Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right. And it gives them no right to force their beliefs on others. which is the way religions have kept check on societies in the past, and which is increasingly hard in a modern society. Which is why Latin was used for bibles in the Middle Ages - control.
HYUFD sees women as second-class citizens, who should not work and be baby-bearers. In that attitude, he is not so far away from the Muslim fanatics he hates. He is as much a religious bigot as they are, kept in check by social mores in this country.
I am married to someone raised as a Muslim. As such, I think I 'understand' Islam better than an out-and-out hater such as you. It has many attractive aspects; but as with all religions, the adherents turn what should be good into something that can be very, very bad. Like communism it is good in theory. In practice, it is terrible.
What a load of crap. Firstly, I am not 'forcing' my religious beliefs on you. Heretics like you are not burnt at the stake any longer for denying the firm belief in God and Christ and the monarch being supreme governor of our church (or the Pope if it was Mary Tudor). Nor are you fined for not attending your local C of E Parish church every Sunday as you would have been in the 16th and most of the 17th centuries.
I never said women should never work, however there is no doubt that more women in full time work at peak fertility rate in their 20s and 30s and motherhood age has lowered our birthrate to below replacement level.
I am not sure Jesus would like anyone to be burnt at the stake, and certainly He would be far more forgiving, kind and generous than anything I have read you say about Christianity
Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works. (2 John 1:7-11)
You see your problem is you set yourself up as the arbiter of Christianity when only God is the arbiter, and that God has so many different meanings to so many peoples that ultimately everyone is responsible for their own beliefs
I was confirmed into the Christian faith by the Bishop of Durham, then for several years was a server at our church and could actually say the whole communion service and partake in it before I was 16
I then married a Scot from a very religious fishing community which bought the best and worst out of many
The most genuine Christians were those who did not judge others, or spend endless hours on bible study, preach bigotry, or constantly quote the bible, but lived a simple life of kindness, understanding, tolerance and quietly thanked their Lord for their blessings and my father in law was one of those wonderful people
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right. And it gives them no right to force their beliefs on others. which is the way religions have kept check on societies in the past, and which is increasingly hard in a modern society. Which is why Latin was used for bibles in the Middle Ages - control.
HYUFD sees women as second-class citizens, who should not work and be baby-bearers. In that attitude, he is not so far away from the Muslim fanatics he hates. He is as much a religious bigot as they are, kept in check by social mores in this country.
I am married to someone raised as a Muslim. As such, I think I 'understand' Islam better than an out-and-out hater such as you. It has many attractive aspects; but as with all religions, the adherents turn what should be good into something that can be very, very bad. Like communism it is good in theory. In practice, it is terrible.
What a load of crap. Firstly, I am not 'forcing' my religious beliefs on you. Heretics like you are not burnt at the stake any longer for denying the firm belief in God and Christ and the monarch being supreme governor of our church (or the Pope if it was Mary Tudor). Nor are you fined for not attending your local C of E Parish church every Sunday as you would have been in the 16th and most of the 17th centuries.
I never said women should never work, however there is no doubt that more women in full time work at peak fertility rate in their 20s and 30s and motherhood age has lowered our birthrate to below replacement level.
I am not sure Jesus would like anyone to be burnt at the stake, and certainly He would be far more forgiving, kind and generous than anything I have read you say about Christianity
John 8:7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who has sinned be burnt at the stake.”
~ The Bible, HYUFD-edition.
Sadly death by burning for extramarital sex is in Genesis.
I think the first documented death by burning for Christian heresy is from the 7th century (Eastern Roman Empire) and 1022 in Western Europe.
If Christ hadn't wanted this to happen then perhaps he ought to have sent a sign during the hundreds of years it continued for.
Want a Job in the Trump Administration? Be Prepared for the Loyalty Test.
"The interviewers asked which candidate the applicants had supported in the three most recent elections, what they thought about the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and whether they believed the 2020 election was stolen. The sense they got was that there was only one right answer to each question."
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right. And it gives them no right to force their beliefs on others. which is the way religions have kept check on societies in the past, and which is increasingly hard in a modern society. Which is why Latin was used for bibles in the Middle Ages - control.
HYUFD sees women as second-class citizens, who should not work and be baby-bearers. In that attitude, he is not so far away from the Muslim fanatics he hates. He is as much a religious bigot as they are, kept in check by social mores in this country.
I am married to someone raised as a Muslim. As such, I think I 'understand' Islam better than an out-and-out hater such as you. It has many attractive aspects; but as with all religions, the adherents turn what should be good into something that can be very, very bad. Like communism it is good in theory. In practice, it is terrible.
What a load of crap. Firstly, I am not 'forcing' my religious beliefs on you. Heretics like you are not burnt at the stake any longer for denying the firm belief in God and Christ and the monarch being supreme governor of our church (or the Pope if it was Mary Tudor). Nor are you fined for not attending your local C of E Parish church every Sunday as you would have been in the 16th and most of the 17th centuries.
I never said women should never work, however there is no doubt that more women in full time work at peak fertility rate in their 20s and 30s and motherhood age has lowered our birthrate to below replacement level.
I am not sure Jesus would like anyone to be burnt at the stake, and certainly He would be far more forgiving, kind and generous than anything I have read you say about Christianity
Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works. (2 John 1:7-11)
You see your problem is you set yourself up as the arbiter of Christianity when only God is the arbiter, and that God has so many different meanings to so many peoples that ultimately everyone is responsible for their own beliefs
I was confirmed into the Christian faith by the Bishop of Durham, then for several years was a server at our church and could actually say the whole communion service and partake in it before I was 16
I then married a Scot from a very religious fishing community which bought the best and worst out of many
The most genuine Christians were those who did not judge others, or spend endless hours on bible study, preach bigotry, or constantly quote the bible, but lived a simple life of kindness, understanding, tolerance and quietly thanked their Lord for their blessings and my father in law was one of those wonderful people
I said 'Heretics like you are not burnt at the stake any longer' not 'Sadly,Heretics like you are not burnt at the stake any longer'
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right. And it gives them no right to force their beliefs on others. which is the way religions have kept check on societies in the past, and which is increasingly hard in a modern society. Which is why Latin was used for bibles in the Middle Ages - control.
HYUFD sees women as second-class citizens, who should not work and be baby-bearers. In that attitude, he is not so far away from the Muslim fanatics he hates. He is as much a religious bigot as they are, kept in check by social mores in this country.
I am married to someone raised as a Muslim. As such, I think I 'understand' Islam better than an out-and-out hater such as you. It has many attractive aspects; but as with all religions, the adherents turn what should be good into something that can be very, very bad. Like communism it is good in theory. In practice, it is terrible.
What a load of crap. Firstly, I am not 'forcing' my religious beliefs on you. Heretics like you are not burnt at the stake any longer for denying the firm belief in God and Christ and the monarch being supreme governor of our church (or the Pope if it was Mary Tudor). Nor are you fined for not attending your local C of E Parish church every Sunday as you would have been in the 16th and most of the 17th centuries.
I never said women should never work, however there is no doubt that more women in full time work at peak fertility rate in their 20s and 30s and motherhood age has lowered our birthrate to below replacement level.
If I get sick and want to end my own suffering through physician-assisted death you want to deny my right to do so, because of your religion that I do not share with you.
You want to impose your religious choices on others. You do all the time.
Rightly so, I don't believe in state assisted killing of the innocent but then nor do many atheists like Baroness Tanni Grey Thompson.
In a democracy religious people are as entitled to exercise their vote based on what they believe as you atheists are
But just the other night you were explaining how a simple numeric majority should have absolute control of the state and law. Oddly enough, when that simple majority seemed to align with your ideas.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right. And it gives them no right to force their beliefs on others. which is the way religions have kept check on societies in the past, and which is increasingly hard in a modern society. Which is why Latin was used for bibles in the Middle Ages - control.
HYUFD sees women as second-class citizens, who should not work and be baby-bearers. In that attitude, he is not so far away from the Muslim fanatics he hates. He is as much a religious bigot as they are, kept in check by social mores in this country.
I am married to someone raised as a Muslim. As such, I think I 'understand' Islam better than an out-and-out hater such as you. It has many attractive aspects; but as with all religions, the adherents turn what should be good into something that can be very, very bad. Like communism it is good in theory. In practice, it is terrible.
What a load of crap. Firstly, I am not 'forcing' my religious beliefs on you. Heretics like you are not burnt at the stake any longer for denying the firm belief in God and Christ and the monarch being supreme governor of our church (or the Pope if it was Mary Tudor). Nor are you fined for not attending your local C of E Parish church every Sunday as you would have been in the 16th and most of the 17th centuries.
I never said women should never work, however there is no doubt that more women in full time work at peak fertility rate in their 20s and 30s and motherhood age has lowered our birthrate to below replacement level.
I am not sure Jesus would like anyone to be burnt at the stake, and certainly He would be far more forgiving, kind and generous than anything I have read you say about Christianity
John 8:7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who has sinned be burnt at the stake.”
~ The Bible, HYUFD-edition.
Sadly death by burning for extramarital sex is in Genesis.
I think the first documented death by burning for Christian heresy is from the 7th century (Eastern Roman Empire) and 1022 in Western Europe.
If Christ hadn't wanted this to happen then perhaps he ought to have sent a sign during the hundreds of years it continued for.
Mistaken identify by Judah and Tamar was spared
The Tamar being a river doesn't identify anyone...its a landmark separating the righteous from the undeserving nothing more
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right. And it gives them no right to force their beliefs on others. which is the way religions have kept check on societies in the past, and which is increasingly hard in a modern society. Which is why Latin was used for bibles in the Middle Ages - control.
HYUFD sees women as second-class citizens, who should not work and be baby-bearers. In that attitude, he is not so far away from the Muslim fanatics he hates. He is as much a religious bigot as they are, kept in check by social mores in this country.
I am married to someone raised as a Muslim. As such, I think I 'understand' Islam better than an out-and-out hater such as you. It has many attractive aspects; but as with all religions, the adherents turn what should be good into something that can be very, very bad. Like communism it is good in theory. In practice, it is terrible.
What a load of crap. Firstly, I am not 'forcing' my religious beliefs on you. Heretics like you are not burnt at the stake any longer for denying the firm belief in God and Christ and the monarch being supreme governor of our church (or the Pope if it was Mary Tudor). Nor are you fined for not attending your local C of E Parish church every Sunday as you would have been in the 16th and most of the 17th centuries.
I never said women should never work, however there is no doubt that more women in full time work at peak fertility rate in their 20s and 30s and motherhood age has lowered our birthrate to below replacement level.
I am not sure Jesus would like anyone to be burnt at the stake, and certainly He would be far more forgiving, kind and generous than anything I have read you say about Christianity
HY is sent to this plain to test the patience of Christ. It's a toughie.
Yes, but probably only once Mr G Reaper has intervened.
I really dislike the lack of personal responsibility their argument implies. They might have had a case if the government was suppressing information about these changes, but it was all public!
Since I've had my heating on again, I haven't turned the thermostat higher than 18⁰C
It's reached 18 once; I turn it down to 12 when I go to work and 15 when I go to bed
I did the same before it all got more expensive
What temperatures do you do?
I'm on 18, but I have had to turn it up to 19 at the weekend if I have been at home for lengthy periods. I have noticed that 18 with the radiators on feels warmer than 19 without them on, as you get the radiated heat from the radiators.
When I am at work, and overnight (9pm to about 6am) the heating is off.
Pah! 21 all year round, except the en-suite, which is set to 23*.
