Running Great Britain? There's an App For That! 165
judgecorp writes "Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron will get a personalised iPad app to help him run the country. The 'government dashboard' will include health waiting list figures, crime statistics, economic statistics and a real-time news feed. Cameron is a committed Apple user — but British members of Parliament have only been allowed iPads in the House of Commons since March 2011."
Lies! (Score:5, Funny)
Angry Birds will be running the country.
Re:Lies! (Score:4, Funny)
But Harriet Harman is still in the Opposition!
Oh yes, obscure politics pun-based joke. I went there.
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Ann Widdecombe may have officially retired from politics, but who's to say she's not pulling strings in the background?
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... Angry Birds ...
I didn't know that Her Royal Baroness Thatcher was willing to come back out of retirement from politics.
. . . add to her Fergie, Duchess of York, Camilla Parker Bowles, Duchess of Cornwall, and Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, and there you have your angry birds to govern Great Britain.
I personally think that the ideal government to run Great Britain would consist of Pippa Middleton's hot buns.
Re:Lies! (Score:5, Funny)
I guess by county they mean America.
The bad piggies are running the country now! They seem to have an irrational fear of airborne suicide bombers.
Anybody else read the title... (Score:5, Funny)
as "Ruining Great Britain"?
Re:Anybody else read the title... (Score:5, Funny)
He doesn't need an iDevice to do that
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Technically true, but he would get inferior experience by observing the country without the "Retina Display". Also, the "Send economy down the drain" one-click functionality would be missing as it's patented by Apple.
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The iPad doesn't have a retina display, only the iPhone 4/4s
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See, here's the thing. I'm American, and while I keep somewhat in touch with world events, I don't know how Britain's doing, politically. Don't know how Germany, or France, or Australia, or Uzbekistan or Liberia or Kosovo are doing. I know, vaguely, that there's some electoral shit going down in Russia re: Putin, I know there's shit going down in Korea with Kim III succeeding Kim II, and I think there's still general economic problems in much of Europe, but I don't know specifics. I could probably find out,
What are you waiting for, Anonymous? (Score:4, Funny)
Why is a native client needed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop making apps for the sake of making an app. If the solution doesn't require any specific equipment on the device, just write make it a website.
Re:Why is a native client needed? (Score:4, Informative)
But... but... Apps! In the Cloud! On iPads! Using social media! Web 2.0, man!
How else are the Tories ever supposed to convince us that they either know or care one whit about the general populace?!
Re:Why is a native client needed? (Score:4, Funny)
Stop making apps for the sake of making an app. If the solution doesn't require any specific equipment on the device, just write make it a website.
A wwebsite as on the internet?
Is that you, Paul?
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An app is an Objective-C equivalent of a website, with an additional touch: it gives the opportunity to Apple to fetch a few dollars in the process. It is also hugely convenient for them because they don't have so spend money on fixing their browser so it work properly on their devices. It's "win-win" with Apple being on both side of the dash.
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Wow, it's rare to see a comment that is this clueless.
No, "app" is short for "application". The concept has been around for a long time, it certainly predates the web. Native apps aren't the equivalent of websites. They are fundamentally different things. Apps aren't the shoddy knock-offs of websites you seem to think they are.
When Apple first launched the iPhone, they didn't include an SDK for native applications and wanted everybody to use web a
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Wow, it's rare to see a comment that is this clueless.
No, "app" is short for "application". The concept has been around for a long time, it certainly predates the web. Native apps aren't the equivalent of websites. They are fundamentally different things. Apps aren't the shoddy knock-offs of websites you seem to think they are.
In theory, I would agree. In practice, most of the "apps" are features already available on a website. I'm not talking angry birds, but tell me exactly what is "fundamentally" different between the CNN app and the CNN website, or the eBay app and the eBay website, or the Groupon app and the Groupon website (etc.). Nothing.
When Apple first launched the iPhone, they didn't include an SDK for native applications and wanted everybody to use web applications instead. Mobile Safari was a huge leap forward - at the time, most mobile browsers were junk that couldn't render normal websites. It doesn't need "fixing" so that it "works properly" - this is simply delusional. It's been ahead of the pack from day one.
Native iOS applications came about because there was a strong demand for them. Apple didn't push them on anybody, and they certainly didn't do it at the expense of Mobile Safari - they have continued to improve it including adding new features that would ordinarily require native applications (e.g. geolocation). Apple have clearly, inarguably invested in Mobile Safari, and your entire opinion is utterly backwards.
