LegalEagle-ish

Roses are Red, cabbages are green, my face is funny, but yours is a scream!!

I quite like the wilds of Scotland, much cheaper and interesting than the wilds of East Dulwich.

I think I'd be right at home in the country. I'd love a pack of mad farm dogs. You're allowed firearms too, innit?

So restrict all dogs cos you got attacked once?

Brendan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I think I?m going to raise my children in London. > In the countryside there won?t be enough people > for my wife to ram off the pavement with the > perambulator. Lol, I get to go for a second wave of ankle busting with my granddaughter's buggy. Great stuff!

I know my dog can look a bit intimidating, so I wasn't really talking about people's reactions to him being irrational or phobic. It was the response to one of the least threatening dog I've ever seen that I thought was a bit irrational and phobic. My dog is soppy, but not always perfectly behaved, he has a thing for skateboard wheels, squirrels, rabbits, foxes and horses, but he's hetting better.

Does anyone wonder what it will be like when they all turn into teenagers? Will all the teenagers be like the parents, studying hard and working towards having a career, or just live off their elderly parents waiting for them to pop their crocks and hand them their money?

The New Statesman pieice was funny though!

I was talking to another dog owner this morning whilst walking my dog and couldn't beleive it when she said people are scared of her fluffy, playful tiny little dog, until I saw a few kids scream and run away from her dog. I have a big bull breed dog and he has learned to ignore most people because of their negative reactions, but this little dog was really friendly and wagged up to people. I am amazed that anyone could have considered it scary as it is so small and fluffy, no bigger than a babies teddy bear and the owner, who is a Northener like I am, said this reaction only happens when she is visiting her friend in Dulwich. I have also noticed than when I am out of Dulwich, people come up to my very placid and friendly bull breed dog and ask to pet him which he loves, but as soon as we are in Dulwich, people act scared of him, even when he is on a lead. I do not know why this is the case, but I think that the people who fear dogs need to do something about their irrational fear rather than calling for perfectly harmless dogs to be restricted (whcih I know no-one has said yet, but will no doubt very soon). If someone is irrationally phobic of hights or spiders etc, you wouldn't demand that all buildings become one story, or we round up all the spiders, you would tell the effected people to use some kind of therapy to overcome their phobia. I stand more chance of being mauled by a vicious dog than a non-dog walker, because a vicious dog is more likely to attack my dog and I would be compelled to protect him. It would help if people who are irrationally scared of dogs took time to understand dog behaviour and body language if they want to overcome their fear, because it is very easy to tell the difference between a friendly dog and one that is about to attack you.

Lol - I've been off sick too - but couldn't be arsed posting. Rather slum around my house avoiding housework and gardening and reading some of the funny stuff you lot have been so busy writing for the benefit of lazyarses like myself!

At home with the lurgies.

Totally agree with Keef.

I think the way the media have ganged up on him is horrible; he seems a much more genuine person than his predecessor or his main opponent. Blair and Cameron are slimy and can?t be trusted. I just wish Brown would hitch up his pants and get some fighting in. He?s a bit too sensitive to media demonization, and we may end up with the Bullingdon Club running the bloody country if he doesn?t fix up soon. Imagine Boris on a National scale - time to leave the bloody country methinks.

Er is that heroin, or heroine Eddy? One gets you titted and the other has some.

... and you didn't invite me - I'm hurt.

How would they manage it? Forceable sterilisation after your first sprog or forced abortions? I thought the birth rate was going down and we are going to be stuffed when it comes to people wiping our arses for us when we get old. Have we suddenly been popping out sprogs like bacteria multiply or something cos it was only last year we had all of those scary headlines about an aging population. Maybe we should just cull old twats instead, what do you reckon? Lovely guy, that SteveT, wouldn't want to cull him obviously!

Paris Hilton - annoying, brainless, rich pain in the arse bimbo being paid for innane TV programmes.

