Huguenot

I respect MM, that it's more convenient to paint me as irrational; but how 'bout this from Cameron: "We are progressive Conservatives. Our goal is a fairer, safer, greener country where opportunity is more equal. It's because we are progressives that we will protect the NHS." Dated a couple of days ago. It's a fair point that an undemanding future is craved by those who have run their race. 'Tis only self indulgence that would demand the same from youth. Crikey man, you're demanding the emasculation of your competitors. Like a wounded lion you're arguing that the new generation shouldn't achieve their birthright. Long in the tooth you'd like to retain your "droit de seigneur". Savaged by cubs, you reject the attention. It's deserving of scorn, not celebration. I enjoin you as I do myself to respect the smarter wit of our juniors. We shall smoke cigars and look on.

Yup, I was playing with that for a while :(

It means I swore an oath - do no illectrical.

You know I'm an IEEE qualified ingineer? ;-)

I think Blair's making fair comment. If you believe he had an alternative agenda, what was it? And is it realistic?

Google have even cached some of Alan Dale's unwanted observations. They're all there for the taking ;-) Mind you, it would take considerable immorality to revist them.

Not one to let a point go... MMR So it seems our independent MMR scientist (lacking peer-reviewed science but with popular support) had rubbished evidence-based-medicine for very good grounds. He... * Established his own patented fee-paying medical alternative to MMR before his announcement undermining confidence in MMR * Took majority funding from an anxious bereaved father looking for a legal payout * had no paedeatric qualifications * based his result on 12 children, of which only 8 gave permission for any sort of investigation * had not been a clinical doctor for a number of years * subjected children to invasive tests against their wishes * took public money privately Evidence if any was needed that you should always trust a maverick. Buy my book anyone? Self help group? A radiotherapist costs six figures, give me just a hundred grand and I'll recommend a banana/garlic pasta alternative. Or trust an engineer.

*scratches armpit as way of communicating visually a disinterested interest* Pictures tell a thousand words etc. Take the old Tin Hat and Trench image earlier. Part Blackadder, part Oh What a Lovely War. What better way of communicating the essential pointlessness of online debate? Long may *action* flourish.

I can see what you're saying MM, but confused by the post. Your first question was about progress necessarily being a positive. An issue that has no answer. Please feel free to watch "Waiting for Godot". The characters were happy, but most of the audience would rather it wasn't them. Then you launched into a ridiculous tirade of selfish conservative little England-ism. Your talk about preventing "swift irreversible shocks to society" has more than a little 1984 in it. I take it you're not suggesting that tax credits are essentially bad - the tories offer loads of them to big corporations - you're just saying you don't want to give them to families? I take it you're saying that the EU isn't bad, you're just suggesting that you prefer the robber baron environment of unregulated markets? On immigration you just seem to be saying we shouldn't let in foreigners? They think differently?

I think you've made a great point Silverfox. Science, tech, nanotech, food tech can all take place - assuming that we have the motivation, focus and the investment. What the lightbulbs and farty-sheep stories are about is focus and motivation. Keeping it close to home, as it were. The investment bit comes out of our pockets, and that means it needs to by elevated up the priority list. Pointing out the threat is a good way of doing that. I can't make up my mind whether you're in despair (which is sad), or don't give a feck (which is bad), or don't recognise cause and effect in social activity (which is mad). ;-) BTW, there was just a whiff of 'running from the evil inscrutable asians' in your tone which is misdirected. You've done it before. come out and stay for a while and you'll realise they're just like you :)

Sure thing, I never suggested you were drunk. Amended summarised as 'loony gets bustled, becomes shouty, and gets assaulted by fellow passenger who wasn't drunk with onlookers in tacit approval'. Nothing twisted or contorted there. Just the facts. Sounds a bit like a lynch mob though doesn't it? KK I'm not trying to wind you up here, and I appreciate you may feel that way. I'm just trying to say that there are many ways of interpreting a situation, not all of which are best addressed by coming over all Lancelot. Do you remember the newspaper ad on telly a few decades ago, and it shows a nazi tattooed skinhead assaulting a city boy outside a shop? It was at the height of the yob culture. The same ad ran two months later, same footage different perspective, and it shows a workman dropping a load from an upper storey window, and the city boy was actually tackled to take him out of harm's way. It was just prejudice. Maybe, just maybe, the guy was ill. Maybe he'd had a terrible experience and was scared of the moon. The reality is that you don't know. You honestly haven't got a clue. You just heard shouty boy and did one. Fine.

