You say:

But then you say:

I think we know whether they're a professional organisation...
Let's also take a look at their website, and their 'Cart00ney' publication of legal documents Piratebay-stylee.
If they're not an outright illegitimate organisation, they're a jolly dubious one.
They also seem to imply that they're involved with 'Bavarian municipals', but seem awfully coy about naming them.

A good response may be to draw the attention of the service providers you can't get email through to as to the nature of the outfit they're getting their blacklist from.

Absolutely agree about writing.

I've answered telephones in an office. If I don't want to transfer you, you don't get transferred; doubly so if the person you want to be transferred to has specifically told me not to transfer you to them. I was by no means a tyrannical martinet on the phone - there are people who are much more effective gatekeepers than I - any company trying to delaying paying its bills will have employed such people to ward off telephone calls.

Actually, it's completely right.

This is one of those situtations where 'context' is just muddying the issue.

The key question is: At the point where the officer took the decision to fire the Taser, was she posing a sufficient threat the the officer, or someone else (within the officer's reasonable, articulable, perception) to justify its usage?

Ah, but it's not.

You can't put a picture of the pain caused by a taser onto every television screen in the nation. You can put the photographs of a smashed face onto a television screen.

The courts.

The general principle is that you're not allowed to use violence against other people. There are, of course, exceptions written into the law. It is the job of the courts, and not departmental policy, to decide if those exceptions apply to this particular circumstance.

Ergo, the whole department policy angle is a smokescreen.

We need to lose this presumtion that police officers are justified in their use of force unless proven otherwise. Any officer who uses more than minimal force (a hand on the arm, etc) against a member of the public should be prosecuted, and forced to defend their actions before a jury, as a matter of course.

It's technology news in that it provides more proof that the taser has inevitably slipped down the slope from a weapon to be used for defence to a pain-compliance device to be deployed on people who won't do what they're told.

Gamespy's Facebook page is particularly amusing, as someone keep parroting the line back to angry gamers that, despite Gamespy's logos being plastered all over the game, they aren't responsible for continuing to provide the online service, and gamers should 'reach out' the the game publishers... and then there's the not-so-subtle pot shot at publishers for being stingey and 'choosing not to support' the games.

It's hilarious - while it may be techically accurate - 95% won't understand, or care to understand, the difference, and will continue to blame Gamespy. The publishers, of course, will be only to happy to let Gamespy take the fall.

Having shredded Gamespy's goodwill, I have only one thing to ask: Would you say that was $2.8m well spent, Glu?

Hi!
I really like the ribbon, it's a fantastic, (largely) intuitive interface. When I have to use Office 2003 on our Citrix farm, it makes me want to scream in frustration and how badly laid out it all is.

But then I started using it after a number of years away from Office, so didn't have a built-up attachment to the old way of doing things.

The government already steps in by providing courts with the power to enforce their judgements.

You punish companies by introducing loser-pays, or loser-pays-up-to-the-value-of-their-own-costs. Settling a class-action over 1,000,000 people swizzed out of $10 will be nothing compared to settling 10,000 cases with individuals, each with its own costs bill.

Worse even than that, you're not allowed to know that this information is being kept about you, or shared with potential employers. If you have an enhanced CRB check done, your reference copy may not include some information sent to the requestor of the check, and they're not allowed to tell you what their copy says.

Scary stuff.

technically, it doesn't. vis. It's more usual, especially as the police can now make an arrest over any criminal offence (which they couldn't until less than 10 years ago), but someone can be prosecuted without an arrest being made.

The primary cause of the word 'duty' getting used is that the person proposing the idea knows that they haven't got a reason that will stand up to scrutiny.

you wonder what they're supposed to do if everyone has scarpered by the time they arrive...

Do they cuff each other?

So what law do you think creates an open-ended right for the owner of the property to create their own bye-laws which can then themselves be enforced through the ordinary criminal law process?

Yes, we tried to organise a small anarchist community a few years ago... but people wouldn't follow the rules.

(Thank you, I'll be here all week)