>>25439

The key player is Israel, The American Military know they aren't going to be able to invade iran successfully and the resistence to doing so would be strong, with the exception of the Air Force, which is full of religious nutters. I'm guessing Bibi tries an Airstrike in October ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_surprise ) and dares the Yanks to let him get Away with it while the far right screeches at Obama to go bomb Iran in support of Israel. Most of the Attack Iran posturing I've seen tends to admit that Manpower is a bit short, and so merely recommend bombing everything, the air force ofcourse is totally on board with this idea.

>>25441
> Most of the Attack Iran posturing I've seen tends to admit that Manpower is a bit short, and so merely recommend bombing everything, the air force ofcourse is totally on board with this idea.
How very American.

Your predictions are pretty specific. You been down Ladbrokes yet?

>>25442

The incentives of AIPAC and the republicans may not totally align with Bibi's plans. Bibi Might not manage to launch the attack, The lunatic far right in Israel is strong but not all powerful. The Iran revolution could be a slow burner like the previous revolutions.

The incentives are there, but there's a lot of chance involved. I am sure that The US won't wind up attacking Iran either way.

>>25443

A successful strike wouldn't do much for Bibi's approval rating, since he already has the warmonger vote. But a messed up one could topple his government. A war definitely would.

>>25445

If he tries it it will be a massive cock up, The IDF has fucked up every time it's deployed since they struck syria. They'll kill some muslims and wind up commiting another Strategic own goal. Worse It'll be a cock up with out the Yanks backing him up, Bibi has been extra cuntish of late, possibly because he's plugged into the right wing echo chamber, "Obama's weak, an empty suit, Black, etc." and has decided He can get away with anything, he specifically made moves to establish his Dominance, and threw a hissy fit when he wasn't Kow Tow'd to.

Objectively it would be political suicide for him to launch a strike. But he may honestly believe that the Yanks can be manipulated into bombing iran, or that he could get away with a surgical strike.

BNP, UKIP, EFP - they've all basically become footnotes. No-one talks about them anymore.

Complete halfwit that he was, I sometimes miss Stormfag - he was sometimes worthy of a chuckle. The man whose best idea of a date was a dash through the backstreets of Brixton and whose best idea of a justification for mistakes in the Bible was "they're only contradictions if you're a Jew".

>>25409
I wouldn't call the parties that got the fourth and fifth largest share of the vote 'footnotes'.

'EFP' on the other hand - who the hell are they? Never heard of them. Not even a footnote because they were never discussed in the first place.

>>25409
>The man whose best idea of a date was a dash through the backstreets of Brixton and whose best idea of a justification for mistakes in the Bible was "they're only contradictions if you're a Jew".
I liked having him around too. Not just because I agreed with most of what he said, but because people would type out comedy gold like this in reply to him. I can't stop laughing.

>>25438

Simon will be back shortly. I can feel it.

>>25440

Simon never left. He is just ....... silent.

>>25432
It says that he'll sort out the 10p tax rate, globalisation and the NHS. Sounds pretty good to me.

>>25433

And do you believe it?

>>25434

Politician...believe...I don't understand.

>>25435

Precisely, hence

>>25432

>>25433
>It says that he'll sort out the 10p tax rate
That's what you wanted to hear, but he didn't say that at all. He said he'd stop ignoring party members and not repeat such errors of judgement in the future.

>>25421

Taxing it would solve the problem. The government could easily put a mighty tax on all the newly legalised drugs. With the cheaper production and more direct sales through legalisation the taxes levied would likely only maintain the price (it might still drop from current rates).

It would probably benefit everyone as those in chronic pain would get access to cannibis, a cheap and effective source of relief, and the excess money from taxation could be ploughed into other areas of care.

I was reading an interesting article on the Ayn Rand Fanclub website which said that by legalising weed, the price drop alone by going from black market weed to legitimate weed would introduce an extra $5 billion dollars into the US economy.

>>25425

That's not really unexpected.

>>25425

>>25425

I forgot to mention; this is before tax, this is just the extra money swishing around in people's pockets that they'd saved by not having to buy weed at an inflated price.

>>25379
What's funny isn't that he's a Republican plant(he isn't, but it's highly likely, say 99.9999% chance, that they funded him), but that he got elected purely because he's black. The black democratic voters voted for him over the more experienced lawyer fellow who everyone else thought was going to win for sure(and was white) purely for that reason. Much like how our UK non-whites only vote for people who look like them.

At one point it looked like the SC Democratic party was going to tear itself apart because of this fiasco. Multiple attempts to get him to stand down, etc. Apparently the democrat whites didn't realize that black vote black first, democrat second.