I can't accuse you of being paid by Apple to promote their products, because it is a well-known fact that only Microsoft is doing that (at least on Slashdot). However, I would politely poi
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I've just done a quick spot check of the iTunes Store front page, the top charts, and my devices. You are way off base. There are certainly some applications that are redundant with a website, but it's certainly not a majority. Right now, the iTunes Store front page for the UK is showing things like Infinity Blade 2, djay and Grand Theft Auto 3. The charts show FIFA, Scrabble, Garage Band, Skype, etc. The number of apps th
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The simple fact of the matter is that the comment I was responding to was utterly clueless and as an iOS developer I am in a position to say exactly why it was so clueless. Whining about "bias" when you can't give reasons as to why I am wrong does not move the conversation forward in any way.
So saying that a comment is *clueless* is helping to move the conversation forward... because you consider that you are in a position to say it?
Are you a woman?
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When that comment is clueless and I explain why in detail? Yes, that's a valuable comment. A very wrong opinion ceases to misinform people.
Why the sudden sexism?
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When that comment is clueless and I explain why in detail? Yes, that's a valuable comment. A very wrong opinion ceases to misinform people.
You did not "explain" why the comment was clueless, you simply gave your opinion which happens to be different from mine. Putting a label such as "clueless" on an opinion is childish and is a very good way to ensure that the discussion takes a suboptimal direction (like it did).
Why the sudden sexism?
Asking if someone is a woman is not sexist. This being said - from your answer I guess you are not a woman, but you have been raised by one.
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It doesn't need "fixing" so that it "works properly" - this is simply delusional.
But it sure would be nice if they could make it scan the CSS for @media rules appropriate for the actual screen size before telling the browser to assume it's 960px wide, and without requiring me to add non-standard meta tags.
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It's not as simple as you are making out, but yes, there are better heuristics they could use these days. That heuristic was designed when virtually nobody used CSS media queries and virtually no software supported them. In those cases, it works quite well to get websites designed for typical desktop resolutions to display on small screens. As media queries become more popular, you may well see this heuristic change.
Re:Why is a native client needed? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why is a native client needed? (Score:5, Informative)
NHS waiting list statistics: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Statistics/Performancedataandstatistics/HospitalWaitingTimesandListStatistics/index.htm [dh.gov.uk]
Crime statistics: http://www.police.uk/ [police.uk]
Unemployment: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/labour-market/people-not-in-work/unemployment [statistics.gov.uk]
Re:Why is a native client needed? (Score:5, Interesting)
Having stats like this available is great, but the problem is the figures don't match reality. As a contractor that worked on a system to log crime for the UK police force for several years, it became apparent that one of the goals of the system was to allow "adjustment" of what is a serious crime or a minor offence.
Want to change the crime rate? Simply update the category for various offences until the target rate is achieved, report to media. Everybody wins ;-)
Peace,
Andy.
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I strongly suspect those will be the stats Cameron will be using anyway, alas.
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No one with any sense takes the police recorded crime statistics to mean anything at all. The ONS British Crime Survey is the quality measure of crime trends.
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The news report I read on this a couple of days ago said that a general release is planned. In other words, Dave just gets to beta-test it.
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websites, and "cloud computing" require a constant internet connection. Apps don't, they can actually do useful work any time.
Custom-developed app (Score:5, Interesting)
"Cabinet Office developers are currently building the customised iPad app so the Prime Minister can remain abreast of government business . . . is expected to be ready by March."
I'd love to work for the government contractor that got that contract. As if the MPs expenses scandal wasn't bad enough, now we're bankrolling the Prime Minister's iTunes account.
"The app will essentially act as a government dashboard, providing the Prime Minister with all the latest information from across Whitehall – including the latest NHS waiting-list figures, crime statistics, unemployment numbers, and a wide variety of other data – at a glance."
I just hope that we, the taxpayers who are paying for this development work, will get a version of the app that we can use ourselves. It's fine if they scrub out the sensitive internal government data that it's (hopefully) tracking, but a sanitised version appropriate for public consumption would still be quite useful. I'd be interested to know things like crime and unemployment statistics, which can then be used to judge how well the Conservative government is actually doing.
please make nuke feature password protected :) (Score:2)
an "oops" after a baby picks up the ipad would be really bad :p
Will the app be on the app store? (Score:2)
And if not, one is compelled to wonder how they are getting their app onto a device that *ISN'T* on the app store...
Is their iPad jailbroken?
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Will the app be on the app store? (Score:5, Informative)
Someone else has already mentioned dev accounts, but it's also possible to run an enterprise app store. Perhaps not worth it for just one iPad but I wouldn't be surprised if that's the way they go since it will be seen as the proper approach.
