Canny lass

I'm afraid you've lost me on the second paragraph, 3g. La-la lands, Babies and Red Arthur? However, moving on, I fail to understand why you've bothered to canvass votes for the proposal if half a million is as good as it gets on gov.uk. The required amount to get this off the mat and onto the table is one million - not a lot in a country withover sixty-three million inhabitants.

I'm almost lost on the third as well as I don't actually recall saying that you know of anyone who is anti-immigrant.

We would appear to have differing views on the meaning of anti-immigration. For me the Word 'immigration' holds no notion of time (other than permanency of Residence). The same can be said of Anti-immigration - it holds no notion of time. You can be anti immigrant for one day, one week, five years or throughout your Life. 

"now silver is an interesting thing ... a very effective thing for bacterial issues" and yet silver coins were one of the greatest sources of infection for Babies. Says Worlds about the actual silver content in British coins, don't you Think?

Pot. permang! Now there's a name that conjures up memories of scrubbing Purple fingers till they almost bled. Used in medicinal baths, among other things, during my time. Gave the patients a rather nice, rosy sort of glow.

Oh, happy Days!

Now that's what I call class as well! Oh to have the Power to be able to do that!

I can't agree with you about the bus ticket though, I'm sure the research you suggest would reveal many interesting things. My daughter almost died at the age of 3 months due to the widespread custom of pressing a silver - bacteria covered - coin into the hands of new Babies. However, the text on a bus ticket can reveal all sorts of things about the bus Company!

Wholeheartedly agree, Pilgrim but the study of linguistics does not recognise a literary masterpiece as anything other than a peice of text. We even analysed the text on bus tickets for some professors! True!

Robert Frost, Maggie! One of my favourites. Love the open ending of The Road not Travelled.

Pilgrim, if you but knew the hours I'd spent labouring over various interpretations of sections of TDC you wouldn't be surprised at my recognising it. Because they are so numerous the many and diverse interpretations provide what linguistics professors deem to be an unending source of material for probing the depths of syntactical influence on semantic content. There was a time when I could recite passages in my sleep! Not any more but odd lines can ring a bell.

It's Dante, Maggie but I don't Think it's Heaney*s interpretation. Heaney interpreted "Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita" to "Half way on our life's journey" rather than "In the middle of the journey of my life". Mind you, I had to look that up as it's so long since I worked with The Divine Comedy.  On the whole, Heaney's is a fantastic version. I read a Swedish version some years ago but it just didn't manage to give the same 'feel'.

Happy birthday to you,

happy birthday to you,

happy birthday dear 3g

happy birthday to you

Hope 2016 is good to you.

voting on someone's reputation? Mm .............

He who casts the first vote? What is he voting on? Blind faith perhaps?

No, I Think Malcom's idea is better. A post that exists can be voted on. A reputation that doesn't exist would present problems for the first voter. How would he know if the none existant reputation was good or bad or even what the reputation was?

3g, I Think you may have missed my point. Yes, there are going on for ½ million votes on the petition but there are going on for 63 million possible votes that are NOT on the petition. 

One can only speculate as to why this is. No agreement for the proposal could be one of them. I have to admit to being surprised at the low response to this petition given that  the UK electorate, in numbers not insignificant , voted in parties whose policies are so clearly anti-immigrant. I would have thought they'd be knocking down our Maggie in the stampede to get to the green button.

Maggie, in your eagerness to find and press green buttons, you may perhaps stumble across an enormous example of such by following the link in the first post in Call a Temporary Halt to All Immigration (Chat Central, in case you've missed it). There doesn't seem to be much going on there  but perhaps the button presser(s) is also rationed to 13 - 14 presses a day.

However, should you by chance stumble across that button, I suggest that you follow the example of the 62 727 104 UK residents who have NOT pressed the button. Just saying.

It's been the same for years, Mercuryg - the supplement I mean! Right up there with the former News of the World in my opinion.

"yes I am! ... we have to go th(o)rough the pretence that this scheme applies to all religious groups. They keep it to themselves."

