Huguenot

No Quids, Greek pensioners would have been stricken regardless of the Euro - their problems occur because the government spent more money than they collected in taxes, and they borrowed money to fill the gap. If they had their own currency, they would have defaulted and devalued and would be unable to borrow any money at all - if anything their European ties have given them a soft landing. With or without the Euro Greek pensioners would have been stuffed, with the Euro at least someone else is helping them out. That's it. Nothing to do with visionaries. My contempt for your views is mostly down to your claim that I am contemptuous of stricken Greek pensioners. What a nasty little smear. Says more about you than me. The idea that you may be wrong about Europe fills you with an uncontrollable rage doesn't it?

A doctrinal assertion, of course, that lies at the heart of the Protestant/Catholic schism. Can we find God in ourselves, or only through the Catholic hierarchy?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20773955 Doopy doo, Quids. Everybody muddles through.

Not really, the only influence you have is opinion. Share it. It requires no delaying tactics. Spend 20 minutes. So long as what developers propose is within legal constraints, and councillors don't believe it is in conflict with the greater community, developers are within their rights to monetize their property as they wish. Is this not reasonable?

Seems to me that this complaint is based entirely upon the RSPCA certification, not Waitrose. Waitrose rely upon that certification to make the claims they do about the welfare of animals at their supplier. The comment about 'having the same website writer' must have been made by someone with a single digit IQ or barely out of primary school. Of course people copy and paste marketing material, it's not evidence of a grand conspiracy. Likewise the people working on duck farms are not the kind of people who give nicknames to their extended fluffy toy collection. You can't expect Waitrose to be able to dictate their behaviour. The attack on Waitrose seems vindictive and unwarranted. If you have a complaint, take it to the RSPCA, and ask them to be more stringent with their certification.

At least a couple of those said they were closing because rents were going up - that's a signal for growth not decline. I guess the jury will need to stay out until their replacements do (or don't) make an appearance.

So far as I know, planning law says that only 21 days is required. BUT since no notification beyond the website is required it's kind of irrelevant when you found out, so long as the notice was there. Additionally, only the immediate neighbours (ie. people whose property immediately connect with the property in question) are obliged to be directly notified. The rest of the community can be notified by street notices as a gesture of goodwill, but so far as I can tell no statutory requirement is made. The planning officers may well make mistakes, but that isn't subject to local opinion or oversight, and no 'clearing period' is obliged under law for the local community to vet their work. The planning officers CAN be overruled by the planning committee, made up of councillors. This decision can be made based upon the needs and the effects of the whole community NOT the neighbours. If the councillor agrees to vote one way or another on a case BEFORE the vote tales place, their vote is DISALLOWED, as it proves they did not enter the voting process with an open mind. I don't think it's arcane or complicated, it seems to be really straightforward.

The reason why mutual armament is no defence against gun crime (and as the annual 11,000 US gun deaths demonstrate) is because the attacker has already decided to use their gun when the defender is still evaluating the situation. Invariably the defender is a normal, rational, empathic human being whose natural resistance to murder means that they'll take the first bullet - by which time it's too late.

Well from an amicus curiae perspective I was personally commenting on the complaint that there should be a paid representative to uphold the interests of the local community. There is one - it's the planning office, who review the various planning laws and building regulations and place those alongside the policies established by elected representatives. The Committee is expected to come to a decision based on the needs of the entire community rather than a proportion of it. They establish their responses from a well informed and professionally competent perspective. So far as I can tell, the views of joe public are simply there to add flavour, rather than having legal status. Hence there is no window of opportunity for a local action group to instigate legal review and challenge, the most they could ever do would be to send a letter of opinion. In that context there is no requirement for an extended review period, and it would carry NO legal weight anyhow.

Is there a misunderstanding of the process going on here? Aren't the 'representatives of the community' the planning committee? The conversation on here seems to imply instead that the community representatives are a loose coalition of local campaigners who are being excluded both financially and from the process? Yet surely we elect our councillors to represent our interests, not to pay for lawyers as if we were fighting some Erin Brockovitch legal campaign against the council! Are we trying to have a dog and bark ourselves?

I would have thought the worst thing for a planning application was that it took a long time - leaving derelict buildings and failing companies in its wake. So dealing with it expeditiously (within reason) is to the benefit of everyone, regardless whether the outcome is in favour or against the application. Clearly one tactic of the 'losing' party is to do everything they can to delay and disrupt proceedings, in the hope that they can drive the opposing party into bankruptcy or disarray. I don't think that approach benefits the community, so I'd hope that everyone would cheer a quick resolution.

