Sheaf Saint

It seems that when Bill Shankly said that football is more important than a matter of life and death, a number of people have difficulty realising that he didn't actually mean it. Whatever this is about (it seems pretty obvious that it is to do with the Irish sectarianism thing but I don't want to jump to any conclusions) people need to get some perspective. Football rivalry can be bad enough without the need to bring religious differences into it. I suppose I am lucky that I have never lived in that world where kids have a hatred of other ethnic / religious groups instilled into them from birth, but I truly cannot get my head round it sometimes.

Even so though, the headline and the thread title make out like DC has already blocked the move, where in fact he hasn't; all he has done is voice his own personal opinion about Brown's suitability for it. I agree that when push comes to shove and Cameron is given the opportunity to veto it then he would probably elect to do so, but the media and the OP are making it seem that he already has, thus sensationalising a nothing story.

Let's just get this into a little context here. I was listening to the today program on R4 when Cameron made this 'attack' yesterday, and the reality is that he was put on the spot by Evan Davies about it and, when pushed for an answer, replied that he had not spent any time thinking about it but that his own personal opinion was that he may not be the most suitable person for the job. He did NOT say specifically that he would block or veto the appointment, but hey... never let the actual facts get in the way of a good bit of over-dramatisation by the media.

I was thinking this earlier and I reckon this is our only real hope of getting anything from the game. If he plays a full-strength team, with no pressure on them as the title is already seasled, it would be hard to bet against anything other than yet another home win.

Something tells me this won't be an issue next season ;-)

So FBI documents confirm the 'nutjobs' were right all along, and yet you still classify them as nutjobs? Interesting

I live in south Sheffield and it reckons I am 168 miles from SMS (which sounds about right) and 27 miles from Huddersfield Town, but you are apparently 99 miles further from SMS than me despite only being 1.3 miles from Hudds Town. Something's not right here.

Probably because they cost so much to begin with that they are trying to extract as much life out of them as they possibly can before scrapping them.

This is precisely the way I see it. Millennia ago, people used to worship the god of the sun or the god of rain or the god of thunder because they hadn't the slightest comprehension of the nature of the earth, weather etc.. Then some Jewish tribesmen came up with the old testament as a means of justification for their continued wars with other tribes and it somehow took a hold and people accepted it as truth. It really shocks me that people still cling to this crap despite the fact that science has disproved an awful lot of the claims made in the OT. Classic example - the book of Genesis states that 'God made two great lights: one to light up the days and one to provide light at night' (not the exact words but you get the gist) obviously referring to the sun and the moon. Modern science has shown us that the sun has existed for a great deal longer than the Earth, so there was no concept of night and day before the Earth existed because they are created by the rotation of the planet. We have also proved that the moon is not actually a 'great light', rather a useless lump of rock caught in the gravitational pull of the earth, which just happens to reflect the light of the sun towards the surface area of the Earth. You have to ask: if the very first book of the bible managed to get this so catastrophically wrong, how can you possibly take any of the rest of it with any seriousness? But nooooooo, there are still plenty of people who genuinely do believe that the bible is the literal word of god. I'm afraid there is no hope for these people if they are so utterly incapable of any critical thinking. The worst one for me is the Q'uran. As I understand it, most muslims believe that this is also the literal word of Allah. This being the case, why did Allah choose to 'reveal' the Q'uran to an illiterate nomad who had no means to write it down? Muhammed allegedly kept the contents of his revelation in his head for many years before passing it on to some soldiers so it could be shared with the wider world, so unless he had a spectacularly good photographic memory, I would wager that the contents had changed an awful lot before it was committed to scroll. The other crazy thing about this is that many muslims believe that the Q'uran loses all meaning if it translated inot any language other than Arabic. So if God really does want the whole world to convert to Islam, why would he/she/it exclude the vast majority of the world's population from understanding his revealed truth?

Maybe it was badly worded. Perhaps the article should refer to theistic or organised religion.

Well yeah, and I think that's the point Nick was making. Don't you remember the hysteria and despair from some fans on here after that game?

Some little muppet did both mine and my neighbours' cars not long ago. I'm a pacifist and I don't believe that violence is ever the way to solve anything, but if I had caught the little c**t in the act then I can't honestly say that I would have been able to restrain myself.

Yeah, of course dune. Cos there's no way that the EDL - the fine bunch of upstanding citizens that they are - could ever include someone so monumentally stupid as this neanderthal is there.

But I thought you liked Gadaffi and wanted him to win dune???

Actually, in all seriousness aintforever, it might have something to do with the UK being one of the five permanent members of the UN security council. Clearly there are benefits of being part of that elite, but with it also comes responsibility that we can't just abandon as and when we decide that there is nothing to gain from it.

