Ah but lets not forget that even in countries where soccer is the usual term, football would be an unambiguous synonym for it. Almost anywhere outside the US, no one is going to get confused and think you are talking about handegg;)
Why is this important you ask? Is it just a standard, doomed attempt to resist American cultural imperialism? No, it is more important than that. The current state of world sport is one of the more successful and enduring legacies of British cultural imperialism, and we'd like to keep it that way thank-you. This elevates pointing out the US's failure to interest the world in its own sports, from a pleasant pastime to a sacred national duty. Repeatedly reminding you that you get the names wrong is simply a part of that:)
Unless these companies see that crap like BP pulled results in serious repercussions, there will continue to be incidents like this. Worse, their shareholders will still not pay attention as long as they make money. Perhaps those investors and pension managers should pay more attention to how the companies they OWN are behaving?
The company value has dropped about 80 billion USD. If you think that shareholders are sitting pretty than you're insane.
Point being punitive damages do not work unless it forces the company into bankruptcy.
Why does it only apply to foreign countries operating in the US, while US companies operating abroad are protected from similar sanction by the full weight of the US government.
One of the reasons this is causing resentment in Britain is that with the Union Carbide compensation finally (after 20+ years) being paid for the Bhopal tragedy in India, the rank hypocrisy of the US government is obvious. Somewhere between ten and twenty thousand dead, long term heath problems for hundreds of thousands. Compensation paid, after DECADES of wrangling... less than a billion USD. Oh and a CEO who initially admitted responsibility, then changed his mind and fled home to the US which refuses to extradite him.
Now you want to bankrupt BP because you're pissed with them? Sorry no. Make them pay to clear up the mess they made certainly, but you do not have the right to break the company simply because people are angry.
I would love a modern Elite (EVE is almost it, but I would like something that doesn't tether me to the internet).
It's called X3: Terran Conflict, published by a company called Egosoft. You can find an extremely well-written gameplay story here if you want to get an idea of the possibilities.
Think of this: If you have two types of orange juice, one is cheaper and high on dioxins due to improper processing of the manufacturer and one is more expensive. Otherwise they are mostly the same. Is it rationally to buy the poisend one?
Depends if you plan on drinking it or selling it:)
Which is fine if you are looking at BP shareholders as a load of nasty foreign speculators making money by ruining America's environment.
However when you are one of those nasty foreign speculators (ie you're British and have a pension fund), for some reason you take a rather different view:)
You can't just go around force-nationalising companies because you are pissed off with them. Yes of course BP has to pay to sort out this mess, and presumably will also be hit with some punitive fines. And if there were criminal offences then of course they should be pursued. But to seize BPs assets because destroying the company would make Americans feel better... It is simply not acceptable.
BP has lost about half its net worth. It will probably be forced to cut its dividend (for political rather than financial reasons), which makes up about 15% of the dividend income on the average UK pension. The company and it's shareholders are being and have been punished.
Remember US companies (ie your pension fund) are also active internationally. And also annoy the locals from time to time. Setting precedents here is unlikely to be beneficial for America in the long term.
BP's gross operating profit is $47.4 billion according to their earnings statement released at the beginning of the year. $1.25 billion so far or $100 billion over the course of the next 10 or more years is hardly a painful penalty.
So it is a massive company. One able to manage the costs of the cleanup operation. Why is that supposed to be a problem? You'd prefer them to be bankrupt and pick up the costs in your tax bill?
The pressure has been there since the beginning. It started well before we were a nation, and it continues to this day. Basically it has taken 200 years to erode this far, but it seems to have made it to the fast-track lately.
Fortunately, our system is set up such that it can always self correct, even if it takes a while. Slavery is a perfect example of that (it took two different Supreme Courts before it was set right).
It is strange looking at this debate from a UK perspective, since our new government has just announced that a very similar law (and a load of other Orwellian stuff) is going to be repealed.
I agree with the self-correcting part, and I think that is more to do with the people than the system. It is more obvious in the UK, since our system was not designed in any way. It simply happened; the result of several centuries of competing interests and ideologies. In that period Parliament changed from an oligarchic body representing the land-owning classes, to a democracy with universal suffrage, freedom of speech and assembly etc. etc.
There is no written constitution to protect these rights. Parliament is sovereign and and can do anything it pleases, however the historical trend is always towards more liberty. There are obviously eddies in the shorter term, the last 13 years being a prime example (and possibly longer, the previous Conservative government introduced some fairly draconian measures during the IRA bombing campaigns). But now we see a new government capitalising on the pent up dislike of the British people for their loss of freedoms, and the balance moves again towards liberty.
