pap

The Chinese already are the world's dominant superpower, imo. They own a good deal of the West's debt, make the vast majority of the worlds' goods. They're in pole position. In what respect are they lacking?

Yep, big difference between this, what actually happens, and what the scaremongerers will have you believe, which is that we'll become an Islamic republic ruled by imams.

Agree with the point on segregation. It only breeds ignorance, which we have enough of already, and helps to fuel extremist movements. However, your definition of British values is unsurprisingly, extremely wooly. Unlike the Americans, we've never had a constitution that we can point to and say "this is who we are". Granted, they're actually much worse at multiculturalism than we are, but they at least have a starting point of what they stand for enshrined in law. The closest indicator you can get to a set of British values is a look at the laws this country has enacted. However, many of the laws don't represent shared values - and the fact that many of them are trumped by generic EU legislation doesn't help either in the search for a set of British values.

This game is a potential classic. I'm obviously miffed at the 2 goals. Almost certain to be more.

Caught napping there. We've got a game on our hands. Still think we'll win. We're looking delicious going forward.

2-0 up, looking hungry for a third. Marvellous.

That's disgusting.

Yes, but their provocative methods will seed more militants. Unless they engage with moderate Muslims in a more constructive way, the EDL is only going to create more of what it is fighting against.

As I said before, there has to be give and take if you are joining a foreign culture. The maintenance of tribal culture in and of itself isn't something worth fighting for. It's actually futile. Culture evolves. A hundred years ago, our culture determined that women weren't fit to vote. Spin forward to today, and the country goes nuclear because a football pundit suggests that a woman isn't fit to run the line. How do you decide what to protect? If we hold up your ideal, the right for all to practice their tribal or cultural traditions, the Ku Klux Klan would be piloting trollies around Walmart in full garb. Nazis could visit Auschwitz with swastikas out. Pompey fans would be free to smear their own sh*t on the palaces of the mighty. Granted, these are more extreme forms of tribal culture - but the point remains. Some things can be part of the culture of a subset of society, yet remain totally incompatible with the mainstream. We take it for granted, but a big part of our culture is the ability to assign some kind of visual identity to those around us, even if they are complete strangers. The burka robs us of that and a lot of people are uncomfortable with it. Worse, it anonymises Muslim women in those outside the Islamic community. I would feel that way about any similar outfit. I would not, for example, feel equally uneasy walking around a ninja-populated West Quay on a Saturday; more so if they were getting handy with the shurikens. It'd be my preference to ban pedestrians from wearing of any garment that covers the face.

That's probably where you and I differ, sir. I don't believe that religion should be sacrosanct or have any special treatment, particularly if its practice has an adverse affect on society at large.

It's a massive barrier to communication, which more than anything, is what we need. Legislation also sorts out any cases where women are being forced to wear it against their will. If I were moving to another country, I'd expect to have to make a few changes to fit in with that country's culture. Why shouldn't it be the same here?

In the interests of balance, I actually watched the NN interview last night. From what their guy was saying, Sharia Courts have no legal rights in Union anyway. I'm actually in agreement with you on the burkha, and by implication, the comparatively bad treatment of women. I don't condone the abuse of soldiers, but I can understand it. If I were living in a foreign country that was waging war on England, I would have no time for the military. You're completely wrong on the issue of values. You only have to read this forum to discover that even amongst English people, there are vast differences in values from person to person. Domestic abuse is hardly the exclusive province of Islam, so clearly, we've got people here who think it is okay to hit women, just as I'm sure many Muslim men wouldn't dream of laying hands on one. Some people believe that a society is only as strong as its weakest inhabitants. Others would happily tour council estates with hunting rifles if it were legal to do so. There is vast gradation of values in this country, and as a piece of land that has seen invasions and waves of immigration over the last 1000 years, there always have been. I don't think that you can hold Britain up a champion of values in any event. Historically, we were an imperialist bully of a nation that threw its weight around the world, creating many global problems that still exist today - including the main source of tension between Islam and Christianity. Since the cult of the individual bloomed under Thatcher, much of the nation has become culturally vapid and politically unaware, more likely to vote in the X-Factor than in an election. So tell me, which of the myriad of values available to the modern Briton would you espouse as being common to the whole country? We've tried it your way; we played hardball with extremists. We've burned Catholic and Protestant alike, and British forces killed and locked up Republican extremists for over thirty years. Far from solving the problem, it turned moderates into sympathisers or participants. It took getting around the table for the problem to be even be half-solved. If the EDL spend their time provoking Muslims, how will they be able to distinguish between moderate and extremist? It's a shame they they're so mob-handed in their approach, because it makes them look less credible and trivialises serious debate on some very complex issues. Deportation eh? Provides a great indicator of where you're at on this issue. Deport them to where? If a British Muslim, born and bred, holds extremist views, where are you going to deport them to? On that matter, how would you deport an English person convicted of terrorism? That's the nub really. If you believe you can deport a British Muslim then what you really believe is that "they're not really British anyway". In 2011, we do have a multi-cultural society. It's a bit of clusterf*ck and we've still got a lot to sort out. We're not going to do that with every Muslim looking over his or her shoulder.

