Happy Face

where are you going? you'll do well to get somewhere that you actually "miss" the world cup Florida. Could be canny to find a local sports bar for our first game, Toon top on, St George around my neck and rip the shit out of the locals while we rape the shit out of the yanks. Big place. Anywhere in particular? Our due dates the 24th, more experienced fathers than me seem to be suppressing laughter when i explain my plan of being off work in front of the telly, baby on knee, can of lager in one hand and betting slip in the other. Staying in Brooksville. So as not to divert from the topic... http://www.toontastic.net/board/index.php?...st&p=680877

where are you going? you'll do well to get somewhere that you actually "miss" the world cup Whey, i mean I'll miss the packed out boozers at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, all the part timers that know nowt bringing their lass along so it takes an hour to get served like new Year and the dicks at work who try to talk football to me for the first time in 4 years. I'm missing nowt am I

where are you going? you'll do well to get somewhere that you actually "miss" the world cup Florida. Could be canny to find a local sports bar for our first game, Toon top on, St George around my neck and rip the shit out of the locals while we rape the shit out of the yanks.

Booked my holiday a couple of days ago. Departure on the 11th (day before our opener) and staying till the 2nd of July (quarter final day), so we'll be knocked out by the time I get back. It was either June or Septermber though and I'd rather miss the world cup than a month of Newcastle games.

You'll probably do better selling the Newcastle paper to Mackems. They live to hate us.

It's not really about Yemen. It's about the World War 3 being waged with the US as aggressor but greeted with indifference by the western media. Colombian bases to wage a war of attrition against democracies in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay in addition to all out bombing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza, Somalia, Yemen, the Horn of Africa.....Iran next. Just popped it in here cos i'd posted a shorter comment to that effect in January.

http://www.newstatesman.com/global-issues/...lger-obama-iraq

I don't hate Obama. If i see him doing exactly the same thing I'd have slagged Bush off for, then I slag him off for it too. It's just consistency. The notion that ANYONE should remain quiet and put faith in the inherent goodness of Obama to do what he says, and ignore what he does, is absolutley insane. He's a politician, he will react to public opinion positive or negative. If it's only conservatives giving him stick for being too liberal then he'll sway to the right to appease them. Obama is the best option at the moment but he has to be kept honest with constant scrutiny of every decision. If he did piss off democrats enough to lose the election then 4 years of pushing a slightly more liberal agenda would have been preferable to 8 years of kowtowing to bipartisanship without any objection. Anyway, he's losing far more votes by perpetuating Bush policies than he's gaining by not undoing some of the most egregious of Bush measures. I was taking the piss out of Americans posting the article above, not Obama ;o)

thats probably what i meant. i dont know too much about american politics so please forgive my fumbling around the issue. Me neither. I was just taken aback by your 'untouchable' comment. Forgive me if i'm mistaken, but you seem to be leaning towards voting Tory in the election thread and so contributing to the status quo that's maintained by having two centerist parties, co-opted by big business, that are virtually indistinguishable on policy and run entirely on image. It's exactly that approach that keeps the corporate elite running things to benefit themselves. We are able to vote for other parties. I'd also recommend you write to the candidtaes telling them exactly why you will or won't vote for them. They're all attention whores who love getting the opinions of their constituents....which they'll ignore in favour of their paymasters ;o) Labour - milibandd@parliament.uk Tory - karenallen@southshieldsconservatives.co.uk Lib Dem - stephen@psallidas.net

Hawksbie and Jacobs.

Nearly spat me coffee out this morning listening to five live. Tony Blair's cock-sucking constituency manager (I think it was anyway) defending him on Iraq with the statement that "more people died in the Falklands than in Iraq." He seemed taken aback when Nicky Campbell incredulously asked for clarification, given the hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of deaths that resulted from Iraq. When he realised his mistake he pointed out he'd meant British deaths as if he'd never even considered an Iraqi life might be a bad thing. When he started trotting out the line that there were WMD's and the Iraqi's just moved them before we got there I was biting my elbow, Campbell didn't even bother pointing out that was a lie.

They aren't untouchable at all. Just needs more people like Alan Grayson voted into office. who's Alan Grayson? Sitting US 8th congressional senator for Florida who's introduced five bills to the senate to reduce corporate spending on campaigns. isnt he a supporter of the homeland security bill (or whatever it was called) which restricts freedom of speech for a vast number of americans? Not sure what you mean. The Homeland security act was voted in 8 years ago and he's in his first term. he's voted to fund the department of homeland security, but I don't think anyone votes against that. It'd be like de-funding the army.

