La_Dolce_Vita

I don't doubt you. Though how many people do you think know what one is, nevermind have one? The problem is one of sharing this information. The company wouldn't necessarily encourage one method and discourage another because the failure of electronic and online things is that the payment is seen as a discrete aspect of the use of their service and one that is really about their customer's wider use of technology. I don't think there are an easy answers to this problem. But first people have to be aware that there is a problem with the way they're doing things.

I don't think he is coming across as angry, defensive or is covering anything up. I don't know how you're reading this into what he is saying. The leaking of personal data is inevitable because most of the breaches are caused by incompetence of those who hold the data. It doesn't really cost companies enough in punitive effects if the data is breach to put things in place to make it very unlikely it could happen.

I agree that these breaches happen all the time and it doesn't look like a massive breach when it is c.900 people. And you're right with there being many other breaches that happen every day that the public never hear about. I don't agree that people are idiots about putting their card details on to websites and about them not having two factor authentication, or even about using the same passwords. People are not idiots because so many are ignorant of these things. The problem is also that people who are less familiar online and electronic technology see that they have the ability to do things but they naturally assume that it is safe enough doing so. Nobody explains these things to most people so how would they know otherwise?

Attacking another state is illegal. Yet it doesn't justify Israel's ignoring the Security Council resoluton about the return of the territory. Your taking a position about reparations as if it were pre-WW2. Post WW2, what is reasonable is supposed to be settled by the UN. You could say the UN is irrelevant or should be ignored, but I think the world is worse off without out. You can see that with how the most powerful get away and try to get away with military action simply because they are more powerful. The settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law. I don't see the relevance of Israel's laws.

Not sure what you mean about structure. Do you mean that local churches are more 'hands off' with telling people what to do? Living Hope is christianity. It's just a different form of it. It could be said to be more christian than the 'progressive' churches in many ways that exist today because it's more consistent with what is in the bible.in some ways whereas modern churches in Britain cherry-pick and try to keep things soft and fuzzy or even run against scripture by accepting things like homosexuality. The Westboro Baptist could be said to one of the most Christian, for instance because they hold so strongly to what the Bible says. If Jesus is at the heart of the religion and if someone calls themselves Christian then we can't dispute that they are Christian. Are you also referring to tithes? Tithes used to be paid to the established church here by law. It's not uncommon in Christianity. Many churches have simply kept it. It's bad but it happens. God needs the money.

They're as mainstream as the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses.and have more member,.I think.

It's not inaccurate to call it a cult but I think people use the term in a way that could make Anglican Church, Catholic or 'progressive' Christianity beliefs and practices seem ok in comparison. It's really all the same stupid thinking (or lack of it) but packaged differently and has parts of it that are culturally foreign. But it's no wonder that people are sold the snakeoil when we treat Christianity as if it is ok. For instance, a lot of people still think that prayers should happen at the start of Tynwald sessions. This is mainly said because it is tradition but when the beliefs are superstitions, we are far from being intelligent when we entertain those superstitions as deserving a respect. I do think Living Hope more dangerous. The delusion they try to create of Jesus being alive and something like a friend, the hierarchical position of the pastor or other person who can actually heal through the power of Jesus and some of their evangelical practices are worrying. Yes, the Catholic Church is a bunch of lazy do-nothings that has leeched off people, kept them stupid and moved paedophiles around to escape too much attention but Catholicism isn't really getting its hands on people here.

I hope you don't mind my chopping away at the rest of your post. Just trying not to bloat quote. I do understand your reasoning and reasoning youre giving for why Israel claims it is justified. However, if nation states currently played by their own roles (and some do) then we can have a slightly different discussion. The background to what I'm saying is with the UN decision on the legality of Israel's occupation of these territories. It was deemed that it is illegal. It's a criminal occupation. I'm curious what your thought are on whether that matters. And we are well past the idea of Israel returning it for any peace offer, as Israel has long had plans to expand into the area with settlers, although it doesn't have the honesty to claim it is annexed. A less important thing is that I don't necessarily agree with this view on peace. It can just as well be argued that the return of the Heights could go a long way to fostering better relations. Israel is not compelled or under strong pressure to return the land so it can't be seen as any coercion.