But I bet our heating costs were lower than most: Insulation, Insulation, Air-tightness.
(*That's our old house tbf - not the one we are currently renting while we build our new one.)
I used to be on 21 but a couple of years ago when fuel prices went up I slowly reduced the temperature by half a degree at a time to work out what I could cope with. If it's too warm to wear a jumper, I reckon I'm wasting my money.
If mine goes below about 20 or 19 - the stares I get from my cat make me bump it up again. (Outside of the few days of summer when she can sit on the window ledge and bake in the sun).
Since I've had my heating on again, I haven't turned the thermostat higher than 18⁰C
It's reached 18 once; I turn it down to 12 when I go to work and 15 when I go to bed
I did the same before it all got more expensive
What temperatures do you do?
19.
It used to be 18, but be warned damp can become a bit of an issue over a long period at that temperature.
18, 15 overnight. I have the dehumidifier running 24/7 and it's a revelation - clothes dry overnight, heating is much more efficient. Up there with electric toothbrushes, Garmin smartwatches and microspikes as brilliant purchases I should have made earlier.
After 10 years of living in mouldy tenements, I think it's the perfect example of how a little capital investment (£200) can improve your life significantly.
As a tenement dweller - can I ask which model/make you got?
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right. And it gives them no right to force their beliefs on others. which is the way religions have kept check on societies in the past, and which is increasingly hard in a modern society. Which is why Latin was used for bibles in the Middle Ages - control.
HYUFD sees women as second-class citizens, who should not work and be baby-bearers. In that attitude, he is not so far away from the Muslim fanatics he hates. He is as much a religious bigot as they are, kept in check by social mores in this country.
I am married to someone raised as a Muslim. As such, I think I 'understand' Islam better than an out-and-out hater such as you. It has many attractive aspects; but as with all religions, the adherents turn what should be good into something that can be very, very bad. Like communism it is good in theory. In practice, it is terrible.
What a load of crap. Firstly, I am not 'forcing' my religious beliefs on you. Heretics like you are not burnt at the stake any longer for denying the firm belief in God and Christ and the monarch being supreme governor of our church (or the Pope if it was Mary Tudor). Nor are you fined for not attending your local C of E Parish church every Sunday as you would have been in the 16th and most of the 17th centuries.
I never said women should never work, however there is no doubt that more women in full time work at peak fertility rate in their 20s and 30s and motherhood age has lowered our birthrate to below replacement level.
I am not sure Jesus would like anyone to be burnt at the stake, and certainly He would be far more forgiving, kind and generous than anything I have read you say about Christianity
HY is sent to this plain to test the patience of Christ. It's a toughie.
No wonder he doesn't post on PB any more.
Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
So there's some real hacked-offness, but probably also some tactical snapback ("I'm really a Liberal Democrat supporter, but I'll end up voting Labour to keep the Tories out.")
And there's a little white square in the Labour column- 100k or so Labour voters who were too young to vote on July 4. And a little blue square on the right of the chart of about 100k Conservative voters who won't be voting next time. That's after five months.
The age profile on the Conservative vote never used to be this steep, which is why they never died out before.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right. And it gives them no right to force their beliefs on others. which is the way religions have kept check on societies in the past, and which is increasingly hard in a modern society. Which is why Latin was used for bibles in the Middle Ages - control.
HYUFD sees women as second-class citizens, who should not work and be baby-bearers. In that attitude, he is not so far away from the Muslim fanatics he hates. He is as much a religious bigot as they are, kept in check by social mores in this country.
I am married to someone raised as a Muslim. As such, I think I 'understand' Islam better than an out-and-out hater such as you. It has many attractive aspects; but as with all religions, the adherents turn what should be good into something that can be very, very bad. Like communism it is good in theory. In practice, it is terrible.
What a load of crap. Firstly, I am not 'forcing' my religious beliefs on you. Heretics like you are not burnt at the stake any longer for denying the firm belief in God and Christ and the monarch being supreme governor of our church (or the Pope if it was Mary Tudor). Nor are you fined for not attending your local C of E Parish church every Sunday as you would have been in the 16th and most of the 17th centuries.
I never said women should never work, however there is no doubt that more women in full time work at peak fertility rate in their 20s and 30s and motherhood age has lowered our birthrate to below replacement level.
I am not sure Jesus would like anyone to be burnt at the stake, and certainly He would be far more forgiving, kind and generous than anything I have read you say about Christianity
If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works. (2 John 1:7-11)
Yes, but probably only once Mr G Reaper has intervened.
How many times do you have to say Nope - the fact you weren't paying attention isn't justification for compensation..
That probably makes it worse. Nobody enjoys admitting that they themselves stuffed up, and are largely the authors of their own downfall. So it's human to contort reality so that isn't so. (It's only one of the reasons why politics is hard and populism so attractive.)
Besides, there are lawyers and campaign professionals with fees to get.
Since I've had my heating on again, I haven't turned the thermostat higher than 18⁰C
It's reached 18 once; I turn it down to 12 when I go to work and 15 when I go to bed
I did the same before it all got more expensive
What temperatures do you do?
19.
It used to be 18, but be warned damp can become a bit of an issue over a long period at that temperature.
18, 15 overnight. I have the dehumidifier running 24/7 and it's a revelation - clothes dry overnight, heating is much more efficient. Up there with electric toothbrushes, Garmin smartwatches and microspikes as brilliant purchases I should have made earlier.
After 10 years of living in mouldy tenements, I think it's the perfect example of how a little capital investment (£200) can improve your life significantly.
As a tenement dweller - can I ask which model/make you got?
I used to have an EBAC one as they were built over the road from where I worked in Bishop Auckland. Normally pretty reasonably priced. If you can get one that can be plumbed in to spare you the minor hassle of having to empty it.
Since I've had my heating on again, I haven't turned the thermostat higher than 18⁰C
It's reached 18 once; I turn it down to 12 when I go to work and 15 when I go to bed
I did the same before it all got more expensive
What temperatures do you do?
19.
It used to be 18, but be warned damp can become a bit of an issue over a long period at that temperature.
18, 15 overnight. I have the dehumidifier running 24/7 and it's a revelation - clothes dry overnight, heating is much more efficient. Up there with electric toothbrushes, Garmin smartwatches and microspikes as brilliant purchases I should have made earlier.
After 10 years of living in mouldy tenements, I think it's the perfect example of how a little capital investment (£200) can improve your life significantly.
As a tenement dweller - can I ask which model/make you got?
I used to have an EBAC one as they were built over the road from where I worked in Bishop Auckland. Normally pretty reasonably priced. If you can get one that can be plumbed in to spare you the minor hassle of having to empty it.
Just looking at the old walls makes the plaster crumble - so I'm thinking more of a freestanding/portable one.
So there's some real hacked-offness, but probably also some tactical snapback ("I'm really a Liberal Democrat supporter, but I'll end up voting Labour to keep the Tories out.")
And there's a little white square in the Labour column- 100k or so Labour voters who were too young to vote on July 4. And a little blue square on the right of the chart of about 100k Conservative voters who won't be voting next time. That's after five months.
The age profile on the Conservative vote never used to be this steep, which is why they never died out before.
And in 2019 most voters over 39 voted Tory, the age profile of the Tories is only so high when they lose heavily as in July.
If voters become ever more fed up of Labour they will swing back again and note on that chart the Conservatives are now winning four July Labour voters to them for every one July Tory voter lost to Labour
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
Since I've had my heating on again, I haven't turned the thermostat higher than 18⁰C
It's reached 18 once; I turn it down to 12 when I go to work and 15 when I go to bed
I did the same before it all got more expensive
What temperatures do you do?
I'm on 18, but I have had to turn it up to 19 at the weekend if I have been at home for lengthy periods. I have noticed that 18 with the radiators on feels warmer than 19 without them on, as you get the radiated heat from the radiators.
When I am at work, and overnight (9pm to about 6am) the heating is off.
Pah! 21 all year round, except the en-suite, which is set to 23*.
But I bet our heating costs were lower than most: Insulation, Insulation, Air-tightness.
(*That's our old house tbf - not the one we are currently renting while we build our new one.)
I used to be on 21 but a couple of years ago when fuel prices went up I slowly reduced the temperature by half a degree at a time to work out what I could cope with. If it's too warm to wear a jumper, I reckon I'm wasting my money.
I try to sneak it down to 19 but my other half has special thermostat feet that instantly detect the 2 degree shift.
Lady blood is more focussed around the baby-making organs so they get cold tootsies.
I'm transitioning. If I turn the fan heater on, my trunk overheats. If I turn it off, my legs get too cold.
So, hashtag search shows one guy, Mithras, showing 3 videos, one possibly or not showing one guy remonstrating amongst a large crowd, one showing a few people running (possibly from trouble), and one showing cars driving through beeping.
If there is large scale fisticuffs going on in a corner of any of these shots, it is not front and centre nor obvious to me, nevertheless the echo chamber of chuck them out is in full effect.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
I can see you’d be a fan of that. It doesn’t logically justify ignoring Christ’s teachings, if you’re a Christian.
So, hashtag search shows one guy, Mithras, showing 3 videos, one possibly or not showing one guy remonstrating amongst a large crowd, one showing a few people running (possibly from trouble), and one showing cars driving through beeping.
If there is large scale fisticuffs going on in a corner of any of these shots, it is not front and centre nor obvious to me, nevertheless the echo chamber of chuck them out is in full effect.
Indeed. It’s not the context free videos themselves that are the problem but the so-called commentary and analysis followed by the biased dissemination.
It’s not a lie which is more dangerous than the truth - it’s half a truth.
Didn’t have this on my Covid bingo card, but there are plenty of viruses implicated in cancer.
The risk of pancreatic adenocarcinoma following SARS-CoV family infection
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-92068-4 This research aimed to evaluate the possible correlation between infection with SARS-CoV viruses and cancer in an in-silico study model. To do this, the relevent dataset was selected from GEO database. Identification of differentially expressed genes among defined groups including SARS-CoV, SARS-dORF6, SARS-BatSRBD, and H1N1 were screened where the |Log FC| ≥ 1and p < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Later, the pathway enrichment analysis and gene ontology (GO) were used by Enrichr and Shiny GO databases. Evaluation with STRING online was applied to predict the functional interactions of proteins, followed by Cytoscape analysis to identify the master genes. Finally, analysis with GEPIA2 server was carried out to reveal the possible correlation between candidate genes and cancer development. The results showed that the main molecular function of up- and down-regulated genes was “double-stranded RNA binding” and actin-binding, respectively. STRING and Cytoscape analysis presented four genes, PTEN, CREB1, CASP3, and SMAD3 as the key genes involved in cancer development. According to TCGA database results, these four genes were up-regulated notably in pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Our findings suggest that pancreatic adenocarcinoma is the most probably malignancy happening after infection with SARS-CoV family...</i>
Large scale observational studies ought to confirm whether or not this is a real concern.
Didn’t have this on my Covid bingo card, but there are plenty of viruses implicated in cancer.
