Harnser
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Posts posted by Harnser
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Assuming that there would be a vote or referendum in each EU country on this, would France vote as it did on the referendum on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, held on 29 May 2005 to decide whether France should ratify the proposed Constitution of the European Union?
France was the first country to reject it with a resounding no vote with 55% rejecting the proposal on a turnout of 69%.
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7 hours ago, NickP said:
That's easy to say, but you haven't been called pig ignorant on an open forum. I think we might have discovered a refugee from another forum. It's not surprising that several old valued members have voted with their feet, and I'm sure they won't be the last.
it's apparent that there has been an overspill of detritus from forums that have shut down or binned forum trolls who have joined other forums in order to be unpleasant, disruptive and cause trouble.
Perhaps there should be a common register of IP adresses of troublemakers that all forums could access to stop the worst of them?
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5 hours ago, Ken said:
I think your scenario could come to pass. I doubt that MLP would be P.M. though. There is no doubt in my mind that Zemmour is extremely bright and saying all the 'right' things. Things that a great number of people agree with but feel reluctant to say so because he is branded a 'racist' by the left. I do hope he makes it to the second round and further more I would like him to be President. France could do with a 'Eric Trump'!!!! Now that would be very interesting!
Trying to cut to the basics of the personal motivation of the aforementioned candidates here.
Macron - a purely personal ego trip to achieve a second term before swanning off to be the president of the EU.
MLP - A difficult one to fathom - It could be just the continuation and tradition of the Le Pen family business with her. Or she wants to be the first female president? Maybe she has realised that the Le Pen name carries too much baggage to be elected as president but would settle for PM in a Zemmour government?
Zemmour - Possibly he sees it as his duty as a jew and a frenchman - a job that needs doing maybe? Or to prove that he can outwit the establishment?
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Zemmour is polling at 18 - 19% , Macron is at 24% Le Pen at 15%.
The director of Harris polling in France said that he has never seen a little known candidate as Zemmour was, advance so quickly in the polls.
I'm getting the impression that MLP is maybe losing her taste for presidential politics, and might she consider withdrawing from the first round in favour of Zemmour?
If that comes to pass, Macron is toast
And MLP could be his prime minister.
How do you like them apples?
Zemmour is very intelligent and should not be underestimated, he might just outmanoeuvre the french establishment and their poodle media.
An example of Zemmour's thinking and presentation was when he was addressing a rally and he said that of course the establishment machine will have the election all sewn up - but all it takes is a grain of sand in that machine to bring it to a grinding halt. The crowd roared and applauded, shouting "you are the grain of sand".
He replied to the crowd saying "No - you are the grain of sand"
Rapturous applause.
He's working a very old reliable sales technique there.
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"The EV vehicle to grid will also provide much needed battery capacity going foreward and the UK grid has already given details of how this will work"
Have the UK grid given any details of the rate of payment to EV vehicle owners for providing this refuge from reality for the the UK government?
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8 hours ago, Teapot1 said:
I will look into what you say but the build cost of nuclear is colossal, as is the decommissioning and hiding the the dangerous stuff including the concrete and steel etc into deep caves so we can pull the rug over it. Not saying we dont currently need nuclear, we do. Coal, gas oil no, we cant continue to burn fossil fuels ad hoc and as you have said we cannot just turn them on and off whereas if the investment goes into battery storage, we do not need those fossil technologies of the last century.
This is a transitional period for the better. Take away the 6.5% of the worlds GDP and stick that into renewable and batteries (those batteries do not have to be lithium iron or other rare metals as is being proven now with iron air to name but 1.
Do you have any idea of the impracticality of using battery storage to prop up renewable energy sources?
"The 300-megawatt facility is one of four giant lithium-ion storage projects that Pacific Gas and Electric, California’s largest utility, asked the California Public Utilities Commission to approve in late June. Collectively, they would add enough storage capacity to the grid to supply about 2,700 homes for a month (or to store about .0009 percent of the electricity the state uses each year).
(0.0009 percent is nine ten thousandths of one percent)
To power the state completely by batteries you would need 111111 times that battery capacity.
And if the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow, for how long will the charge in the batteries last?