Re:Will the app be on the app store? (Score:4, Informative)
$3000 for the enterprise dev license to load apps directly on your organization's idevices without the app store. apple even has a tool for IT drones to do it automatically
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apple even has a tool for IT drones to do it automatically
With helpful information like this, I can't imagine why people call Apple fans elitist douche-bags.
Been there... (Score:4, Insightful)
Chile, 1971: http://davidszondy.com/future/Dystopias/project_cybersyn.htm [davidszondy.com]
Re:Been there... (Score:4, Interesting)
Let me get this straight. Your (I am assuming that is your site?) criticism of Cybersyn was that it was too ambitious to work, but then the only example of it in action you can come up with is when it *did* work?
Also, the idea that you can't control anything that features a time lag is absolutely laughable. Talk to an engineer for fucks sake. Or better still, take a ride in an aeroplane that has a functioning autopilot and notice how you aren't tossed around like you are in a washing machine...
What with iPads stories today? (Score:3)
Product placement much?
Better idea (Score:5, Funny)
Just put him to playing Civilization or the like, and tell him he's running the country.
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The press conference where he informs the country that their settlers were attacked by Indian spearmen would be golden.
Yeah, you've got to make sure to tell all the ministers what's going on, so there won't be an embarrassed silence when he asks the Minister of Defense why they can't seem to make progress in the war with the Aztecs.
Cameron test run (Score:2)
See here is the problem with modern government (Score:5, Insightful)
While your country is in a rescission, your people are in the streets protesting, and having to budget for a simple can of beans what does the government do?
Buy the most expensive, most shiny status symbol toy cause they cant be bothered to check their fucking email at their desk.
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While your country is in a rescission, your people are in the streets protesting, and having to budget for a simple can of beans what does the government do?
Buy the most expensive, most shiny status symbol toy cause they cant be bothered to check their fucking email at their desk.
Yes, if only the UK had that $500 back, they could balance the budget.
Re:See here is the problem with modern government (Score:4, Insightful)
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Also, if it's a government ontract that automatically adds a 10x multiplier to software costs.
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"secure government contract" since it's for the PMO. 20x the cost.
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While your country is in a rescission...
Those damn Recsissions [wikipedia.org]
iTechnocrat (Score:2)
The drill-down on that dashboard will be awesome.
Each Monday:
1) Click on Crime Stats
2) Drill-down by city
3) Drill-down by street
4) Sort by count, in descending order
5) Send a black ops team to deal with the top 10 addresses
As an alternative, the data could be plugged in Google maps and the info sent to a UAV.
What would Edwin Black say? (Score:2)
This seems more user friendly than using punch cards.
Not just iPads (Score:5, Informative)
I have no idea why the summary says MPs are only allowed iPads in the House of Commons. Members are allowed to use smartphones or tablet computers, there are no brand restrictions placed upon them.
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You read it wrong. The "only" refers to the date (March 2011) when they were allowed to use them, not to the iPads.
Cameron's Game (Score:2)
I wonder if he knows he's actually running the country.
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It's called SimCity. And yes, politicians really do think running a city, state, or nation is just a game by their attitude towards us.
Damn, you beat me to it...
I was gonna say, anyone else's first thought was the control panel for SimCity?
-AI
From PM of Great Britain to Orangutans... (Score:2)
Apple really has the market sewn up!
Unless, of course, Cameron's just getting the same App as the Orangutans. If the App is made to run Great Britain remotely, would they be better off if they let the Orangutans run it? Would they even know the difference?
Only If Approve For Sale at the Apple App Store (Score:2)
Of course, all decisions made on the device are subject to the approval of Apple Inc, which will receive a processing fee.
Apple's first step towards world dominance (Score:2)
We all knew that Apple was planning something evil, and this is the start of it. Once they can get the majority of the world's leaders to become reliant on their apps and devices, they can influence their decisions however they please, thus gaining control over the world. And noone will try to stop them, as all the sheeple just laugh at me when I try to explain it to them!
And it's called.... (Score:2)
Lemmings.
Great old game.
Yes minster had it right (Score:2)
Sir Humphrey: Well briefly sir I am the Permanent Undersecretary of State known as the Permanent Secretary, Wooley here is your Principle Private Secretary I too have a Principle Private Secretary, and he is the Principle Private Secretary to the Permanent Secretary, directly responsible to me are ten Deputy Secretaries, eighty-seven Undersecretaries and two hundred and nineteen assistant secretaries, directly responsible to the Principle Private Secr
Cool! (Score:2)
Not that bad (Score:2)
At first, the wording of TFS caused me a negative reaction: I think that (with the exception of emergencies) a PM should not be worried with real time data, but more with historical tendencies (because every decission from such PM would take some time to cause effects, and cause effects through a long time).
