taper

If I had a counter-argumnet, it would be that, within reason, we should offer support to people fighting for democracy and human rights. In extremis, this might mean military support. In ten years, Libya could be a fully functioning democracy, where human rights and the rule of law are enshrined and where the citizens drive around in electric cars and carry re-usable bags bearing the legend "Tripoli Says "La" To unwanted Bags

"military intervention isn't welcome in the muslim (Berber?) world" Certainly not by Gaddafi and his goons. But I bet if you're being bombed in Benghazi you migh tbe prepared to temper your antipathy for a while.

"I didn't say I had faith in them." Then we do nothing? It has merit as an argument. But don't rely on the UN for any sort of lead: moral or military.

Touching faith in the UN!

"dig 'em in" Yes, I still shout that at cyclists. Makes no sense these days, but in the day of the rat-trap it did, I suppose.

Some very sensible advice on here. William Sears' books are superb.

DMC on Chadwick road, towards Peckham. They're ok

Your local primary will be Lyndhurst, which is a match for any school in SE22. The area is really excellent for families.

How's the training going? I'm up to 3 hour long runs, which are killing me. Biggest problem though is the smug bastards who overtake me in Dulwich Park. By the time I get there I've run a half marathon; but they don't know this, show me no respect and clearly think they've just overtaken a slow fat bloke rather than an athlete on his long slow run. Anyway, I'll show them.

I can vouch for SCAMPs at DCPS. Very good indeed.

It's an excellent school. The kindergarten is very strong and the children seem to love it. Not sure it's a weakness to teach letter formation at this age! They're ready for it.

Yep. i know of a couple of incidents like this around Bellenden in the last couple of months.

Mccatllar At best it's speculative; at worst it is I fear voyeuristic. The Police are the ones to establish the facts. There is nothing on this thread that will help do that.

Presumably information is being kept back, with the cooperation of the media, to assist the investigation and any future criminal case. A little more important perhaps than the need to satisfy the voyeuristic desires of the public.

The religious bias sometimes gets up my nose. And the fawning treatment given to the Establishment. Aliens to these shores? I'm not a fan of Terry Wogan or Rolf Harris, but I can see their charms. Life without R4 though is unimaginable. As is a broadcasting landscape populated only by Sky and ITV. So pay up I say. It's your patriotic duty.

People take time to post on this forum about slightly underdone roast spuds they've experienced at local hostelries. So I think we should just about allow a report of a couple of muggings to go without censure.

Some idiot cyclist this morning at 8:45: heading north, goes through a red light on the top of dog Kennel Hill at full tilt, very nearly hits a DKH schoolgirl crossing on a green man. Apologises as he continues over said junction. A few weeks earlier, a similar stripe of idiot heading south across the same junction at roughly the same time goes through a red, hits a van and piles into the barrier outside DKH school. Lots of idiots out there, on foot, bike and motorised transport. Something in that junction brings it out of them. Stop at freaking reds. And slow down.

The question of whether or not the war was legal hinges on how you interpret 1441. The majority legal view is this is insufficient, but plenty disagree and the issue, insofar as it is relevant, is moot. The accusation that Blair is a war criminal is worthy of people like Galloway.

Got it. Call me, Ishmael. I have no problem with Clausewitz on war. Edwin Starr's full of if though

Football, good looking women, badly drawn up treaties, small mens' egos, heading off existential threats, averting or ending genocide, water (for drinking, irrigating and navigating), religion. All sorts of stuff. You can reduce everything to economics, and bad Marxism does, but it doesn't really help you understand historical events. "Its a reference to every know it all's favourite Clausewitz " Stanely Unwin lives

"All wars are for economic reasons" No they're not

"if the same set of events had taken place in a country that doesn't carry huge reserves of critical resources we simply do nothing. " Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Afghanistan? For interest, see Philip Sands's contemporaneous review of John Kampfner's Blair's Wars here http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/sep/28/politicalbooks.politics Both are on the anti side. But Sands presents what seems to me a balanced appraisal of the motivations at play on this side of the pond: "The Prime Minister's foreign and military policy, such as it is, is developed on the basis of secretive intelligence, an overarching and passionate commitment to the 'special relationship' with the United States (on the basis of shared values) and an emerging commitment to some vague concept of 'international community' (which presumes to allow a small group of countries to act pre-emptively for the benefit of humankind as a whole). Whim and hope are added for good measure. And all of this driven by the personality of a Prime Minister described as a combination of 'naivety and hubris' and 'self-confidence and fear', informed by an almost evangelic commitment to right and wrong and a belief in his personal powers of persuasion. This book disabuses us of any sense that there was, in relation to Iraq, some sort of coherent long-term plan" More damning than I'd be, but it seems to me a fuller and more tenable assessment than others I've seen.

"That for me nails it. It is absolutely all about continuing the subjegation of these countries to the West." Well it didn't work very well did it! Whatever you think about the second Iraq war, the "All about Oil" mantra really is a dumb attempt to simplify a historcial event of huge complexity. The West is less powerful now in global terms than it has been at any time since the end of the Second World War. This trend has accelerated in the last decade and looks set to continue.

'live in bubble...' Did you get Manufacturing Consent for Christmas per chance?

The McCanns did it.