Tuber Mirum

Pilger's quite correct, as is George Monbiot and all the other respectable, experienced journalists who seek to educate us in matters of democracy/lack thereof and governmental extremism. The sad truth is that these brilliant, hard-working journalists tend to preach to the converted; intelligent people who can read and understand logical, rational arguments. They will rarely change public opinion, because Joe Public is so f*cking stupid and illiterate that they can hardly say the word "democracy", let alone understand fully its implications, or notice when it's being dangerously eroded. Most of the "electorate", unfortunately, are Sun-reading, ignorant f*cking sheep who will let Tony and his éliterati ride roughshod over our rights until it's too late to do anything, à la Josco scenario. These c*nts don't deserve to live in the democracy that our country used to be. Take action NOW before we're all totally enslaved, constantly spied-on, catalogued, pigeon-holed and shackled. Attend public demonstrations, write to your MP, tell your friends, neighbours, colleagues, just go DO something about it. Public complacency has got us to the stage we are now at, NOTHING ELSE. Democracy only works if we, the people, stand up and be counted and tell the ignorant f*cks who were "elected" to govern our affairs that we will not stand for their selfish bigotry, lies and hypocrisy. Above all, don't waste your f*cking time like I've just done, venting steam in this thread. Please. Thank you. Well said Star Crossed! Except it is bloody dangerous to take the standpoint that anything which is democratic is good. And certainly not anything which calls its self democratic when it isn't. The second is probably worse than the first, but it is a fairly close thing. But you are right. People are stupid. Even clever, educated people are very often stupid when it comes to politics. I occasionally think of turning my back on the UK completely. I haven't lived there for 12 years anyway. Which is worse I wonder, complacency or resignation?

At the risk of pots and kettles and all that, does anyone have any conclusive proof that Poetry Man has ever actually posted anything resembling a decent poem?

All hail to the late Mr. George Best of Belfast! One of the finest Association footballers of the recent past. Often scoring two goals in one game or even three, Warming the spectators' hearts and filling them with glee. And when not playing football he was frequently to be seen engaging in carnal congress with Miss World or some other beauty queen. And with his money he cannot be said to have been ungenerous Spending it freely on fornication, strong drink and also on Morris Marinas. Regrettably his internal organs were unable to endure the abuse of his inability to consume exclusively orange or any other non-alcoholic juice. Thus was he condemned to lie unconscious in a hospital bed, Until one tragic day an eminent physician examined him and pronounced him dead. Thus ended the life of George Best of Belfast. Without whom Manchester United would possibly have come last. One of the greatest association footballers of recent years and whose passing will among his admirers undoubtedly have provoked many tears.

A Scotsman emigrates by boat and his twa brothers wish him a tearful farewell fae the quayside. Twinty year later he returns and his brothers are there at the quayside tae welcome him back. Baith brothers sporting long, full beards doon to their knees. "Guid tae see ye again brothers." he says, barely able to haud back his tears. "Aye" replies one brother coldly, "but that wisnae funny ye ken, you f****n' off wi' oor razor like that".

My vote is for Condoleezza. Stupid bloody hypocrite that she is.

Hey Mr. Whitehouse! Long time no see.

No you don't. You get a singular dearth of interesing pictures actually. It is almost uncanny in fact.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is PACE? Am I wrong in saying that crime really took off big time during Mrs Thatcher's reign? Can anyone give a convincing reason for this in words of not many syllables? Was it Maggie who gave them lots of forms to fill, or did that come later as an obstacle to crime prevention?

I won't either. That's the kind of disobedience which gets results. Look at Mrs Thatcher and her poll tax. Nevertheless I maintain having a standardised identification document would be a good idea and useful. But for the right reasons, not the wrong ones.

If I told you that, I would have to kill you. Again.

I thought that's what passports were for. That's right, but not everybody in Britain has a passport. If it were made mandatory for everyone to have a passport, would people regard that as an encroachment on their civil liberties? This is the case with all Governments, the more information an ID card contains, the greater potential for abuse. Not all European governments are as brazenly iniquitous as the British one. Yet. I would still even trust a couple of them. You are right though TF. Having lots of information on an ID card is open to more abuse and doesn't guarantee definite identification of the holder if the card is easily forged. And as Entropy says, the British ones are allegedly quite easy to forge. If they were really interested in protecting us the cards would contain less personal information and have plenty of features making them difficult to copy or imitate. But they aren't so they don't.

