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THE BRITISH THREAD II

 
 
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 Mar, 2008 06:39 pm
Do not allow yourselves to think that Dr David Owen's article in the Sunday Times about Mr Blair's hubris only applies to Mr Blair.
0 Replies
 
McTag
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2008 12:15 am
I harbour a deep personal antipathy to Mr Blair. Very deep.

But I've not seen that article.
0 Replies
 
McTag
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2008 12:51 am
McTag wrote:
I harbour a deep personal antipathy to Mr Blair. Very deep.

But I've not seen that article.


Although it's quite amusing, David Owen discussing hubris in another.

I looked on Times Online

"In ancient Greek drama, a hubristic career proceeds something like this: the hero wins glory and acclamation by achieving unwonted success against the odds. The experience then goes to his head: he begins to think himself capable of anything. This leads him into misinterpreting the reality around him and into making mistakes. Eventually he gets his comeuppance and meets his nemesis, which destroys him.

The conduct of George W Bush and Tony Blair in deciding to go to war in Iraq five years ago and in handling its aftermath illustrates hubris syndrome.

"

Interesting article, although the good doctor seems to have forgotten his Hippocratic Oath.
0 Replies
 
Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2008 04:55 am
those Greeks know a drama when they see one. Look whats happening re lighting the olympic torch.

I managed to put two new tyres (thats tires) on my bike this morning (now officially named Tirpitz, being German and weighing as much).

Off now to meet up at the Prince of Wales, or PoW for short. Any road up looks like an interesting encounter.

(I've done 2900 miles on it since May last year)
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2008 08:45 am
Clary wrote on the Never Ending Conversation Game-

Quote:
and hoping that the stem cell research bill goes through.


I can understand someone having an aesthetic objection to bestiality but that is merely a matter of personal taste such as preferring Prince to Mozart.

But what is the ethical objection to bestiality?

Is it not the case that the ethical objection has always been based upon a felt risk of possibly harm to the human species, which is what all ethics are based upon, from mixing animal and human cells. Once they are mixed the ethical objection to bestiality vanishes and as sheep don't keep demanding presents and the dining room redecorating it could be that women are really on a par with men and, like them, will have to shift for themselves.

If those supporting this new Embryology Bill are allowed to justify their position by saying what it "could" do or "might lead to" why can't their opponents have equal credibilty when they offer suggestions of other alternatives for what "could" happen or what the mixing of animal and human cells "might lead to"?

And these children who "might" or "could" be "cured" by this new research, unheard of in the whole history of mankind, "could" very well be quite happy as they are. How do we know they are not happy. Do we just declare them to be unhappy. I've seen many children with these conditions and have often wondered why they might prefer to be like the rest of us and queue up at the job centre to be directed to the chocolate factory to put the little blob on the top of the walnut whip for 8 hours a day.

Couldn't we spend the money this research will cost and which only "could" bring any useful results on making these children happier and not treating them as if there is something wrong with them. And how do we know what they will be like when they are "cured" if ever they are? Will they be airline pilots or sewage workers?

The only thing guaranteed here is the jobs and research funding. No "cures" are guaranteed. The "cure" for dwarfism turned out to be a very sorry mess. Much,much worse than the dwarfism. Newsnight covered it once. Just the once. I think it did Paxman's head in.

And the research funding "might" be better used in other areas.

Crash barriers on motorways save some lives and end others.

We might end up not knowing what a human being is. Make that a matter of aesthetics and we are really in the ****.

If they pass this bill I will think they have all gone mad and when we can see them lining their underwear with a thin brown sludge at the idea that we might get to see their past expenses claims when they weren't excercising their control of fiscal policy as they do when it comes to looking after these kids with the conditions they are claiming they "might" cure you can easily understand that they might very well have already done so.

Their desire to remove cigarettes from shop displays certainly points in that direction.

It looks to me that they have a need to be up and doing to avoid facing up to being completely mad like compulsive handwashers. They have compulsive legislationitis.

