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.

And not swayed by media interpretation!

Another end of the world story/scare up in smoke....



Ebola in Africa: This is how much of the continent is really affected





Ignorance and confusion have surrounded the crisis in West Africa


Antonia Molloy Author Biography

Tuesday 04 November 2014


Ebola is an on-going health crisis – but in many instances fears have escalated out of context.

In response, British chemist Anthony England has created a map of Africa for the “geographically challenged”, which clearly highlights the three West African countries severely affected by Ebola.

Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are coloured in red, green and blue, while the rest of the continent remains blank with the slogan “No Ebola” stamped across it.

The map also defines exactly what is meant by “No Ebola”. That is “no current confirmed patients” and “no current confirmed infectious outbreak”. So, for example, while Mali reported a case it is still not included in the graphic because the two-year-old victim tragically died from the disease.

In short, only “problem countries” are shown.






More: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/ebola-in-africa-this-is-how-much-of-the-continent-is-really-affected-9838206.html

Guy Fawkes, Islamists, converts, and terrorism: some things never change

The gunpowder plotter was a convert to Catholicism - and even now, religious terrorists are often drawn from the zeal-filled ranks of the converted





Illustration showing Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators

Illustration showing Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators Photo: Classic Image / Alamy







By Dominic Selwood

3:04PM GMT 05 Nov 2014





It is the 5th of November once more, which can only mean it is time to burn Guy Fawkes again (and Pope Paul V, for those in Lewes marching under their traditional “no popery” banners). But, as the faggots are kindled tonight, it is worth remembering who Guy “Guido” Fawkes really was.


Despite a popular belief that Fawkes was an Italian extremist, the fact is he was an entirely home-grown terrorist from the Stonegate area of York. He was baptised into the Church of England in 1570 at the beautiful St Michael-le-Belfrey by York Minster, but when his mother was widowed and married into a staunchly recusant family from the West Riding, Fawkes converted to Catholicism.


In his early twenties, he sold up his land and went to fight for his new faith in Spain’s war against the Protestant Netherlands. According to a school friend, he became “highly skilled in matters of war”, yet remained devout, calm, “pleasant of approach and cheerful of manner, opposed to quarrels and strife … loyal to his friends”.


However, back in England, a group of extremists planning revolution desperately needed military skill. After careful enquiry, they made a beeline for Fawkes, whom they persuaded to lend his nerve and knowhow to their cause. The mastermind was Robert Catesby, a hothead who had grown angry at the treatment of England’s old Catholic families under Elizabeth I and had no faith that things would improve under James I. Having failed to persuade the Spanish to invade, Catesby’s new plan was simple: to bomb the Lords chamber at the opening of Parliament, kill the King and his most prominent courtiers, then stage a revolution.


However, one of the plotters sent a warning letter to Lord Monteagle, a Catholic peer: “I would advyse you … to devise some excuse to shift youer attendance at this parliament, for God and man hath concurred to punishe the wickedness of this tyme”. Unfortunately for the plotters, Lord Monteagle took the letter straight to court, triggering an immediate search of the vault under the Lords’ chamber. In no time, the royal guard found Fawkes, matches, a watch, and 35 kegs of explosives.


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Despite Fawkes’s fortitude under torture — which left a deep impact on all — the game was up. Although he insisted he was “John Johnson”, they eventually found his real name. Separately, the other conspirators were rapidly unveiled, along with the enormity of their plot, which would likely have killed not only the King and his closest advisers, but everyone in the Lords that evening. Despite our obsession with burning Fawkes, he was actually sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, although he escaped the harrowing punishment by leaping off the high scaffold in Westminster’s Old Palace Yard and breaking his neck.

King James I, whom the gunpowder plotters meant to kill

The story is fascinating for many reasons, not least because Fawkes was a convert to Catholicism, and it is an age-old adage that converts are often among the most militant. And there are striking parallels today, where the same dynamic is again at work. One of the murderers of Fusilier Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich in 2013 was a convert, as was the fanatic who killed a Canadian soldier earlier this month. A former Taliban recruiter in the West, who now works for the Canadian government, has also weighed in, highlighting that today’s Islamist extremists specifically target converts — they often know little about the religion and their enthusiasm can easily be subverted. No one should therefore have been surprised this summer when two jihadis from Birmingham who spent eight months fighting in Syria had bought Islam for Dummies and The Koran for Dummies as their airport reading,

Although Guy Fawkes was a minor figure in Catesby’s bomb plot, history has made him its poster boy. King James I’s triumphant 5th of November “Gunpowder Plot Day” bonfire celebrations have remained enduringly popular, and Fawkes has been promoted to the central protagonist. But when we incinerate Fawkes again tonight, it is worth seeing him in context, and reflecting on the tide of young converts of all faiths who are perennially sucked into extremism.

If I was being responsible, I would end by adding that the good people of Lewes should probably now stop burning an effigy of Pope Paul V every year and put away their “no popery” banners. These are yesterday’s sentiments, and have no role in modern Britain. (If it was happening in Northern Ireland, it would doubtless be banned immediately.) But then, speaking as a deeply fuzzy and laissez-faire English Catholic, pope-burning is a colourful, historic, and faintly hilarious English tradition, and we are losing far too much of our cultural identity nowadays. So, to all of you in Lewes tonight: burn on! and let’s be thankful that these days we can laugh about it all over a mulled wine or two and a few sparklers.

http://order-order.com/2014/11/05/new-statesman-turns-on-ed/

The New Statesman was the only publication to endorse Ed Miliband for the Labour leadership in 2010. Today the magazine turns its back on Ed, arguing “that since then Miliband has failed to find an authentic voice to connect with the electorate”. Jason Cowley writes in this week’s editorial:

