Repair or despair? Natalie or Jim?

Never-the-less, listen a bit more closely *now*. I wouldn't pretend that the BBC is yet back to the 'good old days', but over the last few months, it has most definitely shifted in the right (ha !! get it ? right ?) direction. You will hear the government here getting a good deal more of a kicking, than it was when Blair was in charge, and the Corporation lived in fear (and awe) of his spin machine, and those who ran it such as Campbell, all of whom have now gone off the scene. The political climate here is changing rapidly, as it is in the US, and as I said earlier, the BBC, institutional as it is, is following along not far behind ...

Arfa

It is confined to one thread, and really not doing anyone any harm. It's just a few people of reasonable intelligence, having a chat down the pub over a pint. If it's that big a problem to you both, why are you bothering to keep coming into the thread to look ? Just don't bother, then it won't represent a worrysome problem to you. I expect that it will die out soon, anyway ...

Arfa

The Bush family has long been friends with the bin Ladens and arranged for their exit from the US just after 9/11, before the FBI could question them. Halliburton, under Dick Cheney's leadership, violated the trade embargo against Iran and helped fund their support of terrorism, and Reagan armed the radical Islamic resistance to the USSR in Afghanistan. Conservatives have been in bed with terrorists at least as much as liberals have, son.

The former warden of the other U.S. prison at Guantanimo, a very tough Marine who could not be described as a bleeding heart, would not have tolerated the conditions in the prison where the Muslims are being held in Cuba.

So you'd rather have us breed more terrorists than reform them. The fact is the vast majority of those POWs were ignorant and illiterate and fought simply because they thought they were at war with an enemy Afghani tribe, or they were drafted or bribed by local warlords.

Set the vast majority of the prisoners free with large sums of money, and concentrate on the real terrorists among them.

NO.

The UK DOES NOT send people to Gitmo. I rather doubt Australia does too. WE still believe in the rule of law rather than the law of piracy.

Where the hell did you get an insane idea like that ?

The USA is the most dangerous nation on the planet.

Yes, you love to beat up little countries. Pathetic.

Graham

Not all of those in Guantanamo were even fighting.

Graham

It's one 'long' thread, totally off topic...and not remarked as such.

Nobody's being killed by it, but I've seen newsgroups completely destroyed by such. (not your part of this thread, but....) Take a look at the toyota group to which you are x-posting for an example.

In any case, my remark above was just a joke. Take it as you will.

No, you're OK my friend. I have no beef with you, We've both contributed to the same threads amicably enough for enough years now :-)

I admit I haven't been checking into the x-posted groups. sci.ele.rep gets long OT threads like this from time to time, and I've never thought that they really caused too much trouble, as long as it's only one going on at a time, and it doesn't turn into a flame war as they sometimes do. The main reason that I have kept up with this one is that it started as a way OT post in the first place, but seemed to be drawing some interesting comment from intelligent people. There probably are better places to do this, but for now, I don't think it's doing any harm, or is likely to undermine the otherwise good behaviour, and useful nature of s.e.r.

Arfa

"Arfa Daily" ...

Well, cross-posting *is* considered rude, so perhaps we should stick to just the Toyota group? I've kept cross-posting because I was afraid Arfa may not see my replies, but I wouldn't mind keeping this in Toyotas. I think it's a reasonable complaint.

Natalie

Yep, re: all of your points.

Cathy

There are a couple of others from s.e.r. that have been contributing to the discussion, so I just let it ride as was. I probably won't continue to follow it on the Toyota group, as I have no particular need to frequent that one, and I already spend WAY more time on the 'net than is healthy :-\

So, fare you all well, and I'll bow out now, unless it continues to be x-posted to my group by others. Thanks Wicked, Cathy and Hachiroku for an interesting and stimulating exchange. Perhaps we'll catch up again some time. And Wicked, if you ever find yourself and hubby heading this way, give me a shout on the email address that I use to post on Usenet, and we'll catch up properly

Arfa

Ah, well at least that allows for blipping out the seh ng.

I probably won't continue to

Yeah... moi - I'm supposed to be correcting papers right now.

Yes, was intetresting. And I was going to get back to you on a post from last week, but never did...

Perhaps we'll catch up again some

If Natalie AKA Wicked gets to go to the UK, you'll probably hear her shouts of glee from way over here! :-)

Cathy

"Cathy F." ...

Ya

I don't really have anything else to do, but probably am online too much :-)

Senior moment? ;-)

Yup!

Natalie

Wow. Not the ones I subscribed to. They were run by some very cool people, whom I will never forget.

Perhaps because of NOT calling a General Election he had alluded to, and for someone losing 25M records?

We'll see. Over on this side, we generally like the British, and though Blair may have been a 'lap dog', we really like him over here. He was the best ally we had since Churchill.

Dig up some archival footage of Blair's first meeting with Clinton, and

We really appreciated Blair's friendship after 9/11. I was amazed at how fast his 'chill' for Bush reverted.

LOL! Well, all I know of British politics I get from the BBC, but they sure DON'T like Brown that much, do they?!?!?! ;)

However, on a LOT of other things, they remain firmly planted in the Left. Like when it comes to Gore (I am a Conservative, and though not a 'declared' Republican, tend to lean a LOT more towards the right side of the aisle than the Left...)

One of the things that REALLY irks me about the World Service is their dismissal out of hand the Global Warming is entirely the fault of man. I have sent them a few emails now telling them to look for Ice Core sample data that can be found on the IPCCs own web site that shows this has happened before, and still they choose to ignore it and say it's entirely man's fault.

That, and the Muslim kissing really irks me.

OK, rant off...

Toyotas rule:

He don't know me very well, do he? ;)