Prince Myshkin

Cool. For south (and the bottom end of the centre) I'd recommend Montpellier, Nice, St Etienne and Lyon. I can't recommend elsewhere and there may be better places but I've liked all of these. Lyon is the most northernly of the three (bottom end of the centre of France) and is like France's second city. Really good culturally, great architecture. St Etienne felt like a smaller version of Lyon. Nice and Montpellier are close to the coast and the weather there tends to be great. Montpellier is quite small but it's very nice.

The USA chant is probably the worst cultural phenomenon on this planet, just above genital mutilation.

Me too. And yes, I was desperate for Bolton to go down when we did as the teams who were promoted the same season Rovers were had all remained in the Prem since that season (Fulham/Rovers/Bolton) and I didn't want Rovers to be the only one breaking that record. Now it's Wolves/Rovers/Bolton who went down so I don't want Bolton to be the first ones to make it back up, if any of us ever do. Plus Bolton are rivals, so I never like to see them succeeding.

There's so many things in life I'll never learn, so I like learning things like this. The psychology of the chicken and it's interactions with humans would be pretty interesting to a certain level, I reckon. The reasons why they behave in certain ways and the way they interpret things a human would do (like you say with the petting on the head).

Given this is the worst Rovers have been in my entire life, I'd accept an unbeaten season against Burnley, finishing higher than Burnley in the league and Rhodes scoring more goals than Austin. I'd find it hilarious that we've been brought to our knees but are still capable of that. For how long is another matter, mind.

As for the thread question, I would like to, but I'd want it for plenty of others around me and I'd want to be in a state where I was in control of my mind and body.

Indeed. The problem isn't the numbers it's the way we behave. The problem with democracy (though democracy is the best way) is that it doesn't put an emphasis on long term plans. If you're in a society where a government can be kicked out after four years and the emphasis is on power and control rather than representation of the voter then you get a lot of quick fixes implemented and less agreement across political parties (it's in their interest to disagree with each other so as to create a reason to receive votes over other parties). This holds up meaningful change unless the voter demands it. It's like we are walking towards gradual obliteration but simply ignoring it and concentrating on right now. You can't do that as a species if you want to be around for a considerable amount of time whilst having the potential to do all that damage. Ideally politics will change and people will be educated more and demand greater representation and then democracy won't prove to be so restrictive in this area. We need to evolve into a system where people are pulling in the same direction for certain issues.

If Rovers win one game of their last three (Millwall away, Palace at home and Birmingham away) then two of Peterborough, Wolves and Barnsley will need maximum points from their last two games. I'd back us to stay up but we aren't safe yet. Just need to make the most of any chances.

They won after extra time which was irrelevant to my bet. Once they passed the 90 minute mark I was hoping they'd lose as punishment for having lost me the bet. What odds did you get?

Looking forward to the snooker. It's my 2nd favourite spectator sport after football (soccer).

Last week my bet didn't come in because Celtic didn't win. This week my bet didn't come in because Bury scored a last minute equaliser. Over the two weeks I've only lost £2 with my stakes, but had they both come in I'd have had like £30 and I'm skint so that would have been awesome. SO annoying.

It'd be awesome if you could! I'd like to do something like that myself if it was feasible. What's your plan? Sweet! Are chickens usually so relaxed? I've never held one before but always presumed they'd be a little volatile around humans when it comes to being picked up.

Given the fact that most people who ask me that question are annoying me, I usually (but not always - sometimes they ask a proper question like what music am I enjoying at the moment) say something along the lines of 'from Mozart to Radiohead to Neil Young to Public Enemy to The Chemical Brothers to The Beatles. Rap to folk to punk to electro to rock to classical to drum and bass to shoegaze.' To which they reply 'so everything then?'. Then I say (as pretentiously as possible) that that couldn't be further from the truth and that I'm very picky and specific when it comes to what I listen to and hate the vast, vast majority of music. If I can tell the person who is asking isn't annoying then I usually just answer 'oh, plenty of things really - I'm currently listening to a lot of...' and smile. But most people who ask that question tend to be annoying and simply trying to judge you on your music tastes.