As an observer on the US (I've never even been there), I've often though that Americans place to much faith in their constitution, and to little in themselves. A piece of paper can never completely protect you if the public mood is against you. But if the public in general want freedom (and I'm convinced that the US people will, even if many of them don't seem to care right now) then freedom they will get.
Only by American standards. Most european conservatives, even UK conservatives (where the movement started) are to the left of the democrats.
I wonder how true this is. I can see why you could take that view with healthcare such a big issue in the US, and the UK Conservative party is foursquare behind the NHS, which is a far more left-wing set up than the Democrats are proposing in the US.
But I'm not sure how relevant this is to how right or left wing the Tories are. We have had the NHS for decades, and while it is always a big issue in elections, the idea of abolishing it is so far beyond the pale that suggesting it would be electoral suicide for any party.
I don't think that changes the fact the the Tories believe fundamentally in a small state with low taxation, and their policies in government are generally directed in that direction. If Britain currently had a US style health system, I would be extremely surprised if the Tories would be in favour of changing it to an NHS type one, since ideologically they are opposed to any increase in the state.
Equally, I find it hard to believe that if the US had an NHS style system already, the US Democrats would be in favour of watering it down towards their current proposals.
Britain is certainly further left than the US. But there are fundamental similarities in the left/right wing forces active in our respective politics (economically, thankfully we seem to have avoided US style "social" politics). It is just that the left in Britain has had a much more successful run then in the US, and has therefore shifted the country and its institutions of government further that way than the left in the US has managed.
Or maybe not, I don't claim to have a deep understanding of US politics. But when hearing a Democrat speak, and seeing who their natural constituency is, I don't immediately think "right-wing extremist":)
Actually it was a punishment used by the Romans on their own soldiers who mutined or showed cowardice in battle - wiki.
A unit selected for punishment by decimation was divided into groups of ten; each group drew lots (Sortition), and the soldier on whom the lot fell was executed by his nine comrades, often by stoning or clubbing. The remaining soldiers were given rations of barley instead of wheat and forced to sleep outside of the Roman encampment.
My solution is FlashBlock and turn off animated gifs. This stops nearly everything that moves/flashes on a web page. I have adblock which I use occasionally to remove anything else that moves.
For me this isn't anti-advertising. I have no problem at all with being advertised at, I simply cannot stand reading a web page where things move, so I disable that functionality in my browser. Actually most of the stuff in my adblock list isn't advertising, but things like news tickers and similar 'features'.
Yes, but that would still fit the job application model: The Discourses is how he believes the world should be run, The Prince is him demonstrating to a potential employer the skills he has that would be useful (he had I believe been on the wrong side of some Italian factional dispute, and was in need of a new position). The fact that the book wasn't published until some time after his death would also support this view.
There is also the matter that if it was satire, then it wasn't very good, given how many people over the centuries didn't get the joke. To the point of turning his name into a synonym for ruthless manipulation. Of course I suppose that might be why he didn't publish it himself!
I'm not saying you are wrong, I really don't have the knowledge myself to debate you although I did read both books at university, but it is just that your initial post made a firm pronouncement on the matter that I am unsure/unaware is agreed with generally by historians of the period.
The Prince is a cautionary tale and and indictment of the acts of the Borgias, it was not a manual for statehood. But it still says plenty about contemporary culture in both the East and West because it is an examination of the human condition.
Are you sure that is generally accepted? I'm sure I remember being taught that it was written as a job application. I've done a little searching online and found the job application idea (although not as a definitive interpretation), along with the idea that it is a satire, or even some sort of counterpoint to the Discourses (which I guess is what you are saying). I'm not sure your interpretation is universally accepted however, although I'm happy to be corrected.
If we cannot pay any amount we owe you on your savings accounts, you will be able to claim compensation. The maximum compensation is limited to 100% of the first £35,000 of your total deposits held with us (the same as every FSA regulated bank and building society in the UK). In the unlikely event of a claim, any compensation is payable within three months.
The compensation itself is provided by two schemes (sometimes referred to as a passport scheme) - the end result being that the total amount protected is the same as if your savings were only protected by the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme. The protection works as follows:
* The first level of protection is provided under the Icelandic Depositors' and Investors' Guarantee Fund (www.tryggingarsjodur.is). The maximum protection under this scheme is 100% of the first 20,887 (or the sterling equivalent) of your total deposits held with us.
