Chindie

That test is definitely flawed, it focuses on the 'big ticket' policies (defence, health, education, economy) in the briefest headline way. On this basis, the Green Party is basically fairly down the middle Left. The only point where it touches on the Greens more... defining policies is obviously in the environment, but again is only in brief headline terms. Unfortunately for the Greens when looked at in depth, and when looking at their policies on the less fundamental matters, they become more fringe. If that test was as in depth as it could be, the Greens don't come anywhere near as popular as they seem to be at the moment on it.

I excluded UKIP but I can only assume they'd be even lower than the Tories, given that they're basically an exaggerated Tory party with a gimmick. Edit: actually it seems they go in ahead of the Tories with 49%. Now that is a damming indictment of CallmeDave.

I just did that quiz. 74% Green 70% Labour 60% Lib Dem 30% Conservative I'm surprised I matched that closely with any of them (and not surprised the Tories came that low...). I was also surprised that my constituency appears to favour Greens so far in the small number of polls done. I still can't bring myself to do anything than scribble mindlessly over the ballot sheet come the day. Labour will win the seat again, it's been safe for years iirc, despite the fact our MP used to have a cited comment on his wiki page that noted him as a moron.

They've revealed the full Daredevil costume today. It's not the classic Daredevil look. Heavily inspired by the Secret War mini story look by the looks of it. Certainly could have been better...

Interesting discussion. My viewpoint would be that in general, you don't leave a role without something else to go to. And that is certainly the case with me currently. I can't afford to leave without an offer on the table. I need to go though. I dislike a great deal of the job, a lot of it is, as I said, tedious and doesn't engage me at all, and the other half is very very stressful, with numerous other problems. I find I never feel comfortable in the role and I'm not really in any way fulfilled by it. And the money is hopeless. I should be paid more, for the average of the position. Considerably more. I've been speaking to recruiters and that's ongoing. I hope to move on. I like the team and the company has been good to me, but I need more in my pocket, now so more than ever. Fingers crossed.

Returned to work today after time off sorting my dads matters. I can't say I feel completely up to coming back in, and I will be leaving early, but even being here I'm just immediately struck by how much I dislike the job. I've come in to finding issues with another department which we need to rectify which means I have the pleasure of manually running through line after line of numerous spreadsheets, a task not only mindnumbingly dull but also demeaning. I can barely muster the effort to bother. Apparently there's to be discussion of my wage increasing. I'm not even thinking about that following the last increase actually being so low that I don't actually think my wage in real terms changed (but I should be glad as it was a higher percentage than everyone else got. Unfortunately I'm unable to ignore that a slightly greater percentage of **** all is still **** all). I guess I might go a grand or 2 higher. That'll get me over £20k. That'll do for me they'll think, no doubt...

I have absolutely no faith in our ability to win this match.

This'll be a spanking.

Derren has previously written guide books that explain in detail exactly how to do the things he does. Unfortunately they're almost impossible to get hold of, originally only sold to people in the magician trade. Generally I believe it is just exceptionally well done suggestion techniques in his stage shows, but in some of his other work I believe he used more other techniques, including stooges. I remember one of his first TV shows had a trick where he met someone at a racetrack and claimed he could use positive suggestion to make the bookie pay out on a losing slip. He went up to the bookie with a losing slip and put it into her hand and said 'This is the winner'. She ran it through the machine and it paid out. With that kind of thing there HAS to be collusion or some more straight forward magic techniques (sleight of hand etc) going on, as he basically would have had to fool the machine for that to be more of a truck of the mind (obviously not possible). And there was of course his lottery prediction which not only was an obvious trick, he also tried to hide the trick with a nonsense wisdom of crowds explanation. I think that side of his work has a reductive effect on his other much more interesting stuff. I think I recall thinking his last special (the zombie survival one, possibly?) stretched my disbelief to breaking point.

