Sheaf Saint

Is it really any wonder that people take issue with the royals when they are that badly out of touch with reality?

Will be interesting to see how Sheff Wednesday get on with their court case against HMRC today. Follow it here... http://twitter.com/bbc_matt

You really are a tool aren't you dune. Why does anti-royal automatically mean communist? Seriously, please explain that to me.

That's because the BBC, in particular, have a clause in their charter demanding that they blow as much sunshine up the arses of the royal family as they can at every possible opportunity.* *This may or may not have any basis in fact.

Whoop-de-doo. Some rich aristocrat is getting married. I really couldn't be less interested. Actually, that's a bit unfair. Although I am very much anti-royal, I do think William is alright. He's obviously had a very cosseted upbringing, but he does come across as a lot more grounded than most of the eccentrics in his family. If we insist on keeping the monarchy then I would rather that the crown was passed straight to him than to his lunatic dad when Liz finally pops her clogs.

http://newsthump.com/2010/11/15/audley-harrison-sorry-for-hitting-david-haye/

Don't forget though, he accused McLaren of deliberately sabotaging his title chances because they didn't want him to take the number one status with him when he moved back to Renault. And I'm not so sure they did treat him that badly. They gave him a car that was capable of winning the championship, he was just miffed that Hamilton was too good to just be a number-two driver.

Didn't you see him shaking his fist at Petrov on the slow-down lap? Seemingly just because he drove well enough to keep Alonso behind him for the whole race.

well, fair play to Vettel really. He has made his fair share of mistakes this year, and a better driver would have sewn up the title well before today with that Red Bull car which was by some distance the best on the grid this year, but he is still very young and exceptionally talented so I think he deserves it. I hate to admit it, as I find him to be an odious, petulant cry-baby; but I genuinely believe that Alonso has been by far the best driver this year. He comprehensively beat his team-mate, who is no slouch himself, in a car that was perhaps not as fast as the RBRs or the McLarens, and if Ferrari can close the pace gap on the front teams with next year's car then I think he will be the man to beat next season. Just one random thing that occurred to me, while we were being treated to the German national anthem for the umpteen billionth time in F1, what would happen at the races in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain if an Israeli driver ever won there????

Wishful thinking? Why would you say that? You never cease to amaze me dune, really. You think that just because there is a report in the Mail that Iraq, and I quote: 'is poised to become a tourism hotspot' that life is now better for the everyday people living there? Just because a few small areas have been made safe enough for some middle-class foreign sightseers, ordinary life is now better for everyone? The estimated figure for Iraqis killed as a direct result of the invasion is around 600,000. Saddam may have been a despot, but I would wager my house that the large majority of those people would still be alive today had the invasion not taken place. But hey, that doesn't matter, because privileged westerners can now go on a Daily Mail tour of some ancient monuments which would never have been allowed under the Ba'athist regime. I think you need to re-examine your priorities dune.

Oh come now, be fair - it really was Petrov's fault after all. No... wait... Yeah you're right. Alonso is a ****

The reason you don't see news reports about it any more is because it now happens on such a regular basis that it isn't even newsworthy any more. The country may have a democratically (and i use the word in the loosest possible terms) elected government now, all safe inside their emerald city bubble; but throughout the rest of the country there is a religious war going on that has only surfaced since the 2003 invasion. Getting rid of Saddam may have been a juts and noble cause, but I can't help but think he may have actually been right when he claimed that the only way to rule Iraq is with an iron fist, as most of the secular violence was kept under the surface during his reign. Then there is the ironic fact that Al-Qaeda are now operating in Iraq because of the occupation (there is no piece of credible evidence that they even existed in the country prior to the invasion after all) and the mass unemployment due to the fact that most people were employed by the government before the 'intervention' but now have no jobs because a lot of the government agencies were disbanded by Bremer's interim administration, and most of the government owned factories were looted and had no funds to re-build so were forced to close. So I really am struggling to understand how, unless you are a Haliburton employee, you can possibly arrive at the conclusion that the invasion of Iraq 'worked out well'.

Although he was universally ridiculed on here, maybe he was right all along???