Again. I think the fact that 3FM reported this as news might be confusing you. Human resources have the info on tribunals. That's been stated so it's rather stupid to suggest lying and secrets when the source of records have been declared by the DOI and when Human Resources are yet to be requested for the information. Your views only have any basis if human resources have received the FOI and they came back with nothing

I can understand that someone can recognise that a nation state is created against some difficult odds and admire some aspects of the spirit and motivation but I prefer judge the country or, precisely, the nation state on its actions and values. To put things in more of an extreme, one could admire Nazi Germany achievements in the early part of WW2 when the odds were stacked against it in its goals. Your comment about Iran is missing the point of what I meaning. Israel has chosen expansion of its borders and control over security. Israel wants to expand through illegal annexations and occupations of lands. The Golan Heights have been recognise as Syrian territory by the UN and this has never changed. It can hand back the territory to soothe relations or inflame them by retaining it. I dont put too much stock in the return of land gained by way and dishonouring the dead. Many wars are fought with territory acquired or occupied but returned later with little or no complaint where the conflicts are not fundamentally about territorial claims. The Golan Heights are not an Alsace-Lorraine or Danzig. They could say that they have been kicked around for millennia and now it's their turn but that's obviously not a position of the just and righteous but saying it's justified to treat others poorly because they're been treated poorly. And it seems more of a consequence of what power can allow. The gist of it all in my view is that if Israel wants peace then it has to be abandon its desire for a larger Israel. If it does and if Israel drifts more to a state that is more secular then I'd have a very different view of things.

Fuck's sake. The 3FM piece isn't news and whoever wrote the article has probably misunderstood. The records are simply held elsewhere. Nothing more to say about it.

I don't disagree but the same can be said about religion as a whole. No doubt very many of the soldiers of the Israeli military are emboldened by their religion and religious ideas surrounding the existence of their nation state. The world would be so much better without these superstitions.

P.K., I do find it surprising how you come down very firmly on the side of Israel even if the claim is something that most intelligent people would recognise as a problem or unjust. It seems strange for you. If were true about such detections it just seems strange that your view is 'don't go and live there'. The rest is a reasoned point of view but when you say things like that it just seems like you want to dismiss any criticism. About your point on threats. Israel has been under threat of annihilation but it hasn't chosen a path of greater security. By holding on to the Golan Heights, retaining control on the West Bank and Gaza and allowing Jewish settlement's in the West Bank and with many Israeli politicians wanting to annex the Jordan Valley it certainly isn't a country that is avoiding conflict and looking for security.

I am not too sure what you're getting at. Can you explain further? What I was getting it is that challenging and overturning gender expectations is where trans and gay people find common cause. And also, though I forgot to mention it, that gender expectations are largely a reason for homophobia and transphobia. I couldn't understand your reference to sexuality in your disagreement of my post.

But for those trans people who feel that they have the wrong body and wish to change that, the subject of their sexuality takes a complete back-seat to the matter of re-signing their sex to what seems more appropriate.

I don't know if you're serious when you mention aspiring to be straight and saying that I might suggest people are escaping gayness. Trans people don't necessarily aspire to be gay or straight. Most don't even aspire to be anything because they know they are men or women regardless of their anatomy. You're conflating sexuality and gender, which is not the same thing as understanding that gender and sexuality are connected.

Too many gay people know fuck all about how they have the rights and toleration they have today, which is largely a result of the argument, campaigning, support and politics of gender, which trans people have worked for. Gay men are often the worst for it. Any gay person who disavows connection with the subject of anything trans is someone who has an ignorance about the societal meaning and values behind their own sexuality. It may sound arrogant but consider the existence of campness and butchness it's commonality in people who identify as homosexual. This is, in a way, a trans thing. It's a man or woman whose gender performances (I don't mean a fake show but expression) don't accord with a heterosexual gender expectation.

