency, just take a look at the Marsh Arab revolt after GW1, or the treatment of the Kurds. Assuming that Saddam didn't declare a successor, once he died there would have been a vicious round of infighting between the factions before the new ruler purged the losing sides from the government and army. Maybe you should start reading some Russian history.
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Quote (Thumper @ Jan. 13 2004,00:29) but I am sure someone else with far much more free time can pick apart the rant here and explain the facts to you. That do, Thumper?
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Quote (encanta_anima @ Jan. 12 2004,11:39) Quote Taking out Saddam was a good thing, in my opinion. The US liberated the country. People there has more freedom now than they did under Saddam's police state. Anyone who has been watching the news these past few days will also know that Iraq is now on the brink of civil war. Is THAT prefereable to a regime that would have died in the next couple of years anyway.
Facing it, Saddam was an old man. He is. I don't think they executed him yet but who knows. And what with the current political situation in the world, his regime wouldn't ahve lasted once he died, so unless he is the superdangerous, longevital human monster that people try to make of him, he would have died and left nothing behind, and perhaps the democratic processes could ahve entered Iraq more naturally than they did now.
The violations on the Iraqi civilians are exceeding all acceptable boundaries. I find it upsetting.
Iraq is not on the brink of a civil war, it is undergoing a revolution. These things tend to be bloody, but with a little luck and a lot of support they can come through it.
The regime would not have died out in a few years. If that was at all likely it would have happened after diplomatic sanctions were imposed after the first gulf war. Instead, Saddam (who has always suppressed political opposition) took the opportunity to root out all potential rivals, either killing or driving into exile or hiding members of all non-Baathist parties. This is why there is a lot of resistance to current Iraqi political leaders, since the only ones with the skills to run anything (who aren't Baathists) are Iraqi expats.
And don't think that Saddams death would have changed anything, one of his sons could have taken over and by all accounts been an even more bloody tyrant. What you have to remember is that after 30+ years of ruthless dictatorship Iraq doesn't have any democratic processes. It's going to take a long, long time to sort this country out and if we're not serious about it, or do too little and wander off when we get bored then we may as well have nuked the country flat - it would be kinder in the long run.
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Quote (psychophipps @ Jan. 12 2004,18:42) You'd think that the concept of capturing enemy soldiers and holding them for interrogation and processing would be a simple one but apparently it's this huge mental leap that requires a few more feet of pole than most people have. Our military and intelligence services are simply taking the time to use these recently acquired intelligence assets to their best advantage and in the mean time we take care of them as you'd expect for POWs. In fact, we're treating them several magnitudes better than they'd get from just about anyone else on the planet if they were in the same situation. Except they weren't even soldiers, they didn't wear uniforms or anything. From what I remember standard practice is to treat them as spys and shoot the f*ckers. I think they got off quite lightly.
Quote In other words, BOO-f*cking-HOO! Couldn't have said it better.
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Quote (encanta_anima @ Jan. 12 2004,11:44) I may be anti-american, but the fact that they are sucking both their own population dry, and trying to kill off the rest of the world makes them a worse superpower than say, China, which regime would only try to suck their own population dry, Tell that to Tibet (which it is sucking dry), or Taiwan (which it wants to).
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Quote ([M8]-HARRY @ Jan. 12 2004,05:00) Quote I expected better from you Harry. You should at least find out why they're coming before you consider turning them back.
Actually, what really disturbs me is the racist overtones that the phrase 'illegal immigrant' has.Well booky, allow me to further clarify my point of view.
When it was exposed that these people were leaving there country because of civil unrest and all that stuff i thought ok, its not good. But when they were burning there passports and paying vast amouts of money to get onto a boat to get to australia illegally, thats what got on my goat. Now there protesting and going on hunger strikes to be made legal.
Well if there going to hunger strike let em starve. If they can afford a massively over priced ticket on a boat, then they could surely have looked into legal avenues.
Sure they might be locked up over here, but at least there not getting shot and there getting 3 meals a day, which is more than some people get.
Firstly, be very careful about what you're told about illegal immigrants. If your media is anything like ours (and since Murdoch owns it all I wouldn't be surprised), then you're probably being fed an awful lot of crap about the issue, with it being blown up out of all proportion.
Some facts on refugees and asylum seekers:
According to the United States Committee for Refugees (USCR) best estimates for 2001:
Australia took 21,800 (0.15% of world total; 1 to 849 Aussies)
Britain took 69,800 (0.47% of world total; 1 to 972 Brits)
United States took 492,500 (3.3% of world total; 1 to 579 Yanks)
Iran took 2,550,000 (17% of world total; 1 to 26 Iranians)
Also, the reason they burn their passports is because if the authorities know where they come from they'll just deport them. No papers means a fighting chance at staying in the country. As for the cost of getting over here, blame the human traffickers, they're the real scum here. I still remember them opening a cargo container over here and finding some 50 odd chinese inside, all but a couple of whom had suffocated. It's not like these people are waking up one morning and saying "I fancy popping over to Oz for a couple of weeks, I'll just get a few grand out of the bank."
Hunger strike? Well, they probably don't have any other way to effectively protest their treatment. Process them or ship them back, but don't leave them in limbo. I can't imagine what it must be like to wake up each morning and not know where you would be at the end of the day. Day after day. week after week. Month after month. Year after year.
But you're right, they're not starving or in fear of their lives.
And you wonder why they want to stay?
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Not my character, but I once ran a game where someone had a grenade thrown at him. He survived the blast...but the nerve gas cannisters he had strapped to his chest didn't.
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Quote ([M8]-HARRY @ Jan. 10 2004,04:22) I mean as far as illegals go i reckon they should have there boats turned around, or sunk. I expected better from you Harry. You should at least find out why they're coming before you consider turning them back.
Actually, what really disturbs me is the racist overtones that the phrase 'illegal immigrant' has.
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Quote (Viserael @ Jan. 10 2004,12:45) there are CD's due to come out which, when played, transmit (through your own radio player, or computer if online) what CD, its position thru GPS, how many times its been copied etc... and eventually even if it IS a copy... It won't make any difference. There is nothing you can do to copy protect a CD that can't easily be got round. All you have to do is output it to a sound recording program.
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Quote (encanta_anima @ Jan. 11 2004,20:53) The United States, however, just crushes them like a lawnmower does grass, and then get surprised when suddenly everybody doesn't love them and praise them as they used to after the WW2 (when they actually DID contribute with something). THe US is the most sneaky bully that ever arose as a super power in this world. And what's worse is that everybody just blindly accepts it. Not really, Britain was far worse at the height of it's power. America just gets all the stick these days because it's the obvious target.
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Quote (Dog Soldier @ Jan. 09 2004,21:49) Quote Damn hippies...... Damn straight, I think that's where all the "revolution" crap in Cyberpunk came from..
"I though the idea of Cyberpunk was that you were anti-coporation?"
"No, the idea of Cyberpunk is that you sell out to the coroporations to get cool stuff."
- Wilphe's sig line
Just like the hippies, if you think about it...
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Further proof that some people really do have more money than sense.
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After getting washed and dressed, Ivan will relax with a little light exercise to stop himself stiffening up while various members of the Flames 'dare' each other to look in the van outside.
Music
in Network 54
Posted
So did I, and you're right, they were! If you can afford it you should definitely try to get down for Wasted. Although they haven't cofirmed, The Damned were regulars at Holidays In The Sun so I'll be surprised if they don't end up playing this year as well.