* The second level of protection is provided by the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme (www.fscs.org.uk). This scheme tops-up your protection so that the protection under both schemes, is equal to 100% of the first £35,000 of your total deposits held with us.
* Under EU law compensation for any losses incurred due to the failure of a bank should be paid within three months - regardless of whether it is through a passport scheme or the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
I'd never wondered that, so I checked. According to the BBC, the quorum requirement is 40 MPs (out of 600+!) including the speaker. This is just when a division (vote) is called. Those 40 MPs don't need to waste their time and attend the actual debate.
My all time favourite is from Babylon 5 movie In the Beginning. First you have Londo talking about how the humans fought in the Earth Mimbari war - here, and then immediately after it the President speaking before the Battle of the Line - here.
The problem is Manifest Destiny. Many American Christians truly believe that God® has commissioned us here in the land of milk and honey to spread democracy to the rest of the world. This is why so many have been missionaries over the years, and why our foreign policy is so phucked up. I understand why we might prefer to do business with countries that have some form of representative government, but we can't force China/Cuba/etc to become "democratic" at the end of a gun barrel or by giving them bibles.
You probably shouldn't be too hard on America, it's an occupational hazard of being a superpower. Compared to how we (Britain) behaved when it was our turn, America hasn't been so bad. Britain had missionaries and bible societies sent to every corner of the world, a feeling that Britain was the new Israel (since it was self-evident that God had obviously chosen out Britain, as evidenced by our superiority in all things). Oh and our manifest destiny lead us to colonising around a quarter of the world for its own good. And then moaning about the wearisome "white man's burden" we had taken on.
And as for imperial Spain before that...
I can criticise America with the best of them but really, as superpowers go, America has actually been somewhat less arrogant than the average.
That reminds me of something a Chinese friend of mine said once. He said that there is little demand for democracy among ordinary Chinese, but there is a huge wish for accountability. He said people loath corrupt party officials and the like and there is real pressure for reform in that area, but that democracy isn't really seen as relevant to that debate.
That, and a real fear that democracy would lead to instability and even the possibility of civil war, means (according to one affluent, western educated Chinese) that the push for democracy within China is far less than a Westerner might suppose.
Overall, I think the expenses scandal was initially good to bring in the open, it's just being overused now.. They've taken their drubbing, and I'll remember it.
But will they?
My view is that being politicians they have participated in making decisions that will have broad, far reaching, consequences. With winners and losers, many of the latter not deserving of being crapped on from above. I don't blame them for that, it is how government works. But it does mean that I don't feel any compulsion to rush to their defence if any individuals get an unfair outcome from the expenses scandal; they were the ones who chose to play the big boys' game after all.
I also don't think our current crop of MPs is anything special. The vast majority are career politicians, and there is another load of them preparing in university debating societies right now. Losing even a large number of them to the scandal won't hurt Britain one bit.
My view is that we should try and burn into the institutional memory of parliament the consequences of their actions. In decades to come, I want future MPs to look back at this period, and remember that they can't just claim to be following the rules they themselves made - when a scandal comes they need to be whiter than white if they want to ensure their own survival. It happens so rarely that public anger actually manages to get over the various obstacles and political spin that when it does we should make the most of it. I just don't see any downsides to roasting our MPs on this issue as hard and for as long as we can, and I think we'll come out the other side with a better House of Commons.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah but lets not forget that even in countries where soccer is the usual term, football would be an unambiguous synonym for it. Almost anywhere outside the US, no one is going to get confused and think you are talking about handegg ;)
:)
Why is this important you ask? Is it just a standard, doomed attempt to resist American cultural imperialism? No, it is more important than that. The current state of world sport is one of the more successful and enduring legacies of British cultural imperialism, and we'd like to keep it that way thank-you. This elevates pointing out the US's failure to interest the world in its own sports, from a pleasant pastime to a sacred national duty. Repeatedly reminding you that you get the names wrong is simply a part of that
Really? English here, and I've never heard the word used to mean anything apart from 10^9.
The company value has dropped about 80 billion USD. If you think that shareholders are sitting pretty than you're insane.
Why does it only apply to foreign countries operating in the US, while US companies operating abroad are protected from similar sanction by the full weight of the US government.
