I am fed up with Superman this and Superman that. If Superman is so super why does he suck?

What does he suck compared to? The real super-"thing", he only takes a man-form when it suits him.

This is something so super he is can appear as god, can travel back in time billions of years, shift the whole universe around with a thought, change history of billions of planets with a snap of his fingers, or destroy the entire universe, or create a whole new one.

So behold your true Superman... Q.

Q appearing to Picard as God Almighty.

This guy doesn't need to use his body to stop an aircraft from hitting the ground, who knows if he even has a body. With a single thought he can send that aircraft crossing the billions of light years to the other side of the universe and back again safe and sound before Superman had even finished putting his costume on.

In any revolutionary period we see the masses mobalise into their own organisations. Today in Latin America they're called Bolivarian Circles, in Russia they were called Soviets (literally meaning workers' councils), these same councils sprung up in France, Germany and across Eastern Europe in times of advanced class struggle.

In Russia in 1905, the trade unionists understood that only by strengthening solidarity beyond their own interests, would they be able to wage a successful struggle. In the past, several strike committees would form in a single city, and the secret police would arrest one group one day, and move to the next the day after. The workers of Ivanovo-Voznesensk knew that only by uniting all the workers throughout the city, despite their various differences and needs, could a broad struggle be successful. In the truest sense of the word, these workers were Russia's first Communists. Thus, spontaneously arising from the masses of striking workers, without guidance from any political party, came the Soviets.

A council of the workers, representing the broad interests of all the working people. These spread rapidly across Imperial Russia. Reaching their peak over 10 years later, when the soviets themselves demanded they should be the state. Replacing the old Tsarist institutions and the useless parliament, with organisations made, occupied and controlled by ordinary people. The Bolshevik's who had only a small minority in the soviets at the start of 1917 won the majority over on a program of "all power to the soviets".

"The Soviet was the axis of all events, every thread ran towards it, every call to action emanated from it." 1905, by Leon Trotsky.

This is what a soviet looked like in action, this is the Petrograd Soviet, there were over 10000 such councils across the whole of Russia before October took place. In this particular soviet some 20000 workers had been elected to it in just 4 years.

This is what democracy looks like in action. Not one parliament in the country where maybe 500 people get elected every 5 years. Thousands of such parliaments where thousands upon thousands of ordinary people are elected, and importantly can be instantly recalled when they don't do what their electorate want them to. They manage all affairs, from production of the steal mill where they work, or how much they should spend on welfare, or how many buses they need running on this route at that time and so on.

So the next time you hear someone on £150 000 a year talk about democracy, and elections every few years just remember how hollow such a democracy is, a democracy where the masses don't participate at all, someone rich, someone powerful, someone who "understands" how things should be done is running it all on your behalf, almost in secret. That isn't democracy, that isn't even close.

Microsoft have made the right choice and have announced that shortly after Internet Explorer 7 is released it will be pushed down over Automatic Updates as a high priority item.

For enterprises Microsoft will offer a tool to prevent IE7 being downloaded, individuals can also decline installation simply by pressing the don't install button on the installer.

Hopefully this will rapidly update the user-base. Unlike IE6's release which took years to trickle down to everyone.

George Galloway made a recent speech at a Stop the War Coalition demonstration against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. He said one thing that caught my attention (thanks to Take back the voice):

I am here to glorify the resistance, Hezbollah. I am here to glorify the leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah is a bourgeois scumbag who should be locked up, with his Israeli opposites.

Socialists support the actions of the people in defending themselves from aggressive expansionist regimes. But we do not support individual bourgeois, nationalist or fundamentalist groups, we support the people of Lebanon and Israel in their struggle for peace.

I suppose when the revolution sweeps across the middle east and the fundamentalists will directly engage the workers that idiot Galloway will be on the side of Islamic fundamentalism and bourgeois nationalism?

Heavy shelling around Khiam on Tuesday had forced the four observers into the bomb shelters. At about 1.20pm, officials say, a jet dropped a bomb only 300 metres away. The observers contacted the Unifil headquarters.

The observers warned Israel that their aircraft were dropping bombs dangerously close to a UN position. The Israelis said that they would check the situation and make any necessary adjustments. But jets then dropped ten bombs between 100 and 300 metres from the UN position and fired 12 artillery rounds within 150 metres, UN officials said. The fatal strike — using a "precision-guided weapon", said UN military personnel — hit the post at about 7.20pm.

Now this was a building, not close to any other buildings, It's an obvious building, it was white with two black letters 'UN' written on the sides of it. It's been there for years and the Israelis were well aware of it's position.

So why did an F-16 fly over and use a precision guided bomb against it, just after the UN had contacted Israel telling them, again, that their observers were at that position? What don't the Israeli military want the UN to see?

From Post Gazette:

Q: I read your Blu-ray/HD-DVD article and was staggered at some of your comments. You do not seem to understand digital media at all. Digital media is the same regardless of device. Files and films on HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs are identical; what differs are technical details such as the type of laser used, etc. Comparing the quality of two digital media formats is ridiculous. In fact, it's completely irrelevant. The only difference between HD-DVD and Blu-ray is capacity.

The reply:

A: I had planned on writing about HD-DVD and Blu-ray this week, so I can provide you with some simple, easy-to-grasp information on how these two formats differ and why HD-DVD currently offers far superior picture quality than Blu-ray.

Blu-ray video is encoded in MPEG-2, an older digital video format. HD-DVD uses VC-1, a much newer format developed by Microsoft. The digital files on Blu-ray discs and HD-DVDs are mastered with different equipment and are as different as apples and oranges.

The VC-1 format provides better image quality in less space than MPEG-2. Current Blu-ray movies are single-layer with a capacity of 25GB total. HD-DVDs are composed of two 15GB layers, for a total of 30GB. HD-DVD's greater capacity and its far superior video format yields much better looking movies.

I saw a production Blu-ray movie and I am sorry to report that the near-universal negativity is well deserved. The movie, "The Fifth Element,'' looked soft and fuzzy, with a hint of digital noise that reminded me of an image taken with an old digital camera. It's an insult to consumers' intelligence to expect us to accept it as quality.

Spot on. Where's the promised 50GB? Come on Sony you only got the support you did because you promised larger capacity, now we're told we have to wait until much later, next year and hope that spending $1000 on a player today will be able to play dual-layer discs. No thanks. Blu-ray is a yet another Sony flop. It's also time for those "one-format" people to stop campaigning for a single format and just support HD DVD.