The risk of pancreatic adenocarcinoma following SARS-CoV family infection
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-92068-4 This research aimed to evaluate the possible correlation between infection with SARS-CoV viruses and cancer in an in-silico study model. To do this, the relevent dataset was selected from GEO database. Identification of differentially expressed genes among defined groups including SARS-CoV, SARS-dORF6, SARS-BatSRBD, and H1N1 were screened where the |Log FC| ≥ 1and p < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Later, the pathway enrichment analysis and gene ontology (GO) were used by Enrichr and Shiny GO databases. Evaluation with STRING online was applied to predict the functional interactions of proteins, followed by Cytoscape analysis to identify the master genes. Finally, analysis with GEPIA2 server was carried out to reveal the possible correlation between candidate genes and cancer development. The results showed that the main molecular function of up- and down-regulated genes was “double-stranded RNA binding” and actin-binding, respectively. STRING and Cytoscape analysis presented four genes, PTEN, CREB1, CASP3, and SMAD3 as the key genes involved in cancer development. According to TCGA database results, these four genes were up-regulated notably in pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Our findings suggest that pancreatic adenocarcinoma is the most probably malignancy happening after infection with SARS-CoV family...</i>
Large scale observational studies ought to confirm whether or not this is a real concern.
Since it is believed over 95% of us have had Covid, they must struggle to do these correlations based on so few people who haven’t ?
So there's some real hacked-offness, but probably also some tactical snapback ("I'm really a Liberal Democrat supporter, but I'll end up voting Labour to keep the Tories out.")
And there's a little white square in the Labour column- 100k or so Labour voters who were too young to vote on July 4. And a little blue square on the right of the chart of about 100k Conservative voters who won't be voting next time. That's after five months.
The age profile on the Conservative vote never used to be this steep, which is why they never died out before.
And in 2019 most voters over 39 voted Tory, the age profile of the Tories is only so high when they lose heavily as in July.
If voters become ever more fed up of Labour they will swing back again and note on that chart the Conservatives are now winning 4 July Labour voters to them for every 1 July Tory voter lost to Labour
Jesus wept.
We are 5 months in to a 60 month term
The past 14 years have left the UK broken, economically, socially, physically, mentally
The political dementors (the tories) have sucked every last bit of positivity our of everything.
Many now quoting pointless surveys were adamant on July 3rd that there would be a hung parliament.
Weren't you? . I know, I was watching, looking in, laughing.
I'm laughing now, bellycose laughing.
What I can't work out is who do you think you are kidding.
Each other? Your egos? Your alta egos? The inner troll in you? The Bookies?
The Tories are a busted flush led by a part time split personality intellectual desert
The Lib Dems are led by a nice man part time clown
Reform are led by a narcissistic spiv
Labour are led by a working class boy, who made it to the very top of a toff profession grounded in Class culture, headed and reformed a major Department of State and rebuilt an utterly broken Labour Party to win the biggest majority in modern history
He has the most grounded, rounded record of achievement of any Prime Minister in recent history.
Oh and he will be well trained to make, build and restore the UK. You may not know this, his father was a toolamker.
We should rejoice rejoice rejoice that we are no longer led by a witch,the shagger of an egg eater, a GMTV tea boy, a robotic dancer, a drug addled serial liar, merchant banking midget, nor Liz fecking Truss aka lettuce...
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right. And it gives them no right to force their beliefs on others. which is the way religions have kept check on societies in the past, and which is increasingly hard in a modern society. Which is why Latin was used for bibles in the Middle Ages - control.
HYUFD sees women as second-class citizens, who should not work and be baby-bearers. In that attitude, he is not so far away from the Muslim fanatics he hates. He is as much a religious bigot as they are, kept in check by social mores in this country.
I am married to someone raised as a Muslim. As such, I think I 'understand' Islam better than an out-and-out hater such as you. It has many attractive aspects; but as with all religions, the adherents turn what should be good into something that can be very, very bad. Like communism it is good in theory. In practice, it is terrible.
What a load of crap. Firstly, I am not 'forcing' my religious beliefs on you. Heretics like you are not burnt at the stake any longer for denying the firm belief in God and Christ and the monarch being supreme governor of our church (or the Pope if it was Mary Tudor). Nor are you fined for not attending your local C of E Parish church every Sunday as you would have been in the 16th and most of the 17th centuries.
I never said women should never work, however there is no doubt that more women in full time work at peak fertility rate in their 20s and 30s and motherhood age has lowered our birthrate to below replacement level.
I am not sure Jesus would like anyone to be burnt at the stake, and certainly He would be far more forgiving, kind and generous than anything I have read you say about Christianity
HY is sent to this plain to test the patience of Christ. It's a toughie.
No wonder he doesn't post on PB any more.
Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
NIV Matthew 4:7
At least he is being honest and straightforward about his beliefs and illustrating to the rest of us what a load of old rubbish it all is.
In some ways it’s preferable to those who jump through so many intellectual hoops to try and square all that antiquated old drivel with the modern world and modern knowledge.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right. And it gives them no right to force their beliefs on others. which is the way religions have kept check on societies in the past, and which is increasingly hard in a modern society. Which is why Latin was used for bibles in the Middle Ages - control.
HYUFD sees women as second-class citizens, who should not work and be baby-bearers. In that attitude, he is not so far away from the Muslim fanatics he hates. He is as much a religious bigot as they are, kept in check by social mores in this country.
I am married to someone raised as a Muslim. As such, I think I 'understand' Islam better than an out-and-out hater such as you. It has many attractive aspects; but as with all religions, the adherents turn what should be good into something that can be very, very bad. Like communism it is good in theory. In practice, it is terrible.
What a load of crap. Firstly, I am not 'forcing' my religious beliefs on you. Heretics like you are not burnt at the stake any longer for denying the firm belief in God and Christ and the monarch being supreme governor of our church (or the Pope if it was Mary Tudor). Nor are you fined for not attending your local C of E Parish church every Sunday as you would have been in the 16th and most of the 17th centuries.
I never said women should never work, however there is no doubt that more women in full time work at peak fertility rate in their 20s and 30s and motherhood age has lowered our birthrate to below replacement level.
"Heretics like you"
Enough said.
"I never said women should never work, however there is no doubt that more women in full time work at peak fertility rate in their 20s and 30s and motherhood age has lowered our birthrate to below replacement level."
You posited banning them from working between those ages. Setting that aside, your belief that the falling fertility rate is all women's fault infests your posts like lice; you routinely fail to acknowledge that men have a role as well. Despite your so-called 'family' stance. You are little different from ISIS/L.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
Freed the Jews from slavery though.
The God of the Old Testament was more Netantayahu than the rather more hippy God and Christ of the New
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
Freed the Jews from slavery though.
The God of the Old Testament was more Netantayahu than the rather more hippy God and Christ of the New
That's the closest you've ever gotten to admitting that Christ himself is what you'd call a woke hippy.
A personal electric aircraft with vertical take off and landing. Not from Neptune
How come I was able to work this out in 20 minutes in a hotel in Cartagena but the editorial staff of NBC news were not?
NBC want you to click on their site? You've been baited to do that.
If only there were a term for that.
How come I was able to work this out in 20 seconds and you could not?
I have just explained a global mystery while sitting in the golden lobby of my hotel in Cartagena, Colombia; you are wanking about in your y-fronts in a redbrick Barratt home new build semi in Newent
You're the only one who finds clickbait a mystery.
Maybe one day you'll learn enough to realise why the rest of us aren't interested.
A personal electric aircraft with vertical take off and landing. Not from Neptune
How come I was able to work this out in 20 minutes in a hotel in Cartagena but the editorial staff of NBC news were not?
NBC want you to click on their site? You've been baited to do that.
If only there were a term for that.
How come I was able to work this out in 20 seconds and you could not?
I have just explained a global mystery while sitting in the golden lobby of my hotel in Cartagena, Colombia; you are wanking about in your y-fronts in a redbrick Barratt home new build semi in Newent
You're the only one who finds clickbait a mystery.
Maybe one day you'll learn enough to realise why the rest of us aren't interested.
That article says "Pivotal says it has delayed customer deliveries of its Helix personal electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) aircraft to 2025".
So there's some real hacked-offness, but probably also some tactical snapback ("I'm really a Liberal Democrat supporter, but I'll end up voting Labour to keep the Tories out.")
And there's a little white square in the Labour column- 100k or so Labour voters who were too young to vote on July 4. And a little blue square on the right of the chart of about 100k Conservative voters who won't be voting next time. That's after five months.
The age profile on the Conservative vote never used to be this steep, which is why they never died out before.
And in 2019 most voters over 39 voted Tory, the age profile of the Tories is only so high when they lose heavily as in July.
If voters become ever more fed up of Labour they will swing back again and note on that chart the Conservatives are now winning 4 July Labour voters to them for every 1 July Tory voter lost to Labour
Jesus wept.
We are 5 months in to a 60 month term
The past 14 years have left the UK broken, economically, socially, physically, mentally
The political dementors (the tories) have sucked every last bit of positivity our of everything.
Many now quoting pointless surveys were adamant on July 3rd that there would be a hung parliament.
Weren't you? . I know, I was watching, looking in, laughing.
I'm laughing now, bellycose laughing.
What I can't work out is who do you think you are kidding.
Each other? Your egos? Your alta egos? The inner troll in you? The Bookies?
The Tories are a busted flush led by a part time split personality intellectual desert
The Lib Dems are led by a nice man part time clown
Reform are led by a narcissistic spiv
Labour are led by a working class boy, who made it to the very top of a toff profession grounded in Class culture, headed and reformed a major Department of State and rebuilt an utterly broken Labour Party to win the biggest majority in modern history
He has the most grounded, rounded record of achievement of any Prime Minister in recent history.
Oh and he will be well trained to make, build and restore the UK. You may not know this, his father was a toolamker.
We should rejoice rejoice rejoice that we are no longer led by a witch,the shagger of an egg eater, a GMTV tea boy, a robotic dancer, a drug addled serial liar, merchant banking midget, nor Liz fecking Truss aka lettuce...
Arise Sir Keir...
The saviour of the nation.
..Or the destroyer of business owners, farmers and pensioners
Since I've had my heating on again, I haven't turned the thermostat higher than 18⁰C
It's reached 18 once; I turn it down to 12 when I go to work and 15 when I go to bed
I did the same before it all got more expensive
What temperatures do you do?
19.
It used to be 18, but be warned damp can become a bit of an issue over a long period at that temperature.
18, 15 overnight. I have the dehumidifier running 24/7 and it's a revelation - clothes dry overnight, heating is much more efficient. Up there with electric toothbrushes, Garmin smartwatches and microspikes as brilliant purchases I should have made earlier.
After 10 years of living in mouldy tenements, I think it's the perfect example of how a little capital investment (£200) can improve your life significantly.
As a tenement dweller - can I ask which model/make you got?
I used to have an EBAC one as they were built over the road from where I worked in Bishop Auckland. Normally pretty reasonably priced. If you can get one that can be plumbed in to spare you the minor hassle of having to empty it.
Just looking at the old walls makes the plaster crumble - so I'm thinking more of a freestanding/portable one.
Normally the plumbing in bit is just a bit of tubing but they are all freestanding. Made a big difference in the house, it was made of sandstone and soaked up the rain like a sponge. Cleared up the condensation and slowed the damp but there was only so much you can do to stop it with a 200 year old listed sandstone house in Cumbria.
Badenoch isn’t doing to try and widen the vote base is she?
Yet another speech by a languishing British Tory to a right-wing US think tank. I'm not entirely sure what she's trying to achieve. Kemi really needs to start enhancing her profile over here, where she's hardly A-List. Leave Nigel and Sir Keir to fight it out for the attention of Donald Trump. Kemi is too invisible at the moment to get anything out of foreign trips.
Didn’t have this on my Covid bingo card, but there are plenty of viruses implicated in cancer.
