Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

the niquab is not a religious obligation, though many believe it is ..... the koran merely states that women must dress decorously .... however, given the grossly subservient position of women in most muslim households (i'm sure that is still so even in uk), it is the husband who determines whether or not a niquab should be worn

in this instance, the college has a clear and stated policy on facial visibility (what about big, bushy beards?), and it is a (prospective) student's choice whether or not they will wish to be bound by these rules

similar (but different) dress rules will be applied if someone wants to study at a madrassa or yeshiva

Did you see the person that set fire to the class room? " yes they had two eye's and were dressed from head to foot in black "

In the US, you can get a driving licence like this

Check out the height on the driving licence - 6 foot 3 inches.

It must be very easy to claim someone else was driving your car at the time of the alleged offence. You could also swear blind you didn't see the pedestrian you just knocked over!

That can't be real its a joke car licence

Presumably wearing that and @6' 3" - it would have to be a convertible!

George Osborne has held his nerve

Charlie Mullins suggests that under the chancellor's stewardship we might just see the economy return to full health.

Sultaana Freeman, a Muslim, had testified that a state order requesting that she remove her veil -- a hijab, which covers all of her face except her eyes -- infringed upon her right to observe her religion, to which she converted in 1997.

Freeman initially was allowed to wear a veil in her driver's license photograph, as she was allowed to do for a license she got while living in Illinois, but was asked to retake the photo to show her face. When she refused, the state revoked her license.

Here's one for the album

Skinny,

If you think it the truth and think his record good have a look at below and also compound it.

Also, check debt levels.

"The UK economy grew by 0.7% in the second quarter of 2013, up from 0.3% in the first quarter of the year, according to revised figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The figures mean that the economy has now recouped almost half of its total 7.2% contraction during the 2008-09 recession, with output remaining 3.3% below its pre-recession peak."

Hays,

Your last image reminds me of the Masonic Lodge on party night with everybody wearing their medallions and rolled up trousers.

Are you a member of any lodge?

Independence is more of a religion to Scottish nationalists than a political belief


By Graeme Archer Politics Last updated: September 9th, 2013

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/graemearcher/100235011/independence-is-more-of-a-religion-to-scottish-nationalists-than-a-political-belief/




Lord Ashcroft has commissioned one of his mega-polls, this time in Scotland. Opinion polls are always fascinating (said the statistician) … though it's not the headline figures that really shock here, in which there are no surprises. The Independence (i.e. separatist, nationalist) campaign is doomed, though we sort of knew that. Only 26 per cent of voters (way fewer than support the SNP in general elections) will vote against Union. So that'll be the end of it, then?

No, of course it won't. Looking back, I can't remember any period over my entire life when there wasn't the tiresome noise of Alex Salmond bleating on about Scottish Independence. The answer to everything, but the solution to nothing: "Independence" is more of a religion to the uber-nat than a politics. A small event, such as a crushing defeat at the hands of the people, is never going to dent Mr Salmond's (self-) belief system. In the Hitchhiker's Guide to Nationalism, the answer to life, the universe and everything is "more power for Alex".

Which is why the Scots are right: though only 3 per cent would put Independence at the top of their priority list, nearly half believe it's the No. 1 goal for the SNP government.

This made me laugh:


On the Scottish Parliament’s main achievements, 27 per cent replied free prescriptions, 16 per cent free university tuition and 13 per cent free care for the elderly. However, 31 per cent said they did not know and 13 per cent replied "none".



Notice anything about those achievements? What government wouldn't be popular if it made stuff "free".

The SNP always tell us that to bang on about the free prescriptions and so on is to miss the point; we could all (in the UK) have everything for free, if only we shared their mystical Celtic system of values. The poll shows most Scots don't believe this rubbish any more than they want separatism. Asked what they thought would happen under "Devo Max" (the proposed next step when the independence vote fails: Devo Max means all money spent in Scotland would be raised there) the survey said:


Fifty-nine per cent of Scots said taxes would increase, compared to only seven who predicted a cut and 29 per cent who said they would remain the same. The largest group also thought spending (46 per cent) and borrowing (55 per cent) would rise.

In other words, money doesn't grow on trees – you don't have to be canny to Scottish levels to understand this – and whatever the SNP prints on its leaflets, most Scots are aware that the subsidy from England plays a large role in Nationalist largesse over prescriptions and so on.

That's one reason I wrote on Saturday that the Labour case for Union should be about solidarity. If we don't share nationhood, why should income tax be collected on the English poor, and Barnett-formulated into a block grant to Mr Salmond, to help keep him sweet with the voters? In the absence of Union, what bond would exist to provide the political support for any cross-border subsidy?

It's not only socialists who should draw solidarity from their unionism. I don't find Devo Max appealing either: where does it end? Should London have Devo Max? Why should Londoners send money to Newcastle? Cheshire is full of rich people, too: should they be able to go it alone?

Why do we feel, instinctively, that the rich in the UK have obligations to the poor, regardless of postcode? Yet we balk – don't we – at the cross-border transfers of the European type?

Because we're a nation. One nation. The strains within Union come from questions of the West Lothian type, not about how to spend money, which are only the downstream correlates of not tackling the big issue. (We object to Scotland's free tuition because MPs from there voted to introduce them in England, while English MPs have no say in what happens north of the border.)

How do we foster a politics where we're prepared to look out for one another? The answer isn't "42". It's not "independence", either. Though the SNP find it impossible to swallow, the answer to that question is "Union".

Cynic,

Manuel.

Corrected.

--------

You are a man of experience and know France

Have you any experience of driving the road from Pau to Zaragoza (N-330) via the Tunnel of Somport?

(Or anybody else.)

=========

not me, and certainly not by bike ... far too many hills!

Umh,

Debating whether to drive my tank through it.

you could always practice in gaza, lebanon or syria

if I took it to those countries, at this moment in, time I think it would probably end up as my coffin, .

Oh, I see what you mean.

8-)

i'ld vote for that :-)

Be careful of the tap at the door.

You never know who may be there!

Strangely enough, I once went into a house where the owner showed me a coffin he had bought for himself.

No previous owner.