One of the reasons this is causing resentment in Britain is that with the Union Carbide compensation finally (after 20+ years) being paid for the Bhopal tragedy in India, the rank hypocrisy of the US government is obvious. Somewhere between ten and twenty thousand dead, long term heath problems for hundreds of thousands. Compensation paid, after DECADES of wrangling... less than a billion USD. Oh and a CEO who initially admitted responsibility, then changed his mind and fled home to the US which refuses to extradite him.
Now you want to bankrupt BP because you're pissed with them? Sorry no. Make them pay to clear up the mess they made certainly, but you do not have the right to break the company simply because people are angry.
It's called X3: Terran Conflict, published by a company called Egosoft. You can find an extremely well-written gameplay story here if you want to get an idea of the possibilities.
See you in six months :)
Depends if you plan on drinking it or selling it :)
Which is fine if you are looking at BP shareholders as a load of nasty foreign speculators making money by ruining America's environment.
:)
However when you are one of those nasty foreign speculators (ie you're British and have a pension fund), for some reason you take a rather different view
You can't just go around force-nationalising companies because you are pissed off with them. Yes of course BP has to pay to sort out this mess, and presumably will also be hit with some punitive fines. And if there were criminal offences then of course they should be pursued. But to seize BPs assets because destroying the company would make Americans feel better... It is simply not acceptable.
BP has lost about half its net worth. It will probably be forced to cut its dividend (for political rather than financial reasons), which makes up about 15% of the dividend income on the average UK pension. The company and it's shareholders are being and have been punished.
Remember US companies (ie your pension fund) are also active internationally. And also annoy the locals from time to time. Setting precedents here is unlikely to be beneficial for America in the long term.
Ah, thank-you
I'm all for bashing Labour, but to be fair I got some A* GCSEs when John Major was PM.
So it is a massive company. One able to manage the costs of the cleanup operation. Why is that supposed to be a problem? You'd prefer them to be bankrupt and pick up the costs in your tax bill?
It is an allegation that is only sourced to an unidentified news broadcast, which was itself hearsay. WTF is that if not gossip?
It is strange looking at this debate from a UK perspective, since our new government has just announced that a very similar law (and a load of other Orwellian stuff) is going to be repealed.
I agree with the self-correcting part, and I think that is more to do with the people than the system. It is more obvious in the UK, since our system was not designed in any way. It simply happened; the result of several centuries of competing interests and ideologies. In that period Parliament changed from an oligarchic body representing the land-owning classes, to a democracy with universal suffrage, freedom of speech and assembly etc. etc.
There is no written constitution to protect these rights. Parliament is sovereign and and can do anything it pleases, however the historical trend is always towards more liberty. There are obviously eddies in the shorter term, the last 13 years being a prime example (and possibly longer, the previous Conservative government introduced some fairly draconian measures during the IRA bombing campaigns). But now we see a new government capitalising on the pent up dislike of the British people for their loss of freedoms, and the balance moves again towards liberty.
As an observer on the US (I've never even been there), I've often though that Americans place to much faith in their constitution, and to little in themselves. A piece of paper can never completely protect you if the public mood is against you. But if the public in general want freedom (and I'm convinced that the US people will, even if many of them don't seem to care right now) then freedom they will get.
I wonder how true this is. I can see why you could take that view with healthcare such a big issue in the US, and the UK Conservative party is foursquare behind the NHS, which is a far more left-wing set up than the Democrats are proposing in the US.
But I'm not sure how relevant this is to how right or left wing the Tories are. We have had the NHS for decades, and while it is always a big issue in elections, the idea of abolishing it is so far beyond the pale that suggesting it would be electoral suicide for any party.
I don't think that changes the fact the the Tories believe fundamentally in a small state with low taxation, and their policies in government are generally directed in that direction. If Britain currently had a US style health system, I would be extremely surprised if the Tories would be in favour of changing it to an NHS type one, since ideologically they are opposed to any increase in the state.
Equally, I find it hard to believe that if the US had an NHS style system already, the US Democrats would be in favour of watering it down towards their current proposals.
Britain is certainly further left than the US. But there are fundamental similarities in the left/right wing forces active in our respective politics (economically, thankfully we seem to have avoided US style "social" politics). It is just that the left in Britain has had a much more successful run then in the US, and has therefore shifted the country and its institutions of government further that way than the left in the US has managed.
