Rabbie

I share you surprise that they published the report but of course there is apolitical motive. The report was produced by Democrat senators and. The torture occurred during a Republican period of office. Personally I am opposed to the use of torture both on moral grounds and on the fact that it does not provide reliable information. People will say what they think the torturer wants to hear regardless of whether it is true or not. Other people will show great courage in staying silent.

It's quite simple. The EU is controlled by Germany as a way to establish by peaceful means what they couldn't achieve in two world wars - the domination of Europe.

I find the site runs reasonably OK on my laptop using windows 8.1 and IE 11. Even the quote facility works properly. However the Quote facility does not produce pretty results when used on my IPAD. I believe some/most of the problems are caused by the incorrect HTML being used. Anyone who thinks the HTML is correct should use the HTML validator at http://validator.w3.org/ . They will be amazed at the number of errors highlighted.

[quote user="woolybanana"]But, if they give him IKEA meatballs, I reckon he will be off![/quote]Our dachshunds love IKEA meatballs. They are not so keen on bananas tho[:D]

[quote user="NormanH"]I  can't imagine moving to a country and then learning the language [8-)] How do people know what the place is like or whether they will be happy there if they can't ask a local, read a loca or national newspaper or magazine?  How do people occupy themselves if they can't converse, watch a film or TV, go the the theatre or pursue other social activities? What happens when you want to share a joke, support someone in a crisis or your car breaks down? Then of course you might be ill.... [/quote]I had no choice  when I moved to Sweden for work reasons many years ago. Armed only with a copy of "Teach Yourself Swedish" and a English-Swedish dictionary it did not take too long to be able to read basic Swedish. It was helped by the fact that the many English language TV programs were subtitled rather than dubbed so that was another way of building a vocabulary. Basic communication was helped by the fact that most Swedes were reasonably fluent or better in English. My own experience is that it is much easier to learn a language if you are living in the country and hearing how people actually use the language.  

[quote user="mint"][quote user="Rabbie"] [quote user="PaulT"]Rabbie, I am not a Christian[/quote]Neither am I. But I happen to think that it is the mark of a civilised country that we do not ignore people who are in difficulties and at risk of losing their life. I think that as a human being I should offer assistance to another human being in that situation even if it is self inflicted. For me it is a simple matter of "Do as you would be done by". I just hope if I am in difficulties you  are not the first person to come by as it seems you would be unwilling to help. [/quote] Rabbie, don't give up on the human race just yet.  Look at this story and you will see that we are not all potential mass murderers: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2814565/Nobel-winning-schoolgirl-Malala-donates-latest-50-000-prize-help-rebuild-schools-Gaza-damaged-fighting-Israel-Palestine.html [/quote]No intention of giving up on the human race. I know there a lot of good decent people out there. Just a bit puzzled by those people that think it is OK to knowingly allow people to drown. I find such an attitude incomprehensible

[quote user="PaulT"]Rabbie, I am not a Christian[/quote]Neither am I. But I happen to think that it is the mark of a civilised country that we do not ignore people who are in difficulties and at risk of losing their life. I think that as a human being I should offer assistance to another human being in that situation even if it is self inflicted. For me it is a simple matter of "Do as you would be done by". I just hope if I am in difficulties you  are not the first person to come by as it seems you would be unwilling to help.

Glad to see the spirit of Christian Charity is alive and well and being displayed in this thread[6]

To return to the original topic of this thread I have now seen that a property where we put in a bid last year described as insulting by the seller on another forum is now showing as "Sous compromis" at a price less than we offered.

[quote user="Britannicus"] If you rely on Bertrand Russell I doubt that anything has any veracity. He it was that visited Russia under Stalin and declared "I have seen the future and it works" [quote user="NormanH"]One of my barrels is not far from Quillan's, but at the moment I am in the warm one, and this afternoon it was 30 by the forecast and 35ish in full sun.[/quote] [/quote]Before criticising Norman you should check your own accuracy. A quick Google search indicates that the quote in question was not made by Bertrand Russell but by Lincoln Steffens. Always worth checking these things when posting on Forums frequented by old pedants such as myself[:)]

Reading this thread using IE9 it is unreadable. Perhaps this forum needs to get a little more up to date.

