Rayvin

I see you've taken Techno-Hitler to the next level

Well played...

...Is the new quote in your sig a reference to Ashley or CT?

I would actually read a debate between those two. I'd envisage CT taking up his standard contrary position and starting to quote articles that were supplied to him by HF in the other topic.

We're going to be seeing a lot of Techno-Hitler, I see.

True enough. Also positive to hear about the apprenticeship levy. In truth, we've struggled to recruit on the apprentice minimum recently, it's looking like we'll have to go higher. One thing that seems to be holding up is that the power is back in the hands of the employees in the jobs market, which is positive.

I think that quote should be the other way around...

ISIS are a US asset IMO; they're acting almost entirely in line with what I would assume to be US strategic interests (destabilising the Mid-East and Russian partners). In terms of how taking them out could be done, I rather fancy Israel could handle it, if it so desired. In truth, any competent military power could do it. EDIT - see also Parky's response

We have apprentices at work and in a lot of senses it's a good pathway. The problem is that first year of pay is shocking...very difficult to live on. And speaking as an employer, I can safely say that the reason we use apprentices is because they're cheaper than normal labour - and because we can, in theory, kick out said apprentice after 2 years and bring in another one. It's all a rather sorry state of affairs. That said, we've retained all apprentices we've ever trained - but I know our CEO keeps wanting to get rid of them from a cost point of view.

I agree, but with any luck they'll be prevented. I don't think the Tories really have the mandate to take us back. Then again, I'm sure some sort of 'high threat terror event' can be fabricated for it, if the situation becomes dire enough.

This illegal wars bit is a rather irrelevant waste of 'debating' time to be honest. Blair's war was approved by Parliament was it not? Therefore it was legal. Ridiculous and based highly dubious information, but legal until someone actually proves otherwise in court. Bombing other countries, technically, doesn't count as an act of war, or so I've heard, so I'm not sure we can claim that Cameron has done that. The point is probably that, given Cameron's attempt to take us to war in Syria, he's quite prepared to get us wrapped up in a similar confrontation to Blair's one, for reasons that almost certainly have nothing to do with the reasons we're actually being given. Therefore, it's all much of a muchness. No one is voting for either party based on war though. I'm actually more interested in hearing about the argument for apprenticeships going on into people's late 20s...is that for real?

CT, do you enter into these unwinnable debates just to pass the time? You're at the heart of almost every multi-page argument on this entire forum

That's actually pretty funny. If kind of depressing at the same time.

This is actually the first conversation that I've seen essembee engage in, ever. ...What is with leaving spaces out after full stops though?

Off topic but I just found myself wondering at the context behind Fist's sig quote, and re-lived a memorable meltdown from Ken. Awesome poster

Inevitable that Dave was gonna be the one singled out

I thought everyone was on board with Aarons starting pretty early on into his career here...?

Ewerk is, in my opinion, right about Corbyn's prospects. He isn't going to win an election. I'm going to vote for him anyway though because I'm sick to fuck of voting for things I don't believe in just to keep greater evils at bay. If this country wants the Tories and all the shit that goes with it then fine - the truth is that most people are too easily led by the media; as a result, it makes no fucking difference who Labour has as a leader as long as the Mail has the power to pull millions of utter fuckwits to the right of centre over things as trivial to their day to day lives as immigrants and benefits cheats. Given that there's nothing Labour can do about this mass stupidity except play up to it with their policies, they'd be forced into Tory-esque positions if they elect a centre ground candidate in order to have any chance of winning - as has been evidenced already, and which does no one who truly wants something that even looks like a centre-left party, let alone a left wing party, any good whatsoever. Fuck that. That's the Tories winning by default. If they (the Tories) want to win, if they want their divisive and unequal policies to be implemented, better that they do it themselves so that in the long run, when people wake up (or enough Tory voting old people die), they'll be seen for what they are. Even from an entirely pragmatic point of view, Labour should stick to their principles on the grounds that the Tories have done such a good job capturing the 'middle ground'. Labour have very little room for maneouvre there anyway. So why not Corbyn? At least he'd give us a party that understood what it stood for.

There's the assumption there though that I have time to do this. What if my time is better spent making money in other ways? If I don't have time to research investment decisions in the level of detail required to make informed choices, due predominantly to working on things that will make more money than the investment itself, then why is it harmful to outsource that task to another entity which will, admittedly, take some of the income that I could have earned; but which will also be able to make informed decisions for me. Granted they might get it wrong, but then so might I.

Well, that's nothing a good proxy won't fix.

Janmaat was just too Dutch for essemmbee.

Agreed on this. Although with Chromecast as well I find I can just stream Prime from my phone to the TV, which I quite like. Same as Netflix in fairness though.

*dies*

Sometimes I wonder why I bother with this team...

Maybe it'll shock them into more transfer action, who knows. </optimism>