Well, they are clearly not doing a very good job! You, to name just one, seem to know all about it. If these Groups are so closed how are YOU getting all this inside information?

" The answer to that final paragraph is that the net needs to spread as wide as possible; that the Groups that you mention also include significant numbers of less extreme Muslims ... and those Groups are the people that most come into Contact with potential radicals"

Firstly I would like to Point out that, I am not only  'mentioning' these Groups I am, in fact, quoting the UK Government's publication 2010 - 2015 Government Policy on Counter Terrorism of which the Prevent Project is part. That said, I again have to ask - how do you know this? What is, for example, a 'significant' number? You clearly know the number in order to be able to place this determining adjective Before it. How do you know that it's this Group of extreme radicals that "most come into Contact with potential radicals"? You clearly know who they are, both the extreme and the potentials among them. Where do you get this information?

"so did we have a problem with terrorist extremists bent on bringing down our society" ...  "before we had a significant adoption of Islamic beliefs  in our country"?

I deliberately did not cite the "replacement with a theocracy" bit as I've already demonstrated that this is not about to happen. However, I Think you may have misunderstood my comment regarding the proof of the pudding being in the eating. I was referring to the referrals being investigated and having the results to hand but yes, we have dealt with terrorism in the UK Before. Me knowingly, you are not so Young that that you did not live through the IRA terror attacks related to Northern Ireland, and neither are you so old that senility has caused you to forget them. Of course we have had terrorism - solved by dialogue and negotiation if my memory serves me right.

I didn't bother to read the link. It's from The New York Times Magazine, for goodness sake! I'd rather chew off my own right leg! Are you serious! A 'Sunday supplement' ( you may as well read 'tabloid') that's been going steadily downhill for many decades. Just googled it to make sure that statement still holds and yep - it appears to. They introduced a 'funny page' a few years ago and it died the Death after a year. They couldn't even get that right and now I read that they've hired the former editor of Oprah Winfrey's Magazine to try and get it afloat again. Oh dear, oh dear! Doesn't appear to be doing the trick though.

My rose-coloured spectacles?

The nice thing about spectacles is that you can at least see something through them and they can be removed, if wished. The blind, on the other hand, have (someof them) never had the pleasure of seeing and will remain forever blind.

And on that note I leave you to enjoy what remains of the year and wish you all the best for 2016 when we can continue our discussion.

Hopefully by then you will have managed to answer some of the outstanding questions, which would make the discussion much more interesting.

That much I'd understood, Malcolm, situated as they are over the thread title, but what do they signify? What is it that's being 'rated' and more important where do they come from? Not that it's important if they are about to disappear.

Thank you Malcolm!

Thanks for sharing that bit of news Pilgrim. I'm all for speaking to people. Getting it straight from the horses mouth, so to speak and Maggie, you are so right! The propaganda war is two-sided.

I'm still not getting the grasp of what this 'doh' actually means. Can anybody put me out of my musery here?

Sorry about the ruined Xmas, Eggy and

WELCOME BACK WILF!!

Thanks Eggy for keeping us updated. Thelma and Lenny I recognise now that I have a name.

"You can't be serious!"

I'm being perfectly serious!

Everything is relative, 3g, everything is relative. If there are more non-Muslims than Muslims in the UK (which there are) then it stands to reason that the greater majority of referrals may also come from non-Muslims, or are you perhaps suggesting that it's only/mostly Muslims who have any information that would help to "identify individuals and groups at risk of radicalisation from all groups, such as Islamist extremists or the far-right" (my underlining) as the Prevent Project sets out to do? If so, why would they keep it to themselves? They don't want to be subjected to crimes of terror or crimes of hate any more than the rest of us!

What eveidence is there to bear out your theory - if I'm hearing you correctly - that it is Muslims who, in the majority, ought to know about people at risk of being radicalised to either one extreme or the other? If so were the case, then the security services wouldn't require any further information. The fact that the security services are asking for this information rather blows a hole in the theory supported by some people that ALL and ONLY Muslims are terrorists.

