agree with mefty’s comments. A lot of people brought up atheist seem to have a pretty sparse knowledge of the history of religion, the contents of the bible, and the views of any particular church either historically or today. Consequently they are arguing from false assumptions.

This is a very fair point, and I think we all should understand more about world history, world religions, world politics and world philosophies.

But it does cut two ways. I am still struggling to understand how someone on the other thread, avowedly Christian, seemed to have no knowledge that hell actually had been depicted, preached and painted as a rather hot place with fires, outside the conversations of Atheists…

saxonrider sorry, but this all sounds a bit like special pleading that the wide variety of thoughts/beliefs/origin stories that people have isn’t part of the problem, and that people should accept your… ex cathedra… view of things as being correct… and that anything which diverges from that is an inaccuracy…

ninfan thing is, outside Maths, where proofs can be absolute, axiomatic and eternal, Science starts with the assumption that theories may be wrong and actively looks for that possibility. Religion starts with the idea that a theory is absolutely eternally infallibly true and ignores or fights attempts to critises or prove it wrong.

I know which I prefer!

If the management says jump – you better do it… 😉

yep… the idea that most UK pharmacists can be bothered/know how to provide decent self-help advice or primary care is one of the great myths. there are excellent examples but in my 25 yrs as a GP, I’d say the standard of advice given has gone down, and the commercial pressures on pharmacists in pharmacy chains to sell rubbish has gone up.

You turn up at my surgery asking for that stuff and you will get sent off to buy it yourself. Unfortunately it is often Boots ( who are shockers) sending people in our direction.

Unless you have a nail infection which is causing a biomechanical malfunction in the way you walk, and we have proven with mycology it really is fungal, you can jog on.

Except for pasta shapes derived from bigger sheets, lasagne, canneloni, ravioli etc, I am not sure of the benefit. I think you see more fresh pasta on sale in London than Italy.

vickypea err… then, as I said, your approach has not been exactly ecumenical and your experience of preaching rather limited… Not sure why you think your lack of hearing this from theists proves anything. A look at classical religous art might convince you this isn’t exactly a new idea.

saxonrider you know that thing I said, that you didn’t exactly like, about being a lay preacher… welllll… 😉

princehuggy I do admire the way you do seem stick to the word. Less equivocation. The trouble is that means you will end up believing somethings which are pretty offensive and considered deserving of criticism by most people.

vickypea if you haven’t heard prople talking about the fires of hell you have managed to avoid those from the more evangelical side of Christianity, both in the UK and US.

The range of different views and beliefs of different sects, religions and flocks, usually held with absolute certainty that they[/i] are the ones who have it right, is perhaps the best proof that they are all wrong…

well… princehuggy actually… perhaps it isn’t?

We really do have to judge religions by their public pronouncements and actions on such subjects, and by the way they interpret the bible. A selective approach, with choosing some OT bits as (literally) written in stone, and other bits as just flaky irrelevancies, also smacks of spin and obfuscation.

The truth about what many more sincerely religious people believe is that it is not necessarily very nice to others, and tends, despite the evident example of tolerance set by Jesus, to be rather sadly judgemental… as shown by many churches’ attitudes to divorce, women and LGBT issues…

And even Jesus was pretty straight speaking… “No one comes to the Father except through me.” – which Christian friends interpret to me as – “It’s accept Christ or Burn in Hell – and preferably do it through the correct Christian sect”…

Luckily, most people who claim belief seem to ignore the dogma and doctrine, eg, the Irish popular vote legalising Gay marriage, and the Italians having the lowest birthrate in Europe.

So is what the pragmatic believers actually practice true faith in your eyes? Or are they lost?

Fascinating discussion – which has diverged somewhat from Ton’s issues.

And there have always been girls and boys who went off the rails. For girls perhaps the range of options for going off the rails has broadened…

But yes, we know that GCSEs and A levels have been subject to grade inflation (hence the move in GCSE to grading 1-9 in 2 years, when my younger child and my partner’s younger child do them). But I am also convinced most children work harder and are more motivated with greater expectations of themselves, of their schools and universities, and the future. But this leaves those who come off the rails even more distant from where the others are in life, qualifcations and achievements. Add into that a society built on material aspiration and self-defined celebrity, where many young people seem to live through social media and for today only, and you don’t need to be an old git like me to see issues arising…

not a group at all… but the same concept

8 of cats does countdown

much better than either of the parent programmes

chewkhposts crossed, glad you apologised. Not every thing true is useful or appropriate to say to a man in pain looking for hope.