The hubris problem is widespread. It isn't confined to Mr Blair.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2008 10:27 am
A bit like this-

Quote:
Earlier in the week it was revealed that Sentebale, the southern African charity set up by Prince Harry to provide for the orphans of Aids victims, had given only £84,000 of its £1.15m annual donations to the people it was intended to help. The rest of the money went on large salaries, transport, publicity and payments to an arts firm run by a chap called Geoffrey Matthews. Geoff happens to be the chief executive of Sentebale, from which he draws a salary adjacent to £100,000 a year. With other payments he has probably received twice as much from those charitable donations as those Aids orphans.

The suspicion grows that "charity" today is a bit of a racket. It's all the more ugly when it's a charity with which famous people, or wannabe famous people, are associated. We swallow the questionable notion that in order to campaign effectively our big charities need expensive chief executives, glossy advertising, shiny Mercedes 4x4s to tear across the veld, a legion of PRs working out of grand central London headquarters, lobbyists and consultants - otherwise the poor little black children will die. Somewhere along the way the point has been lost - nowhere better exemplified than in our apparent acceptance that Heather Mills should be awarded money to "give to charity".

Last year, for the first time, the government gave more taxpayers' money to "charity" than was raised through voluntary donations. By my reckoning, that's not "charity" either. It's something else: big business.


Rod Liddle. Sunday Times
0 Replies
 
Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2008 01:15 pm
yes but what about the French President's new wife? She was wearing clothes! outrageous. And very disappointing.
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2008 01:28 pm
But on the other hand her just released new cd has a sticker on it "I shook hands with Her Majesty" ..... or something like that.

http://i25.tinypic.com/2v8hb9l.jpg

<I'm sure posting Carla naked is not what our American brethren here would like>
0 Replies
 
Izzie
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2008 02:05 pm
McTag wrote:
Izzie wrote:
Good afternoon UK & Europe et al Smile

Mac - hope your glasses are fitting your face more comfortably now :wink:


Thank you, Izzie, not so bad now. Maybe my face is fitting my glasses better.


Good Wednesday evening all Smile

Mac - glad to hear the face is now morphing with the glasses :wink:

Rest of world - hey Smile wishing you well.
0 Replies
 
Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2008 02:43 pm
and good wednesday evening to you izz

may I ask a question?

does anyone/anything/spendy ever really get you down?

It would not appear so.......so good for you. I fell off my bike today and flattened a plastic keep left bollard.

And the other funny thing was a dog with large stick running onto the cycle track between two bollards. Two narrow bollards...you get the picture.
0 Replies
 
Izzie
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2008 02:54 pm
Steve 41oo wrote:
and good wednesday evening to you izz

may I ask a question?

does anyone/anything/spendy ever really get you down?

It would not appear so.......so good for you. I fell off my bike today and flattened a plastic keep left bollard.

And the other funny thing was a dog with large stick running onto the cycle track between two bollards. Two narrow bollards...you get the picture.


Hey Stevie boy - good to see ya.

In answer to your question.... yep plenty of things - life can be a can of worms - but in the virtual world, nah, can't let it! Life's too short mate (cliched or not!) Gotta keep flying and won't let anyone clip my wings right now :wink:

As for your cycling well, the positive is................had you been riding betwen two narrow bollards... you coulda ended up with two sore somethings!!!!!!!! OOOOOOOOOOhhhh Shocked Shame for dog - good for you! :wink:
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Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2008 03:00 pm
BBC almost wrote:
Naked French glamour model was greeted with great British pomp and ceremony as sexy Carla Bruni, accompanied by her new husband French President Nicolas Sarkozy, arrived in Windsor at the start of their whirlwind state visit.

The couple, taking part in their most high-profile exposure to date, were treated to an arrival rich in pageantry in the historic town, home to Windsor Castle.

