Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Sparks on November 27, 2003, 05:12:34 AM
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Perhaps just maybe a lot of it is going on stuff like this (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Distribution/Redirect_Artifact/0,4678,2-1094089,00.html)
And people ask me why I don't trust the government. Oh yes we are in Iraq to liberate a people and rid the world of dictators. :rolleyes:
Wait a minute ...... weren't the 911 guys Saudis ???? Aren't they a dictatorial monarchy with questionable human rights ethics.
Must believe the government .......... must ............ believe .......... the ............. govern......ment .
Sparks
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This country has been ruined, its not suprising that a substantial number of the people i know are planning to migrate elsewhere.
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This isn't anything new. Neither is the near-sighted, blinkered opinion that we and the Yanks are a neo-Arthurian hegemony, ridding the world of injustice and bringing hope and humanity to downtrodden peasants everywhere. It's why the claim that we went into Iraq to 'free the people' is so laughable.
We couldn't give a shreck about human rights; the British economy is strongly based on selling modern weapons to rich governments of questionable standing. In this case, a bankrupt BAe Systems from non-payment of Saudi orders is unthinkable. It would be a disaster for the prevailing government.
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I plan on movin to either the UK (Blair) or Aussie in a few years if things don't start lookin up.. i.e. bush gets da boot :p
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you would make a good brit rutt.. take alec baldwin with ya..
lazs
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I'm just glad that Michael Howard has replaced IDS as Tory leader. At least we now have a chance of a new government in 2005/2006. It is my sincere belief that Britain simply cannot afford another Labour government.
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Michael Howard? You have gotta be kidding. I was unlikely to vote conservative before - even considering their driver friendly manifesto - now they've no chance of getting my vote.
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Originally posted by Dowding
Michael Howard? You have gotta be kidding. I was unlikely to vote conservative before - even considering their driver friendly manifesto - now they've no chance of getting my vote.
I think Howard looks like a much more formidable opponent to Labour than IDS ever could have been.
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Originally posted by beet1e
I think Howard looks like a much more formidable opponent to Labour than IDS ever could have been.
Gets my vote. :)
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watch it tomato... this board will suck you in... Oh, are the "effects" from our shooting session still working on beetle? did he catch on to us yet?
lazs
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At least 'Dracula' has a personality.
If Kenneth Clarke had put himself forward and been voted the new Tory leader the Tories would walk the next election.
As it is, Drac will just be another caretaker until someone more charismatic turns up.
Ravs
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Michael Howard ????? he's worse than IDS. Who was it said "he has the look of the night about him" - I tend to agree. My money is on him being in a "kiddy fiddling" or hooker scandal before he gets to the next election.
Blair, Howard, Campbell - there isn't a leader amongst them - even if you put them all together.
Maybe we could convince Colin Powell to do the job .....?
Sparks
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Of course, what we really need is another Margaret Thatcher! (Sorry, Dowding ;))
Did anyone see Question Time last night, Kenneth Clarke was up, and for once his jacket, shirt and tie looked reasonably coordinated. Bet he had on hush puppies behind that desk though. He was panning Thatcher quite unreservedly...
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I'm gonna become a chartered accountant and then move to either Bermuda or Oz.
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Originally posted by beet1e
Of course, what we really need is another Margaret Thatcher!
God Bless! Go Maggie! :)
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This just in: Tories overtake Labour in the polls (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/031128/325/ef4dg.html).
After six-and-a-half years, this is a prime minister who has lost his grip and a government that has lost its way
...Howard told parliament. I'd go further than that. It didn't take 6½ years for them to lose their way. They were floundering within the first two years.
I'm smiling. I've waited patiently for this day, and wondered if I would ever live to see it! After a crappy 1992-1997 premiership with John Minor, closely associated with Norman "je ne regrette rien" Lamont, then two further lame duck leaders, things are on the up again. :) Sparks: "hooker scandal"
:lol
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There isn't any political party that I feel I can identify with in the UK today. Blair is an egotistical idiot who seems more interested in pleasing foreignors than the English public (English on purpose - he's given Scottish, Welsh, N.I. much more freedom but all at the English expense).
Tories, I hate them too.... BUT if it means voting them to get Blair out then I might just have to! Afterall that's pretty much what everyone did by voting Labour to get the Tories out!
Liberal, well, they're living in cloudcuckooland.
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Personally, I think Tito was good for Yugoslavia.
I'd like to keep England for the English, and will therefore be voting far right this election. I propose cutting off Scotland and Wales, mainly because they are whiny bastards who bleat about being hard done by while English tax payers subsidize them, and the Northern Irish can piss off for ever thinking that we wouldn't get tired of c*nts like Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley mouthing off on our TV screens.
