SteveThaiBinh

Pneumonia + heart surgery. It was a surprise, though - apparently he appeared to be recovering well. Was a pre-recorded Countdown broadcast today? (I don't have a TV)

Should we warn this guy to be on the lookout for stalkers?

I just started reading Wide Sargasso Sea. It's looking very good so far, and shouldn't take long to finish.

Lance Hawk - a name that screams 'porn star'

I like it as a game, less so as a mini-game within an RPG. I usually have a saved game somewhere in a cantina, and sometimes I go into the game purely to play Pazaak - as a fun alternative to Windows solitaire. When I'm playing Kotor 2 proper, I tend to avoid the pazaak games, except the one of Telos which is part of a side-quest.

Finals and exams were mentioned. People who have finals and exams also often have long summer holidays. But really, any time between September and forever is possible. I voted December, ready for the Christmas season.

And a cookie to EnderWiggin. :D I really didn't think anyone would get that.

I liked him, and the programme. Countdown was always on when I got home from school - the music became a trigger for the 'school is finally over' feeling. I wonder if they'll keep showing the pre-recorded ones this week.

As I said, there is a law which allows religious organisation to be 'officially recognised' - 'officially registered' might be a better way of putting it. There's no law and no way for a religion (the belief system itself) to be recognised. Not a contradiction at all. [quote name='Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary' date='

So it's only there as a code for purposes of internal data processing. Even if the government did officially recognise religions (which it doesn't), that wouldn't count as recognition, I think.

I wasn't in the country for the 2001 census, so I didn't fill it in. A quick look at the Census 2001 website has the forms, and Jedi doesn't appear as an option (page 6). Are these samples inaccurate, or did people just write "Jedi" in the space below? http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/pdfs/H1.pdf

The International League of Linguistic Pedants is older than you know, and we have eyes everywhere. :ph34r:

The census has nothing to do with recognising religion. That's not its purpose. The purpose of the census (in this regard) is to allow people to state their religion, enabling the government to count and locate people of certain religions and plan accordingly. You're making the leap from 'the government has written the word Jedi on an official document' to 'the government recognises Jedi as an official religion'. That's not how it works, in the UK at least. The presence of the word Jedi on the census means that the government recognises that there are a significant number of people who wish to declare themselves Jedi on the census. No more, no less. There is a quite separate legal procedure for registering officially as a religious organisation. No Jedi religious organisation has followed that procedure and been granted recognition. I think the problem is that you're talking about the government 'recognising a religion', which is something that doesn't have any meaning in UK law. So we're getting it confused with the law on recognising religious organisations, and going round and round in circles.

California doesn't count - in so many ways, the geographical being the least of them. Not registered in England (the UK, I think you mean). Ticking the Jedi box on the census is not the same as registering with a religious organisation - especially as no such organisation exists in the UK, at least to my knowledge. I can't say I have an exhaustive knowledge of the procedure for registering as a religion, but I suspect that if a Jedi Academy were to open in the UK and were able to demonstrate that it was more serious than just a couple of obsessed fans having a laugh, they would be able to register as an official religion. God help us. Edit: To register as an officially recognised religious organisation, I should have said - Reveilled is correct to make the distinction.

Nobody actually practises this religion. Who or what would the government recognise? If people really believe in the Force, let them organise a religion around it and then apply for official status. I'm sure the government would recognise it then...

The petition is less about fixing Kotor 2 and more about fixing Kotor 3 and other future LucasArts games. In the beginning, maybe there was some hope they would release a proper content patch, but Obsidian told us fairly early on that wouldn't happen, so now it's just about conveying consumer dissatisfaction for future reference.

Just a joke - something teachers used to say, but I guess not so much any more.

I don't think that just having lots of names on the census is enough to confer official status. You would need to have practicing Jedi 'priests' make a formal application for official status, I suppose. If there are such people, I'm sure we would have heard about them by now. George Lucas would probably be suing them for copyright infringement. I found a news article about it here.

Well, I hope you brought enough for everyone!

Lots of people did in fact put down Jedi as their religion, though the census-takers claim these are still useful data as it reveals the growing disenchantment with organised religion and a tendency to look for new age solutions, as well as the power of the internet to organise large practical jokes. However, the UK government doesn't recognise Jedi as an official religion.

I thought the tenth planet was called Rupert.

Apart from Northerners, Londoners, Geordies, Scousers, people in the Westcountry or East Anglia, Southerners, and not forgetting the Queen (Have you heard her vowel sounds? What language is that?) Maths is completely useless except for planning your monthly expenditures, calculating your mortgage repayments, working out how long it will take you to drive somewhere, understanding politicians when they use statistics to fool you, calculating the nutrition in the food you buy against recommended daily intake, checking that the shop assistant has given you the correct change, buying a carpet, judging the value of 'special offers' in supermarkets or helping your siblings/friends/kids with their homework. A complete waste of time, I'm sure you'll agree.

I'm in! Where do I sign?

Whatever happened to the Belgian custard pie thrower? There's a lot of work for him to do out there. I don't think water provides the necessary degree of humiliation.

Bless them. :D Or should that be, "May the Force be with them"?