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.

Islamophobia is just a form of paranoia. Very few Muslims care about the politics of islam. I know a lot of Muslims, some Algerian, some Turkish, some Egyptian, some Pakistani and a few other nationalities. At least three quartets of them are not practising Muslims. Of the rest, none of them are anything but peaceful. This type of paranoia has appeared before many times. In the East End, the Huganots came here a couple of centuries ago, Jews came to the same streets such as Brick Lane a hundred Yeats ago. Those street are now home to Bangladeshis and Brick Lane has a huge arch across the road announcing it as Bangla Town. We had the same type of influx of Irish and West Indians. Irish Protestants claimed that Catholics killed babies and drank their blood. That same story was told about the Huganots and the Jews.

Haystacks

Its 2014 now

Christians certainly used to advocate the killing of non believers. We are living in the 21st Century but we are dealing with people from third world countries who's stage of education and development is equivalent to ours a couple of hundred years ago.

Time will make adjustments. As muslims increasingly live in the West, so their offspring drift away from their religion and culture.

Im with alders on the present debate.

Been on TV todays news that our politicians need to be more sensitive when talking to muslims or more fighting in Syria will come back as terrorists.

More sensitive for f-cks sake what about MPs well tory MPs being more sensitive towards the needs of the poor.

Do you not think a lot of these young British muslims have a chip on their shoulder given that they have British passports and birth certificates , what the hell makes them a special case !!!!!!!!!! We bend over backwards in this country to cater for the needs of all ethnics.

HayStack, I agree with your last post, but disagree with previous ones.
I lived with them for 80% of my life. I am confident about what I say - simply, I know them better.

http://english.pravda.ru/russia/politics/03-03-2014/126997-russia_ukraine_crimea_crisis-0/

oops

Boris Johnson: "children being ‘taught crazy stuff’ at home should be taken into care"


I quite agree.

With a bit of luck the Con party and the Kipper party wouldn't have a future.


8-)

Warren Buffett: Last Thing You'd Want to Do Is Hold Money in Times of War - CNBC
Monday 3 March 2014


Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffett on Monday when asked about what's happening in the Ukraine said that the "last thing you'd want to do is hold money during a war."

"I will still be buying stock," he said on CNBC. "The one thing you could be quite sure of is if we went into a major war, the value of money will go down. That's happened in virtually every war that I'm aware of," he said.

"During World War II, you know, the stock market advanced."

"American businesses are going to be worth more money," he said. "You're going to be a lot better off owning productive assets over the next 50 years than you will be owning pieces of paper, or I might throw in Bitcoins."

Well you can always count on Boris to worsen the situation.

Yet another posh boy 'way out of touch'.

Russia has issued 3:00am deadline for Crimea to surrender or there will be a military assault. All military installations will be attacked.

What times that here Hays????

Ill be watching SKY news.

Haystack - was that 3.00am GMT?

Amazing how a specific statement (vide the BBC feed at 15.00 this afternoon) quickly gets developed and passed on.

Truly the first casualty of war is the truth.

Yes. I think it is 5:00am like cal time.

Wonder if any big ordnance really will be discharged or whether it is all just posturing.

... and just how much Russian gas exported to Europe travels via the Ukraine is worth bearing in mind.


That has been tinkered with before.

Just to give a bit of balance in view of all this War mongering......

Monday, 3 March 2014

Magic Monday

"Dear Sir,

I wanted to let your readers know about Mark Wood.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/disabled-mark-wood-starved-death-3194250

Mark was 44 and suffered from severe mental health problems. Amongst other things, he was diagnosed with aspbergers and OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder)

Last year, Atos Healthcare, the French IT company who carry out Employment & Support Allowance (previously incapacity or "sickness" benefit) judged that Mark was fit to work. They didn't consult his GP who has since said that if he had been consulted he would never have recommended that Mark could work.

His ESA was stopped along with his housing benefit, leaving him just £40 per week to cover all his expenses. Food, shelter, warmth.

Mark died of starvation just 4 months later. When they found him, there was just a banana and a tin of tuna in his home.

It is the UK and the year is 2014. Yet people are starving to death, alone in their homes. They do it discreetly, out of sight, but they die just the same.

If Mark was an isolated case, then maybe, just maybe, we could forgive his tragic loss. Maybe the pain his family feel would have been less crushing.

But he's very far from an isolated case. Stephanie Bottril, Karen Sherlock,
Mark and Helen Mullins, Denis Jones, Jacqueline Harris, David Barr, Elaine Lowe, Elenor Tatton, Linda Wootton......

The list goes on and on now. Every day a different death linked directly to government social security "reforms" yet we, the public, seem determined to look away.

I never thought I'd see the day when I had to warn people, right here in the UK, that often vulnerable sick or disabled people are dying and no-one cares.

In 2011/12, 10,600 people died within just 3 months of being found "fit for work" by the DWP. Since then, they've refused to publish further statistics at all.

When this government speaks of "welfare reforms", I'm fairly sure readers don't assume that they will cause tens of thousands of deaths. I just hope we all wake up soon, before they are joined by thousands more

Very best

SueMarsh"

Not just BBC reporting deadline. Sky, Reuters, AP all reporting it.