A.J.Rimmer

Most admirable... put your money where your mouth is. Just like at Villa Talk, there's a Treasury site for those wishing to make donations.

I'm flattered you remember I come from Brasil... though I've spent most of the past year in London due to death, illness and dementia in various members of the family (no sympathy required; they all had very good knocks). I confess I am mildly privileged, but that does not exclude one from wishing the best for the people of this country. I've had my day, and short of nuclear annihilation or the failure of the Brazilian rainy season, it's hard to imagine anything that can detrimentally affect what years I have left. If I still had any inclination to work, your revolution would be great for me... but I do most sincerely assure you that if your revolution comes, it will be you I'm concerned for.

I'm afraid you are still missing the point... the few diehard Nazis (to whom I'm sure you would never accuse me of belonging), are not saying that selfishness is a virtue, but that selfishness is THE great natural reality... and that all the societies that attempted the socialist experiment inevitably collapsed, as they failed to take this overriding element of human nature into account. It's both cheap and easy to say that one aspires to rise above one's basic animal instincts, which is what one of you told me last time... but to imagine the race can do that in a few of decades, following quite literally hundreds of millions of generations of DNA reproduction, is frankly ludicrous. As the Americans say... 'Do the math'

Are you setting up the open goal intentionally ? I'm very sorry, but just like my mummy and daddy before me, I don't believe I was ever rude to anybody in my whole life. Saying that the tone of this site has changed for the better, can hardly be considered offensive. I'm simply curious to know if there was a conscious attempt to improve things, or whether this was a natural process.

I also entirely agree with Brumerican... a fine post. I've posted this many times before, but I repeat again: I thought I'd grown up in a post religious society and remember the first time I ever saw Dawkins on TV, he talked about the believers "hanging on by their fingernails". Trouble is, for a variety of reasons, we are today facing more problems from these morons than we used too, and we tolerate them at our peril. The time has surely come to withdraw our 'respect' for this rubbish they peddle, by pointing out at every possible opportunity, what a bunch of ignorant arseholes they ALL are.

... but jokes aside, did I miss some kind of clean out of the persistently offensive? I find it hard to believe it was a natural process.

Would not the easiest and best solution be to strike marriage out of the legal framework altogether. Just think of all the complications we would avoid... not to mention divorces. Those hellbent on a life of eternal ignorance, such as the Crazy Christians and Moronic Muslims could go through their ceremonies in any crackpot church or mad mosque that they fancied... for the true exhibitionists we could have public matings during the ceremony... that might even get me into a mosque. Gay people could marry in single sex gay bars, or single sex churches, if they preferred... not mosques of course, as all Muslims are heterosexual. Straight people could make their own arrangements, in or out of church, with gays being strictly prohibited. ... and here comes the best bit (apart from never having to disccuss this idiotic topic again)... anyone fancying a bit of poligamy could get married as often as they liked. Everything would be entirely up to the individual. The whole marriage institution is so screwed up already, why not bury it... could anything possibly be better? I think the LIb Dems should put this in their next manifesto.

Against the site rules, again. I apologise for being off topic, but after very few visits to this site over the past couple of years, upon my return I've noticed that, whilst some debates lack a little fervour, there is a distinct absence of the outright bad manners and desire to be rude and offensive, which sadly charcterised much of the earlier contributors. I swear I know nothing about it, but I assume some form of 'clean up' took place whilst I was otherwise engaged. I mention this because it appears that, with the exception of a few diehard Stalinists who do their pathetic best to follow the dicussion, this site's left wing membership is severely diminished... and given the subsequent improvement, I cannot resist drawing the perfectly logical conclusion, that it was the leftie element who were responsible for this earlier deterioration in civilised standards. ..... nothing new there then.

That's absolutely right... the world is full of dozy fuckwits... but if the state would ever stop interfering and bailing these idiots out, then they would not be there for very long. True, they'd probably be burgling your house to feed their families. ... or going to work even

That's absolutely right... the world is full of dozy fuckwits... but if the state would ever stop interfering and bailing these idiots out, then they would not be there for very long.

Sorry, I just couldn't resist quoting my own excellent post of a few days back. But apropos of the above, I went to a rather snooty lunch yesterday for the benefit of Oxfordians, ie those believing Edward de Vere wrote the Plays. (After a life time's suffering for being in love with Aston Bloody Villa, I find I need some happier pursuits). After lunch I talked to a a highly cultured and beautiful French woman, whose English was not only adequate for conversation, but also for Shakespeare... her knowledge of whom put mine firmly into the shade. I asked if she'd come over specially for the lunch, to which she replied 'no' and that her husband had sent her to buy some property in London, following the election result in France.

This may be of no value, but always struck me as strange: Around the time of the Falklands War, I did a great deal of travelling. During the entire period I continually asked people, and these people were generally well informed business types, what proportion of the Islanders were British and what proportion were Argentinian or Spanish. Not a single person I asked, including many whose intellect I admired and opinions I valued, gave the correct answer. Most people thought the islanders were of Spanish origin, and the closest I got to a correct reply was "about 50/50". Like many Brits I never believed we would talk the Argentinians off the islands and proclaimed from Day 1 that we would go to war with Argentina... and much ridiculed I was. I'm both pompous and arrogant enough to believe I know for what we are prepared to fight. I can't help feeling that we somehow allowed ourselves to get bogged down in a lot of irrelevant side issues... such as oil, sovereignty, colonialism, continental shelves, not to mention the island's history... but we failed to force home the single point that trumped all, namely self determination.