They aren't untouchable at all. Just needs more people like Alan Grayson voted into office. who's Alan Grayson? Sitting US 8th congressional senator for Florida who's introduced five bills to the senate to reduce corporate spending on campaigns.

The end of The Sopranos is brilliant.

On the subject of Glenn Beck.....had to giggle at this last week...

9/10 are reverting to google. Including me! I think it's more like 1/10 haven't heard of him mate. Enjoy the youtube clips though, I'll never forget my first time.

You mean apart from the last season which didn't involve any muslim terrorists? I've embiggened the cromulent part of my bost for you

They aren't untouchable at all. Just needs more people like Alan Grayson voted into office.

it certainly looks that way sometimes! I guess im just uncomfortable with the idea of religiously motivated police is all. and before anyone starts that means any religion. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics...l-tensions.html Race and immigration is just a distraction the ruling class use against us. Your problem is your Govt and their paymasters the banks and big business. But of course that is too big for you to think about so you waste everyones time repeating the mantra's put out in the mass media. Try this one AA. It should make you FAR angrier than one religious div.... Among those on Booz Allen's payroll are former CIA Director and neoconservative extremist James Woolsey, George Tenet's former Chief of Staff Joan Dempsey, and Keith Hall, the former director of the National Reconnaissance Office, the super-secret organization that oversees the nation's spy satellites. As Shorrock wrote: "Under McConnell's watch, Booz Allen has been deeply involved in some of the most controversial counterterrorism programs the Bush administration has run, including the infamous Total Information Awareness data-mining scheme" and "is almost certainly participating in the agency's warrantless surveillance of the telephone calls and e-mails of American citizens." For more details on the sprawling and overlapping relationships between McConnell, Booz Allen, the INSA, the Government and the private intelligence community, see Shorrock's interview with Democracy Now and his 2008 interview with me. Aside from the general dangers of vesting government power in private corporations -- this type of corporatism (control of government by corporations) was the hallmark of many of the worst tyrannies of the last century -- all of this is big business beyond what can be described. The attacks of 9/11 exploded the already-huge and secret intelligence budget. Shorrock estimates that "about 50 percent of this spending goes directly to private companies" and "spending on intelligence since 2002 is much higher than the total of $33 billion the Bush administration paid to Bechtel, Halliburton and other large corporations for reconstruction projects in Iraq." * * * * * All of that is crucial background for understanding just how pernicious and deceitful is the Op-Ed published this weekend by The Washington Post and authored by McConnell. The overarching theme is all-too-familiar: we face a grave threat from Terrorists and other Very Bad People ("cyber wars"), and our only hope for protection is to vest the Government with massive new powers. Specifically, McConnell advocates a so-called "reeingeer[ing] of the Internet" to allow the Government and private corporations far greater capability to track what is being done over the Internet and who is doing it: Scary! And what do we need to submit to in order to avoid these calamaties? This: In one sense, this is just typical fear-mongering of the type the National Security State has used for decades to beat frightened Americans into virtually full-scale submission: you are in grave danger and you can be safe only by vesting in us far greater power, which we'll operate in secret: here, allowing us to "reengineer" the Internet so we can control it. Think about how dangerous that power is in relationship to the war I wrote about this weekend being waged on WikiLeaks, which allows the uploading of leaked, secret documents that expose the corruption of the world's most powerful interests. This "reengineering of the Internet" proposed by McConnell would almost certainly enable the easy tracing of anyone who participates. It would, by design, destroy the ability of anyone to participate or communicate in any way on the Internet under the shield of anonymity. Wired's Ryan Singel -- noting that "the biggest threat to the open internet is . . . Michael McConnell" -- documents the dangers from this "cyber-war" monitioring policy and how much momentum there now is in the Executive and Legislative branches for legislation to implement it (as a result of initiatives that began during the Bush era, under McConnell, and which continue unabated). But there's something even worse going on here. McConnell doesn't merely want to empower the Government to control the Internet this way; he wants to empower private corporations to do so -- the same corporations which pay him and whose interests he has long served. He notes that this "reengineering" is already possible because "the technologies are already available from public and private sources," and explicitly calls for a merger of the NSA with private industry to create a sprawling, omnipotent network for monitoring the Internet: In other words, not only the Government, but the private intelligence corporations which McConnell represents (and which are subjected to no oversight), will have access to virtually unfettered amounts of information and control over the Internet, and there should be "no borders" between them. And beyond the dangerous power that will vest in the public-private Surveillance State, it will also generate enormous profits for Booz Allen, the clients it serves and presumably for McConnell himself -- though The Washington Post does not bother to disclose any of that to its readers. The Post basically allowed McConnell to publish in its Op-Ed pages a blatant advertisement for the private intelligence industry while masquerading as a National Security official concerned with Keeping America Safe. It's not an exaggeration to say that the "cyber-war" policies for which McConnell is shilling is the top priority of the industry he serves. Right this very minute, the front page of the intelligence industry's INSA website (previously chaired by McConnell) trumpets the exact public-private merger for "cyber-war" policies which McConnell uses the Post to advocate: The Report just published by that that industry group (.pdf) is entitled "Addressing Cyber Security Through Public-Private Partnership." The industry's Report sounds like a virtually exact replica of what McConnell just published in the Post: America is under grave threat and can Stay Safe only by transferring huge amounts of public funds to these private corporations in order to restructure the Internet to allow better detection and monitoring. And look at the truly Orwellian and unintentionally revealing logo under which the Report is written: showing a complete linkage of Government institutions (such as Congress and regulatory agencies), the Surveillance State, private intelligence corporations, and the Internet: Readers of The Washington Post, exposed to McConnell's Op-Ed, would know none of this. They would think that they were reading the earnest National Security recommendations of a former top military and government official, and would have no idea about the massive profit motives driving him. Although the Op-Ed, at the end, identifies McConnell as "executive vice president of Booz Allen Hamilton, which consults on cybersecurity for the private and public sector" (as well as a former NSA head, DNI, and retired Admiral), there's no hint that Booz Allen, its multiple clients, and the industry it represents (along with McConnell himself) would stand to benefit greatly from the very policies he advocates in The Post. Indeed, just like the INSA, the Booz Allen website, at the top, this very minute promotes the exact policies McConnell advocates: So here we have a perfect merger of (a) exploiting public office for personal profit, ( endless increases in the Surveillance State achieved through rank fear-mongering, © the rapid elimination of any line between the public and private sectors, and (d) individuals deceitfully posing as "objective commentators" who are, in fact, manipulating our political debates on behalf of undisclosed interests. And, as usual, it is our nation's largest media outlets (in this case The Washington Post) which provide the venue for these policies to be advocated and glorified, all the while not only failing to expose -- but actively obscuring -- the bulging conflicts of interests that drive them. While "news" outlets distract Americans with the petty partisan dramas of the day, these factions -- whose power is totally impervious to changes in party control -- continue to expand their stranglehold on how the Government functions in ways that fundamentally alter our core privacy and liberties, and radically expand the role private corporations and government power play in our lives. Source

