you have not lived until you have put your teeth in the succulent meat of a young horse (aka a foal)
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you have not lived until you have put your teeth in the succulent meat of a young horse (aka a foal)
how do you preserve the cow for all these months: put it in the freezer?
also my cats would probably go nuts if they saw that meatpile, I once gave them a big hump of leftover roastbief and they went like omgwtfbbq!!!???
"This is one of those rare incidents where the Dutch nation does not criticize, but rather applauds Wouter Bos his actions. We just got a bank and a half for cheap! It seems like everyone on the bargaining table had forgotten that Bos, even though a socialist, is a Dutchman first and foremost.."
It probably became clear to everyone that fortis was a sinking ship regardless of any rescue attempts (barring absurdly costly ones); the belgian government also cherry picked the remaining healthy fortis activities in their subsequent rescue plan; last I heard was that the fortis holding now had a couple billion
ummm it is not in dispute that the bible was written down by men; I mean you've got to be kidding me if you claim this somehow stuffs up the christian faith, THERE ARE FOUR DIFFERENT VERSIONS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT TO BEGIN WITH
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU6fuFrdCJY
"There simply isn't enough information given in the first post to succesfully argue the point he was trying to make."
Isn't there?
"John McCain was warning everyone about the status of Fannie and Freddie several years ago already and the economy isn't even his self proclaimed strong suit. What did Obama do in the mean time?"
Seems pretty clear to me, like avogadro already explained to you. It seems to me you have a very populist view of politics. Politicians aren't experts in the fields they legislate in and they are not detectives or accountants either. They rely on advisors, government bodies, their electorate and the people affected by particular issues (including lobbyists) to get a feel of what is going on. Then they study the information brought to them and decide what to do. In this case John McCain saw reports on malpractices in fannie and freddie and decided to cosponsor a bill to remedy this situation. Had more people realised what was going on in 2005 (before the worst of the worst excesses in the subprimes) the current situation would have been less dire.
Now Obama had access to the same information and not only that, but he also was aware that this bill had been proposed. So the question remains: what did he do?
You see I don't understand on what basis Obama could be called competent on economic matters and McCain somehow not competent, when Obama didn't even see something major coming like the current economic woes, let alone propose something to remedy it.
okay see this thread is about the two presidential candidates for the USA, one of which is extremely hyped as economically competent
John McCain was warning everyone about the status of Fannie and Freddie several years ago already and the economy isn't even his self proclaimed strong suit. What did Obama do in the mean time?
http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r109:S25MY6-0016:
your statements in no way sustain your claim that "the walloons did the same in the 19th century for flanders", i.e. that there was an economic revival plan for flanders involving money flowing from wallonia to flanders in the 19th century;
in fact they do the opposite, as they merely illustrate the fact that flemish tax payer money was subsidising the wallonian economic boom as I have said in my first post
I do consider the famine relevant since it shows that not only there were no permanent welfare programmes (the OCMW minimum benefits as we know them today weren't instituted until the 1970's) there were also no substantial temporary policies, again illustrating the fact that there was no wallonian money flooding the fields of flanders
"Also, the economic revival plan was not entirely Elio's but also a suggestion of the European Union, further inspired by a similar project for Ireland. I'm not defending the PS either, as they have a whole bunch of crooked politicians they ought to get rid of, but generalising Elio's defence to Wallonia isn't reasonable either."
When I say put forward by di rupo this does not mean that he wrote every page himself; he can have had inspiration from the flight of the birds for all I care. The problems in the wallonian economy have been known for years, the EU has been giving money for economic recovery for years just like it did to ireland. The critique against wallonia is precisely that ireland was able to do in that time what the wallonians weren't in spite of receiving the same subsidies, namely having an economic recovery and even an economic boom. This marshall plan is meant to be something new done by the walloons themselves (with help from the belgian federal government though the extent of that is debated). To say that di rupo wouldn't have launched this plan if it weren't for EU criticism this comes down to being even less favourable to wallonians than doing it on their own initiative.
"That's rather unfair to say. You can't claim that another political party is mor reliable than another. The figures I heard about were published by the "rekenkamer", a controle organ of the federal government. And here too you should define "high profile investments". As far as I know, other high profile compagnies like Google and Microsoft also decided to settle in Wallonia, rather than in Flanders."
