The EU is moving inexorably towards a Federal State.
Individual countries are becoming irrelevant, and relics of yesteryear, curious cultural enclaves gradually losing distinction and individuality and submerging into enforced uniformity.
So we can expect Polawho with Itawho with Portuwho, with Grecewho, Francowho with Germawho , Sedewho and so on.
The common currency is established as is a common foreign policy, common civic rights and obligations, a common army is on its way and an EU Chancellor for tax raising is on the horizon. Police force? Well Interpol.
Escaping from the EU will become progressively more difficult and will reach impossibility on the peaceful side armed revolution.
Maybe tgere was a chance of avoiding the demise ofvEuropean Nation States while the UK acted to block such things, but the UK saw it coming and wanted out.
So for those counties not in The EU, think not of dealings with Germany or Spain eto, deal directly with the real centre of power, the EU, not provinces of the Collective known as the EU.
It would appear that Anibal Cavaco Silva, Portugal’s constitutional president, has refused to allow a democratically elected Goverment-in-waiting to form a Government because he judged their policies to be against Portugals's interests
It remains to see if this is carried through but at first sight it is a worrying precedent.
Yes, it can be exciting for 30 seconds or so when start if there's a pile up, but then the rest is just waiting for something to happen which is not often.
Does it pollute, smell, is it noisy?. ---- yes.
Does it advance passenger car design?.--- Once upon a time perhaps, but not now
Is it worth the money?. --- I don't think so.
Vroom, Vroom !
Are people interested in it? --- Surprisingly, some are.
The clouds of war are gathering; while politicians distract themselves with football hooligans, the Micronation of Enclava is on the move and seizing vast territories for it's King, HIs Majesty Prince (TBD).
It is expected that a United Nations Peace-keeping force consisting of San Marino and the NYPD armed forces will be sent to restore calm.
The UK is not unique from loosing out to business which make money from trading in the country but maintain inventive corporate tax structures to pretend that they have no or little revenue and divert their profits off shore or to a low tax country.
The UK has flagged its intention to cut down on this practice by employing a new tax law related to what they will call "Diverted Profits". For more information on this "Google Tax" (I wonder why!) - see this article: 'Google Tax' introduction confirmed
Under the new tax regime, companies with an annual turnover of £10m will have to tell HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) if they think their company structure could make them liable for diverted profit tax.
Quote
Once HMRC (the Tax Office) has assessed the structures, and decided how much profit has been artificially diverted from the UK, multinationals will have only 30 days to object to the 25% tax.
The rate of 25% is above the new rate of proposed Corporation Tax of 20%.
Anyone have different approaches in their country?
It looks like they are casing the joint, maybe to look for a retirement home for the Magnificent Mr Putin.
Naturally we are taking this seriously and our fleet of Cesna bombers are being dusted off at Bournemouth Airport readily to retaliate should they drop Mr Putin on us.
Mod edit: Fixed what is presumed to have been a link.
Normally one would expect a person with the Pope's responsibilities to be more diplomatic in is pronouncements, but his choice of words today 'Curse my mother, expect a punch' is probably the worse thing he could have said; whether he likes it or not, he justifies the use of violence if someone says something another does not like.
In so doing he goes some way to implying justification for the recent attacks in Paris and the others which may follow.
Maybe Religion, all religions, are at their heart inimical to Free Speech.
This thread starts at the run-up stages to the 2014 Football World Cup with, as seems to be customary, controversy surrounding the event.
Will the stadiums be ready in Brazil? Will the Brazilian zest for fun win out over public concern over the cost over-runs and the resulting unrest?
Meanwhile, accusations continue regarding the allocation of the 2018 event to Qatar.
The UK Sunday Times (1st June) claims to have several secret documents (millions - yes you read that correctly, millions), which are alleged to show that payments totalling US$5m were made in support of Qatar's bid, suggesting bribery on a massive scale. Calls are being made to rerun the competition to host the event.
But is FIFA capable of making a credible decision? Maybe they could decide that the Antarctic would be a good venue!
Oh yes, there is that other little matter - who is going to win the World Cup?
