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The 'Take it Outside' thread This thread will no longer be moderated ***
I had to speak to a woman who let her Rhodesian ridgeback loose and it came very close, snarling and growling. She wouldn't acknowledge me and I called ''Madam, put your dog on a lead please". Well she went off on a rant because I'd called her madam. It made it worse as it made me laugh. I thought that was preferable to "Oi, Missus". But obviously not.
The irony here is that we've got two or three closet fascists aggressively insisting that everyone else adhere to their own notion of what 'normal' is, for no other reason than because that's what they know.If this 'proud' man from the Black Country was so pig headed and ignorant to throw around the word 'wench' at a convention like this, he would get the same reception as his equally 'proud' Missippian cousin who turned up to an Ethnic Minorities in Science meeting wearing a Confederate Flag t-shirt.
Dinosaurs gonna dinosaur.
The problem is that some minorities are virtuous and others are pig headed and ignorant
Yes, the problem is that minorities are people just like you and me.
Spot on Mike. Absolutely spot on. Where we run into trouble is when we forget this and apply labels instead. The process by which we dehumanise somebody by converting them into a label before we destroy them is an old one and has been well used over the years
Jim wrote: "Spot on Mike. Absolutely spot on. Where we run into trouble is when we forget this and apply labels instead. The process by which we dehumanise somebody by converting them into a label before we de..."Tsk.
Typical man.
:D
Patti (baconater) wrote: "Tsk.Typical man.
:D "
Women, eh?
Can you two take it outside the take it outside thread, please?
Michael Cargill wrote: "TThe irony here is that we've got two or three closet fascists aggressively insisting that everyone else adhere to their own notion of what 'normal' is, for no other reason than because that's what they know."Yep. That is precisely what I'm referring to. Glad you agree with me.
The speech-code 'fascists' (as you put it) should not have the power - real or imagined - to dictate what others - who do not share their worldview - think and say.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/art...
Yes, I know it is in the Daily Mail, but you can wash your hands afterwards.
Jim wrote: "The problem is that some minorities are virtuous and others are pig headed and ignorant"The problem is that ideologies are belief systems, and as such their adherents can only see the good in their side and the bad in those who do not share their ideology.
Often looking for way to rationalise to themselves why the unbelievers cannot see what to them is a self-evident truth. Back when Marxism Today was my favourite magazine there was a lot of stuff in it about the 'false consciousness of the masses' and how to save them from themselves and lead them to the true path.
That Magazine went bust in the end, though - shame, it was a good read.
http://www.amielandmelburn.org.uk/col...
I'm not sure what the point of that article is.The excuse "It was just a joke" is something I grew out of when I left school.
You seem intent on being as much of a speech-code fascist as the ones you're railing against.
Michael Cargill wrote: "You seem intent on being as much of a speech-code fascist as the ones you're railing against. "Nope, wrong again.
Just the opposite.
If anything you could describe me (and Mick Hume, in the article) as free-speech fundamentalists, in having a belief that free-speech underpins all other freedoms and without it societal progress - of any sort - is not possible, or at least hamstrung.
If you really can't see that, then the problem must lie at your end.
By-the-by: although I wouldn't these days agree with everything he says, the mouthy pillock who wrote this all those years ago more or less sums it up for me:
https://davidhadleyauthor.wordpress.c...
As I said before, you're someone who is aggressively insisting that everyone else accept what you define as being right.The only difference between you and the fifth columnists that you're railing against is the language you use to justify it to yourself.
Tim Hunt's right to free speech hasn't been infringed upon.
Michael Cargill wrote: "As I said before, you're someone who is aggressively insisting that everyone else accept what you define as being right.The only difference between you and the fifth columnists that you're railin..."
How the hell do you manage to come to a conclusion totally at odds with everything I've said?
If you can't or won't even make an attempt to understand that then there is no use in continuing.
By all means have the last word, if you like. If it is as incoherent as your last post it won't matter that much.
Because just about everything you've said on this subject is meaningless rambling about SJW and political correctness, along with strawman arguments and non sequiturs.
Now now, darlings.Shake hands and agree it is a complex topic. We can have our opinion and not everyone needs to agree with it to validate it.
Now talk about something happy, please. I'm on HOLIDAY,
Patti (baconater) wrote: "Now now, darlings.Shake hands and agree it is a complex topic. We can have our opinion and not everyone needs to agree with it to validate it.
Now talk about something happy, please. I'm on HOLI..."
I'm perfectly fine and more than happy to let it go. Its wasted far too much time already.
I'm only annoyed that Michael posted that particular XKCD cartoon before I had a chance to.
That's a brilliant cartoon! Chuckling my nuts off.
I wanted to post that cartoon days ago but I've still not been able to sort out posting a pic in a thread like that!
