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Off Topic The Politics Thread

Discussion in 'Queens Park Rangers' started by Stroller, Jun 25, 2015.

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Should the UK remain a part of the EU or leave?

Poll closed Jun 24, 2016.
  1. Stay in

    56 vote(s)
    47.9%
  2. Get out

    61 vote(s)
    52.1%
  1. Staines R's

    Staines R's Well-Known Member

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    Funny that’s what the Mrs says when she talking to me…….
     
    #65981
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  2. Steelmonkey

    Steelmonkey Well-Known Member

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    Did he film it?
     
    #65982
  3. Staines R's

    Staines R's Well-Known Member

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    Ket is rife nowadays mate…..kids are doing it more than coke and E nowadays……silly ****ers don’t realise what it’s doing to their kidneys and will be gutted when they end up pissing in a bag when they are older
     
    #65983
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  4. bobmid

    bobmid Well-Known Member

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    Honestly mate, the **** wasnt capable of holding a phone to film it.
     
    #65984
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  5. kiwiqpr

    kiwiqpr Barnsie Mod

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    thats mild
    you should hear my wifes opinion of me some days
     
    #65985
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  6. bobmid

    bobmid Well-Known Member

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    Tell me about it. This kid has 408 whats app contacts in 1 single group designated to ket for students in Leeds. Its cheaper than a bit of coke and cheaper than 10 pints.
     
    #65986
  7. bobmid

    bobmid Well-Known Member

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    E's arent what they used to be. You only needed one to see you through the night, nowadays they take 10 of the bastards. Poor quality.
     
    #65987
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  8. bobmid

    bobmid Well-Known Member

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    I have
     
    #65988
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  9. bobmid

    bobmid Well-Known Member

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    In other news, just had a price increase on building materials with a further increase next month. The reason given is due to having to pay lorry drivers more money for their job. There really are some greedy twats out there (and i dont mean the drivers). The construction industry is becoming more expensive on a daily basis so anyone thinking of home refurbs or improvements, buy your materials sooner rather than later.
     
    #65989
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  10. Staines R's

    Staines R's Well-Known Member

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    Yes and no Bob. I think it’s more to do with what’s in them as well.
    I mean, when I used to go to Bagleys in the 90’s, indeed 1 or 2 Mitsis, Maccies or dolphins would indeed see me through the night, but these were better quality, pure MDMA……however nowadays many of the pills, so I’m led to believe, are cut with all many of ****, similar to MDMA but slightly chemically different, and don’t give the ‘dance high’ that we were getting. Adding to the fact that after a certain amount of MDMA (or equivalent), it fails to give the dance buzz and acts more like an amphetamine, it no wonder they take a dangerous amount.
    Along with alcohol it’s a dangerous mix
     
    #65990
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  11. Staines R's

    Staines R's Well-Known Member

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    I met up again yesterday with the driver fella I mentioned before and he was showing me the pages of emails he had received recently offering him jobs….all for far better wages than he was offered before.
    To be honest, I’d be happy to pay a little bit more for building work, of course you guys in construction have to make a living also and need to pass on the extra costs, if it means drivers get a fairer wage than they are used to.
     
    #65991
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  12. kiwiqpr

    kiwiqpr Barnsie Mod

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    price of everything has gone up
    some stuff is going up massively
    esp building materials
     
    #65992
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  13. kiwiqpr

    kiwiqpr Barnsie Mod

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    drivers where i work just got around a 7 % pay rise
    about time as the pay for drivers in nz is ****
     
    #65993
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  14. Staines R's

    Staines R's Well-Known Member

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    Its a hard job…they deserve every penny
     
    #65994
  15. Goldhawk-Road

    Goldhawk-Road Well-Known Member

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    Batty Scottish Nationalist Party to allow 4 year olds to choose their own gender without reference to their parents. Sturgeon really is a mad cow
     
    #65995
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  16. Goldhawk-Road

    Goldhawk-Road Well-Known Member

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    The EU have threatened to ban the Taliban from the Eurovision Song Contest, if they continue to execute surrendering Afghan military personnel, rape and abuse young girls and throw gay people off high buildings.

