October 2008 Archives

I'm a big fan of the BBC show Spooks. A&E aired? airs? it in the US as MI-5 but it was always a cut-down chopped-up version made to fit in US timeslots, so I've never really watched it that way.

For me, I wait until a given season is available on DVD in the UK, and then buy the DVD set, and import it into the US so I can watch it then. Historically, how this is worked is that I see on the BBC web site (here) that there's a new season in the works, and then I start looking at UK DVD retailers a few months later to see if there's a release date for the DVD set.

Having just received my Season 6 DVDs a few days ago, I decided to check in on Season 7. After all, by the time one season makes it to DVD, the next season is usually in production. That rule seems to apply the same both here and in the UK.

However, when I go to the BBC homepage for spooks, I'm instead redirected to http://www.bbc.co.uk/spooks/nonuk.shtml, which tells me:

THIS CONTENT IS ONLY AVAILABLE TO UK RESIDENTS

I feel like the Weekend Update folks from SNL. I just want to babble "SERIOUSLY?!!?" over and over at them. They have decided that I, as a non-UK citizen, aren't even allowed to know about the show. No, if I want information about Spooks, I've got to hope Wikipedia and the DVD retailers can keep me up to date.

It's not as though this is something based on them having sold the rights to a US broadcaster, because the Doctor Who website is alive and well for non-UK viewers.

It really does boggle the mind how much the BBC just "doesn't get it" when it comes to the web....

UPDATE: Dan Taylor from the BBC noted in the comments that they've fixed the problem. Well done and thanks!

I was listening to NPR this morning, and they were discussing the candidates "economic reform plans" and how they've recently revised them in preparation for tonight's debate, where they'll surely come up.

You hear McCain in a sound bite talking about lowering the Capital Gains tax to try and stimulate investment in companies, etc., etc.

And then they go to a sound bite of Obama saying, and I "quote/paraphrase", that he doesn't know anyone who's had gains in this down economy, and that because of that, frankly, a capital gains tax decrease is useless.

Barack, you fucking moron.

The point isn't "who's had gains so far", the point of a capital gains decrease is to increase the incentive to potential investors, who may be understandably skittish about putting money in the market now. The point is to make it more attractive for people to get in now in what could be described as a "buying opportunity", while the market is low. Putting that money into the market now, would shore up the equities market, improving the economy.

That Obama doesn't "get" that fundamental concept, and just sees it as a "tax cut for people who don't need it", tells me that Obama is just as fundamentally stupid on economics as McCain showed himself to be with that crazy "let's buy up all the failing mortgages with your tax dollars" idea he pulled out of his ass at the second debate.

Whichever one you pick, America, they're going to drive you into ruin, it's just a matter of which road they take to get you there.

Bob Barr's my man, I tell you. Since Ron Paul didn't do an independent run.

So, it's a crowded morning train. You're lucky to get one seat, let alone get a pair of seats by yourself.

But when you're the annoying woman who's sitting in a four-seat (two facing two), and you've filled the seat next to you with your bag, have your feet propped up across from you, and have intentionally placed your "read" newspaper sections on the seat diagonally across from you? You have absolutely no pity coming to you, whatsoever.

And this is why, as I sit in the seat that I made her take her newspaper sections off of, while her feet remain propped up on the seat next to me, that I felt no compunction whatsoever about plopping my briefcase on top of hers. :-)

Bitch.