wolfman

The argument of taxing fuel in order to reduce consumption simply hasn't worked, its now going to be extended to taxes on anything and everything which can harm the environment. Its just another scam from the Govt to tax us all to our eye balls. Fuel is now expected to exceed £1 a litre, its about high time the Govt reduced its taxation!!!

Well we may have to dust the cold war memoirs as its likely that the next cold war will be between the US and China.

having said that, the French are not necessarily the peace loving pragmatists as they have protrayed themselves recently visa vi Iraq. We can all remember their coniving in the Suez fiasco, vietnam etc, and their not so distant past colonial adventures. France has always found it difficult to come to terms with the Anglo/American dominance of the past 50 years..... There again perhaps he's just going mad in his old age ? Certainly, I think the EU has lost any credibility it had to tell other nations not to pursue nuclear technology.

I'm somewhat confused about the French postering regarding Iran. If Iran goes ahead with its plan for an Oil bourse selling in Euro's, then the EU with the French would be the biggest winners and the US would be the biggest looser. It would be the beginning of the end of the US Dollar as a global currency. I suspect alot of what he's saying is for domestic consumption and inparticular whats going on with his hated former protege Sarkozy.

Perhaps he's not, but in my personal experience there are a category of people who will try and justify us screwing up our own interests in order to further the cause of Israel. Rarely do these people openly declare their sympathies for Israel, instead they espouse rubbish about it being the only democracy in the area. I remember a classic episode of Question Time when someone asked Melanie Phillips the question of who she would be supporting in a hypothetical was between Britain and Israel, and boy did she duck the question. I just cant equate how making enemies of the Arab world, who happen to sit on the largest reserves of oil can be in OUR interests. Ofcourse there is a chance Kirky is just one of those in the gung-ho brigade who feel we should be invading the Iran regardless. Personally, all this recent ramping up of attacks on Iran has probably got less to do with the threat of WMD's, than it has with Iran planning on selling oil in Euro's. Israel is worried about the old adage what goes around comes around and hence was cheerleading the invasion of Iraq and Iran is next on its list of 'threats'. Bottom line is that Iran is entitled to do what it is doing, and for the west to simply say we dont trust them (after the joke of Iraq, and its conniving with the Israeli's in its nuclear weapons program) is frankly tosh.

and how will you know if they are ? Let me guess Israeli planted intelligence will tell you that will it ? One of the biggest scandals post Iraq has been the total silence to investigate how all of the western intelligence agencies came to believe that Iraq had WMD! As if to simply say we were all wrong is sufficient. As for the they wouldn't think twice about launching a nuclear attack on the west, again what is your evidence for this assertion ??? The Sun ? Melanie 'Israeli' Philips ? As far as I can recollect, Iran hasn't launched an attack on any of its immediate neighbours, never mind holding aspirations on bombing kirky out of his bunk bed. This is a silly and absurd argument. It reminds me of Jack Straw saying those famous words 'Its upto Iraq to PROVE it has no WMD', whilst his masters in Washington were pulling the plug on the Inspectors. If Israel is ******* off all its neighbours, thats Israel's problems. Why should my tax be used to help Israel ????? Iran has said that 'having' nuclear weapons, does not in itself strengthen its national defences. To the contrary, the Iranians have a bit of a superiority complex (no too different from us in the west), they like to hark back to the label as one of the cradles of civilisation just like we like to 'bigup' anything to do with the Roman civilisation. From their perspective, they want the knowledge to boast technological superiority over their neighbours. As for all this nonsense about non nuclear proliferation. I'm sure that the nuclear powers of the day were claiming to want to remove their arsenals (or certainly take steps to do so), well 50 years later the US is making differing kinds of nukes, so it can hardly be shocked that others have seen through its hollow claims and want to pursue their own technological know how in regards to nuclear technology. Finally kirky, there's nothing written that says a so called democratically elected leader can possess nukes and everyone else cant. History shows that so far, its only been a so called 'Democratically' elected leader that has used nukes twice to kill hundreds of thousands of innocents. Israel (with the help of the self rightous west) developed nuclear weapons, and indeed has the largest stockpile in the whole of the middle east. It may think that its the 'mini me' of the US in the region but in reality its the catalyst of all the recent turmoil in that part of the world. If you want to sacrifice your energy, your money and your life to protect some dumb racists who are still waiting for the coming of the Messiah, then thats your choice. Dont however try and dress up your crazy love for Israel by bringing Democracy or threats of bombs raining from the skies in Britain into it.