Every season the terrorists got more muslim, the threat more extreme and the torture more effective until I couldn't watch it anymore. Never has a series started so promisingly and been co-opted so heinously.

The whole of the Sports Bar was empty loads in the Milburn wings, and a fair few in the North East Corner, 46,000 seemed about right to me. The atmosphere wasn't bad first half, but second it really took off especially when Shola come on. So fuckin wrecked today now but it was worth it Difficult for me to judge from where I am I guess. I can't see most of the lower tier of the Milburn. But there wasn't a spare inch in L7. Dissappointing number, but still generated a good atmosphere. I think we are the only club in the world who would regard 46,000 in the second tier of the league system, on a Monday night live on telly when it's pissing it down a bad number. Hopes were higher.

It would be insane to do anything other than stick with Hughton. Some might say he should be rewarded with a contract extension.

The whole of the Sports Bar was empty loads in the Milburn wings, and a fair few in the North East Corner, 46,000 seemed about right to me. The atmosphere wasn't bad first half, but second it really took off especially when Shola come on. So fuckin wrecked today now but it was worth it Difficult for me to judge from where I am I guess. I can't see most of the lower tier of the Milburn. But there wasn't a spare inch in L7. Dissappointing number, but still generated a good atmosphere.

If that was 45,000 then I'm something dissimilar to what I am in reality.

I'd add Steven Taylor is nowt but a brown-nosing bell-end who's found out his disingenuous playing to the crowd hasn't left him as popular as he thought it had. Fans, on the whole, prefer performances on the pitch over paper talk, which is why Carroll's goal haul this season has won him a lot more fans than all the talking Taylor does in the press about how much he loves the club and what it owes him.