[quote user="Chancer"]Playing devils advocate, were these other web browsers around when this forum was created? What I am trying to say is, is it the fault of the forum or the browser? I have had upgrades forced or tricked on to me and thereafter I have had problems with websites, forums, software etc that worked fine before but to me the culprit was clear. [/quote]Using the W3 HTML Validator this forum seems to be generating a large number of errors. Although most modern browsers can make an intelligent guess as to what the writer wanted they can't get it right every time which explains some of the problems.

From the hint I would guess Potteries. Couldn't kixk a ball against a wall till it bursts

It always used to be the case that if you wanted to avoid paying UK tax you were only allowed to spend a very limited number of days in the UK each tax year. I don't know if this is still the case but this may be the reason they want to know this.

[quote user="Debra"]It sounded like if someone was let back in then she was leaving.  Maybe she had a problem with that particular poster? [/quote]even so perhaps she should have waited until the person actually was re-admitted. There has been no sign of any banned people returning

[quote user="nomoss"]I see from a couple of posts above that the UK gov't is succeeding in getting people to refer to pensions as "benefits" [:(] WB. I was about to challenge the annual figure you originally posted for Class 3 contributions, but see that you have now drastically revised it upwards. The last time I paid these they amounted to £356.20, in 2003, for an extra "approximately 2 to 3%" of the then annual basic pension of £3926. So, estimating the increase at 2.5%, this one-off payment of £356 gave about £100 per annum extra, say £2 per week. Pretty good value, as you say. Now, I am offered £25 extra per week, £1300 per annum, 13 times as much,  for a one-off payment of £15625, nearly 44 times as much. I'm not sure that's a good deal either. [/quote]You were lucky[:D]. Although I have been retired now for five years the calculator reckoned it would cost me over £19000 to get an extra £25 a week. I wonder how much I would get with that money if  I bought a private annuity.

Unimaginatively I chose a forum name based on my own name. The variants of Rob that I tried were taken on the first forum I joined so I then used the name that an old friend called me. As he had just died it was a sort of tribute to his memory.

I agree. Of course they may not want to come back but any ban should be lifted after a certain time. I am sure the Mods would be able to ensure this was not abused.

[quote user="PaulT"]I do love it when people like Spyder, total posts currently 16, come on here and make a judgement about a long established member who has extensive knowledge of France. Is this a refugee from FE? Let us hope there are no more![/quote]i would like to extend a warm welcome to all the members who have come to us from FE. Just because someone has very few posts does not mean that they do not know what they are talking about.

Wooly, Sorry if you thought I was trying to bully you.that was not my intention and I apologise if I upset you. I certainly don't regard myself as judge and jury on this forum. I leave that to the mods. On re-reading the thread I feel that I was a bit oversensitive so I would like draw a line under this and let bygones be bygones. Once again I apologise

[quote user="woolybanana"]It refers to the bank and not the people, Rabbie. Unless you have a problem with admitting that a) it was a nasty bank, b) it was and is based in Scotland, c) it still has the name Scotland in its name. Nothing racist about that unless it claimed to represent the people of Scotland who would have been deeply ashamed of it if it had and if they had known what was going on.[/quote]I have seen no evidence that it is  a "nasty" bank. I have no problem that it is based in Scotland and has Scotland in its name though I fail to see the relevance of these two points. And besides you are WRONG. NatWest is not part of the Bank of Scotland Group. It is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland which is partly state owned. So perhaps  you should check your facts before posting. Remember Sally Bercow lost her holiday money by posting incorrect information on the web. So the HBOS group have probably got a case against you even though they won't be so petty. 

[quote user="woolybanana"]Nat West was a good bank until it was taken over by the Nasty Bank of Scotland[/quote]Do we have to put up with this racist cr@p. Our local branch of NatWest has always been very helpful.

hi

The apparent death wish on the FE forum should be a wake-up call to this forum to regain some of its old vim and gusto.

[quote user="woolybanana"]My bet is that the SNP will lose seats at the next election.[/quote]Very probably but IMO it will depend on the UK response to the result