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The 'Take it Outside' thread This thread will no longer be moderated ***
Jim wrote: "surely you remember the phrase 'to deny is to confirm'Denying will actually do no good. He probably couldn't afford to fight Ashcroft in the courts as Ashcroft could just spend a few million to k..."
If Cameron wants to stick his dick inside a pig's head behind closed doors, that's his business, but the more serious issue is this:
Ashcroft donated millions to the Tories and expected a cushy government post in return.
What sort of corrupt racket are we running in this country?
Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "Marc wrote: "the Tory journos were dealing with it by questioning the standards of journalistic fact checking and the taste of such prurience. Both ironic considering what they blithely do to those..."Twitter Geoff. Torygruff, Speccie, Times journos
R.M.F wrote: "Jim wrote: "surely you remember the phrase 'to deny is to confirm'Denying will actually do no good. He probably couldn't afford to fight Ashcroft in the courts as Ashcroft could just spend a few ..."
Not that Blair & brown did the same for their cronies?
Marc wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "Jim wrote: "surely you remember the phrase 'to deny is to confirm'Denying will actually do no good. He probably couldn't afford to fight Ashcroft in the courts as Ashcroft could jus..."
Equally as bad and I was just as annoyed about back then, as well.
And now we've got a religious zealot telling us what we all must and must not dohttp://www.theguardian.com/politics/2...
So long as that's all she does with it.
To be honest, a move towards eating less meat is probably a good idea.
Just remember when you worry about Neonicotinoids that the only use for them in the UK is for oil seed rape. If, like sensible northern europeans, we cooked using animal fat, then there'd be acres of flower rich meadows for the bees, not mile after mile of bright yellow flowers driving people mad with the pollen and poisoning the bees
That sounds like common sense, Jim. Stop that immediately.
The world would be a better place if more people heeded Jim.
And if people ate less meat. Meat is a very inefficient way of feeding a growing population, after all.And it's karmically unsound.
Will wrote: "And if people ate less meat. Meat is a very inefficient way of feeding a growing population, after all.And it's karmically unsound."
remember the karma, meat only tries to kill you when it's alive, vegetables try and kill you when they're dead :-)
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/0...I really hate fekkin hypocrites, I suppose she waited for those feathers to gently fall one by one. I saw that picture on Twitter but could only find it on the mail. Sorry.
Jim wrote: "Will wrote: "And if people ate less meat. Meat is a very inefficient way of feeding a growing population, after all.And it's karmically unsound."
remember the karma, meat only tries to kill you ..."
If a meat eater could see inside their own colon, they'd be horrified...
Will wrote: "If a meat eater could see inside their own colon, they'd be horrified ..."I'm betting a look inside anyone's colon would not provide a particularly pleasant view.
Actually Will...Dave's an omivore and his looks pink and perfect.
I can send you a video, if you like.
:D
Will wrote: "If a meat eater could see inside their own colon, they'd be horrified... ..."
Will, my colon is the result of millions of years of evolution. The first ones may have first appeared in fish! It's designed to cope with diets containing any combination of meat, fish, grain, insects, bacterial protein. It was never designed to be aesthetically pleasing.:-)
Bacterial protein is my personal favourite mmmEat less meat but eat good meat, from properly husbandered (is that a word?) and cared for animals. Less monoculture, more diversity, more local. Simples.
That wifie needs a slap. With a pork chop.
Think I'll just pop into the grumpy thread and have a bitch about that word 'simples'.Get in my teeth, that does.
Bit off thread but my darling has to have routine colonoscopies. He has to take the clean prep jollop and no food the day before but is allowed clear drinks. He loves a mint cordial diluted in water so drank a couple of glasses the day before his examination. He chooses to stay awake and talk to the doctor but was a bit alarmed when the doctor said "what on earth is that" and turned the screen round. His gut was a beautiful emerald green.
Cool!Dave should have had some!
Rosemary (The Nosemanny) wrote: "Bacterial protein is my personal favourite mmm..."
Because no mammal can digest cellulose, ruminants use bacteria to break it down and then digest the bacterial protein.
So with ruminants you're really feeding a bacterial colony with a symbiotic mammal attached.
This is why ruminants will eat stuff that you'd not expect herbivores to want to eat (such as blood, bones, urea etc) because the bacteria can handle it beautifully. In the case of blood, urea, they're just nitrogen sources for the bacteria to make protein from.
What's the definition of a ruminant, Jim?Yeah, I know I could google, but.