After a brief welcoming ceremony with the Queen, Duke of Edinburgh and other dignitaries, the French guests were whisked in horse-drawn ceremonial carriages, accompanied by the Household Cavalry, through Windsor's narrow streets, waving to the gasping public. Carla Bruni pressed her ample bosom to the carriage window.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2008 03:01 pm
Steve wrote-

Quote:
does anyone/anything/spendy ever really get you down?


Two fatties once got me down but I managed to squirm out of their grasp and run off.

But seriously, I think I can be got down by what gets most people down. Like toothache as a trivial example.

People don't get me down. I tell bores they are bores and they either cure themselves of being boring, and I'm patient about that, or they piss off. I've got to the point where my mates say boring things on purpose to goad me.

Hey-Mathos just posted on the ID thread. He must be back. Unless he's in an oriental internet cafe. An invention of Western science.
0 Replies
 
Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2008 03:07 pm
Izzie wrote:
Steve 41oo wrote:
and good wednesday evening to you izz

may I ask a question?

does anyone/anything/spendy ever really get you down?

It would not appear so.......so good for you. I fell off my bike today and flattened a plastic keep left bollard.

And the other funny thing was a dog with large stick running onto the cycle track between two bollards. Two narrow bollards...you get the picture.


Hey Stevie boy - good to see ya.

In answer to your question.... yep plenty of things - life can be a can of worms - but in the virtual world, nah, can't let it! Life's too short mate (cliched or not!) Gotta keep flying and won't let anyone clip my wings right now :wink:

As for your cycling well, the positive is................had you been riding betwen two narrow bollards... you coulda ended up with two sore somethings!!!!!!!! OOOOOOOOOOhhhh Shocked Shame for dog - good for you! :wink:
the dog's awright. He'll learn to go sideways in future. Personally I always go sideways for personal protection when negotiating such things. Eyes now dry.
0 Replies
 
Izzie
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2008 03:11 pm
spendius wrote:
Steve wrote-

Quote:
does anyone/anything/spendy ever really get you down?


But seriously, I think I can be got down by what gets most people down. Like toothache as a trivial example.


Yeah - me too. I try not to let earache get me down tho if it's not caused by physical symptoms.



Stevie - you can uncross legs now too! Very Happy
0 Replies
 
Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2008 03:13 pm
spendius wrote:
Steve wrote-

Quote:
does anyone/anything/spendy ever really get you down?


Two fatties once got me down but I managed to squirm out of their grasp and run off.

But seriously, I think I can be got down by what gets most people down. Like toothache as a trivial example.

People don't get me down. I tell bores they are bores and they either cure themselves of being boring, and I'm patient about that, or they piss off. I've got to the point where my mates say boring things on purpose to goad me.

Hey-Mathos just posted on the ID thread. He must be back. Unless he's in an oriental internet cafe. An invention of Western science.
Well pass on our best regards. East to west or west to east or to wherever the hell he is..you sure he wasnt organising a coup in Equitorial Guinea? No that was Mark Thatcher and his chums. Simon Mann.
0 Replies
 
Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2008 03:24 pm
Izzie wrote:
Stevie - you can uncross legs now too! Very Happy
thanks mizzizzy. Blood circulation will resume shortly, nothing fell off. That i noticed.
0 Replies
 
Izzie
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2008 03:26 pm
Glad to hear it hun - prefer a man with ..... a good sense of humour :wink:

Hope you have a good evening Smile
0 Replies
 
Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2008 03:37 pm
Yeah I'm good thanks. France are winning


...and I just got an email from the National Petroleum Corporation saying I was due commission of $2.500.000.00 (two million five hundred thousand US dollars)

all I have to do to get the money due to me is send my bank details and full name address etc to somebody I never heard of in the Netherlands.

I think I should go for it...what you think?
0 Replies
 
Izzie
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2008 03:42 pm
I think you already had a coupl lucky breaks today - one bollard down - seeing a dog with a toothless grin....

methinks you'd be better off just sitting quiet, legs crossed, watching the box a? :wink:
0 Replies
 
 

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