To be honest I'd never even heard of them. When people are arrested in the UK they are warned that they are being arrested and that they have the right to remain silent and anything they do say may be given in evidence. It's standard protocol of an arrest. It's like you're not getting arrested until they start running all of their little speech off. Are the miranda rights any different to that? Something specific to terrorism? I would google further (just read the first few sentences on Wiki) but don't really have the time this second, sorry. Where are his tweets? Anyone got a link?

Ugh, I wish one of my friends would drink less. He is two different people sober and drunk, the latter being far from appealing.

There are coming up to 4 billion females in the world. Humans have had full behavioural modernity for 50,000 years. You'd think societies would be able to handle differences that pose no threat to others a hell of a lot better by now. And you'd think we'd be in a very different place in terms of equality, even (as a basic and underwhelming minimum) simply in terms of those who do fall within that magic spectrum of supposed acceptance. We aren't. The human race is so strange.

It's so early. We are only just starting to make ground in terms of transphobia. Key is just to make things as good as possible for those who follow us, and for them to do the same.

It will change. Ideas develop. Awareness grows. It'll never be a utopia but more and more women will begin to believe in themselves, even if it's through friends initially. More and more guys will get involved as they are confronted with these things more thanks to journalism and the internet. It's still early days in the great scheme of things.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aUbEQNWQgM]Noam Chomsky goes over list of War Crimes for which US presidents are responsible - YouTube[/ame] (Slightly off topic - the video, not your point)

Interest in this thread quickly died down...

Who?

Smoking anything on the bus aint cool.

http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2013/04/when-crowdsourcing-goes-wrong-reddit-boston-and-missing-student-sunil-tripathi

Most certainly. Here's hoping he pulls through so things can be pieced together. Without his testimony the rumours for why will be wild. He'll already become some form of political capital but without his word he'll be twisted into all sorts of different propaganda. He'll be used by the NRA for one thing, Republicans for another, Democrats for another, racists for another. With greater understanding it will be easier for the people to try and make up their own minds a bit more and see through some of the propaganda that will follow this tragedy. And of course we should hope for him to survive so that he can face up to what he has done and serve a just punishment. I imagine once things are cleared up to a greater extent (if he makes it through) then the next thing will be people in and outside of America arguing against capital punishment for him. It will be interesting how that goes down. I've not known of someone who has lived in America for a decade to go up for capital punishment who the outside world has followed so intently (post McVeigh, and the capital punishment argument was at a different stage then). There's been several cases that have gained a lot of coverage but outsiders will feel more involved in this one and so can have some form of influence. Hopefully such a barbaric practice won't last too much longer.

My core groups of friends are great and whilst I'm not sure if they identify themselves as feminists explicitly, do hold all the right feminist values. I love it, as there's no bravado. There are a few groups of people I know through others, such as people I sometimes see in my town, people I used to go to uni with and old work mates who I really despise at times. One thing that really pisses me off is the rating of girls they persist with. It's only a certain type of guy that does it (at my age) but it tends to be a very vocal group who get noticed and they tend to stick together. The guys who rate girls out of 10. They'll be saying they went out with a girl the other night and somebody will ask what they were like and they'll typically reply 'hmmm, 7 out of 10', then not really say much else on the matter. And it's not down to not wanting to talk too much about it, for if you probe them they are more than willing to answer all they can (though it quickly becomes apparent that even though they've spent the evening with the girl they know fuck all about them). If you're describing a person to somebody who doesn't know that person, what they hell are they supposed to take away with '7 out of 10'. That statement says more about the rater than the rated. First of all that they are the kind of person who rates another person and keeps some form of mental league table, and secondly that whatever you can understand from the person rating the girl upon questioning, this girl would be a 7 out of 10 for him. How does this at all tell me anything about the girl except for how closely she fits to some thin spectrum of girl in the raters head that you are unaware of which is almost certainly based on physical attributes? But they are happy, if not probed further (which in itself might not be a pleasant thing to do - if they are the type to rate in this way, when they start divulging more they tend to start meaningful descriptions from the wrong angle) to simply leave it as that. It's such a horrible way to look at a human being. I imagine this kind of thing is done by some girls too but I just feel it's more prevalent in males, especially once you get past school where things like that can be perpetuated simply by the kind of environment you are in.