Verbal

The simple, unarguable fact is that what we call 'Western logic' derives overwhelmingly from the Arab world. Next time you look at Leonardo's Last Supper or Vermeer's Milkmaid, just keep in mind that the mathematics - the logic - of perspective in these paintings was derived directly from The Book of Optics by the Iraqi scientist al-Haytham. When his works were translated into Latin, and then into Italian, they had a tremendous impact on the Florentine Renaissance. Al-Haytham's theories of light and optics also preceded Newton and Kepler by centuries, and their remarkable works would not have been possible without a thorough grounding in Arabic scientific breakthroughs. Another 'first' for al-Haytham was that he was really the first rigorously experimental scientist (and got into some difficulty because of it). On the flip side, Edward Said has long ago settled the argument that 'Orientialism' - the view that Arabs in particular and the Orient generally have an alien logic to the West - is a byword for a persistent, pernicious racism. There really is little more to be said than that about such 'logic' arguments - they're plainly, unadulteratedly racist. What you really mean, I suspect, is that the ideology of ISIS is self-sealing. Just like a conspiracy theorist who believes and will only believe that, say, Lee Rigby and other brutally murdered or maimed victims were 'crisis actors', Jihadists have an internal logic that allows for the most illogical conclusions. There was a famous Al Qaeda missive a few years back which stated under what conditions it was permissible to murder Muslims. It turned out that so long as the killer 'believes' and is 'devout' then he may take any Muslim life, knowing that that Muslim would be transported straight to Heaven. Where do such bizarre ideas come from? Certainly not 'Arab logic'. They come from where all Salafist ideologies come from - extremist, medievalist ideas that emerged in the eighteenth century with an obscure, ultra-violent cleric called Wahaab, whose vicious nonsense only gained traction with the discovery of oil under the feet of his Saudi acolytes. Please don't be polarised into your position by the narcissistic hissy fits of someone who has turned a serious thread into yet another about himself. There really is no opposition of Western logic/Arab logic. The latter gave rise to the former and actually did all the heavy lifting for it before our own Western scientific greats could add one plus one.

Torture is mostly for the gratification of the torturers, and little to do with "information-gathering", no matter how often that pathetic rationalisation is trotted out. The two "psychologists" hired at colossal expense by the CIA - they could spend several lifetimes trying to spend $81 million, the price paid for their racked-up torture techniques - are little more than sadistic monsters, differing from "Jihadi John" only in the desire to conceal their actions. They share with ISIS murderers and torturers the desire to humiliate and glory in the pain and suffering of an "enemy combatant" (all too often a misidentified and innocent bystander). The US government does now need to widen its focus and deal with these and other atrocious abuses in the law courts. The case of Dilawar, the Afghan taxi driver killed by his US army interrogators in 2002, is well documented and absolutely horrific. He was beaten over his entire body with a level of violence that defies belief. His legs, for example, were so badly damaged in the days-long assaults that they were, in the words of the autopsy, "pulpified", and if he's survived, he'd have had to have them amputated. The US Army interrogators were court martialled: one had the charges dropped after recounting the torture in great detail, and the other, facing possibly sixteen years in jail, was merely demoted. When the Abu Ghraib photos were published by the New Yorker in 2004 there was uproar and condemnation. But condemnation of what? And of whom? Judged by the people who were prosecuted and went to jail, it was the low-grade US army personnel taking the photos and humiliating Iraqi suspects (note: not convicted terrorists) who were to blame. This was despite the fact that some of the photos featured dead Iraqis, killed by their CIA interrogators. What was the fate of these interrogators? Total exoneration and immunity from prosecution in 2012 by Obama's Attorney Eric Holder. Holder did this because, in his words, "it would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the justice department." The precise meaning of that sentence is horrifically chilling, and should be revisited after the Senate Intelligence Committee's report. In the light of the publication of the Senate report, these immunity certificates need to be withdrawn and the CIA interrogators prosecuted. When they, if found guilty, are jailed, the US government needs to prosecute those in the DoJ and the White House who, in Holder's own accidental admission, sanctioned all of this, and profited from it, in the first place.