California dreaming!
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The contamination could have come from banknotes.
"Forensic scientists have said that around 80% of all British banknotes contain traces of drugs. A 1999 study found even higher levels of contamination in the London area; of 500 notes tested, only four had no traces of cocaine.[16] Most of the banknotes showed only low levels of contamination, suggesting they had merely been in contact with contaminated notes, but 4% of the notes in the study showed higher levels, which the researchers suggested was the result of either being handled by people under the influence of cocaine (which is excreted in skin oils), or by being used directly to snort the drug.
And that was in 1999 - which was 22 years ago, it's probably ten times worse now!
Or possibly - The source of banknote contamination in London IS the House of Commons???
You chose!
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You may already be conversant with French succession law having read up on it. You may or may not be aware that there were some changes applied from 1st November 2021.
https://www.stoneking.co.uk/literature/e-bulletins/important-change-french-succession-law
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22 hours ago, Teapot1 said:
"One could easily say the same about the colossal cost of a nuclear plant and it decommissioning at the end.
Looking at fossil derived fuels the subsidies given out amount to a colosal 6.5% of the worlds GDP, sink that into renewable energy and "...
"One could easily say the same about the colossal cost of a nuclear plant"
But the fuel cost of running a nuclear power station is peanuts - the fixed costs are mostly the interest on the capital to build it.
Renewable energy - mainly wind and solar - as far as reliable power generation is concerned, is a waste of money.
It's mainly a political sop to the green lobby, to get them onside when it gets to election time.
EG - If you have 20 GW of wind and solar installed, you need a corresponding 20 GW of base load generation to take over when wind and solar don't turn up when you need them.
Aha you say - but surely wind and solar saves fuel cost, substituting for nuclear and fossil fuel powered generation, when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing?
No - it adds to the cost of running the base load nuclear and fossil fuel stations because you cannot just turn them off like your portable generator.
This applies to nuclear, coal, oil and combined cycle gas turbine - they cannot be quickly and easily shut down to save fuel when the wind blows and the sun is shining. Open cycle gas turbine stations can be shut down and started up quickly, but are not anything like as efficient as CCGT - the UK only has one OCGT.
Also, reducing the output of a nuclear reactor can "poison" the fuel (complicated - look it up)
It's like - 'will a car that is constantly stopping and starting accelerating and decelerating use more fuel than one driven at a steady speed, even if it arrives in exactly the same time?' - The predictable answer is of course yes.
All nuclear coal, oil and gas generation is most efficient when run continuously at it's rated output.
The only renewable power source that could possibly be used as base load generation to cooperate with wind and solar is hydro and pumped hydro, because it can be turned on and off quickly with no loss of efficiency.
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" I fear though that France is going to suffer another Macron term"
I am not a Macron fan, but if he achieves a second term what policies is he likely to adopt, given that he will not need to worry about his popularity, as he currently does?
The one sensible plan he has put forward recently is to propose a program of building more nuclear power stations to bolster France's energy security, instead of wasting money on renewables.
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3 hours ago, Lehaut said:
Strange how quickly the daily deaths become the new norm. 100 a day at present in the UK, about half that in France.
Our youngest daughter in the UK is a hospital manager in a large hospital in Manchester, she reported a couple of days ago about thirty covid patients with one or two in ICU. Virtually all are unvaccinated, so not too much cause for concern she said.
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"Sorted for you, Harnser. Whenever you encounter such problems, simply copy the text, paste into Notepad, re-copy and past into the body of your post, prior to posting. Notepad dumps any annoying formatting"
Yes I'm well aware of that procedure, but I usually use Wordpad which for some reason doesn't sort the formatting from the Telegraph.
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Smugglers shot a scared migrant in the kneecaps after he refused to board a boat on the same night 27 people died trying to cross the English Channel.
Volunteers in the Calais jungle migrant camp rushed to the aid of a 20-year-old man who was “quickly losing a lot of blood” after a smuggler became frustrated at his refusal to board the vessel and drew a gun on him.
