Apech

and hardly left wing either.

It's a kind of plutocracy. It was obvious when the austerity thing hit this country - officials bossing elected representatives - hardly a democracy of any kind.

I think that was true once but not now.

I don't agree because as I said above I think it revolves around the person of the monarch.

Two points: 1 ) I was never a socialist as such although perhaps a left leaning centrist - but EU is not socialist so that whole scenario doesn't stand. 2 ) I have said on here many times my core values are individual liberty under the law (magna carta, bill of rights - etc.) in other words a default position of liberty but with laws to protect the person and property and so on. My main arguments with people (i.e. Americans) were against the conflation socialist = communist = fascist which I don't agree with. What I do agree with is the current tension is libertarian vs. authoritarian. Or perhaps 'liberal' versus totalitarian (slightly different).

Sure I realise that but that's not the point I was making. I don't know the answer to this but ... the Queen is actually a dual monarch of both kingdoms of England and Scotland (I'm ignoring Wales and NI for now). Now say the Govt. gets a 'leave' vote as a whole but the Scots vote remain. So Parliament asks the Queen to sign the Act repudiating the EU treaties - and she says 'hang on a minute - you're telling me as Queen of Scotland to sign an Act which has no support amongst my subjects in Scotland' - ans. No I won't. Or even more - if there is only a small majority to leave in the whole of the UK she could still refuse saying that she is being misdirected by her counsellors. Now it would be unlikely to happen this way - and more likely be a constitutional crisis around the formulation of the Act of Parliament where the Monarch says you are acting ultra vires. Just a thought.

I was pondering earlier if there's even a constitutional problem here. If say Scotland were to vote overwhelmingly to stay in, and England to leave - then would Parliament (+the crown) be in a position to force Scotland to leave. I wonder what the Act of Union says about such things.

I've given up on idealism on this subject and don't see this as having anything to do with ideology, left vs. right and so on. Yes the EU is supposed by its architects to evolve into a superstate, presumably so that it has global muscle and a large and relatively prosperous internal market. Perhaps this is Europe's best form of self protection given the competition from the US, China, India and so on. I don't know the answer to this - but I do see a tension between the traditional English pragmatic individualism and what you might call Roman law and administration. This does revolve around the role of the state. Unfortunately the Blairs and Camerons have eroded the traditional classical liberal virtues of the rights of the individual, replacing it with the nanny state - whether its a pink one or a blue one makes little difference. So from a practical point of view you have a number of issues and problems. The EU as it is, is hopeless. The refugee/migrant crisis has demonstrated how unable it is to act effectively or decisively in these kinds of situations. The Eurozone was rushed through, Shengen was rushed through - both without proper checks and balances or assessments of risks and so on. The political processes and decision making are hopelessly complicated, wasteful and opaque. The whole thing is highly undemocratic - if democracy is understood in include both accountability and the power to dismiss leaders based on performance. But I think what has to be understood is how entangled we already are. Many Brits live in Europe (including yours truly), I don't see the banks, financial services industry and so on as being as distinct as they may seem on the surface. Just because HSBC is based in the City doesn't make it a British bank. Industry and trade are also completely intertwined. Many jobs depend on EU membership and also many companies in the UK rely on EU workers. I think this will be the determining factor - the grim economic reality of dependency. The UK always has dreams of Agincourt, the Battle of Britain and Empire ... but although it's nice to sing Land of Hope and Glory if we rid ourselves of Europe it could well be a case of the emperors new clothes as we stand shivering at the Atlantic's edge. And that brings in another point - where do we look to for friends? the special relationship with the US which Obama gives lip service to but ignores? I think Hillary would be better but I don't like her much - and Trump and Sanders both seem to want walls of different kinds. So in the end I will vote to stay in - not because I like it much but because this question should have been asked years ago and now is the wrong time.

This is even worse:

..and being turned into idiots by victim culture training ...

Fussy!

Too late I'm afraid - reading glasses are part of my life now.

There's that laser treatment - but I don't know if it's ok/safe.

Grumpy! You'd kill for some power generating shoes - admit it.

Power generating shoes!

but why doubt good things those bad things are bad enough and good is real bad. (apologies to Michael Jackson).

I want my mummy

War time is usually when the big technological breakthroughs occur e.g. radar and computers in WWII. So there is a link. And not necessarily a bad thing either. We may have problems (the west) but still compared to the rest of the world we are freer and more advanced - and I think we should stop apologising for this and just ensure we protect our liberty. And if anyone complains about this ask yourself would TheDaoBums exist in China, the middle east or anywhere else.

Sure I'm not arguing for zero or such low defence spending that would put a country at risk - but the USA for instance spends ten times the collective amount of all developed countries (or so I am given to understand). But it's not about the absolute amount but rather the relative amount. With regard to Alzheimers ... I'm sure there's plenty of funding ... but they can't remember where they put it (sorry for this bad taste joke). I think the other thing to consider is that most science boils down to a form of Physics - which is the science of sciences. I think it was Rutherford who said all else is stamp collecting. At heart physics asks the fundamental questions about how things work. I see this as part of a grand project of mankind understanding this world and as such is not only beneficial in terms of discovery but also psychologically necessary or perhaps socially healthy - that we are pushing at the boundaries of knowledge all the time. It's all very well pointing to discrepancies like 'how can we send a man to the moon when that person over there is starving' and so on - but in reality the chances are that even if we had not done so then there would still be starving people. In fact I would say it's not a chance but a certainty.

Copernicus not Galileo. Just a couple of points: 1 ) far much more money is spent on defence projects, propping up the banking system and failed government projects (eg. IT) such as to dwarf the amount spent on this experiment. 2 ) most cutting edge science has multiple spin offs into practical applications. I think you should focus your ire elsewhere. But of course its up to you.

and you might want to spend a little time going through this one before framing your questions - if any: https://dcc.ligo.org/public/0122/P1500229/028/GW150914_burst.pdf

http://ligo.org/science/Publication-GW150914Stoch/index.php http://ligo.org/science/Publication-GW150914/index.php http://ligo.org/science/Publication-GW150914Astro/index.php there you go guys.

You see! What would be the point of explaining?

You do have a lower understanding of that experiment and also you have posted many times about the earth being flat. It's not that I can't explain it's that I refuse to do so.

Well, Brian has answered above why this is significant. From your other posts you clearly don't understand how scientific experiments work. It may help to read the science reports written on this experiment not just journalist articles. Or if you are really interested take a course in astrophysics.