Rayvin

Ant my friend, you're a legend.

An elaborate fucking turn to keep the ball in play? The guy can barely fucking move without injuring himself.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-terror-attacks-visiting-molenbeek-the-police-no-go-zone-that-was-home-to-two-of-the-gunmen-a6735551.html Molonbeek doesn't sound like a police no go zone from this report (given that it mentions that Police patrol it), but that said, seems to be the source of Belgium's Islamist problems. I honestly think the existence of these little communities and the failure to create true integration is a significant problem.

I'm actually a bit surprised we're not there yet already... It actually speaks very well of Western civilisation that there isn't.

Sorry yes, I know I'm wrong automatically by virtue of the fact that these things keep happening - badly worded. I meant that I wonder if there are some potential terrorists who look at the devastation from the fall out of this sort of chaos and just think 'fuck it, not going to be responsible for that'. Ultimately though, if they weren't getting the attention, it probably wouldn't be happening. Fair enough.

That bit is definitely true, although maybe it also puts people off. You never know. Hard to look at this from any angle and consider it as something to be glorified, I would think.

Having kids seems to play a big part in it, actually. I moved down a whole decile for my hypothetical children. I think it should take your region into account as well mind, since an income set at a certain level in the NE goes a lot farther than an income set at the same level in the SE. Although I guess they'd argue that the after tax income is the same, and that you choose to pay a premium to live down south, thus making it a lifestyle choice.

Fair enough but it's about as mainstream as they come at the minute. Twitter certainly should be nowhere near them, quite surprised to hear that they are, actually. Bound to be something they can do with respect of the internet, although you'd likely need full international agreement on it. At this point I'd support an internet dead zone around all ISIS controlled or influenced territories.

Probably not the time to be pointing the finger, anyway. This is no one's fault aside from that psycho. I note that ISIS haven't even claimed it yet, which I find a tad weird actually. Too extreme even for them?

Well said, although I feel that abandoning Europe to this shit isn't what any of the Brexiters had in mind, even though that's exactly how it feels. As for the points about what governments can do, I can't think of much, personally - the more they crack down, the more this sort of thing will happen, I would guess. I ended up scouring the news a bit this morning and was casting my eye through the comments on Fox News (one of the few sites that allows comments on atrocities like this) and between the comments made by lunatics, there were some people making quite legitimate points about how, if French citizens were more fully armed, stuff like this couldn't happen (at least not on this scale). Obviously that opens a whole other can of worms which would doubtless lead to more deaths overall, but I did think that this is probably the first time that statement rang true about a specific scenario. Not at all advocating arming people, it's just that I can sort of see now why the Americans look at this stuff and think that they have the right of it.

80 people dead, including children. The maniac drove into the crowd at 50kph for 2km, zig zagging to hit as many people as possible. The utter fucking psychopath.

Oh for fucks sake. Eventually, Western governments are going to respond to stuff like this very seriously.

So are we.

Dortmund would be interesting like - he'd fit the Dortmund of a couple of years ago, all speed and counters. Not sure how they play now in truth. Can they afford £35m though?

Absolutely. I like his possible solution in that article though, of just kicking it into the long grass and sorting it out at the next GE. At least public mood may have shifted by then. Also, she must know that running with Brexit will cost her political career - even if it is possible to make a success of it, it's not a short term outlook.

gpirlo soldiering on here

So, I don't watch TV series episode to episode like the rest of you - I tend to wait for a season to finish so that I can watch the episodes without having to wait a week each time. I find it's easier to follow the storyline that way for one thing, and I also get impatient waiting for each new episode. I tend to avoid Facebook during these periods, and only really read politics or sports pages in the news. Everyone at work is under strict instruction not to talk to me about it. I'm also safe on here because people are so good at preventing spoilers from seeping into non-specific topic chat. In fact, the level of respect shown about such issues is one of the major reasons I value this community, and come back to it day to day. There's admittedly the odd slip up from time to time, and even I've been guilty of it, although I've always made sure to re-edit my posts once I've been called out on it. I feel that this simple action, even if one has made a mistake, implicitly suggests to people that I'm not a massive fucking bell end. I'm up to episode 5.

More to the point, according to that article, we can't even negotiate with anyone until we're actually out.

Interesting, thanks for posting that HF

I don't think we've covered a lot of that CT... We're not sufficiently up to speed on trade deals to have known a lot of that...

I wonder how far off the truth a lot of that is...

CT, she could have walked in today and given cabinet positions to several farmyard animals and you'd have claimed she was playing an absolute blinder. What has she done that is actually of any merit here? What do you know about the people she has just appointed?

I don't see the issue. I get why people are antsy given Europe's imperial past but at the end of the day, a combined force would be more effective if ever needed than a multitude of separate forces. Moreover, it'd counter balance US influence globally.

It's a fair point though isn't it? It's a very slender majority and she must have pissed off more than 7 Tories today.

@CT: Why would they help her? They care about power not principles or policies. No chance they'd be propping her up.