saintbletch

Oh Toke. Just when I felt it wasn't possible for you to disappoint me further, you go and over-deliver once again.

You philistinian luddite BTT! Here's one of Leo's early drafts...Should've stopped there. Hmm. Good point!

Excellent post Rasiak-9, and thanks for taking the time to expand on your previous post. I have no detailed understanding of political systems, so in that respect I feel as though I've bought a knife to a gunfight, but I'll happily share my personal views. I agree with much of your post and I think we're arguing from different side of the same coin, perhaps I see a little more grey than you though. Some thoughts for you... The qualification about subjectivity and objectivity is valid and I understand what you meant about the subjectivity of fairness. I also understand the example of a sentence missing an object being incomplete. But surely we're too deep in the territory of semantics here? That said, I’m happy to debate semantics it with you. The subjectivity in your excellent scissors example is provided by the scissors' statement of purpose. We might both agree that the scissors were created to “cut” and therefore we can be objective in deciding whether the scissors work. But if someone expected the scissors to cut thick paper, card, or even tin, do those scissors still “work”? If I’ve got a need to cleave paper, they certainly work, but if my problem involves snipping tin, then I might need a scissors of a different colour. So if, let’s call him George, if George looks at an economic system and objectively expects it to be working if it creates economic growth, employment, features low government interference, low taxation, low social welfare costs and rewards people who create businesses and take risks, George will rightly feel that he can objectively decide if it the current economic system "works". Whereas Ed might look to an economic system to provide him with full employment, a living wage, affordable essentials and a safety net for when he or his family become old, sick or unable to work. Now with something as simple as a pair of scissors you and I could agree on a statement of purpose that eliminates the discussion about what it is designed to cut. We could therefore pretty much eliminate the subjectivity - as you suggested above. But when we're dealing with something as complex and personal as ideologies, or economic and political systems, it’s subjectivity all the way down in my view. The subjectivity in whether an economic system works or not comes from the people who define the statement of purpose - the George and the Eds of this world. It seems as though your statement of purpose for our economic/political system is different from mine. So, if we qualify our statement as “The economy works from George’s perspective”, we now have object, predicate and subject. I say again, fairness is subjective, and so is whether something like an economic system works. I guess you could point to dramatic failure of totalitarian socialist systems, and I'd be the first to acknowledge that dogmatic socialism is fundamentally flawed. But, I’m not sure that I can look at capitalism and free market economics and see them as flawless either. If we take socialism to the extreme, it breaks; just as if we create an environment of unfettered capitalism, we see failure - sometimes on a global level and sometimes so serious that it takes many decades to put right. Did free market economics and capitalism 'work' in late 2000s when it took rather socialist intervention to save the world's financial systems from meltdown? If it did work, it wasn't its finest hour. I was compelled to reply to your original post by what I saw as the arrogance of the assumption that there is only one way to judge if a system works. I can now see that there is more nuance to your view, but perhaps not as much nuance as I hold in my views. I should probably go on record as saying that I’m not a socialist, but I do feel drawn to many of the principles. I perhaps should also note that I’ve voted for each major political party during my time, and I could possibly conceive of doing so again. Finally, my suggestion that “Compassion” might be a good place to start when defining Socialism in no way suggests that compassion only exists in within Socialism. It's simply that I see that social compassion is, or at least should be, a central tenet. All elephants are grey...etc.

Stunning...

I know that now Bear. Turkish tricked me, but it's OK though, I got my own back because I used my mouth instead if my hand. #gottogetupearlytogetoneoverthebletch

Very good, Sir. Will you be taking an after dinner drink in the withdrawing room? Turns out Turkish knows his boxing onions. I just like following him around The Lounge protecting the innocent against his sarcastic bullying. Turkish knows I'm just yanking his tail.

Yeah, fancy that Toke, the swear filter decided that my efforts to put a zero in place of the O in "c zero c k" should be obfuscated by four asterisks for fear of moral corruption. By the way, in that John Lewis Xmas ad that you and Bear did, did you notice that Bear was staring at all the young animals with that familiar "I would" look? FYI you look slightly effeminate in that ad.

I think he wants his cake and eat it too. Cake = Penis. Eat it = not lose all the 14 year old female twitter followers.

Is it? Don't worry Glasgow_Saint, nowadays you can get a couple of stitches put in it and it'll be back to normal.

I think 3B is talking about Turkish's rather candid admission that he was IN Glasgow on Saturday night. First Tom Daley, now the forum alpha male.

It routinely saves and improves people's lives without first checking their ability to afford the cost of the treatment?

As it happens, I am scum. Just a lucky guess, I guess!

