Huguenot

Ha ha, the Daily Mail doing what it does best. There is an interesting challenge in there - why do women's magazines (written, published and read by women) give so little attention to sportswomen if it's so important to them?

It's a bit silly acm - you've argued yourself in a circle. In your first 'banana' point you say there is too much regulation. In your second point about patents this is not about EU regulations, just about patents in general. Nothing to do with the EU. In your third 'GE crops' point you say there is not strong enough regulation. It's just a rant where you're shouting about things you don't like in general, and then laying them at the door of the EU whether they're rational or relevant.

Everything was better when everyone knew their place http://www.loschermo.it/imagecache/articoli/foto1/697908ee_pleasantville_helping_800_800.jpg

BTW - its "hare-brained" not "hair-brained" Apparently it's been spelled both ways since the dawn of print. 'Hare' as in mad march hares makes sense today, but one couldn't actually claim it has to be one way or the other, nor what the original root was.

Ceramic ice grips here

Norovirus isn't just one infection - it's actually a group of viruses that cause stomach cramps, fever, vomiting and diarrhoea. If you've got these symptoms in the UK then the odds are it's norovirus as it's the most pervasive infection that causes these symptoms. You could only prove it by taking a stool sample to the lab, but it would be a bit pointless as you'd have recovered before the assessment could be made, and it wouldn't affect treatment anyway - which is mainly drinking plenty of fluids!

But you still haven't addressed the correlation/causation issue - and that's why it simply doesn't stand up. There is no doubt that those people who are more committed are more likely to get married and stick together. But taking two people who are not committed and making them marry does NOT make them committed. This is patently obvious!! Making people not marry DOES NOT suddenly make people reliable and loving.

A good point ;-)

It's a bit like climate change denial. The anti-Europe gang make all sorts of specious unsubstantiated claims that don't stand up under analysis. They're then addressed one at a time to expose the myths. The anti-Europe brigade then deny all the facts, poo poo all the evidence and attempt to sow confusion.

Ok, hands up, I can be a bit stupid with television. Nobody told me that The Office was comedy when it first came out, so I just thought it was car crash television. I genuinely couldn't watch it, I was mortified. It was only when someone told me it was comedy that I laughed, and even then couldn't make myself watch it. The one thing that slightly irritates me about Ricky Gervais is that he thinks people have a downer on him because he's successful. I don't. I just don't think he's funny, and I think he's unpleasant about other people to disguise his own shortcomings. So when other people laugh at Ricky I wonder what their problems is?

Potatoes? POTATOES? Foreign TURD. Brought by the bloody effing Spanish from dark skinned people. Who pissed on them.

We know where you cook, bon3yard, and the filth are on the way ;-)

I don't think you're being entirely above the board Dermot. I notice in particular that you've used a bit.ly link to your forum rather than a direct reference, which shows you're attempting to track your traffic sources. Other referrals were simply cross referencing, but not you. I also notice that despite parlous traffic figures you've already introduced Google slots on both your forum and your blog, which expose a desperate and probably failing attempt to monetise your audience. This would only be the behaviour of an aspiring but somewhat dilletante web producer. You've also chosen the Ganapati as your vehicle for engagement, a restaurant that clearly falls within the stamping ground of EDF regulars. So no. I denounce you. I think you're no more than a Restoration fop - claiming homosexuality to inveigle yourself into the intimacies of the EDF love nest. You leave everyone soiled as a result.

And you ask me why I accuse people of prejudice? This says it all: Because then we have the greatest chance yet to be rid of the cancerous, murderous, wealth-destroying, self-serving and self-preserving parasite that is the EU Patently unsubstantiated, ridiculous, prejudiced rubbish.

It's just that correlation/causation thing MM. You've argued that unmarried parents cause all the other problems and can be solved by giving people a financial incentive to marry. Others are arguing that all the other problems exist anyway, and creating financial penalties for people who don't get married is just going to add one more tragedy into the mix.

It's relevant, El Pibe, by illustrating how countries that make compromises to support the common good are favoured when it comes to economic relations and by return, those outside the bloc are less well favoured. They suffer as a result. Besides, Carter has already said that in his mind there is no difference between the EU and the Euro.