In Series 1, Putin survived the Russian Constitution rule limiting Presidents to two terms by an adroit disappearance stage left and reappearance from stage right. He is now in the first part of a second two-term Presidency before, presumably, temporarily disappearing stage left again.
We join him at an interesting point in his glorious career as he contemplates acquisitive adventures befitting Soviet Nostalgia, seeking to win friends and influence people. . . . Well 1 out of 2 is not too bad.
An obvious answer, and one which, I suspect, comes to the mind of most of us, is that it recreates some of the most loved functionalities of the Opera Browser.
But there will be other things,
It's not IE or Chrome/variants It's not Firefox
In other words it's. novel.
But there will be other things out there which should be added/emphasised to improve it's appeal, and this thread is to collect ideas and see where the musings take us.
To get started, what about the whole area of customisation, but customisation for everyone, not just "browser nerds"? How about two levels of customisation, including one that can be applied by the average user (like me!) without knowing knowing every little bit of jargon and all the tricks?
The idea of some sort of co-operation with an outside entity has been around for some time; candidates are clearly those involved with our common interests of Browsers or computer software, or perhaps even associated with one of the pursuits in our Hobbies area.
We’ve used the word Ping to represent attempts by DnD to “reach out” and a new area of the forum has been created to house them.
Very appropriately the first “Ping” is with our fellow refugees from the demise of Opera-as-we-knew-it, namely the Otter Browser. Similar cooperations has been mooted before but I should especially mention ersi and ensbb3. Ersi suggested Otter and ensbb3 told me to get my finger out. Well initiating it took a while, not because arranging it turned out to be difficult but rather we wanted to be clear on how we could do it on a mutually beneficial basis because otherwise cooperation would make no sense.
In the end it was deceptively simple; basically we provide a forum for the Otter development group members where they can relax a bit and we gain thereby new blood in our motley group of chatterboxes.
So now, thanks to Frans’s efforts and the fine tuning he did for the agreement, we have an Otter Ping for Otter-specific matters, which is moderated by none other than Emdek who is the prime driver in Otter. He has in turn placed a link on his site to guide his people in our direction.
To jump start the process we have placed an existing thread on Otter in the Otter Ping where, like the Hobbies section, it should be free from whimsical distractions and contribute to Emdek’s efforts. I would like to see more threads open there dealing with other aspects of Otter to increase our contribution to the deal. But it’s on-going work.
For the future, other ideas for Pings will come up. In the OP of the Thread on costs I suggested the idea of advertisements having their “own closed forum section”. That would fit the Ping concept. Note, however, that Otter people are free to take part in DnD as Members.
So the purpose of this thread is to collate any ideas that people might have on future Pings.
It’s now 100 days since the forum opened and time for a little bit of back slapping for all of us, particularly Frans Frenzie who has really worked very hard to get things up and running incredibly smoothly.
So thanks Frans.
Looking around one sees most of the usual culprits here; maybe we lack a Kat or two but I suppose that will come.
In order to broaden our appeal and attract new blood, I suggest we have a new Category in addition to
DnD Central
The Lounge
Browsers and Technology
(which are now the only categories that a Guest can view) namely Hobbies where such things as Music, Literature, train spotting, guns, photography etc could be discussed.
The purpose of this thread is to test out the idea before it's implemented to see whether the membership likes the idea and how much support it would be likely to get.
I think the addition of such a category would give added attraction for the site. Although I'm not a Hobby person myself, many are and I think it would provide a useful outlet.
As an anything-that-flies enthusiast from way back I'm technically interested in the drones and in seeing how they develop and what technology they use. So it will be fascinating to see how that pans out. Fat chance that the discussion will stick to that, but I've put it in the title, so there.
The article, however, is thought-provoking at different levels, the political, the moral as well as the technological.
There is an interesting turn of phrase at the bottom of that article, namely, A recent report by the Ministry of Defence said multiculturalism was a significant factor in the public opposition to conflict, as a war-weary public becomes increasingly uncomfortable with seeing British troops deployed to countries from which they once came. --- Lots of issues there.
We have several countries represented here, each with its own approach to this matter, so there should be lots of views on it. Maybe you agree with the approach in your country or maybe you don't.
The question is;
When can a Death Sentence be appropriate punishment?