My God, this thread has become a non believer's love in! Tell me... I remember reading on VT that the other lot were all deeply devout. Is that really true, or not? If so, I'm in the wrong place and should be straightening them out over there.

One of this site's lefties posted some time back, that reducing their tax rate by 5% was hardly likely to galvanize the rich into extra effort... and I agree. However, I resisted the temptation to reply that perhaps they should have cut it by half... that might make a difference today, just as it made a difference when Thatcher reduced the top rate from 83% to 40%.... when to the horror of the Labour party she actually started receiving more money at the lower rate. I mention this because a friend of mine who sells property in Chelsea and Knightsbridge, says he has already received calls from 2 very rich Frenchmen wanting to buy property here so they can pay 45% in London rather than 75% in Paris. I wonder if the looney left, including the galactically stupid Hollande, will ever manage to understand how the world really works.

Couldn't agree more.

I agree with this... one should not be able to cherry pick the bits one likes. The faithful must take at least some responsibility for the acts of their fellows... from the Inquisition to 9/11. Those voting National Socialist in Jan '33, whilst not necessitating their being executed in 1945, most certainly left them with some share of the responsibility for what happened in the intervening 12 years.

that's kinda flawed .... it would be like someone saying that it's a fact that the Ottoman genocide in Armenia was committed by Muslims and there wasn't a Buddhist, Hindu or Christian in sight ... That's right. The Armenian Genocide WAS committed by muslims... and the only Christians in sight were the poor Armenians they chose to slaughter... surely, this must be regarded as fair comment. One might however tighten the mathematical set by saying 'Tiurkish muslims'. Sorry, can't see any problem with that. The truth is the truth.

I've no wish to embarrass you, for my rightist economic leanings are well known, but that is exactly how it was for me... including my old man sending my mother off to have me christened, just so I could write 'C of E' on the forms.

Thank you Crackpot, I entirely agree with what you say. I would add just one other thing: I remember Jacob Bronowski standing in the mud at Auschwitz which contained the ashes of so many of his relatives. He made the point that the horrors of Auschwitz were not caused by 'evil' men, but by men convinced that they were 'right'. The fact is that the Holocaust was committed by Christians... not a Buddhist, Hindu or Muslim in sight. It was the continuation of a process in which good Christians had taken pleasure for centuries... but this time with the addition of a little teutonic efficiency and 20th century technology. Any human being believing he is RIGHT, because he has a running dialogue with the creator of the universe, is a very dangerous person and one we would be much better off without.

I've participated in many of the religion threads and feel about them pretty much like everyone else, but perhaps this will get people a little more animated. Last week on tv I watched 2 programmes: One was about a Somali girl from London returning to Mogadishu where all the buildings are just burned out shells and apart from round the clock shooting they also mutilate the genitalia of young girls. The second was about Bishop Brady (?) in Ireland and his part in the Catholic paedophile cover up, which in several cases, that he already knew about, allowed the abuse to continue unchecked. Now we all know the Koran does not tell Muslims to spend all day trying to kill people and mutilate children, any more than Jesus told his disciplers to screw as many kids as possible. However, to any thinking person it seems abundantly clear that such outrages are more likely to occur in a religious atmosphere, rather than in a properly educated society. Yet neither programme made the slightest reference to this blantantly obvious fact... presumably to avoid causing offence. Has the time not come to withdraw our tolerance, much less respect, for these warped superstitions, and point out at every possible occasion exactly what kind of filth these believers are peddling?

You're right, the map is taken from a WW1 site where I'm a member. Had no idea it's already been done. Sorry for that, I thought it would be of interest to the faithful, but I won't bother any more.

When I click on my 'clicky, the map comes up... does that not work for others?

Great! This is a map (clicky on above post) drawn by Capt John Strange in July 1916 during the battle of the Somme. I'm doing this from memory, but I think he was attched to the Welsh who were primarily responsible for the July attack on Mametz Wood at the southern end of the Somme battlefield. I'm sure you can find Capt Strange somewhere on the web. Anyway, just north of Mametz Wood you will see another wood marked Bazentin-le-Petit Wood... and running westwards from Bazentin-le-Petit Wood you will see 2 parallel trenches. They are in the top left hand corner of the map. One of these trenches is called Aston Trench and the other is called Villa Trench. The wood is very much still there, but amazingly even the tiny copses still exist and one can see almost all of them when comparing the Capt Strange map to Google Earth.

I've tried to do a clicky for this before, but I'm an IT dunce and it failed. If it works this time, I'll write something underneath it to explain what it is. http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?&app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=84620

I'm not sure if this helps the argument, but I am a bit of a WW1 buff, and have a fair bit of contact with those of a similar ilk. For about 4 years I've known an elderly gentleman who lost an uncle, his father's older brother, at Gommecourt in 1916. This man tells me that his father never got over his brother's death and that it forever clouded his family's life, so much so that he has written books upon this single subject in an attepmt to bring attention to this most appalling incident. Obviously the war had literally millions of tragic losses, but the attack at Gommecourt was particularly costly, senseless and with no regard for the soldier's lives... but even this was not an uncommon occurence... what compoiunded the whole episode was the attitude of those in command and what was thereafter perceived as a cover up. Clearly there are fewer victims of Gommecourt than of the holocaust, and I hasten to add that the old man has never once mentioned the Snow descentants, but whatever the rights of the young Snows, there still remains the question of good taste and more importantly consideration for those who still remember.