Hurrah for emissions!! It means “we’re” not going to have to cope with freezing to death for a bit longer…

Seriously, climate denying clowns around the world will be coming up with this line from now until the very moment that the arctic is ice free, Texas is flattened by a hurricane, London floods, or whatever truly gigantic/catastrophic event it takes for them to finally wake up to reality.

I read as far as the words “soda bottles”

Whilst I am interested in green issues, I’m not interested in recollections of a shared youth that I didn’t share with some american

Also not sure that americans are in any position to be telling us how they ‘ve really been green all along.

mcmoonter,

What’s that set up with gronk and nipper being towed – looks like part of a Bo Yak or copy with modifications – do you know?

My daughter has a 24″ wheel Isla Bike and it’s too big to be towed with a Trail Gator, but that looks like a posible solution.

I suspect that kaesae is a bot.

They’re just trying it out on here to iron out a few wrinkles before letting it go on the Guardian CIF boards.

I wonder how that compares with the hair shirt brigade on here…

That’s not really the point.

How you compare with others in the UK isn’t really significant.

How WE compare with people in other countries is way more important.

The difficult truth is that OUR way of living is unsustainable – it’s too resource intensive and too polluting to continue – if you are relying on having everything you have now in the future then you are deluded. If you really want to do something for yourself then you should follow the likes of Edukator and ween yourself off stuff you don’t need now while you can do it painlessly instead of waiting for it to be taken away. Living with less isn’t about being virtuous, it’s about being resilient and protecting yourself from inevitable future shock.

you have to accept that cars are needed in the modern world

There’s that word “need” again.

Do so many people really “need” to live bloody miles away from where they work?

Do so many people “need” cars for every member of the family and a couple of spares?

Do people “need” to make ridiculous short journeys when they could easily walk or cycle?

The point is that driving is not without cost and that most of the cost is born by people who get no benefit from it – ie indigenous populations who have their resources exploited to manufacture and power it and the entire global population that will bear the cost of climate change if we don’t curb car use.

And if the entire population of the world were to have a Cooper S each?

How does one become as perfect as they?

Start thinking?

You make us out to be even more shallow and vacuous than we actually are.

Alas, I think Edukator is dead right.

Happy to count you as an exception molgrips, but I’m afraid, on the whole…

… this is the reality of the world we live in.

I say treat the people now, it will be cheaper for the NHS in the longterm

If this were true then I would agree with you, but I’m not sure that it is.

The experts seem to be saying that the additional risks from these implants are slight.

And before you say that any risk is unacceptable, then you should ask why people had the implants in the first place as no surgery is without risk – and clearly the people who had these implants were happy with the initial level of risk.

So is teasel your real name?

If there is a known potentially serious health risk then any person who has had them installed should be entitled to have them removed regardless of how much it costs.

The important words there are “if” and “risk”

So if they do rupture – it’s MUCH worse.

Is it?

It is thought around 40,000 British women have the implants. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, however, said it was not recommending routine removal of PIP silicone gel breast implants in the UK.

In a statement it said: “We recognise the concern that some women who have these implants may be feeling but we currently have no evidence of any increase in incidents of cancer associated with these implants and no evidence of any disproportionate rupture rates other than in France.

But let’s take that “absolutely” bit that you wrote

Huh?

I haven’t needed hospital attention in 40+ years, yet I still pay.

Then you are lucky

Pity the poor sod with terminal cancer who used up all of what you paid in.

Don’t take this with the wrong attitude but can you produce any evidence of that…? I’m genuinely interested because, as written, I believe this to be a problem and it seems foolish for me to talk shit in debates with my friends if I don’t have a leg to stand on.

World bank report

Page 18

Funnily enough population growth came up in conversation at the pub last night and someone who usually knows told me that pretty soon (if not already) we will be dipping below replacement rate in terms of birth rate. The main reason for overall continued world population growth rate at the moment is people living longer, not numbers being born.

Seeks.

We’ll have to disagree on that one.

Although obviously western culture does look enticing.

I personally believe overpopulation is a major part but I doubt folk will stop breeding anytime soon…

Global birth rates have been falling for at least the last 50 years.

He did. And he made the decision that 41 was appropitate for the situation. Speed is not the be all and end all of safe driving you know.

If everyone always made the right decision then there would be no RTCs would there?!!

On the whole I’d prefer not to leave appropriate speed to personal choice.

Judging by the way the developing world seeks to emulate western consumerism the answer must be everyone everywhere.

seeks?