With three lame duck Lichtenstein-like states created in the form of Wales, Scotland and NI, we can then get to work on purging England of assylum seekers and anyone with French ancestry more recent than the Battle of Waterloo.
I reckon that manifesto would send a rocket up the arses of the pamapered stunninghunks currently residing in the House of Commons.
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Originally posted by Dowding
Personally, I think Tito was good for Yugoslavia.
Yes I tend to agree, in many ways he made the best possible version of communism ever in the world and without his independance from Moscow we would have turned out much worse and had far fewer freedoms and openness to the west. Still of course it was communism.
In rejecting the stranglehold of Stalin and his thugs he was very much like Margaret Thatcher in her resistance to the coal miner union thugs and of course both helped save their nation by standing up to these evil forces.
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Yes, Stalin, a man directly responsible for the murder of 10s of millions of people is very similar to coal mining trade unions in Britain in the 1970s.
Yup, that flies.
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Grunherz/Dowding,
Don't let this one get out of hand.
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Originally posted by Dowding
Yes, Stalin, a man directly responsible for the murder of 10s of millions of people is very similar to coal mining trade unions in Britain in the 1970s.
Yup, that flies.
Both had a history of destroying governments opposed to them. IIRC the coal unions and their greedy strikes were largely responsible for the failiure of some governmets before Maggie and of course they were paralyizing the economy with their strikes. They were causing chaos in the country just to inflate their allready high wages, pergaps the highest industrial wages in the uk at the time.
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I really don't think the issue was that simple Grunherz.
Ravs
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Originally posted by ravells
I really don't think the issue was that simple Grunherz.
Ravs
Of course not, nothingb is simple, but for the purposes of a general discussion it is true - the unions behavior was crippling the country and causing economic chaos.
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Yes, for the purposes of your inane arguments it is that simple.
Those NKVD death-squads are so like the piquet line bullies in every way!
Pur-leaze.
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The coal miners unions and their incessant strikes and wage demands were wonderful for the economic progress and health of the UK in the 1970s and 1980s....
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Nice dodge. So did the unions have show trials, gulags, death squads, genocide and enforced ethnic transportation?
Face it Grunherz, your analogy is the king of suckage.
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Of course stalin killed people andf the unions did not, I concede that obvious fact...
Yet Stalin, on the internatinal level, was an enormousdly powerful political force facing Tito in 1948. Stalin had allready made sure that all the east european communist parties fell in line after the war. But Tito chose to stand up to him and the result was a better future for Yougoslavia.
In much the same way, domestically the coal unions were an enormously powerful political force that had quite possibly been the cause of the downfall of some UK governments at that time yet Maggie decided to stand up to them and in doing so made a better future for the UK.
Even with their obvius differences the two were enormously powerful and destructive forces in their domain and Tito and Maggie took huge political risks in standing up to them and redefining the course of theirv respective nations towards greater prosperity.
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"Yeah, Stalin is just like the trade union movement, apart from that little matter of genocide."
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Dowding you've brightened my day :)
1. Hegemony :- “exercising power or predominance over others”. (Classic FM Word of the Day: Friday 4 April 2003). You learn something every day.
With three lame duck Lichtenstein-like states created in the form of Wales, Scotland and NI, we can then get to work on purging England of assylum seekers and anyone with French ancestry more recent than the Battle of Waterloo.
I reckon that manifesto would send a rocket up the arses of the pamapered stunninghunks currently residing in the House of Commons.
ROFLMAO - speak up the silent majority - it may be a troll but I don't care - WTFG :aok
I wonder how many people in the UK only vote because they think they should and not because they actually favour any of the nominees.
Sparks
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Heh, it was a troll. :) Except for the bit about Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley.
Frankly, most people don't vote, and out of those that do, most vote out of habit. Take Beetle for instance - he's a dyed in the wool Tory Boy.
(http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39399000/jpg/_39399648_tory_boy203.jpg)
Sorry Beetle! ;)
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This is interesting:
MAGGIE'S MAULING FOR BLAIR Sep 21 2003
By Chris Mclaughlin
MARGARET Thatcher has savagely undermined Tony Blair's case for war against Iraq.
In her first reported comment on the conflict, the Tory leader who took Britain to victory in the 1982 Falkland Conflict, has told friends that the war against Iraq was a "mistake".
Baroness Thatcher has warned that British troops could be tied up in a mission without end for years.
"Britain should never have been involved and it will be very difficult to get our troops out in anything like the near future," she told Tory peers at a private meeting last week.
She also believes a judicial inquiry should be set up into the Iraq conflict rather than the "tightly defined" Hutton inquiry.