The smuggler felt he had “lost out on easy money,” volunteers said, as the gangs are believed to only receive the full fee for transporting migrants once they have arrived in the UK. The assailant is on the run, according to French media reports.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/25/bit-like-drowning-scene-film-titanic/?utm_source=POLITICO.EU&utm_campaign=1db8212c2a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2021_11_26_07_09&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_10959edeb5-1db8212c2a-190801596(Sorry about the font - tried to change it but didn't work)
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2 hours ago, anotherbanana said:
Vote Poutou!
He hasn't got off to a great start if this is anything to go by;-
Perhaps he would be more use to the country if he went back to screwing gear knobs on Ford gearboxes except he can't because the factory closed in 2019.
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9 hours ago, Gardian said:
Harnser ........
You asked for a definite answer to your question, but I’m afraid that neither I, nor (I suspect) anybody else will be able to provide that.
I too had had two deliveries some months back which came via DHL and Fedex. With the former I refused delivery (the driver said that “All the anglais do that!”) and I received a subsequent bill for duty and a handling charge. I ignored it and heard nothing more. Fedex sent their bill asking for payment before they’d deliver - again, I ignored it.
In both cases I was credited by the supplier.
I now won’t order anything involving carriers like DHL - never have a problem if it comes with the regular postal service.
Accordingly, I find myself thinking that it’s dodgy practice.
As for getting DHL / Overland off your back, apart from retaining all the correspondence, I can’t see what else you can do. Ignore them I’d say.
Thanks for trying to help, we have now received a full printed bank statement via email from the bank, showing all the bank logos etc- which you don't get if you just open your statement for that month online, it's just the bare figures and looks like you could have generated it yourself.
If we get harassed further we will send them that as a finale.
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42 minutes ago, Lehaut said:
Did you receive the goods you paid for?
If they are not sending you letters by "accusé de réception" then, in my experience with SFR, they are trying it on.
No problem with the delivery - it was a DHL c*ck-up by the look of it - no UK vat charged by UK exporter - numerous emails from DHL informing that the consignment had cleared french customs at 4 am in the morning with no demand for vat or DHL handling charges - delivered here 2 or 3 days later.
The invoice for the vat etc turned up in the post about 3 weeks after the delivery.
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Briefly, We received an invoice in the post from DHL express for payment of import VAT and their handling charge of €47.50
We duly wrote a cheque made out to DHL Express in the correct french format and posted it off by normal post- there was no option to pay by card.
We have since received threatening letters from DHL's debt collector - called Overland - demanding payment.
We sent them an image of the cheque which we had saved, and a redacted printout of our bank statement showing the cheque no and that the cheque was paid.
We have also sent the same to DHL customer service.
(Redacted meaning all transactions on the statement were blacked out apart from the relevant transaction)
We are trying to obtain from our CA bank the details of the account name/number of whom the cheque was paid into. but being CA it's like trying to swim in treacle.
They say that the evidence of the cheque and the statement is enough to prove that we paid DHL.
Overland continue to send threatening emails -I checked up on them with DHL and they are genuine.
Question.
Does anybody know definitely if we are legally in default or is DHL just trying it on?
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13 hours ago, Debra said:
What international law on asylum? There is no such rule in law.
This thread is a bit sickening really. Why do certain people keep referring to 'illegal immigrants' rather than 'asylum seekers' or 'refugees'? Quite a high percentage of those who have made it across to the UK in boats were genuine refugees and were given asylum. The UK has stopped them going any other way. There should be a proper centre for people to go to and seek asylum but instead, all the ideas seem to be about preventing them from trying.Frontex, the EU border and coast guard agency stated that:-
"A total of 11,150 people attempted to reach European countries in an unlawful way through its external borders in June 2021"
"The agency has revealed that the number of illegal border crossings at Europe’s external borders reached more than 61,000 in the first six months of 2021"
So by definition if you enter a country illegally, you become an illegal immigrant don't you?
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1 hour ago, Gardian said:
Isn’t the reality (and has been for years) that the UK has been viewed as a ‘soft touch’ by would-be immigrants?
It’s as simple as that.