In Catholicism the godparent must be Catholic, which kind of suggests that the chief role is religious indoctrination.

It's a wee bit smoke and mirrors isn't it?

That only works in cartoons Silverfox. If you pull a thread out of a jumper you'll have a short thread and a jumper. Try it. Not sure where you're going with the ecosystem thing. What people don't grasp is the idea of the straw that breaks the camel's back. Climate sceptics are arguing that the straw isn't very heavy, and that the scales aren't properly calibrated. Pointless. The whole ecosystem is a very delicately poised environment that happens to benefit our current state of humankind. If we change it by a very tiny amount, the planet won't be bothered, but it'll no longer be good for humankind as we know it. Pepole who don't care are either old enough to think they'll die before it happens, or rich and daft enough to think they can buy their way out of it.

I've never had a blow job in a car, I'm slightly envious.

You can't really have 9.02 pounds. The '9' is in imperial, the '.02' is decimal. You'd have to be pounds, ounces, drachms and then grains. For those in 1824, anything of a smaller fraction than a grain didn't exist. Doesn't detract from the fact that Rory's one BIG mini-mockney!

Chuckle ;-) "Whether or not you are mentally disturbed" I also manhandle people in wheelchairs out of shops for getting in the way, preferably leaving them face down in the gutter. Best cure for acne? Slap 'em. Thank the lords we have the good burghers of Peckham to show us the moral high ground. Aside from such effective measures against insanity, my advice would be oberve that there, but for the grace of God, go us all. As for facts mate, go read 'em. Accurately summarised as 'loony gets bustled, has a case of tourettes, and gets assaulted by fellow passenger'. At no point did KK suggest that anyone receive any physical attack from the nutjob. In fact his description of the guy clutching his bag sounds more like Manuel from Fawlty Towers cringing in front of Basil than a freedom fighter. Conersely KK was very proud to announce that he had assaulted the mentalist, and even deprived him of his journey after a series of assumptions. Them's the facts. ;-) The rest is speculation.

There are yet monkeys who will spend hours poring over a pullover for a loose thread, and having teased one out will declare it proves the pullover doesn't exist. The calculation was one in 3,000 pages, and didn't appear in the summary for policymakers. "The glacier will reduce in length by over 80% due to man made warming..." "Yeah, but it hasn't gone though has it" "Well it may be gone by 2035" "Prove it" "Well I can't guarantee it'll be completely gone" "Well it hasn't gone then has it? Therefore I'm not bothered" "Over 80%?????" "But I hasn't gone though has it." Thus are idiots defined.

John 15:13,14 Greater love hath no MP than this, that a woman lay down her passwords for her office. ;-) Very impressed by demonstrable good management skills.

Or displace almost exactly 4.1 litres of water.

4.1 kilos! You could sink a ship with that!

Posted by: jimmy two times January 13, 02:30PM I'd build a couple of Gulags and stick them in there. Posted by: SeanMacGabhann January 13, 02:31PM ok now I'm convinced you have a random sentence generator :)) An inadequate smiley.

Luddite?

PS Justin, it doesn't surprise me one iota that you're pleased "to get back on the facts", because you know full well that you've boned up for years to win this false argument and sell your services. You have a collection of ill-founded facts that you peddle knowing full well that no-one on the forum is equipped to respond. If you want to get back on the facts, I suggest you speak directly with Harriet Hall.

Okay, I've toned it down somewhat. The ad hominen charge is somewhat disingenuous I feel - it's Justin here who is perpetrating an act of some cynicism in order to attract adherents to his self-help groups, purchases of his books and cash to his wallet. I'm not attacking his arguments about cholesterol, I never was. I made perfectly clear that I knew next to nothing about the debate. The issue is a quack peddling snake oil masquerading under a veneer of gobbledegook to prey on the weak and the gullible. The entire argument is ad hominem. If Justin had not peddled his book and invited people to join a special group as part of his opening post this never would have happened. However, he did. And not by accident, but because he wanted to make money out of ED citizens by creating a state of paranoia and disaffection with conventional medecine. Regarding the kids in the playground Mick Mac, I consider myself one of the children in this metaphor. It has nothing to do with intelligence, but everything about someone pumping themselves up for a fight (in this case about statins), taking it out on people ill-prepared to defend themselves, and then declaring themselves some sort of winner. Rubbish. If Justin wants to win, I suggest he takes up his fight with someone in the industry, equally armed with quotes and references. He won't though, because he doesn't want the fight, he wants the money from the pockets of the susceptible.