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Originally posted by Sparks
I wonder how many people in the UK only vote because they think they should and not because they actually favour any of the nominees.
Sparks
Exactly! I've never voted for a major politcal party because I don't agree with any of their views. I've always voted local Independant because they're more concerned with local aspects that affect you directly.
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Dowding do you deny that stalin was a powerful political force opposing Tito?
Do you deny that the trade unios were a powerful political force opposing Thatcher?
Do you deny that it was a risky undertaking for both to oppose them?
Thats all there is to it...
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I can see it ...... Conservative Peers in leather chairs.....
Peer1 "Oh god the pressures up again, she's going to blow!!!"
Peer2 "What is man ?? The soda siphon??? what ...??"
Peer1 "Maggie - its MAGGIE !!!"
Peer2 "Christ!! LOOK OUT!! - point her somewhere safe for gods sake!!"
Peer1 "Not at me!! - over there - IDS!!"
Peer2 " He's gone already!! There - the Arch Bishop of Canterbury!!"
Peer1 "Noo fool we'll all go to hell !!! - Quick there's Blair !!!"
Peer2 " Perfect !!!!"
Peer1 "damn that was close - Brandy old chap....?"
Peer2 "Don't mind if I do ...... good news about stuffing the Aussies eh what ..."
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Originally posted by Dowding
Frankly, most people don't vote, and out of those that do, most vote out of habit. Take Beetle for instance - he's a dyed in the wool Tory Boy.
Sorry Beetle! ;)
ROFL! No apology needed! Gave me a good laugh. :lol
I haven't actually voted since 1992. In 1997 I was still seething about the Major/Lamont handling of the ERM fiasco, the idiotic high interest rates that were introduced - at a time of recession - in an attempt to attract investment to Britain. The results - thousands of small businesses bankrupted, inevitable ejection from the ERM (what a relief - White Wednesday), ¼ of our gold reserves blown on this fatuous exercise, and the currency that had been bought back buy said gold reserves was only worth $1.53/£ instead of the $2/£ it had been worth a day earlier.
Grunherz! I see you are well versed in the history of British industrial relations 1972-1985. I lived through that period, and can't find anything wrong with what you said, apart from the Stalin analogy being somewhat unsuitable.
Yep, we had trade unions which clamoured for higher pay, irrespective of whether their employers' could afford it and the effect it would have on the British economy. A three day week was introduced to conserve electricity in shops and offices. Many folks suffered on 60% of their normal salary. Labour promised it could rectify the situation with immediate effect. They got into power in 1974 and immediately gave into the NUM (miners' union) wage demands as a means of ending the strike. But... all the other unions were waiting in line for theirs. The result? Riproaring inflation of 25% which peaked in July 1975, a month in which the rate of inflation expressed as an annual rate topped 30%. The basic rate of tax had to be raised to 35% to try to pay for the mess that had been created. The top rate of tax was 83% but with an investment income surcharge of 15% making the top rate of tax on investment income 98%. The economy, and the country as a whole, was f***ed. Labour wondered why people left Britain to live overseas as tax exiles. :rolleyes:
Maggie turned all that around. The top rate of tax came down to 40% where it has remained ever since. The trade unions had their wings clipped. The number of days lost through strikes was slashed. Strikes themselves became a thing of the past - or so we thought. Strikes are coming back into vogue under this Labour administration.
Various companies were privatised. Jaguar Cars was a good example. They got rid of half the work force, but were able to make MORE cards and BETTER cars. That's because the unions could no longer mandate how many people had to be assigned to do a job. Labour had allowed ridiculous overmanning in years gone by because it made the unemployment figures look better.
The problem for the folks involved in those old labour intensive dinosaur industries was that Labour had let the situation fester for too long. When Maggie came to reverse the decline, there was so much to do in so little time if we were to become competitive in the world market place, that a lot of ordinary folks in the North of England suffered terribly because of unemployment once those dinosaur industries with their 19th century working practices were allowed to die. We had a nation of haves and have-nots. The miners had refused productivity deals, and had eschewed any form of new technology - Luddite mentality. The coal they were producing by 1984 was so expensive that it was cheaper to import it from France. And in the meantime, other energy sources had been discovered, including natural gas and oil - both from the North Sea.
The inevitable happened. The British mining industry collapsed. Dowding will tell us just how rapidly it collapsed. Unfortunately, public sympathy for the miners was somewhat limited because of their actions 10 or so years earlier when many of them made it clear that they didn't give a stuff for anyone or anything but themselves.
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Originally posted by lazs2
watch it tomato... this board will suck you in... Oh, are the "effects" from our shooting session still working on beetle? did he catch on to us yet?
lazs
Still working up to the 44 magnum. ;)