3 mostly, 5 when some muppet thinks that any criticism or intelligent appraisal of their own faith is aggressive/militant without actually looking at the way their religion behaves/has behaved.

saxonrider always thought some of your threads had a bit of the lay-preacher about them… 😉 What do you take from this poll so far?

Chewkw – inappropriate. post reported.

Ton – we are kind of used to the idea boys grow up, become feral, nasty, perhaps on the edges of the law and drugs, but usually, usually come back to sense by the time they are 25 ish, and then turn out to be fairly strict parents themselves.

But it must be so much more difficult with a girl, and girls play the game at a higher level. Other than warn family and friends, and ask them not to give her money or believe her, so she has to find a different way to live and cannot lie and scam her way through life, I don’t know… I’d be changing the locks. 🙁

As someone who deals with this and the results a lot, I personally would not date anyone with it. Perhaps because I have seen the emotional chaos it can give partners. Perhaps because I am the wrong person to do so. It can be helped with some therapies, but people with it don’t always make easy partners. In fact in retrospect, a previous partner who now seems narcisstic, self obsessed and unable to prioritise other’s feelings probably had it.

However we don’t know her and the situation and your feelings. And some people need to care for someone, and take on projects like this, to be themselves. Could that be you?

The Roland Cube series are quite good simple portable amps – the Bass specific ones have some good effects and amp emulators on board with a tuner and an aux in for playing along with.

Anything bigger is nice but very very penetrating throughout the house.

Thanks to everyone on this thread. It inspired me to get off my arse and upgrade The memory of my late 2009 iMac
Now 12Mb instead of 4… Easiest memory upgrade I’ve ever done. The mac mini was a mare.

Much better. Had slowed to a crawl…

Wish I could speed up my five year old iPad …

mefty lamest Edinburgh defence for ages.

mefty do you want to look at the ACAS document and see how much of it has changed, how it is about enshrining fines on excess hours, whistleblowing etc etc, and how it does still remain cost neutral overall, before you relay more rubbish straight from JHs nether regions?

Muppet 🙄

excellent… glad to see the web version of iPlayer still has volume going up to 11… 🙂

Used mine to copy old vinyl discs… Strangely the kids want to borrow the black discs, not the minidiscs… 😳

Contact British Embassy or local consulate?

Fandangled please… 😉

I put “sad” on a Hospital Consultant mate’s post which was anti-junior Drs strike… the symbol disappeared. Can people delete them? Still friends btw

My perception is the issue came from a community of sellers who didn’t post in the other sections and got upset that their unpaid-for ads were being challenged by people who might actually be giving some dosh to you. And that rather than warning people who might have been so sad as to spoil things repeatedly, a one-size-fits-all-rule was imposed. If you had a PM function here, people could have communicated issues privately, but you don’t.

But it’s your gaff. I’m not complaining, just sharing a perception.

Stoner +1 – nicely put.

The response of Mark et al to posting of justified comments on classified ads threads which might protect other “community” members, and even help people sell their stuff faster, a few years ago, was when I realised that this place was not actually really a “community” in the eyes of Singletrack Towers.

Which is fine – their house, their rules. Still don’t understand why given that the posters of ads aren’t paying for the priveledge… hey ho…

God. I’m divorced and two partners on. But some of this stuff…

If you can’t stand it, sort it… Otherwise treasure your differences. Please.

I saw a patient a few years with a benign lump on her finger…

I reassured her strongly.

“But surely you can give it a name?” she said.

Apparently “Ok, how about Eric?” was not what she was expecting…

took some emollient wordstoget out of that one 😳

Just ordered a breathylser… Is that wrong?

*sits back, opens popcorn/*

Getting back to the OP – Yes – for me the EU is about way more that purely national economic interests. It is about remaing part of a greater europe, without further heading towards a federal model. Embracing and enjoying our neighbours and working together. This may seem naive, and it will always be frustrating.

