Falklands

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Not to mention the fact that there is more genetic diversity between an East African and a West African than the rest of the world put together. If you're going to use genetics as the basis of "race" then you'd need about 6 African categories before you went anywhere near Caucasian and Asian as categories.

 

Actually, you'd need 2.

How much do you know about genetic testing Harbs? Seriously. How many world population studies have you read that goes into detail about how and why they look at certain genetic groups. If you're already intimately familiar, I won't bore you with all the details, but there have been numerous studies, the most recent ones involving the Y chromosome (as that one is passed uniformly from father to son, and it isn't affected by crossing over that affects the other chromosomes). Mitochondrial DNA testing has also yielded a lot of insights. I'm not just randomly pulling this stuff out of my arse you know.

 

So why are you defending "racial" statistical categories that were devised 300 years ago by a bunch of (understandably) ignorant Europeans, who knew nothing about genetics and little more about the variety of people in the world?

My original point, which I still stick by, is that the race question in any census type survey is highly arbitrary and will be interpreted differently by different people, so the results will be unreliable and not easily comparable (e.g. there is zero point in comparing the NZ and USA survey results if the USA classes Filipinos as Pacific Islanders)

 

Because - unremarkably IMO - the genetic similarities tend to break along racial lines. For the longest time, most people thought of the people living in the middle east and northern africa as a separate race, distinct both from caucasian and african. It wasn't until this type of testing that their genetic markers were identical to the caucasians, meaning they too were caucasian.

Well, not to be nitpicky, but I feel you didn't do a very good job at relaying that point until... well... now. I was under the impression you had a big probelm with how the US generally, and me specifically, categorized the different races, and how the US differentiated between race, nationality, and ethnicity. I didn't realize you were simply asking how the system could be altered so that the results are more easily comparable.

I don't have an answer for that. Obviously, the way the US views race is very different from how New Zealanders do, and those views are (apparently) deeply ingrained.

 

Well, I still think race is far too arbitrary to provide reliable statistics. The average man in the street does not have access to genetic testing so it relies on people's vague ideas of what it might mean. I bet the pale-skinned South African immigrants that are so numerous in my neighbourhood don't call themselves European/Pakeha on their census forms. Their ancestors left Europe hundreds of years ago and they're now on to their next big wave of migration. I bet they put "South African" or some equivalent Afrikaans word on their forms.

 

They're now using the 'send milf to UN' gambit.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-16939043

They're starting to look a bit pathetic. The UK is a danger to international security, apparently .

 

Come on, Barmy - under Tony Blair they clearly were.

 

The Dauntless is a type 45 destroyer which is designed for air defence, and is hard to detect, of course the Argies are upset, all of their aircraft and missile systems are rendered obsolete.

 

Dauntless is very modern and capable, but even her missile capacity is finite. Dauntless'es near cruiser size is an inherent advantage the ship possesses, and so are British lessons about damage control, hopefully not already unlearned so long after the Falkland's war. However, everything can be sunk.

If the Argies really wanted they could, technically, attack and sink her. Given they have sufficient quantities, they could fire enough numerous missiles at her, from different directions, and even if none hits, the Dauntless will run out of missiles eventually. The odds are that one will hit eventually, and cause significant and, considering the technological maturity and destructiveness of modern anti-ship missiles, probably crippling damage (300 or so kg of high explosives can do that). Once hit, do follow on attacks and finish her off.

Fortunately, for Dauntless, and Britain, the Argies are not going to try. It would be unwise since there is no gain in it. The political approach offers better returns at lower cost.

 

Falkland Islands @falklands_utd

We are Falkland Islanders, the Islands are ours & we want to be British. Simple. Every RT and follower counts. #falklands #falklandsfriday

Who needs a Royal Navy destroyer or a Prince when you have Twitter!

 

For some reason every time I read about the Falklands I always think of Life of Brian -- Always look on the bright side of life ... do-do ... do-do ... do-do-do

 

Rags, I know we disagree often, but Im sorry, I have to disagree again, I don't think based on any real evidence that the Argentinians have any radar capable of differencing between a type 45 and a fishing boat. It would also be entertaining to believe that there are no astute or even Vangard class subs sitting in the area waiting to join in the fun.

 

Sean Penn is a class A prick.

 

couldn't agree more, another Stupid arrogant American who has no idea what this situation is about.

The Falklands DO NOT belong to to Argentina, there is no dispute - it is British territory, the islanders are British citizens - any hostile activity by Argentina could be considered an act of war.

 

It seems most of the world are under the general assumption that the Islanders are Argentines and we are subjecting them to British rule or something. It's so ****ing bizzare, even liberally liberal me can't see any real claim whatsoever Argentina has to the islands.

People should take time to educate themselves on the situation before jumping in with both feet, especially a ****ing UN ambassador.

 

My guess is that your professor was an adherent to the Chicago School of economics. The problem here is that their modelling is empirical wrong. Thatcher was the poster girl for this school, which unfortunately have been the one taught in most schools.
I dont have enough time right now to search for GDP growth in UK, but compared to 50-60ies where the predominant modelling was Keynesian, the growth was lackluster, and as Barmy allready mentioned mostly flowing to the city and financial trading in the south.
I found one good graph that clearly shows how the portrayal of Thatcher as the saviour of british industry is historical revisionism at best. Plain wrong would probably be more correct.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/nov/25/gdp-uk-1948-growth-economy#zoomed-picture
As you can see only Camrons crazy austerity measures today, and the boondockle that was the gold standard during the great recession do worse than Thatcher.

The reason for her re-election was clearly The Falkland War which she milked for its fullest effect.

As to her being the mother of anything, well she is the mother of bad economic policies, and thats about it.

Now I will be getting back to grading my english papers

Regards
Defreni

Edit: And as you can see Wilson did rather better than Thatcher in a time off recession.

 

The mistake you're making though that the problems of the British economy did not appear magically during the Thatcher era, they were there already. The 70's are called a crisis period for Keynesianism for a reason and that's because of the stagflation to which the old stimulus tricks did not work. Saying that Britain's economic woes were caused by them abandoning Keynesianism is what I would call historical revisionism at best. Serious economic adjustments were required whoever was in charge. It can be debated if Thatchers policies were good or not but it's not nearly as clear cut as you make it out to be. Making conclusions on the basis of short term GDP performance is not exactly an accurate way of judging if an administration has been economically successful or not.

 

Penn is a perfect example of celebrity ego run wild: just because you have a voice and a platform (your celebrity) doesn't mean that you know anything, and Penn doesn't even know enough to know that he doesn't know anything. (He seems to want his 'passion' to be enough, but passion alone just makes you a passionate idiot.) Usually figuring that out is the first step to becoming generally informed, and it should invariably carry with it a healthy dose of humility. So Penn without humility = Penn uninformed.

The best thing you can do is ignore him and hope that everyone else does too.

 

He's made himself look like a right idiot. He should at least have read up on the subject before spouting his mouth off, as he's done before about Hugo Chavez (when he can find the time away from beating women up). Knobhead.

At the end of the day, the inhabitants of the Falklands want to be governed as British subjects. The Falklands must stay British until the inhabitants no longer want to be governed as British subjects. The right to self-determination trumps anything the Argies have, or will, say on this matter. Britain can't, from a moral point of view, hand over the control of the Falklands against the will of inhabitants - even if we wished to, which we don't.

Unfortunately, as Argentina have now raised an official complaint with the UN it looks like this is going to roll on and on. They are really wasting their time. If they want to make good on their stance and invade, they're welcome to try, otherwise I really wish they would just STFU about it. Plebs like Hilary Clinton and Sean Penn really are not helping this situation one bit.