chrisp65

the Indie

take your pick from 4 or 5 articles here....

I think that to challenge a 'state' visit that is charging an entrance fee and offering merchandise (vatican bunting at £12 for 10 metres anyone?) is probably the one that will hit home with a good number of people at the moment in the current austere times. I get the feeling that the sex abuse story is suffering from 'fatigue' along the lines of many 'bear shits in woods' stories.

Intersting commentary in The Times today asking why atheists and humanists etc. so often have to be so nasty, even vile, in their condemnation of catholicism and the papacy.

So essentially, the article is a huge strawman as that's not at all true.

Often Atheists see the dangers in religion, the harm it causes, and want to speak out against it. Speaking out against someones beliefs always causes people to react badly, and atheists are then painted as the ones stoking the fire. It's impossible for an atheists to truly comment on religion without someone claiming that they're being "nasty" because it involves completely writing off many peoples beliefs.

mmm well I think we disagree then. Someone wishing to discuss my beliefs and challenge them and try to persuade me I'm just plain wrong is fine. Be it my choice of car, politics, religion or whatever I'm happy to face a challenge and either stick to my guns, but thanks for the work out, or admit I just learnt something and move on up. So speaking out is not always going to end badly. You tell me there are concerns over x, y and z and we can discuss it. You tell me I'm a mentalist that funds child rape and needs shooting, I'm less likely to bother engaging in debate*.

I'm not suggesting atheists are all wrong and bad, no social grouping has bragging rights on being 100% made up of dicks. I'm just suggesting that the debate is often kinda surface deep reaction by numbers rather than informed criticism.

*this is an example and not an accusation

there you go, wouldn't it be boring if we were all the same

Intersting commentary in The Times today asking why atheists and humanists etc. so often have to be so nasty, even vile, in their condemnation of catholicism and the papacy. I can't link it unfortunately as the evil one wants a pound to access his little website.

My precis of the article is: if they are so cock sure he's a nazi paedo lizard alien would their cause be helped by being a little less sensational about it all? Essentially, rather than websites overheating with vitriol about cultist child buggery an actual calm considered examination of whether an anti abortion stance helps women would be worth exploring. Or, would the third world be helped by taking the straight to hell stigma away from contraception. Or, would allowing priests to marry take away the cover of celibacy for kiddy fiddlers. One last one, would an investigation into the finances and riches of the church illustrate the financial priorities of an organisation that appears to have billions in assets but charges £25 a head to see the supposedly top representative of God on Earth?

I just read that little article (didn't buy the paper!) and it reminded me of some of the threads here. It gets very predictable very quickly, which is a shame really.

I'm not that interested in the Pope and if i had an instant vote button I'd probably opt out of stumping up a portion of my tax contribution on funding his visit. But then I'd also opt out of funding our vast military killing machine, payrolling royalty and giving Kenneth Clarke a winter heating allowance. However, others would probably wish to opt out of funding my kids' schools and my wife's job. So as a broadly civilised society we accept that not everything is for our personal selfish advancement. Doesn't mean we can't constructively try and turn the tanker around, inch by inch. Just means there's little point in runnning up and down the deck shouting ****!

Looks like tomorrow's Independent may be worth a £1, and that I would pay for. Might link that once I've read it.

I know I know!

had a little chuckle when I noticed that

security guards?

big gold hat?

£25 a ticket?

official website has a merchandising page?

what would Jesus say?

Well, I guess we'll see if I was born a barman tomorrow. I reckon I'd take to it fairly well.

I don't think I'll be playing up the graduate status. If anything, I'll be playing it down/ignoring it.

excellent job pitch

you may wish to take some job interview style tips from this guy

olympic quantities of vodka and coke lined up for later, can't get started til after 9, apologies in advance circa 11:30pm

for no reason apparent reason an old memory just popped into my head:

I remember standing to the side whilst my dad was attempting to get an autograph on a programme. My old man stood there, knee deep in a gaggle of kids all trying to get the same autograph. Unwilling to use extreme force and plough the little beggars out of the way he just stood on the edge of the group. ‘Fernando, Fernando, hey Fernando, excuse me, Fernando, over here, Fernando’. On it went for several awful minutes until I finally shouted across, ‘try calling him Ricardo and see what happens’. At which point Mr Scimeca looked up and gave me a wink.

This is Engand '86

what a clever start!

went along to the T20 today, good game overall, the likely winner shifted from team to team a few times which kept the crowd entertained with England appearing to be scoring faster but also losing wickets faster.

this is a slightly long winded one that probs should be in general chat:

(edited as spectacularly boring on second reading, I basically got £135 worth of tickets for £40 due to admin error)

second thing, Pakistan bowled a wide, most people thought this was pretty funny. One guy had turned up prepared and started waving a big single sided A4 colour copy of a twenty pound note and starts shouting he just won a ton at the bookies. Everyone thought it was funny except the stewards that took his A4 single sided twenty off him as you're not allowed to have counterfeit currency!!!!!