Thought I got filmed by a street view boat in Venice 5 years ago… Yes they had one. Looked for a year or so afterwards… Didn’t make the cut…. 🙁

legolam thanks…

Good moment for Mr Hunt to pick a fight and demoralise JDs even more, isn’t it?!

dragon Yep. That is registered Drs and includes those not working, retired but still on the register, the increasing number who have chosen to work part-time so provide less overall time…

And BTW the government’s own equality assessment team says the new contact for JDs discriminates against women!

Now if you want to use your mad point-of-view-justifying skillz to look for vacancies and recruitment issues… feel free.

A friend in an excellent local practice told me last year when they were trying to recruit a new GP (and still are) that they had got to the stage where they would accept anyone who owned a stethoscope…

Considering how unattractive some people think being a Doctor is Universities have always been and remain heavily oversubscribed. When you look at career earnings, pensions and job security its a very attractive career.

It might attract you… but people are leaving it, there is a real workforce recruitment and retention crisis, which increasing the number of medical students hugely over the years has not addressed.

And the current students have 5-6 years of student debt over them.

I was speaking to an eye surgeon acquaintance last week. Their service is falling apart. They cannot get adequate juniors and have vacant posts. They are getting no applications for a decent consultant job. Their waiting lists are going up, appointments are being cancelled. This is (beacuse of private practice) potentially a very high-earning speciality with limited on-call call outs. If they are screwed, we all are.

From entering medical school it would take 10 years to get to the Junior Stage and 16 to the Consultant stage.

You will get the NHS you pay and vote for. Well done there!

Many people are still missing the point…

1) The “evidence” that people suffer because of the current way medical staffing is arranged simply isn’t there. The authors of the paper Hunt misquoted have tried, in vain, to put him right.
2) Most of the barriers to 24/7 care come from other services in hospitals, not absence of Drs.
3) The whole contract change is “cost-neutral” and is reducing the pay of junior Drs who work more at the weekends, whilst increasing the pay of others.
4) We face a workforce crisis, for various reasons, and huge recruitment difficulties in various specialities, including General Practice. The behaviour of Hunt and the DoH is alienating and driving away a naturally conservative work force.
5) The changes at the other end of the career pathway to the way pension contributions are taxed, and to the way acute hospitals are organised are driving Consultants and GPs alike into retirement as soon as they can, when expertise and workforce could be retained longer.
6) GPs are earning less than they were before the “new contract” and working much harder, Most consultants have seen most of their private practice disappear (which I think is good) and they are exhausted by having been screwed over as JDs 30 years ago, then doing Consultant-led on call aged over 60.

You don’t have to think Drs are badly treated or badly paid or to sympathise with them to see there is a real practical workforce issue here. The NHS is getting worse in so many ways since 2009-2010, and is at real risk here. Doctors will vote with their feet, or retire if they can.

I do care what he says…

And he actually has done quite a lot given the Congressional opposition he has endured…, or at least some of it has happened on his watch.

Health Care, Cuba, moves towards Marriage quality, Drug legalisation, Financial policy. Gitmo is the major negative,

So – our both our major trading partners think we should stay. We’d have to wait 10 years to get a trade agreement with the US, and a Norway style agreement with the EU would lead to us having to pay as much as we do now and have open borders to EU citizens… And as we are still a manafacturing and trading nation…

And Boris is an opportunist untrustworthy but charismatic muppet.

I can only think of one pro-Brexit person I know personally who isn’t one or more of Old, Xenophobic or a bit thick.

Even if the Plane doesnt come down, bird strikes damage engines and engines aren’t cheap.

Missing the snow, Was in the Dolomites 2 weeks ago.
Some slush low down.
Had the MRI of my knee on Saturday 🙁
But I’ll get it fixed for next year…

Having seen a wife and two partners over 40 get it wrong and get much drunker than they’d expect, and having had to intubate and ventilate someone who did the same, I think age is irrelevant. And did the OPs wife ever claim to have been spiked ? It was just a theory I thought

Under the cupboard ones, ikea are ok. Not done battery though