renton

That was a case of real life imitating the internet.... I used to have an actual name

Quiet, Gustav.

Me neither, but I reckon if you are calling yourself 'Liam Barnett' on the internet, it's not becuase you are trying to hide behind a clever pseudonym that no one will ever guess. I think it's because it's your actual name. It wasn't meant all together seriously, I just found it funny that you got on at someone about hiding behind false names when in fact it's the one guy who really, really isn't.

What, you think 'Liam Barnett' is a pseudonym? Honestly?

I suppose there is a reason why utpopian sci-fri always deals with post scarcity cultures where hoarding stuff becomes meaningless since there is always an infinite surplus of 'stuff' Alas, Adam Smith, and the rest of us, are stuck with the laws of thermodynamics......

I think there is a difference between wanting a socialised societal structure and campaigning for a more moral and equal way of companies doing business and becoming a hippy survivalist living hand to mouth as a subsistence hunter gatherer in the wild.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cartoon/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-death-steve-bell-cartoon Think they'll open the comments for this one?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-editorial The Guardian recovers some of it's old eloquence and lucidity and nails it.

It still doesn't mean that the whole industry had to die to make the point. In terms of coal mining at least, the Uk is sitting on top of milions of tonnes of good quality hydrocarbon product which could be profitably used, but for the destruciton of the industry, and while I understand the relative delcine in 'heavy' industries as part of a general trend in western society, it does not acocunt for the brutally rapid pace from which whole towns lost their major sources of employment and income. The industries would have been smaller, but a lto bigger than they are today, and communties left with more to live for if there had been a grown up discussion on both sides about a modern and rationalised industry. Instead what we got was a whole lot of people getting crushed in a grinder thanks to Thatcher's policies.

I disagree that it should be so black and white. As I said previously, there is more than two possible outcomes than 1) Status quo and 2) dismantle the whole lot. There would've been modernisation, rationalisation and cutbacks - but there still would have been those industries in a lot of places.

As I've said above, it's not that the industries could continue as they had been doing, and plenty of stubborn and stupid men contributed to the issue. Nevertheless, there was a broad spectrum of possibly futures between non profitable, union dominated industries and the overnight destruction of the whole thing. Industires could have kept on going, even in limited forms - some parts were still profitable. A joined up industrial strategy aimed at trying to replace industires as they reached the end of their useful life would've been useful, instead she was the architect of whole communties having the life torn out of them, making it harder for them in the long run to attract new investment.

The degree to which anything she 'did' helped to stimulate growth is debateable. The full scale extraction of north sea oil ramped up at about the same time as she began the deindustrialisation of the country. I'd argue that the one covered the other, in which case you could argue that wihtout the ramp up in the north sea, her government would have struggled to put any growth on the economy. In which case all she managed to do was giad the Unions into do or die gambles which they inevitably lost. Whole swathes of industry that could potentially have had futures, even limited ones were gone, and the sudden loss of industries wrekced the communtiies they were based in. That's not good policy, not good economically and not good morally.

They pretty obviously weren't, but that doesn't mean that Thatcher's solutions were the right solutions either.

I was born in 1984, so technically I'm too young to give a crap - except that you can't help but be affected by her policies. It didn't jsut stop when she elft office: The neo-liberal fantasies she put in place are still with us. The de-industrialsed regions and broken communties, the centralising of all growth on the city of London and the squandering of the north sea reserves to cover that growth. All these things occured on her watch, and were enabled by later governments. She helped define a social and economic epoch that we are still living through.

nah, not really. you can argue long and hard about how the industires affected should have done more to modernise, more to realise that rationalisation was inevitable, more to future proof their own industries. No one is saying that Arthur Scargill wasn't an idiot who doomed his own industry to a fight they couldn't win. The salient point though is, that for whatever problems the industries had, Thatcher's solutions were worse. If she was a doctor, and you had a problem with an ingrown toenail, her solution would be to amputate at the ankle. ... and that's before you get onto the whole poltiical ideology and culture she helped advance in this country, the one we are living with today.

He's either on peanuts, or this is one of those 'outside' benefactor* type things: That's how we funded Marvin Andrews in the second division and Damian Casalanouvo in his return spell last year. *For benefactor, read as Alex Penman.

You never know, the curiosity might get a few more arses through the door in the last seven games. In addition to which, I don't think we are quite gaurenteed safety yet.

Could've left it as: 'signed to the end of the season'... that's what we usually do.

http://www.raithrovers.net/8372/new-signing-revealed.htm It's almost official, although I note it's subject to confirmation by the SFA/SFL

Aye, he's one of those 'you little c**t I fucking hate y - oh, welcome to the club, great signing'

We've gone and signed Joe Cardle

You'll doom us all for fucks sakes!

Well, aye. No doubt we'll be making libelous comments about their parentage and personal hygiene habits as well, probably intimating that they tend to supplement their no doubt already shit diets with dead vermin found in the bin. It's still a game of fitba, after all.

http://www.raithrovers.net/8024/rovers-to-help-the-pars-off-the-pitch.htm You have to promise us the 3 points though....

Agreed, having read a lot about the period and the political operators of the time, I think Thompson absolutely nails it. In many respects '72 was the prototype of the modern American campaign (the first to hold full primaries, wasn't it?). For all serious sports fans, I would also recommend Hunter Thompson's short: Fear and Loathing at the Superbowl. It's in the Great Shark Hunt collection of articles he put together. The cynicism, corporatism and utter lack of spectacle afforded by 70s American football as Thompson describes it would be familiar to most modern Scottish football fans, depsite the differences in sport. Really worth a read. Also, Thompson's Nixon obituary. 'Nuff said.