The risk of pancreatic adenocarcinoma following SARS-CoV family infection
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-92068-4 This research aimed to evaluate the possible correlation between infection with SARS-CoV viruses and cancer in an in-silico study model. To do this, the relevent dataset was selected from GEO database. Identification of differentially expressed genes among defined groups including SARS-CoV, SARS-dORF6, SARS-BatSRBD, and H1N1 were screened where the |Log FC| ≥ 1and p < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Later, the pathway enrichment analysis and gene ontology (GO) were used by Enrichr and Shiny GO databases. Evaluation with STRING online was applied to predict the functional interactions of proteins, followed by Cytoscape analysis to identify the master genes. Finally, analysis with GEPIA2 server was carried out to reveal the possible correlation between candidate genes and cancer development. The results showed that the main molecular function of up- and down-regulated genes was “double-stranded RNA binding” and actin-binding, respectively. STRING and Cytoscape analysis presented four genes, PTEN, CREB1, CASP3, and SMAD3 as the key genes involved in cancer development. According to TCGA database results, these four genes were up-regulated notably in pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Our findings suggest that pancreatic adenocarcinoma is the most probably malignancy happening after infection with SARS-CoV family...</i>
Large scale observational studies ought to confirm whether or not this is a real concern.
Since it is believed over 95% of us have had Covid, they must struggle to do these correlations based on so few people who haven’t ?
You’d then expect an uptick in pancreatic cancer incidence over time. (Or possibly vaccines have a protective effect.)
Either way, if the effect is real, and is of more than marginal significance, it will show in the numbers.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
Freed the Jews from slavery though.
The God of the Old Testament was more Netantayahu than the rather more hippy God and Christ of the New
Is that REALLY a recommendation? Do you think that encourages ‘belief’. Writing as a relatively recent convert to atheism.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right. And it gives them no right to force their beliefs on others. which is the way religions have kept check on societies in the past, and which is increasingly hard in a modern society. Which is why Latin was used for bibles in the Middle Ages - control.
HYUFD sees women as second-class citizens, who should not work and be baby-bearers. In that attitude, he is not so far away from the Muslim fanatics he hates. He is as much a religious bigot as they are, kept in check by social mores in this country.
I am married to someone raised as a Muslim. As such, I think I 'understand' Islam better than an out-and-out hater such as you. It has many attractive aspects; but as with all religions, the adherents turn what should be good into something that can be very, very bad. Like communism it is good in theory. In practice, it is terrible.
What a load of crap. Firstly, I am not 'forcing' my religious beliefs on you. Heretics like you are not burnt at the stake any longer for denying the firm belief in God and Christ and the monarch being supreme governor of our church (or the Pope if it was Mary Tudor). Nor are you fined for not attending your local C of E Parish church every Sunday as you would have been in the 16th and most of the 17th centuries.
I never said women should never work, however there is no doubt that more women in full time work at peak fertility rate in their 20s and 30s and motherhood age has lowered our birthrate to below replacement level.
"Heretics like you"
Enough said.
"I never said women should never work, however there is no doubt that more women in full time work at peak fertility rate in their 20s and 30s and motherhood age has lowered our birthrate to below replacement level."
You posited banning them from working between those ages. Setting that aside, your belief that the falling fertility rate is all women's fault infests your posts like lice; you routinely fail to acknowledge that men have a role as well. Despite your so-called 'family' stance. You are little different from ISIS/L.
Men need their role of being largely the breadwinners and traditional fathers and loyal to their wives too no doubt.
However most men have not become house husbands and fathers over the past 50 years, it is more wives and single women who have become full time workers. Not necessarily always by choice, government should do more to support stay at home mothers or mothers wishing only to work part time.
If I was ISIL I would be advocating death for homosexuals and death for non Muslims, which would include me as much as you
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
Freed the Jews from slavery though.
The God of the Old Testament was more Netantayahu than the rather more hippy God and Christ of the New
Still your God though, up to all that mischief.
Oh, and then there's the time he drowned everyone except for one family who were tipped off to build a boat. But they had to go and fetch a pair of kangaroos, snow leopards, sloths and every other land animal first, as the rest of their species were all drowned too.
What an absolute psycho. Makes all the other gods look like woke snowflakes.
Since I've had my heating on again, I haven't turned the thermostat higher than 18⁰C
It's reached 18 once; I turn it down to 12 when I go to work and 15 when I go to bed
I did the same before it all got more expensive
What temperatures do you do?
19.
It used to be 18, but be warned damp can become a bit of an issue over a long period at that temperature.
18, 15 overnight. I have the dehumidifier running 24/7 and it's a revelation - clothes dry overnight, heating is much more efficient. Up there with electric toothbrushes, Garmin smartwatches and microspikes as brilliant purchases I should have made earlier.
After 10 years of living in mouldy tenements, I think it's the perfect example of how a little capital investment (£200) can improve your life significantly.
As a tenement dweller - can I ask which model/make you got?
Meaco Arete 12L. I met a good friend at the pub two days ago and turns out he has the 20L variant, which left me feeling a bit diminished.
A personal electric aircraft with vertical take off and landing. Not from Neptune
How come I was able to work this out in 20 minutes in a hotel in Cartagena but the editorial staff of NBC news were not?
NBC want you to click on their site? You've been baited to do that.
If only there were a term for that.
How come I was able to work this out in 20 seconds and you could not?
I have just explained a global mystery while sitting in the golden lobby of my hotel in Cartagena, Colombia; you are wanking about in your y-fronts in a redbrick Barratt home new build semi in Newent
You're the only one who finds clickbait a mystery.
Maybe one day you'll learn enough to realise why the rest of us aren't interested.
A personal electric aircraft with vertical take off and landing. Not from Neptune
How come I was able to work this out in 20 minutes in a hotel in Cartagena but the editorial staff of NBC news were not?
NBC want you to click on their site? You've been baited to do that.
If only there were a term for that.
How come I was able to work this out in 20 seconds and you could not?
I have just explained a global mystery while sitting in the golden lobby of my hotel in Cartagena, Colombia; you are wanking about in your y-fronts in a redbrick Barratt home new build semi in Newent
You're the only one who finds clickbait a mystery.
Maybe one day you'll learn enough to realise why the rest of us aren't interested.
That article says "Pivotal says it has delayed customer deliveries of its Helix personal electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) aircraft to 2025".
Time travel UFOs, then?
If they are going to be selling them in 2025, they would need to be deep into final flight testing now.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
I think that was Herod? God was the one who killed the entire world apart from the Ark (and marine life, presumably).
However, gods should not be judged by human standards any more than sea clams or stag beetles should. The idea that gods should be 'nice', as if they're some kind of supernatural welfare state, flies in the face of the great majority of history. The fact that the very phrase 'act of god', to mean some disruptive, violent, deadly event should be clue enough ...
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
Freed the Jews from slavery though.
The God of the Old Testament was more Netantayahu than the rather more hippy God and Christ of the New
Still your God though, up to all that mischief.
Oh, and then there's the time he drowned everyone except for one family who were tipped off to build a boat. But they had to go and fetch a pair of kangaroos, snow leopards, sloths and every other land animal first, as the rest of their species were all drowned too.
What an absolute psycho. Makes all the other gods look like woke snowflakes.
The USA is being swarmed by large numbers of CAR SIZED DRONES THAT NO ONE CAN UNDERSTAND
They have now been filmed and witnessed by hundreds if not thousands of people. There are now quite clear images
The USA - the USA! - seems at a loss. No one can explain them. I’m starting to wonder if this is connected with THE MASSIVE FUCKING OWL I saw, inexplicably, in the centre of Santa Cruz de Mompox - it would finally make sense
So what are they?
i see five explanations
1. This is a mass hallucination (across the USA and in the UK?) 2. This is American psy-ops to hide American super-tech 3. This is the Russians or the Chinese 4. This is some non state actor (criminal gangs? Elon Musk??) with amazing tech doing something we don’t understand 5. This is of non human origin
How do you know these drones are 'car sized'? The size of distant objects are very hard to discern, especially for high-IQ individuals like Father Dougal.
Some might note that in the 19th Cent, the UFOs were balloon shaped. Then they became airplane (advanced) shaped (early 20th Cent.). Then spaceship shaped (mid 20th Cent.). Now super drone shaped.
Obviously the Aliens ravenously absorb Earth Culture. It's probably why they are here.
"Dude - your ship looks like a aluminium disc. That's so 60s retro, man. Get with the program, or you'll be one of those sad types with driving gloves on 8 of your tentacles, polishing your disc at vintage rallies off Beta Reticula."
More recently; some witnesses to the 9/11 attacks described the planes as "like missiles coming in." This has fuelled a certain substrand of 9/11 denialism to say they were missiles, rather than planes.
The witnesses would not have previously seen planes flying so low, in such an environment, at near cruising speed. You don't expect to see a plane there. So you think of a good simile that matches. And it suddenly becomes a missile. They don't think it's a missile, but it's the best descriptor. Because passenger planes don't usually fly that low over cities, at that speed.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
Freed the Jews from slavery though.
The God of the Old Testament was more Netantayahu than the rather more hippy God and Christ of the New
Is that REALLY a recommendation? Do you think that encourages ‘belief’. Writing as a relatively recent to atheism.
If one is a Jew wishing to preserve ones race and nation from those trying to eliminate both, of course.
Jews just have the Old Testament God of course, they don't believe he transferred into Jesus as in the New
NZ votes in October 2026 and the current polls show a very close match between the ruling National/ACT/NZ First coalition and the opposition Labour/Green/Maori grouping.
The poll I saw in the Dominion Post had National on 34% (-4 on the last GE), Labour on 31% (+4) with the Greens on 13%, ACT on 10%, the Māori Party on 6% and NZ First on 6%.
Seat projections show the Labour led coalition with a majority of one (61-60).
All academic at this time - neither Government nor Opposition is enthusing anyone currently (sound familiar?). Luxon’s ratings have fallen sharply but Labour leader Hipkins is so well known from this time in the Ardern Government he hasn’t benefitted. Indeed, the only political figure whose ratings have improved since the election is Ardern herself.
Don’t it always seem to go you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?
Luxon is a blend of Sunak and Starmer - he was once CEO of Air New Zealand - and tries to cultivate a “business like” approach to Government but he has little charisma and no underlying message or vision (sound familiar?). His Finance Spokesperson, Nicola Willis, could make a passable second career out of being a Rachel Reeves impressionist.
Some on here gleefully point to a lack of vision on the “left”. There’s an equivalent vacuum on the “right”. Populism fills the void though as we all know it’s as devoid of any coherent solutions and is all about shouting and scapegoating.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
Freed the Jews from slavery though.
The God of the Old Testament was more Netantayahu than the rather more hippy God and Christ of the New
Still your God though, up to all that mischief.
Oh, and then there's the time he drowned everyone except for one family who were tipped off to build a boat. But they had to go and fetch a pair of kangaroos, snow leopards, sloths and every other land animal first, as the rest of their species were all drowned too.
What an absolute psycho. Makes all the other gods look like woke snowflakes.
Saved the righteous and each species of animal
In which case, we'd all drown knowing you'd be drowning as well.
So, hashtag search shows one guy, Mithras, showing 3 videos, one possibly or not showing one guy remonstrating amongst a large crowd, one showing a few people running (possibly from trouble), and one showing cars driving through beeping.
If there is large scale fisticuffs going on in a corner of any of these shots, it is not front and centre nor obvious to me, nevertheless the echo chamber of chuck them out is in full effect.
