!

[lupestripe]

After all the talk about the BNP on Question Time last night and the bipolarity of opinion it has caused - on which I could write an entire treatise if I could be bothered - I would just like to say that I hate the exclaimation mark. It is a completely superfluous piece of punctuation and should be banned from the English language immediately.

Comments

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

Awww. I am quite fond of that particular punctuation mark.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

You bloody shouldn't be! :P

[simbab.livejournal.com]

I had never heard of the program(me) until everyone started talking about it as a result of this. I did, however, find this article about it interesting.

Even though he's probably right that it wouldn't work here in the U.S., I still would like to have a program like that on U.S. television. D:

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

It is one of the good things about the BBC and indeed a nice example of true accountability in action. The article is very interesting - I guess that's one of the diferences between the US and UK systems. I don't know - would the American electorate want such a show anyway?

[simbab.livejournal.com]

Sure they would, they like to see powerful people on the spot as much as you guys do. It's the politicians that would never, ever do such a thing.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

Why's that?

[simbab.livejournal.com]

Because it is as the author of the BBC article says, they are "astonishingly remote" from their electorate. It's ironic, this elite ruling class that we have here, seeing the whole reason we started this silly little country.

[simbab.livejournal.com]

Oh, and given our media, the questions would be really fucking retarded.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

That was the fear. Do you have an impartial based media source in the US?

[simbab.livejournal.com]

PBS is pretty close. It could be on PBS or NPR (radio) but they tend to be pretty quiet and subdued, they shy away from rowdy stuff.

PBS at least is funded by the CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) which is a public benefit corporation controlled by U.S. Congress. I doubt putting those same people on the spot is helpful to their need for funding.

[alfafox.livejournal.com]

I couldn't agree more!

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

Booooooooo!!

[kitsunefury.livejournal.com]

Great. Now everyone will speak in flat monotones, like we're from a bad porn film. :

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

"I'm here to fix the washing machine."

[silent-o.livejournal.com]

^^

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

How is your nono zone by the way *touches it*

[silent-o.livejournal.com]

Eek!

Cold paws!

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

Are you? Good, because I put my mobile phone in it the other week.

[silent-o.livejournal.com]

Can I watch while he "fixes" it? ;P

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

How will it affect speech? The exclaimation mark is a piece of written punctuation. English isn't tonal and written English doesn't express this.

[silent-o.livejournal.com]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:P

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

????????????????????????????

:P

[nidonocu.livejournal.com]

But how will Solid Snake know when he is discovered?

[salith.livejournal.com]

His radar will go on the fritz :)

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

What is Solid Snake? I don't like snakes - I don't think I want him to be discovered.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

Hmm something involving radar - so he is a technological slithery thing then?

[nidonocu.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_Snake o.o

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

I am still struggling to understand how the exclaimation mark fits in here.

[nidonocu.livejournal.com]

In the games, when Snake is discovered, a large ! appears above his head with a certain famous sound effect.
Here is Lucario in Super Smash Brothers Brawl finding Snake (who along with Sonic were Guest staring) while hiding during the story mode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqkwS30-4tw#t=1m

[silent-o.livejournal.com]

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=26

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=190

I'm Solid Snaking it in a bush! XD

[schnee.livejournal.com]

I agree!

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

I concord too!

[dark-raven-wolf.livejournal.com]

!but!..... !it's! the !only! way I can make !anything! I say seem !important!

!who!.. will !read! !me! !now!

I'LL HAVE TO RESORT TO SHOUTING EVERYTHING TO GET ATTENTION

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, good old shouting. Don't get me started on that... :P

[megadog.livejournal.com]

I don't like the BNP. Rather than being far-right [as the mainstream-media describe them] they're loathsomely far-Left.

Authoritarian. Centralist. Statist. Anti-free-market and Anti-free-movement-of-goods/people/services.

They're Fascists. Remember that Hitler and his acolytes were National Socialists.

Check out Political Compass for some background.

[Me? I'm very much a social-Darwinist Anarcho-Capitalist Libertarian!]

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

Indeed, I thought the same when reading their manfesto. Fundamentally unworkable pie-in-the-sky socialism. Almost as bad as the racism because it's so far extreme.