Happy Face

You seem to find a lot of grave situations "hilarious".

He's hardly played for 2 years though, so all that promise was apparent when he was Bigi's age. Is Bigi not keen to play for England? If he's one of the best young players I thought he would. He's not getting into any Rwanda squads either, though he has said he's like to..

You think he has as much promise as Wilshere or Sterling?

16th

Fair do's, he is VERY agenda driven for an academic like.

Moments later it's broke the top 20

Up to 24, it would be a glorious number 1.

It was nothing

A better like for like comparison for you? Almost a doubling in numbers in the ten years from 78 - 92

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/dec/05/income-inequality-growing-faster-uk http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2013/9270.html

Krugman hoyed some canny ones up to question if she even pulled off the economic revival people claim was worth the misery. He does it by comparing us with our closest neighbour. For example GDP per capita remained lower than in France through to 1998....almost a decade after she left office.... ...and unemployment was uniformly higher from the day she took office until the day she left, returning to pre-80s levels only by about 2000... http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/did-thatcher-turn-britain-around/

Odd to think that she let Sands & co die rather than give them prisoner of war status.....now western governments insist that terrorist suspects must be classified as the enemy in a war that allows them to be imprisoned without charge indefinitely.

We haven't touched the surface of her awful policies. Has anyone mentioned....

Love the socialist worker one.

Caressing her jewels like a cliche of a comic witch. Brass eye could not have done better.

Follow the link. There's references all over the article if you want sources.

Not really a fair one. The harm she did is quantifiable and gross. Even if a majority liked what she was about they would be wrong... But there isn't. She's rightly reviled.

Top Ten Ways Margaret Thatcher’s Policies Made our World more Unequal The late Margaret Thatcher had an enormous impact on Britain and the world, but her legacy has been a more unequal, less prosperous Britain and world. She championed the wealthy and threw the national income to them; she systematically undermined the poor and middle classes. She championed neo-militarism and refusal to compromise in world affairs, undermining diplomacy. 1. In some part because of Margaret Thatcher’s policies, the share of British income of the top 1% had increased from 7.1% in 1970 to 14.3% in 2005. That is, the wealthiest 620,000 Britons take home twice as much of the national income every year as they did before Thatcher. The share of the working and middle classes plummeted in the same period. 2. In 2008, the top .1 percent, 62,000 Britons, received 5 percent of the country’s income, constituting a new aristocracy of wealth and privilege. 3. Half of the increase in income inequality at the top has gone to professionals in financial services, even though moving money around isn’t all that helpful to the economy compared to actually making something of value, and even though the financial sector was enabled by deregulation to engage in vast fraud and unsound investment practices, destroying the world’s economies in 2008. It was Thatcherite deregulation that laid the basis for this rise of the finance oligarchs. People celebrating that she kept the British pound and declined to enter the Eurozone, thus saving Britain from the current continental malaise ignore that the adoption of Thatcher-like policies on the continent is what produced that malaise! 4. At the same time, tax rates on the wealthy have plummeted, which means that the government cannot mitigate the consequences of the inequality, and has been forced to cut services for the poor and middle classes. 5. Current British government plans, following in the Thatcherite neoliberal direction, “would . . . lead to public sector job cuts of 710,000, more child poverty and a hike in university fees.” 6. In 1980 14% of the UK was in poverty. Today some 33% suffer multiple forms of financial insecurity. “Over 30 million people (almost half the population) are suffering some degree of financial insecurity; Almost 18 million people cannot afford adequate housing conditions; Roughly 14 million cannot afford one or more essential household goods; Almost 12 million people are too poor to engage in common social activities considered necessary by the majority of the population; About 5.5 million adults go without essential clothing; Around 4 million children and adults are not properly fed by today’s standards… Around 1.5 million children live in households that cannot afford to heat their home.” 7. In 1980, five percent of households could not afford to heat the living areas of their homes. Last winter, 29 percent had to turn the heating down or heat only one or two rooms. Thatcherism has literally made them cold! 8. By selling off the one-third British government stake in BP, the oil giant, Thatcher’s privatization policies made the company unaccountable to any public and allowed it to pursue naked profit-seeking and disregard of the environment. The Gulf oil spill would have looked different and perhaps had a different outcome if the company had still been in part publicly owned. As it is, it is complaining about paying reparations to Gulf residents whose livelihoods it ruined! And, public ownership would have made it more open to pursuing green energy (as the governments of the UK and Scotland increasingly are) instead of doubling down on deadly hydrocarbons. 9. Thatcher’s absolute refusal to negotiate or compromise over the Northern Ireland issue undoubtedly worsened and prolonged that conflict. Only when she was out of office did George Mitchell demonstrate that a settlement was possible, in the mid-1990s. 10. Thatcher denied that there was any Palestine and her refusal to accept the Palestine Liberation Organization as a negotiating partner (at the time it represented almost all Palestinians) helped derail any peace process, allowing the Israelis to go ahead with the colonization of the Occupied Territories and the expropriation of Palestinian property. http://www.juancole....s-policies.html

I've been lapping up everything I can by Adam Curtis. Been working through his series backwards chronologically, it's all on youtube. The first docco of his which I can't find though is one that perks my interest more than any other.... 40 Minutes: The Kingdom of Fun (1989) Documentary about the Metro Centre in Gateshead, developed by entrepreneur John Hall. The programme compares John Hall's plans to regenerate the North East, with those of T. Dan Smith. Anyone seen it or know where I can find it? Wondering if it was just a straight up news report before he got into his polemic stride.

Felt like a change I tend to have pictures of people I am fond of for my avatar.

Bit he did on the BBC Comedy Roadshow about a businessman on the train eating a peach and drinking redbull. unfortunately, youtube search only returns an interview with him as "the peach guy"

also found one about him in the Iraq cables...

1.7m cables from Kissingers era now been dumped http://wikileaks.org/plusd/ Just did a search on "Bob Dylan" and got loads of results Apparently they were keen for him to tour Russia and spread his message of dissent

BBC really capturing the national mood with tribute upon tribute here.

James Callaghan never got any silence. Can't see it happening.