BruceVC

I was about to say that in spite of my globe-trotting past with several local honies hasn't helped my allergies one bit, but then I realized you were talking about the stuff bees make. You make me laugh Do your work colleagues appreciate your sense of humour as much as we do?

I'm a strange person Monte, I don't just believe everything people tell me on the Internet. But if this means you won't engage with me anymore I'm sorry because I do enjoy our little debates

Barti I always get nervous when people start raising points around pirating like " in a moral or legal sense" Normally what follows is a vindication of pirating based on some pseudo-intellectual justification of why they pirate and the reasons why its "not pirating" On my old forum there were loads of people who use to unashamedly admit to pirating and frankly not caring. One guy even use to justify it by saying " he pirates games because the developers don't make games that are at the same standard as games in the past. So by not paying for games you are helping the developers to make better games as they won't generate as much revenue and they will realize they need to make better games" I kid you not, this was his explanation for pirating

In Australia, absolutely yes !!!! The rest of the world, no.

Blasphemer!!! SIEZE HIM! we can possibly type here is absolutely useful, QFT !!! For example think of all the interesting and pertinent discussions we have had raising the irrefutable facts around the importance of Romance, just because of our erudite views we now have Romance in PoE....oh wait

Good question around lending someone an ebook. I don't know But my advice is don't do it if there is any risk of it being pirating

I got upset for a moment due to nostalgic reasons but then I read the article and its only one branch of Mythic that is closing down. You naughty boy to make people nervous !!!

You always have the most hilarious posts. Hey a internet forum with no hyperbole is like a peanut butter sandwich with no jelly. You can still eat it but it gets awful dry! Well said my friend

Not true. Many years ago I ate a cheeseburger at McD's and got violently ill for about a day. My wife and daughter were sharing a hotel with me at the time, and my daughter has never bothered me for McD's since. I knew someone would have a MacD horror story

g Yes the coffee price was set to go up because of the bad rain in Brazil effecting the coffee crops . That guy is right by the way, honey is better for you..but I suppose you are already so sweet you don't need to become sweeter Trouble is that most honey you buy in supermarkets is so diluted it's basically just syrup with beehive for thickener. Real honey, like what they sell at the side of the road, or increasingly in cities with rooftop hives, has all that goodness from the flowers. Good point and you right. If you not buying it relatively fresh it wont have as much nutritional goodness

With respect, you haven't got a clue what you're talking about. The beginning of the end was the day they agreed on the Euro and the entire institution fudged the entry criteria for the unproductive, borderline corrupt southern Club Med fringe. Sorry boys I don't agree, Greece was the real beginning of the decline Scary thing about reality is that you don't have to agree with it for it to be true. Its not that I don't believe Monte and you but I would prefer to get few other opinions, you understand of course. Its just the most sensible way to end the debate

you funny

I work as an usability specialist for larger software company, even though that my work should have little to do with politics, there has been government contracts for EU specific web-portals. But I liked civic classes in school and I try to keep myself updated on how our government and EU works, so most of my knowledge comes from reading it from internet , which means that my knowledge probably has large holes in it. Well I find your perspective very interesting, so keep it up

With respect, you haven't got a clue what you're talking about. The beginning of the end was the day they agreed on the Euro and the entire institution fudged the entry criteria for the unproductive, borderline corrupt southern Club Med fringe. Sorry boys I don't agree, Greece was the real beginning of the decline

But to be fair the EU was the first union of its kind and on paper appeared to be the perfect economic and social construct. And for years it was the darling of the world, everyone use to talk about great the EU was...and it was great until the 2008 financial crisis and then the cracks appeared. For me the watershed moment that really challenged the invulnerability of the EU was when it became apparent how broken the Greek economy was and that they needed bailouts. I don't blame the EU for that. I believe Greece mislead the EU to become a member and utterly mismanaged many aspects of there economy But for me I'll repeat what I said. I don't believe the EU can sustain itself in its current form due to the lack of identity many people feel towards it. So I expect some structural changes going forward

Walsie....please tell me that a respected gastronome of your position wouldn't really eat at MacD....you just teasing right...please tell me that I did. And you're going to have to find a new hero. I am mortified....okay I'll survive I am having Sushi tonight, healthy and utterly delicious. And I'm having it with Wasabi

Good choice of series, but why would you feel guilty about watching Grimm, the show is brilliant ?

Yeah Breaking Bad really grows on you, you just need to accept that most of the main characters start descending into this vortex of completely dysfunctional behaviour and perspective. But damn its fun to watch

