NIrishGuy

Excellent - god love the poor guy who had to follow that next year ! And I laughed as without knowing the guy he was so pegged as gay with his opening two words just - "HI GUYS" lol - but a great speech, you could almost picture Obama standing there giving it !

I'm guessing the people at the top who stand to make large amounts of money from F1 coming to Bangkok could care less about the local population and as to whether they might need to wear ear plugs or not as they'll be too busy away counting their legally gotten backhander gains no doubt.

To be fair considering the Bishops of the Church of England etc still sit in the House of Lords unelected and DO still sway power when it comes to the outcome of voting etc ( just watch them go once the marriage equality bill hits the Lords for it's reading there next !) I think we to could do with doing the same - and don't even start me on this backwater so called religious shit hole that I live in here in N.i Ieland where both sides still basically vote in their politicians based on their religion ( and so then politics) . So I'm ALL for separation of Church and State and think it should be even more enforced than it currently is - so if they Americans are prone to mixing their religion and politics too much then I've a fair idea who it was that taught them to do that maybe. And I'm not even sure we can blame the English on this one as the Scot's and the Irish were ( and still are) some of the worst offenders perhaps :-( So, yes I'm all for that - just as long as the other side don't get in of course ! :-)

As has been said I believe there generally is no such thing as being trained to shoot to maim, it's shoot to hit and stop i=s the order of the day if you need to take them down with the officer (generally) aiming for the largest surface area i.e the torso and ideally the heart area as it's simply the biggest spread to aim at and "should" result in your target dropping if hit ( but not always) and generally the best chance of stopping the assailant in their tracks. It's also a fallacy that most armed officers can hit what they are actually aiming at and in the heat of the moment and whilst on the street most I believe would be happy just to HIT the target and anything better such as a head shot etc would just be an added bonus. There is also the issue of the number of shots being fired where here in the UK each and every shot has to be accounted for and proved to be required and measured in it's response to the situation, leading to UK police officers being trained to fire in burst of two shots at a time, whereas in the US there seems to be a slightly less strict approach to this leading to the police perhaps emptying their magazines at someone rather than the two or four shots that would perhaps be fired here, which again depending on just how accurate ( or otherwise) the officers shots were would of course have an effect on whether or not the person shot was lucky (or not) to survive the encounter. And as for watching the video above huge kudos to the first response officers who fired on the gunman before even being able to get out of their car to assess the situation, the immediate follow up response after that by the other emergency services / police that arrived may be something that needs looked into as without going into details without too much more planning on the terrorists part the end result could have been very different - but well done to the police, they performed their duty admirably and its just a terrible thing that that poor soldier was so brutally murdered in the first place.

Just how long should we be prepared to wait then Anonone, our lifetime, the next generation of gay guys lifetimes or the next ? What's wrong with us all just saying "This is bullshit, just stop your blatant discrimination in many areas of society NOW, we won't stand for it any longer !" Personally I think we've been WAY too generous in allowing the straight community to set the pace of change and it's good to see the gay community asserting itself of late and DEMANDING their equal rights and not quietly hoping or asking "please can we have our basic equal rights" in issues such as marriage equality etc, enough is enough and the time to all speak out is I believe now and NOT to wait until people such as the Scouts and their like decide that we have conformed enough to their narrow views for them to allow us admission to their hallowed organisations and or whatever Federal and State bodies that chose to treat gay people with contempt ( as that's OUR job when dealing with each other it seems and a role which we seem to be able to manage to undertake perfectly well without THEIR help it seems :-) ( Oh and the above comments are not directed at you personally in any way Anonone, I'm just speaking generally here) Right, rant over, where's my Bra as I'm off to burn it !!

I note ( and am glad) that you underlined the implication part there as you'd absolutely right about that and my experience/s in the BB ( no not THAT one, but the Boys Brigade i.e. whats also known here in Ireland as the paramilitary wing of the Church :-) I can confirm the same. But what i want to know is why is no one CALLING the Scouts on this and asking them DO THEY think and if are they claiming that it's a Child protection issue if so why ? To be fair to them I'm not sure they are actually claiming that but are more leaning towards "being gay doesn't sit with our moral code" - but lets face it that's just another way of saying " you're all perverts and sodomites and we want nothing to do with you" - I mean this is an Organisation who only as recently as July 2012 concluded that its long-standing ban on gay scouts was "the best policy for the organisation" so that reads to me more like my above " actually we don't want a gay about the place but hey if we let a few in I GUESS that's ok if it takes the heat off until things die down, but hey lets DEFINITELY never treat gay people as actual equals or anything like that as that's just a bridge too far for those perverts" So, whilst their vote is more positive than negative I personally don't feel the gay community should be throwing garlands at them JUST yet until they get their house in order and start treating ALL gay people equally as surely MORALLY that's the right thing to do - not that we gays would know anything about being morally straight of course according to them - "apparently".

