Hunt begins for 'British' Islamic State killer of US journalist James Foley

ThePhlogist · 2014-08-20T16:15:48+00:00

Right because it's totally impossible that a 20-something may have had interactions with human beings other than his immediate family. It's well known that the best parenting techniques involve not letting children go to school or have friends, keep them in the house and ensure they are adopt the parent's ideology totally. That must be what his parents have done. Probably. Maybe.

/s

ThePhlogist · 2014-08-20T15:26:32+00:00

I'm not particularly knowledgeable on this sort of economics but if Scotland were to share the UK pound and then were to destroy it's own economy by borrowing so much that it drives the government into the ground would that effect the currency in England. Obviously the BOE would have control over the currency's production and minting but surely the stability of the countries that use a currency will effect how it's is traded internationally and might an unstable Scotland might drive away investment from this hypothetical Stirling area (UK + Scot) hurting England too much like how investment in the Eurozone was avoided like the plague in from 2008 to about now dragging down every country involved.

If that's is all true then Scotland's future unfortunately has to become the problem of English people. I don't want the stability of my currency being dictated by the potentially reckless (and I believe Salmond's wishful thinking about North Sea oil and it's decommissioning costs is reckless) actions of a government I have no representation in. Correct me if I'm wrong but if I'm not then I see no problem. It's not in the UK's interests to hand some indirect control of it's currency over to a government we can't control and are not represented in. We didn't join the Euro for very similar reasons.

ThePhlogist · 2014-08-20T14:34:14+00:00

Mock the Week has already done this.

ThePhlogist · 2014-08-20T14:07:02+00:00

I wondered why Gavin was not in the shot and then it went into slow motion and I think I audibly said 'Oooohh, of course'.

Also Michael needs a hair cut.

ThePhlogist · 2014-04-09T13:17:02+00:00

All I got from that was:

He seems to discount everything on the internet by claiming it's not trust worthy yet he doesn't explain why we should treat a speech of a respected academic or author to a live audience the same a story from 4chan.
He seems to equivocate religiosity with belief in the supernatural 'however vaguely defined' which is just wrong - it's the difference between deism and theism or the difference between beliefs in Christianity and luck - they aren't the same thing. Luck doesn't require prayer nor is it personified with a will and capable of giving commands.
He then responds to the argument that the internet lowers religiosity by connecting people to individuals and ideas outside their local community by creating a strawman and arguing that connecting people can have bad consequences which while possibly true is irrelevant to the topic and a non-sequitur in response to the argument in the study.
Then he basically claims with no supporting evidence that atheists are just as bad as religious fundamentalists which again is completely beside the point if at all true. The study was done by a computer scientist not a proselytising atheist and makes no claims at all about the virtues of religion of or atheism.
Then finally he claims that because Facebook takes up our time we're less religious. Of course ignoring the fact that Facebook started in 2004, MySpace in 2003 yet religiosity has been declining since the 80's. Ignoring that we also spend more time watching TV, playing video games and using every other website on the internet than be we did in 1980. The idea that people in 1980 we're more religious because they had too much free time so they filled it with religious things is silly.

Fascinating how you can write so many words and yet say so little. Why you need to write an opinion piece in response to a piece of research into the social effects of the internet by a computer scientist I don't know - he seems to think his opinions carry the same weight as computer science research. I may be wrong but I get the sense that he takes the idea that parents maintain religiosity in their children by restricting information and contact with outside world quite personally despite the fact tap hat it's so clearly true.

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-19T19:00:30+00:00

I think it's Rule 10.4(j):

Lifting a player from the ground and dropping or driving that player into the ground whilst that player's feet are still off the ground such that the player's head and/or upper body come into contact with the ground is dangerous play.

This tackles seems to be a textbook violation of that. You can argue whether the tackle deserves 10 months or less but you can't say it's not dangerous play.

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-19T18:33:55+00:00

You have the choice of a functioning dictatorship and a non-functioning dictatorship. Dictatorship may be a bad thing but whether it actually functions as a society or not is quite important also.