I don't have all the answers. It is a difficult situation and difficult to know what would be the best way forward for the Burmese people. My initial gripe was that dune seemingly only cares about the potential profits for UKPLC if Burma were to somehow remove the military junta and install a democratically elected government; whereas I believe that, much more importantly, such an event would bring an end to the misery and suffering of the oppressed working classes of Burma. I guess that highlights perfectly the difference between Dune's world view and my own. I care about humanity, and dune apparently only cares about profit.

Benefits to who? Like I said previously, it is the poor and the working class people of any country that are always the last to see any benefit from the mineral wealth. Look at Nigeria, Iraq, Sierra Leone... the list goes on. If, as dune is advocating, foreign mining companies invest in Burma with its current government still in charge, the chances of the working classes actually seeing any benefit from that are virtually nil.

They already have a military junta and the people of the country are suffering badly for it. The point I am making is that dune believes that only foreign plundering of their mineral resources will help the Burmese people, but historical experience tells us that when multinationals get their hands on resources in poor countries, the people of that country are the very last people to benefit from it (just look at the oil-drilling in Nigeria if you want an example).

Yeah, because it's really helped them so far hasn't it. The capitalist system only works by exploitation of the already poor, and this will always be so. Forgive me if I don't share your belief that capitalism will ultimately prevail for the good of all mankind, because it most definitely won't.

Is that really all you care about dune: the mineral wealth that can be exploited by other nations for their own purposes? Do you really care nothing about the human rights abuses and atrocities that are carried out by the military regime in Burma? Do you actually have one single shred of human decency in you?

Hang on a sec mate. Please don't mistake me for one of the reactionaries who wants to "kick 'em all out". Read my posting history and you will realise that my position is diametrically opposed to that. It was Smirking_Saint who put forward the fact that Mohammed is now the most common boys name in Britain, as if that were a really bad thing. I was merely trying to put it into context a little bit. I can't find any statistics to back this up, but my bet is that for every child born to a Muslim family, the percentage of them being named Mohammed is much, much higher than the percentage of non-Muslim kids being called Oliver, or John, or Jake, or Charlie etc... I'm not using this as a stick to beat Muslims with; I'm just trying to show that the DM report about the amount of kids being called Mohammed is not as 'bad' as they and other people, like Smirking_Saint, are trying to portray it.

The other point here, of course, is that Mohammed (or other variant thereof) is an extremely popular name amongst Islamic families due to the religious connotations, and the percentage of children born to Muslim families being named Mohammed is probably a damn sight higher than the percentage of caucasian children being called Oliver. All this tells me is that Muslim families are less imaginative when it comes to naming their children.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Jn-LeUC-BnU/TNkH05BYkhI/AAAAAAAABkY/0xYW73_UuiM/s1600/untaken_name+IMG_20101105_175841.jpg I truly despair about the mentality of some people, I really do.

How do you know that the 13% of people polled in this survey in July 2006 also supported the remembrance day protest? Again you're making wild assumptions. In fact, how do we know what question these 13% of people were asked? Because that is extremely important IMO. Being asked "Do you believe that the 7/7 bombers have a valid grievance against western foreign policy?" is a world away from being asked "Do you think the 7/7 bombers are heroes who were completely justified in their killing and maiming of innocent civilians?"

That still doesn't show that the demo went ahead with the approval of Muslim leaders dune. Nice try though. Incidentally though, I notice the line in the article you quoted which states "The prime minister told MPs it was down to moderate Muslims to stand up to extremism and tell those with "grievances" against the West they were wrong."... Are they 'wrong?' we may not agree with their methods of making their point, but to dismiss their grievances as just plain 'wrong' is arrogant and dangerous IMO. Has anybody ever stopped to consider the fact that maybe they have a legitimate complaint?

Dune, if these people were really determined to go ahead with their protest, as it seems they were, do you really think they would actually give a toss if their local imam raised objections about it? As usual, you are highlighting the actions of a few and using it to paint a picture of the many. If you can show me evidence that this demo was condoned or endorsed by any leading members of the muslim faith then please do. Otherwise, stop posting your frothing, alarmist claptrap.

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