How ridiculous to lift the ban on members being gay but yet NOT on having gay scout leaders - and this vote coming from the very Scout leaders themselves, I think that tells you where their heads are REALLY at !! So a scout goes through his entire youth as a (gay) scout, perhaps right up to getting his Eagle Scout badge and lives and breathes scouting all his life and then at 18 or 20 has to either leave, taking all his enthusiasm and knowledge with him, OR go back in the closet and deny that he's actually gay to enable him to keep on doing what he's loved all those years ! Yeah there's progress for you ! Whilst this may be seen as a SMALL step in the right direction the vote was only carried by 60% of those voting and the question about them accepting gay leaders not to have even been asked by the ruling Council is just them hoping that they've dodged that particular the bullet until another day instead of them actually grasping the nettle and just going ahead and ending their discriminatory practices. So it appears that they still have a long way to go in their heads both as an Organisation and at least 40% of the leaders who voted as to the whole " yeah some people are gay get over it" campaign :-( So, "yes, we'll allow gay kids to join now, but hey just don't start thinking that you're actually equal to us or anything, or that you can teach us anything or that you talk, lead or deal with our kids or members in any way, cause you know what, actually we still think you're all just a little bit morally suspect deep down. But hey I guess we can tolerate a few of you joining if it stops the bad press and hell who knows perhaps our straight leaders can actually straighten you confused kids out somehow as you'll sure as hell not see any gay role models in THIS organisation". - yes, definitely a long way to go me thinks - and for an organisation that prides itself on being so good at camping too ( joke) !! Shame on them, they need to lift their ban on leaders now too and stop their discriminatory homophobic crap NOW and do that not just as they are being put under PR or Sponsors pressure but simply because its the right thing to DO !! :-(

I'm guessing you're right there ceejay, both on the 30 years part AND the styptic pencil ! :-)

[quote name="KhorTose" A funny way to look at it as no other company has offered to do that. Looks to me like they are trying to prove they are socially responsible. No doubt and Starbucks will continue to be the most successful coffee company in the world. Well for a man that reads the Guardian I'm sure you're fully aware that the US and UK unemployment are also most identical at 7.9 and 7.5% respectively and the US has only just dropped last month so you're comment about unemployment is a bit ridiculous and mean spirited to I would add and of course if companies such as Starbucks actually paid their fair share of local taxes without employing teams of tax lawyers to avoid doing just that then OUR economy and thus our unemployment figures would I presume be even less - so yes thanks Starbucks, google, amazon etc etc for that - very socially responsible of you all - NOT ! And as for continuing to be the most successful company in the world I guess if you measure success in profit then perhaps but for a company that prides itself and tells us all about great they are on social responsibly I would have though striving for a balance and success in all areas of their business might have been a better indicator of their success or otherwise. You talk of profit reminds me of the shareholder who stood up at the AGM to question their stance on marriage equality "in case it hurt sales with the Christian Right" - thankfully their CEO got it right that time and basically told him profit isn't everything in life and if he didn't like it could cash in his shares, lets hope they take a similar view now to their tax obligations in try counties in which they trade and start paying their fair share - enjoy your coffee, I'll pass for now thanks.

[quote name="KhorTose" Yes it is horrible to be so friendly to customers. How is your unemployment at the moment with all you industry gone? Well if you consider false empty gestures that are implemented and designed solely to generate more sales a sign of friendliness knock yoursd going there, I consider it false bulllshit and it doesn't impress me one bit - or most of the UK public too as the sales gimmick it wasn't well received across the UK in general, but as I say if empty gestures are what floats your boat and makes you think the person selling you your coffee is your friend good for you.

