What's 'collapse' supposed to mean?

A party can do horrible in election after election without its infrastructure and function in the political landscape neccessarily disappearing. I think social-democratic parties pretty much everywhere in Western Europe are only at a real risk of disapppearing if their position in the existing political system is usurped by another party (which is unlikely in most cases), or if the system collapses (Greece).

Are you even aware of what that kind of language is actually code for?

Lisping marxist millionaires hold a lot of important positions in society. It's important we stay aware of this.

If they're Chechen, yeah, they're muslims. Though, of course, that doesn't mean they're not something else as well.

This is allegedly his social media profile:

http://vk.com/id160300242

So he wrote this 1 year ago...

В школе задают загадку..Едет
автомобиль. В нем сидят – дагестанец,
чеченец и ингуш.
Вопрос – кто ведет машину ?
Мага отвечает: - Полиция.

Which Google translates as...

The school asked the riddle .. Goes
car. In it sit - Dagestani,
Chechen and Ingush.
Question - Who is driving?
Magus says: - The police.

Looks like a Chechen lunatic, indeed.

Might be a decent piece of slightly nationalist poetry in the original.

Yeah, the weather is pretty pleasant, the food is nice, and the people by and large are quite pleasant. Greece comes pretty close to an ideal place to live if you've got some money.

Arizona on the other hand might conceivably have served the Tsars as a good substitute for Siberia should their imperial ventures not have stalled on the Wester shorelines of the American mainland.

No.  Two wrongs do not make a right.  Besides, where would they hold the service for Blair? Westminster Cathedral?  That would be awkward unless the Church of England had been disestablished by then.

You've just convinced me of the neccessity of a Tony Blair state funeral.

Maybe the next update thread could be subtitled 'Not waving, Drowning'? Just a suggestion.

I heard this item on the radio the other day about this county in Alabama where a quarter of the population was on SSDI or whatever. How difficult could it be for Bushie to get his arthritis or tourette's or whatever qualified as a disability?

And as to the question at hand: yeah, it would.

Of course.  Crucifixion was a form of torture, so both the physical and emotional pain would be more than anyone can ever imagine.

Does that include other torture victims?

Crucifixion is pretty bad, but just think of poor old Damiens.

Option 2.

Imperial legislature:
1.Zanas
2.Hashemite

So, in short, more people die on country roads than suburban motorways. What a surprise... not.

Although Spain is a surprise, I suppose. (The state of Belgian driving skills is legendary - many people still "know" that you don't need a drivers' licencse there, even though that actually ended 55 years ago, mostly because they still drive as if that was the case - and the roads of that country are the way they are because the Flemings refuse to pay for them if there's an off chance a Walloon might use them, so that's explained.)

I still know people who went to get their drivers' license in Egypt or some such places. Up untill the '80s nothing was easier than to get a foreign driver's license officially recognized. I believe there were officials in Hurghada or such hell-holes pleasant resorts specialized in getting Belgium's crappy drivers a license. 

(although I do understand the back-derivation of the term 'gnostic' in this context)

Sure, it's obvious enough, but is typical of that nasty 'I understand [some of] insert 'classical' language, therefore, look at how brilliantly and privately educated I most certainly am' mentality that infects discussions surrounding the subject area of this particular board like smallpox and which deserves to be responded to with nothing less than a sudden outburst of extreme violence.

So because someone is smart enough to take away an "a" from "agnostic", they must be some privately educated haughty snob?

No. It's more that if someone is stupid enough to think that doing so demonstrates how oh-so-f[inks]ing clever then they are more likely than not to be a privately educated snobbish idiot.

I missed the note at the bottom of the chart that reads "OMG I'm so [inks]ing clever".

The bit where it says, in italics, 'since it claims knowledge', is rather annoying. You must admit. And the whole 'not knowing what gnostic christianity actually is' is also rather annoying, though not in my opinion indicative of being privately educated, but rather of being some american guy running a site on 'religion and philosophy'. Hope this helps

cpgb

1 poster has read Chavs, 2011's unlikely bestseller.

So, Bushie makes a thread about how a year from now he will support Same-Sex Marriage? Isn't that a little weird.

Suddenly the atmosphere was quite tense.

So what, BRTD? I was moderate hero enough to vote for Mark Kirk. People change and mature.

Don't worry, Franzl, he hasn't forgotten.

I don see why having language makes you a superior species.

I didn't use the word 'superior'. I just said there's a qualitative difference.

At any rate, my original post in this thread is much improved when you realize I thought you were memphis.

Still, you'll agree it's hardly a surprising book to read for anyone with that specific profile.

I guess humans do run less on instinct than most other animals, but why should that make us superior? Those animals have their own evolutionary traits that make them successful, and we have ours.

Are even if we go by intelligence, orcas are a very intelligent species. They can devise new strategies to hunt, thus not relying on instinct. The rest of the great apes are extremely intelligent as well.

None of the Great Apes ever wrote the works of Shakespeare.

Oh wait-

Neither have tribes in the Amazon. 'All they've done is paint with their fingers and make sharp sticks.' Be very careful with that line of reasoning.

'Tribes in the Amazon' have accomplished great things, culturally speaking. Think of the Song Lines of the Australian natives. A thousand Illiads mapping the landscape, bringing the vast empty spaces to life etc. etc.

The gap between the animal and the human is there. The mere fact of language creates an unbridgeable divide.

...

What are you surprised at? Surely an Arkansas republican can't be expected to spend his days with much different fare.

I guess humans do run less on instinct than most other animals, but why should that make us superior? Those animals have their own evolutionary traits that make them successful, and we have ours.

Are even if we go by intelligence, orcas are a very intelligent species. They can devise new strategies to hunt, thus not relying on instinct. The rest of the great apes are extremely intelligent as well.

None of the Great Apes ever wrote the works of Shakespeare.

Oh wait-

This thread still going? Makes me question me being on an internet message board.

It is sort of ironic that a massive victory for the right in Belgium would translate into an increase in the size of the Green fraction. Never ceases to amaze, that particular affiliation.

True, Benedict really seems to have been deteriorating. Which is not unusual in a man of his age, of course. Still, a shame of such a great mind. (Always a very cerebral person, Ratzinger, probably the most intellectually achieved pope since early christianity).