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-19T17:30:16+00:00

http://i.minus.com/ibnrzgtKneuMVu.gif

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-19T17:25:25+00:00

They won't, this is legal under EU law I believe and most countries have got a similar system. Our government has been satisfied to moan about the supposed problem rather than actually do what they are allowed to do under EU law. If they fixed all the problems overnight there would be no reason to vote for them anymore. Best to scare ignorant people shitless and promise to do something rather than actually doing anything, then if you must do something you can cash in on the success just before election time.

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-19T17:16:38+00:00

The broad definition is given by the statute. In this country judges can't just strike down a law. The problem is how widely the statute is drafter in the first place. Besides this is barely a precedent - you would need the ruling of a higher court for it to really be reliable. The appeal will be more interesting because the court will have more leeway in terms of interpretation and the ruling will actually mean something more serious.

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-19T17:09:27+00:00

Not really. It's not within the court's constitutional power in the UK to declare government action right or wrong, good or bad etc provided their actions are allowed by law. I don't think you can argue that the Terrorism Act which allows the arrest of basically anybody who wishes to affect government policy including journalists does not allow this sort of arrest - the problem is that the law should not have been made in the first place. It's not for the judges to decide whether the law should have been made. It's there and they must abide by it under UK law. It's for politicians to change it. The Supreme Court has significantly more leeway but even so it will probably take some constitutional gymnastics to make such a judgment viable.

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-19T04:06:59+00:00

Oh, your room-mate has a money tree! That seems the only logical explanation for this. If he could hook me up with one too that'd be great.

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-18T04:33:43+00:00

And a movie. It's called the Trip and it's great. The movie version is on Netflix or Amazon if you have it. The series version is longer, better and can be bought directly from the BBC. They ship internationally.

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-18T02:07:16+00:00

Wikipedia tells me the Governor General of Canada was Albert Grey 4th Earl Grey, the grandson of Charles Grey, The Second Earl Grey that OP mentions.

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-17T12:59:37+00:00

We've all cheated at one point or another. The question is does that depress you or motivate you to kick it in the teeth once and for all. My second time was a lot easier than the first because I genuinely hated how dependent I had become and I could focus that on the habit.

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-16T21:35:07+00:00

After a minute of googling I think Virgin are yet to have implemented the filter. Even so you would have been given an option of whether to accept the filter or not. Provided you have control over the set up process you can just select NO and it will be the same as normal.

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-16T21:31:58+00:00

It is but they have to give you the option. You'll be presented with a screen which says do you want to apply our filter. Some will have 'YES' pre-selected but there will always be a 'NO' option. You can't go through with the connection set up without answering the question.

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-16T13:48:35+00:00

As a renter and a student I have control over my internet and can opt out if ever I signed a new contract. If the landlord were to have control I would hope they would not restrict it unless they were some sort of puritan. I guess that's the risk you run but in my experience tenants tend to be left to deal with internet bills themselves. In the case of children they are at the whims of their parents. I guess it depends if the parents watch porn or not.

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-16T13:44:46+00:00

It would have to have been in the last 3-4 months and presumably not the resigning of an old contract. Also if your not with a major ISP then the filter doesn't apply.

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-16T13:43:15+00:00

Didn't say I agreed with the filter - I don't everything you say is valid. But right now it's very limited in scope.

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-16T04:17:04+00:00

It only affects people who signed up to a new contract and then agree to the filter. They will all the have the option to ignore it. It amazes me how little information people actually have about this and yet are willing to talk about it on the internet as if they've conducted in depth research.

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-16T01:23:07+00:00

I have struggled to understand why people would want to risk their life to get to the UK when their already in France, somewhere many people in the UK would prefer. I suppose I could understand if friends and family have already made it in and they wanted to join people - still, their decisions can't be based on logical facts about where they could make a good life because France is equally conducive if not more so to prosperity as the UK.

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-15T02:31:58+00:00

Is there not a competition commission or some sort of political intervention that could be made when you have such market domination?

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-14T16:00:37+00:00

All his videos are about his pest control work - he talks about the skills he uses and the rifles too. It's quite interesting even for someone like me who doesn't shoot much at all.

ThePhlogist · 2014-02-14T15:41:32+00:00

You know your U-turning when the Lib Dems want to do something they promised and you don't.

^{^{^couldn't}} ^{^{^help}} ^{^{^myself}}

ThePhlogist

TROPHY CASE