Huguenot

I think you'll find there are very few educated people who deny the possible existence of a perpatetic 'Jesus' or the historical context in which he born and lived. Travelling sages of the time (whether claiming to be a new Messiah or simply soothsayers) were two a penny. If that's your pretext for supporting the Alpha course the its only weakness is its lack of originality. Most people find large amounts of Christian philosophy highly palatable too - the ten commandments and various parables provide us with a reasonable and comparatively inoffensive moral framework within which to live our lives. I have no doubt that the next few sessions of Alpha will build on these platitudes, and you'll find yourself once more struggling to understand what all the fuss is about. However, as religion becomes more mystical it encourages the subjugation of your rational judgement to the unquestioning authority of a tribal hierarchy, who seek your affiliation for entirely alternative agendas. Like any extremist orgainsation it demands acts of inhumanity (the stoning to death of transgressors for example) in an escalating progression to reinforce your ties to the organisation. It precludes rational debate to the point where you can no longer challenge the organisation without losing your identity. This is the problem for me, when religion becomes political: an imperative dogma that mobilises families, tribes and nations to acts of gross oppression on individuals or groups who don't accept their beliefs, authority or hierarchy. My advice would be to find a religion that allows you to explore philosophical questions without demanding your subordination to the political wills of others.

A fine assessment Mark! I've not seen it said better!

I mean Hamas, Hezbollah, Israel and various interested parties. I, alongside most of the correspondents on this thread, am prepared to recognise that there are several protagonists in this conflict carrying reponsibility for its perpetuation. There are very few who persistently deny this, and are starting to appear almost clinically deluded. It reminds me of spokespeople for the IRA who couldn't start a justification for the massacre of innocents without the words "The British government...". After a while they just sound insane.

Well permits cost money to create and enforce, if the permits didn't cost cash it would have to come from tax. I think if you've got a permit to protect your personal road space then I think it's unfair that someone 5 miles away should have to pay for it? You'd have to get an expert in to see if the point regarding reduction in shoppers would be true or not. A reduction in the requirement for parking can often result in more space available for other amenities, which lifts foot traffic.

WTF? DPF are you for real? You won't reclaim any moral high ground by deliberately flinging around noxious accusations in order to prevent open debate or disclsoure of historical fact. Criticism of poorly justified military action must be national prejudice? Discussion of Israel's domestically and internationally recognised kill-ratio is a blood libel? Mockney is anti-semitic? Piersy has consistently said that the solution lies in compromise, and that compromise doesn't involve Israel attempting to win a protracted battle that entails the starvation, parching, disenfranchisement and destruction of millions of people. This is common sense. Piersy also highlights that the pre-1967 borders have received general acceptance. Instead your kind of rabble-rousing language is the very root of the problem. This kind of cr@p sends young kids to murder and be murdered in your name. It perpetuates a struggle generated by old men of limited imagination who cannot stop the fight because it has become their very identity.

Yep, but remembering rightly, the results of the survey weren't black and white - it's not possible to say "residents don't want...", you'd need to qualify that: Below are the actual results in graphical format. As a quick summary, gold and pink colours are those who want parking restrictions of some kind. It's no surprise that these dominate responses amongst people who say they're affected to a 'high' degree by parking issues. For those residents that said they had a 'high' degree of parking problems, over 80% said they wanted parking permits - and these were predominantly living in streets immediately adjacent to the north end of Lordship Lane. However, these residents were only a small proportion of total ED residential respondents, most ED residents don't have a parking problem, and hence 54% of total respondents completely rejected any idea of parking permits. That just about squeaks a majority. In other words, if you don't suffer directly, then you don't want to pay for protection, and you want free access to other people's roads (or parking spaces!! ;-)) The question in a democracy is whether you want to protect the rights of those living next to LL, or protect the rights of those who want to drive in to LL.

Would that fact that so much of Obama's funding was derived from his voter base rather than big business give him more flexibility moving forward?