Why you insist on spreading this sort of misinformation is beyond me. It's either irony or malice at play that you blame it on ignorance and "the population being morons", seeing how, as evidenced by the Ukraine thread, you either don't know how the EU siphons sovereignty off member states and towards the Union structures or are, rather dishonestly, downplaying it. But I'm the FSB shill. Again, member states are obligated to: relinquish control over monetary policy once switching to the Euro (handled at the Union level by ECB) acknowledge rulings and domestic ruling overturns by the ECJ and ECHR obey regulations and directives issued by the European Commission (secondary legislation, I'm sure you know what this is) fall in line with the common trading policy or face severe penalties If that all sounds familiar, it's because you already read and glossed over it in the other thread. The structures and organisms responsible for the above are eminently undemocratic and suffer from transparency and accountability deficits. The argument that the EU doesn't micromanage countries is deceitful because what it does is hand out high level objectives for countries to legislate towards, and then sets deadlines for said legislation, leaving only the wording and execution up to member states, while monitoring both and penalizing any deviation from the directives issued. It's not that people believe that some sort of EU nationality is in danger of supplanting whatever their passport currently reads—it's that they correctly surmise that the democratic process is being rendered increasingly irrelevant by the slow but sure transfer of power from their elected representatives to a supra-national organization they have no reason to trust and whose interests, motivations and inner workings are, at best, opaque. Euro is not EU's currency, although original idea of Euro was that it would become such, but currently it hasn't and it more like Independent monetary union, with close tides with EU. Even though all EU's member states are members of EMU, only those countries that have been participated in European Exchange Rate Mechanism II, which is voluntary, for at least two years can adopt Euro as their currency. States outside of EU also can adopt Euro as their currency if they fulfill certain criteria. Currently there are several countries and territories outside EU that use Euro as their currency. ECHR is Council of Europe's court that is institute that is independent from EU and nearly all European countries are it's members. Decisions of national courts can't be appealed to ECJ. ECJ works as institute that determines how EU law should be interpret, but final decision is on national courts. ECJ also works as arbiter between EU's institutions. European Commission don't have power to issue regulations or directives, it only has power to make proposals for legislation, that Council of the European Union and European Parliament has to accept, if proposal is accepted it is Commission job to see that all member states obey it. EU is first and foremost trade union, so it should not come as surprise to any country that joins it that there is trade agreements that they have to obey if they want to be part of the union. Interesting post Elerond, thanks for sharing What do you do for living, you know a lot about the structures of the EU

Okay let me delete some items

So do I, especially wasabi with Sushi.

Plzzzzzzz,,,,I want the Inquisitor

Why you insist on spreading this sort of misinformation is beyond me. It's either irony or malice at play that you blame it on ignorance and "the population being morons", seeing how, as evidenced by the Ukraine thread, you either don't know how the EU siphons sovereignty off member states and towards the Union structures or are, rather dishonestly, downplaying it. But I'm the FSB shill. Again, member states are obligated to: relinquish control over monetary policy once switching to the Euro (handled at the Union level by ECB) acknowledge rulings and domestic ruling overturns by the ECJ and ECHR obey regulations and directives issued by the European Commission (secondary legislation, I'm sure you know what this is) fall in line with the common trading policy or face severe penalties If that all sounds familiar, it's because you already read and glossed over it in the other thread. The structures and organisms responsible for the above are eminently undemocratic and suffer from transparency and accountability deficits. The argument that the EU doesn't micromanage countries is deceitful because what it does is hand out high level objectives for countries to legislate towards, and then sets deadlines for said legislation, leaving only the wording and execution up to member states, while monitoring both and penalizing any deviation from the directives issued. It's not that people believe that some sort of EU nationality is in danger of supplanting whatever their passport currently reads—it's that they correctly surmise that the democratic process is being rendered increasingly irrelevant by the slow but sure transfer of power from their elected representatives to a supra-national organization they have no reason to trust and whose interests, motivations and inner workings are, at best, opaque. 2133 lets not bring up the Ukraine thread please, that thread devolved into one of the worst states that a discussion can end up at. And yes we were all guilty, I'm not blaming you. What I don't understand is that countries like the UK and Poland are part of the EU but don't use the Euro internally, they have kept there currency. So how would that impact your point where you said "relinquish control over monetary policy once switching to the Euro (handled at the Union level by ECB'" Surly the negative consequence of what you are saying wouldn't apply to countries that didn't switch to the Euro, or would it?

Reading all the comments from people who live in the EU has made me realize something, or rather has made me think of the biggest challenge facing the continued longevity of the EU When I asked questions what people didn't like about EU there are several common themes that are relevant like immigration and a distant central government that people don't relate to But what about the issue of identity? I don't think the EU countries share a true common identity and that's understandable. For example the French are the French and have there own history. They may have great fondness for the Norwegians but do they really share an identity? The EU is an attempt to force a common framework between countries that for thousands of years have been proudly independent through there history, culture and language. No wonder there is this rise of nationalism with "far right " parties gaining votes through slogans like " we represent the true identity of country x" Its actually been relatively easy for "far right" parties to gain support not just because the EU parliament sits in Brussels but the fact that end of the day I think most people prefer being part of there own country and culture rather than being part of some nebulous " EU common brotherhood". You then add economic and social issues to the EU mix and you have serious disillusionment with the EU structures I am not suggesting the EU countries don't like each other or xenophobia is systemic. I am saying you can't force countries to form a union with the objective of economic prosperity without looking at the important issue of cultural identity and how that will be effect the perception of the success of the union as time goes on Look at the USA, each state is almost like a separate country. But the USA works because despite some of the differences between the states almost all US citizens are united by one common thread. They are all American in identity. And that's what the EU lacks?

I am going to say this and I am not trying to undermine all the frustration but I haven't had any issues with Uplay except for once where I had to wait a few hours before logging on. I also don't get all the acrimony directed towards them