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I got off on the wrong foot with Leatherjack due to my desire never to see Mary Whitehouse.  Even a clone of her.  Even in a comic.  Even as the baddie.  I just don't want to see her.

Same goes for Thatcher (robo-PM in Robo-Hunter:  Football Crazy - I think) and Reagan (Strontium Dog: Bitch).

Funnily enough, I don't mind Hitler being portrayed (Strontium Dog: The Schicklegruber Grab).

[This post sponsored by Threaderjack]

It has had a slow, dialogue-driven build-up, that's for sure.

In doing so, the writer's fleshed out a lot of the characters (not just Jack).

I liken it to the effect of Lord of the Rings (the books).  You have to plough through a lot of words to get to the action, but then by the time you've done that you've invested considerable time and energy in getting to know the characters, and thus their peril is all the more personal.

I like that the writer is trying to add depth to the characters, unlike, say, Dante, who's become a sort of charicature of himself.

Mind you, the whole tension between him and Jena was so strong that, once it was removed, everything else just seems like filler (to me).

This is your big chance to change your moniker to Doggy Carrots.

The laxatron?

The original JD RPG had a hypno-shot, which was a modified heatseeker that (somehow) gently injected it's target with magic sleepy-powder instead of blowing their brains out of the back of their disintegrating skull.

Come to think of it, you could have standard rounds deliver all sorts of drugs to the victim:

"Pacifier" - gets them instantly hugely stoned.  They can't be bothered to fight, and begin to look forward to a little downtime in a cube.

"Twister" - injects 100 times the 'normal' dose of LSD.  What is a gun?  Is that my blood?  How long have I been here?  What is time?

"Para" - refined speed psychosis, acts in seconds.  Victim becomes convinced that you're shooting at them for personal reasons.

"Ecstasofier" - suddenly that alien monstrosity loves you, like, in a totally plutonic way, despite you having just blown a hole in his kneecap, man.

Maybe by that time Max will be nuclear powered, and small nations will tremble in fear on curry night.

Self-lacing jogging shoes, care of Abelard Snazz, The Two-Storey Brain!

It's an interesting perversion of solar power that just about everyone assumes that in order to use it you must go out, buy it and fit it.

That's not the case with coal, oil, gas, nuclear, wind or tidal energy, so why does it have to be the case with solar?

The government should look at creating solar farms (possibly on the same sites as wind-farms), use solar-tech in their council buildings and provide subsidies for private companies building new housing schemes to incorporate solar-tech in their constructions.

It shouldn't be up to individuals to go to Solar Panel World (just as you wouldn't install a mini-nuclear reactor in your garden shed, unless you were The Mekon).

The exhorbitant costs you mention are for private buyers, not the government.  That would be the same government that spends a considerable amount of money on nuclear bombs and other things that provide fuck all in return.

"where I get my information from"

Well, you know - my brain - with all it's faults and tics.  Aye, of course, they only start up once.  I heard on the news someone going on about the CO2 released in some associated process that is required for the plant to run at all.  Unfortunately, that's all I remember, so I just spouted something similar in order to back up my opinion.

Not sure about this business of solar panels being too expensive.  They probably are too expensive for you or I to purchase, but then so's a nuclear power station.  And a broken solar panel isn't going to irradiate the neighbourhood.

What we really need is one of those giant sun-powered lasers that can destroy cities, like wot baddies in Bond movies use.  We could use that to heat up the gulf stream, boil potatoes, warm up my car in the morning...

There are a few points I'm not clear on in this debate.

-Nuclear is cleaner/safer etc than it was n years ago.

Is it?  And to what degree?  For example, it may be that it produces 90% of the waste that it did.  That's not much of a reduction.  I don't know the actual figures.  We may have the technology to make it safer, but if a private company is looking after things, then their main concern will be profit, not safety.  Look at the rail companies.  They cut back on safety, people die and they get rewarded for this by the government, who then subsidises them with more money.  No company manager is ever brought to book.  Why should a private nuclear power company behave differently?  And the cost of a disaster could be the abandonment of a city for a very long time indeed, as opposed to a quickly repaired rail terminal.

- Technologies such as wind/solar/wave aren't ready to cope.

Again, aren't they?  What would be involved in getting them ready?  I don't know the facts here, either.  I just wonder if nuclear (tried and tested) is more favourable for the business community, who then hire scientists to back up their desires with some facts.  Like the govnt. did before invading Iraq (which has worked out well).

JEB, I totally respect that argument.

It's the bullshit the government is trotting out that I object to.  (Stuff like 'it's totally clean', when it's not, because there are subsidiary carbon-emissions from prepping the fuel and switching the things on and so on.  Oh, and the corker about Chernobyl being the only nuclear disaster ever and not being all that bad really:  conveniantly forgetting about 3-mile Island, Windscale and the fact that Chernobyl still isn't a very safe place.)

I'm bewildered that people appear to be falling for New Labour's New Argument about New Nuclear.

Oh yes, if you thought you could complain about the still-present dangers of nuclear power, the past disasters, the unknown health effects, the subsidiary carbon emissions, the exhorbitant costs and the small matter of all that nuclear waste then you'll find yourself berated by New People for having an Old Brain and using Old Arguments.

Didn't you know that logic has a shelf-life?  I bet you're one of those Appeasers of Terror, as well, aren't you?

This post sponsored by New Labour:  Washing Lies Whiter Than The Next Leading Brand.

A perverted fossil, yesterday...

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41052000/jpg/_41052876_paulpa.jpg" />

Tell you what - Alpha doesn't use the camera in his helmet much, these days.

Didn't occur to me either until I saw these photos.

"Johnny's Helmet"

:)