Because this has suddenly become a bit of a foodie thread I thought I'd flag up this one as a possible riskhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/healt...
Drinking too much green tea gave her Hepatitis. Some of it might be the intrinsic properties of the tea http://livertox.nih.gov/GreenTea.htm
Some of it might just be that it was imported from the third world, purchased off the web, so hadn't gone through any of the normal checks, tests and regulatory processes that food normally gets.
Yeah, I'd read about that somewhere.It's shocking how people are willing to ingest, snort, whatever, unknown substances.
Most animals have more sense.
Well, let's just think who is doing the praising shall we?The usual Tory suspects who don't give a stuff for human rights, and would re invent slavery if they could find an excuse
Now, now Will.They'd not re invent slavery.
Feudalism.
What do you mean reinvent slavery, it's never gone away in the Middle East.
True Lynne... and Cameron so admires the Saudi s, doesn't he? Now Osborne cosies up to another repressive regime...
They all do Will, the Saudi King came to the south of France in the summer and commandeered a beach alongside his holiday home, put a huge slab of concrete down for his private lift and banned all the local cars from passing near then buzzed off after a few days as he didn't like not being welcome. It's quite nauseating how all politicians toady to oil rich nation heads. I think the peasants had the right attitude.
Well I haven't noticed anybody in this group moaning at the low price of petrol.Let's remember that in the UK, we don't produce enough food for our population. We don't produce enough energy for our population. We don't produce enough raw material for our industry.
Look back in history and the similarities between us and Athens between 500BC and 100BC are remarkable.
To feed ourselves and to maintain any standard of living, like the Athenians we have to control the seas. They did this with their short-lived Empire. We did it with ours.
But if you lose the Empire then, like them you fall back on second best. To ensure that you eat, stay warm and have jobs you grovel to whoever is the one who can guarantee that the supplies you need actually arrive, and you grovel to the ones who produce the supplies you eat.
Our political leaders can adopt a high moral tone, but unfortunately that just means that we go hungry and cold :-(
I know what you're saying is spot on as always Jim, but it isn't pleasant watching the grovelling and imagining the size of the bungs changing hands :o)
Jim not gonna answer my ruminant question. :(
Will wrote: "And if people ate less meat. Meat is a very inefficient way of feeding a growing population, after all.And it's karmically unsound."
remember the karma, meat only tries to kill you ..."
If a meat eater could see inside their own colon, they'd be horrified... "
To say nothing of deceased.
Besides my ancestors didn't fight their way up the food chain so that I could become a vegetarian.
Patti (baconater) wrote: "What's the definition of a ruminant, Jim?Yeah, I know I could google, but."
sorry, I missed that
A ruminant is an animal with a rumen :-)
They have the big section of their stomach which is effectively a biodigester which uses bacteria to break down cellulose (because mammals cannot do that) into the sugars that make it up.
Then the whole lot passes out of the rumen and the broken down cellulose and the bacteria are digested by the ruminant.
Rumen flora is a major topic of conversation but rarely at mealtimes ;-)
Patti (baconater) wrote: "Jim not gonna answer my ruminant question. :("Sorry, missed it, done it now
Lynne (Tigger's Mum) wrote: "I know what you're saying is spot on as always Jim, but it isn't pleasant watching the grovelling and imagining the size of the bungs changing hands :o)""Laws are like sausages, if you like them, don't watch them being made." Apparently Bismark said something like that.
In all societies there's a chunk of the people who have to do the immoral and unscrupulous stuff so everybody else can feel justified.
People turn blind eyes when it suits them. Think back to the horsemeat scandal. Did anybody really think you could get decent beef at that price?
Either the producer was being gouged or the product was being adulterated with something really cheap.
But people were happy not to worry about details and were just glad the money went further and they could spend more on stuff they wanted.
Apparently a majority of families in this country spend more on their mobile contract and Sky (or equivalent) subscription than they do on meat.
Now think back ten or fifteen years ago, there were no mobile contracts or Sky. So where's that money come from, what isn't it being spent on?
I wonder if the statistics are age related. I don't think that applies to the seniors but would imagine the next two generations fall into that category easily. I also wonder where the betting industry money comes from. Our high street now has more betting shops than food shops (I'm not including cafes and takeaways in food shops)
Jim wrote: "Patti (baconater) wrote: "What's the definition of a ruminant, Jim?Yeah, I know I could google, but."
sorry, I missed that
A ruminant is an animal with a rumen :-)
They have the big section of..."