Patti (baconater) wrote: "I wanted to post that cartoon days ago but I've still not been able to sort out posting a pic in a thread like that!"As far as I remember from the last time I did it, it is the image part from the (some html is ok) thing at the top right of this very comment box.
Just put the web address of the image into that and if necessary add or adjust the dimensions to suit.
So, I'm looking at the accounts of one of the new business Boy George Osborne is so proudly announcing.This lady is trading as an ebay shop: For this she gets yo be taken off the unemployment register, no longer has to jump through the horrendous weekly hoops to get JSA (she get's tax credits instead. Same amount, no paperwork to be sent off weekly to DWP) AND an initial grant from the taxpayer, paid weekly.
She turns over just under £5000, pays ebay & Paypay £ 850 and Hermes another £ 600, and that's before her stock costs!
Who told her this was a viable way to earn money, and isn't it just a way of messing with statistics for Osborne?
Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity.
Just for comparison, an example of something similar done quite well. Mate of mine has an Amazon shop, which he's built up quietly for some years. He'll make £6k, Amazon takes their cut before that, and he doesn't pay paypal at all but there will doubtless be credit card fees.
He does films (DVD) and some books. But his business model is to spend his saturdays doing the charity shops, entering stuff he buys into the shop using his phone when he stops for a breather, (And checking out selling price before he even buys)
Delivery costs but he does add the fixed fee to what he's selling so that helps a great deal
His business is an important bonus, which with a slightly better than minimum wage 20 - 30hr a week job brings in a reasonable income for round here.
Neither he nor I think it could easily be scaled up to a full time job, he did contemplate it when he was unemployed.
He has had nothing from the government for it, taken no advice from them (why do you ask a government employee for advice about running a business?)and his sole contact with them is that he does declare the income for tax.
Obviously I haven't a clue what she's selling, but her turnover is far too small at the moment, and if I were advising her I'd be looking at what she was doing to increase it.
A lot of these things aren't 'jobs', they're part of a 'portfolio' career which the self employed have always tended to go for. You do them AND you do something else.
Writers ought to be used to the concept I suppose :-)
She may just be a bored housewife trying to do a little hobby thing on the side.A lot of the people doing that Herbalife nonsense are like that - people with little real business expertise but plenty of spare time on their hands.
The modern version of Tupperware parties.
I prefer the sex toy parties. Are they still doing those?Help in my travel money card thread, please, you smart money types.
From what she says, she was rather pushed into declaring it as a business to get off JSA.It's a nice hobby, nothing else.
Will wrote: "From what she says, she was rather pushed into declaring it as a business to get off JSA.It's a nice hobby, nothing else."
From what I've been told by mates she's probably better off than she would be on JSA because she doesn't have to go down and sign on and prove how many purely random jobs she's applied for (with no hope of ever getting)
So she'll probably have more chance now of getting a proper job or signing up for some sort of training.
Strangely enough the only person I know who didn't get any petty and vindictive grief from the people who were doing the JSA was a big lad, powerfully build, red haired and with known anger management issues. They treat him with the respect and courtesy they should have used to deal with everybody else
Jim wrote: "Strangely enough the only person I know who didn't get any petty and vindictive grief from the people who were doing the JSA was a big lad, powerfully build, red haired and with known anger management issues. They treat him with the respect and courtesy they should have used to deal with everybody else "With sociopathy comes respect.
Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote:With sociopathy comes respect. ..."Talk softly and carry an axe ;-)
A concealed weapon?(That sword is so big it's practically a concealed owner... STP, 'Jingo')
Is this the place to rant and rave about the Conservative government?
I guess so... but it's not a love-in thread, so some will inevitably disagree.
Will & Jim will be along to support the Tories, RMF. And I'll be here at once to disagree with Will & Jim.Facebook is already full of people moaning that they voted Tory and didn't realise that the £ 12 Billion of savage Welfare Budget cuts were going to target THEM, just because they are presently in work and receiving tax credits.
Who did they think the money was going to be taken from?
Dear Marjorie - I find myself swearing volubly and with great feeling every time I see or hear George Osborne (which frankly is not very ladylike and I should be ashamed of myself). I wonder if there is any treatment available? Yours, etc
HahahahahahahaAny support group offer would be over subscribed
You would rather take the cuts from the next generation ... and with extra interest? Okaaay.
A friend is boycotting Amazon because they're 'such a shitty employer'.I doubt they'll miss his custom.
No Will, I'd rather invest and repay the debt by growth, which cuts and austerity do not create. Anywhere, ever.Did you hear David Camaron today? 'I shall drive wage growth by... reducing the tax credit benefit'.
An argument that lacks any intellectual rigor. Surely the best thing is to increase the minimum wage to a point where top up benefits are not required, and that will reduce the spending. And raise tax receipts.
