Current Affairs
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I think this is what the Paleo thread's about.Mod74 wrote:No way I'm missing lunch 30 days in a row. -
There is an important distinction between legal, non-prescription drugs such as tobacco, alcohol etc and illegal drugs, which doesn't appear to have been mentioned yet. They are characteristically different in the manner of their interaction with the user. Whilst tobacco, for example, is a stimulant which simply speeds up messages between the brain and the rest of the body, it does not directly alter the chemistry of the brain in the way in which a drug such as cocaine or marijuana does. That is one very important reason why some drugs are legal and freely available and some others aren't.Brooks wrote:whereby a couple of substances escape criminal classification by mere virtue of having been around for ages and being thoroughly industrialised/politicised. -
That doesn't really cover booze either, which is rather more consequential.
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Anyone who thinks controls have been historically exercised with the ultimate priority of determining a strict list of harms be kidding theyselfs a lil bit I suggest.
Which isn't to suggest health concerns aren't the best reason to crush consumption because they probably are. -
Health concerns might also be applied more rigorously to medicinal drugs before pointing the finger at the recreational stuff.
Hasn't that been the general attitude though? A clampdown on drugs. It's led to a lot more people in jail and not much change besides.Elmlea wrote:We don't bomb poppy fields, all the anti-narcotics stuff is Afghan led. Â We bomb nasty men involved with the Taliban and such things. Â The analogy's mostly true though; in terms of "winning a war on drugs," if people were of a mind to stomach extremely harsh penalties for anyone involved in it, then eventually the supply of willing servants dries up.
Given the choice, I'd rather have everyone running about off their nuts on drugs. It'd still be less mental than that idea.Now, there's a critical difference between an insurgency in a country involving lots of people dying and the drugs trade, so we'll never get to a position where people are able to stomach it, but if the penalty for anything remotely drugs-related was instant painful death, then I'm sure it'd all dry up pretty rapidly. -
Either way they're bombed. Lolbye. -
No free thinking or owt, now drink yer pint.Ross Kemp Investigative Journalist
Skullfuck yourself into a fine mist -
I thought this was worth reading:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/world-affairs/2012/05/exploding-myth-feckless-lazy-greeks
Greeks are lazy. This underlies much of what is said about the crisis, the implication presumably being that our lax Mediterranean work-ethic is at the heart of our self-inflicted downfall. And yet, OECD data show that in 2008, Greeks worked on average 2120 hours a year. That is 690 hours more than the average German and 467 more than the average Brit. Only Koreans work longer hours. The paid leave entitlement in Greece is on average 23 days, lower than the UK’s minimum 28 and Germany’s whopping 30.
Greeks retire early. The figure of 53 years old as an average retirement age is being bandied about. So much so, that it is has become folk-fact. It originates from a lazy comment on the New York Times website. It was then repeated by Fox News and printed in other publications. Greek civil servants have the option to retire after 17.5 years of service, but this is on half benefits. The figure of 53 is a misinformed conflation of the number of people who choose to do this (in most cases to go on to different careers) and those who stay in public service until their full entitlement becomes available.
Looking at Eurostat’s data from 2005 the average age of exit from the labour force in Greece (indicated in the graph below as EL for Ellas) was 61.7; higher than Germany, France or Italy and higher than the EU27 average. Since then Greece have had to raise the minimum age of retirement twice under bail-out conditions and so this figure is likely to rise further. -
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Send messageWhat are they doing with all that time?
Is there anything you can think of where someone has said "you wanna get yourself one of them Greek cars/washing machines/computers/chairs/hats/software"?
I can look around and see lots of things Korea produced with their working hours.
Or is it, as I suspect, that waiters and bar staff work long hours for low money. -
Greece has lots of beaches. They could probably sell an island or two to Germany. Anyway, there isn't much industrial production of anything in Europe any more. Even the big European car brands are made in Brazil now or somewhere.
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Feta, olives...Brooks wrote:Yoghurt. -
Fair does though, I dare say there's some ammo around to suggest Euro membership only gave a stagnating polity a stay of upheaval, the zeal with which Euro captains pushed for enlargement notwithstanding a bloody good grumble.
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Send messageKow wrote:Greece has lots of beaches. They could probably sell an island or two to Germany. Anyway, there isn't much industrial production of anything in Europe any more. Even the big European car brands are made in Brazil now or somewhere.
The UK is a net car exporter, fyi. -
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Send messageAs in the difference between import and export, not cars made of nets. -
UK is probably an exception. Most countries have farmed out or sold off production.
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Germany's had the sense to remain a major exporter, I believe, rather than outsourcing everything. And it's doing better than most economically.
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Fairly sure its car manufacturing has been relocated to places like Brazil though. Still German I suppose.
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Germania couldn't have really outsourced the shit it's now tops for e.g. superspecial component tech, and handily had the broad trad manufacturing base to keep it going.
No other Eurostate can pull that off now cold I'm supposing, hence the software thing and probably the biotech thing when that gets rolling more assertively. But there's much treating of the soil to be done, so to speak. -
Anyway, and more importantly - It's Partytime!
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My shit internet won't load that, but the title suggests I'd probably pass on the finger buffet.
regards
g.manCome with g if you want to live... -
Well at least the catholic church cannot be accused of inconsistency. The position has always been clear: in the hierarchy of sin, abortionists rank higher than child-molesters.
The issue is not that the church should move with the times. Why should it change its principles just to be down with the kids?
No, the problem is that anyone still goes anywhere near the nonce-protecting, women-hating, gay-bashing, money-grasping mediaeval cunts. -
Funkstain wrote:Well at least the catholic church cannot be accused of inconsistency. The position has always been clear: in the hierarchy of sin, abortionists rank higher than child-molesters. The issue is not that the church should move with the times. Why should it change its principles just to be down with the kids? No, the problem is that anyone still goes anywhere near the nonce-protecting, women-hating, gay-bashing, money-grasping mediaeval cunts.
You are so wrong with that statement. Please check your facts before you post something like that.
its medieval
not mediaeval.
flip sake.Sometimes here. Sometimes Lurk. Occasionally writes a bad opinion then deletes it before posting.. -
The controversy represents a PR nightmare for the Vatican. The unnamed girl's mother and doctors were excommunicated for agreeing to Wednesday's emergency abortion yet the Church has not taken formal steps against the stepfather, who is in custody. Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, the conservative regional archbishop for Pernambuco where the girl was rushed to hospital, has said that the man would not be thrown out of the Church, because although he had allegedly committed "a heinous crime", the Church took the view that "the abortion, the elimination of an innocent life, was more serious". -
Jesus Christ!
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Oh bollocks. Predictably, the front-runners in the first free election after the Egyptian Spring Revolution Making Everything Better For All are....
1) The Muslim Brotherhood candidate who rocks an awesome line in woman-subjugating (and a weird beard).
2) A guy who was prime minister under Mubarak.
People really are scared of change aren't they? Or perhaps they just don't trust those left-wing intellectuals to make things stable and whatever. -
Maybe they're scared of changing to what we think they should change to.
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Send messageYeah, that'll be in the forefront of the minds of Egyptian voters.
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