Happy Face

Taiwanese mobile phone maker HTC has filed a patent complaint against Apple, asking for the US sale of iPhones, iPads and iPods to be halted. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8664016.stm

I hear HTC are suing apple.

How many cards are people hauling about with them like? I've got 2 in my wallet. One for cash, one to get access to the building at work. It's hardly a lot of extra effort. No credit card, driving license, or HMV store card? I don't use credit cards for day to day purchases so tend not to keep one on me, nor my driving license. Store cards are the biggest scam since knee-cap finance got shut down.

How many cards are people hauling about with them like? I've got 2 in my wallet. One for cash, one to get access to the building at work. It's hardly a lot of extra effort.

Not that bizzarre - Conservatives are supposedly broadly libetarian and beleive in a smalll sate - no nanny govt etc. Apart from drugs of course when they can ride around on their moral high horse depends on how you broadly. post 9/11 and 7/7, i imagine most of the daily mail readers of middle england would be happy to see id cards I don't think they do. They'd prefer no ID cards and anyone darker than Dulux Mellow Mocha to be deported. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12...false-data.html

Full Report I knew China did an annual report on the US to highlight their hypocrisy....but it's taken over 2 months for me to find out this years has been released. Woefully under-reported in the West.

That's it? I thought he'd got up on the table and took a shit onto your notepad or something.

Why did they have a pop?

http://www.thelateshows.org.uk/home.html Includes.... http://www.thelateshows.org.uk/venues/2-ne...tball-club.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politic...010/8677088.stm

33 per cent clearly far more acceptable than a third for Leo and his editor.

I said earlier I wish them the best and i agree some of the bitterness towards the coalition is a bit strong. Not sure about your second sentence like. People expect it more than being happy about it. Poetic licence Wummery like that when peoples livlihood is at stake isn't really on. It's not like backing Ashley which people can laugh off a bit more easily.

PM: David Cameron Deputy PM: Nick Clegg Foreign Sec: William Hague Chancellor: George Osborne Business/banking: Vince Cable Defence: Liam Fox Health: Andrew Lansley Energy/Climate: Chris Huhne Justice Sec: Ken Clarke Home Sec: Theresa May Education: Michael Gove Chief Sec to Treasury: David Laws Scottish Sec: Danny Alexander Communities Sec: Eric Pickles Culture/Olympics: Jeremy Hunt Work and Pensions: Iain Duncan Smith Tory chair: Baroness Warsi http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politic...010/8675705.stm 83% Oxbridge according to Newsnight.

I said earlier I wish them the best and i agree some of the bitterness towards the coalition is a bit strong. Not sure about your second sentence like. People expect it more than being happy about it.

Over half (58%) of the public are dismayed that the public vote resulted in a hung parliament, compared to only 22% who don’t mind and nine percent who are delighted. However, this concern is still not a good enough reason to vote differently if we could vote again. When asked whether they would have voted differently had they known a hung parliament would be the result, very few respondents assented. A mere seven percent would have voted differently, while an overwhelming 85% insist they would still have voted for the same party. It seems that some of the disquiet surrounding the hung parliament result is due in part to the power it appeared to hand to Nick Clegg. In heading the party with the third largest share of the seats, the Lib Dem leader was effectively given the choice to side with either the Conservatives or Labour in order to form a majority, which gave him unprecedented clout in determining the election outcome. A sizeable 58% of the public think it was wrong that Clegg had this ability, compared to only 32% who thought this was acceptable. http://today.yougov.co.uk/politics/I-would...ted-differently

Im not sure how this whole thing works? If the plan is, as has been intimated, to reduce the losses year on year and break even in 5 years then how are people thinking we will be debt free? Seeing as we were £111m in debt to Ashley plus a £20m overdraft at the end of the 08/09 season and we allegedly lost £32.5m in 09/10 then that would put us currently £162.5m in debt. If the plan is to reduce the losses to £28m this coming season then we'll be £200m in the red. At the end of year 2 it'll be £222m, year 3 will be £238m and 4 about £245m, so by the time we break even we'll be sitting on a debt of around £250m. How is that financially stable? We'll not be debt free, we'll have bigger debts than those that took Portsmouth out however we could well be a league or two down on their position at the time. The only way the statements makes sense is that Ashley's going to keep bank rolling the club and we'll be spending a few million (up front) on transfers every season. If he didn't plan to loan the club any more money then it would be forced to break even immediately, not in 5 years....so he must plan to put more money in. If he doesn't plan to pay of any outstanding debt, then the club would break even immediately by default (£20m - £30m losses will be covered by Sky money), not in 5 years...so he must plan other expenses (player purchases). If that's the intent only Llambias could fuck it up to such a degree that it alienates 95% of the audience.