But, after thinking about it, it can be useful if it is provided also to MPs. Nowadays, if during a debate someone says somehing like "the unemployment in my district has never been higher", the only way
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Looks like "Dave" has a new tool to replace the old one (Nick Clegg)
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Don't worry, Dave needs Clegg. It's not as if he managed to push through a Bill which fixes parliaments at 5 years and requires a majority of 2/3 to call an early election. Combine this with New Labour's Abolition of Justice 2003 and Castration of Parliament 2006 acts and I begin to wonder why Westminster hasn't been turned into luxury flats. 99 in every 100 pieces of legislation are already written by government with only a few dozen Acts per year actually resulting from Bills passed through Parliament. Th
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99 in every 100 pieces of legislation are already written by government with only a few dozen Acts per year actually resulting from Bills passed through Parliament.
Don't forget that 80 of those 99 are written by the EU and just rubber-stamped in Parliament.
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The ECHR may, or may not, be "vague and littered with exceptions", but it does not come from the EU - it's the product of the Council of Europe, which was formed in 1949, and of which the UK is a founder member.
There are two, quite distinct, legal Europes - the European Union, and the Council of Europe.
The EU has 27 members, the CoE has 47.
The EU court is the Court of Justice of the European Union, which sits in Luxembourg.
The CoE's court, the European Court of Human Rights, sits in Strasbourg.
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"On the contrary" to what? Everything I wrote is totally, 100%, correct.
Anyway, the only substantive changes the HRA made were (a) to allow the pleading of Convention rights cases in the UK courts (rather than pursuing them in Luxembourg), and (b) to require the UK judiciary to take Convention rights, and ECtHR jurisprudence, into account in reaching their judgements.
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Let's see some citations for this. I'm very tired of Europhobes banging on about how the EU has ruined the country when I'm yet to see a serious problem that cannot easily be attributed elsewhere e.g. poor banking regulation. The HRA is the favourite bogeyman of Europhobes. Please also give a list of the rights that you think people covered by UK law should not have.
Re:Tory party is a collection of special interests (Score:5, Interesting)
Politicians are hypocritical! Shock horror.
I'm in Scotland and we've got the Nationals in 'power' at the moment (we get Education, Health, Income Tax, Law and some others, but money and legislation on Power, Defence, Foreign Policy etc. comes from Westminster). There will be an Independence referendum in the next year or so and I'm still undecided myself which way I'll vote. There are pros and cons for each side. The biggest Pro would be finally kicking the Tories out of Scotland.
Sure, they got that bit of the Borders, but there's about 10 people living there and half of them are English. Ofcourse, then we're left with Labour as our most right-wing party of note, since our National Party are about as left as the Liberals.
The biggest Con would be keeping our economy working. Especially with the way Europe is at the moment (and no amount of increased trade with Norway will counter that).
What I'm scared of is that I don't know enough to make an informed choice. And that people in general have lost faith in politics in a broad sense because they feel they don't know enough, and don't CARE enough to find out. They just trust that each party is pretty much the same as the other ones and just vote for the person that shouts the loudest at them.
Here in Scotland we have Holyrood, who defer to Westminster for certain issues, who defer to the EU on top of that. I know here we have three systems to worry about, and three Elections to vote in. We vote in MSPs, MPs and MEPs. Each parliament is so monolithic and entwined in their own red tape that the general population don't know what each one of them *really* does, and who controls what and are so fatigued by it that voter turnout for the last Scottish Election was 50%. Half the people in Scotland didn't turn up to vote.
It's 2am here. I'm rambling. Hopefully some of it made sense :P
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I'm not from Scotland or even UK, but if I were a Scot I'd vote for independence on the grounds of getting that intermediate Westminster layer out of the game; the presence of that only makes the UK government (the Tories for now...) present the de facto English opinion in Council of Ministers and in European Council as the opinion of the whole UK. If you'd become independence you'd get your ow
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You forget if Scotland leaves the UK it will no longer have any agreements with the EU. While I'm sure trade agreements could be forged during the exit I strongly doubt the EU would let any country in to the EU at this tim
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Let me help you.
First I should declare an interest: I am English.
First of all, your pro is erroneous. There would still be a Scottish Conservative party (perhaps not known by the same name), but they are already a spent political force and that's what counts.