This is why it's so boring discussing with you Carter - you deliberately miss the point. You end up on some stupid tirade against the messenger instead of trying to understand the message. Nobody is denying that the demand is up because of a local fad, the problem is what you do when demand is up and you have artifical market restrictions imposed by your trading relations. Here is the Helsingin Sanomat: --- "In a wider context, however, Norway?s Customs policy is to blame, for it makes it practically impossible for the shops to replenish their shelves with imported butter. ?It is too late to ask now?, says Danish-Swedish dairy giant Arla?s communications director Theis Br?gger. Norway is not an EU country, and the import tariff on butter from abroad has been set at 25 Norwegian krone (EUR 3.30) per kg. For this reason dairies from other Nordic Countries do not really export their products into Norway at all. After the butter shortage hit the country, Norway agreed to lower the import levy to a mere four krone per kilogramme of butter, a move that failed to resolve the problem. ?We have nothing to offer at such short notice. Also, from the business point of view such short-term activities are not really worthwhile. Norway has already communicated that the Customs duties will be raised back to normal on January 1st?, Br?gger says." --- You see? You get it now? Being outside of large trading markets renders your economy highly sensitive to mild fluctuations: you don't have the resources or the trading relations to compensate. Out of the EU (because of spending 0.3% of your paypacket on it)? Look forward to empty shelves. Why do you think even William Hague says leaving the EU is a stupid idea? It's not me isolated here, it's you.

"The supreme irony, of course, is that you live in Singapore, where the evidence of the idiocy of your views is in your face at every turn." Too clever for me mate, do explain? At the moment the rain is in your face wherever you turn - is the Euro responsible for that? Or is the EU? Or do you not differentiate? The hyperbole of course, is all your own words here ;-) I notice that Norway's refusal to engage on equal terms with the EU has created high tarriffs that mean there's a butter shortage on. Evidence perhaps that your claims that there'll be no impact of withdrawal from Europe as misplaced?

Lima dance.

"But much as I disagree with Marmora Man, I also take issue with Huguenot's claim that "marriage gave us subordination and exploitation of women". Violent, nasty, misogynist men would exist regardless of marital status." Fair point, but you missed a key work - 'also' - I wasn't suggesting that marriage created this in isolation. What it certainly created was a legal contract that enshrined the opportunity to exploit women and bound them to men by making unmarried mothers financially disadvantaged and social pariahs. PLEASE REMEMBER - a financial benefit for a 'married' woman is exactly the same as a financial penalty for an 'unmarried' woman. I cannot seriously believe that our society is so backward to ignore this self-evident reality.

Agreed - in that sense marriage tax breaks don't achieve anything at all. They're only really useful as cynical vote winning strategies amongst the over 50s just when it looks like the coalition is under pressure. Oh, hang on...

Clegg is absolutely right when he says that this is harking back to 1950s ideology. It's also a measure of the Victorian thinking and complete cultural and modern disconnect behind this that considers any non-nuclear family to be a 'broken home'. Whilst I agree that we need constructive and inclusive social structures, I see no reason why marriage should be the foundation of this. Marriage also gave us the subordination and exploitation of women, battered wives and desperate loveless contracts grinding us down to early deaths. I see no data that proves that more kids are suffering through reduction in marriages than adults are benefitting through the freedom to exit destructive relationships. This is the age of information and equality, of education and opportunity, of mobility and flexibility. These have the largest influence on the longevity of marriages - not a twenty quid incentive. The largest instigators of divorce are women, and the most influential decision makers in being single parents are women. It's rather insulting to women to ask them to give up all their hard earned freedoms and right to self-determination for the sake of a paltry cash bonus. This is what Cameron is really doing - telling women to put their apron back on for the sake of the kids. I suspect it would only be authoritarian right wing 50+ males that would see this as a desirable and reasonable objective.

To the contrary Marmora Man - the essence of this debate is facts, figures and the propensity of the anti-Europe brigade to deliberately misrepresent and misuse them in pursuit of a destructive hidden agenda. Your own anti-European position is well established, and I reserve the right to ignore instructions from you to shut up as the right wingers continue a campaign of misinformation in the national press and on people's doorsteps. I have no doubt that clarification of the democratic foundation of Europe and the minor investment if requires to deliver massive economic returns are 'boring' to you - you'd prefer these points were never proven at all.

Listen out for the tick tock of the clock!

The UK government spends about 640bn a year in total, and the net cost of EU membership (expenditure less direct income from grants or funds) is about 6bn, or about 0.94% However, not all of government income comes from taxes, only 588bn does, so that's about 0.86%. If you were earning 100k a year, then in total income tax and NI payments after allowances would be about 35k. So even if you were earning 100k a year, in fact net only 300 quid of your earnings is paid towards the EU each year - or 0.3%. That's less than a third of a penny for every pound you earn. For that you get a common market, freedom of trade, freedom of movement, freedom of domicile, consistency of regulation and a continent wide commercial infrastructure. You get a market worth over 50% of our total exports. You get huge leverage on global markets when negotiating access to shrinking resources and energy insecurity. Despite what certain people will tell you, there's virtually no difference in the democratic accountability of the EU organisations compared with the UK. So what kind of insane idiot when faced with figures like that would still be campaigning to pull out of Europe?