How many are celebrating the fall of Assad? - fine
How many are celebrating the triumph of a jihadi group? - not fine. Not fine at all
Either way if they are celebrating then they can all happily go home
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
Freed the Jews from slavery though.
The God of the Old Testament was more Netantayahu than the rather more hippy God and Christ of the New
Still your God though, up to all that mischief.
Oh, and then there's the time he drowned everyone except for one family who were tipped off to build a boat. But they had to go and fetch a pair of kangaroos, snow leopards, sloths and every other land animal first, as the rest of their species were all drowned too.
What an absolute psycho. Makes all the other gods look like woke snowflakes.
Saved the righteous and each species of animal
And thus spake Sunil unto his PB Disciples: "Know ye that the Lord God did NOT marry the mother of His only begotten son."
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces conducted dozens of precision airstrikes targeting known ISIS camps and operatives in central Syria, Dec. 8.
The strikes against the ISIS leaders, operatives, and camps were conducted as part of the ongoing mission to disrupt, degrade, and defeat ISIS, in order to prevent the terrorist group from conducting external operations and to ensure that ISIS does not seek to take advantage of the current situation to reconstitute in central Syria.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
I think that was Herod? God was the one who killed the entire world apart from the Ark (and marine life, presumably).
However, gods should not be judged by human standards any more than sea clams or stag beetles should. The idea that gods should be 'nice', as if they're some kind of supernatural welfare state, flies in the face of the great majority of history. The fact that the very phrase 'act of god', to mean some disruptive, violent, deadly event should be clue enough ...
God did it first, one of the 10 plagues of Egypt in Exodus.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right. And it gives them no right to force their beliefs on others. which is the way religions have kept check on societies in the past, and which is increasingly hard in a modern society. Which is why Latin was used for bibles in the Middle Ages - control.
HYUFD sees women as second-class citizens, who should not work and be baby-bearers. In that attitude, he is not so far away from the Muslim fanatics he hates. He is as much a religious bigot as they are, kept in check by social mores in this country.
I am married to someone raised as a Muslim. As such, I think I 'understand' Islam better than an out-and-out hater such as you. It has many attractive aspects; but as with all religions, the adherents turn what should be good into something that can be very, very bad. Like communism it is good in theory. In practice, it is terrible.
What a load of crap. Firstly, I am not 'forcing' my religious beliefs on you. Heretics like you are not burnt at the stake any longer for denying the firm belief in God and Christ and the monarch being supreme governor of our church (or the Pope if it was Mary Tudor). Nor are you fined for not attending your local C of E Parish church every Sunday as you would have been in the 16th and most of the 17th centuries.
I never said women should never work, however there is no doubt that more women in full time work at peak fertility rate in their 20s and 30s and motherhood age has lowered our birthrate to below replacement level.
"Heretics like you"
Enough said.
"I never said women should never work, however there is no doubt that more women in full time work at peak fertility rate in their 20s and 30s and motherhood age has lowered our birthrate to below replacement level."
You posited banning them from working between those ages. Setting that aside, your belief that the falling fertility rate is all women's fault infests your posts like lice; you routinely fail to acknowledge that men have a role as well. Despite your so-called 'family' stance. You are little different from ISIS/L.
Men need their role of being largely the breadwinners and traditional fathers and loyal to their wives too no doubt.
However most men have not become house husbands and fathers over the past 50 years, it is more wives and single women who have become full time workers. Not necessarily always by choice, government should do more to support stay at home mothers or mothers wishing only to work part time.
If I was ISIL I would be advocating death for homosexuals and death for non Muslims, which would include me as much as you
The Conservatives lost, says Badenoch, because of “talking Right, but governing Left”. There’s truth to that. But she isn’t clear on what this means. “There was complacency about the nature of the enemy we were fighting,” she says, “Because a lot of people did not recognise it for what it was.” It’s true that the Conservatives allowed outright leftists to prosper, with jobs and patronage (see Charlie Peters’ excellent article “Why do the Tories love to promote their enemies?”). But it wasn’t leftists who created the historic rise in immigration that Patrick O’Flynn calls “the Tory flood”. It was, well — the Tories, with Badenoch among them. To shift the blame onto a shapeless “enemy” is to avoid serious introspection.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right. And it gives them no right to force their beliefs on others. which is the way religions have kept check on societies in the past, and which is increasingly hard in a modern society. Which is why Latin was used for bibles in the Middle Ages - control.
HYUFD sees women as second-class citizens, who should not work and be baby-bearers. In that attitude, he is not so far away from the Muslim fanatics he hates. He is as much a religious bigot as they are, kept in check by social mores in this country.
I am married to someone raised as a Muslim. As such, I think I 'understand' Islam better than an out-and-out hater such as you. It has many attractive aspects; but as with all religions, the adherents turn what should be good into something that can be very, very bad. Like communism it is good in theory. In practice, it is terrible.
What a load of crap. Firstly, I am not 'forcing' my religious beliefs on you. Heretics like you are not burnt at the stake any longer for denying the firm belief in God and Christ and the monarch being supreme governor of our church (or the Pope if it was Mary Tudor). Nor are you fined for not attending your local C of E Parish church every Sunday as you would have been in the 16th and most of the 17th centuries.
I never said women should never work, however there is no doubt that more women in full time work at peak fertility rate in their 20s and 30s and motherhood age has lowered our birthrate to below replacement level.
"Heretics like you"
Enough said.
"I never said women should never work, however there is no doubt that more women in full time work at peak fertility rate in their 20s and 30s and motherhood age has lowered our birthrate to below replacement level."
You posited banning them from working between those ages. Setting that aside, your belief that the falling fertility rate is all women's fault infests your posts like lice; you routinely fail to acknowledge that men have a role as well. Despite your so-called 'family' stance. You are little different from ISIS/L.
Men need their role of being largely the breadwinners and traditional fathers and loyal to their wives too no doubt.
However most men have not become house husbands and fathers over the past 50 years, it is more wives and single women who have become full time workers. Not necessarily always by choice, government should do more to support stay at home mothers or mothers wishing only to work part time.
If I was ISIL I would be advocating death for homosexuals and death for non Muslims, which would include me as much as you
"Men need their role of being largely the breadwinners and traditional fathers and loyal to their wives too no doubt."
You are positively Victorian. Why do men 'need' that role?
What is a 'traditional' father? Someone who demands dinner on the table, takes their wives whenever they want, and canes their kids?
As for my ISIS/L comment: you show f-all respect for other religion and faiths.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
I think that was Herod? God was the one who killed the entire world apart from the Ark (and marine life, presumably).
However, gods should not be judged by human standards any more than sea clams or stag beetles should. The idea that gods should be 'nice', as if they're some kind of supernatural welfare state, flies in the face of the great majority of history. The fact that the very phrase 'act of god', to mean some disruptive, violent, deadly event should be clue enough ...
Herod had a cracking at it, if you believe one version of the nativity story, but God killed all the first born in Egypt, except in those houses marked "don't kill here" on the roof. Like an omnipotent God needs folk to wr8te a note on their roof. Anyhow, this mass child butchering event is "celebrated" by Passover.
So there's some real hacked-offness, but probably also some tactical snapback ("I'm really a Liberal Democrat supporter, but I'll end up voting Labour to keep the Tories out.")
And there's a little white square in the Labour column- 100k or so Labour voters who were too young to vote on July 4. And a little blue square on the right of the chart of about 100k Conservative voters who won't be voting next time. That's after five months.
The age profile on the Conservative vote never used to be this steep, which is why they never died out before.
And in 2019 most voters over 39 voted Tory, the age profile of the Tories is only so high when they lose heavily as in July.
If voters become ever more fed up of Labour they will swing back again and note on that chart the Conservatives are now winning 4 July Labour voters to them for every 1 July Tory voter lost to Labour
Jesus wept.
We are 5 months in to a 60 month term
The past 14 years have left the UK broken, economically, socially, physically, mentally
The political dementors (the tories) have sucked every last bit of positivity our of everything.
Many now quoting pointless surveys were adamant on July 3rd that there would be a hung parliament.
Weren't you? . I know, I was watching, looking in, laughing.
I'm laughing now, bellycose laughing.
What I can't work out is who do you think you are kidding.
Each other? Your egos? Your alta egos? The inner troll in you? The Bookies?
The Tories are a busted flush led by a part time split personality intellectual desert
The Lib Dems are led by a nice man part time clown
Reform are led by a narcissistic spiv
Labour are led by a working class boy, who made it to the very top of a toff profession grounded in Class culture, headed and reformed a major Department of State and rebuilt an utterly broken Labour Party to win the biggest majority in modern history
He has the most grounded, rounded record of achievement of any Prime Minister in recent history.
Oh and he will be well trained to make, build and restore the UK. You may not know this, his father was a toolamker.
We should rejoice rejoice rejoice that we are no longer led by a witch,the shagger of an egg eater, a GMTV tea boy, a robotic dancer, a drug addled serial liar, merchant banking midget, nor Liz fecking Truss aka lettuce...
Arise Sir Keir...
The saviour of the nation.
Not a politician though. Not much of a prime minister either. Maybe he can get things working, although it'll be difficult if he's not providing much direction to the civil service or country, but even if he does, will the country notice or credit Labour? You have to tell the story of what you're doing and why.
Maybe that won't matter if the opposition parties can't get their act together but opposition is a whole lot easier than government so I wouldn't bank on that.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
Freed the Jews from slavery though.
The God of the Old Testament was more Netantayahu than the rather more hippy God and Christ of the New
Still your God though, up to all that mischief.
Oh, and then there's the time he drowned everyone except for one family who were tipped off to build a boat. But they had to go and fetch a pair of kangaroos, snow leopards, sloths and every other land animal first, as the rest of their species were all drowned too.
What an absolute psycho. Makes all the other gods look like woke snowflakes.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
Freed the Jews from slavery though.
The God of the Old Testament was more Netantayahu than the rather more hippy God and Christ of the New
Is that REALLY a recommendation? Do you think that encourages ‘belief’. Writing as a relatively recent to atheism.
If one is a Jew wishing to preserve ones race and nation from those trying to eliminate both, of course.
Jews just have the Old Testament God of course, they don't believe he transferred into Jesus as in the New
I suspect, although I neither know nor really care, that the majority of posters here are not Jewish.
Sounds like its beginning to kick off in Tbilisi. The anti Russian demonstrators are banding together to protect themselves against government goons and having some success deterring attacks. Maybe Putin loses Georgia this week too?
So, hashtag search shows one guy, Mithras, showing 3 videos, one possibly or not showing one guy remonstrating amongst a large crowd, one showing a few people running (possibly from trouble), and one showing cars driving through beeping.
If there is large scale fisticuffs going on in a corner of any of these shots, it is not front and centre nor obvious to me, nevertheless the echo chamber of chuck them out is in full effect.
How many are celebrating the fall of Assad? - fine
How many are celebrating the triumph of a jihadi group? - not fine. Not fine at all
Either way if they are celebrating then they can all happily go home
There are a lot of perfectly sensible people in Syria. I'm not sure there's much of a chance, but nonetheless there is a chance that a state will emerge which isn't so bad.
Reminder that @HYUFD was certain that the majority Alawite coastal region of Syria was going to fight until the bitter end and refused to entertain any suggestion otherwise. They didn’t.
Well Latakia and Tartus, the 2 biggest cities in the coastal Alawite heartland of Syria, have still not yet fallen to the rebels.
Assuming they and the rest of the coastal region where the Alawites are based falls who knows what reprisals the rebels will then ultimately pursue against the Alawites and their links to the Assad family
From "the Russians will bomb the rebel cowards" to "our small bases have not yet fallen!"