For half the population of the US it seems that ownership of weapons is massive over compensation for deep seated inadequacies. They reach for their handguns like a 4 year old boy's hand strays for his groin when anxiety strikes. These people are willing to let children die to hide their failure. The other half seem stuck in some sort of hopeless Stockholm Syndrome where they genuinely believe these myths about the Constitution, about international equivalency, or that guns don't hurt people.

Exactly Otta, the point about the constitutional right to bear arms is another red herring. The right to bear arms doesn't specify which arms are or are not acceptable. Clearly the US population doesn't feel that it gives them the right to have nuclear or biological weapons in private ownership. This then becomes a matter of degree. The US population is quite capable of passing legislation that prevents the sale of automatic or assault weapons with extended cartridges. Many of these accessories have only become available in the last few years. Mass murder is a lot more difficult with a bolt action rifle or revolver. The US would do a lot better when it stops lying to itself that their 11,000 gun murders a year are not because of guns, or that they somehow have equivalence with other developed nations, or that somehow their constitution prevents them from resolving the matter. Childish, hypocritical denial.

Well just to clear up the usual bullshit... The gifts were given to the Royal Collection which belongs to the nation, and of which the Queen is the trustee, not the owner. So it wasn't given to a 'patron' woodrot, it was in part given to you, but in your typically abusive response you've thrown it back in their face. I'm guessing that you'd agree that it's better in public ownership than owned by some rich financier who his it away for private satisfaction. Incidentally, I'm guessing you may not be familiar with what a patron actually is - but it's not the owner of a work, it's the person or institution that supported the actor to help them to create the work.

No Gingerbeer, there is no reason why you should be able to purchase a gun at all. These peculiar tangential arguments Americans get into about gun control are conjuror's misdirections. You brought up China because you wanted to redirect focus from this horrific mass murder in Connecticut, that much is obvious. Why you would want to do that is anyone's guess, because the only real question is what is so mental in the head of Americans that they would want to discuss anying other than why a mentally ill man has 3 guns and 20 dead children in a kindergarten.

Still shocked by Americans who abort reason when it comes to justifying guns. That's an hour later, and I really liked Gingerbeer until, well, now.

I probably would take very nice photos and Facebook them if you wanted a general solution. Contacting the local office would get a union based claim that if we employed Christmas staff all year round on twice the salary with 60 days holiday this wouldn't occur. Neither practical nor affordable for the price of a first class stamp.

Gingerbeer, I'm staggered at your logic, yes, some kids also died at the hands of a lunatic in China. 11,000 people died in the US this year from firearms, you genuinely think there's equivalence? What is wrong with your head?

Tragically the NRA will probably use this as evidence that all school teachers should carry weapons. I was interested to read the history of the NRA, and see detailed how it grew quickly in strength after the wreck of the KKK. It's not unreasonable to see a connection between barely educated fundamentalist bully boys in both organisations.

It took me a silly amount of time to work that one out.

I'm very impressed to learn that witchcraft is so bling that it sustains a troupe of wannabes. I can imagine two badly dressed Wiccans with body odour peering disparagingly over the fence at the Johnny-come-latelys as they bury their piss in an earthenware pot.

Never trust anyone who asks you to 'inbox' them.

Unnatural? Are you sure? Is it not that vegetarianism is an intellectual conceit? There are plenty of good reasons for being a vegetarian, and I don't fault many of them - but I would never claim that it was 'natural'.

The thing I'd most worried about is mugging. The secondary issue is spoiling her. 15 year old girls are soft targets, and a ?600 phone will be admired and envied by friends and enemies alike. There are plenty of things I want, and I have to budget, make sacrifices and wait, by which time I usually realise I didn't want them that bad. How will she learn these lessons?

Well, I'm not Admin, and I'm not convinced that the lack of replies are down to you being in the wrong section, but more that people don't really know how to support your cause... BUT, if you wanted to get it in the main section it would need to be an East Dulwich issue, which you could maybe achieve by requesting information about social groups for the elderley and their families in ED? Like wise if you wanted to get it in What's On. You could be more specific about a date, time and location, and invite people to get in touch with you to organise it? Just an idea?