LOL you got in a second before my pedantry.

:-)

"UK Home Secretary delays 1984 by a few years".

Reading; you're doing it wrong.

"Similarly, you can walk into a phone store, buy a cheap £20 phone + Pay as you go SIM, pay in cash again, and they'll have zero trace of who it was."

I think I'm right in saying that Spain has outlawed this practice. Now you have to be able to provide identity before you buy any mobile phone. This was supposedly in response to the train bombing a few years ago, where the bombs were detonated by phone.

I wouldn't be surprised if the UK follows. If it thinks that the public would protest at such measures, the government just needs to get MI5 to bomb something, and say it was Al Qaeda using cell-phones.

"Beware, of the porn you watch!!"

True. Even visiting BDSM sites like kink.com can result in a three-year prison term; that's the same sentence that a teen would receive if he robbed you using a weapon. You will also get placed on the Violent and Sex Offender Register, along with rapists and child molesters. That means you will likely loose your job, and not get another one. It probably means that you will get terrorised by vigilantes who think that you're a pedo.

When watching a consenting adult have her breasts whipped makes you a criminal, you know that you're entered bizarro-world..

"To sin by silence, when we should protest, Makes cowards out of men."

True, but if they are taking these measures to combat terrorism (or pedos), who is going to stand up and say they shouldn't?

I think this is apropos:

“…it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. … All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.” - Hermann Goering, founder of the Gestapo.

One plane?

I imagine that a dozen chrome-plated missiles should take care of it.

Didn't the government sanctioned monopolies come about because of a deal they did with the companies regarding the infrastructure?

Instead of paying for the infrastructure themselves, the government got the companies to pay for it, in return for a time-limited monopoly, in order for the telcos to be able to recoup their costs.

If that's the case, then TWC may actually win the case against Greenlight, because if the local government doesn't act to protect TWC's monopoly, TWC may turn around and say that the government has broken its contract, and demand compensation.

I really hope this wont happen, but you should never underestimate the power of corporations (just watch "The Corporation").

As I understand it, Greenlight is a community project, not a state project. It's TWC that is trying to get the government involved, in order to hobble Greenlight. And they will be lobbying HARD, because if Greenlight projects start multiplying, TWC (et al) will be waving goodbye to a large chunk of their their profits.

Down syndrome (or less commonly, Down's syndrome).

Named after John Langdon Down, the doctor who first described it.

The people behind AdBlockPlus need to start developing a brain add-on.