I take your point, but the Large Hadron Collider is the pre-eminent technological achievement of our civilisation. It knocks the complexity of the moon landings into a cocked hat and operates at energy frequencies intended to rip the very fabric of space apart. It's the most complicated and wondrous machine ever built by our, and possibly by any species, and we're doing all this to understand the processes that govern life, the universe and everything.

That, my friend, is what gods do.

I think a little "are we there yet?" journalism is forgiveable in that context.

Christ on a bike. See. This is the problem with you people. Frankly, if someone appears on my borders having travelled thousands of miles, with little money and no knowledge of the native language yet can pick up local customs and prejudices well enough to game a complicated system that intelligent people put in place precisely to stop them then who cares whether they're "genuine refugees"? That level of motivation and energy is welcome in any society I'm part of because it's precisely those qualities that create the milk and honey you're so fond of! Don't you understand? Geographic and social mobility is good! Stasis is bad! Change is good! How is that difficult? Gah! And double Gah! I'm sick of being exposed to this puerile nonsense day after day after day. Maybe you're right. Maybe we should be more draconian. I just hope that if we are, the powers-that-be make it as hard to leave as it'll become to enter. That way you can live in the economic, social and demographic backwater you create. It's a shame most people are shrieking fools nowadays as otherwise we might be able to construct a meaningful dialogue regarding the best way to manage immigration. That way English classes for migrants wouldn't be first on the altar of economic sacrifice, limiting their ability to integrate and compounding the us-and-them mentality that strangles any debate at birth. Immigration does raise complex question but it is beneficial and if people would just drop their belief in their god-given right to do whatever the fuck they want to poor people in other countries without the burden of consequences ever dropping in their lap then perhaps we could step out of the handbasket and head upwards rather than downwards for once.

I made a joke on here a few days ago using a line from an Alanis Morrisette song. I'll probably be next up for a stint in the big house

That's what Fair Use is all about, and it's why you'd never get in trouble for it.

Yeah. Well. I made a facetious throwaway comment. I'm sure no-one ever got hassled for using copyrighted material in ways that weren't intended by their creator.

I'm not sure I see the distinction you're trying to make. One is a link to copyrighted material one isn't. They're chalk and cheese and I have no problem with either, but you're making the mistake of thinking that everyone who uses bittorrent is a freeloading scumbag whose raison d'etre is to rip off creators the world over. They're not. I use bittorrent to help me find new material. I'm not in the slightest bit embarrassed by that. Why should I be? I don't give a flying one what other people use it for but I suspect more use it in a similar manner to me than the record companies would ever admit to. I consider that a responsible usage of file sharing technology and if you don't agree, perhaps you can explain to me at what point it isn't.

The IFPI and their hateful, hateful ilk have not lost a single unit sale because I've used unauthorised sources. In fact, if it wasn't for those unauthorised sources, I'd never have made a lot of my purchases in the first place. Up until today, I'd recommend bands to people and burn them CDs of things I liked. I'd big up bands that I'd come across and be a cheerleader to anyone I knew for their material. As of today, that ceases. The IFPI lose out because the people I know buy fewer records. The artists lose out because the people I know may not want to go to their shows. I lose out because I love music. And why? Because the music companies want to enforce stone age business practices on a 21st century technology. Well. As I said in my original post. Fuck them. If you want to be their apologist, then fine, but by doing so you bear more responsibility for killing music than the pirates do.

The people who run the Pirate Bay have been jailed for "assisting making available copyrighted content", meaning that they linked to copyrighted material? Fuck. That's the very basis of the internet. How can this judgement stand? If this is upheld, none of us are safe. Not Youtube, not Google, not anyone. Regardless of the rights or wrongs of file sharing, how can people be jailed for just linking to material? This is about the worst decision the courts could have made. Fuck you Sweden. Fuck you IFPI and fuck you all the recording artists that are signed to the companies who belong to you. I hope you all rot. It hurts but I'll never give you another unit of my hard earned currency again. I had no issue with paying for music I liked as long as you didn't make me pay for music I didn't. The internet allowed me to do that with greater freedom than ever before and now you jail people who facilitate my search for good music. You've already shut down the OLGA resource, denying thousands of would be guitarists a valuable resource for learning, you've already ripped thousands of music videos from youtube, and now you do this. Well thankyou. A better illustration of the way corporate whores set the legal policy of elected governments I could not find. Not that you'll care because you've brainwashed an entire generation into thinking your reality is the only reality. A generation who grow up believing sharing is wrong. Well. Good luck with that. Eventually you and all your kind will bleed yourself dry and when that happens, I'll make a point of playing poor quality MP3s of popular chart music over your graves and laugh at the irony of the damage you've wrought to the internet in order to protect the artistic integrity of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.

Jesus. I made a joke on here a few days ago using a line from an Alanis Morrisette song. I'll probably be next up for a stint in the big house.

It's like rai--ai--ain, on your wedding day...

Actually, according to Article 1 of Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, white phosphorous, as an obscurant, is legal, white phosphorous as an anti-personnel weapon against military targets outside of civilian areas is a grey area, usage in civilian areas or against civilians is verboten. Last time I looked, most of Fallujah was a civilian area. Of course, since the United States never signed up to the UN agreement the debate is moot anyway, even if the US's own documentation states, "It is against the law of land warfare to employ WP against personnel targets.". Still, I'm sure the powers that be thought everything was just tickety-boo, given they absolutely denied using the substance until found out.

So this is flamebait why? The US Army did use white phosphorous in Fallujah and did so even according to the US Army themselves. White phosphorous is a terrible substance that "melts people's bodies down to the bone", and requires significant moral gymnastics/cowardice* to justify as a weapon of war. I think it's only reasonable that, as an American soldier, the option to deploy banned weapons against the enemy be an option, just as it should be possible to win the game by not ever going to war on half-truths and lies disseminated by a blatantly evil and corrupt administration. (* Delete as appropriate)