Some real news maybe ?

[scottycelt]

"For example, all the opinion polls show that the Greeks are still overwhelmingly in favour of staying in the Euro"

Don't really want to derail this onto a EU siding, and in any case demolishing pro-EU views is rather like taking candy from kids and a bit sadistic. The quote above, is, I assume, meant to support the EU. It doesn't. All that it really does is illustrate the truism that people generally vote for what is in their own interests.

Q] Why are most Greeks still in favour of remaining in the EU?
A] Because the EU has given them billions of Euros and because if they leave, their economy is likely to get even worse. It's a no-brainer, really: if I were Greek, I think it's how I'd be feeling, too.

What they fail to ask is why they are in the mess they are. A truthful answer to that would illustrate just how the single currency has wrecked their country. But they, as do so many, fail to see beyond their own immediate situation.

Where have you been, Simon, Cloud Cuckoo Land ... ?

I was talking about the Euro not the EU. I said right at the beginning that countries such as Greece should never have been allowed to join the Euro. Membership of the EU is a quite separate matter.

However, the Greeks were allowed to join the Euro so those who let it happen will have to pick up the tab for rescue, I'm afraid ... and that basically means Germany, and, according to opinion polls, its people know it!

Of course it would be suicidal for Greece to leave the Euro now ... and its people, according to opinion polls, are not that daft either!

[scottycelt]

... such reports are about as reliable as a Belgian MEP's expense claim.)

Who needs to cross the channel when we have our own parliamentary ducks' houses right here ... ?

[Simon]

How do you strike up all these convenient for the illustration of a point conversations? Do you hang around in bars waiting for likely emblematic citizens? Advertise in the local newspapers? Maybe one day you'll say something where some remarkably convenient piece of human verification doesn't immediately pop up woodenly grinning.

I realise that it may be difficult for you to accept any view which doesn't concur with your own. I hadn't realised that you struggled to grasp general points.

1]
If you actually read my post, and try to understand it, you will see that I mentioned having been to Berlin quite often. That so, I think it would not surprise many that during at least one of those occasions I was in conversation with someone who had experience of life in the east before the wall came down.

2]
I'm unsure of what you mean about a "convenient piece of verification". If you assume that I'm implying by " convenient" that this "verification" is something that has just occurred to enable me to make my point here today, this is an unwarranted assumption and one that I doubt many would suggest.

3]
If you believe that one's experiences over the past 25 years or so should not be used to inform one's present day opinions, or should be forgotten, then I think that you are on your own in a rather unusual world.

bws S-S!

[John Shelton]

.

[John Shelton]

you are on your own in a rather unusual world.

God I hope so.

[MrGongGong]

If you believe that one's experiences over the past 25 years or so should not be used to inform one's present day opinions, or should be forgotten, then I think that you are on your own in a rather unusual world.
!

I don't think so
Cameron is there as well

[Simon]

so

here's one

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/ar...ned-party.html

Wow. I'm really sorry for my earlier dismissive comment, GG. Thanks for the links. I knew nothing of all this. That's the problem of being so involved elsewhere. And what an excellently-written article from the Mail. More research, then missive off to MP tomorrow, signed by four of us (all conservatives!) here. Might not do massive good, but won't do any harm.

[MrGongGong]

Wow. I'm really sorry for my earlier dismissive comment, GG. Thanks for the links. I knew nothing of all this. That's the problem of being so involved elsewhere. And what an excellently-written article from the Mail. More research, then missive off to MP tomorrow, signed by four of us (all conservatives!) here. Might not do massive good, but won't do any harm.

hummmmmm

[Simon]

I couldn't give a toss about puerile pro- / anti-EU chatter.

Reverted to type, I see.

Way too far beneath you, all these unimportant discussions, aren't they? Tell you what, why not just leave them to us poor little mortals and disappear back to Olympus?...

[teamsaint]

I could have saved the Mail quite a lot of ink with a 5 word answer to their headline question, If they had bothered to ask me !

[John Shelton]

disappear back to Olympus?...

OK. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...rkEntrance.jpg

[Serial_Apologist]

OK. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...rkEntrance.jpg

I need a new set of commandments - must pop over there sometime...

[Pabmusic]

...Try this the other way round - a (claimed) mentally ill US citizen hacks into GCHQ (using a telephone or whatever, it's immaterial), causes some damage, and breaches UK security; then the US refuses extradition because of the risk to the life of the hacker. I guess that would be the US exerting undue foreign influence?

I'm not sure we're talking about mental illness here. He is possibly (probably?) suffering from depression, which could be called a mental illness, though we don't usually do so. He also has Asperger's, but that, most definitely, is not a mental illness. It's a congenital condition that has 'wired up' his thinking and perception functions differently.

Earlier reports have said that he hacked into the Pentagon to find secret information about UFOs. To do that, he would have to be an exceptionally gifted person on a mission that was entirely justified - according to his model of reality - given his deep interest in UFOs, and probably a weakness for for conspiracy theories, too. He would have known exactly what he was doing, and would have considered it justified. This is very typical 'aspie' behaviour. Isaac Newton (probably an aspie) inserted a bodkin between his eye and the socket and twiddled it about to see what would happen, because he was curious and wanted answers; very different circumstances, but similar drivers.

The thing that makes this sort of behaviour awkward to classify is that I doubt that there was ever any 'wrong' intent, just curiosity backed by a powerful feeling that it was OK to do it because the US military has been lying to the world about UFOs. It has been noted before that aspies are almost incapable of being convincing liars - in many ways they are like children, which I'm told can be endearing. The thing is, they're not good at realising the consequences (in the 'real' world) of actions, and have to learn those as they go - sometimes the hard way.

[MrGongGong]

I don't know whether you are or are not Pab ?
but It's a little offensive to use the word "aspie" unless it applies to you
a bit like it's ok for NWA to use the first word to describe themselves but definitely NOT ok for me

[Pabmusic]

I don't know whether you are or are not Pab ?
but It's a little offensive to use the word "aspie" unless it applies to you
a bit like it's ok for NWA to use the first word to describe themselves but definitely NOT ok for me

How tiresome. I don't think it's offensive at all - it's a rather quaint, if inelegant, term. It is by trying to bend over backwards to show we are sensitive that we can turn inoffensive terms into non-PC ones.

And yes, I have Asperger's, as I told you in this post in April:

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?5104-Music-teaching-and-outcomes-in-schools/page5&highlight=aspergers+pabmusic