It's been quite a week for you, hasn't it? Wrong at every step.
Far from it, come back this time next year and we will see if Syria is the liberal peaceful nirvana you insist it will be or full of jihadis again.
I am in this argument for the long haul, even if it takes a year, 5 years or a decade
I have never insisted it will be a 'liberal peaceful nirvana' this time next year. I have repeatedly stated it could go either way.
But Syria stands more chance of being at peace than it did with the stalemate with Assad in charge. Perhaps it will be worse; perhaps it will be better. But it is now up to the Syrians, and not the Assads, Russians and Iranians, to decide the future of their country.
We can hope, and work,for Syria to become a happier, more prosperous country. You appear to want it to fail, as it was a failed state under Assad.
Reminder that @HYUFD was certain that the majority Alawite coastal region of Syria was going to fight until the bitter end and refused to entertain any suggestion otherwise. They didn’t.
Well Latakia and Tartus, the 2 biggest cities in the coastal Alawite heartland of Syria, have still not yet fallen to the rebels.
Assuming they and the rest of the coastal region where the Alawites are based falls who knows what reprisals the rebels will then ultimately pursue against the Alawites and their links to the Assad family
From "the Russians will bomb the rebel cowards" to "our small bases have not yet fallen!"
It's been quite a week for you, hasn't it? Wrong at every step.
Far from it, come back this time next year and we will see if Syria is the liberal peaceful nirvana you insist it will be or full of jihadis again.
I am in this argument for the long haul, even if it takes a year, 5 years or a decade
I have never insisted it will be a 'liberal peaceful nirvana' this time next year. I have repeatedly stated it could go either way.
But Syria stands more chance of being at peace than it did with the stalemate with Assad in charge. Perhaps it will be worse; perhaps it will be better. But it is now up to the Syrians, and not the Assads, Russians and Iranians, to decide the future of their country.
We can hope, and work,for Syria to become a happier, more prosperous country. You appear to want it to fail, as it was a failed state under Assad.
I expect it will fail, but it has a chance to succeed where it had none under Assad.
The Conservatives lost, says Badenoch, because of “talking Right, but governing Left”. There’s truth to that. But she isn’t clear on what this means. “There was complacency about the nature of the enemy we were fighting,” she says, “Because a lot of people did not recognise it for what it was.” It’s true that the Conservatives allowed outright leftists to prosper, with jobs and patronage (see Charlie Peters’ excellent article “Why do the Tories love to promote their enemies?”). But it wasn’t leftists who created the historic rise in immigration that Patrick O’Flynn calls “the Tory flood”. It was, well — the Tories, with Badenoch among them. To shift the blame onto a shapeless “enemy” is to avoid serious introspection.
Nobody enjoys admitting that they themselves stuffed up, and are largely the authors of their own downfall. So it's human to contort reality so that isn't so. (It's only one of the reasons why politics is hard and populism so attractive.)
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
Freed the Jews from slavery though.
The God of the Old Testament was more Netantayahu than the rather more hippy God and Christ of the New
Still your God though, up to all that mischief.
Oh, and then there's the time he drowned everyone except for one family who were tipped off to build a boat. But they had to go and fetch a pair of kangaroos, snow leopards, sloths and every other land animal first, as the rest of their species were all drowned too.
What an absolute psycho. Makes all the other gods look like woke snowflakes.
Saved the righteous and each species of animal
And thus spake Sunil unto his PB Disciples: "Know ye that the Lord God did NOT marry the mother of His only begotten son."
And the lord god* said to Sunil "Know that ye have sinned, and ye shall be moderated until ye repenteth"
OK, that was the Rail Forum moderators, not the lord god, but near enough.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
I think that was Herod? God was the one who killed the entire world apart from the Ark (and marine life, presumably).
However, gods should not be judged by human standards any more than sea clams or stag beetles should. The idea that gods should be 'nice', as if they're some kind of supernatural welfare state, flies in the face of the great majority of history. The fact that the very phrase 'act of god', to mean some disruptive, violent, deadly event should be clue enough ...
Killing of the first born was the final plague of egypt
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
I think that was Herod? God was the one who killed the entire world apart from the Ark (and marine life, presumably).
However, gods should not be judged by human standards any more than sea clams or stag beetles should. The idea that gods should be 'nice', as if they're some kind of supernatural welfare state, flies in the face of the great majority of history. The fact that the very phrase 'act of god', to mean some disruptive, violent, deadly event should be clue enough ...
Herod had a cracking at it, if you believe one version of the nativity story, but God killed all the first born in Egypt, except in those houses marked "don't kill here" on the roof. Like an omnipotent God needs folk to wr8te a note on their roof. Anyhow, this mass child butchering event is "celebrated" by Passover.
Don't forget the genocide committed against the Sodomisers and Gonorrheans.
Reminder that @HYUFD was certain that the majority Alawite coastal region of Syria was going to fight until the bitter end and refused to entertain any suggestion otherwise. They didn’t.
Well Latakia and Tartus, the 2 biggest cities in the coastal Alawite heartland of Syria, have still not yet fallen to the rebels.
Assuming they and the rest of the coastal region where the Alawites are based falls who knows what reprisals the rebels will then ultimately pursue against the Alawites and their links to the Assad family
From "the Russians will bomb the rebel cowards" to "our small bases have not yet fallen!"
It's been quite a week for you, hasn't it? Wrong at every step.
Far from it, come back this time next year and we will see if Syria is the liberal peaceful nirvana you insist it will be or full of jihadis again.
I am in this argument for the long haul, even if it takes a year, 5 years or a decade
I have never insisted it will be a 'liberal peaceful nirvana' this time next year. I have repeatedly stated it could go either way.
But Syria stands more chance of being at peace than it did with the stalemate with Assad in charge. Perhaps it will be worse; perhaps it will be better. But it is now up to the Syrians, and not the Assads, Russians and Iranians, to decide the future of their country.
We can hope, and work,for Syria to become a happier, more prosperous country. You appear to want it to fail, as it was a failed state under Assad.
The Conservatives lost, says Badenoch, because of “talking Right, but governing Left”. There’s truth to that. But she isn’t clear on what this means. “There was complacency about the nature of the enemy we were fighting,” she says, “Because a lot of people did not recognise it for what it was.” It’s true that the Conservatives allowed outright leftists to prosper, with jobs and patronage (see Charlie Peters’ excellent article “Why do the Tories love to promote their enemies?”). But it wasn’t leftists who created the historic rise in immigration that Patrick O’Flynn calls “the Tory flood”. It was, well — the Tories, with Badenoch among them. To shift the blame onto a shapeless “enemy” is to avoid serious introspection.
Nobody enjoys admitting that they themselves stuffed up, and are largely the authors of their own downfall. So it's human to contort reality so that isn't so. (It's only one of the reasons why politics is hard and populism so attractive.)
That makes the Tories the WASPI women of politics.
So there's some real hacked-offness, but probably also some tactical snapback ("I'm really a Liberal Democrat supporter, but I'll end up voting Labour to keep the Tories out.")
And there's a little white square in the Labour column- 100k or so Labour voters who were too young to vote on July 4. And a little blue square on the right of the chart of about 100k Conservative voters who won't be voting next time. That's after five months.
The age profile on the Conservative vote never used to be this steep, which is why they never died out before.
And in 2019 most voters over 39 voted Tory, the age profile of the Tories is only so high when they lose heavily as in July.
If voters become ever more fed up of Labour they will swing back again and note on that chart the Conservatives are now winning 4 July Labour voters to them for every 1 July Tory voter lost to Labour
Jesus wept.
We are 5 months in to a 60 month term
The past 14 years have left the UK broken, economically, socially, physically, mentally
The political dementors (the tories) have sucked every last bit of positivity our of everything.
Many now quoting pointless surveys were adamant on July 3rd that there would be a hung parliament.
Weren't you? . I know, I was watching, looking in, laughing.
I'm laughing now, bellycose laughing.
What I can't work out is who do you think you are kidding.
Each other? Your egos? Your alta egos? The inner troll in you? The Bookies?
The Tories are a busted flush led by a part time split personality intellectual desert
The Lib Dems are led by a nice man part time clown
Reform are led by a narcissistic spiv
Labour are led by a working class boy, who made it to the very top of a toff profession grounded in Class culture, headed and reformed a major Department of State and rebuilt an utterly broken Labour Party to win the biggest majority in modern history
He has the most grounded, rounded record of achievement of any Prime Minister in recent history.
Oh and he will be well trained to make, build and restore the UK. You may not know this, his father was a toolamker.
We should rejoice rejoice rejoice that we are no longer led by a witch,the shagger of an egg eater, a GMTV tea boy, a robotic dancer, a drug addled serial liar, merchant banking midget, nor Liz fecking Truss aka lettuce...
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
I think that was Herod? God was the one who killed the entire world apart from the Ark (and marine life, presumably).
However, gods should not be judged by human standards any more than sea clams or stag beetles should. The idea that gods should be 'nice', as if they're some kind of supernatural welfare state, flies in the face of the great majority of history. The fact that the very phrase 'act of god', to mean some disruptive, violent, deadly event should be clue enough ...
Killing of the first born was the final plague of egypt
Ah, yes. I forgot that one. Fair.
Anyway, gods do what gods do, for their pleasure, amusement, chastisement or who knows what. They are not accountable to man's laws. Or indeed, gods laws for man.
The Conservatives lost, says Badenoch, because of “talking Right, but governing Left”. There’s truth to that. But she isn’t clear on what this means. “There was complacency about the nature of the enemy we were fighting,” she says, “Because a lot of people did not recognise it for what it was.” It’s true that the Conservatives allowed outright leftists to prosper, with jobs and patronage (see Charlie Peters’ excellent article “Why do the Tories love to promote their enemies?”). But it wasn’t leftists who created the historic rise in immigration that Patrick O’Flynn calls “the Tory flood”. It was, well — the Tories, with Badenoch among them. To shift the blame onto a shapeless “enemy” is to avoid serious introspection.
Does Kemi Badenoch just hope that people will forget that she campaigned for fewer immigration controls?
I get SKS served in Jezza's cabinet but Badenoch literally as a backbencher stood up and said she wanted a more open border. Personally, I think her argument then wasn't without merit.
So there's some real hacked-offness, but probably also some tactical snapback ("I'm really a Liberal Democrat supporter, but I'll end up voting Labour to keep the Tories out.")
And there's a little white square in the Labour column- 100k or so Labour voters who were too young to vote on July 4. And a little blue square on the right of the chart of about 100k Conservative voters who won't be voting next time. That's after five months.
The age profile on the Conservative vote never used to be this steep, which is why they never died out before.
And in 2019 most voters over 39 voted Tory, the age profile of the Tories is only so high when they lose heavily as in July.
If voters become ever more fed up of Labour they will swing back again and note on that chart the Conservatives are now winning 4 July Labour voters to them for every 1 July Tory voter lost to Labour
Jesus wept.
We are 5 months in to a 60 month term
The past 14 years have left the UK broken, economically, socially, physically, mentally
The political dementors (the tories) have sucked every last bit of positivity our of everything.
Many now quoting pointless surveys were adamant on July 3rd that there would be a hung parliament.
Weren't you? . I know, I was watching, looking in, laughing.
I'm laughing now, bellycose laughing.
What I can't work out is who do you think you are kidding.
Each other? Your egos? Your alta egos? The inner troll in you? The Bookies?
