THE BRITISH THREAD II

Whoa, I wonder if Robert knows her.

I know what you mean. The Guinness Book of Records has world renown, and seems continually to be expanding. Not that I've ever read one, mind.
Biggest collection of left-handed grasshoppers?

Did you hear the one about the Ten-ton Thames Trader with the turquoise tarpaulin taking tasty tidbits from Todmorden to Tintwistle?

bump

bumps

Is there more of a problem coming from the left than the right when it comes to trying to silence free speech in the United Kingdom?

In the US it seems to be a conservative thing because they do not want to see a change. I can see where either side could be accused of it when there is a mob of them.

No. It depends which party is in office. As everybody who matters knows that and takes it for granted there is no problem. We adjust our perception of what is said on the subject to take account of who is saying it and for what reason.

Members of the party in power will be just as keen on free speech as everybody else but they see their power as associated with the right to define what free speech is.

The opposition will, of course, milk every opportunity to castigate the party in power for short-comings in this regard but it has to bear in mind that it might become the party in power with the next revolution of the merry-go-round.

Obviously anybody who doesn't define free speech and simply uses the expression as a means of cheaply drawing attention to himself as a "good bloke" has no reasonably logical right to be considering silencing it. Not in public at least. One cannot silence an abstract concept. It is somewhat insulting to ask us to consider it being attempted because it assumes we are all fuckwits. The weaving of the winds is out of place on a site called Able 2 Know.

The most serious enemy of free speech is the abuse of it.

Just wondering, if French is the common language in Newcastle ... or only within the Magpies' team (they'll get their 12th French player).

Can't speak French myself. Such is life.

Our managers are pretty good.

Ricky Lambert called up for England match against Scotland. About time too, for both of them, Ricky Lambert's cap and an England Scotland friendly.

That's "friendly" in the strictly unfriendly sense, of course.

Trolls scandal: If you get a poison pen letter, you don't set about blaming the manufacturers of the paper it was written on, or suing the Royal Mail for delivering the letter, do you?
So how come the "offending" websites are being blamed for offensive tweets and emails?
Daft, I calls it.

That's fantastic eh? They have made billions creating more elderly patients, closed thousands of pubs and traduced free speech and now they are stumped as to what to do with the result apart from demanding more funds which can only result in more elderly patients.

And they have invented the Liverpool Care Pathway which is a polite form of involuntary euthanasia.

And they are, at bottom, sawbones and quacks, with hi-tech which they didn't invent, and drug dealers. And they knew what they were doing. Who wouldn't it being so obvious.

An Aberfan-style waste tip showing signs of slipping its moorings and engulfing the lot of us. There were warnings about the safety of the Aberfan coal waste tip. They were put on Ignore. Silenced.

What's your position, Mac, on the fracking in East-Sussex.

Our politicians have a look of gamblers on a losing streak chasing their losses.

Allowing that Aberfan was a terrible tragedy it was also a beautiful metaphor for our destiny if we continue to allow the likes of Cleggover and Vince Babel to be driving around in ministerial cars in the complacent knowledge of how proud their Mums must be of how they turned out.

I'll come back on that.
Right now, I'm off to a piss-up, sorry, barbecue.

No resistance to temptation eh? Beer and fats. Loverly.

Well it's a complex question innit, but simple at bottom.

Everyone wants to be able to switch on the kettle and make a cup of tea, as cheaply as possible. And they don't really care much how the energy companies get the job done, until it gets uncomfortably close to home.
People hope something will be done, by others, to stop global warming, but no politician wants (or dares) to deliberately slow the economy.
Everyone realises that we cannot just continue to burn fossil fuels until it is all gone; but no-one will face formulating an alternative.

To answer your question, I think the hydrocarbons under East Sussex should be left in the ground, and that the cost of fuel (if that is a result, which I presume it will be) should be allowed to rise.

Why is East Sussex different from the oil shale in Alaska, for instance? Well it isn't really. But we should protect what countryside we have left. And I don't think Alaska should be strip-mined for oil shale either, even if only elk and caribou live there.

I was against fracking until I saw a report from the camp. Two beardie weirdies playing shitty drums shittily in the background. That did it for me, frack the **** out of West Sussex, they've all got their heads up their arses anyway.

I agree Mac. The cost of energy should rise to force us, and nothing but force will do, to use energy responsibly.

Not that I have any hope as long as the denizens of Media are immune from the force. They look completely out of control to me in this respect. And in others.

So City go top. All is as it should be.

Manuel Pellegrini reminds me of a kind of latin version of Sir Matt Busby, if that phrase is not too awkward for this time in the morning, and if I can mention that august gent in a post about Manchester City.

And good luck to Celtic in Kazakhstan or wherever the hell they are.

Not for Newcastle United fans! If the match last evening was anything to go by, we might as well just go down into the Championship now - save an awful lot of time and trouble.

They were pretty terrible it has to be admitted.

But there had been some strained relations in the team and they were not in the best of humour.

I wouldn't write them off. There are a few more like them.

And I had 8 to 1 on 3--0.