The cons are very real, however. The Scottish economy would be dealt a huge blow. Yes, you have the oil, but that won't last forever. What's left of your shipbuilding industry would disappear since it mostly does work for the Royal Navy. Come to t
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All MoD bases in Scotland will have to be closed down and moved, I'm sure there will be a transfer of Scottish solders but the knock on effect to the economy will be huge. I imagine most of the bases could be transferred to Wales. With purely Scottish regiments remaining.
Devonport Dockyard is the only commercially viable shipyard in the UK, Babcock Marine have been trying to damage that but the others only exist because of the work the MoD gives them. Ever si
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When I meet people who sing praises for the EU I note that they invariably have little idea of the directives and regulations it has actually imposed on its member states.
I have to work routinely within directives and regulations "imposed" by the EU, and although I recognise that they are not perfect they have led to an overall improvement across Europe in the relevant field. So you can delete that "invariably".
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" while one of the most stable democracies in the world self-terminates."
HUH? I never though you people cared about the United States.
Or is your goverment full of assholes, ingrates, and scumbags like ours?
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Like you wouldn't believe. We have TWO laws which can rewrite the constitution without any debate in Parliament... thanks to Blair.
We are roughly in the constitutional state of soon-to-be-Nazi Germany.
Luckily, the current administration is unlikely to abolish elections and Blair's party, under a new leader, doesn't seem likely to get in.
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what, the UK only has one party like that? Hell, we have TWO! we're fucked either way! Gawd Blezz the Yewnited Corprit Bee-Yatch States of Merica!
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what, the UK only has one party like that? Hell, we have TWO! we're fucked either way! Gawd Blezz the Yewnited Corprit Bee-Yatch States of Merica!
thank fuck we have another choice in Scotland... the SNP
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... who wants you to declare independence and try to be seen as a Nordic country. [presstv.ir]
Not that that would necessarily be a bad thing... ;)
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'... who wants you to declare independence and try to be seen as a Nordic country.'
This probably just means Alex Salmond has given his 'Braveheart' DVD a rest and got hooked by 'The Killing' like the rest of us:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_(Danish_TV_series)#UK_success [wikipedia.org]
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Well, there is an element of truth to it. When talking about Icelandic with people, I've frequently found myself making references such as, "... kind of like the Scottish word (blank)". Many of the settlers of Iceland came from viking settlements in Scotland and Ireland.
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Eh, pot smoking in Iceland doesn't seem any more common than anywhere else. But yeah, the sweater thing (lopapeysur) is pretty spot on -- you could have added "$80-200" to the list of descriptors as well ;) Hagkaup (common chain of Icelandic grocery stores) even has an entire (sizeable) lopi yarn section. You can have your choice from dozens of types of lopi but can't buy headache medicine there ;)
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increasing rates of approval all the time
independence getting higher % of the polls each time
Also what's wrong with drawing parallels between Scotland and Norway?
Norway has roughly similar population , slightly less oil/gas reserves and is also due to it's "national oil fund" coasting easily through this recession as it has over 300 billions in the bank to help it....
Re:Obama's Ipad (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Obama's Ipad (Score:4, Insightful)
It's really hard to identify when any president is really on vacation. Obama doubtless golfs with people he needs to talk to and discusses business just like GWB used to host foreign leaders at his ranch in Texas. Neither one is a vacation or 'just' a golf game in my book but each's political opponents count them as goof off time.
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You seriously don't think your average Tea Party/GOP'er can count do you?
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Here is a bit from CBS
predecessors? CBS Radio's Mark Knoller has kept track of presidential vacations for years and supplied the data.
So far, President Obama has taken 61 vacation days after 31 months in office. At this point in their presidencies, George W. Bush had spent 180 days at his ranch where his staff often joined him for meetings. And Ronald Reagan had taken 112 vacation days at his ranch.
Re:Obama's Ipad (Score:4, Interesting)
This whole app sounds like a modern rip-off of Salvador Allende's star-trek-ish [wikipedia.org] proto-internet, Cybersyn [guardian.co.uk]
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Well, the goal was a socialism-inspired production/distribution management system. Just like how DARPA had no clue what the internet could become, neither did Allende's people. But what they created clearly was headed down a direction that likewise could have led to not only the internet, but instant, true (non-representative) democracy. An awesome system.
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Actually they are underselling. Cameron is prime minister of the United Kingdom, not just Great Britain.
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Postscript, being a Turing Complete language, would seem to violate the "no interpreters" rule.
Re:waiting list figures (Score:4, Insightful)
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