donkey

How devilishly cunning of them to trick the Russians into arming the Assad regime and causing the regime to use mass executions and torture for decades in order to make the popular uprising come about. American politicians are just backing the sides they like, as are the Russians and Chinese. They didn't bring the situation about any more than they brought about the uprising in Bahrain. The fact that they are trying to play the situation to what they think is their own maximum advantage goes without saying. That is what politicians do. That is what the Syrian regime have been doing for years in Lebanon - with catastrophic results - and it is what the Pakistani government is doing in Afghanistan. It is reprehensible (politicians nearly always are) but singling out the Americans as if they are the only ones at it is just plain naive.

Thanks for that. Perhaps you should also write to the letters pages of newspapers which report on it and make it clear you aren't interested. I'm sure the public woukld like to hear what you don't have to say.

I'm a great believer in the Elephant in the Room hypothesis. This basically states that the continued inability to produce a 'model' without problems indicates that the universe is more complex, multi-dimensional and with more variables than the human brain can comprehend.

Because we're part of a poltical entity called a 'state'. You can read about them in history books. The people at the heads of states invariably show themselves ready to resort to violence when the fundamental political structures and interests they represent are seriously threatened. Of course in a modern democratic society, where there are enough media spoon-fed citizens prepared to believe they are represented by the economic elite who run all the main political parties, this becomes academic, because what dog trainer would resort to coersive methods on a perfectly obedient poodle?

I don't know about the bankers, I think it's the French revolutionaries who get an undeservedly bad press. Sure they might have got a bit over-zealous with their mass public executions, but we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater when we could learn and move on. Surely a measured application of extra judicial public guillotinings could swiftly consign the problem of Blairs/bankers to the head basket of history?

If tradesmen are allowed to get away with subsidising their attempts to scrape a living through petty tax avoidance, then where is the money going to come from to pay G4S the hundreds of millions of pounds needed for not guarding the olympics, for example? And paying for a career politician's parliamentary career costs a great deal of money. It can take up to forty years before they are ready to stop living off tax payers and reap the rewards of all the hard work they put in campaigning on behalf of the various commercial concerns on whose behalf they pushed legislation and awarded contracts. It is the moral duty of the tradesman to contribute all which is demanded of him by that superior class of people who have the foresight to skew wealth opportunities and tax laws in favour of themselves and their own ilk, in order that wealth is created and trickles down, thus enabling these ungrateful oiks to exist at all I agree with the Conservative minister. These lower class people are morally repugnant!

So a 14 year old doesn't know any better than to copy what he sees on TV and the internet? Ridiculous! I have to wonder if there is some other, more sinister, motivation for the judge's leniency.

Why all the niggling? As long as some bloated multinational corporation with links to top politicians and major international financial institutions has got to pocket billions of our money for doing sod all - Isn't that what the Olympics is all about? Not to mention the NHS (oh I just did), and transport and infrastructure etc. Isn't that what everything is all about? Three cheers for UK PLC. Company directorships and champers all round!

I want to go to one of your parties

By Golly, you really do have stamina, running a successful business and still finding time to spend hours on here every day. BTW are you sure you aren't confusing 'stamina' with 'obsession' ?

What in particular in that post do you interpret as an 'argument for socialism'?

Yes, it is amazing how many highly successful members of the Sheffield business community spend hours on here every day. All the serious 'go-getters' I've ever met have had other things to do, and they weren't all raving right wing bigots either.

All the usual inarticulate, obnoxious right wing droolers applauding anything they think will drive society back towards the inequalities of the Victorian era. Small companies are in the mess they are in because of the economic chaos brought about by the wreckless actions of those with their hands on the controls of global finances. It is grimly ironic to see these dim wit cheer-leaders on Sheffield Forum - who will never share even a small part of the wealth or influence of the 'masters of the universe' - egging them on in their latest assault on the general population, this time in the form of 'labour reforms.'

Did you learn the meaning of the word 'irony' from Alanis Morrisette?

'Bullocks to the Community Charge' just doesn't have the same ring about it.

People who say 'eclectic polyphonic instrument selection' when they mean 'good morning'. Ooh it makes me mad!

I'll take that as a yes then.

People who say 'duckbillplatipus' when they mean 'bus'

So you don't know if a paedophile who preys on girls is any different from a hetrosexual man? My question to you was related to views you expressed on this thread which I was asking you to clarify. These questions, on the other hand, bear no relationship to anything I have said. They would have the same relevance if you went down to the corner store and asked the man who works behind the counter to answer them.

Yes, it must take years of experience to come up with evasive and meaningless answers like that. But at least he got an answer. I ask once more: As you seem to equate paedophiles who molest boys with gay men, do you similarly consider hetrosexual men as indistinguishable from paedophiles who molest girls?

Have Blair and Cameron ever been seen at the same time? I suspect they are the same person.

So you think a paedophile who molests boys is the same thing as a gay man? Do you also think that a padedophile who molests girls is the same thing as a hetrosexual men?

You might think that was what I meant if reading and understanding all four of my posts on this thread was beyond your capabilities.

"gay people" that's brilliant! I bet some of them are even women!

You mean like the tories who unanimously colluded with the government's position towards the rogue financiers whilst similtaeniously failing to use their positions in parliament to oppose those fraudulent practices or even draw attention to the impending danger.