scotty

this.

I'm not a smoker, but the blanket ban hasnt been a runaway success imho. Its hit pubs very hard indeed, I really cant see why there shouldnt have been a beefed up version of smoking rooms, maybe reversing the no-smoking areas idea so that there would be just a few well ventilated smoking areas instead, in pubs that chose to provide them. And yes, the netherlands situation does seem farcical.

I never did get Oasis. Pair of tw*ts imo

lmao, I wouldnt. Really, I wouldnt......

he wants to mind he doesnt get glassed, spouting like that

Most of the indicators seem to point towards a decent result, agreed. We're on a decent run, most of the squad available, team and manager gelling, we ought to nab the points. Perversely, thats why I have a nagging doubt....

I can see it being a good test for how waterproof our keyboards are myself, this game is made to order for a Saints f*ckup. That said, Ive been off the booze and on the wagon for two weeks now so I'm not in the most optimistic of moods.

I'd be inclined not to buy the thing, on the off-chance that anyone here was considering it. There is a real live on-the-register sex-offender living not far from me, his windows never stay in one piece for long, christ only knows what his insurance premiums cost.

It was nearer two million I think, but it was never going to achieve a halt to the invasion even if double that number had turned out and demolished the capital. Blairs tongue was so far up bush's ar5e by then it would have needed surgery to remove it.

edit

is that a satirical site?

Ormerod had much better sideburns if that counts for anything (and imo it ought to)

surely thats the chaos theory?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/nov/11/amazon-ebooks-paedophiles-guide Amazon have just removed the Pedophiles Guidebook from their listings. Thoughts?

therein lies the conundrum. How can you create something out of nothing?

not a silly question at all, if the universe is expanding, surely it must be expanding into something.

I wish somebody would start a thread about the theory of an infinitely-expanding universe so we'd have something to really sink our teeth into.

I would have thought it was obvious.....

pmsl!!!

When alls said and done, youre right on that. I guess its impractical, but I'd like to think that we actually are superior to the terrorists morally, and that our system of beliefs and laws stands for something infinitely better than theirs, and that we wont descend to their level of behaviour. Ever the idealist.......

agreed, I'm just making the point that as long as it gets into the public domain (and it will) then the torture itself is likely to create more problems than it solves. We can act as tough as we like, but what good will it do if the net result is hundreds more radicalised muslims to deal with? I have nothing against the idea of grilling information about terrorist plots out of known terrorists, but its naive to assume that there wont be any downside to that.

too wise to get us into the top 2, just in case the story breaks?

....which is exactly what they are saying about us while flashing up photos from abu ghraib and guantanamo, and therein lies the problem.

Its not just a question of claiming the moral high ground for its own sake, its the resulting propaganda gift to the enemy. We will never know how many reasonably normal muslims were radicalised by the photos from Abu Ghraib. And it sounds pretty hollow to insist that we are not at war with islam, as bush and blair repeatedly claimed, while simultaneously invading a sovereign country on an utterly preposterous pretext. Like it or not, that was seen as an anti-islamic invasion, and as Phil points out above, it has resulted in an influx of al-quaeda and taliban radicals into that country.

This thread isnt specifically about Iraq, but saddam torturing his citizens was one of the excuses used to justify it. And bush and co used the "they use torture worse than we do" argument as well, so I think its reasonable to discuss it on a thread about torture. I'm undecided about the use of it, can see both sides, but on balance I would reckon it does more harm to the cause of the people employing it than whatever benefit they could gain from it. Information extracted by torture is notoriously unreliable, that is well documented.