crozby

So very true. I lived in Bournemouth and biked to work and was nearly side-swiped most mornings by wrinkleys using all lanes going straight on at roundabouts. The British government need to introduce ski piste ratings (black, blue, green etc) for roads. That way all the shit drivers can stick to the easy routes (pronounced roots of course) and leave the complicated stuff for those of us who can cope with it.

The royals are worth their weight in gold. Not the minor ones though, they're just sponging wankers.

I left England for Sydney 6 years ago because I was fed up to the back teeth of: 1. Tony Bliar 2. Seeing nothing for all my tax 3. The bone numbing cold 4. The never-ending rain 5. Tony bastarding Blair Is it safe to return yet?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8096402.stm Yet another great advert for the land of the free and the home of the brave....

I was going to vote no because it sounded so ridiculous and barbaric. Then I looked at the picture of the woman in the artical and I changed my mind to yes, definitely. Did anyone else get swayed by the visual?

Maybe it wont increase your logistical issues afterall... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7870340.stm

Jesus was a maveric rabbi who would have been seriously pissed off had he known Paul et all would be opening up his sect to non-Jewish members after his death.

... I wonder what became of peacefuljeffrey ...

More fucked-up-ness. The opening ceremony fireworks were faked (bad visibility being the reason the real ones were not shown). Plus one of the stars of the show, a little girl, lip-synched a solo which was actually sung live by a different girl considered too ugly to put in front of the world. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7556058.stm

None. Afghanistan Antigua and Barbuda Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belize Botswana Burundi Cameroon Chad China Comoros Congo Cuba Dominica Egypt Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Ethiopia Gabon Ghana Guatemala Guinea Guyana India Indonesia Iran Iraq Jamaica Japan Jordan Korea, North Korea, South Kuwait Laos Lebanon Lesotho Libya Malawi Malaysia Mongolia Nigeria Oman Pakistan Palestinian Authority Qatar St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines Saudi Arabia Sierra Leone Singapore Somalia Sudan Swaziland Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Trinidad and Tobago Uganda United Arab Emirates United States Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777460.html) Nuff said...

Not just the polution. Other weird shit lie the fact that on day 1 the cyclists were complaining that their 6 hour ride was a nightmare because there were no spectators, just police and security guards lining the route. The whole thing is fucked up.

To patronize is to treat someone in a condescending manner. I thought everyone knew that. Back on topic, the problem I have with Dawkins is he behaves like a "fundamentalist" athiest - he's rude and disrespectful to people who don't deserve it. There are plenty (the majority?) of religious people in the world who cause no harm to anyone and benefit greatly from the practice of religion, but Dawkins dispises all believers in all faiths regardless. After reading Dawkins I bought "Misquoting Jesus" by Bart D. Ehrman. It describes how the bible as we know it is very different to the original documents (for example the "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" passage was not in the original documents at all, it was added by a scribe centuries later). It is a less-rabid, but just as interesting read.

Conversely if there were a bunch more abortions maybe the world would not have had to suffer at the hands of Adolf Hitler or George Bush...

Its a very interesting book but Dawkins is a patronizing bastard.

So how is this comment criticism of Islam dude?

Maybe when it comes to abortion trying to define the "instant" life begins is not as relevant as trying to determine at what point in an embryo's development it would experience suffering on termination. I don't understand people who have issues with killing a collection of non-thinking, non-feeling, non-experiencing cells because they are "alive" yet turn a blind eye to the daily worldwide slaughter of millions of 'fully nerved-up', live chickens, cows, pigs, goats, sheep and humans. To answer the thread question, yes I would. My partner and I have had two children, had amnio both times, would have aborted but didn't need to. In our opinion the decision to abort ultimately lies with the woman concerned.

So you too probably think "anorexics should just eat more". If only life were as simple as it clearly appears to be in SimonBones land: - Smokers? Well they just have to stop smoking, don't they? - Aloholics? Why can't they just drink in moderation like the rest of us? - Heroin addicts? Easy - just stop shooting up. No? - Serial killers? Surely those dudes just need to get a different hobby, right? Everything is simple if you don't think about it too much.

I bet you think anorexics 'should just eat more' too.

I don't think its entirely right to blame obese people for being obese. We never used to have such a high proportion of obese people in our societies. In places like Australia over 20% of kids are obese. USA is almost as bad. European countries like the UK not far behind. To a large extent the easy availability of cheap high carb, high fat food is the cause of this epidemic. We need to limit junk food availability through taxation. We need to limit advertising. We need to start serving only tasty healthy food in schools. We need to prevent corporations who care for nothing other than their shareholders poisoning us all. Now I'm not suggesting that people shouldn't take responsibility for themselves and make the effort to keep themselves healthy. What I am saying is we all need a certain amount of protection from uncaring profit making organisations that are peddaling goods which are in some way addictive. And like it or not food is extremely morish. Think about it. If we lifted all the bans on tobacco advertising and removed all the health warnings and dropped the tax on tobacco products no doubt the number of smokers would skyrocket. If we legalized crack and heroin, sold them in all the supermarkets and pumped billions into advertising them as cool and sexy then we would be awash with addicts and the crime that comes with them. We can't leave leave the supply of junk food in the hands of people who are prepared to profit at the expense of our health. We've been doing that for years and it clearly does not work. To answer the title question I can't help thinking disparaging thoughts when I see a really fat person. I wish I didn't and I try not to. But I'm conditioned to blame them individually for their state rather than look at the bigger picture.

My first thought when I heard about Catholic Youth Day was "Dirty old bastards".

People mock all kinds of things. Political persuasion, taste in music, dress sense, religion, spelling ability. Why should religious belief be singled out for special mockery protection?

Totally off-topic, but when I'm scanning these threads and my subconcious catches your user ID out of the corner of my eye it translates it as "misogynistic". Weirdly dyslexic, or what???

I'm curious .. Do you think the bad guys think they are the bad guys?

Yes, and I almost entirely agree with him, but more so with feeflybella. Like someone else here already said: Spanking is more often than not done out of anger. (The idea that it is done out of love is kind of humerous.) Regardless of that you're really missing my point which is that people who claim to think hitting their children is perfectly ok can't bring themselves to say the actual words "I hit my children" and instead use cuddly words like swatting and batting. Well given that you youself were hit as a child and as a grown up you now think its ok to hit children I'm not sure your sarcasm is very appropriate. If you said "Well I got spanked as a child and I don't spank my kids so it clearly didn't damage me" you might have a point. But you didn't, so you don't.

Its interesting that people who are pro hitting their children rarely refer to it as that. They seem to prefer using alternative cutsey less-threatening terms like 'spanking', 'swatting', 'batting' etc. I wonder why? Is there something wrong with saying "I hit my children"? Is there something that feels not quite right about being that direct about it? If a man says "I came home drunk and (non-consentually) spanked/swatted my wife a few times because she'd not made my dinner." Does his choice of words make it any less domestic violence? In my experience if you instill discipline and respect into your children from the start you simply do not ever need to hit them to get your point across.