History is going through something of a publishing boom at the moment and there's plenty to choose from. My own personal favourite is the extraordinary Third Reich trilogy by Richard Evans. If you only buy one of the three, I'd suggest starting at the beginning with The Coming of the Third Reich - but all three would be a terrific present. Richard Evans' scholarship and fluency in German gives him access to much original materials and so his books read as 'as it happens' stories, and are the best page-turners I've read in a while. (Evans was also the leading historical consultant for Martin Amis's Zone of Interest, a terrifying 'inside' account of lives in a death camp, and was the lead expert witness in the legal demolition of the Holocaust denier and falsifier David Irving.)

Excellent points, all well made. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/24/cameronmustgo-twitter-users-decry-david-camerons-record

Is this thread an excerpt from The Fast Show?

He may be a little abrupt for your taste but he's also right on this. Your objections are painful to read, because you don't see that you're rather preciously imposing your own view of the experience of trench warfare (when you actually have none) which is every bit as partial as the one represented in the ad. If you go and listen to the extensive archive of sound and vision recordings of first-hand testimony lodged at the Imperial War Museum, you'll hear a much richer view from those who actually fought and survived. It includes testimony about incidents like the one in the ad, and others, such as the long periods of incredible boredom, even when the enemy were a stone's throw away. And then there are the bursts the indescribable horror - the kind of horror which even a news broadcast today (or then) cannot show. Notably the truly hellish accounts of the effects of gas warfare, and the effects of shelling. So instead of imagining the war and imposing your imagination on the ad (and remember, any sensible viewer knows that ads are not and do not claim to be contributors to the historical canon), go and have a listen to these records. As someone who's contributed recordings to the museum (interviews conducted with survivors of the Burma railway), I can tell you that if you take the time to listen, you'll learn a lot... Wars are horrible, but they are not reducible to the horror.

The picture would have been a virtual work of art worthy of Martin Parr if she'd only managed to include the van/house owner in the shot.

How do you get the message from that commercial that we can ‘all forget the horrors of the Great War’? Nothing in it says anything of the sort. Is anyone but the most hopelessly naïve under the impression that the Christmas football match was anything other than a brief respite? If so, where are these gullible people? Or are they figments of your imagination? Does the commercial really suggest anything other than that war was hell before and after? Is it really propagating some alternate version of the war in which everyone sat down and enjoyed themselves for four whole years? That’s what all those grim trenches and the rendition of no-man’s land were all about? Was the war fought in the trenches between bad people rather than good? You have to believe all that to conclude that the commercial is therefore a ‘lie’. It’s not ‘the truth’ either – in that it compressed several incidents over the early years of the war into one. But, Jesus H Christ, do you have to believe an awful lot of nonsense to reach the conclusion that it was some kind of Orwellian ‘lie’ in which war is peace and peace is war, and which droves of (imaginary) Brits are in danger of accepting as historical ‘fact’. Because that's how they learn our history - watching TV ads. It’s not a great commercial – the bouncing bomb one (which also attracted exactly the same sad-eyed moaning) was much better. But with all this hand- wringing anyone would think we’d witnessed the second coming of Goebbels – all over what is basically an unremarkable but quite well produced ad.

It doesn't seem that 'excellent' to me though. What it does indicate is that moral outrage can be taken to mean that reasoned argument is superfluous. For example, "the bizarre outcome is Sainsbury's giving us the perverse Christmas message that chocolate makes war OK" sounds a good rabble-rousing slogan...if it were true. But it isn't. The ad is about an incident that happened outside of the more usual conduct of war (and almost certainly against standing orders about fraternising with the enemy). The chocolate bar was exchanged as a surprise gift from one enemy combatant to another. How exactly is that 'making war ok'? Is the argument only sensible from the sanctimonious point of view of a high horse? By all means disagree with the sentiments in the ad, or complain about the state of affairs where a war victims' charity depends on a supermarket. But I can't but feel it would help if the more voluble critics were able to dial down the emote control so we can hear what they're actually saying.

Bellingcat, the open-source 'citizen investigative journalists' who recently triangulated the exact location of James Foley's murder, have carried out this succinct and persuasive dismissal of the supposed shoot-down image as fakery. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2014/11/14/russian-state-television-shares-fake-images-of-mh17-being-attacked/ The claim on Russian state TV that it was sourced from Wikileaks is (unsurprisingly) false.

