The Political Thread

[COMMANDO FORCES]

These are just minor niggles in the great scheme of things, Europe will succeed, no matter what! You may not enjoy the crap that is coming your way (in fact most of you are having a rough time of it now) but so long as the powerful elite are taken care of and we all act like sheep they don't give a toss.
If it takes 50 years to try and squeeze Europe into a ridiculously shaped hole then they will keep pushing. I could go on about how our bosses are insanely driven by their need to reduce our greenhouse gasses while no other country seems bothered. Who cares, so long as we make this country uncompetitive.
And before the green lobby jump in, most if not all of them are hypocrites, so I take everything that comes out of their mouths with a pinch of salt.
The banking crisis, yes the bankers are twats and need to be punished and it looks like their bluff has finally been called. I also blame the twats who took out loans and mortgages and store cards and maxed out their credit cards. Have some bloody guilt yourselves you greedy bastards. Many hard working fuckers are suffering because you are the want it now culture.

Anyway that's enough of that, back to watching telly!

[Old Tankie]

Round of applause for that man!!  Trouble is, CF, although it's staring them in the face, they just keep turning the mirror round!!

[TordelBack]

Don't ever change, CF.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

I won't 

[Mikey]

I'd argue that the 'want it now culture' was in large part created by advertising and marketing giving people a sense that they could be happy if they bought more stuff that other people might already have.  Showing people material fantasies just out of reach and making material wealth a socially competitive game meant other parts of the free market system were obviously compelled to help with this growing malaise by developing a new way to assess risk, allowing people who couldn't really afford it within their means get what they saw on their increasingly large televisions, what they were led to believe was what 'normal' people had and what 'normal' people's aspirations were made of. Like going to fucking Disneyland or owning a fucking BMW is a measure of worth. This could be of some use in politics as when you have a bunch of people fixed on what their neighbours have or haven't got, you can tell them that your party will make the economy so utterly brilliant you could afford everything you desire. Or something.

I wholeheartedly agree that there was a choice, but for some people it was obviously Hobson's, for whatever reasons. Shoring any country's economy up on something that was created to make more money out of us punters has been shown to be a bit short sighted, no matter if you are part of a federal or sovereign monetary system if you ask me.

M.

[Dandontdare]

Weren't our European masters telling us, only a few weeks ago, that the problems were sorted

No, I don't think anyone said that.

"I think we can say that the existential threat against the euro has essentially been overcome" said European commission president Jose Manuel Barroso. 

Ref:  The Guardian Monday, 7th January 2013.

Ah, that was just the existential threat. The real shit is still there 

[JOE SOAP]

I have an existential crisis everyday.

[TordelBack]

I have an existential crisis everyday.

Ah, but have you got Issue 63?

[Frank]

BUDGET CALCULATOR

I've just made £285 - bitch!

[Frank]

This is just Eddie Mair being incredibly rude to Boris johnson, knowing he can't respond in kind, but it's factual and it's fun:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21916385

[Richmond Clements]

This is just Eddie Mair being incredibly rude to Boris johnson, knowing he can't respond in kind, but it's factual and it's fun:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21916385

Nothing the shit didn't deserve! It's about time someone asked him about that stuff!

[Ancient Otter]

Stop the Cyborgs?

[Frank]

WTF North Korea

^^This.

Bill Hicks's disqualification of the 1991 Gulf war on the grounds that the definition of a war is when two armies are fighting is probably relevant here. A war of annihilation between the world's only superpower and a country which depends on welfare handouts from China just to feed (some of) its people would be over before we all go back to work on Tuesday.

The fat kid's only acting out because he has a new step-Daddy and wants to see how far stamping his feet and shouting will get him (same as a few other dependents). There's an awful lot of newly-mega-rich countries in that region who are doing too well out of the financial collapse of Western capitalism to let the Special Unit kid shit in the pool and spoil the party.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Emergency rulers imposed in U.S. cities - democracy can no longer be trusted, apparently.  Nice move, Chief Judge Snyder

http://www.thenation.com/blog/173510/austeritys-cruelest-cut-democracy-denied-detroit#

[Frank]

Emergency rulers imposed in U.S. cities - democracy can no longer be trusted, apparently.  Nice move, Chief Judge Snyder

http://www.thenation.com/blog/173510/austeritys-cruelest-cut-democracy-denied-detroit#

According to this Fox News piece, it's all the fault of uppity black union leaders who eat too many burgers.