Its also worth noting that since the Ukranian revolution, Russia is threatening Ukraine and Europe with higher Gas prices. The last thing we want to do is become dependent on a single supplier. Also judging by the reduction in oil being pumped by Iraq since their so called liberation, its not in our national interests to cause a hike in global gas prices in order to satisfy the whims of the Israeli's. They really think they are entitled to a monopoly on nuclear weapons in the middle east! If the US (aka the free world) were really interested in a nuclear free middle east where better than to start with the ONLY country in the region that actually possesses nuclear weapons ? Dughh

Israel IS the root problem of what may happen in this area. Given the recent talk of an energy crisis which could hit Britain, I think our National Interests are not best served by aligning ourselves with the US in their unwavering support of Israel. You're simply recycling the same scare tactics that were used to illegally attack Iraq, 45 mins ring a bell ? Ironic how Israel of all countries should be harking about terrorism when you consider the country was formed by terrorism and its political establishment including the first so many prime ministers were all 'retired' terrorists....

Going back to the original posting, before it went off on a tangent. Have you heard the story about the Boy who cried Wolf ? Since September the 11th, the US has accused and ruined the lives of numerous individuals. I remember the story of the Algerian born pilot who had his door kicked in during the middle of the night and was arrested as being the 'trainer' of the September 11th hijackers. This story was circulated in the press and boy was he deemed guilty as hell. What actually happened ? When the British judge asked for the evidence in order to consider his extradition, NONE materialised! Why ? Because there wasn't any! We have over the last couple of years read numerous stories of high profile terror arrests, always plastered on the front page of the the press, only to find out later (usually on page 45, in small font) that the individuals were released with no charge. I suggest you use some common sense before you label someone as guilty, especially when the accuser is the US or UK Govts!

The really stupid thing about the current Iranian president is that had he have been a leader in the 60's, he would have been protrayed as a socialist! If you look at the current Iranian political establishment, he was voted in by the poor in order to alleviate social injustices. He lives a simple and frugle lifestyle, unlike many of the so called 'religous' clergy. Its ironic that he wears western clothes, espouses social justice and is hated by the religous establishment! I wonder how many people disagreed with his comments last week regarding Israel ? The ones where he said that the Europeans committed the crimes against the European Jews, so why should the Arabs pay for it visa vis Palestine.

