buctootim

People like to characterise the EU as some sprawling monster - but in reality its tiny. Only around 1.1% of members taxation goes to it and 98.9% stays with national governments. Total budget is just over £100bn spread between 27 countries, less than the UK alone spends on health. Yes its a bit dysfunctional, but thats pretty much inevitable trying to get 27 separate interests to agree on anything. Yes the euro is probably doomed, but we weren't forced to join and may well benefit from its problems. I don't know your situation Alpine but I do know you are a Brit living and working in Austria. Havent you benefited directly from the EU?

Yes thats the spin. Why are we paying £12.5m instead of the £12m agreed then?

We pay Celtic £12.5m instead of the £12m initially agreed, they give £500,000 to agent. Wanyama bungs agent £250,000 out of his improved contract and agent takes hit of £250,000 from his original claim of £1m. Everyone gets what they want and reputations enhanced / faces saved all round.

People tend to read the paper site that tells them what they want to hear. You don't tend to read the Scottish Sun in print or online unless you have a connection to Scotland. In the English Sun sports pages it says positve stuff about plucky Saints making a great move. On the Scottish site it talks about how Celtic have pulled off a transfer masterstroke by multiplying their money 16times in two years. A Vic-tory for Saints. VICTOR WANYAMA is set to undergo a medical at Southampton today ahead of a club-record move. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/5007489/Victor-Wanyama-set-to-undergo-Sothampton-medical-today.html VICTOR WANYAMA last night checked out of Celtic — as he waved goodbye to his Hoops team-mates. The big-money deal will see the Kenyan become the most expensive transfer in Scottish football history. And it sees Celts rake in almost 14 TIMES what they paid out for him just two years ago. Remarkably, the SPL champions plucked him from Belgian side Beerschot for just £900,000 in 2011. http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/sport/spl/5007739/Victor-Wanyama-jets-out-to-join-Saints.html

Hartson is writing for a Scottish audience who are miffed one of their stars is leaving for a smaller club. Stories in the English editions would, and do, have totally different angles. Thats where this thread doesn't get it.

If we were to leave the EU we would need to negotiate some kind of access agreement with them otherwise UK goods and services would suffer horribly. Those goods and services would need to comply with EU law and standards. Nothing would change, except we would have no say and no right of veto in the formulation of the those laws. Yes we would be able to control immigration from within the EU, but what would the benefits be? The reason the UK has such low unemployment despite a recession worse than the 1930s is that many workers who came to the UK when we had jobs going spare have gone home again when we dont - the perfect fluid workforce who come in when you have spare capacity but you don't have to pay for when you don't. The alternative is permanent immigration from outside Europe - dont kid yourself that wouldn't happen, industry lobbying would ensure it does . If we left I really don't see anything much changing in practice, except we'd exchange being a difficult club member for being a powerless outsider living with rules dictated to us.

Peter Shilton, Jimmy Case.

****ing hell. Alpine has missed the point totally and come out with a knee jerk reaction. Lawks oh lawkey. Just FYI, to be clear the point was about the dangers of creating sub groups of the population to whom normal protections of law and access to justice do not apply. Besides the Jews the Nazis imprisoned and exterminated the mentally and physically disabled, political prisoners, gypsies, Jehovah's witnesses, trades unionists, diplomats and foreign nationals from 'hostile' countries, Freemasons, and 'social deviants' like prostitutes, tramps, alcoholics, addicts, pacifists and criminals. Doesn't have to be the Nazis, plenty of other examples. Legislative removal of rights and judicial oversight from different groups preceded 'cleansing' in the Yugoslav breakup, Kosovo, Soviet era gulags, Cambodia, Argentinian junta, Rwanda, Nicaragua and on and on.

These pilot error crashes are usually as a result of several factors combining. Its a long flight from Seoul to SF, about 10 hours. If the pilots have a disrupted nights sleep prior to the flight, then fly for 10 hours and arrive to find they need to make a visual landing because a piece of automation at SF is unavailable its bound to increase the odds of a mistake.

So you think different standards of detention should apply to people convicted of a crime whilst the balance of their mind was disturbed?

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So if they were on the outside you'd kill them and then we could lock you up in a cell and throwaway the key and feed you through a slot in the door with no appeals, visits from family, lawyers, exercise or showers etc. Does it still seem such a cracking idea?

So you are backtracking on the removal of the rights of prisoners to see a lawyer, get medical care, have a shower, get exercise etc?

Because if you want a free society rights have to be inalienable - they apply to everybody and cannot be removed. Its something fought for since the Magna Carta. The alternative is that the government gets to decide who is deserving of those rights. There are enough examples and warnings throughout history of the dangers of creating Untermenchsen.

you'd fit in well in Pinochet's Chile

Im not actually against the death penalty for multiple murderers. All Im saying is if you do have people in prison for decades you need some mechanisms for making sure they dont spend their time attacking and slashing wardens.

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A lot of prison officers would disagree with that approach, simply because removing any hope of eventual release removes their incentive to behave and feign rehabilitation. You end up with even more violent psychopaths than they would otherwise be.

Gascoigne has a physical and (probably) psychological dependence on alcohol. Some of the posters criticising him are obese through their inability to control what they eat, even though they don't have a physical addiction. Some people would be better served throwing fewer stones and empathising a bit more.

So you can't guarantee that as players are professionals they will give 100% then?

qpr

54 million Brazilian Real is about £16m, so that could be right.

So true. Many (most?) people's voting os based on myths or predjudice, not on reality.

Stuff that. We should never have stopped playing on the common imo.

Sounds like we could end up with Lovren, Wanyama and maybe one other. Extra cutting edge up front is the real priority now imo. I think I'd rather have Hooper than Damiao. Im not saying Hooper is better, but he is cheaper and much less of a risk imo.