I think the topic of trans is getting very messy because of the shifting philosophies, politics and arguments being made by different sections of society. And for people who don't understand some of the arguments that lie behind the subject it can be confusing. It's confusing for me and I thought I had a good idea about things. One aspect of looking at things has been something argued by deconstructionist thinkers from the 1980s onwards, which has led acceptability today. That is that gender is purely or largely a social construct: something formed from through social interactions in developing one's identity (which doesn't mean a person has a choice about how it develops). A person's gender is a product of values and meaning related to a persons biology and other experiences they've had. This can account for why people don't feel as if they really are a man or a woman despite a presumption that they should. However, many trans people disagree and actually think there is something anatomically different about their brains to account for this body dysmorphia. This is a scientific positivistic view. I knew someone who completely reject the idea that social constructionism accounts for how they had a man's body. It does seem that to some degree that gender cannot completely be consider a social construct from studies of very young children and their behaviours. Nevertheless, the social constructionist view is still very popularly believed. The question is what it is to be a man or a woman. If gender is largely (or purely) a social construct then it isn't simply a matter of anatomy but about one's identity and societies understanding of those identities. This why trans and gay people used to work for gay liberation which partly involved challenging the gender norms and expectations in society. Many trans people do, however, have gender reassigning surgery, which is more accurately a sex reassignment surgery. The alternative for them is either performing gender expectations in opposition to their sense of self. That does involve taking on those same gender expectations of what it is to be a man or a woman. Regardless of what they choose, society criticising and attacks such people. Other trans people have no interest in surgery and decide to naturally express their gender, which doesn't meet gender expectations on them. They are criticised and attacked for this. Other people realise that they don't feel that they are either man or woman. They feel like they must be something in between. Again, they are attacked for this. A lot of the problem at the moment is that a lot of rather lightweight right-wing thinkers have railed against any non-positivistic views of gender. Unfortunately, there seems to be a vacuum when it comes to LGBT thinkers who can present and argue social constructivism I think this is largely a result of the detrimental effects that conservative politics have had on the LGBT conformity as a political force. Unfortunately, conservative gay groups in the US and then in Britan went after the easy prizes of conformity in the heterosexual world by simply chasing after equality. Everything became about equality.and just being like the straights. Too many people are ok with that because equality have given gay people just enough to be tolerated. Often there isn't that adject homophobia that forces people, as in the past, to question what the fuck is wrong with society and how can it be changed. This push for equality and nothing else has dropped trans people and few are able or willing to articulate arguments that take examine and challenge the problems with gender. And society is poorer for this as most people don't understand what is going on.

I don't agree. Although sexuality and gender are different things, the view of homosexuality and homosexual practices as something subject to morality seems to be a product of gender expectations. And these expectations have been argued to be a product of and reinforced by the modern idea of heterosexuality and the values behind what it is to be heterosexual. This is why trans people and gay people have a shared problem and can find common cause.

Mainstream? I hope not! If that's the impression we are giving then that's a depressing thing to hear.

Those tunnels are better constructed than I assumed they would be.

I have very little optimism when it comes to governments taking more enlightened approach to dealing with drugs. They are too many misinformed people and those with their own prejudices to lead to much change. I remember when Professor Nutt was big in the news and it seemed hard-hitting that the real facts about drugs and harm were being made public. But it all came to little or nothing. Conservative elements in the UK government didn't want to take the risk of making changes. And we didn't the Island bring cannabis down from Schedule B to C to only move it back again? Can't remember why. Is cannabis really that much of a problem to criminalise people in ways that could be harmful to their employment and reputation when alcohol is legal? And we still have estasy as a Class A drug, which isn't justified by anything more than scaremongering. I've heard of people being imprisoned for years for having several tablets, yet someone pissed AND violent can get an equivalent or lesser punishment. And magic mushrooms were made Class A around 2005 or 2006. Crazy. I don't think things have shifted enough for society to approach the topic with much sense.

I quite agree. It wouldn't be soon, if ever, when the United States stops supporting Israel. I don't know if we can ever lose hope. In the same way of hoping that other nation states can become secular. Whilst there is a Jewish state and considering it's past, the chances of peace are less likely. I don't think the reason for the Jewish state has a lot to do with bloodshed though. It's more to do with superstition and the Jews childish beliefs. They think that they are recreating a holy state. And many Christian in America now think this too. These beliefs are held regardless of bloodshed. If anything, they make bloodshed more likely as there is a righteousness behind it. It's misguided but when Jews, Christians or Muslims have God on their side there is less restraint and less good sense. It isnt at all likely but if Israel and all Jews leave the West Bank and the West Bank and Gaza developed into a sovereign nation state, I wonder where things would be left. Gaza isn't even economically viable, even if the Israeli sea blockades were lifted and if Gaza had control over its borders.

You could blame the British government too. But what's the point? The main problem is the Israeli state and its policies and practices over the last sixty years. What's done is done with the partition and there is little hope in the short to medium term of seeing the end of Israel and having a bi-national, secular state, but it's Israel and United States that have resisted the creation of a Palestinian nation. People are asking what should be done about Hamas. But what should be done about Israel? In an ideal world, it should have it's military support and economic support withdrawn and see how it's fares then. But Israel, and even worse regimes ,are important strategic friends for the United States in the Middle East. It's rather depressing that it would very unlikely that this will change. And maybe Israel will drift by gaining more support from China and Russia. If that does happen and the United States ends its support, at least the American people can wash their hands of Israel and it's criminal actions.

What has happened that isn't understandable?