Except from http://www.rense.com/general37/otherw.htm "ALSO RAN" HOLOCAUSTS To maintain victim priority, it's necessary for the Jewish establishment to practise "holocaust denial" when it comes to other people. In his book "Crimes and Mercies" (1997) James Bacque describes how he confronted New York Times reporter Drew Middleton with evidence that after the war the US starved to death over one million German POWs. "What Middleton told me basically was that, yes, he had lied in 1945 and no, it did not matter to him or the New York Times if I exposed this." (183) "Middleton's sense of security, his sense of the New York Times' power, took my breath away," Bacque writes. "But worse than that, Middleton did not care about this atrocity... the New York Times witnessed it, then denied that it happened. And has gone on denying it into the 1990's." (184) Bacque estimates that during the Allied Occupation (1946-1950) an additional eight to twelve million Germans were deliberately starved to death. The war did not end in 1945. For five additional years, Germany was subjected "physical and psychic trauma unparalleled in history." (93) Red Army soldiers raped up to two million German women during the last six months of the Second World War, around 100,000 of them in Berlin. They also raped Russian women released from German labour camps. We live in a feminist era. Have you seen any movies about these women? At Potsdam, the Allies ratified the 1939 Soviet-Nazi Pact that gave USSR half of Poland. Poland was compensated with the eastern quarter of Germany, in effect another gift to the Russian empire. This required the expulsion of about 12 million Germans, the largest forced migration in history. Jews were prominent in the Polish Communist regime. In a stunning role reversal, Jewish policemen ordered Germans out of their homes and into cattle cars. In his book, "An Eye for An Eye" Jewish writer John Sack relates that about 1.5 million of these Germans died in the removal. He quotes a German woman from Gleiwitz: "What happened to the Jews was sad. But there was another Holocaust too." (138) According to Sacks, Jewish Communists extracted another cruel revenge. They filled 1250 Nazi concentration and labour camps and brutally tortured and murdered tens of thousands of Germans. (101 ff.) Have you seen a movie where concentration camp guards and commandants were Jews? Since 1948, the American Jewish Committee and the Anti Defamation League have censored all Hollywood scripts involving Jews. Since these bodies are extensions of Jewish finance, what other topics have they censored? (Gabler, An Empire of the Own: How Jews Invented Hollywood 1988,p.303) In his book, "Victims of Yalta", Nicholai Tolstoy documents "Operation Keelhaul," the Allies' forced repatriation of two million Russians who were German slave labourers, prisoners of wars, or soldiers. These people were sent to the Gulag and liquidated. Where is the museum dedicated to them? The mass media is unusually coy when it comes to reporting Communist atrocities. Nine million people died in the Russian Civil War (1917-1922). The Communists targeted czarists and Christians in particular. Stalin's purges and famines accounted for 20 million more deaths. In China, Mao ZeDong is blamed for a similar number. More recently, let's not forgot Tibet, Cambodia and Rwanda. (See Twentieth Century death tolls at http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm ) In "The Holocaust Industry" (2000) Norman Finkelstein describes how Israel helped its ally Turkey deny the massacre of one million Armenians in 1915. "Acting at Israel's behest, the US Holocaust Council practically eliminated mention of the Armenians in the Washington Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Jewish lobbyists in Congress blocked a day of remembrance for the Armenian genocide." (p.69)

Its scary that in this day and age people can be locked up for 'holocaust denial' ! If say in Iran someone was locked up for saying God doesn't exist, our press and human rights groups would be up in an uproar (and quite rightly so). Everyone has (or should have) the freedom to express their opinions, and to deny the 'holocaust' is their opinion. Infact even when you read what most of the so called holocaust deniers are actually saying you find that they disagree on one of two things. 1) The actual number of Jewish people killed 2) The importance given to the Jewish victims over all the other victims. I think alot of the 'denial' movement has stemmed from point 2, even individuals like Professor Norman Finklestein has commented that had it not been for the 'Holocaust Industry' which has been setup to exploit the deaths of Jewish people during WWII in order to further the political aims and crimes of Israel, then the so called problem of the deniers would never have arisen. So in a funny way it just action = re-action. I've not read anything where the 'deniers' have actually said that Jewish people were not killed. As for the comments by the Iranian President, personally I think he's just gauding the Israeli's into attacking Iran. He probably doesn't need to try too hard as Israel has attacked every other neighbour it has in the the Region!

True.

It would be interesting to hear from women who have had an abortion and how they felt on the subject.

if a 'sperm' develops into a living breathing human being, then I would say it was misidentified as being a sperm In general I'd simply say cut down the time period to a month, maybe its me but I just think its horrible to terminate 'a lump of cells' which have a human form, else we just end up in circles of whether 'its' conscous, or self sustaining, or has a heartbeat, or feels pain etc etc. I guess we really wont get concensus on this topic as it is such an emotive topic.