Huguenot

mmmm... meat http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSiau0thprP3aYlmWIhsxk0PtrE1WJubvXbn332cYu9pSNhqfoPXw

Do you genunely think that all those fans were at women's football because they were so exceptionally talented?

Yo! The Fed! And the problem with that is tulips. We've got tulips all over this, and we need to be bright enough to see it.

Fart in my Whitbread?

Well if you'd read my post you'd have seen that I didn't use wiki, and I did include my sources. You'll also see that women's football wasn't banned for being popular, and it didn't kill the game. You seem to be insisting that the big crowds PROVE that women's football was banned for being popular. That's not logical. It only proves that it was banned in spite of being popular. You seem to be using these crowds as an assertion for the quality of women's football - which is making quite a leap. In an era where women were arrested for baring their legs in public it's far more likely that the appeal of the game was driven by many other factors. Your point on 'culture' is exactly the same as mine. In our culture women's sport has limited appeal. QED. If you're hard done by, it's by our culture not by a male conspiracy. The women's World Cup was shown on BBC2 on a Saturday at 5pm for 3.2 million viewers. It got all the coverage you crave, and virtually no-one watched it. Women in general don't watch it, don't read about it, and don't give a toss about it. Myself I don't even care if it's quality, I don't have a view. I simply don't give a monkey's about women's sport unless there's someone I particularly have interest in. Incidentally - sponsorship and recognition are not entitlements that are being withheld: they are the result of, and proportionate to, public interest and engagement. If people are not interested you're not recognised and you don't get don't get sponsorship. You'll also see that I wasn't comparing sending men to war with women's emancipation. I was only comparing it with the fuss over women's football and the Football Association. You've tried to change my argument in order to 'beat' it - that's dishonest. I was simply demonstrating that people in general weren't well respected by the establishment during that era.

"In the UK the FA banned womens league football in 1921 because it was selling more tickets than the men's game (although the official reason was that it was considered unsuitable for women). It wasn't until 1972 that the ban was lifted and in 2008 the FA apologised for it." Well, since we're on the subject I'd like to pick up on this assertion. There is no evidence that the FA banned ladies teams from its club grounds because they were successful (they didn't actually 'ban' women's league football as they had no such jurisdiction). The banned them because they were part of the massive gender politics issues of the time - baring their legs and organising themselves into financially successful tournaments was seen as an outrageous challenge to the male establishment authority. The FA wanted women back in the home and out of the workplace. In particular women's football was seen as supportive of the working classes and the unions, both of which were in a major fight against the establishment after their efforts in the Great War. There's a fabulous history of it here. Women didn't really help the cause by deliberately cocking a snook at the establishment by snogging on the field either ;-) http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Fdickkerrs2kiss.jpg

Aren't you simply in danger of over analysing this? A century ago society had no respect for men either - sending 10 million teenage boys over the top of the trenches as cannon fodder. So frankly some weasley decision about football not being right and proper for women is not worth getting fussed about. Women got off lucky. Isn't the reality that this is simply genetic imperative? Whether it's Athens 3,000 years ago or the FA Cup, men are sexually competing in a regulated environment. Male viewers get a vicarious thrill by projecting themselves onto their heroes (you ever seen that study in Italy where births follow local football team success 9 months removed?). Female viewers aspire to obtain these alpha males, and take their satisfaction from their boyfriend's second-place reflected glory. Women's sport can be 'intellectually' satisfying, but it's never likely to have the gut physical attraction of male sport because society simply doesn't work like that. Instead women compete in lipstick, powder and paint. So it's Cosmo and Company magazine that gets their interest. Sure, not every person fits this 'norm' but don't expect what gets you out of (or into) bed to be the same for everyone else. I simply don't give a monkeys about female sport. There's the odd individual I identify with, but broadly I don't see the point.

I don't get the frog joke. I'm sure I'm not the only one?

Oh get a grip you wally. I invest a lot of time trying to share ideas with readers here, it's not pontificating. I work hard to find data or references to support these perspectives, and make sure that people don't have to suffer loud mouthed dross. If people want to hear a lot of opinionated cock they can hear it down the pub. I clearly 'get' it, I just don't agree with your interpretation, and plenty of your views are simply prejudice. Why don't you put your ego down, take your hand out of your trousers and contribute something worth reading?

;-)

Seems to me that the data is valid, well aggregated and reviewed. Although I appreciate some of the residents would like one (mainly in commercially affacted areas rather than commuter), it doesn't seem to me there is sufficient support to implment a CPZ in ED. If there is an argument based on that data, I'd love to hear it - but I'd be walking away right now!

I knew he was qualified.

Sure, except the publishing industry (excluding national press) is dominated by women and they would cover it if it sold. It doesn't, so they don't.

Okay, done that. The first is predictably evangelical and OTT, the second refers to uranium based nuclear power, not thorium. The Chinese have to buy their uranium from Australia, with a very weak trading record. The anxiety is predictable, but not relevant to thorium. It's important that we get away from just 'nuclear is bad', to recognising that there are different processes and fuels. 'Wind' isn't the same as 'Gas' even though it sounds similar.

