ender4

well, you have to start somewhere.... and i would hope the government has more spine than to just start with the one highlighted in newspapers. Hopefully, they have analysed & either picked those issues that are most important, or that are easy to solve.

i dunno.... wish i did. - Educate the kids properly so that they don't think having a baby is a career choice? - give better s3x education, rather than just handing out condoms & the pills? - make parents responsible for their teenage kids? - more discipline in schools? - teach more about responsibilities rather than about rights? - i believe that rights only come after responsibility, so maybe enshrine that in law

are you a parent ? no. do you have kids in child care ? no. do you knwo how much it costs ? not really, but i guess its not cheap. or do you get your views about single parents from the hate papers ? i try not to form my views from just one source, but yes newspapers will influence me slightly. do you have proof of this ? not really. mass numbers doing it ? i guess not lots, but enough to try & stop it happening. a few always will, a few will illegally drive fast or not pay their taxes or work in the black economy, shall we crack down on them because the same hate papers hate speed cameras eh ? yes, crack down on all forms of scamming the system. i guess its not one issue, the whole benefit system probably needs looking at from top to bottom. of course, it needs to be fully thought out, fair & handled properly.. which is why i'm sure it will be a government failure!

this has gone way off topic onto a debate about benefits... anyone got any good economic news? and for me house prices falling is a GOOD thing

Why? So a single mom should have less rights? - A wrong move IMO a single mum shouldn't have any more rights than a married couple. but its more the cutting of housing benefit that i agree with, whether they are single mums or not. i don't know the ins & outs of the welfare system, but i just think that ALL benefits should have a time period... you should be able to keep on claiming for ever.... a year or two of continious benefits is more than enough.

or to turn it around the other way, what do you do with the teenage mums who got pregnant because they wanted a council flat or their mates were getting pregnant, and they have no intention of working now or ever. i don't know what we do in either case... but maybe this is a step in the right direction.... even if all the mums have to do is go & pick litter, at least they are doing something to earn their benefits.

I think the proposals for housing benefit (which was actually reformed just 8 months ago) are separate to the issue of lone parents working. :winkold: It is a reform for housing benefit (now the LHA anyway) and also a reform for benefits for lone parents. ah well, i agree with both of them. i've thought for ages now that less money should be spent on benefits in total, and they should benefit those people who deserve them the most. Priority should be: people who have worked but are made redundant/can't find a job families rather than single mums housing benefit should only be a short-term stop-gap rather than a long-term solution. in one way or another, the government is going to have to try & cut benefit spend, otherwise the country is going to be bankrupt soon.

The mortgage help plan is a stupid stupid idea. The cutting of housing benefits for single mums is a great idea (IMO). as for helping middle-class voters, well i suppose there's an election coming next year!

:? why? surely you want to win the competition, and therefore meet as few big teams as possible?

i think we aim for 1st place in the group, and therefore play a strong-ish team. maybe rest a couple of people max.

That. Exactly that. 100% agree. too many reasons to list. but what i think the European Union needs to do, is to do less, but do it better. Cut payments right down by member states, cut red-tape, cut regulations, cut amount of people working for the EU, cut down their ambitions, cut down new member states. Focus on overall unity, the big picture, and not get involved in every stupid little aspect of national life.

i've heard about these blue people living in their cave.... do they play football or something? 8) are they like the smurfs?

its surprising that many more people think things have got better than worse. surely law of averages should mean for 50% of people it will have got better, and for 50% of people it will have got worse. (excluding those who it has stayed the same). :?

It because films age as technology moves on. Music stays pretty much the same, and so you can listen to music from the 1960's and it can still sound good. The song could have been made in any year. if you watch a film from the 1960's, you know you are watching a film from that decade. Things have moved on so much, that something that was 'state of the art' is now just laughable. also fashion, language, themes all change with time. As someone else pointed out, movie audiences are more demanding nowadays, which means that serious money needs to be spent on sets, editing, etc...