Advertising MM, I'm the lowest of the low ;-)

Ah, you too eh David? Quite right, I most certainly am not worthy. :'( However, you do appear to be responding to criticisms I haven't made. I fail to see how anyone could scale the lofty moral heights of the nursing profession whether in the UK or abroad, and undoubtedly they deserve their above average salaries. I think nurses are great, much better than me. I myself languish in an execrable pit of moral destitution, and it's not even chez Brenda. I feel should draw attention to the fact that I've only noted that with these considerable achievements nurses don't seem to be too badly off. I most manifestly have not suggested that they're not worth their salaries. However, it seems that the truth is the first victim in a pogrom. It is indeed rather scary to hear the 'baying' of the nursing mob, and a reflection of their slashing fury that if I should dare to suggest that they seem comfortable then I'll be left bleeding by the roadside. First Quids and now me - it seems as though the nursing community is leaving a trail of crushed victims in their wake of their (apparently) insufficiently recognised profession. These must be mighty gripes to merit such attacks? ....and yet this brutal reality seems so at odds with the public persona of a caring sharing profession. Perhaps there is a Mr. Hyde behind our Staff Nurse Jekyll?

There you go MM, you make my case for me..... ;-) "we can make a sensible comparison of the social benefit generated by you and your professional colleagues" So not only do me and my morally crippled colleagues not make as much money, but we're not contributing 'social benefit'. These nurses are amazing! Rich, popular, and now as MM describes...righteous!

Of course DM, but nurses have had pay rises since '97 of 25%, our well informed colleague DC accepts that the current offering is above average. Since (as you observe) a nurse's salary at the time was higher than my own, you'd appreciate that I had little truck them telling me how hard-done-by they were.... and all that training you had, and subsidised digs - it's just perk after perk ;-) I'm afraid those joining my own benighted profession can only expect starting salaries of 15k in London. They too would like training, to learn new skills, to have constructive management, a powerful sense of self-worth and job satisfaction. These nurses seem to have it good!

All good points Mr. Carnell. I'm not trying to be disrespectful, so much as highlight that it's unfair for nurses to consider themselves exploited matryrs. The career you describe appears to be well structured, well trained, above average salaries in great demand from a grateful public. Most people don't have that opportunity.

Whilst I tend to agree with MM that councils shouldn't diversify beyond core interests, I think we're maybe missing the point with some of those suggestions. Privatisation (or reductions in subsidy) essentially means passing on the cost to the end user rather than the community. However, I tend to believe that healthcare and education are most in need by those who are least capable of paying for them. We made a decision a century ago that our society would improve if we could share in the cost of educating the needy caring for the sick and encouraging public health through prevention (fitness) rather than cure (hospitals). I feel that our success as a nation (recession witheld) is as a direct consequence of the group decision we made to help others out less fortunate than ourselves. To reject this philosophy now after we've reaped the benefits is rather to try and have your cake and eat it. You end up with Thatcher's failed society knifing teenagers and stealing your dogs. The soundbite but pointless attacks on councillors and PR departments is designed to both rouse the rabble and utterly to miss the boat. This is not where money is spent. As the following datasheet shows, libraries are a tiny fraction of the budget delivering incalculable public benefit. I should also point our that society doesn't pay for all of these services, as they also generate a revenue of their own. In fact about 70% of the service cost is carried by MM's target - the end user. I'm concerned that we're seeing 20% rises forecast in children's service and healthcare, since we haven't got 20% more kids or 20% more sick people is this a kneejerk reaction to recent well documented cases?

;-) You know me, just playing the devil's advocate. Pasta Surprise is Pasta Shock more like. It entails buying a 500g pack of the pasta of your choice on a Sunday afternoon, 1 can of tomatoes, 1 can of tuna and an onion. You cook it all up and then put it in a tupperware keg in the fridge. You eat it every meal during your dead-end job under the gimlet eye of your w*nker manager until Thursday evening when you run out. On Friday you don't eat. On Saturday you down a bottle of Davenports best before going to the pub, because you can only afford 2 pints. This is what most people in the UK do for several years after they leave college. Unless you're a nurse apparently. If you're a nurse you get subsidised housing, an extraordinary salary and get the chance to tell everybody else you're really hard done by and doing them a favour. My Dad was a teacher. He does a great line in this hard-done by BS as well. I have to point out regularly to him that in order to get a pension the size of his when I retire I'd have to save a million freaking quid by the time I'm 65 (to pay for the annuity). Underpaid? Don't make me bloody laugh. How am I going to save a million quid? Either way, just don't rub my nose in it by pretending you've got a sh*t deal.

