Some real news maybe ?

[MrGongGong]

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/showthrea...rgers+pabmusic

No offence meant
but for many people with Aspergers it is
and I can't always remember what people said months ago ...............

[scottycelt]

It doesn't stick in my craw. It's also nothing like as simple as you make it out to be, because (a) such support as there was in Greece for the bailout agreements is vanishing (b) it's rather difficult to square the circle of continued membership of the Euro with rejection of austerity. Isn't it?

All I was attempting to point out is that the EU is volatile politically, not the cosy consensus you present. I don't want the Euro to collapse. I don't want the EU to float into the clouds accompanied by an angelic choir. I don't actually want anything. But if you can get something as paradoxical as Germans surveyed saying they want out of the Euro then a settled picture of pan-European consensus looks a bit ... unreal, doesn't it? I'm not taking sides. I couldn't give a toss about puerile pro- / anti-EU chatter.

Yes I'm sorry about you too.

Okay, it doesn't stick in your craw. You don't want the Euro to collapse. You don't want the EU to float into the cloads accompanied by an angelic choir. You don't actually want anything . You think those who express either a postive or negative a view on the EU are being puerile.

So you're saying the only ones we should learn from are those who come on here 'only attempting to point out' their equally subjective opinions and then end up by sneering that they 'don't give a toss' one way or the other?

Heck, never thought of that ... no wonder you look down on silly old me with such sorrow!

[Pabmusic]

No offence meant
but for many people with Aspergers it is
and I can't always remember what people said months ago ...............

Was I behaving to type?

[MrGongGong]

Was I behaving to type?

i'll ask my son

[An_Inspector_Calls]

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.

First para: you're reading my reversal of the situation perhaps a little too literally. The term 'mental illness' was there merely to give some parallel with the fact that McKibben has a 'condition'.
Second para: That may be the case, and it would play well in his trial (if there is one), but then NASA can plead damage to their systems, which probably cost a great deal more to repair than £500,000 if consequential factors were properly valued.

As the news and opinion comes in it's clear this is going to prove to be a complex matter to unravel. Have you(?) Scots still got Kenny MacAskill on hand to grant a pardon?

[Pabmusic]

...Have you(?) Scots still got Kenny MacAskill on hand to grant a pardon?

I am not a Scot. I assume that, if an offence has been committed, it will be under Scottish law. Presumably it will be something about hacking into unauthorised computers from the UK, not causing damage to them, since that would be probably out of the jurisdiction.

[John Shelton]

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[scottycelt]

You post things like the vast majority of Greeks, the vast majority of Europeans etc. All I am attempting to suggest is that those are inflated generalisations at best based on particular moments in a highly volatile, rapidly shifting, multiple of situations and events. So that whereas a few years ago any poll asking German respondents what they thought of the Euro would have got a resounding thumbs up now a poll gets a 60+% response saying they think Germany would be better out of it. You respond to the European Union being awarded the Nobel so-called Peace Prize by painting a picture of a harmonious Europe of sensible centrists with only the UK as narrow, parochial, deniers, whereas again in a volatile situation in several EU countries the kind of racist based nationalism characteristic of fascist politics is again becoming (or has become) conspicuous. Hungary being a particularly flagrant example.

I say I don't care because I'm not interested in abstract arguments along the lines of Europe good / Europe bad. I certainly don't want to see a revival of any version of nationalism (though that's happening even in Germany, to the extent that blaming lazy, backward, Southern Europeans is a favourite sport for German tabloids) and I don't support the policies of austerity bound up with the single currency project, policies which will IMV certainly drive the revival of virulent, fascist, nationalisms.

On Hungary you might be interested in this blog http://thecontrarianhungarian.wordpress.com/, written by a centrist, liberal, Hungarian, and no left wing agitator or whatever the phrase is.

Meanwhile here are some angels playing musical instruments http://img.posterlounge.de/images/wb...nts-142340.jpg

And others keep posting meaningless links to things like the rather honestly-named Contrarian Hungarian ...

