LadyDeliah

The US have never had a left wing government.

My new lifestyle was purely theoretical, sorry Alan!

I agree with quids to the extent that I was surprised that some of the people who I thought had pretty robust principles, are not concerned by the way FG is produced. No-one is perfect and everyone has different levels of what they think is wrong, but I didn't expect myself to have higher principles on this than other people I consider generally far more aware and principled than me. I find it difficult to understand why anyone who cares about other injustices etc would be happy to eat something that was produced as a result of prolonged torture to an animal.

There are none! We have hunted high and low and they've all been nabbed already!

I had a moan, but they say that their policy is their policy and that's that! It's easier to cycle to the one opposite Netto in Peckham for anything urgent!

I've started working from home a lot recently and have had quite a lot of special and recorded delivery mail to send and The Plough one is unfortunately my local. I've never come across such a useless Post Office in my life before. They have 2 staff members who rarely work at the same time but when they do, they take their lunch hour together and close the Post Office between 1-2pm! They are arguably the slowest Post Office workers in the country and even after queuing for 15 minutes refuse to take your special or recorded delivery letters after 16:45! Infuriating!

I find it all rather strange that no-one cared about the psychological issues of the shoe bomber, or the dude who had explosives in his underpants. They were just labelled as terrorists and thrown in prison. Why is everyone treating this blonde, blue eyed Christian terrorist any differently?

DJKillaQueen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Decriminalisation won't remove the criminal > element. Just look at the criminal gangs making > fake booze and cigarettes or importing duty free. > The border agenices and Police are just as rubbish > at controlling that. The gangs selling illegal > drugs will still sell them, just undercutting the > tax and perhaps watering the substances down > further. And as is the case is now, the poorest > will buy from the criminals. Not sure how many murders occur overe these illegal activities though.

I think the point HH was trying to make was how would you measure how many recreational heroin users there are as they are not likely to be as public in their use as recreational drinkers. I know of a couple of functioning addicts and recreational users of heroin, but there may be others who remain undetected in our community because they hold down a job and can afford to buy decent gear. I think we need to look at what works and what doesn't. Prohibition has blatantly failed and criminalised users and suppliers. It's a waste of resources and a massive waste of people's lives. People want to imbibe mood altering substances for whatever reason, be they heroin, alcohol or other drugs. That is a fact of life. Why not decriminalise those substances, control and tax them? Take the supply out if the of the criminal multi-million pounds drugs trade. Use the revenue to improve treatment for people who have become addicted and stop the murders that go hand in hand with the fight for control of the illegal trade in drugs.

I think it would be fine as long as they also had some hot male strippers and masseurs :-)

So with your argument, DC, things like bear bating, dog fighting etc would never have been made illegal. I think the problem comes with challenging cruelty to animals that has been enjoyed by the upper classes. Working class cruelty to animals seems not to be as defendable by the great and the good!

Wow, it was really packed this year. Looks like you all had a great time, but WHO WON?????

The thing about tattooed skin looking wrinkly when you are 60+ is a bit inane in my opinion. If you get a tattoo in your 20's or 30's, you get decades of it looking good (if you are someone who likes the look of tattoos) and when you get to 60, how much would you actually care that it had got a bit saggy? It would just match the rest of your aging body. Big deal.

I was only there in spirit!

So who won?

Apparently not!

Still a pretty disgusting way to produce food. I wouldn't want to eat anything that involved that kind of violence perpetrated on the animal i was going to eat. Not sure how any of the people who eat it can block out the knowledge of what is done to the goose when they eat the fois gras. Seems a pointless and inhumane way to produce food to me.

Thanks RD, I'm not into swinging, but if I change my mind at least I know where to look!

Quids: where we live is not programmed into our DNA, but how we organise our relationships might be. It's got nothing to do with controlling ones sex drive. It's about whether we are genetically programmed to mate for life, like some species or programmed to have looser mid/long term relationships with mote than one mate. I'm interested in whether monogamy is a socially constructed norm that has been imposed on us against our natural, genetic inclinations.

I remember reading somewhere that pre-historic man was more likely to live in a kind of polyamorous community and that monogamy was imposed on women when man began to acquire wealth that he wanted to pass on to his heirs; to ensure his heirs were biologically his. So monogamy may actually be an unnatural condition to expect people to live in.

Not really my thing Nette - but thanks for asking!

I also agree some people are just not made for monogamy and others are, but pushing a one size fits all solution to relationships can be damaging to the people who are not naturally monogamous.

Interesting comments so far. I think the way to cope with any jealousy issues might be to resist any attempts by the other party to 'own' you as soon as they arise and to be sensitive enough not to go on about other partners when you are spending time with whichever partner you are currently with. I think living with one of your partners would make polyamory difficult though. Thinking that you would have no-one in your life when you are old doesn't really seem like something that would be isolated to people practicing polyamory. Also I am available to my close friends make and female, and have friends ready to support me also if needed, so I think the matter of whether you die alone is more to do with the type of person you are, rather than how you organise your romantic relationships.

Lol, just edited out the U

I've been looking at different ways to 'do' relationships and came to the conclusion that monogomy is not something that makes me happy so decided about a year or so ago, that I wasn't going to date one person on an exclusive basis for a while. I then came accross something called polyamory which Wikipedia describes as: Polyamory (from Greek πολύ [poly, meaning many or several] and Latin amor [love]) is the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. Polyamory, often abbreviated as poly, is often described as consensual, ethical, or responsible non-monogamy. The word can be used in a broader sense to refer to sexual or romantic relationships that are not sexually exclusive, though there is disagreement on how broadly it applies; an emphasis on ethics, honesty, and transparency all around is widely regarded as the crucial defining characteristic. And I find it interesting that I am not the only person who doesn't particularly like casual relationships, but doesn't want to be tied into a monogomous relationship. So I thought I'd ask the lovely folk of ED what they think of this and whether struggling with monogamy is natural or not.