The Tories are a busted flush led by a part time split personality intellectual desert
The Lib Dems are led by a nice man part time clown
Reform are led by a narcissistic spiv
Labour are led by a working class boy, who made it to the very top of a toff profession grounded in Class culture, headed and reformed a major Department of State and rebuilt an utterly broken Labour Party to win the biggest majority in modern history
He has the most grounded, rounded record of achievement of any Prime Minister in recent history.
Oh and he will be well trained to make, build and restore the UK. You may not know this, his father was a toolamker.
We should rejoice rejoice rejoice that we are no longer led by a witch,the shagger of an egg eater, a GMTV tea boy, a robotic dancer, a drug addled serial liar, merchant banking midget, nor Liz fecking Truss aka lettuce...
Arise Sir Keir...
The saviour of the nation.
..Or the destroyer of business owners, farmers and pensioners
Since I've had my heating on again, I haven't turned the thermostat higher than 18⁰C
It's reached 18 once; I turn it down to 12 when I go to work and 15 when I go to bed
I did the same before it all got more expensive
What temperatures do you do?
I used to have my thermostat set to 17C, and turn it down overnight. Then we left it on 17C, but used the timer on the boiler to only have it come on for a few periods during the day - this was because our thermostat was rubbish, and the system wouldn't hold our home at a constant temperature anyway, it would have to get quite cold before clicking on and then it would stay on until it was too warm.
Then I measured the temperature by the thermostat with a proper thermometer, and found that when the thermostat was set to 17C, it actually turned the heating on when it fell below 20C.
Now I don't believe anyone's thermostat stories unless they've independently measured the temperature with a properly calibrated thermometer.
What is it with people taking pride in their cold houses?
Madness - in this day and age a warm home should be considered a fundamental right.
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
Freed the Jews from slavery though.
The God of the Old Testament was more Netantayahu than the rather more hippy God and Christ of the New
Still your God though, up to all that mischief.
Oh, and then there's the time he drowned everyone except for one family who were tipped off to build a boat. But they had to go and fetch a pair of kangaroos, snow leopards, sloths and every other land animal first, as the rest of their species were all drowned too.
What an absolute psycho. Makes all the other gods look like woke snowflakes.
Saved the righteous and each species of animal
And thus spake Sunil unto his PB Disciples: "Know ye that the Lord God did NOT marry the mother of His only begotten son."
And the lord god* said to Sunil "Know that ye have sinned, and ye shall be moderated until ye repenteth"
OK, that was the Rail Forum moderators, not the lord god, but near enough.
I discovered a fascinating and heretical fact about the Deltics the other day. A scandalous bit of trivia.
Which was so scandalous I've forgotten the details of it...
(I was at the Nene Valley Railway for a santa special. Bahamas was on; but I didn't get to travel behind it. I asked my son what it was: "Oh, it was a big green engine." He is not turning out to be a railway enthusiast...)
Obviously not the most-read article on the Spectator, that has remained the same for the last 72 hours, but still good. It hints that the Syrian drama may actually menace the Tehran regime in the end (emphasis on “may”)
If the toppling of Assad really does lead to the end of the hideous Iranian regime then I will genuinely celebrate, as that would be an uncontestable victory for humanity
Less likely, as Assad was a Shia leader in a majority Sunni nation (as Saddam on the other side was a Sunni leader in a majority Shia nation). The Iranian regime though are Shia leaders of a majority Shia nation
You make the facile assumption that for most people, religion matters more than other matters in life.
You make that assumption because you are a religious fundamentalist.
In the Middle East it does, whether you are a Shia Muslim or Sunni Muslim (or in relation to Israel a Jew) matters far more than whether you want a socialist or capitalist run economy or even the nation state
You see, you are seeing this from the perspective of a religious bigot.
Most people are not religious bigots, even in the ME.
That is your mistake.
Yes most people in the ME are flocking to gay pride parades, women wandering around the streets in very little with the authorities not batting an eye lid. They certainly don't have public beheadings, floggings or public hangings in half the ME nations either. Oh wait...
You are mistaking the people with the regimes. A mistake Assad has made over the last couple of decades.
Assad was toppled because he was a Shia dictator in a majority Sunni nation. Not because he wasn't pro LGBT enough or too socially conservative and there weren't enough women in his regime.
In reality Assad was relatively secular in ME terms, the rebels who have toppled his regime are rather more rigorous in their following of the Koran than he is
Assad was toppled for many reasons. Because you are a religious bigot, you view events through a religious prism.
You don't care for the tens of thousands he held in prisons without trial *before* the civil war started in 2011. In your mind, they are irrelevant to people's motivations. Ditto other matters. For you, religion is paramount.
I'd argue the motivations of most people are much wider than the religious viewpoint you aspire to.
You are entirely wrong on this, @HYUFD is a believer. Because of that he is able to understand the religious mindset whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot
For many people religion is not some pleasant add-on, a collection of social rituals, and it is nothing like a political opinion or a tribal affiliation. It goes to the very core of their being, such that they will endure poverty, suffering, adversity, if they are still allowed to believe and worship (if the choice is that stark), indeed some are willing to die for their faith. This may seem so weird to you that you cannot comprehend it, but it shouldn’t be so. The west was like this until the Enlightenment, hence the wars of religion, the burning of martyrs, and so forth
Islam has not had “an Enlightenment” so very many Muslims still believe in the way that Christians believed up until the late 17th century: their religion is bound up with their identity, it gives their life purpose and meaning, going without it would be unbearably painful
The inability of westerners to “get” Islam, in this manner, is at the root of many of our problems with the MENA
"whereas you, a non-believer (IIRC) cannot"
I am agnostic, not atheist. Which adds a certain complexity to your argument.
If someone 'believed' they should murder all sinister people (left-handers...), I would be aghast. Even as a right-hander.
So whilst someone like HYUFD might have their 'religious' beliefs down to their core, it does not make them right…
Indeed not. He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff. I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
Guess you missed out the Old Testament then when God literally used the seas to drown most of the Egyptian cavalry chasing the Jews
The same God who killed all the first born children. Sick fecker.
I think that was Herod? God was the one who killed the entire world apart from the Ark (and marine life, presumably).
However, gods should not be judged by human standards any more than sea clams or stag beetles should. The idea that gods should be 'nice', as if they're some kind of supernatural welfare state, flies in the face of the great majority of history. The fact that the very phrase 'act of god', to mean some disruptive, violent, deadly event should be clue enough ...
Killing of the first born was the final plague of egypt
Ah, yes. I forgot that one. Fair.
Anyway, gods do what gods do, for their pleasure, amusement, chastisement or who knows what. They are not accountable to man's laws. Or indeed, gods laws for man.
"God is love" is a bit of a stretch, when you look at his track record.
More like a gangster boss who'll shoot you dead if you fart in the wrong direction.
Reminder that @HYUFD was certain that the majority Alawite coastal region of Syria was going to fight until the bitter end and refused to entertain any suggestion otherwise. They didn’t.
Well Latakia and Tartus, the 2 biggest cities in the coastal Alawite heartland of Syria, have still not yet fallen to the rebels.
Assuming they and the rest of the coastal region where the Alawites are based falls who knows what reprisals the rebels will then ultimately pursue against the Alawites and their links to the Assad family
From "the Russians will bomb the rebel cowards" to "our small bases have not yet fallen!"
It's been quite a week for you, hasn't it? Wrong at every step.
Far from it, come back this time next year and we will see if Syria is the liberal peaceful nirvana you insist it will be or full of jihadis again.
I am in this argument for the long haul, even if it takes a year, 5 years or a decade
I have never insisted it will be a 'liberal peaceful nirvana' this time next year. I have repeatedly stated it could go either way.
But Syria stands more chance of being at peace than it did with the stalemate with Assad in charge. Perhaps it will be worse; perhaps it will be better. But it is now up to the Syrians, and not the Assads, Russians and Iranians, to decide the future of their country.
We can hope, and work,for Syria to become a happier, more prosperous country. You appear to want it to fail, as it was a failed state under Assad.
I expect it will fail, but it has a chance to succeed where it had none under Assad.
Some chance > no chance.
With the Russians and the Iranians kicked out along with Assad, then the future of Syria is up to Syrians to an extent that it has not been for a very long time. They might still fail, but that's up to them now (if Turkey holds back).
I am very glad to see Assad gone. But the chances Syria gets better? Very low.
Then why are you very glad to see him gone? This is the thing I don't get. Nobody here is inviting Assad to a family barbeque or asking him if he wants to be godfather to their kids. It just so happens that those of us who engage our brain on these issues and don't see it as our job to police 'PB morale' think he is probably less wicked and has more upsides than the alternatives. Thus, his unseatment in favour of an ISIS-adjacent warlord (or several) is not something to be 'very glad about'.
To be fair I am pleased Assad has gone but what comes next ?
TBF Israel and the USA have often bombed Syria in recent years. Israel killed some Iranian 'advisers' last year; the US bombed Syria as well in retaliation for attacks:
I am very glad to see Assad gone. But the chances Syria gets better? Very low.
Then why are you very glad to see him gone? This is the thing I don't get. Nobody here is inviting Assad to a family barbeque or asking him if he wants to be godfather to their kids. It just so happens that those of us who engage our brain on these issues and don't see it as our job to police 'PB morale' think he is probably less wicked and has more upsides than the alternatives. Thus, his unseatment in favour of an ISIS-adjacent warlord (or several) is not something to be 'very glad about'.
Yes, it is.
He is every bit as wicked as ISIS. He is allies and directly aided and abetted Jihadis such as Hezbollah and worked with our enemies such as Iran and Russia.
Him falling is fantastic news. What comes next may not be better, in which case I hope what comes next also falls, until something better does come along, but nothing better was coming under him.
Since your priorities are broken and you hate the West and love Russia I can see why you're OK with that.
Comments
Pressure is growing for the Government to finally act and decide on whether or not to grant compensation for the WASPI generation of women.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/waspi-update-as-pressure-grows-for-dwp-to-grant-fair-compensation-after-milestone/ar-AA1vu4eT?ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=953f1c5d28f84fbdc9563f76f5301b05&ei=8
Though bloodier than most.
I was confirmed into the Christian faith by the Bishop of Durham, then for several years was a server at our church and could actually say the whole communion service and partake in it before I was 16
I then married a Scot from a very religious fishing community which bought the best and worst out of many
The most genuine Christians were those who did not judge others, or spend endless hours on bible study, preach bigotry, or constantly quote the bible, but lived a simple life of kindness, understanding, tolerance and quietly thanked their Lord for their blessings and my father in law was one of those wonderful people
Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
NIV Matthew 4:7
https://bsky.app/profile/dylandifford.bsky.social/post/3lcsdqpnuy22k
So there's some real hacked-offness, but probably also some tactical snapback ("I'm really a Liberal Democrat supporter, but I'll end up voting Labour to keep the Tories out.")
And there's a little white square in the Labour column- 100k or so Labour voters who were too young to vote on July 4. And a little blue square on the right of the chart of about 100k Conservative voters who won't be voting next time. That's after five months.
The age profile on the Conservative vote never used to be this steep, which is why they never died out before.
Bloody Tory canvasser been round again?
Besides, there are lawyers and campaign professionals with fees to get.
Kemi Badenoch’s speech to the International Democracy Union Forum in Washington DC:
https://conservativehome.com/2024/12/07/if-we-dont-defend-our-culture-who-will-badenochs-washington-speech-in-full/
If voters become ever more fed up of Labour they will swing back again and note on that chart the Conservatives are now winning four July Labour voters to them for every one July Tory voter lost to Labour
He claims to follow the teachings of Christ - and was yesterday rooting for the Alawites to fight to the death against the rebels. On the grounds that both sides would suffer mass casualties, which might then be to our theoretical advantage.