Interesting to see how this gets implemented.

£6479. Therefore overnight when they bring this in, everyone who is on the standard code (and earns £10k or more) will suddenly get an additional £3521 before ttheyre taxed or rather, will be better off by £704.20 per year. So I'm £58.68 a month better off straight away. People have told me VAT will go up to 20% to cover that, but I still think I'm better off. Say I spend £500 a month on products. I make that £425.53 on the goods and £425.53 on the VAT at 17.5%. 20% VAT on £425.53 means my spending is increased to £510.63 so I'm still better off. For my VAT spending to increase by £58.63 a month, I'd currently need to be spending over £2750 a month. Or is my working wrong.

£6479. Therefore overnight when they bring this in, everyone who is on the standard code (and earns £10k or more) will suddenly get an additional £3521 before ttheyre taxed or rather, will be better off by £704.20 per year. Thats a serious amount of money to suddenly lose from about £20m people. Unless my maths is out thats £14,000,000,000 per year. On top of that, werent the tories also going to reverse the decision to up NI by 1%? if thats the case then thats another £45 per person on that first £10k that wont be coming in (admittedly it isnt now but it was planned to be) so take another £900m just the coffers just for that £10k never mind all the earnings on top of that. I wonder where thats going to come from then? and thats before we even start to reduce the deficit. I looked into it this morning. The Lib Dems planned to pay for it as follows.... http://www.libdems.org.uk/siteFiles/resour...%20Document.pdf They saw the cost of the £10k threshold as 16.5Bn and the income from the above measures as 17.7Bn with 1.2Bn contingency.

This is the official position from the Lib Dem spokesperson on the Labour-Lib Dem talks, for what it's worth: "Key members of Labour's negotiating team gave every impression of wanting the process to fail and Labour made no attempt at all to agree a common approach with the Liberal Democrats on issues such as fairer schools funding for the most deprived pupils and taking those on low incomes out of tax. It became clear to the Liberal Democrats that certain key Labour cabinet ministers were determined to undermine any agreement by holding out on policy issues and suggesting that Labour would not deliver on proportional representation and might not marshal the votes to secure even the most modest form of electoral reform. It is clear that some people in the Labour Party see opposition as a more attractive alternative to the challenges of creating a progressive, reforming government, not least in the context of a Labour leadership election campaign." I'd imagine that's why Brown stayed in charge as long as he did. Labout could easily have won with someone else at the helm. Opposition will be a pretty sweet ride for a few years.

For the environments sake? Fuck that shit. It would have produced jobs and income. Indeed...but so will the nationwide network of charge points for electric vehicles.

For the environments sake?

I thought we were in a war.

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans Roger Ebert had it in his top 10 for 2009 and his best of the decade (it came out in the US ages ago). I wouldn't go that far personally, but it's pretty damn entertaining. Werner Herzog doesn't often get this much money to spend on a film so he largley plays it safe with a formulaic crime drama, but the moments where he breaks away stick out a mile and make for some of the most enjoyable moments I've had in a packed out mainstream cinema screening (I kept getting digged in the ribs for laughing too loud while the place seemed to be stone silent)....the number of people walking out in disgust only made it more enjoyable for me. The distended moment where he stares out the Iguanas, the dead gangster breakdancing (to the music Herzog used before at the end of Stroszek where the chicken dances for change), when he threatens the life of an octogenarian, the piss take of a . Worth twice the admission fee, if you like films to laugh in the face of convention.

It's not just Longbenton. I work in the private sector in Silverlink...but if Long Bent One lost a lot of work me and my co-workers would almost certainly be out of a job too.