How about someone rings Villa posing as Moyes. Then we'd know what the crack is. Been done before.

brrrrring brrrrrring

Brrrrring brrrrrring

Recep: hello, Aston Villa recruitment office

Impressionist: hi, it’s David here, any progress on my terms and conditions?

Recep: ah yes, all done and in the post, Randy agreed to allowing your next to be conceived here and named Holte.

Impressionist: ok, not sure what that last bit was about but I think I got everything I was hoping for from this conversation.

Recep: no problem, we’ll see you Monday then Mr Beckham, hope your voice is better by then

did any astronauts wave at you from the space station?

well the youngest was adamant that somebody waved, thought it looked like Randy Lerner doing a big thumbs up and mouthing 'it's all going to be ok'

I wanted to be sceptical, but I also wanted to be comforted.

yes, and a couple or three of the moons too with a kids telescope

just watched the space station going over

really good views tonight, and preceded a minute earlier by a common all garden satellite that got us all focused on the job

lovely

There are some really sad bones to be picked out of this Hague story.

Firstly, that it matters where his sexual preferences lie. I know the ‘angle’ will be deceit and trust and potentially exploitable secret life etc.. The reality is, it’s an attempt to out a gayer.

Secondly that he sees a need to open up his and his wife’s most intimate life story to the gutter press to pick through and interrogate.

Thirdly, that he could possibly possibly possibly believe that the defence of I’m trying for a baby with my missus is in any way proof he wouldn’t have an affair with a man. I don’t know if that smacks of naivety or desperation. Has he never watched Eastenders!

Either way it wouldn’t influence whether or not I would vote for the evil snivelling career tory politico.

edited

clearly still tetchy

Heskey was nowhere near being our worst player tonight.

Did Ireland come back out after half time?

Beye makes me realise I could still make it as Premier League player.

And as for Davies, was that actually a shot at goal that lead to their corner? Bizarre.

Hey, it's gonna be an interesting season of feeling morally superior for staying 'til the end of games.

£40 petrol £60 on tickets £8 at Villa Chippy £10 Strensham services £10 programmes £5 parking

watching the Villa, £133, effing priceless

Not whilst the Chinese et al aspire to be mini Americans.

The driving force in China at the moment is not a desire to teach the world about co-operative farming or fabricating wheat yield statistics. It is a desire to have a nicer house, a funky phone and dvd’s of the Lethal Weapon franchise. As such, even though your tv says ‘made in China’ on the back, it is still showing ‘Britains Got Funny Mental Patients’. You could possibly argue that the USA has won the cold war. OK so China owns all our debt and could foreclose. But they appear more interested in joining in the race to achieve peak oil and acquire pointless crap they hadn’t even realised they needed until they saw it advertised. As such, the funky phone bling, pop music videos and desire to get Olympic excellence over universal well being suggests the American era is going from strength to strength.

It’s just got a new funny accent.

hmmm slightly scary still not got mine and I bought a week ago.

Trouble is, there is a chance some plank will do some stupid revenge thing next Thursday. If that were to happen I wouldn't want Aston Villa blamed for the actions of a tiny minority.

I'd suspect the perimeter fencing actually helps people of low IQ feel a bit braver. Perhaps we will see a little more restraint at an 'open' Villa Park.

unfortunately if you're only allowed out of the basement on matchdays this sort of thing is going to happen

I suppose if you support a little team from a little country you've got to make an impression somehow

aaargh

you shell out 60 notes for a bunch of tickets for the home leg to show a bit of support and then your told we are sending a second string for the first leg

anybody considering tearing up a season card on the appointment of their least fave candidate please see me first - I'd be more than happy to give you a tenner for it.

you still have your principles and I get very cheap access to what will be at the very least an interesting few months. win win.

if you could predict which manager fits which squad fits which owner then it wouldn't be worth playing the actual games we could just feed all the info into a computer and await the computer calculated result each week, printed out to three decimal places.

Is there really any rush?

Yes there is! If the reports are to be believed there is still a bit of unrest. Not to mention the fact the transfer window will be closing in just over a fortnight!

The other thing is that without a proper figure-head at the helm (to give the team a vision etc) some of our best players' heads may be turned. We've lost Milner already, there's talk of Ashley Young going and demanding show-down talks. I've even heard that Brad Friedel might be on his way!

IMHO We need to get this sorted ASAP!

You mean the Ashley Young saga that was sorted out yesterday and Friedel going on live tv saying i'ver had no contact nor do i have any intention of leaving ? , come on man keep up will you

er, that's not my quote, not sure how you managed it but that's not me!

(not that it's important, it's not like we're judged and scored on our contributions)

Is there really any rush?

I'd be happy to give MacDonald a little run and see how he does.

Didn't we try something similar before with some guy called Barton? He did ok.