Apologies if my flippancy caused offence. I was striving for humour because I didn't think you were being serious. It seems you were, so I guess there a few things that I should make clear. I'm not a political scientist and can't succinctly define Socialism; it seems to be a more personal thing to me. I'm not a socialist - although I do agree with many of the principles. I don't speak for socialists; I'm not an elected mouthpiece. I see a difference between social compassion and emotional compassion. For many, Margaret Thatcher's death was greeted with celebration. They claimed personal delight that she had stopped ****ing and ****ting herself and had finally left the metaphorical number 10 to spend more time with her family in the sky, but, and whilst I'm not speaking for them, the same people would likely extend the social safety net of the welfare state to any of Margaret Thatcher's dependants - should they genuinely fall on hard times and need the helping hand of the state. That for me is the difference between personal enmity and social fellowship. By the way, were you calling me scum in your comment above?

Even compassion should be 'mean' tested KelvinsRightGlove.

Nicely written! But, and here's the odd thing, I'm guessing that you formed the first paragraph thinking it in some way pejorative. I've read it a few times now and can't help thinking that you've failed to quite hit the insult. Words that appear invective to those on the right hit their targets on the left as no more than moist kisses. Also I like the idea that what is "fair" is subjective, but what "works" seems to be somehow empirical. Works from whose perspective Rasiak-9- ? I once heard Socialism defined as "Compassion" and that's not a bad place to start.

Yep, I scored it much the same as you. Interesting article here http://m.boxingnewsonline.net/latest/blog/the-scorecards-were-kind-to-carl-froch-before-he-stopped-george-groves It shows that an average of 46 journalists' score cards had Groves ahead by 5 at 78-73. And no journalist had Froch ahead. By the end of the fight I felt pretty short changed. The only winners were the Hearns and Sky. Not inclined to pay for the rematch.

Exactly so Turkish. So can that be explained by an inept performance by the judges? Or is there a more sinister explanation?

I have some sympathy with this position. I watched the fight with a mate and we were both rooting for Froch, but when the referee jumped in my first thought was corruption. Having sobered a little and slept on it, I thought that it surely couldn't have been corrupt. But now, having seen that two of the judges had Froch only behind by 1 going into the 9th, I'm not so sure. What fight are they watching? Excellent fight by Groves, and Froch's lack of any meaningful defence meant he was open to getting tagged at will. If he didn't have the chin he has it'd be all over. Froch should have been handled better by his management in the after fight interview. The only position for him to take was to credit Groves and distance himself from the ref's decision. Instead he talked himself from hero to villain.

Watched the game in the pub and the live coverage showed a replay from Clattenberg's perspective i.e. behind Mertesacker with Fonte in front of him. Whilst Clattenberg couldn't actually see what Fonte was doing, you saw the black border around the neck of Mertesacker's shirt being pulled halfway down his back revealing his white undershirt. So when Mertesacker's movement looked like it was restricted, it was an easy decision to give. I think that was probably the reason that he gave the penalty for what looked quite an innocuous and commonplace interaction.

Ebony and Ivory... Can't we all just get along? I guess the issue for many is the fact that Guided Missile's Range Rover will be killing their grand children at the same time it's killing Guided Missile's. Also, it appears the Guided Missile is simply aping Clarkson for some form of comic effect. You've got to respect someone who has the mental capacity to study the data and reach their own conclusion. But when that person tries to win you over with poorly argued rationale supported by dubious supporting material, then you sort of suspect that either the debater lacks intellectual rigour or he's yanking your tail. I think that Guided Clarkson is yanking my tail.

OK, it's taken me a while, but I've finally finished reviewing all 130+ pieces of research. I've reached the conclusion that global warming exists. I have found significant evidence to support my hypothesis that it is caused by the farts of the ever increasing population of intellectual pygmies. These emissions have raised the nitrogen levels in the upper atmosphere which in turn has resulted in an increase in global temperatures and a corresponding increase in unicorn sightings. You may not agree with this conclusion, but it cannot simply be dismissed as it is my review of peer reviewed papers, publishing research findings.

Fair enough. You've obviously put a lot of effort into researching the subject to reach such unequivocal conclusions.

OK will do. Can I just check that I understand your position? You acknowledge that those supportive of a human cause for global warming may well be right. But at the same time you don't believe that the evidence exists right now. And either way you feel that the increase is not significant enough to cause the human race economic or social problems. Is that right so far? If that IS your view, what sort of degree of certainty would attach to your position? You debate, if that is the right word, like you'd attach a 100% figure to that question, but above you seem to acknowledge that you're undecided. Like you, I'd say I'm undecided too. But I think I lack your conviction / zeal and I guess I'm one of the sheep that would rather be safe than...hot. I'm not a chemist or an accountant (although I do have an AAT qualification but climate change wasn't part of my course), so as I feel that the subject is really too complex for me to comprehend, I pretty much feel that I have to defer to the consensus.

I see your "intellectual pygmy" and raise you "Joe Cocker". Good debate lads. Guided Missile, do you remain open minded on the issue, or have you reached a firm conclusion? Genuine question.