    On his way to a seven course dinner at the White House, President Biden has said it is up to Afghan people to stand on their own feet and organise their own song contest, and try to ignore the Taliban.
     
    #65996
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  17. Ninj

    Ninj Well-Known Member

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    you would expect something this "Batty Scottish Nationalist Party to allow 4 year olds to choose their own gender without reference to their parents. Sturgeon really is a mad cow" to be on 1st April.
    Then again if the SNP want this, will they be lowering the voting age?????
     
    #65997
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  18. kiwiqpr

    kiwiqpr Barnsie Mod

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    ‘Global embarrassment': Afghanistan withdrawal resembles surrender
    Matthew Knott 4 hrs ago




    Fact check: Ivermectin is not a proven treatment for COVID-19
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    © AP Plumes of smoke rise into the sky after fighting between the Taliban and Afghan security personnel in Kandahar, Afghanistan


    When Joe Biden appeared at the White House last month to explain his decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, he insisted that a Taliban takeover of the country was not inevitable.

    The Afghan army, Biden said, had 300,000 troops compared to 75,000 for the Taliban. And he claimed that the Afghan government troops were as "well-equipped as any army in the world".

    While few things in life are inevitable, a speedy Taliban takeover following America's withdrawal looked highly possible even then.

    Now, with the Taliban gaining control of provincial capitals at stunning speed, it looks extremely probable.

    According to a US intelligence assessment, the Taliban may control Kabul within a month. The security situation is so dire that thousands of US troops have been flown in to evacuate American diplomats and civilians. The world's strongest military power has been reduced to asking the Taliban not to kill its citizens as they flee from the country.

    It's a chaotic, ignominious end to a 20-year war that has cost America more than $US800 billion ($1 trillion) and the lives of more than 2300 US troops. Rather than a considered departure, America's departure resembles a Vietnam-style surrender.


    It's a demoralising moment, and another blow to American prestige following the disaster of the Iraq War, the global financial crisis and the botched response to the coronavirus.

    Ineffectual calls from the US and others for the Taliban to return to the negotiating table only underline their impotence.

    Meanwhile, the feeble resistance put up by Afghan troops across the country makes a mockery of the time and resources the US and its allies, including Australia, have invested in training them over decades.

    Defence Department spokesman James Kirby on Saturday (AEST) said the US could not have predicted the Afghan forces' lack of will to fight on their own. Perhaps it's something that should have been predicted.

    This moment is a low point in Biden's presidency. He doesn't bear responsibility for past failures in Afghanistan, but he is accountable for the haphazard, seemingly rushed nature of the US withdrawal.

    Hawks in Congress have unsurprisingly leapt upon the chance to criticise Biden. They argue that a small, continuing US presence was a small price to pay to stop Afghanistan from falling into the hands of Islamic extremists.

    "President Biden's strategy has turned an imperfect but stable situation into a major embarrassment and a global emergency in a matter of weeks," Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said. "President Biden is finding that the quickest way to end a war is to lose it."

    Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney called the withdrawal "catastrophic".

    (McConnell and Cheney, it should be noted, also criticised Donald Trump when he moved to withdraw US troops from the Middle East during his presidency.)

    Yet Biden is sticking by his decision to withdraw all US troops by the end of August. His rationale for leaving is clear-eyed and anything but knee-jerk given he was a sceptic of the war during the Obama era.

    "How many thousands more American daughters and sons are you willing to risk?" he asked in July to those advocating a continued US presence in Afghanistan.

    "Already, we have members of our military whose parents fought in Afghanistan 20 years ago. Would you send their children?"

    The US, Biden said, had two primary goals in Afghanistan: to kill September 11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden and remove al-Qaeda's capacity to use the country as a base to launch attacks on America.