Questions for Dune, what is the EDL's end-game? They say it's to educate people on the dangers of militant Islam. What then? What do they expect the populace and politicians to do when they are educated about militant Islam? What would you do about militant Islam?

I wonder if he had his heart set on a move. Must be weird to be 17 and know that top Premier League clubs are looking at you. League One might seem like an anticlimax following all the possibilities that existed during the window.

Yeah, but given the amount of traffic on busy days, how often is your cache invalidated?

In order to allow or deny access to a given user, the server needs to know who that user is. This means that, at the very least, someone will need to log in before the system can determine whether they are "paid up" and whether they should be restricted. And even then, the system will still have to service requests from restricted users who'll keep trying to connect. One of the issues with forum-based sites is data, specifically, the changing of data. Databases maintain indexes. These are much like the indexes you'd find in a book, and provide a quick way to look up specific content. Books are static, in that, once they're printed, neither content nor index change. On busy days like match days or transfer deadline day, tons of new content gets submitted. It's like to trying to create a phone book for Southampton, except with a 1000 new visitors, every hour. And everytime someone wants to look at that book, you need to print it to order. One really easy way to speed things up would be to reduce the page size on forum posts. Don't really know that we need 50 items per page, and at busy times, the server will have less work to do on each page request.

Both deals are big gambles, imo. They could both work out brilliantly, but that's a lot of money to punt on future success.

Yeah, five lads that SSN probably egged on to do it. Weirdly enough, I didn't see any nylon conflagrations in the city centre today, nor did I spot any on the way home.

James Richardson, top of a few fans' wishlist for the job, was goaded into providing a view on the matter during this week's Football Weekly Extra podcast, released yesterday. He said "alleged" a lot in relation to the rumour mill, but had a lot of praise for Andy Keys' skills as a presenter. "Top-notch" and "big shoes to fill", etc. Does make you wonder who Sky can get in to replace him. There's a bit of a preview of Saints v Man Utd too, so it's well worth a listen.

Seemed like a genuine bloke and was committed. Used to buy him in Football Manager for DC/DM cover. Terrible passing, used to get sent off once or twice a season, but very determined! FM gets it right again!

On the OS now.

I suspect the pair of them will now just wander the streets shouting "show us your carpet" to female-passers by.

I await the fruition of the Coalition's policies with a due sense of dread and a big "told you so" in my back pocket. We will see a lot of jobs go this year, especially in the public sector. Less people with jobs means less money flying about, and further contraction of the economy. The big plan to replace those jobs with private sector positions is laughable. With very few exceptions, there is nothing that can be done here that cannot be done more cheaply elsewhere. Manufacturing? The little that is left will soon be on the boat east. Services? If it can be offshored, it already has been. Financial services? Oh yeah, we are good at that. So good in fact, that our failure to apply proper legislation got us into the huge mess that we're in now. In fact, the only way that UK PLC can attract the sort of jobs we need is to massively subsidise any new developments to entice multinationals here - which kinda defeats the point.

I got invited to a large quiz type event by some colleagues of mine at work. Turned out they were massive God-botherers, and the quiz was merely a pretense to listen to someone preach for 45 minutes. As soon as I'd cottoned on to the scam, I walked out and did not return until it was all over. Upon my return, my boss asked why I left and said "Did you not believe the account he gave?" My response was "If God had meant us to listen to b*llocks, my balls would be a lot closer to my ears". In perspective, Pompey bloke doesn't look too bad.

We've been given all the tools to think our way out of this. What we need is the time. That means a lot less time trying to put Company X out of business or making magnate Y richer, and a bit more time coming up with solutions to problems; blank slate if need be.