The soft touch scenario is an attraction, add to that the fact that most of then will have some english to a greater or lesser extent, as opposed to french, and that there is no requirement for personal id or registration in the UK and if they desire they can just submerge into the the twilight world of the black economy, usually working for other immigrant employers who turn a blind eye to the fact that they are illegals, and pay then less than the minimum wage on account of that.
Then there is the widespread beds-in-sheds accommodation going on. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/tens-of-thousands-of-people-living-in-beds-in-sheds-across-the-capital-report-shows-a3723786.html
Add to all that, free medical treatment anywhere on the NHS - no questions asked.
Why WOULDN'T you want to get into the UK anyway you could?
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On 18/11/2021 at 20:16, NormanH said:45 minutes ago, cajal said:
Fortunately, I have no skin in the immigration situation that is affecting the UK right now, although I do believe it is not a recent problem but one that has been an issue for decades. I'm more concerned what France and Brussels action is to halt this unsustainable influx of undocumented emigrants into the countries of the EU.
If the people of the UK are serious and genuinely want a halt in this situation, then they will have to be prepared to suffer some inconveniences. As has been reported in the media and on TV, the eastern states of the EU are in the process or have already completed erecting physical barriers along their borders which I believe are patrolled by those nations armed forces.
The south coast of England, according to Google, has 400 miles (643.74 km) of coastline. Order up 400 miles worth of razor wire. Have the army install and erect it with designated access points for beach or whatever access. The army patrols it. Basic style internment camps to be constructed by the army, freeing up hotels to be returned to their original purpose, for anyone breaching the barriers, and process any asylum requests for those who are in possession of official documents re: name, age and nationality. Those who do not comply will just have to sit it out until they conform to the requirements. Cease any cash handouts, supply food, cooking and washing facilities, tents with heating and wait whilst the numbers diminish.
Just a suggestion Ken as you didn't seem to be able to envisage any situation other than shooting these people.
The Australian procedures, rules and laws that they have to deal with unauthorized immigrants has some merit.
"In 1992, Australia adopted a mandatory detention policy obliging the government to detain all persons entering or being in the country without a valid visa, while their claim to remain in Australia is processed and security and health checks undertaken. Also, at the same time, the law was changed to permit indefinite detention, from the previous limit of 273 days. The policy was instituted by the Keating Government in 1992, and has been varied by the subsequent Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison Governments.[1] The policy is regarded as controversial and has been criticised by a number of organisations.
*The High Court of Australia has confirmed, by majority, the constitutionality of indefinite mandatory detention of non-citizens.[2]
Mandatory detention rules also apply to persons whose visa has been cancelled by the Minister, for example on character grounds, allowing such persons to be detained in immigration detention and deported, some after living in Australia for a long period.[3][4] Furthermore, if a person has Australian citizenship and another citizenship, their Australian citizenship can be revoked"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_detention_in_Australia
*But I cannot somehow envisage that UK courts would hold with indefinite mandatory detention.
But it worked for Australia as it reduced the immigration flood to a trickle.
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7 hours ago, betise said:
But they say that they will still accept Visa debit cards, which is probably what most Visa cardholders would use.
Maybe, but I still retain a Visa credit card to be able to occasionally purchase items from the UK and benefit from Section 75 protection.
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5 hours ago, NickP said:
I think that the fact that Amazon are promoting their own credit card may have something to do with the change of conditions, or of course it's a negotiation ploy to get the charges down, as Amazon obviously are not earning enough. ? They could save money on packaging, I ordered a new paper shredder it arrived in the normal Amazon box, when I opened it I found the Shredder, in its original box, also an Amazon one.
I think that has more to do with hiding the contents from potential thieves during transit - what the eye doesn't see it doesn't covet etc.
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This probably does not affect that many French residents, but it's as well to be aware.
"As a result of Visa's continued high cost of payments, we regret that Amazon.co.uk will no longer accept UK-issued Visa credit cards as of 19 January, 2022," an Amazon spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
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Danny reports that their current car is only doing about 11000 km per year and that they have never lifted the bonnet in 3 years.
An electric car would suit the distance driven better than either a petrol or diesel model. But presumably you still need to top up the screenwash reservoir?
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The world and the EU in particular have gone mad!
in The Complete France Post Bag
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