Oh dear. Here we go again.We give money to the Government through our taxes. They spend that money on us. So any cut in Government spending is also a cut in the amount of tax that we need to pay. Because it's the same money. Government spending = tax. It's not their money. It's our money.
So yes we need to invest in growth. And to do that we need money. And to get that money we need to reduce spending on things we can't afford. And we certainly need to stop the immense amount of borrowing that is costing us a fortune in interest payments.
Cuts and austerity put more money in people's pockets in the long run. Yes the cuts hurt. Yes the Tories may be going too far too fast. But the basic principles behind what they are doing are just sound economics. Which is what the rest of Europe has been telling Greece these past few weeks.
The funny thing is that the people who are opposing austerity would end up costing us far more in the long run. It's like being heavily in debt and saying "what the hell! Let's max out the credit cards".
Increasing the minimum wage? When we are already struggling to compete with foreign producers? Why do you think that Aldi and Lidl are so cheap, that almost everything electrical that you own is made in China and Dysoms are made in Malaysia?
Lacking any intellectual rigour? Quite the reverse, I'm afraid.
Oh more than one Jim!One thing that I don't understand is how it's possible to have a minimum wage that is less than the so-called living wage...??
(Most of the problems in Greece are surely down to the fact that they have never paid their taxes. £76 billion is owed by citizens to the government, most dating since 2009.)
well actually round here somebody on the minimum wage isn't doing badly. It's worth going to work for. Also it's not an issue because you tend not to be stuck in it long, because you've got a job and the second one is easier to get.
But the problem comes because of tax credits where some seriously big companies who've paid money to all political parties over the years know that they can pay you peanuts forever and the tax payer will make it up.
Companies like the major retailers have been massively subsidised, indirectly, for years.
They can pay their staff less than the minimum wage because the tax payer will step in. They can pay those who supply food to them less than the cost of producing it because the tax payer steps in and provides a subsidy to enable the suppliers to continue.
So actually a lot of cheap food is actually expensive because you not merely have to pay for the food, you have to pay the tax to the government to hand over in subsidy, AND you have to pay tax to the government to have expensive and well pensioned bureaucrats run the system.
But there again,food prices are regressive, the cost falls heavier on the poor,so is subsidising food and screwing the middle class for tax a good thing?
I get paid the minimum wage and I certainly couldn't live on it! (Fortunately I don't have to, just helping to put two daughters through uni)
I've often wondered what proportion of people on the minimum wage work for the state (Directly or indirectly, as in careers where they work for an agent, but all the work they do is on local authority contracts.)
Jim wrote: "There's a blog in this somewhere :-)"Funny you should say that...
https://willonce.wordpress.com/2015/0...
Will, you really haven't actually looked properly at economics, have you? You need to read some keynes.Austerity does not work because it relies in matching the expenditure to the tax take by reducing the expenditure. Now n practice that means serious reduction in public services. That's all very well for the well off who don't use them, or who can divert their funds to take up the slack. Ordinary people can't do that: so the quality of their life sinks like a stone (that seems to be quite OK with you.).
Balance is much better achieved by stimulating growth, which austerity/cuts does not generate. A claim that it does is simply untrue, and driven by dogma and prejudice, not intellect and experience: oh, and most leading economists (including many within the IMF by the way, their leading statistician for one)- but hey yes, lets call them idiots shall we?
Will - it's a part of my day job, but let's try to keep to facts not personal attacks, yes?Austerity does work, and in fact it's essential right now because the level of public borrowing in unsustainable.
As for "most leading economists", we have one or two lone voices who criticise pure austerity, but the vast majority agree that some form of austerity is essential. The gap between tax income and spending has to be closed. And anyway what the UK Government is doing is not pure austerity.
I loved this sentence: "Balance is much better achieved by stimulating growth, which austerity/cuts does not generate."
Just what do you think the Government does with the money it saves through austerity measures? Where do you think that money goes? And how are you going to stimulate growth without raising money?
Yes, we need to stimulate the economy. We can do that by investing in infrastructure to stimulate new jobs and housing. But in order to have the money to invest we need to make reductions elsewhere. In some circumstances it can be sensible to borrow in order to invest in growth. This isn't really an option at the moment because the gap between taxation income and spend is so large and we are already heavily in debt.
But don't take my word for it. This is actually what "most leading economists" are saying. Hence the discussions between the European Union and Greece.
The trouble is that the Cons don't really invest in infrastructure that stimulates new jobs and housing. They invest Our Taxes in things like HS2, which won't benefit anyone really apart from London as Birmingham becomes part of the SE labour market, Trident replacement and the like (well you have to keep your arms producing chums happy don't you) and how about £100,000 a month on Facebook. That's £1m pa on one website alone...What this country needs is some sensible housekeeping and some honest to goodness fairness
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You certainly have it you know what usenet was back then :-)