Verbal

'When'?!

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/07/12/world/AP-Roman-Polanski.html?_r=1&hp Thank heavens for that. And credit to the Swiss for not being bullied into extraditing Polanski into the oblivion of the US prison system and its 'without parole' mentality.

Even if, as someone quite rightly said, it's all about sex?

That's what Dawkins says. Or worse: the idea of a watchmaker is wrong.

Have a gold star. Section 44 is a police-state measure used by to harass British citizens based on no 'intelligence' whatsoever. In more than ten years since hitting the statute book, and after thousands upon thousands of pointless, occasionally abusive 'stops', it has trapped a grand total of 0 terrorists. A word of advice: if you're ever stopped under Section 44, NEVER give your name and address. The police are only allowed to ask, not demand, under the Act. But if they succeed in getting your name, it will automatically be added to a centralised Section 44 list. There is no prospect of your getting it removed, and no guarantee that it won't be used against you.

Shouldn't there be some sort of penalty for winning games against fellow strugglers with players you don't own?

Yes, and the real problem is going to be with the presently disappearing glacier systems that feed the five great rivers of Asia.

Because one has nothing to do with the other?

I liked The Deputy - very 'Ventures' sounding - and Revolution Song (which is really good but could do with some tightening up here and there, i think) sounds like it could only come of Manchester. If you're up that way and looking to get a video made later this year I know some people who might be able to help you out.

Not had tripe. No food invented by the Scots could possibly be good for you. In Madagascar, I've been offered fried maggots served with live soft shell crabs that are cooked in front of you and then eaten whole. Pretty good! One of the least yucky things I've eaten, I'm sorry to say, is whale. It was served raw, dipped in a Korean sauce and then placed on a sizzler thingy for a few seconds. Tasted like the tenderest beef you could imagine.

Food and rugs from stupid animals? I have higher standards than you, evidently.

Several hundred?! I thought he died barely two hundred years ago. Didn't they teach you American history before they lined you up with the other immigrants to stick your hand on your heart and pledge blinding allegiance? Franklin was dead right though.

Ponty's advice was to cut out the abuse - not stop posting in a hissy fit. I've eaten whale in a Japanese restaurant in Tokyo. How it got there is interesting. The Japanese are not allowed to catch whales commercially, except in small numbers like those in The Cove', which I think is legally sanctioned by the International Whaling Commission - who also sanction whaling in other traditional communities like the Quinault indians of Washington State in the US. However, the 'research' meat has some perfunctory 'research' done on it and is then passed down the food chain, so to speak. It is, in other words, a bit of a dodge. The Japanese signed up to the Whaling convention and then looked for every conceivable way around it. So as a customer eating whale meat in a Japanese restaurant, I was probably more at fault than those in the cove. (Does it cut any ice that the whale - cooked 'Korean style' - was pretty good?) But the larger point is that the Japanese are doing something much less defensible with their 'research' vessels than with the slaughterers in the Cove. As meat eaters ourselves, we in the West are in a bit of a glass house throwing stones by complaining about the killing of dolphins. Other cultures ARE different in ways that can make us wince. But it's reasonable, on both sides of the argument, to hold all sides to international agreements - whether it's to ban commercial whaling or to license whaling and dolphin hunting among traditional communities.

So would you moderate your earlier claim that the 'new orthodoxy' is that the North Atlantic Drift isn't changing and won't change? I've always understood that a change or fizzling out of the NAD was a possibility in some climate models - but that, as you say, 'we don't know'. The idea that there is convincing evidence that everything is and will be fine is what puzzled me.

Don't ask me, ask Azougy. He'll give you a credible answer. But that's what he said - £40 million paid off by Sunday. This is on top of the claim that after the players were p[aid, the fans would immediately get some news that would make them all happy. Does he mean us?

Source, Grandad? Yours are the most plausible sceptical posts on here, so I'm always curious.

Azougy promised to pay off £40m of debts by this Sunday, which presumably includes the £28m to Gaydamak.

For or against?

As someone who shares a birthday with Napoleon III, I prefer Boxer's 'Napoleon is always right.'

Trousers, while it's certainly true that ants, for example, are more important to the planet's ecosystems , it's not much of a philosophy to live by, is it: 'Yes, the destruction of the human race is all very well, but what about the ants'?

You're assuming that Muslims in Luton did nothing before the racist arson attack. I wonder why? There weren't ANY Muslim protests or actions against extremists? Are you serious? As I've said a few times, you're clearly one of many on here for whom no amount of proof otherwise would change your mind. I note with interest that when I posted a strong and beautifully articulate Muslim protest against Chaudary earlier in this thread, the usual suspects ignored it. A little too inconvenient for their little mindset, obviously.

No, it isn't different, not least because the petrol bombing by white racists was not the only catalyst. But as I say, for you, VFTT, dune, and others no doubt, whatever they do will, in the end, never be enough.

Okay, I'll spell it out, although I'd have thought that with someone who likes to trumpet his own intelligence you'd have got it: why are you assuming that it was only the arson attack that led to the actions in Luton?

You can ask yourself that bullsh*t question if you like, but I won't, because it's been asked and answered so many times, only for some like you to whine on and on about how whatever they do is never 'enough'. There are plenty of examples of Muslims showing for more courage against extremists than you give them credit for, so it's utterly pointless arguing with you.