binners – Member

Will that be due to the resounding success of their booming economy too?

You couldn’t make it up …

It appears that only Italy’s booming organised crime sector has been able to lift the country’s moribund economy out of recession.

Accounting changes across the EU have seen key illegal economic activities such as prostitution and drug trafficking included in a country’s official GDP measure.

As a result, Italy’s economy was said to have risen slightly from a 0.1 per cent decline for the first quarter of 2014 to a flat reading, the National Institute for Statistics, Istat, said.

So back to the original question, why?

This is a byway/RUPP? So the council is responsible for its maintenance?

So if an MTBer seriously injured themselves on one of the drop offs, they could sue the council for not maintaing the track. (like you would be entitled to do if you hit a pothole on a tarmaced road).

So perhaps te council have had a claim against them, or are just covering themselves agains future liability claims.

Sounds ridiculous, but its a possibility.

If we weren’t in the EU we could stop the tax abuse of Amazon, Google, Facebook, Starbucks and Apple almost overnight.

What sort of tax abuse? If you mean the avopidance of paying corporation tax, I think that has very little or nothing to do with being in the EU or not.

We’re not though are we

Quite. CMD could try and avoid paying if he can (thats just business), but don’t go acting all outraged and waffle on about “natural justice” like John Redwood just did on the Today program. Bunch of ****ing hypocrites.

France and Germany are getting rebates. Would our politicians be making such a fuss if the EU had calculated we would get a rebate?

A female friend met the naked rambler in some local woods last year*. It’s a bit like meeting a celebrity – He’s started carrying signed postcards as so many people want their photos taken with him.

I doubt cock-boy’s victim wanted a signed photo. You can’t really compare the two examples.

* It was freezing cold at the time, so you’ve got to admire his balls.

Back in the 17th century they used to shove live cats into Guys, so that they would scream realistically on the bonfire.

Now we get disgusted by people taking potshots at pets.

Evidence that humanity is making some progress? (all be it slowly)

I opened this thread seriously thinking it was about our national drink. Everyday is a school day (as they say).

*almost* tea bagged a number of times (fortunately woken up at the right time) and all involved found it hilarious,

Why would anyone want to slap their testicles on someone elses forehead? let alone find it “hilarious” ?

batwinging in a tent

I have no idea what this means, but it sounds equally dangerous.

I never realised until recently that bagpuss was pink. Only ever saw it in black and white.

Not sure I like him in pink

There are some who might argue that running a country should NOT be about the money you might earn.

this is a first world problem,

Doesn’t make it any less of a problem to the OP though.

reality both disasters were just management failures in ignoring everything they were told on the basis of costs and deadlines

Yes. The Columbia disaster, where the heat shield was damaged on the leading edge of the wing. Apparently several previous shuttle flights suffered worse heat shield damage on launch, but just in less critical areas. So they didn’t think it would be a problem 🙄

Still doesn’t mean its not a flawed design though.

Never take any notice of what anybody types on internet forums.

That was a solid fuel booster issue involving poor checking of seals, causing high-temperature outgassing which caused an explosion, which was visible in footage of the event, IIRC. It wasn’t an inherent flaw in the shuttle itself.

Inherent saftey flaws in the shuttle design included an exposed heat shield, vunerable to damage on launch (which did for the second shuttle disasater) and lack of a realistic escape mechanism for the crew post launch and pre-orbit.

Current spacecraft designs being worked on by SpaceX and Lockheed Martin will be way better than the shuttle, if they ever fly. They just don’t look like sci-fi space planes.

so conducting a prolonged orbital test of a bit of kit, then recovering it and being able to thoroughly examine it is quite a big deal for engineers

They sometimes do long term test on kit by bolting it to the outside of the space station.

Seems quite reasonable that the US military and aerospace industry want a means of doing this that doesn’t involve being ferried up and back on Russian or European space craft and doesn’t need to be manhandled by a lot of foreign astronauts.

Everything is always more complicated than it looks.

Just when you think things can’t get any worse, they usually do.

What’s the problem with dense population centres anyway,

Because its a bit shit living in one.

that’s the way the world is going and it’s better for the planet as a whole.

Its probably better for the planet as a whole if the human race ceased to exist. It doesn’t mean humans would be particularly happy about it.

On the other hand many teachers that would be excellent are overworked in the extreme.

And don’t forget all the NQTs that are used as cannon fodder. Employ ’em because they are cheap and drop ’em in at the deep end. Imagine being a 22 year old with very little teaching time being given full reposibility of a class of 32 little angels. It doesn’t matter if they only last a year because a new batch will be along shortly.