Or “has been forced”

Here’s a nice little video for you that explains it all.

Richard WIlkinson talk

Bad luck – but as they say round here “no excuses”

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Here’s my serious advice:

1) Ask for your money back – there should be no problem. If there is tell them that all of Singletrack thinks they should give it back.

2) Never pi$$ them about again because you will find yourself persona non-grata.

3) Get a bank account and keep your money there.

Does the amp go up to 11?

DS

What, you mean that people say different things in different forums, sometimes aimed at different audiences, but that sometimes they say the wrong thing in the wrong place, or it just comes over wrong?

Crikey, that could create a right palaver.

Torminalis,

I think your mate is dead right, but only because anything that anyone says these days that is even slightly off message will get pounced on and blown out of all proportion by the media, Twitterati and MTB forums.

I wouldn’t trust Ben Goldacre as far as I could throw him – he’s a smug lightweight.

Ibuprofen mostly.

Oooooooooh. Get you.

phil.w

Treating people equally is racist?

You’re wasted here, should be in politics

If that was what I said you’d be right.

But it isn’t what I said.

If you think that people ARE treated equally then you’re not very bright/don’t get out much.

thm

I thought you were going for a run?

To coin a phrase used above, that’s just a lazy slur.

No it’s not – and the reason it’s not is that it’s self evident that racism isn’t just what black people do to white people.

Unfortunately lots of people seem to be making that the centre of the debate AS IF racism were something that worked EQUALLY in both directions, which is also self evidently not the case.

Racism black on white is tiny problem

Racism white on black is a huge problem

Pretending that these have equivalence isn’t just lazy, but racist.

I like Diane Abbott, she’s the antidote to Boris Johnson.

It was a slightly silly off-hand remark, but frankly not without a grain of truth – big deal.

The worst thing about it is that all the hoo-ha gives real racists a platform to spout off and try to justify their own clearly unjustifiable opinions.

Just the opposite – really got into it last winter every couple of weeks riding with a mate of mine + up to 6 others who turned up ad hoc. We’d meet up at a pub car park near a wood where there is lots of secret singletrack and burn round for an hour or so, with lots of stops for catching up / pi$$taking – then in the pub for a swift half before heading home. Packed up again in spring when we all got too busy with life, but starting again next week – can’t wait – good fun and a nice change from my usual 2-3 hour steady but hard solo rides.

If people want to collect things, as long as they are legal, what has it got to do with you ?

you dont need to understand it, or approve of it..

Is it OK to point out that it’s a personality defect?

The original purpose of any collection is irrelevant really – just as long as the collector isn’t collecting them FOR that purpose in the case of guns.

What do you think is behind the psychology of collecting?

It might be mostly harmless, but in grown ups I don’t think it is a good thing – it kind of points to the grasping childish id winning out over the more sensible and rational ego.

it doesn’t make it wrong to want them.

Or does it?

That’s the point really. Personally I think that most of the $hit that people “want” these days is stuff that we would all be better off without.

Just because lots of things are legal (or the law is unenforceable) doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea for society.

It’s nonsense.

.44 mag etc..

… the most powerful handgun in the world.

And from this range …

Aren’t we all?

Apparently we are – that’s why I asked.

I’m just reading this book:

Which says that most Americans and Europeans rate themselves “above average” on a wide range of of measures.

It also says that this phenomenon is weaker in many asian countries and may not exist in Japan, and it puts forward the idea that this may be due to the influence of Buddhism.

But they could drive a car through a crowded High St, no?
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

No.

It’s not the same.

You can’t drive a car into a building and hole up there once the cops are after you, and you can’t drive around a wooded island running people over.

Guns are really the only covert, portable and lethal at range weapons.

Sometimes it’s stabbings (we’ve seen that this weekend), sometimes strangling, arson, a hammer….if someone loses it and wants to kill their family, they will do it. There’s a reasonable argument that says that if they’ve access to guns, the perpetrator might add to the death toll, though no-one would sensibly argue that said lunatic wouldn’t commit a volent crime anyway.

I think it is significant that the seemingly increasingly common massacre type events couldn’t take place without guns.

Someone may be able to stab or gas their immediate family, but they can’t walk into the middle of Hungerford or onto an island and take out tens of people that way.

I think there is a grain of truth in what TJ has been saying in that there is an unhealthy fascination with guns and gun culture in our society and a blase attitude towards it.