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It's an embarrassment, Essruu. It says "we don't care about a wow product. That'll do will do. These f**king idiots will buy anything, even 1024x768, and pay through the nose for the privilege"

I can definitely fault the product. 1024x768 is an embarrassment. All hail the miniaturised original iPad screen!

That reminds me of a sketch from the radio version of Knowing Me, Knowing You, in which a capitalist defends the use of child labour. "In their culture, an 11 year old boy is a man". The really interesting thing is that Apple's margins are so high that they could still turn a healthy profit in the US if it made its gear there. Chooses not to. Don't blame them really. It can be very expensive trying to patent curves!

Do Apple let you do any paid work once you're done bigging them up? It'd be nice if you could roll up with the suicidal wage-slaves at Foxconn. It's where the "magic" happens!

"United States policy is exaggeratedly moral, at least where non-American interests are concerned" Anthony Eden said that. True then and true now.

There has been a chaotic lack of hierarchy since Verbal abdicated his position of King of the Lounge. The court jester role has gone too; with dune and all his great jokes about Rhodesia and Gibraltar being "dead". Let's have some positions and nominations please.

Arf. Don't really think my post is abusive. However, if you weren't being deliberately thick, and are in fact, very actually thick - I retract my statement. So which is it?

They should try to incorporate Thrawn no matter what. Extremely good antagonist. The Rommel of the remnants of the Empire.

Hmm, I wonder who else they could have meant then? Perhaps they were referring to those pesky Canadians? Or European workers arriving on H1B or L1 visas ( y'know, the ones in which you lose your job, you're proper f**ked ). I quite enjoyed your post though, Alps. In terms of "fave posts where Alps has been deliberately dense to prove a point he can't make", it's in the top 100.

Very shocking all round; NO ONE IS SAFE! ( except maybe Rick ). This is a show that has completely found its feet. I block-watched S2, so I didn't have any problem with the pacing or lack of movement; all happened over a day or two for me - really enjoyed it. This year is on another level though. They've managed to split the cast into two places different enough to be light and day and wow, just was not expecting that last night....

I doubt there is a single market-led economy in the world that has a higher level of state intervention than China. This is a country where "playing the stock market" just means buying into state-owned firms, which you know will never go bust, because they'll always be backed by the state.

Do you actually read anything anyone writes, sir? Like, properly?

Large lols at the idea of Latinos being lazy and wanting to get something for nothing, SiP.

This week's Walking Dead was utterly amazing; don't want to spoil but damn, that was a powerful episode. Best yet. Seem to be thinking that a lot lately.

Do you? That's lovely. Post a link. We can all see it then

I was speaking with a staunchly Republican colleague a couple of hours ago. He is in mourning. He genuinely believes that this is the end of the Republican party, citing the growth in the Latino population as you have. The make-up of the US population is changing rapidly; it's one of the most fascinating things about the place. From my experience, the North is much better integrated than the South, but everywhere you go, you see an abundance of Latinos in low-paying or menial jobs. I've found the social stratification to be a little unnerving. I think I need to go to Miami or Arizona for a pallet-cleanser. Another issue is co-ordinated migration. African Americans are moving back to the South en masse. Many places already have the ridiculous "majority minority" tag, a term which in itself, shows how predominant White American culture is over there. The rise of a black middle class and black mayors in southern cities is encouraging, but in general, the US is needless and dangerously segregated. Right now, the blame culture seems confined to bars and presidential elections, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it leads to a civil war down the line. Probably not in my lifetime, but all the seeds for conflict are there. It's going to be difficult for the White American population to continue to view the Latinos as untermenschen when the population is 65%-70%.

I'd have to accept that some do, certainly. However, one of the biggest drivers in voting decisions is self-interest, and I'd argue that how much someone likes a leader also depends on self-interest. Look at Maggie. People hated her when she abolished free school milk, but flocked to her in droves when she promised them they could buy their own council houses. I know that in this age of celebrity it's easy to dismiss the value that people place on policy. I've never seen a member of the public snuggling up with a nice piece of draft legislation - but that's hardly the point. Policy is ammunition, unloaded with abandon on the various organs which slavishly prop up political parties. Every bit of it is melted down, reforged, re-fired and regurgitated by idiots who think they finally have something to say. Yes, personality is important - but policy is the difference between being a milk snatcher or a provider of free money.

Combination of the political system, the voting system and our constitutional make-up, dear boy. The political system is indirect. We don't vote on a leader; they're kind of picked for us by party members and/or trade unions. Worse still are the leadership elections that happen mid-Parliament. Voting system isn't designed to deliver a clear-cut majority verdict. Constitutional make up means we don't get to do anything as ridiculous as pick our head of state, unlike the Americans, who do.

If the Tories won the race, then they would not be in Government with the Lib Dems. If they had any balls, they'd have gone to the polls again. Fact is, they f**ked up in a two-horse race against an unpopular incumbent government. The majority of the country didn't want them, whether you count votes or seats.

Isn't that exactly what's happened?

The only way it'd work is if they made them senior figures in the New Republic, which is pretty much what they did in the Zahn books (closest thing to an ep VII, VIII and IX ) except that Luke was normally off doing Jedi stuff.

It's definitely possible; happened three times in the past. The final cut is decided by the Electoral College, a system which weights the results of individual states. We're no better, and actually a lot worse. Our leader is really derived from the result of around 150 marginal seats, each designed to represent 65K people.

Well, it's another glad soul here. While I think I'll be a while before the Republican Party is replete with neo-fascists again, still a good thing that they've been kept out.

Yep, and it's pathetic from the club too. Pure power play by Cortese.

Zombies can get by without most major organs. The brain is not one of them.