I've never claimed the EU is perfect but I'll never apologise for my enthusiasm for its creation, its ethos of uniting the peoples of a formerly war-torn Europe, and its undoubted successes to date. As long as humans exist on this planet we'll have an elememnt of strife whether the EU exists or not, but I'm convinced that there's a damn better chance of less strife when it's around.

To somehow connect the EU with the rise of fascist groups in separate countries is bizarre. The EU has very strict terms of democratic membership and human rights laws which never existed before and any member country which ends up with a genuinely fascist or communist governmeny, denying its people basic human rights, will almost certainly be thrown out of the organisation, and rightly so.

You are right though about my opinion of some of the anti-European rhetoric in the UK, now highly evident even in official government circles. I find this truly inexplicable coming from a country which did so much to free Europe from the evils of Nazism and Communism and is now apparently preferring to turn its back on its neighbours and concentrate more on its largely insignicant and minor world role as the chief message-boy for the USA. The USA doesn't really need any message-boys (or girls), so that's significant and rather worrying an outlook in itself.

How could I not find such an apparent UK 'ambition' so utterly depressing ... ?

[Bryn]

And others keep posting meaningless links to things like the rather honestly-named Contrarian Hungarian ...

I've never claimed the EU is perfect but I'll never apologise for my enthusiasm for its creation, its ethos of uniting the peoples of a formerly war-torn Europe, and its undoubted successes to date. As long as humans exist on this planet we'll have an [element] of strife whether the EU exists or not, but I'm convinced that there's a damn better chance of less strife when it's around.

To somehow connect the EU with the rise of fascist groups in separate countries is bizarre. The EU has very strict terms of democratic membership and human rights laws which never existed before and any member country which ends up with a genuinely fascist or communist [government], denying its people basic human rights, will almost certainly be thrown out of the organisation, and rightly so.

You are right though about my opinion of some of the anti-European rhetoric in the UK, now highly evident even in official government circles. I find this truly inexplicable coming from a country which did so much to free Europe from the evils of Nazism and Communism and is now apparently preferring to turn its back on its neighbours and concentrate more on its largely [insignificant] and minor world role as the chief message-boy for the USA. The USA doesn't really need any message-boys (or girls), so that's significant and rather worrying an outlook in itself.

How could I not find such an apparent UK 'ambition' so utterly depressing ... ?

Don't worry Scotty, I don't concur with you on many things, but I am certainly with you in the main re. this issue. You're not a 'smokie' then.

[MrGongGong]

Don't worry Scotty, I don't concur with you on many things, but I am certainly with you in the main re. this issue. You're not a 'smokie' then.

[Simon]

Of course he isn't. But more and more are joining the fold. And the lovely Angela flexing her muscles and threatening us can only aid the cause... !

Think how many British people that 17 billion could help if we didn't have to pay it. And no more silly CAP. All our fishing fleets back working again... Foreign aid going to those who need it rather than to "pals" of the eurocrats... It's a no-brainer really.

SHOUT SHOUT SHOUT! OUT OUT OUT!

[John Shelton]

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[MrGongGong]

I thought a smokie was a kipper?

Certainly not (but without protected status no smokies i'm afraid .................)

http://www.arbroathsmokiesonline.co.uk/

I love the "faith" that the prof and kipper chums have in the lord somehow filling the sea with fish once we leave the EU

and I do love the "joining the fold" idea

as the famous Handel chorus puts it .................. baa

What is happening in Hungary is very worrying indeed (as several fellow musicians in Budapest have been telling me......)

[amateur51]

It's taken far too long, and indeed reflects no credit on the system, but this was odds on going to be the outcome in the end.

I've had a look back through the thread, which I missed first time around when I was away. Isn't it typical of this forum? Reasoned and moderate posts at the start, soon hijacked by surreal "political" nonsense from the usual half a dozen who have a view on everything but, apparently, little knowledge of anything.

And a self-inflated homily from St Simon to top it all off. As you say, typical

[John Shelton]

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