Ask dune; he clearly still yearns for the days of the empire and I'm sure he will be ecstatic that we are now getting another chance to prove to the rest of the world just how great Great Britain really is.

If this is truly a humanitarian mission with the sole aim of preventing a lunatic dictator from committing genocide against his own people then I think that the UN has a responsibility to carry it out in the name of protecting innocent civilians. This is one of the founding principles of the organisation. However, as much as I believe in the ideal of using the relative prosperity of the western world to stand up for the rights of people everywhere, the cynic inside me is saying that the only reason the US, UK and others would take this action is if there was some economic benefit to be gained from it, as this is historically the only reason that nations ever go into conflict unless attacked first. We shall see. It is clear that this situation is completely different from Iraq in 2003, and of course we have a different government in power now (I wonder what Phoney Blair would be planning right now if he was still PM, seeing as he has always been a close buddy of Gadaffi), but one thing that I have learned over the years is that no matter which party they may represent, politicians are all the same at the end of the day. Self-serving habitual liars the lot of them.

I started reading a book of his called Why Does E=MC2? (and Why Should We Care?) and he attempts to explain all about vectors in spacetime. I have to admit I gave up because it actually made my brain hurt.

Yes I agree Phil that the whole situation is a god-awful sh1tty mess, and there is no simple answer as there never is when it comes to geo-politics, particularly in the middle-east where religion always complicates things a whole lot more. As I told my friend in my reply to her earlier today, I have nothing but admiration and respect for the protesters who are putting themselves in the firing line to stand up for freedom from oppression. I don't know if I would ever have the courage to do that myself, but then desparate times call for desparate measures and I suppose I should consider myself extremely lucky that I have never yet had to face that choice.

Just another couple of snippets from a long message I got from my friend earlier (her father's family are all Bahraini and most still live there so she has some inside knowledge of sorts)... ...I think that the Saudi govt are putting pressure on the Bahrain govt to sort it all out. The Prime Minister is a ****** and loves the Saudi's so is letting all this happen. It seems the only decent person in the Royal Family is the Crown Prince who isnt wanting any of this **** to happen... ...thats what they [The Bahraini royal family] are ****ting themselves about is losing the power. But thats the thing, the Bahraini people never wanted to get rid of the Royal family, they just want an elected parliament. And the other day the crown prince was in talks with 7 leaders from the opposition parties so we all thought, great, something is finally getting sorted and then the Saudi troops came in and then they announced martial law!! I think this puts to bed any debate about the whole thing being staged by Iran. This comes directly from people indigenous to the country (not ex-pats, importantly) and shows that it is simply a case of the common people deciding they have had enbough of the corruption and oppression and standing up for their human rights.

A friend of mine has family in Bahrain and from what she can gather the situation is very bad over there right now. This is what she messaged me this morning.... There are gangs of people that most people think and are pretty certain, have been planted by the govt to cause fear amongst people and make it look like the protesters are fighting back so then the govt can shoot the protesters. These 'gang' members are going into the villages and attacking people, so these village people defend themselves and then the 'official' police shoot at the villagers. Some of these 'gang' members were wounded and got taken to the hospital and the doctors found ID cards to show that these gang members worked for the govt!! While I find it shocking that any regime could resort to these measures, it sadly does not surprise me if these reports are true.

It is beyond bad, I will agree. But at least it does have a tiny amount of artistic merit. The very worst cover ever is William Shatner's version of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, closely followed in second place by his reworking of Pulp's Common People. I'm not going to link to either of them because I don't want to go through the experience of hearing a single second of them ever again.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/snakes_dies_of_silicone_poisoning_BW3UBtoDvsmZj6Be7n2r4O Utterly bizarre. Poor snake.

It's so bloody over-complicated to try and dissuade people from actually chasing up the HMRC to get back what they are owed. It's nuts. I have been trying for months now to get back a relatively small amount that I overpaid in 2009/10 due to my employers at the time neglecting to process my P46 and keeping me on an emergency tax code for longer than necessary. The hoops I have had to jump through so far are just stupid and I still haven't received my rebate. Every time I provide the requested information the HMRC just come back to me wanting more - most recently they needed my P45 from the Jobcentre for the period I was claiming JSA during 2008/09. I have virtually given up hope of ever seeing the rebate, and it seems to me that they deliberately make claiming back so difficult and complicated in the hope that some people just won't bother and they can keep the money.

I've heard that in India they have a rule called "might is right" which basically means that whichever vehicle is the bigger has the right of way. Sounds bizarre but apparently it works quite well.