He argued that logically religion should’ve died out as more and more of the founding principles (intelligent design etc) were proved incorrect by science

I don’t think any of the founding principles of religion have been proved incorrect by science. Intelligent design isn’t a founding principle, its just a not very good theory put forward by nutjobs to explain away evolution. (And I don’t think Darwin ever denied the existence of God?)

And all this modern stuff about faith without proof is crap as well. Plenty of bright people saw the existence of God in the world they experienced around them (thinking of Newton, and Bishop Asser (the very bright guy who worked that the world was created in 3000BC)). The Science bit just explained how it all works.

And yes, religion has done a lot of good in the world. But perhaps its time we moved on.

If some day, a group of scientists prooved conclusively that God exists, would it cease to be religion?

Can somebody clarify something for me?

Is a “Roadie” a bike or a person?

Its just i get a bit worried when I see threads like “recommend me a roadie for under £1000”.

They are political opertunists unburdened by the need to have coherent policies that would actually work in power so can just play to the crowd

Well I read the Guardian article somebody linked to earler. Aside from the fact the numbers probably don’t add up, it seemed as coherent as any other party to me.

Why are UKIPs policies any less likely to work than the policies of any of the major parties?

I think this whole issue symbolises how far to the right UKIP has dragged the political conversation in this country.

I don’t think you can lay all the blame at UKIPs door. The Conservatives also have to distance themselves from Labour.

so far as I can tell some of these firms are given/sold the numbers by BT

BT will re-use landline numbers. So the calls you get may be linked to the last user of that number.

The Rt Hon Lord Howard of Lympne, CH, QC said:

“The argument is not about human rights, to which we all subscribe. No, the argument today is whether arrangements such as the European Court of Human Rights and the Human Rights Act actually help to protect such rights or, by the way in which they have operated, bring the concept into disrepute.”

Well he may have a point there.

To me “profit” is a neutral word.

Its how that profit is achieved, and what is done with it, that colours our perception of it.

And it’s rather silly to suggest it is.

Sorry Ernie. Forgot you didn’t have a sense of humour.

Spending money is a choice for some people ?

Well assuming that our actions are not just the result of automatic responses to external stimuli and that humans do indeed have free will, then yes, not spending money is a perfectly valid choice.

Of course, all choices do have consequences. The most serious one in this case would be starving to death. But you would avoid paying taxes, thus proving that Mark Twain was wrong about one thing. 😀

If it was misty, or if you lit a huge smokey fire, the beam would stand out more.

Don’t forget you’re only talking about tax on income here, which is the obvious one.

I wonder what would happen if we abolished all income (and perhaps profit) based taxes completely and just taxed on consumption. You could include all consumption to spread the load – so VAT or duty on things like insurance policies and loans.

We could then choose to pay tax by choosing whether to spend money or not.

But is anyone £26000 worse off because of it? As an individual?

I’m not sure the “we” in the OP referred to individuals, more the country as a whole. And when you add up all those tenners it comes to a lot of money that could be spent on something else.

So it would be nice to get it back (with a bit of profit) sometime.

What absolutely rodgered the financial system was the debt being repackaged, leveraged and repackaged again into obscure derivatives.

Ahh yes, I remeber talking to a guy who was vaugley involved with trying to sort out one of the banks that did go to the wall (might have been Lehmans?). He was quite hot on derivatives and said the bank was selling products so complicated that nobody at the bank actually knew what they were or (more importantly for him) give any idea of a fair value for them.

Vote for me instead. I’ll give you all a million quid, and a unicorn

But do you look like Beaker off the muppets? If not, Farage’s comedy face wins my vote.

loosing your savings is a good point but:

Where would that leave people with mortgages through bankrupt banks?

This is the bit I don’t understand. Where would it have left them? Would the insolvency people have demanded immediate repayment of the loan? (which wouldn’t have happened) or would the debt just have been sold to another lender? (if they could have found one).

Of course it was. We’d be even more **** now if it hadn’t happend. That’s why they did it.

So what would have happend if they’d just let the banks go tits up? I never could work that out.

but I’m speaking up for people who do want a bit more out of life and are prepared to work hard and perhaps take a few risks along the way to achieve it.

What about all those who did work hard, took a few risks and fell on their arses. Couldn’t they do with a government prepared to lend a helping hand?

If I vote for Nige, he’ll give me £600. But if I vote for Dave he’ll only give me £400.

Tight bastard!

Are you good at locking yourself inside a small holdall?

but don’t let that get in the way of bashing politicians you don’t like.

You sound like Dave Cameron’s mum.

There’s no point teaching children a virtually dead language

Steady on, I expect Dave wants them all to learn Latin as well. Or at least all the ones who aren’t oiks.