... I'm not sure Monty Python and the Holy Grail was meant to be viewed as a documentary

I'm convinced these sightings are real but also culturally influenced. How is it that, in Britain, people are always seeing giant felids? That's always what you hear about there. You might think Carl Jung is bollocks, but his collective unconscious thing seems to apply here. I think the big cat thing is most likely because there are legitimately some alien big cats in Britain, particularly in places like Bodmin (there's been numerous filmings and more torn up livestock than you can shake a stick at). It's been reported in numerous media over the years enough times to have planted the seed in peoples mind. Then when you're out in the country and you see something that doesn't immediately compute as 'that's a dog or that's a house cat' the brain jumps directly to panther or whatever. For the avoidance of doubt, what we had in our garden I have no doubt was just a domestic cat, but a very unusual one. It wasn't a panther or a lynx or anything. Still spooked us though. There are loads of 'big dog' myths in the UK as well, tbh, but those inevitably are much more supernatural in nature (Black Shuck, for instance).

As for actual stories, given I'm in Birmingham we don't get a lot of these things, so I can't add much. I can distinctly remember when I was much younger we had a shed in the garden and there was some strange noises out there, we went out and on the sheds roof was an absolutely enormous cat. It took up half the sheds roof and I swear you could see the roof flexing under it's weight. It wasn't just big, it was heavily built as well, vicious looking and powerful. My sister in laws family had a very (very) big family cat, it was bigger than the dog we used to have, but that was obviously still a domestic cat. This thing must have been house cat, but looked like it belonged curled up next to Cerberus in front of the fire in Hades. It actually spooked my mom so much so wouldn't go in the garden at night for a good while afterwards. I've also seen an eagle owl up close. Driving through Wales whilst I was at university, we spotted one pitched on a fence post next to the road. Very big bird, I could see why spotting one at night would lead you to thinking it was something else, more supernatural.

I absolutely love all things cryptozoological, fascinated me since I was a kid. Saying that, I actually don't believe there's much substance to almost any of them. Things like Bigfoot simply can't be real. We don't find large animals anymore, certainly not many land ones, and when we do in recent years, inevitably they've been no bigger then a cat and in incredibly remote and unpopulated areas. The typical Bigfoot territory, the Pacific Northwest of the US, might not be the most populated area of the US, but its still got a decent population. Something that large, would leave evidence everywhere , and assuming there is a viable population, increase the likelihood exponentially. Everything that has ever been found was either fake or mistaken identity (in nearly every case, bear). The ones that may have legs are inevitably things like known species that are thought to have recently gone extinct and things like 'alien' big cats. Which nobody ever cares about, really. I'd love it if any of them were true, it would be amazing if there was some completely new, sizable, animal out there, but it's exceptionally unlikely. Even something like the chupacabra, which is supposedly actually a genetically modified animal (and has a bit more 'evidence' of is existence than most), would be fantastic. But isn't happening. We'd have found them by now. And be well on the way to wiping them out.

Condolences Xela. It was my dad's funeral yesterday do can appreciate what you are going through at the moment.

The embargo for reviews of Daredevil, the first Marvel/Netflix venture, ended today so a bunch of early impressions of the first 5 episodes have arrived this afternoon. It's apparently fantastic, with particular praise coming for it's fight and stunt work, one fight being called already one of the best fist fights in comic adaptation history, and for it's notably darker and more violent turn for a Marvel property. All episodes available April 10th, looks like it'll be well worth a watch.

Pilots are often also subject to poor working conditions and circumstances. What starts out as a dream job for many turns into enormous training debts, surprisingly poor pay, and pay as you fly deals which are usually capped. And an awful lot of them are effectively self employed but tied to single airline contracts (often zero hour at that) meaning added insurance costs and stresses. Experienced captains often do well for themselves but further down the ladder, I could see the stress and strain of being a newly qualified pilot taking its toll very quickly as they try to do the hours needed to step up and justify the training costs and the difficulties getting there. Its apparently even worse in the US.

I understood that automated landing has been on commercial flights for quite some time? It's part of the reason the movie staple of 'civilian being talked through landing a plane after pilots are incapacitated' wouldn't happen.