The number of referrals is nothing to get your blood pressure up for. At this moment in time neither you nor I know just how many of these 3 288 referrals are genuine. Have all been investigated? Have you considered that many, or indeed all, of them may be based on hate rather than on genuine knowledge? It wouldn't be the first time something like that had occurred. Remember the Black Panther murders in the 70s? Hundreds of potential suspects were interviewed, some in Bedlington,and most of them had been reported by people with a personal grudge, pranksters and the odd idiot who got a kick out of wasting police time and public funds. So, among the 3 288 referrals it may turn out that there is only one, if any, that gives any accurate information and that referral can just as well come from any religious Group.

The number of referrals from the Muslim Community isn't either anything to get excited about, given that we have no information regarding the number of referrals received from other religious groups - at least not in this article. Ask yourself why the percentage of referrals from other religious groups hasn't been presented in this article. Do we get to know what percentage of referrals have been received from Christians, Buddhists, Jews, Seventh Day Adventists, Quakers, Catholics, Mormons, Sikhs, Bahá'iists, devil-worshippers, agnostics, atheists or any other Group of people connected by their belief? No we don't - so it may just be that the 8.6%referrals from Muslims represents a high referral rate when fairly compared with other referral sources. As I said earlier - everything is relative, 3g, everything is relative. Without knowing how other religious groups have referred potential victims of radicalisation we cannot draw conclusions as to whether or not the Muslim community's rate of referral is  lower, higher or equal to that of any other religious group.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating so let's wait and see.

Oh, one final question, - for today - if as you state "The whole purpose of the scheme is to encourage those mythical moderate Islamists to come forward with what they know about radicalisation" why then does the Prevent Strategy work with "a wide range of sectors, including education, criminal justice, faith, charities, online and Health"? Why not just concentrate directly on the Muslim Community?

YES!

I asked about this when I became a member, Maggie and Brett explained it to me in the same way that Malcolm explained it. It's for agreeing with a post without the need to write. The gold stars I've never been able to fathom out.

Ah! it's from the Simpsons! That explains it. Hasn't taken off here. Never seen it.

Could be the start of a whole new series of Dr Who!  Hobby sounds exciting too!

I do the same thing with cat fur and put it out for the birds in the spring. Now why didn't I Think of weighing the cat. Funny thing is I Think she gets heavier and two years ago, I actually found a mouse hole in the barn - all neatly lined with cat fur. Definitely an influx of mass from external forces.

I remember that our dear, departed friend, Keith Lockey used this 'doh' occasionally and I Always meant to ask him what it meant but never got round to it, I'm very sad to say. Pity, because it's obviously central to the understanding of the post ( #73). Just now I'm not understanding any of it. However, I feel that all will become clear when I get an answer. You were joking about the female deer - weren't you?

What does 'doh' mean?

Religious Education, or Religious Knowledge as it was called in my day, has indeed come a long way, thank  ....... (insert whichever deity you follow)! Today's youngsters appear, on the whole, to be more understanding than our generation were at the same age and it's always  niceto hear that some of us 'olduns' have continued to widen our views by continuing to learn even after formal schooling has been completed. Roll on the day when intolerance becomes a dying art right up there  where it belongs together with sacking of parlour maids for indiscretion and dying of dropsy.

Agree wholeheartedly about the friendliness of the Sikhs but I have to say that I've found the Muslims to be the same. Perhaps they are a Little more cautious about opening up but That's not so strange given the present hostile climate. They don't know who to trust sitting, as they do, in the direct firing line for two Groups - ISIS on the one side and the INTOLERANT on the other.

No, no, no, Pilgrim! It's much better to have a rant yourself.

Speaking of buttons does anybody know where I can buy one of those buttons seen on the Ykos ads - the one on the arm of the sofa, which when pressed summons a couple of semi- clothed nubile, young men with feather dusters in their hands? (Asking for a friend). I've been round all the shops here without any luck.