So, we're conceding "not just me thinks that way then" I hope now - good, lets move on. And speaking personally I don't find it "friendly" for a firm to ask my first name to write on a coffee cup so they can call my first name and "appear" to sound friendly, its pure PR bullshit - and THAT was the "Americanism gone mad" to which I was referring, equivalent to the fake "have a nice day" some Americans seem to be so fond of now. Somehow my coffee always seemed to manage to get to my table long before they knew my first name and I'm guessing it still will in the future when this policy fades out as it surely will. And as for them being a very successful company for their shareholders or that there is no doubt - not hard I guess when as I said you're paying NO tax in the many countries in which you trade and simply taking your profits out the door and contributing nothing in terms of tax contributions to the countries where your profits are actually coming from - whether that is legal or not it is still questionable morally for a company who shout so much about corporate ethics - and their admission in paying an immediate £20 million over to the UK tax man shows THEY know this to be true also in terms of how it looks. I ( like all the other people here in the UK who expressed their opinion - so not just me then) stand by my post as you will no doubt yours as is your right - but likewise mine too.

wonderful - there's a start, I'll check it out, many thanks :-)

So, whilst sitting around the dinner table in our canteen at lunch time today several of us got talking about a product we all remember fondly and this was a small bottle of white powder seeming known to us all as "magic powder" that our mothers used on use on us all should we have had a small cut or graze in order to stop it bleeding, it was miraculous stuff and worked every time and almost instantly it seemed. Of course now that we're all older we realise that the name "magic powder" was something obviously our mothers were telling us for effect and as one of the new mothers in the office wanted to go out and buy a bottle of this "magic powder" for her own son and none of us have seen a bottle in years, I was just wondering might anyone know the proper name for said powder perhaps? I'm also guessing that it's the same stuff that is given to soldiers in their field dressing kits to enable them to sprinkle it on gunshot wounds to both limit any risk of infection and also assist in coagulating blood flow, so, any ideas guys or maybe it was in fact just "magic powder" after all :-)

My business is of course irrelevant to this discussion, it's nothing special, nor is it's turnover or is the tax advice, as in fact it's not so much tax advice as "there's you're tax bill, pay it" and I'm guessing my accountant spends about 20 minutes a year thinking about that if I'm lucky. Anyway, as I say that's irrelevant as the point is that for ANY company to go out of their way paying legions of accountants all to ensure that they don't pay ANY tax in the country in which they operate WHILST AT THE SAME TIME TELLING US HOW SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE THEY ARE is to me totally disingenuous to say the least and if Starbucks didn't think they were being just a little bit sneaky then I'm sure they would have simply said "look, screw the lot of you, it's all totally legal and if you don't like it TOUGH" - but they didn't do that, on news of their tax avoidance scheme becoming public they immediately paid £20 million out to avoid the bad PR as even they were aware it looked shabby. And even if they didn't do that the fact that the public did mount a campaign against them then this then shows that the public thought it appeared shabby - which was my original point that no, I am NOT the only person that thinks their actions were less that suitable for such a large organisation.

Well I think for an organisation the size and scale of Starbucks to effectively set up their accounts to ensure that they pay NO tax in the Country in which they trade is morally questionable, I have accepted what they are are doing is perfectly legal and I don't disagree with you that that's something the Government should address. However we're not talking about a Company paying slightly less tax here but going out of their way to pay absolutely none by setting up complex accounting procedures to enable them to totally avoid paying UK tax in the country where they genuinely made their profit. Whilst i again absolutely concede they have done nothing illegal I do believe for an organisation of that size who talk so much about their wonderful social responsibly to the communities in which trade etc that is somewhat hypocritical. And to answer your question I pay whatever my accountant tells me to pay tax wise and I don't mean by that that they go on some round the houses tax avoidance scheme but merely take income versus costs, work out the tax bill and I pay it. And I do understand your point and don't entirely disagree with you that Starbucks and other corporations got it in the neck simply for following ( and playing) the rules but I do also believe they went far and away over the norm in order to avoid tax that would normally have been due when a company posts their annual profits and THAT to me for a company with such a strong PR message about their social responsibility is the morally questionable part.

Khortose I'm not sure where you reside but I can assure you that Starbucks name is generally mud here in the UK of late and I am absolutely not alone in my dislike of them or their morally questionable ( but I accept fully legal) tax avoidance practices. That's not to say that they don't have a following and are profitable, but I can assure you my thoughts on them are not restricted to just myself. To the point where a UK wide public boycott was called for and instigated in Dec 2012 / Jan 13 in tge UK and urgent talks were held by Starbucks management and the UK Government which prompted Starbucks to immediately VOLUNTEER to pay an impromptu £20 million pounds in UK corporation tax in January of this year - not many firms would do that unless under direct PR and sales pressure from their customers and it should be noted that amount paid is still only a fraction of the money they WOULD have been due to be paid if they hadn't of moved their profits offshore in order to avoid UK Corporation tax. Source : type in Starbucks and UK tax to google and there's a mountain of pages of current info about all of the above ( so maybe not quite just me thinking that after all it seems perhaps eh? )