“Miliband is very much an old-style Hampstead socialist. He doesn’t really understand the lower middle class or material aspiration. He doesn’t understand Essex Man or Woman. Politics for him must seem at times like an extended PPE seminar: elevated talk about political economy and the good society…

Miliband does not have a compelling personal story to tell the electorate, as Thatcher did about her remarkable journey from the grocer’s shop in Grantham and the values that sustained her along the way or Alan Johnson does about his rise from an impoverished childhood in west London. I went to Oxford to study PPE, worked for Gordon Brown, became a cabinet minister and then leader of the party does not quite do it. None of this would matter were Miliband in manner and approach not so much the product of this narrow background…

Miliband is losing the support of the left (to the SNP, to the Greens) without having formed a broader coalition of a kind that defined the early Blair-Brown years. Most damaging, I think, is that he seldom seems optimistic about the country he wishes to lead. Miliband speaks too often of struggle and failure, of people as victims – and it’s true that life is difficult for many. But a nation also wants to feel good about itself and to know in which direction it is moving.”

Usually reliable as a loyal mouthpiece for Labour’s rapid rebuttals, today’s Staggers cover story from George Eaton has some source quotes of a less helpful kind:

“Morale has never been lower,” one shadow cabinet minister told me [ . . . ] No MP I have spoken to has argued that the Labour leader’s parlous ratings aren’t a problem or dismissed them as a “Westminster bubble issue”. “We’re all very, very concerned. The reality is that whilst we don’t have a presidential system, people are thinking increasingly about who they want to be the prime minister,” one shadow minister said. He went on to describe a “sobering moment” in which a voter told him: “You’ve been a fantastic MP, but I’m not going to vote for you. Because Ed’s not prime ministerial…

One senior MP suggested that Miliband should abandon Westminster, save for Prime Minister’s Questions, and go on a rolling tour of marginal constituencies. “The 200 to 400 voters in key seats who say on the doorstep that he’s the problem, he could win them round by talking to them.” But he doubted whether Miliband had the will to do so. “His confidence has gone. It’s like a light’s gone out,” he lamented.

The danger is that Ebola mutates into something else......mankind must be on its guard as to nature's ruthlessness essence as to radificalized species (that includes ourselves)....

by TOM PETERKIN







Published on the
05 November
2014
22:19











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A pithy tweet was posted yesterday by the Stirling University Scottish Socialist Party. “Scottish Labour is still the party of the left,” it said. “Lamont left, Sarwar left, Darling left. Nothing left.”


It was a biting comment on the state of a Scottish Labour Party which this week was reeling from yet more dispiriting opinion poll findings.

An Ipsos MORI poll which had predicted an apocalyptic outcome for Scottish Labour at Westminster went on to reveal that 57 per cent of Scots said they would vote for the SNP in Holyrood’s constituency seats. With Labour polling just 23 per cent, these are troubled times for the party that once regarded political control of Scotland as an inevitability.

All is not lost for Labour, however. If this leadership contest can reinvigorate Labour, a recovery may take hold. While the main focus will be on the main contest between Jim Murphy, Sarah Boyack and Neil Findlay, it is worth keeping an eye on the race for the deputy leadership.

Pressure was put on Anas Sarwar to quit the deputy leadership – the gentle arm-twisting was to ease Murphy’s bid for the top job. As Sarwar and Murphy are both MPs, it would have sent the wrong message to have both the leader and deputy leader of Scottish Labour looking after the party from Westminster.

Mr Carson

You are the crappiest 'Copy and Paster' on MoneyAM. :-(

Do us all a favour - use the posting 'Edit' facility - or maybe even the 'Delete' key on your keyboard - and Delete/get rid of some of those unsightly blank spaces in your posts.

Please!

You are just bashing 'anything' down in an 'anyhow fashion'!

No sense of humour Exec that's your trouble :0)

Ok point taken. Nice looking trade by the way on STJ

What a wanker...


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2822894/David-Cameron-says-wants-Britain-s-Asian-PM-lifetime-warns-lack-diversity-holding-country-back.html

Do I hear echoes of John Reid,

Tory and UKIP ideas of cut backs!

Why shouldn't we have an Asian PM?

The polls now are showing leads of -1, 0, 1 and 2 day after day. These figures are within the margins of error. This means that Labour and Conservatives are neck and neck. UKIP is stuck at the zero MPs won and the Libs should do better than expected by the polls.

The trend has been towards the Conservatives for months now. Hopefully that will continue. It won't need much of an increase to give them the highest number of MPs.

Nothing to do with an Asian pm, more to do with shameless vote cadging.


Not that it will do him any good.

from today's guardian .......

Luxembourg tax files: how tiny state rubber-stamped tax avoidance on an industrial scale
Leaked documents show that one of the EU’s smallest states helped multinationals save millions in tax, to the detriment of its neighbours and allies

lots more of course

HMRC vs Ingenious
the investment firm is due to challenge the demand in a tax tribunal starting on November 3. ....... He said Ingenious had pressed for its case to be heard as soon as possible in the face of attempts to delay by HMRC

That's what MPs do. They try and appeal to identifiable subgroups of the population and curry favour with them. I would be annoyed if he wasn't doing that. Miliband does the same thing as do the others. It is the same with any public issues. MPs are always looking for issues to take a stand on especially if they can support the popular view.

I am always surprised that MPs vote against capital punishment when there is a clear majority of people in favour of it.

All legal tho c.


http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/05/-sp-luxembourg-tax-files-tax-avoidance-industrial-scale

Amazon used Luxembourg to avoid charging vat. It is all legal. If countries want to change the rules then I am sure they will.

It charged vat at the going rate, but paid it over at the Lux rate.

All legal supposedly.