    Those goals, he said, have both been achieved.

    The American public, which is tired of spending taxpayer funds on far-flung wars, is on his side.

    A Quinnipiac University poll in late May found that 62 per cent of American adults approved of the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan while 29 per cent disapproved. Other polls have put support for withdrawing even higher.

    Most of Biden's party is sticking with him. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said the Taliban surge bolstered, rather than undercut, the decision to leave.

    "The complete, utter failure of the Afghan National Army, absent our hand-holding, to defend their country is a blistering indictment of a failed 20-year strategy predicated on the belief that billions of US taxpayer dollars could create an effective, democratic central government in a nation that has never had one," he said.

    There's also a growing isolationist wing of the Republican Party that backs the withdrawal.

    Matt Gaetz, one of the most pro-Trump members of Congress, said he wanted all US troops and diplomats out as soon as possible regardless of the consequences.

    "Maintaining an embassy in this hellscape isn't worth it," he tweeted.

    But even if you accept the arguments for leaving Afghanistan, it's hard to believe the US departure could not have been handled better. Was it really necessary to time the withdrawal for the peak spring fighting season? Surely more planning could have been done to provide safe harbour for Afghans who worked alongside the US and its allies.

    The US withdrawal from Afghanistan may well be a surrender to reality, as its advocates insist. But a surrender it undoubtedly is
     
    #65998
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  19. Sooperhoop

    Sooperhoop Well-Known Member

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    US intelligence was stating Kabul could hold out for up to a year, 3 days later it's almost all over. Biden's 1st major decision has certainly proved disastrous...
     
    #65999
  20. kiwiqpr

    kiwiqpr Barnsie Mod

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    How long before the yanks go back

    Taliban fighters enter the Afghan capital Kabul, the interior ministry says
    Eyewitnesses say the militants met little resistance along the way
    The Taliban orders its fighters to refrain from violence and allow safe passage for anyone wanting to leave
    US begins evacuating staff from its embassy in Kabul
    About 600 British troops are being deployed to help the departure of UK nationals and others.
    The last major city in the north, Jalalabad, falls without a struggle
    US President Joe Biden defends decision to leave Afghanistan, saying he could not justify an "endless American presence"
    Live Reporting
    Edited by Alix Kroeger

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    Posted at 21:1721:17
    President Ghani in emergency talks as Taliban surrounds Kabul
    Ashraf Ghani
    Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images
    Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani is holding emergency talks with US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and other top Nato officials, reports say.

    The meetings are being held amid reports that the Taliban are at the gates of the capital Kabul.

    In his first national address since the Taliban intensified their military campaign, Mr Ghani on Saturday said that the country was in "serious danger".

    He added that steps were being taken to boost Afghanistan's security and defence forces. However, all reports so far have indicated that the militants met little resistance as they began walking into Kabul.

    The militants' presence outside the capital came hours after the fall of the key eastern city of Jalalabad - also with little resistance.

    The rapid collapse of government forces has left President Ashraf Ghani under growing pressure to resign.

    The US has stepped up evacuation efforts of members of staff from its embassy with 5,000 troops on hand to help.

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    Posted at 21:1021:10
    Afghanistan: The Americans' new Vietnam?
    A US military helicopter is pictured flying above the US embassy in Kabul on 15 August 2021
    AFPCopyright: AFP
    A US military helicopter flies above the US embassy in KabulImage caption: A US military helicopter flies above the US embassy in Kabul
    As the US evacuate members of staff from its embassy in Kabul, comparisons are being made with the way the Americans left Vietnam in the final act of the war there.

    That was another protracted US military campaign which ended in defeat and came to a hasty conclusion in 1975, with the fall of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City).

    The last Americans and many South Vietnamese were evacuated by helicopter from the roof of the US embassy.

    "Comparisons with Vietnam abound," financial analyst Tim Ash told Reuters news agency, "with that feeling of a Saigon moment and the last US helicopter out."
     
    #66000

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