I wonder will they decide to pay an tax in Thailand or just have a go at raping that country too just like they're doing here in the UK ( although to be fair I blame the Government more than Starbucks perhaps for putting in place rules which allow them to do it ) And also I think for a coffee chain such as Starbucks to charge for wifi in this day and age when it is expected and assumed to be free in so many places and especially after what they do charge is verging on criminal and personally I'd see them in hell first before I'd give them it. And as for this new marketing bulllshit of asking your first name and writing it on your cup and then calling you up by your first name as they're your "personal frend" - screw that, I'll just wait at the counter like I always did and "here's your coffee Sir" will do nicely thanks - Americianism gone mad. So, they're a "friend" who charges you for a slow, poor connection wifi and over charges you for your coffee - some friend, I think I'll stick to the independents where I can thanks where REAL service actually means something still.

^^^ perhaps the wisest thing to be said on any board - ever ! Sound advice which sound be heeded at all costs !

Not to mention Moses obviously being an old British motorcycle fan, as evidenced by the Bible passage declaring that "the roar of Moses' Triumph is heard in the hills". Whereas poor old Joshua on the other hand it seems could only afford an old beat up Triumph sports car with a hole in its exhaust as the bible clearly states that : "Joshua's Triumph was heard throughout the land" :-)

Well if that's the same as "disco fucking" as per a previous post I made elsewhere about that re being in Eros bar one night then yes I guess it is ! :-)

ha ha I was actually debating going to the george tonight actually and you've just put me off the notion now ! ;-) And likewise if I may deviate off the thread just for a second as I've one too.......here in Belfast the religious right ( who very seldom are) rule the place and so there are no lap dancing clubs etc, however it was announced that one club had foudn a loop law in the law and it was opening the next week, so immediately the religious pickets with placards like something out of Father Ted and the "down with this sort of thing" episode where outside the doors to harass, embarrass and stop any self respecting god fearing person from entering - which of course meant I immediately made a bee line for the place to intentionally run the gauntlet on its opening night just for sheer badness. So, on arrival the waitress who took our drinks order (who lived about a mile from my house actually ) said the licence required that we order food, but they understood it was a nonsense so all they had on the menu was either a burger or a cheeseburger and both were almost inedible. Obviously as food wasn't the purpose of our visit we didn't care anyway so ordered four burgers and sat down to wait and watch the show, our food came ( it was terrible) then the waitress disappeared and five minutes later reappeared as the bloody pole / lap dancer as apparently due to the protests they couldn't get any proper dancers and had no staff - and trust me this girl should have stuck to being a waitress as "I" would have made a better pole dancer ( and have done on occassion actually but that's a whole other story), she then nearly shit herself on finding out where I lived as she was terrified I'd tell her father she was working as a pole dancer in the first place, so in the end both she and we gave up on the whole idea and just sat drinking together the rest of the night and as we were leaving went out to the street and told the DUP protesters what a GREAT night we'd had and that there was actually a great live sex show and EVERYTHING which made them even crazier than they already were ! :-) Needless to say of course Belfast being Belfast the club only lasted about two weeks and was shut down by the DUP controlled Council under some other vague licensing law apparently.

ha you're right SG I DO like the bottle, it's much prettier than all the rest for sure :-) BUT I do also honestly think the taste of the gin is by far more superior to many others around the same price, although in most bars it's usually a bit more expensive than the rest too I find, but to me is worth the difference - and if the lovely blue bottle getting served to me gives off the vibe of "look, screaming fag in the corner" and so another screaming fag decides to come over and join me for some gayer gin then so much the better :-) ps who's that in your pic ? I was going to say "was that you when you were young?" - but surely colour film only came out in the last 60 years or there about's or something so that would rule that option out then no ?? :-)) he he

Why drink either when you can have Bombay Sapphire - SO much nicer IMHO.

I'm glad you said that gerefan as I too had looked at that travelling on cargo ships once just for the crack and on investigation it was as you've said expensive for what it was and the accommodation was anything but luxurious and ultimately you ended up dining with the crew ( albeit in the lot to be desired officers mess perhaps), so for the money, the time required and the boredom level that might ensue I decided to forego that particular pleasure.