No they aren't. Not always. In cases like in most European countries where they have had them for years they are the government's way of saying "we want to protect our citizens and make sure they can be recognised as citizens of a particular country and distinguished from one another." In the case of Tony Blair he is saying "I want absolute control and as much information about as many of my subjects as possible because I am a messaianic paranoid fool." It isn't the fact of the ID cards that is wrong, they are a good idea really. It is the intentions behind their introduction in this particular case.

Take a look at some other European ID cards. Do they look official and respectable, or do they look like an Azad card from 1974?

Elspeth, you have an AOL Page!? A woman of many deep contradictions indeed! Did you know that deathlist.net also has an avatar gallery? Sadly they are not terribly good for the most part. I remember the last poster for whom we went to a lot of trouble to find an avatar was dear Miss Amanda. In that case it wasn't Captain Oates who found the solution. A little voice in my head tells me that you aren't moved much by Johnny Depp anyway. Personally I am quite keen on you using your TRF(sic) avatar over here too. It has a certain stern formidableness which suits you well.

And that is useful why ? Or more importantly, to whom is that useful ? Well, I mean 'sobvious innit? It means someone can't go down the Video Rental Shop, pretend to be you and hire loads of films in your name and then steal them leaving you to foot the bill. Things like that. You know what I like least about Blair's Identity Cards? I mean look at the bugger! Where is H.M. the Queen, where is the portcullis or the Lion Rampant? Where is the Union Flag? All it has is a tatty logo. It looks like shite. Now look at the German one: It has the German Eagle emblazoned on it, it mentions the fact that the holder is a German citizen and their address and the colour of their eyes is written on the back. It is an official looking document which looks like it deserves a bit of respect. Know what I mean?

Are you sure? I mean did you check the obituaries?

I voted no, too. A week tops probably. They say he has a "lung infection" which presumably means pneumonia, the thing which kills most people with poor immune systems. Don't think we'll get so many ranters as with Emlyn though, simply because we don't seem to be on page one of a Google search. It'd be interesting to get a few East Belfast Ranters. We don't get many of them as far as I know.

Further outlook: grim for our George.

World Famous (in Germany) artist Jörg Immendorff also has ALS and quite a nice looking wife. Not sure if she beats him up though. He got into quite a bit of trouble a couple of years ago due to cocaine and prostitutes. Actually It's just an excuse to post this potato-related picture:

It was AtJ's idea, http://www.deathlist.net/forums/index.php?...indpost&p=26544 Although a lot of others agreed to the idea. And there you have it. Hardly War, Famine, Pestilence and the other one, is it now Entropy?

What a marvellously concise language German is! Not a literal translation, I admit. But that's the closest I could get to the spirit of the thing.

My guess would be muzak.

To paraphrase, and not translate, Mr Heesters says that he visits the Oktoberfest every year, but this year did so from the start, and that he's the oldest visitor. Tricky, through the idiomatic use of 'Wiese', and I'm not sure about 'Anstich' either. Notapotato, what do you think? "Die Wiesn" or more properly "Die Theresienwiese" ("the (Theresa) meadow(s)") is the name of the place in Munich where the Oktoberfest is traditionally held. In September. By association the Oktoberfest is also referred to by Münchner as die Wiesn. "Der Anstich" is the traditional opening ceremony of the Oktoberfest when the Mayor of Munich comes along and hammers a tap into a beer cask then announces "o'zapft is!" (="I have just hammered a tap into a beer cask.") Oans, zwoa, drei, Gsuffa. Hope that helps.

What? Again?

In many European countries the ID card serves to prove that you are you, as opposed to anybody else. That is quite useful. It can also be used as a passport to visit certain other neighbouring countries. In fact the German one looks just like the photo page of your passport. I don't believe any of them have found it necessary to use biometrics yet in a big way or indeed at all. probably because they are not only completely unnecessary, but bloody expensive too.