So the rumen is that extra stomach?
I think I learned this in high school...
Jim wrote: "Patti (baconater) wrote: "What's the definition of a ruminant, Jim?Yeah, I know I could google, but."
sorry, I missed that
A ruminant is an animal with a rumen :-)
"
for digesting rumen noodles? (gets coat)
Patti (baconater) wrote: "So the rumen is that extra stomach?I think I learned this in high school... ..."
It's one stomach, but split into four 'sacs/regions/stomachs. I checked to get the spelling right but the first two are the rumen and the reticulum which in cattle tend to work together, stuff passes backwards and forwards as well as being sent back to the teeth for more chewing. The Omasum is the next chamber it passes through and here a lot of the water and a lot of minerals are removed. Finally it goes to the abomasum. This is a 'true' stomach, or a 'monogastric' stomach like ours which can digest the stuff that the other stomachs have produced.
So handling all that vegetable matter is a major issue and the first two stomachs are the big biodigester where the fancy work is done.
Which one makes the farts?
Jim, I was under the impression that British farming was one of the most advanced and productive farming industries on earth. So how can there be not enough food being produced? Or have I been falling for farming/media propaganda these past years?
compare our land under acreage with that of say France
I've just driven down from north to the south of France and the size of some of the fields is amazing. We did the trip with some farming friends and he remarked on it too.
Pah.You should see the fields back home.
Our tractors wouldn't fit on the fields in Europe.
R.M.F wrote: "Jim, I was under the impression that British farming was one of the most advanced and productive farming industries on earth. So how can there be not enough food being produced? Or have I been fa..."
It's an interesting question and deserves an answer.
The first point is that we have far too many people and not enough decent agricultural land. We're very densely populated. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/A... should give you a table with arable area per head for various countries, the UK has 0.1 hectares per head, the USA 0.5. France has 0.28
So for self sufficiency we really could do with reducing our population.
Then there's the 'regulatory environment.' We have employment regulations which guarantee the working conditions of people in the industry. This all adds cost. Which is fair enough, but our product goes on sale on the shelf next to imported stuff which doesn't have to carry this cost. As an example I remember an article in the farming press where the girls working in the broiler houses (chicken for the table) in the country he was visiting, couldn't stand up straight because the roof was low, that way they saved heat etc. Because there was no ventilation the girls were pretty much all suffering from various respiratory diseases. But this stuff comes into the UK, is 'manufactured' and can be sold with a Union Jack on it.
Then there's the environmental regulations. Again it adds costs, again it might be necessary, but again we compete against people who don't have to worry about that stuff.
Then there's the climate itself. The UK public are used to a certain type of bread which demands a certain type of wheat. You got used to this bread over a century ago when we imported grain cheap from the USA. If you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat and scroll down until you get to 'Hard Red' you'll see the modern wheat varieties and types. For good breadmaking wheat you need plenty of sun. The Americans (and Canadians) produce far better breadmaking wheat than we do. Interestingly the French use different breakmaking varieties, so their bread is different. But still we cannot normally hope to grow their varieties as well as them either.
So what normally happens is that we'll produce, in an average harvest, a lot of 'sort of OK' break making wheat, some 'Good' breadmaking wheat, and some 'feed wheat' that wouldn't make any bread you'd want to eat so goes to livestock feed.
But we import some really high quality US or Canadian wheat and this is blended with our stuff to produce a flour that is good enough for the bread you want.
If we have a really good summer than we can occasionally produce really good wheat. Some years we even export it to the French. In recent years we've been exporting feed wheat to the US which helps pay for the Hard Red.
Then there's the 'advanced' bit. We aren't any more. Because of the GM ban and other stuff, we're probably fifteen to twenty years behind the US, Brazil and Argentina. The number of new varieties coming forward has slowed to a trickle, because breeding companies are largely world wide and our market is too small to be worth producing for (The cost of producing a new commercial wheat variety is on a par with producing a new drug) so nobody is.
Basically UK (and EU) agriculture survive because the subsidy just about covers the cost of the regulation that our competitors don't have to meet, and because, within what is and what isn't possible, we're pretty damned efficient.
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Books mentioned in this topic
The Beiderbecke Affair (other topics)The Grain Market in the Roman Empire: A Social, Political and Economic Study (other topics)
The Peasants Are Revolting (other topics)
How to Lie with Statistics (other topics)
That Old Ace in the Hole (other topics)
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Where, Marc? I've not seen any of that.