Erm... mind control taking over the Germans and passim ;-) Anyway, I'm going to read your links, but you knew than anyway!

It's quite interesting that 'marriage' in the 'state' legal sense to which the current government is referring didn't actually exist until 1753. Before that, the act of living together would be considered to be 'married' if both partners referred to themslves as so. Since marriage didn't carry any legal associations, the term was used quite regularly to define a variety of levels from just dating right the way through to contracted 'forced' marriages largely used to exact reproductive rights over women. Up until the nineteenth century marrriages often produced large numbers of kids who died (or the parents died) - so the idea of it creating a stable home for development didn't really make sense: it was just a production line with a high failure rate. Better medicine in the nineteenth century resulted in smaller families and higher levels of investment in kids - but not with the 'loving home' context that MM refers to. The male line were considered assets/employees owned by the male family lead. Women and girls didn't count - they got 'sold' socially or otherwise. Just read Jane Austen. I guess the way that many Americans still refer to their father as 'sir' means that some modern societies haven't moved from there. Even in the UK the caring/sharing nuclear family looking for stability and mutual benefit was largely a 1960s creation. Hence the whole 'stable family' idea that MM is imagining, is actually less than 50 years old, and in the mobile/information age is already outdated. There is the unpleasant probability (for MM at any rate) that the high modern divorce rate is driven by marriages created by 'love' rather than 'duty', and love is clearly less exact a science. Perhaps then, a 'stable loving home' never actually existed at all - it was a romantic mental construct that didn't stay the distance. So the real question is what the conservative government is likely to do to deal with the changing needs of society, and not what it can do to preserve something that never really existed. It's worth bearing in mind that in many collectivist societies the 'family' is a very large unit indeed - encompassing entire neighborhoods. So a stable 'family' has a different connotation and doesn't require 20 quid to make it happen!! I'd prefer to see the billion quid that this would cost invested in social facilities that create a social solution like youth clubs that works and has longevity rather than a misguided cash chuck at financially equipped married people.

The lack of development in the 1960s is widely attributed to the attractive secondary benefits of uranium based nuclear processes in the creation of weapons. As a dedicated consipracist I don't know why you wouldn't support that interpretation HAL9000? More rationally, an oil rich 1960s USA obsessed with communism and unfamiliar with the 21st century issues of peak oil and environmentalism had no real incentive to develop 'clean nuclear' and government funding was limited. On the 'vociferous claims' you refer to I'd need to see sources and qualification on both sides. You do have a track record of using the ramblings of socially disadvantaged paranoiacs on the lecture circuit as if they were 'trustworthy'?

The Euro certainly takes away the option of devaluation as a blunt economic tool - I've commented upon this passim, and agree that it limits flexibility. But then an inflationary/devaluation strategy by any government should equally be dismissed as a strategy for economic mismanagement. Check with Zimbabwe. It's uncontrolled and prone to meltdown. Zimbabwe wasn't a subsucriber to the Euro ;-)

Heh heh. It's like having 'Jesus Christ Superstar' rewritten as 'Lord of the Rings'.

Whether or not that was true in the past, it's not reasonable to assume that these concerns continue to be valid. Good for China - thorium and molten salt reactors. Whatever happens, we mustn't allow outdated concerns and prejudice hold back the work we need to do to find solutions.

This isn't about being 'non-judgmental' or 'right-on'. It's quite simply that this policy is wrong: constructed upon poor analysis and outdated perceptions of society and lifestyles, it is a red herring that stops us adddressing real social problems, won't deliver on objectives, and foolishly aims to turn back the social clock to a nostalgic era that never existed. This is a policy aimed at winning votes from the over 50s at a time when the coalition is shaky and the government losing traction. The irony is that it's also an outdated strategy. It kept the Tories out for over a decade, and it'll do the same again.

Have you spoken to UDT and HAL9000? They're quite literally 'magnets' for loose cutlery to add to their alien defence shields.

The other worry about the 'honesty' of EROEI calculations is that they only tend to cover the expenditure from the ground to the end user. They never include the costs of clearing up the world in 20 year's time. Until this is clear and included on your electricity bill, the population will fail to grasp the importance of the situation.

It's when you start adding unsubstantiated assertions that it gets all distorted with you DaveR: "Spain and Italy could not have become so anti-competitive vis-a-vis Germany were it not for euro membership, which obviously precluded exchange rate changes " Southern nations became less competitive because they had wage inflation in booming economies, whilst Germany kept this under control. If you argue that only the Euro could have allowed these economies to boom then the 'evidence is staring you in the face' as you once said - the UK is not a member of the Euro and yet it too had an economic boom throughout the same period. As you mention, some of those national debts exceeded GDP before the Euro was introduced - in other words the Euro was not necessary to create the debt crisis. The UK is also not in the Euro and has its own debt problems. QED Whilst the Euro has its flaws, you can't going laying the blame for the debt burden or uncompetitive economies simply on the Euro.

2,450,000 women read the Daily Mail - that's around 15% more than the male readers. It suggest that a diet of racism, homphobia, gender stereotyping and welfare baiting is more appealing to the so-called 'fairer' sex. Crazy eh? ;-)