Exactly - and utterly, utterly depressing. The Lounge at its insinuating, weasel-worded worst. Luckily for the 'birds' (Tokyo Saint TM), verdicts are not delivered on football forums.

There are degrees of violence, from mild coercion or taking advantage of an inebriated state to murder - but not degrees of rape, which is a yes/no answer to the question of consent. You really need to consult a dictionary. Being an apologist (which from the tone of your posts you appear to be as close as damn it) does not mean 'apologising'.

That's the spirit! The best Tiny Tim Cratchit impression I've read in ages.

It may not be that Qatar has been any more or less corrupt than other bid winner in the past. The difference this time is the sheer surreal absurdity of a World Cup in the Arabian Gulf in the Summer. So a withdrawal of the FA from FIFA wouldn't be aimed at Middle Eastern interests as such, but rather at FIFA itself, which is, as has been said, an appalling banana republic which has serially damaged the interests of football in return for copious kickbacks. So I don't think it conflicts with ME investment in the Prem. Pulling out of FIFA sounds appealing, at least if it's used as a nuclear option in a determined bid to reform an organisation that, like F1, has done more than any to damage the sport. But the minute we start talking about the FA as a leader of a reform movement it all starts to sound a bit ridiculous. And my guess is FIFA knows this - it's a battle of the chronically corrupt vs the chronically hopeless.

It's not hard to figure out, is it? If, as you say, the British electorate (you excepted, of course) are, I quote, 'morons', how can they be trusted with any plebiscite decision at all? Won't the moronic sheeple do whatever the MSM tells them to do?

So how exactly do you get a reliable plebiscite from people (the British electorate) you yourself describe as 'morons'?

What are you looking for, Tim? Some rational, consistent sense? If so, you're looking in the wrong place. On the one hand, this guy wants plebiscites on issues otherwise there's no legitimacy (actually plebiscites are more the tool of '99-percent-in-favour' dictatorships than liberal democracies); on the other hand, we're all sheeple controlled by a hypnotising 'MSM' (mainstream media) which manipulates these plebiscites. If you want more sense, you're better off asking your cat.

Bits of string theory were widely discredited by M theory by adding an extra (11th) dimension. So 2-0 is still wrong.

If you calculated only using integers, this is wrong.

Great - well said Ducky., I've put you down as "Yes, I agree with Ed!!'. Stickers and window poster on the way - sent second class. Fancy some door-knocking?

When you say 'these reports' you presumably mean 'this report' - which I take for code translated: as you haven't read it. And you're fabulating to suit your inner ostrich. As for the idea that the report 'makes no allowance' for capital assets and other costs, one section of the report deals with contributions from non-EU migrants, which make significant demands on public services. Between 1995 and 2011 costing taxpayers £118 billion. Even when balanced against their contribution, they still took out more than they 'paid in' for every year during that period. Three-quarters of the net contribution - the figure widely reported - is from 'old EU' migrants (France, Italy, Germany, etc). Presumably the knee jerkers have kneed themselves in the head in their dim-witted rush to accuse the authors of bias, because there's plenty of good statistical information in the report to inform both sides of the debate.

Meaning they should change the facts to suit your opinions? Do you think they should have suppressed these facts because UKIP has some degree of popularity? And what 'subsidies' are these? (Do you mean 'subsidies'?)

Brilliant.

What kind of Tory are you? So you're saying that if a company can't afford to pay its workforce it can just tap up the state and get its workers for free? Shaft the employee and the taxpayer at the same time? I can only assume you think this couldn't happen to you. But just suppose for a minute that your nice cosy ride on your plastic-seated First Capital Connect was suddenly impossible because your employer had told you you're redundant - and then said you can come back to work for free. How would you feel? Would it change your life at all?

The alternative, once the 'charity' involved has stopped hanging its had in shame, is to pay the guy. This amounts to bonded labour. This is just an extreme case of the familiar dodge by the worst employers - shift the costs of labour (with low pay or no pay) from the employer to the tax payer. Employers like this are the worst of state benefits spongers. I thought you'd be against such a thing.