Your post suggested the airline held liability, which I countered. Whether it goes to litigation and is settled is neither here nor there. On the basis of what we know, I don't believe, were it to proceed to a full court hearing and a judgement, that they would be found liable. It may well be the case, if families pursue the airline, they will settle for commercial reasons, but that didn't seem to be your point.

From the information available, I'm not sure Lufthansa can be found liable at this moment in time. The severe depressive episode was 6 years ago, during his training, he was declared fit to fly, and Lufthansa, due to patient confidentiality, were unlikely to have known the full extent of his issues (previous or existing). There will be pilots the world over with issues with depression. I'm not sure it's possible (or right) to simply lock people out of the profession on the basis they have depression going forward.

Quite a bit of speculation already. His training and flying time for his career length have been questioned. He took a break during his assessment for 6 months, which was odd, and his flying time is low for his career length I've also seen a lot of speculation that it's fairly likely he may have been under financial pressure. Pilots are not well paid in the main and not well looked after by the airlines. They undertake considerable cost (nearing £100k in some cases) to train, once they have the job their salary is poor and working conditions can be terrible. Couple that to apparent plans by Lufthansa to reduce pay, particularly for Germanwings pilots, and it isn't beyond the realm of doubt he might have been under considerable finance pressure.

An outside existential threat to the entire region. Or humanity transcending beyond its current level of consciousness. Or the entire thing falling apart and one winner taking and controlling the lot, if you can call that peace. In other words, it isn't happening. The best you can hope for, and this is basically what more or less every peace summit and discussion tries to keep going ultimately, is an 'unstable stability' where all the players in the region are all trying to pull in different directions with different pressures and aims meaning they all get held in place and things stay generally in control.

Prepare for a very disappointing 3rd series. The first 2 series are incredible television, Spacey being superb as the Machiavellian masterclass that is Frank Underwood and the whole thing being a tangled web of lies deceit and Realpolitik. The third, on the other hand, feels like the entire writing team was lobotomised.

I believe you are. I believe this because your posting had often been tinged with a victim complex. Even your explanation highlights that. You care more about Muslims being victims than the tragedy, hence your point being the important topic you want to discuss. 'See, you aren't blaming Muslims'. Because of that, as free as you are to voice your opinions, as am I. I'll not give this any more shrift, it's distasteful and directing away from fat more important matters. I'll await the next time Muslim victim complex is the most important element of a tragedy.

You're using the tragic death of hundreds, including children and infants, to make a point about your feeling of victimhood?That's actually made me a little angry. Disgusting. Do you have no sense of decorum? Or is your apparent victimhood more important right now?No he's not.He's making a point about the way the media covers stories differently ( I think).I'll be honest here, when they said "the co-pilot deliberately crashed it" I immediately thought "I hope it's not another Muslim crazy thing". Which probably makes me a bad person. Or maybe it means the endless stream of anything and everything bad being immediately tagged as "potentially suspected Muslim extremist/brainwashed" before any evidence exists has made me think like that.It's not about apparent victimhood - the victims are sadly spread over a mountain, or the families and friends left behind. It's about the way that religionists are responsible for all kinds of horrors, and that fears of Muslims are being stoked up without consideration for facts, as a result.When it's non-muslims, religion doesn't get mentioned. The point is the same. I take issue that the first response by the poster is 'see, not all tragedies life this are done by my people, so stop saying it'. I see that as lacking class, and projecting perceived victimhood ahead of the tragedy faced here. There may be a valid discussion to be had there, but in the immediate aftermath? Your first port of call is to make a blunt and somewhat aggressively/sarcastically made point? I should add that this is against a background of similar comments in previous discussions in recent months, as well.

I watched GiantBombs QL of it and, as usual with these games, I sat there thinking 'I really, really want to be able to like this series, I like so much about it... But that would annoy me. And that. And that. And I'd never get on with that...'. Really Marmite series.