Verbal

Kaboom-tish. Long before he was a regular guest star on The Big Bang Theory, Stephen Hawking was very funny, and ferociously competitive.

I think you have to keep the racial element firmly in it. I get a clear sense that the recent upsurge in viciously racist violence from US cops is connected with a deeply unpleasant strain of thought in American politics since 2008. As an outsider regularly visiting the US – a country I’ve lived in and enjoyed spending time in over the last 30+ years – it’s noticeable that a big part of the present, hysteria-pitch right-wing political rage has its roots in the fact that there’s a black man in the Oval Office. From the ludicrous ‘birther’ conspiracy theorists alleging that Obama is really Nigerian, or, even worse, Muslim, to the ever more vociferous attacks on Obama’s supposed ‘socialism’ and impeachable ‘treachery’ from the Republican right and media outlets like Fox News, the great unstated, unsayable truth is: the American right, with some notable exceptions, absolutely loathes Obama’s presence in a place he has no ethnic ‘right’ to be in. The subterranean logic is that for a black man to be in the White House he must have got there by cheating, or been planted there by sinister forces. I’ve never known such seething anger in political discourse in the US. (It’s been the meat and drink for the satire of Jon Stewart and the Daily Show for years now). And this rage seems to have infected the now heavily paramilitarised police departments of America’s major cities. (White police officers in the US are not generally known for their liberal-left views.) In different times, the scandal and social backlash of a racist police shooting or assault would change behaviour. It would prevent other outrages. These days, however, it is a constant stream – one shooting and vicious beating after another. Even though these repeat offenders must know for certain that their abuses will be being recorded on smartphones and sent viral, it acts as no deterrent whatsoever. Quite the opposite: it’s as if that certain knowledge actually encourages ever-greater levels of police violence. The brakes are off. Just as Obama has become fair game for the most outrageous abuses, so too are black men, women and children fair game to some white justice. These incidents are modern-day lynchings, on a large scale, rolling incessantly from one city to another. And so it will be, until it subsides on the day that Obama leaves the White House, white power is safely restored, and the American right and the police can withdraw back into the sullen silence about race that has long been a part of American political culture. American cities these days are sad places indeed.

Quoted just so I know you actually said that.

I've bookmarked this thread as evidence.

Tough one. Who to believe? The author of a peer reviewed paper in a major scientific journal? Or a swivel-eyed loony rag that's so far out there even you'd be embarrassed? http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/02/02/3617462/science-is-hard/

Re. the immediate future of FIFA's leadership, the wise words of the esteemed Eric Cantona: "To choose between Blatter and Platini is like choosing between the plague and cholera."

Of course. And now he's gone, all that's left of FIFA is layer after layer of officials under investigation for industrial-scale corruption. The whole thing is going to come down like a house of cards.

So you don't live in the real world then? You don't think such views are testable against the actual outcomes? Or is your fantasy worldview only possible because deep down you don't believe there's a cat in hell's chance of there being a No vote? (On that, at least, you'd be right.) And you don't think it's a problem, or even relevant, that the funding for the IEA is from such fundamentally immoral sources as the tobacco industry? It's one thing to want your pre-1850s view of capitalism and world trade confirmed by those with similarly quaintly antique views; quite another to put so much faith in someone who doesn't even qualify as a proper economist and whose organisation is so obviously biddable. So try harder, Lord Tender. Find a source that helps nudge you into the 20th century - at least for the sake of a decent argument. Because this is like debating with a long-forgotten descendant of Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle, in whose company everything goes round in circles.

Yeah, I know about Littlewood. He's hardly a Lib Dem now - way out on the loopy libertarian loons outer orbit, somewhere near your neighbourhood in fact.

That would be the determinedly Thatcherite, avowedly anti-EU, tobacco-industry-funded 'free market think tank', would it? Trustworthy and objective are two words I'd advise you not to associate with this little outfit.