Not exactly Sermon in the Mount stuff.
I can see why he resorts to the prologue of John’s Gospel in preference.
I'm transitioning. If I turn the fan heater on, my trunk overheats. If I turn it off, my legs get too cold.
So, hashtag search shows one guy, Mithras, showing 3 videos, one possibly or not showing one guy remonstrating amongst a large crowd, one showing a few people running (possibly from trouble), and one showing cars driving through beeping.
If there is large scale fisticuffs going on in a corner of any of these shots, it is not front and centre nor obvious to me, nevertheless the echo chamber of chuck them out is in full effect.
It doesn’t logically justify ignoring Christ’s teachings, if you’re a Christian.
It’s not a lie which is more dangerous than the truth - it’s half a truth.
The risk of pancreatic adenocarcinoma following SARS-CoV family infection
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-92068-4
This research aimed to evaluate the possible correlation between infection with SARS-CoV viruses and cancer in an in-silico study model. To do this, the relevent dataset was selected from GEO database. Identification of differentially expressed genes among defined groups including SARS-CoV, SARS-dORF6, SARS-BatSRBD, and H1N1 were screened where the |Log FC| ≥ 1and p < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Later, the pathway enrichment analysis and gene ontology (GO) were used by Enrichr and Shiny GO databases. Evaluation with STRING online was applied to predict the functional interactions of proteins, followed by Cytoscape analysis to identify the master genes. Finally, analysis with GEPIA2 server was carried out to reveal the possible correlation between candidate genes and cancer development. The results showed that the main molecular function of up- and down-regulated genes was “double-stranded RNA binding” and actin-binding, respectively. STRING and Cytoscape analysis presented four genes, PTEN, CREB1, CASP3, and SMAD3 as the key genes involved in cancer development. According to TCGA database results, these four genes were up-regulated notably in pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Our findings suggest that pancreatic adenocarcinoma is the most probably malignancy happening after infection with SARS-CoV family...</i>
Large scale observational studies ought to confirm whether or not this is a real concern.
We are 5 months in to a 60 month term
The past 14 years have left the UK broken, economically, socially, physically, mentally
The political dementors (the tories) have sucked every last bit of positivity our of everything.
Many now quoting pointless surveys were adamant on July 3rd that there would be a hung parliament.
Weren't you?
.
I know, I was watching, looking in, laughing.
I'm laughing now, bellycose laughing.
What I can't work out is who do you think you are kidding.
Each other?
Your egos?
Your alta egos?
The inner troll in you?
The Bookies?
The Tories are a busted flush led by a part time split personality intellectual desert
The Lib Dems are led by a nice man part time clown
Reform are led by a narcissistic spiv
Labour are led by a working class boy, who made it to the very top of a toff profession grounded in Class culture, headed and reformed a major Department of State and rebuilt an utterly broken Labour Party to win the biggest majority in modern history
He has the most grounded, rounded record of achievement of any Prime Minister in recent history.
Oh and he will be well trained to make, build and restore the UK. You may not know this, his father was a toolamker.
We should rejoice rejoice rejoice that we are no longer led by a witch,the shagger of an egg eater, a GMTV tea boy, a robotic dancer, a drug addled serial liar, merchant banking midget, nor Liz fecking Truss aka lettuce...
Arise Sir Keir...
The saviour of the nation.
In some ways it’s preferable to those who jump through so many intellectual hoops to try and square all that antiquated old drivel with the modern world and modern knowledge.
Enough said.
"I never said women should never work, however there is no doubt that more women in full time work at peak fertility rate in their 20s and 30s and motherhood age has lowered our birthrate to below replacement level."
You posited banning them from working between those ages. Setting that aside, your belief that the falling fertility rate is all women's fault infests your posts like lice; you routinely fail to acknowledge that men have a role as well. Despite your so-called 'family' stance. You are little different from ISIS/L.
The God of the Old Testament was more Netantayahu than the rather more hippy God and Christ of the New
Time travel UFOs, then?
Made a big difference in the house, it was made of sandstone and soaked up the rain like a sponge. Cleared up the condensation and slowed the damp but there was only so much you can do to stop it with a 200 year old listed sandstone house in Cumbria.
You get to the bottom of each paragraph, go back three times, read and reread and still can't decipher the utter gibberish.
I'm not sure what she's trying to hide, is she a closet Green, a born again transvestite or some sort of advanced robotic AI
She's certainly not a credible politician
(Or possibly vaccines have a protective effect.)
Either way, if the effect is real, and is of more than marginal significance, it will show in the numbers.
Writing as a relatively recent convert to atheism.
However most men have not become house husbands and fathers over the past 50 years, it is more wives and single women who have become full time workers. Not necessarily always by choice, government should do more to support stay at home mothers or mothers wishing only to work part time.
If I was ISIL I would be advocating death for homosexuals and death for non Muslims, which would include me as much as you
Oh, and then there's the time he drowned everyone except for one family who were tipped off to build a boat. But they had to go and fetch a pair of kangaroos, snow leopards, sloths and every other land animal first, as the rest of their species were all drowned too.
What an absolute psycho. Makes all the other gods look like woke snowflakes.
However, gods should not be judged by human standards any more than sea clams or stag beetles should. The idea that gods should be 'nice', as if they're some kind of supernatural welfare state, flies in the face of the great majority of history. The fact that the very phrase 'act of god', to mean some disruptive, violent, deadly event should be clue enough ...
The witnesses would not have previously seen planes flying so low, in such an environment, at near cruising speed. You don't expect to see a plane there. So you think of a good simile that matches. And it suddenly becomes a missile. They don't think it's a missile, but it's the best descriptor. Because passenger planes don't usually fly that low over cities, at that speed.
Jews just have the Old Testament God of course, they don't believe he transferred into Jesus as in the New
NZ votes in October 2026 and the current polls show a very close match between the ruling National/ACT/NZ First coalition and the opposition Labour/Green/Maori grouping.
The poll I saw in the Dominion Post had National on 34% (-4 on the last GE), Labour on 31% (+4) with the Greens on 13%, ACT on 10%, the Māori Party on 6% and NZ First on 6%.
Seat projections show the Labour led coalition with a majority of one (61-60).
All academic at this time - neither Government nor Opposition is enthusing anyone currently (sound familiar?). Luxon’s ratings have fallen sharply but Labour leader Hipkins is so well known from this time in the Ardern Government he hasn’t benefitted. Indeed, the only political figure whose ratings have improved since the election is Ardern herself.
Don’t it always seem to go you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?
Luxon is a blend of Sunak and Starmer - he was once CEO of Air New Zealand - and tries to cultivate a “business like” approach to Government but he has little charisma and no underlying message or vision (sound familiar?). His Finance Spokesperson, Nicola Willis, could make a passable second career out of being a Rachel Reeves impressionist.
Some on here gleefully point to a lack of vision on the “left”. There’s an equivalent vacuum on the “right”. Populism fills the void though as we all know it’s as devoid of any coherent solutions and is all about shouting and scapegoating.
The Meters - Rejuvenation
New Orleans band, who were probably the funkiest of all time, and their funkiest selves on this album
I skip the other four tracks, but..
People Say
Just Kissed My Baby
Jungle Man
Hey Pocky Away
and
Africa
are stone cold, hardcore funk classics
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_m4RyL0Bgny1f3efGjzGhnlORvR_4GQLhs&si=eiRGUr9xbjjJKAIR
Tell me a better album from 74
How many are celebrating the triumph of a jihadi group? - not fine. Not fine at all
Either way if they are celebrating then they can all happily go home
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces conducted dozens of precision airstrikes targeting known ISIS camps and operatives in central Syria, Dec. 8.
The strikes against the ISIS leaders, operatives, and camps were conducted as part of the ongoing mission to disrupt, degrade, and defeat ISIS, in order to prevent the terrorist group from conducting external operations and to ensure that ISIS does not seek to take advantage of the current situation to reconstitute in central Syria.
The operation struck over 75 targets using multiple U.S. Air Force assets, including B-52s, F-15s, and A-10s. ..
https://x.com/CENTCOM/status/1865841718366450013
Story of passover.
The Conservatives lost, says Badenoch, because of “talking Right, but governing Left”. There’s truth to that. But she isn’t clear on what this means. “There was complacency about the nature of the enemy we were fighting,” she says, “Because a lot of people did not recognise it for what it was.” It’s true that the Conservatives allowed outright leftists to prosper, with jobs and patronage (see Charlie Peters’ excellent article “Why do the Tories love to promote their enemies?”). But it wasn’t leftists who created the historic rise in immigration that Patrick O’Flynn calls “the Tory flood”. It was, well — the Tories, with Badenoch among them. To shift the blame onto a shapeless “enemy” is to avoid serious introspection.
You are positively Victorian. Why do men 'need' that role?
What is a 'traditional' father? Someone who demands dinner on the table, takes their wives whenever they want, and canes their kids?
As for my ISIS/L comment: you show f-all respect for other religion and faiths.
And now a second interception by the Seahawks!
Maybe that won't matter if the opposition parties can't get their act together but opposition is a whole lot easier than government so I wouldn't bank on that.
But interesting.
Traffic jams are building along the Turkish-Syrian border as thousands of Syrian refugees hurry back home to Syria.
Nearly 4 million Syrian refugees live in Turkey.
2 million live in Europe.
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1865817546659926460
And another six million (approx) are internally displaced.
We can certainly hope so.
If the Tories get hung up on this they had better hope the economy is in the loo because otherwise people will just say “what planet are you on”.
But Syria stands more chance of being at peace than it did with the stalemate with Assad in charge. Perhaps it will be worse; perhaps it will be better. But it is now up to the Syrians, and not the Assads, Russians and Iranians, to decide the future of their country.
We can hope, and work,for Syria to become a happier, more prosperous country. You appear to want it to fail, as it was a failed state under Assad.
Some chance > no chance.
OK, that was the Rail Forum moderators, not the lord god, but near enough.
Anyway, gods do what gods do, for their pleasure, amusement, chastisement or who knows what. They are not accountable to man's laws. Or indeed, gods laws for man.
I get SKS served in Jezza's cabinet but Badenoch literally as a backbencher stood up and said she wanted a more open border. Personally, I think her argument then wasn't without merit.
Madness - in this day and age a warm home should be considered a fundamental right.
Which was so scandalous I've forgotten the details of it...
(I was at the Nene Valley Railway for a santa special. Bahamas was on; but I didn't get to travel behind it. I asked my son what it was: "Oh, it was a big green engine." He is not turning out to be a railway enthusiast...)
Israel bombing sites in Syria
Seems a free for all is taking place
To be fair I am pleased Assad has gone but what comes next ?
More like a gangster boss who'll shoot you dead if you fart in the wrong direction.
Thank goodness.
Who knows what that brings, but the ME could do with more of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_2024_United_States_airstrikes_in_Iraq_and_Syria
So it isn't exactly as though Syria was at peace before....
He is every bit as wicked as ISIS. He is allies and directly aided and abetted Jihadis such as Hezbollah and worked with our enemies such as Iran and Russia.
Him falling is fantastic news. What comes next may not be better, in which case I hope what comes next also falls, until something better does come along, but nothing better was coming under him.
Since your priorities are broken and you hate the West and love Russia I can see why you're OK with that.