Well, look at me wading in like a right 'arris. Salary-wise, WTF? I started on 9 grand in 1992 which inflation adjusted is 14 grand now. 20 grand? Great stuff, but you can stick the hoity-toity righteousness right where the sun don't shine. Most people would prostitute themselves for the opportunity. I'd have eaten my own doo doo for 20 grand. I ate pasta surprise for 5 years after college, quite similar. I actually ate it for breakfast too. After 5 years only 22 grand? Shock horror! I'd have eaten my own little finger twice for 22 grand (inflation adjusted). "Compared with other sectors'...? I mean WTF? WTF do nurses know about other sectors? The world doesn't revolve around pampered civil service jobs: most people work at Tescos on the till, or in the bakery, or driving cabs, or doing just about anything that doesn't pay over 20 grand a year. The highest earning sector in Britain is 'health professionals'. That includes nurses. If doctors earn more, then go to medical school for 7 years. 9 miles? woooooo - ask a brickie's mate (from Penge). Nurses take so much abuse and stress? Tell that to a sales rep. Tell that to Apex Man (another thread). Nurses risk their lives like the police on a daily basis? Stop it, that's utter idiot. It's just BS. You don't trek from heavily armed Brixton house-party to heavily armed Brixton house-party asking the crackheads to turn the music down do you (please also refer to stress earlier)? I'm not denying it happens, but one exceptional moment is not a career. Nurses look after people? Well tell you what, here's a nothing, most other people give a monkeys too! I'm not a nurse but I wouldn't let you die in the street either. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm enormously grateful that nurses have taken the time and mega-salary (see earlier) to look after me when I'm ill - but this put-upon braying righteousness is utterly undeserved. Get blinking real.

Go ON, HLB. Say it again, say it again you slag. Say it AGAIN! Say it, say it, say it.

I really don't see how someone getting another drink can be misplaced kindness 'personfied' ;-) Who's the person? I mean Bush could be fascist zealot 'personfied', or Huguenot could be too many hand shandies and a bottle of campari 'personified', but picking your nose isn't Spanish strategy 'personified'. It's an action not a person. Yeah...so.... I know, hit me with your fish.

Legal schmeagle. I've heard people use the epithet 'woman' very effectively as an insult, but you'd struggle to break a law. Intent is all. That having been said, I haevn't got a clue what TLS was talking about. A taxi driver called his mate a Paki in 1971, and....? Erm.... WTF?

boosboss, that was so brilliant I really did cry. Extraordinary. I'm so indefinably proud.

The autospam reject thump stops me writing the whole word. Hence *

I think if the genuine objective was to wipe out as many Palestinians as possible that they could have done a better job. There's no evidence that the Israeli army is inefficient at murder, so I think that means that the objective isn't as you suggest.

"This island is remarkably similar to Russia during the sixties, you dare not speak against the state, immigration and over crowding." erm... that's just erm... you know ;-)

.... when you have Horny Goat Wild Oats Formula? I love the fact that it's sealed for your protection, who knows what priapic loons could run amok if that seal wasn't in place? Has anyone actually bought Viagr* and given it a run for the money?

Hmm Rufus, you may be referring to an Apex man trying to sell house surveys door-to-door or some such. If so, there's a reference to him on another thread here that suggests he may not be all that he seems.

Aha, a coalition of the 'no consensus on option 2'. United in opinion that the 3rd runway isn't wise, some dislike it out of grand ecological designs, some because the villages it will replace are pretty, some because politicians are liars, some because they like disagreeing and don't like losing. Some because they bizarrely equate the economic necessities of the UK (pop 60m GDP $2 trillion) with the Netherlands (pop 16m, GDP $0.6 trillion). Either way, you'll all disagree when you propose your alternative, as some are campaigning for the Khmer Rouge year 0, and some for Croydon. Snorks is intrisically right - either bite capitalist trade principles and the necessary communications elements or don't. The UK's trade is bizarrely London-centric. Heathrow isn't huge because it's in a pissing contest, it's because compared with places like Germany where trade is national the UK's punted most of its economy into a space that's 26 miles wide. The UK isn't over-supplying transport hubs, it's desperately under resourced. It's always going to be easier to expand existing solutions than create new ones, because for every 1 Heathrow protestor, there'll be 15 against an airport in the New Forest. The challenge is that the alternatives don't bear consideration. Mass redistribution of the industrial base outside of London, an end to capitalism or rejection of democracy all result in mass social upheaval and national disaster. Whilst the exchange of planes for trains on the Edinburgh run is a cosmetic solution and a laudable commitment, let's be honest: Heathrow isn't there for those flights alone, it's about international trade. So as Snorks says: either be a capitalist or don't, but be prepared for the consequences of your decision to reach far further than you imagine. Anarchy is generally a solution for the unimaginative.