What I said was immoral was the American's trying to use Africans for their GM experiments. I am not saying that GM is necessarily immoral - how can it be - it's only a technology. Just like the H-bomb wasn't immoral, it was merely a piece of technology. Dropping it on the Japanese after they had surrendered just to see what it could do however, was immoral. Similiarly, dropping tonnes of GM on poor countries to flood their markets, put local competitors out of business and test the effects of the GM technology on those people, is immoral.

LegalEagle-ish Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Putting animal genes into plants means that the > diseases that evolve in response to the new GM > products may have the ability to cross species > barrirers in ways that were not possible > naturally. > > You could end up with a siuation where a potato > blight not only wiped out all the potato crops, > but also the livestock or even hunans. > > Making organisms with gene sequences that could > never evolve naturally for all kinds of reasons, > without knowing the consequence to the organisms > around them is a dangerous and irresponsible > thing to do. > No one has answered this bit though. Don't you think that if these gene sequences were stable and beneficial, they would not have already evolved? The speed that we are changing these un-natural and cross species gene sequences in itself is dangerous. Evolution and even selective breeding occurs over many generations, and the negative mixes can be identified and weaned out by survival of the fittest, or culling the weak organisms. The people playing with the genes of organisms are doing so without knowing the long term consequences of cramming fish genes into tomatos etc and are not motivated by concern dfor the starving millions, but for the profits that can be made by their masters. As far as I am concerned the whole thing is immoral and terrifying. A friend of mine who is involved in politics in Ugands told me that the Americans tried to force tonnes of genetically modified rice onto their market in so called aid, but the Ugandans didn't want to be part of their human experiments so the rice ended up being stored in huge warehouses in Uganda, because the Americans refused to take it back. It was promptly stolen and sold on the black market to unsuspecting Ugandan human guinea pigs. If this stuff is so great, why can't the Americans even give it away?

Putting animal genes into plants means that the diseases that evolve in response to the new GM products may have the ability to cross species barrirers in ways that were not possible naturally. You could end up with a siuation where a potato blight not only wiped out all the potato crops, but also the livestock or even hunans. Making organisms with gene sequences that could never evolve naturally for all kinds of reasons, without knowing the consequence to the organisms around them is a dangerous and irresponsible thing to do. There is no shortage of food produced on this planet, the problem is with unequal distribution of the food we already produce. If we want to really understand the ptessure to go down the GM route we need to look at who really benefits. It won't be poor farmers tied into using patented seeds and their corresponding products such as herbicides to which they are immune. Or the people forced to eat these cross species products. The people who benefit are the huge companies producing. GM seeds, herbicides, pesticides and the accompanying chemical fertilisers. Do you really think the CEO's of Monsanto eat the crap they are forcing on the rest of us?

Couldn't work out what I was supposed to download from your link. Also I want to listen to live radio not really podcasts. Any ideas?

Thanks I'll check it out.

I have tried to listen live on radio 4 website but couldn't even after trying to download adobe flash. Downloaded some radio companion thing and it still didn't work. Has anyone got any ideas?

Monoculture encourages crops to be attacked by pests. Mixed planting, companion planting and permaculture reduce the need for pesticides and actually the reverse is true with regards artificial fertilisers and crop yields. The chemical fertilisers produce higher yields initially, but quickly kill off much of the micro-culture leaving the soil sterile and unable to maintain the same levels of crops without increasing levels of chemical fertiliser. I don't understand how you can say that organic fertilser is more expensive when you can compost all the left-over plant material, animal manure and even human manure if you have a compost toilet. Land that has been left to regenerate organically after having been stripped of it's micro-culture by chemical, intensive farming, regains it's yields eventually and with the decline in oil which is a fundamental ingredient in intensive, chemical farming, we will need to get back to more natural ways of farming, which can only be good for our health and the health of the planet. Some books to read on this subject are: The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka How to make a Forest Garden by Patrick Whitefield How to grow more vegetables by John Jeavons Alcohol can be a gas by Davis Blume and From Naked Ape to Superspecies by David Suzuki and Holly Dressel That should keep you busy for a while!

They weren't scary clowns, thankfully.!