For heaven's sake, Lou. Go back and read the sentence again. I wasn't accusing you of anything. And I'm sure the following is of interest to precisely no one, but here goes: There are a number of people on here who know who I am. One of them is Weston Saint, who, presumably in a fit of geriatric rage during a small disagreement, decided to post my former company name here. Pap was on it like a ferret down the proverbial, and was soon dancing around with bits and pieces of my life that he posted on here. To be fair to the person known as pap, he didn't actually ever give my full name, but it was easy to add two and two. Leave aside forum rules broken by Weston, here's the problem. In the recent past, I've made a number of films that have attracted the attentions of conspiracy theorists. They have targeted me by publishing my name, address and phone numbers in chat rooms and inviting people to do their worst. This included a racist attack (my wife is from South Asia). My experience of conspiracy theorists over quite an extended period now is that among them are some seriously unhinged people. Some of them even commit the crimes which then other conspiracy theorists claim to be 'false flags'. When Weston posted as he did, I asked the mods to remove it, precisely because I did not want pap, as a committed and it seems to me highly suggestible conspiracy theorist, to have private information about me. He has presented himself on here at times as deeply obsessed about people's 'real' identity, and appeared to revel in 'unmasking' posters and then using the information he gleaned to abuse and humiliate. He did that, for example, with another poster on here, who'd committed the apparently unspeakable crime of joining an online dating agency. The person known as pap has no right to do that, but he has a track record of following people around. The present incarnation of pap is someone who's mildly grown up since then, although now with a nervous-tick-like penchant for cartoons which lack both wit and intelligence. More often than not, it's the same impulse to humiliate other posters that's at work in these failed efforts. As for there being some kind of special rule for me on here - which pap was pretty assiduous in claiming - that is simply untrue, at least as far as I know. It's one of many lies he's put out about me. My refusal in the past to respond to his lies perhaps leads people to think his fairy tales are true. They are not. I have no knowledge about pap's banning, and as I said earlier I'm sorry to see anyone leave. My strong inclination is to think that he is the author of his own misfortune. The Jeremy Clarkson of Saintsweb, if you will. As the psycho says, serious business...

You miss my point. Why should Steve Grant apologise for 'the Verbal situation'? Whatever that might be (I certainly don't know). I have not had a single communication with Steve Grant about anything in about three years. As for any 'spats', this person you call pap brought it all on his own head. And I hardly think I was the only one on here who objected, for example, to his mouthing off about how Lee Rigby was pretending he'd had his head all but severed (etc., ad nauseum), and that his grieving family were state-sponsored liars.

Excuse my asking, but exactly is 'the Verbal situation'? Is that like the China syndrome? Or is it more Manchurian candidate? Or in short, what conspiratorial, noodle-headed garbage have you had beamed into your brain?

You'd think so, even without irony. But no. The crime rate in America has been in dramatic decline, just as the city population of Prison, USA, has dramatically risen. http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/the-many-causes-of-americas-decline-in-crime/385364/ America is a mass incarcerator on an industrial scale. Everyone in the US I know knows someone in the family or among friends who's been to jail. Mass incarceration began in the early 1990s, just as the prisons became increasingly for-profit - run by large, rather sinister, government-lobbying corporations.

I can see only one poster here not prepared to play the popularity game and maintain his integrity... #voteverbal

How sad. You were once like that indie band that had an edge, no one other than the cool dudes really liked, and really annoyed the mums and dads on here. Now you've gone mainstream. You've become Westlife.

This makes prison the fifth largest city in the United States, just edged out of fourth by Houston, Texas. Staggering. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population Lucky the Waco spree shooters weren't black, otherwise Houston would have lost a place.

Pedant's corner: It's a contraction (not an abbreviation) of 'not one', and it's followed by the singular. Just as 'either' or 'neither' is, because they're contractions of 'either one', etc. And back to the thread...

But maybe include Morgan in the next one? Good video though.

Christ. How the IT are fallen.

Which isn't quite what he's saying. His spinners are saying his decision is not because of any particular story, but because of 'pressures'.

There's more to this than meets the eye - wait for the papers on Sunday. As I said earlier, we need the race to be really underway to see who may emerge as a credible leader. I imagine it won't be of the current favourites, and may even be Dan Jarvis, even though he's formally out.

Hmm. Just to add to the conspiracy theories, if Pap said something about me today that got him banned I'm completely unaware of it. Sorry to see him - or anyone - go.

As long as Labour don't elect anyone with the hubris of Kinnock they should be fine with some of the other candidates as well. I think it's too early to make a reliable judgement on leadership just yet - some will grow into the role during the campaign and others will wilt. The opportunity is there though, as this is shaping up to be the most divisive government since the poll tax Tories of 87.

Do you run all these completely fictitious scenarios in your head just to wind yourself up?