Huguenot

Alan Medic.. I guess that doors are closed because they block passage, whereas a curtain is drawn because it's pulled in a linear movement along a rail. It's a rule that works generally, but beomes confusing when you close a drawer.

Well UDT, The Reliant will be thankful that you have chosen to turn your exceptional and much vaunted commerical media skills to them in their hour of need. I suspect that Murdoch will be thanking his lucky stars that you left it so late in life. However, the other press barons will no doubt be quaking. The worlds of professional footballing, high finance and high fidelity will be the less for your change of focus. I love the plaintive wheedle of 'should be turning a profit shortly'. That's what so many poorly run media vanity projects say through their tears to the bank manager. I hope the Reliant chaps have got several million on hand that they're prepared to lose, because if you can't make a profit with a circulation of 950,000 free copies, goodness knows how they're going to do it with a free arts magazine in Camberwell and ED.

HAL9000, the IE hoax you refer to was a PR stunt by a non existent company where no study took place. The suckers were mainstream media. Conversely there is no questioning that these studies took place and are already documented. The analysis took place in an established recognised academic institution, and was published in a peer reviewed magazine. Given that you believe the most ridiculous hoaxes are true, it comes as no surprise that you consider the most robust of cases to be hoaxes. El Pibe, I guess it is more than likely given the supporting studies such as those Nashoi mentioned (plus many others) that these behaviours are nurture rather than nature. However, the paper doesn't make that call, it simply observes that people with impaired cognitive processes (ie either latent ability or simply acquired skills) are disproportionately represented in people that have right wing tendencies from social conservatism right the way through to racism and homophobia.

The Euro is still low because traders are not convinced it is going to break up into a two tier Europe. They believe that it is more likely that either a secured bailout fund or bank nationalisation will allow underperforming economies to stay within the Zone, and thus hold the value down. Germany and France both want the value to remain down to aid exports and they are the chief drivers in the process. The value will only soar if it's considered inevitable that the preipheral nations will drop the Euro. So Quids it means currently that whilst the markets may share your conviction that they can try and roll a few more countries for entertainment and greed, they're not so sure they'll be successful.

Well, the majority of 'that crowd' directly benefit from a monpoly market - they may simply be trying to jam closed the door on any sort of competition that may reveal their weaknesses, expose inefficiencies, or even try and prevent some GPs from collecting over a hundred thousand pounds a year in salaries whilst only taking appointments weeks in advance. It is not reasonable to assume that 'that crowd' are only motivated by delivering the best health service, when their pay, perks, conditions, accountability and workrate are closely linked to the outcome.

Perhaps you could PM me a choice of usernames, I'll register them and activate it, and then you can log in and change the password and email address?

I don't think it was politically motivated like that. It simply shows a correlation between low cognitive ability, social conservatism, authoritarianism and prejudice. It points out that the correlation was clear in large scale studies in both the UK and the US.

indiepanda, I think it identifies a relatioship between cognitive ability and social outlook - in other words the dafter you are, the more your struggle with complex reasoning, and the more likely to are to veer towards absolutist dogmas. It's the simplicity of right wing iedologies that appeals to the dafties. Hence it's generally the really daft ones who get involve in really daft right wing ideologies like the BNP. However, it's all about variations about the norm, so it's not saying that intelligent people aren't right wing - its just saying that right wingers have a greater propensity to be daft than left wingers...

I'm guessing so that a burglar creeping around might be seen. If that's the case I think there's sod all chance of that preventing a burglary. I would have thought that allowing the burglar to case the joint without too much effort by leaving the curtains open would be far more likely to result in a burglary - they'll think the place is empty too.

Gosh that's hardcore - the woman was recommending that you feed your cat hamsters and guinea pigs, because 'that's what we all strive for'.... There's a visceral, primal, feral, depraved undertone to these supposed 'cat lovers'. I shall never look upon cat ladies the same way again: butchering Gerby in a bloodstained petticoat to feed Tiddles. ;-)

I haven't seen their figures - but 'doing very well' should only be calculated one way for commercial publishers: making a profit. It's no use having a 420,000 circulation if it loses more money on every issue sold. My understanding is that Shortlist Media was launched in 2007 with ?4m of private backing, and still hasn't turned a profit... Mike Soutar actually complains that he can't grow the business because he can't borrow the money - not such a surprise if he's 4 years in and several million down?

I think it was you Chippy who stated on a discussion about Bob Crow that the primary objective of a union was to look after the salary packages and employment benefits of its members at the expense of everything else. So the fact that the block votes on the left are predominantly unions only tell us one thing: That the unions think their members will get more money and perks working less hard by blocking the health bill. It tells us nothing about the advantages of the health bill to either the NHS or the general public.

I think some commentators suggested that most banks would have to be nationalised - a domino effect starting with the French, but probably not including Germany. Whilst this sounds scary, it's worth remembering the France has nationalised its banking industry before - as recently as 1982, and the world did not end and the sky did not fall on our heads, and we did not all starve to death. They were privatised again 4 years later.

Here's the full text, but in the meantime here's the abstract: "Despite their important implications for interpersonal behaviors and relations, cognitive abilities have been largely ignored as explanations of prejudice. We proposed and tested mediation models in which lower cognitive ability predicts greater prejudice, an effect mediated through the endorsement of right-wing ideologies (social conservatism, right-wing authoritarianism) and low levels of contact with out-groups. In an analysis of two large-scale, nationally representative United Kingdom data sets (N = 15,874), we found that lower general intelligence (g) in childhood predicts greater racism in adulthood, and this effect was largely mediated via conservative ideology. A secondary analysis of a U.S. data set confirmed a predictive effect of poor abstract-reasoning skills on antihomosexual prejudice, a relation partially mediated by both authoritarianism and low levels of intergroup contact. All analyses controlled for education and socioeconomic status. Our results suggest that cognitive abilities play a critical, albeit underappreciated, role in prejudice. Consequently, we recommend a heightened focus on cognitive ability in research on prejudice and a better integration of cognitive ability into prejudice models."

The value of the Euro would rise if debt laden countries opt out - damaging the export economies of countires within it.

Sure, my views were predicated on how the money was sourced. I don't know whether it's grant or not, although typically such worthy projects received some sort of grant. They're of course entirely welcome to do what they want with it. I have no truck with the content about valuble and interesting local resources like Chener, I'm sure it's great. I'm not so impressed by puff pieces about self-appointed, manipulative food nazis. However print and distribution are extremely expensive and resource intensive ways of getting information out, they're also severely limited in their communications flexibility and creative opportunity. Print businesses are simply going bust, that's the lesson. Is it wise to launch a new one in that kind of environment? No.

Is everyone aware that this is NOT a vote? ;-)

You ride a bicycle right?

I'd certainly smoke at your bloody funeral loser boy, and probably flick the butt in the hole acompanied by a throwaway comment. Oh and... ;-)

In Southwark's defence, you can only put grit down once it's stopped snowing. If you put it down and then get a frsh overlay it doesn't work. Salt can be put down at any time, but then the public sues them for damaging their cars. Can't win.

Okay okay, I've got to stop this, but they're making me cry :))

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Agonising is for flakes - take a position and lay about you with a bent stick!! tiramisu, you sound most distracted, and I hope you perk up soon! It sounds a bit like you're in the 'can't be bothered' mode. I have absolute confidence that you'll be out and about chasing a bit of tail precisely when you fancy it. This year is only about four Saturdays long, so its not unusual that you may have spent them watching ITV. The first part plenty of people will have claimed were down to their 'must cut down boozing new year's resolution'. Now, pucker up buttercup, and get out there!!