Politics in the UK remains broken, with a voting system that is dated and rubbish, and an electorate that whinges no matter the outcome. We also have people making promises that they never keep, and everyone but the upper classes is getting routinely shafted.

But at least we’re not the USA.

The Nation, among other publications, reported on the Republican Party using the filibuster to stop legislation to end the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy in the country’s military. Said policy essentially means no-one’s allowed to ask if you’re gay, lesbian, or bisexual, but you’ll be kicked out of the forces if you are and reveal that’s the case.

Given the size of the US and its military, this is a big problem. The Nation reports that 14,000 Americans have been booted out for having the shocking audacity to be gay. The bastards. Still, Republicans to the rescue! To safeguard the country (by excluding lots of people for no good reason), they derailed legislation and offered some choice quotes. John McCain, who’s seemingly decided to become an extremist since losing to Obama, accused the Obama administration and Senate Democrats of “pandering” to the gay and lesbian community with their effort to end discrimination.

That’s quite a statement to make in any kind of civilised country. It’s no wonder many people, including his daughter, reckon the fight for equal rights is this generation’s civil rights movement. After all, imagine if McCain had instead declared one of the following:

The Obama administration and Senate Democrats are “pandering” to blacks with their effort to end discrimination.

The Obama administration and Senate Democrats are “pandering” to Hispanic people with their effort to end discrimination.

The Obama administration and Senate Democrats are “pandering” to women with their effort to end discrimination.

It’s not like the UK is devoid of discrimination, and there are plenty of (mostly Tory) MPs who aim to derail equal rights legislation (especially when it comes to gay rights), but the brazen level of disrespect, decency and common sense from the Republican Party just beggars belief. Anyone would think it’s 1810, not 2010.

We live in exciting times! McAfee has just launched McAf.ee (beta, obv.), which will revolutionise the internet by… adding another URL-shortening service to all the existing URL-shortening services that shorten URLs. Wow, McAf(ee), how exciting! It’s almost as if some dolt in PR figured you could get down with the kids, without stopping to think whether or not the world needs another URL-shortening service (hint: it doesn’t).

McAfee’s effort does stand out in two ways, though. First, the site is one of the ugliest it’s possible to imagine. It’s about 80 per cent likely to make your eyes explode, so be warned. Secondly, it enables you to create a ‘safe’ short URL, unlike all those deadly ones we’ve all been using previously. I don’t know about you, but every time I’ve used bit.ly my iMac has rocketed off the desk and banged on the ceiling, so McAfee is the Best Thing Ever on the internet. Unless, of course, I’m being hugely sarcastic and wish McAfee’s service would McAf.uckoff.

*thinks*

Oh.

If you’re an American, you can rent TV shows on the new Apple TV. Companies like Warner have bitched about low revenues, but they’ll change their tune when Fox and ABC start making money hand-over-fist. It’s also been shown that Apple TV runs iOS (Wired), the same operating system that powers the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. However, since it has little on-board storage, it’s unlikely you’ll be stuffing if full of iOS apps and games any time soon, according to just about everyone.

The thing is, Apple TV isn’t about stuffing it full of anything. The idea is to stream content or rent. To that end, I wonder whether Apple will provide games for the system, but using some kind of rental model. Shove Game Center into the mix and you wouldn’t lose your scores, so you could download Soopah Arcade Funk for a buck, play it until your brain melts, then return to it via another rental a few months later and continue where you left off.

So The Guadian’s waded in with its size-tens, running an op-ed by Charles Arthur about Jobs being all grumpy with a trainee journo. She complains that Apple PR hasn’t responded to her questions (welcome to my world, baby journo!), and there’s a brief to-and-fro before Jobs says “Please leave us alone”.

I write for a bunch of Mac magazines, and am regularly frustrated with Apple PR. Those I deal with are friendly, courteous people, and they help when it benefits Apple very directly (they’re quick to supply review software, for example), but that’s basically it. The thing is, everyone in this industry knows the score with Apple, apart, apparently, from this trainee.

She says:

Unfortunately, for a journalist in the professional world, lacking the answers they need on deadline day won’t just cost them a grade; it could cost them their job.

That’s pretty unlikely when it comes to Apple, unless you’re working for an editor that’s gone mental and actually expects you to get a comment from the company. Even if that’s the case, whining to the CEO won’t help matters, and, frankly, if you’re going to be a journo, you’ll need to figure out some other course of action when things don’t go your way. In her case, an article on “implementation of an iPad program” at her school, was Apple PR really the only source she could use? Did she really expect the PR arm of a huge multinational to be at her beck and call?

Arhoolie sums it up nicely in the Guardian article’s comments:

[…] the whine of “don’t you realise you are threatening my grade” is quite common. Perhaps if the students made sure the work they have chosen to pursue is practical first much of this grief could be avoided.

Commercial firms, charities, and Govt Departements [sic] are not in existence to be a training resource for student journalists.

Of late, I get asked quite a lot whether someone should buy an iPad or a Kindle. I’ve been struggling to come up with a really good analogy with other tech for these devices, and have usually gone down the ‘if you read a lot of books, get a Kindle, otherwise get an iPad’ route. This doesn’t always work well, because people then start rattling on about web access and games, and if I tell them to ‘go and get both devices then’, they yell “do you think I’m made of money?” before throwing spoons at me and storming off in a huff.

Over the weekend, it struck me that there’s a better, faster analogy out there: the Kindle is a television. Bear with me on this one.

The point here is that people still watch televisions, due to the user-experience. They have PCs, on which they can easily enough watch TV, but doing so is pretty hateful. Even if you’ve a shiny new 27″ iMac in your living room, it’s going to offer a worse TV experience than a far cheaper flatscreen TV, because the TV is designed for watching TV, and that’s something people do a lot of.

The Kindle is the same. People enjoy reading books on it, due to the user-experience. On a tablet PC, you can easily enough read a book, but doing so is pretty hateful. Even if you’ve a shiny new iPad in your living room, it’s going to offer a worse long-format reading experience than a far cheaper Kindle, because the Kindle is designed for reading books, and that’s something… well, that’s something some people do a lot of.

Of course, television manufacturers are rapidly trying to screw up my analogy by welding ‘apps’ to their flatscreens—the bastards; but I figure I’ve a few months left yet before I have to think of something else, other than walking about the place wearing a ‘Look, just buy whatever the fuck you want’ T-shirt.