Or maybe not, I don't claim to have a deep understanding of US politics. But when hearing a Democrat speak, and seeing who their natural constituency is, I don't immediately think "right-wing extremist" :)
Regards
A British more-or-less Tory
My solution is FlashBlock and turn off animated gifs. This stops nearly everything that moves/flashes on a web page. I have adblock which I use occasionally to remove anything else that moves.
For me this isn't anti-advertising. I have no problem at all with being advertised at, I simply cannot stand reading a web page where things move, so I disable that functionality in my browser. Actually most of the stuff in my adblock list isn't advertising, but things like news tickers and similar 'features'.
Yes, but that would still fit the job application model: The Discourses is how he believes the world should be run, The Prince is him demonstrating to a potential employer the skills he has that would be useful (he had I believe been on the wrong side of some Italian factional dispute, and was in need of a new position). The fact that the book wasn't published until some time after his death would also support this view.
There is also the matter that if it was satire, then it wasn't very good, given how many people over the centuries didn't get the joke. To the point of turning his name into a synonym for ruthless manipulation. Of course I suppose that might be why he didn't publish it himself!
I'm not saying you are wrong, I really don't have the knowledge myself to debate you although I did read both books at university, but it is just that your initial post made a firm pronouncement on the matter that I am unsure/unaware is agreed with generally by historians of the period.
Are you sure that is generally accepted? I'm sure I remember being taught that it was written as a job application. I've done a little searching online and found the job application idea (although not as a definitive interpretation), along with the idea that it is a satire, or even some sort of counterpoint to the Discourses (which I guess is what you are saying). I'm not sure your interpretation is universally accepted however, although I'm happy to be corrected.
Reads like a guarantee to me.
I'd never wondered that, so I checked. According to the BBC, the quorum requirement is 40 MPs (out of 600+!) including the speaker. This is just when a division (vote) is called. Those 40 MPs don't need to waste their time and attend the actual debate.
Ah whatever, I just saw the movie as a bit of fun that was worth the price of admission. And I'm British and I enjoyed the speech.
My all time favourite is from Babylon 5 movie In the Beginning. First you have Londo talking about how the humans fought in the Earth Mimbari war - here, and then immediately after it the President speaking before the Battle of the Line - here.
You know, I rather like Independence Day. I'm not trying to claim it was a work of art or anything, but it was a fun alien invasion movie.
Admittedly I'm a sucker for fight-or-humanity-will-perish speeches...
You probably shouldn't be too hard on America, it's an occupational hazard of being a superpower. Compared to how we (Britain) behaved when it was our turn, America hasn't been so bad. Britain had missionaries and bible societies sent to every corner of the world, a feeling that Britain was the new Israel (since it was self-evident that God had obviously chosen out Britain, as evidenced by our superiority in all things). Oh and our manifest destiny lead us to colonising around a quarter of the world for its own good. And then moaning about the wearisome "white man's burden" we had taken on.
And as for imperial Spain before that...
I can criticise America with the best of them but really, as superpowers go, America has actually been somewhat less arrogant than the average.
Remember that the Church of England is not about the church controlling the state, but rather the other way around.
That reminds me of something a Chinese friend of mine said once. He said that there is little demand for democracy among ordinary Chinese, but there is a huge wish for accountability. He said people loath corrupt party officials and the like and there is real pressure for reform in that area, but that democracy isn't really seen as relevant to that debate.
That, and a real fear that democracy would lead to instability and even the possibility of civil war, means (according to one affluent, western educated Chinese) that the push for democracy within China is far less than a Westerner might suppose.
But will they?
My view is that being politicians they have participated in making decisions that will have broad, far reaching, consequences. With winners and losers, many of the latter not deserving of being crapped on from above. I don't blame them for that, it is how government works. But it does mean that I don't feel any compulsion to rush to their defence if any individuals get an unfair outcome from the expenses scandal; they were the ones who chose to play the big boys' game after all.
I also don't think our current crop of MPs is anything special. The vast majority are career politicians, and there is another load of them preparing in university debating societies right now. Losing even a large number of them to the scandal won't hurt Britain one bit.
My view is that we should try and burn into the institutional memory of parliament the consequences of their actions. In decades to come, I want future MPs to look back at this period, and remember that they can't just claim to be following the rules they themselves made - when a scandal comes they need to be whiter than white if they want to ensure their own survival. It happens so rarely that public anger actually manages to get over the various obstacles and political spin that when it does we should make the most of it. I just don't see any downsides to roasting our MPs on this issue as hard and for as long as we can, and I think we'll come out the other side with a better House of Commons.