pap

+1 to this idea. The long thread is useless.

I flush my stools now. Missus didn't like it when I set a stool on her pillow.

Applauds the Professor for adopting a different hypothesis in the light of new scientific evidence.

Delighted with this signing. Young, English and quality. Could become a Saints legend.

Ah, it'll all be forgotten in 20 years when Eastleigh becomes that area of Southampton just north of Bassett.

Agreed. When I think back to that long dreadful summer, the f**king jokers at Pinnacle and the endless takeover thread, seems almost unreal to see us where we are now. We have Marcus to thank for that.

People announcing that they've ignored someone irks me. Ignoring someone on a forum is infantile enough on its own. Announcing it reminds me of primary school. "We're not friends anymore". Noblets.

Good post. I am not worried at the lack of signings. We already have a good team who ripped L1 to pieces last year. The NPC is a step up, sure - and we need strengthening in some key positions, but with the right 3 or 4 signings, we'll be competitive. Football is a team game played by human beings, not some numbers game filled with interchangeable robots. You only need to look at the likes of Man City to see that filling your squad with superstars is only part of the puzzle. We've got a bunch of players who've played with each other for some time, some genuine talent and good prospects for the future. How many teams in the NPC can say that? EDIT: thedelldays thread which I didn't read upfront, which covers similar ground

It is excellent, following the normal HBO rules for making a show. Find good source material - then insert even more baps, bush, swearing and fighting. I started reading the books and am now up to date. The TV show is pretty faithful so far, and some of the stuff that's coming up, if done well, will be excellent.

Take off and nuke the whole site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Regarding the club's debt situation after the takeover. From the Thursday July 9th, 2009 edition of the Echo. I have the full interview on PDF if anyone is interested.

It could be a good move. He's still only 23, has something to prove and could really make a name for himself. Would he be interested, though?

He dropped down to the Championship to join Brum on loan a couple of seasons ago. 11 goals in 42 appearances.

I don't like Manchester United that much or the vast majority of their plastic fans, but I want them to win it. They're an English team, and while there's no doubting the immense talent of Barca, they dive around like pansies and try to fool referees. I would love it a Barcelona player got a second yellow for simulation and got sent off.

Ah, b@ll@cks. I'm off to Ireland tomorrow. Flights and car hire deal. So even if I do end up getting the boat back, I still have to get the fecking car back to the airport.

I do weddings and bar mitzvahs.

In this instance, generalisation is appropriate. Numerous large faiths have justified war on religious grounds, each believing their cause was just because of their made up benefactor. Even within one religion, there has been massive strife. Think of the persecution that happened here when the country switched from Protestant to Catholic and back again, or the situation in Northern Ireland, or the Shia death squads going after Sunni Muslims in Iraq following the coalition occupation. Life's pretty simple, we all need the same things. Having arbitrary divisions based on which story someone believes is completely unacceptable in this day and age.

That is pretty sweet. Much better than the Delft one a few years back.

That's a fair point from a UK perspective, where we're guaranteed freedom of religion and effectively largely secular. Religion is almost a la carte here, rarely coming into conflict with society at large. In other places, religion is a much bigger deal. Look at Islam and Judaism, or even the internal divisions within faiths. It's all very well saying people can believe what they want, but the reality is that Belief (capital B, dubai_phil) creates massive problems around the world, whether through the numerous wars that have been waged in the name of faith or the fact that some faith-based societies relegate women to second class citizens. Religion has been many things. It has been an explanation for the temporarily inexplicable, a set of rules for living your life, a means of creating tribes along non-racial lines, a highly effective form of empire after the collapse of the Romans and a brilliant money-spinner. It has never been a particularly good deal for the people.

Who's restricting themselves to what scientists believe at this point in time? The whole point of science to to gain greater understanding of our universe. I doubt anyone on the planet believes that science has cracked it. We still have a lot to learn about everything. Judgement day, eh? That's tomorrow, apparently.

I clearly delineated between theory and practice when making the comment about the power of instant absolution. You'll have to forgive me for being rude, but doing unscrupulous things can be very effective for personal progression. Your assertion that dirty deeds "won't people get very far" is largely predicated on them publicly announcing their misdeeds as they commit them. I am in total agreement that humanity is responsible for its own situation, and can sympathise with your search for answers. But with religion, all the big answers are provided to you on a plate, ridiculous and incontrovertible, leaving you only to wonder at the mysterious ways of an imaginary skylord.

@Turkish. Very good post. I think you brought some much needed perspective into the thread. @dune - Agree on drug policy. They're readily available, and every penny that is spend on reinforcing prohibition is a complete waste of taxpayer money. We're not stopping the drugs problem, and never will. We're essentially paying a ****load of cash to say "we don't approve of this", when clearly, many people do. The country could make and save an absolute fortune.

Whether you consider them Christians or not doesn't cut it. They believe they are. No, but according to some people, it was God that created the Earth, and therefore God that created fault lines and all the other natural perils that humanity has to contend with. Lots of countries have nuclear reactors. Not all of them are so close to so many shifting seismic plates. If there is an element of intelligent design at work, then why bother creating a planet with so many deficiencies? Apparently, God also created us. So in doing so, he gave us the wit to create nuclear reactors. If we really weren't meant to invent them, surely we wouldn't have been able to in the first place? Must be God's will. If you believe that God created the Earth, and that God created us, then natural disasters are ultimately his fault.

Ta for the clarification.

Religion is a relic of a previous age, an attempt to explain things that humanity had not yet grasped for itself. Egyptians had a sun god, the Norse pantheon had a god of thunder, while the Greeks and the Romans had gods for pretty much everything going. The monothestic religions just amalgamated all of their explanations into a single deity. It's 2011 now. We have better explanations for why things are they way they are. We don't have all the answers, but many of us have evolved to the point where we're not just going to take stuff on face value. An unanswered question is far better than a made-up answer. It's all about money and control anyway. Serious Christians routinely donate 10% of their income to their church. Why does God need the money? I also have a problem with the Christian concept of forgiveness too. In theory, it means that God loves you no matter what you do. In practice, it allows Christians to act like a pack of scheming fokkers for six days a week, knowing they're going to be absolved of their fokkery on Sunday. The recent earthquake in Japan gave some insight. First, the #prayforjapan tweets were all over Twitter. Really? You're tweeting that now? Surely if God gave a f**k about Japan, the quake wouldn't have happened in the first place. Then you've got the other end of the scale, where some people actually think Japan had it coming for its heathen status. There are people out there that believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, despite all evidence to the contrary - such as moon landings, dinosaur bones, the existence of a whole universe that you think would have been mentioned in the answer to everything. dubai_phil argues that belief is essential. I disagree. Belief is damaging - it stifles debate, justifies murder (even when the book the belief is based on expressly forbids it) and is responsible for ongoing tension and conflict across the world, causing incalculable harm every day.