:shock: but why???? :? stick with standard chicks with chick-stuff, not confused ones.

ok, i have thought of a couple of films which are old (to me), and might benefit from a new version. top of my list is: ROBOCOP also maybe: Ghostbusters The Goonies Brewsters Millions

eh? i don't know any of those films, so have no desire for any to be remade. i'm not sure which film i would want remade - nothing that i really like, as that would spoil the film... so it would need to be something that should have been good, but turned out to be a disappointment. let me think about it, and i'll come back to this thread in a bit.

Last 30 years. Villa Everton Winner 1977 4 9 V 1978 8 3 E 1979 8 4 E 1980 7 19 V 1981 1 15 V 1982 11 8 E 1983 6 7 V 1984 10 7 E 1985 10 1 E 1986 16 2 E 1987 22 1 E 1988 Div 2 4 E 1989 17 8 E 1990 2 6 V 1991 17 9 E 1992 7 12 V 1993 2 13 V 1994 10 17 V 1995 18 15 E 1996 4 6 V 1997 5 15 V 1998 7 17 V 1999 6 14 V 2000 6 13 V 2001 8 16 V 2002 8 15 V 2003 16 7 E 2004 6 17 V 2005 10 4 E 2006 16 11 E 2007 11 6 E 2008 6 5 E

i'd hope you were right, but i think a lot of people would be more interested in who's gonna win X-factor and whether Man Utd win the league for the millionth time. A lot of people probably wouldn't believe that the future of the country was at stake, people would say well there's a war in Europe, doesn't affect me... and they'll stay in denial till thebad guys DO turn up at their house. We are a very apathetic country nowadays i think. Of course, half the population was an over-exaggeration, but i think maybe 25% might refuse or just ignore the situation.

It conscription but they aren't going to put you in prison, as i'd guess about half the population would refuse to go & fight. So in effect, its your choice.

of course there's a choice. You either refuse to fight, or hide in a cellar, or sign up. You might be a pacifist, or you might be too scared, or maybe you just can't be bothered. or you refuse just on principle that the goverment shouldn't force you to die for your country.

A new Hitler-figure has risen, he has taken over all of Europe by force, and the UK is the only European country which is still standing free. Nuclear weapons are irrelevant due to the nuclear shields protecting each country. Other mass weapons are also largely neutralized by the shields. USA, China & Russia were largely wiped out by nuclear weapons during World War 3, before the nuclear shields were invented. Our armed forces are severely depleted, and it seems that the UK is next to be invaded. The government 'would strongly recommend' everyone of suitable age to sign up to fight a ground war. Will you fight & potentially die for your country? (Assume its your own country in the same situation if you're not from the UK). edit: changed wording "requires" to "strongly recommends"

I've just been told by my work that due to extreme economic circumstances, i will earn £6,900 less in 2009, than current!!!! :evil: not much i can really do or say about it, not the right time to be looking for a new job. My salary will go back to normal in 2010 apparently... so i suppose thats better than nothing.

and currently it does none out of the 3.

I take ir from your comments that you are a criminal then? Prison being so nice and all? Because I'm shit scared of doing anything that might get me locked up. yes, i'm a criminal currently in leicester prison. thats why i can spend so much time on here, with my 4mb broadband connection in my cell. The mean screws only let me use it 8 hours a day maximum though, and they filter out the child p0rn sites. b&st&rds. seriously though, it might be horrible to a lot of law-abiding people, but to a lot of these criminals who don't have much in life, and don't have anything to lose, then its actually pretty ok. there was that tramp in manchester in the newspapers a couple of years ago. everytime he got released from prison, he'd commit a crime straight away so he could go back in. he said it was so nice in there compared to living on the street, that he didn't want to leave!!!! anyway, i think the thread has digressed from talk of Death Penalty to prison conditions. so i say... hang them all!!!!