>>25357
>Correction: Alvin Greene tells us that he did not make this video — but he’s thrilled with it.

>“That’s a hit video isn’t it?,” he said when reached at his home in Manning. Asked if he made it, he hemmed and said: “No, we didn’t do that, but it’s good enough to pass on.” CNN says a producer in San Francisco named Jay Friedman made the video, inspired by a group of friends who were “goofing off.”

You also write like a thirteen-year-old.

>The following 12 seats are considered safe in all current predictions. Therefore, to reduce visual clutter, they do not appear in the table:
Democratic (4): Hawaii, Maryland, New York (Schumer)‡, Vermont
Republican (8): Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HzQ59rLm6U&feature=fvw

As a side note, the bint is the most doable thing ever.

AMERICAN CRAP

Aaaaand the video is promptly removed.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/26/alvin-greene-is-on-the-scene-removed-from-youtube/

Not from everywhere though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHwEATUytFQ

Seriously though, the guy is pretty horrible on camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntlp4fTell4

>>25325

I've always found people like you 'ho 'ho 'ho were so different' to be even more annoying, to be honest, I've posted here for years.

"big government" and "patient choice" are all meaningless buzzwords.

>>25363

Indeed. "Big society", "Change", "Hope", etc.

It's all just meaningless buzzwords and filler that comes out of a politician's mouth nowadays.

Is this the white paper or is there another one?

http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/@ps/documents/digitalasset/dh_117794.pdf

>>25402
That's the one.

lol, I finally plucked up the courage to read past the first few lines, and god that was awful.

I'd also like to know how this differs from communism, and how this would succeed where communism failed in such a catastrophically violent way.

>>25354

>>25347
I can't see anything in the first paragraph that is not already espoused by every non-apartheid state. The three propositions in the rest of the gloop (nationalise healthcare and education, enlarge the police force, nationalise the legal professions) are just features of a communist state.

What makes this pile of blandness worth a name?

>>25382
Although I did enjoy the way that the police paragraph was worded, viewing them as a massive security guard company whose resources are deployed according to need.

I believe this is a troll thread.

>>25286

It's how one of the 21/7 bombers managed to get away from London. I don't see it as discriminatory so long as it's a blanket ban and not just targetting one group over the other.

>>25288
terrorism as a justification for infringing on civil liberties.

the novelty is killing me.

>>25287
Let me take a step back and try to explain:
>>25270 made an offhand comment, >>25271 corrected him. I was a bit trigger happy and read that comment as more adversarial than it, in hindsight, warranted and poked: >>25272 .

>>25273 followed and started the "discriminatory" line of thought, so I nitpicked (>>25280): The article's main focus was Mrs Spelman's commentary on the possible merits of the burka, not whether or not the ban is discriminatory. Note how it didn't take a stance on whether or not it should be considered discrimination or not, though. Consider it autistic inability to cope with a change of subject, if it helps.

Cue >>25282, who rather offensively implies that it did, and more over claims that it wasn't. So, return fire, >>25285, reiterating that no claim about discrimination had been made.

>>25286 at this point is becoming almost hilarious, as it continues to argue against a point that, quite simply, hadn't been made.

So, what was my point? Exactly what I said in >>25280 : talking about discrimination was changing the subject.

For what it's worth, I do think the ban is discriminatory even if it covers all public face covering given the context it's being enacted in. Claiming otherwise is a bit like insisting a ban on pissing while standing upright does not have discriminatory intentions because it applies to women too.

Having said that, there's a fair bit of sinister potential in such a ban. Any bets on whether such a ban, pushed through riding on a wave of anti-muslim polemic, would be primarily enforced during protests? It'd still be discrimination (in an us-the-state v.s. them-the-plebs kind of way), of course.

Message too long. Click here to view the full text.

This thread descended into twaddle quicker than I was expecting.

>>25296
Thank you for your constructive contribution.

I don't think anyone who reacts with horror to these measures has lived with violent and profoundly disturbed teenagers.

>>25277

I know people who work in the maximum security facilities in the UK for kids - the ones the papers enjoy demonising, actually.

Those people have a lot of sympathy for the kids and think people like you and those in the media are shit heads.

>>25279
I spent my later childhood years in care and even had my wrist broken during a restraint by a man who weighed more than twice what I did, though I accept that to have been an accident.

There are no doubt cases where care workers with no respect for the children abuse their position, but that doesn't mean the availability of these techniques isn't necessary.