I'm talking about the figures from about a year ago, with di rupo giving a major speech on henegouwen being the economic engine of wallonia only to turn out he was using polished statistics; I know more recent figures have shown a better trend for wallonia and I hope this reflects reality for them;
as for the google/mircosoft investments the jury is still out on those; a big argument for these companies is the fact that wallonia still has room to accomodate large industrial complexes, this is a genuine economic trump card for wallonia
then there is the fact that these companies receive various amounts of official incentives for companies to invest in wallonia and perhaps it will also turn out they received many subsidies on top of the traditional EU and marshall planaid, like the ryanair contracts turning out to be so lopsided as to be a net loss for the belgian taxpayer; I can tell you for example that I know several (perhaps all, but I don't know ) of these new investors like microsoft are renting their busniess premisses from a local government company (an intercommunale named "idea") which in turn is receiving subsidies from the wallonian government
as I was browsing this forum I came across a thread about belgium and since I'm a belgian I decided to skim through it, there I noticed a parroted propaganda meme which disappointed me, even though I have very low expectations from internet postings
alan statham wrote:
"Exactly, as I said, it's part of a economic revival program, and it works. We in Flanders shouldn't complain about it either, as the walloons did the same in the 19th century for flanders"
think about it - 19th century was the age of free market capitalism; do you really think wallonia poured money into flanders? ridiculous! you cannot compare the solidarity mechanisms in a modern welfare state to a 19th century government! and you're a history student right??? there was even a big depression and famine in flanders during those days
I in fact know of a VUB academic who calculated that back then flemish economic development was already being stiffled in favour of wallonia in those days, this was due to the large industries like mining and metallurgy (typical walloon industry) enjoyed very nice taxation structures while traditional activities such as fishery and wool industry (typical flemish economy) did not (I can send his publication if you give me an email adress)
the only thing wallonia did for the flemish population was offer bottom of the ladder jobs to flemish immigrants who moved there and completely integrated in wallonian society and who in mere decades became as walloon as the walloons themselves
you sir should not parrot silly propaganda
to a lesser extent what bothers me is that the money is part of an economic revival programme; this is not entirely false but it is a bit dishonest; the "wallonian marshall programme" was put forward by Elio di Rupo not more than a couple years back precisely to counter criticism of money being poured into a bottomless economic pit; if you have a hint of critical thought in your brain you will notice that this essentially means the belgian and european tax payers have in fact been pouring money into a bottomless economic pit for years
as to the success of the wallonian marshall programme, the figures are being hotly contested by certain wallonian (MR) politicians themselves and indeed there is a tradition of adapting the statistics to try and make trends rather than reflecting them; high profile investments in wallonia have until now always been due to extreme compensations someone would only be willing to make if they can have someone else foot the bill (eg ryanair and the airport contract and the formula one contract)
sure we can be inspired by some things the man mohammed said and did, but what I mean is he is not a messenger from god
I have donea bit of (I'm not going to pretend I have an academic level knowledge of islam or anything) research into both the man and the religion and personally I'm not inspired by him as a man much either; to be perfectly honest my opinion is that he was an opportunistic warlord
there are several good arguments to condone muhammeds behaviour on a cultural level (I would have expected people to point them out a long time ago), hence why his supporters like to limit the debate to mere legality instead of morality, but as far as I'm concerned none of those negate the fact that (as I pointed out already) he was nothing but an ordinary man
the argument about the incorrect age is out there, it is a doubtful one and most muslims scholars themselves accept that the stated ages are the correct ones
exactly - this is a thread about islam, hence my comment
if all you have to add to this thread is another personal attack then that's pretty sad, not a very good show of intelligence
you are incorrect - I have muslim friends, travelled in parts of the muslim world and have read the quran and some secondary sources
if you're down to swearing and ad hominem attacks then I guess this debate has finally run its course
like the time bush proposed his manned mars mission...
it's a bit hard to twist the confirmed buggering of children
besides why does every argument on religion have to end up with involving a pot shot at christianity? traumatised much?
it is not a small minority, and it was the prophet himself
"and the judge clears up that you should follow law/culture/environemnt and make your decision that way"
that's a strictly legalist argument, if the law allows you to kill jews then you can kill jews - it's not quite the panacea for this topic which you seem to think it is
the problem in this case is definatly mugabe and his cronies; he's like the little kid who not only got his hand into the cookie jar but actually got to take the cookie jar home
everything he has been doing ever since he got into office is to take care of himself and his own; now this was to be expected and even acceptable up to a point, it's logical for him to give some sort of reward to his war veterans and such; but it has gone way past that
the reason why his country is in a mess is nothing more than his kleptocracy, which plundered the country and forces him to deplete the remaining zimbabwean national wealth by printing ever more money and selling out to the chinese
"What he means is that there is no written law in any religious holy texts which say anything about legal ages of marriage. He is saying that such things are the judgements of society, and hence are cultural morals not religious morals."
it is not written law in any holy text, but it is part of the broader islamis "acquis" in the form of the hadith; so while this is not as compulsory as the quran itself, it is also hard to categorically denounce sexual slavery because the prophet did it, the insidious argument of that marriage official being essentially "it's not inherently wrong, but you don't have to do it and you should listen if the law of your location tells you you shouldn't do it".
isn't it obvious? mohammeds morals included buggering little children; regardless of time or culture mohammed had a choice: bugger this child or not; he chose to do so... and I don't believe for a second that a person who makes that choice can have any divine inspiration
since he did do so, many muslims interpret this as an approval and even a right to do so too, causing unspeakable suffering to millions of children
no, haddith covers every action of mohammed, both words and deeds, passed on orally at first. it is used to determine the sunnah; the perspective is not what the prophet said, but what first hand witnesses say they saw if you catch my draft
is this like that huge solar power facility they are building in spain?
there are several islamic nations (iran, saudi arabia, yemen) who allow marriage at such young ages (like 6 or 9 or even no age limit), because it is haddith
it is definatly possible, the saudi's behavious is not like it used to be when if they said they were going to pump up more oil they actually would...
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