It should go without saying, but there are some very large and strong fifteen-year-olds about who don't - at least at the time - have any regard for who they hurt. How are averagely built members of staff supposed to deal with them when they're completely out of control, damaging all around them, hurling stuff at staff? What about if they have a knife? I'd love to hear it.

>>25281
>for who they hurt
You meant to write 'whom'. No wonder your parents wanted shot of you. You should have been put to sleep rather than kept alive at taxpayers' expense.

>>25294

Well said that man. It'd be one less thread to hide here too.

>>25266

>wife

I'll be sixty five, mate, I don't think having a wife will make much difference

>>25267

Perhaps not in the way you think (although you'd be surprised), but it can make a big difference to quality of life.

>>25269
By vastly reducing it. Old women can be fucking annoying.

I watched the first five minutes of something about vets on the beeb yesterday, and the amount of money tied up was obscene. I propose an additional 10% tax on all vet fees, which goes straight into buying new equipment for the NHS.

>>25293

Not a bad idea, actually. I'd make farming animals exempt (so as to avoid pushing the taxes straight onto the customer/essential food) but have it on pet-related items instead.

PETA will do their nut about it, but if we ignore them it'd be a nice little earner if the tax was kept as simple as possible so as to avoid it just being another waste of time when the money is simply lost in administration of the tax. If people insist on medical wonders of their rabbit or rat then the rest of the country can benefit at the same time - instead of all those resources being tied up just for the pets.

>>25290

Married men seem to live longer. Perhaps their something in it. I know of at least one couple about seventy who hint at sexual adventures when on holiday.

http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/doh/newnhs/contents.htm

>>25265

I don't know whether or not that was intentionally posted as Blairs reforms in 1997 or not.

>>25239
'Propping up a minority'? What minority? And do you really think the majority of Pashtuns in the country support the Taliban?

The population in Afghanistan is faced with a choice between a bunch of religious nuts or rabid corruption from top to bottom. It's a difficult choice. I'm not sure which way I'd go.

>>25245
Considering the religious nuts are paying a lot of the farmer's wages and threaten the lives of all who oppose them and their local warlord, I suspect the locals will side with the Talitubbies as soon as we pull out.

Wouldn't be the first time a government has used the illegal drug trades as a revenue stream. If the US does such things, the UK is bound to be just as corrupt.

>>25244

I'm no expert. I get most of my stuff from STRATFOR, Jane's, and the ever-illuminating Adam Curtis. Have a look at his blog series 'Kabul - City Number One' for a broader picture of the Afghan adventure.

I don't know whether the Pashtuns prefer the Taliban. I remember reading on one of the above sources that there may be an ethnic dimension that we in the UK overlook routinely. When I find it, I'll put it up. Probably Curtis.

I'm neither a cultural relativist nor a po-mo. The Taliban stand for regressive and brutally authoritarian theocracy, which could be said to be the result of the collapse of (modernising) Islamism. The trouble with the terrorism argument is that it's complicated by long term US and UK activity in the region. I thought it fairly common knowledge that it was the CIA which empowered and enriched the ISI (Pakistani intelligence) through covert encouragement of the heroin trade to raise revenue to fight the Soviets, flooding the US with cheap smack alongside training and arming the then mujahideen. I think the (now) Taliban still have some stinger missiles left over from those times. As >>25247 says, it's been done before, and perhaps he/she is referring to the 70s and 80s in the afpak region.

One place I do know a lot about is Yemen. Opium aside, it's a similar set-up. The common people hate the corrupt government, which is supported by the US, UK, Canada and others, there's an endemic tribal warlord culture, a state of war exists on two fronts and the neighbours are meddling (Iranian arms and training, Saudi cross-border bombing and encroachment on resources). It seems glib, but there'd be little to interest anyone in the absence of vast mineral wealth, and in the case of Afghanistan, a very strategically important region.

>>25213

As if the old rantings of a fruitloop are to be taken as a solid gold guarrantee.

>>25214
i'd trust an idealogue over an opportunist any day: they're consistent.

>>25205 makes a good point, actually. without the european infighting of ww2, europe could still be the world's power base. we tend to think that winning wars is the best possible outcome. OTOH, its usually better not to fight at all. See Switzerland for a favourable WW2 outcome.

>>25215
forgot my picture; sorry guys!
also interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Jewish_Congress_lawsuit_against_Swiss_Banks

I'D RATHER DIE THAN DO A DEAL WITH THE FILTHY HUN

WE SHALL NEVER SURRENDER

What utter piffle.

I strongly suspect outright trolling here.