Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
are you denying it's the case?
Gold facism
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Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
yes
a town, or borough.
1) hiring contractors is not doing it yourself
2) of course it creates problems
3) I don't imagine that with the stadia in this country that the financial cost would be prohibitive. If they said they wanted to sacrifice 10 million of the population to host it, then this would be too high a price to pay but seeing as they are unlikely to stipulate that or anything similar, I doubt that there would be any other issue that would make me not want the country to host it in the next 50-60 years.
As I'm not an athlete in the Olympic village, I don't know what it is like. I'm sure there are boring moments but generally they seem to be enjoying themselves.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
so you're all in favour of the oppressive restrictions on the use of eg gold, 2012, games and indeed london. not only that, but you're happy as larry with the olympic lanes and the effect it's having on the economy of london.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
yeh, i'm not surprised, it's a fucking lovely junket, if you can get it.
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
See, I understand and enjoy sports as entertainment. I don't get the other bullshit you're attaching to it.
We like the slight vicarious sense of achievement in others' success, they like to feel loved and important. It's nothing more than that
well, at least you've now changed your definition to incorporate boroughs so now accept that municipalities are not just towns as you earlier seemed to suggest. If you are that interested in the municipalities of the former Netherlands Antilees, read this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissol...s_Antilles#Bonaire.2C_Sint_Eustatius_and_Saba
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
seems to me they're overcompensating for some sort of distress in their past in that case, and treatment by mental health professionals might be a cheaper and more successful way of addressing the athletes' problems.
I wasn't meant to be insinuating it is anything else. It's just sport.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
i meant borough like the london borough of southwark.
what's your point, caller?
If you can't see the benefit and enjoyment of other people sharing and toasting your success, I think some might suggest that you could do with treatment by mental health professionals.
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
1) are the army contractors? What benefit does "the country" get from doling out free money to the likes of g4s and then doing the security themselves. Of course the state can organise everything. It's not like they won ww2 or built the health service or anything big like that.
3) hope you're right. Certainly hasn't been the case with this.Olympics
What's your point? You were the one who seemed confused by the municipalities of the former Netherlands Antilles and suggested they were towns.
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
You've certainly implied a great deal more than that above.
the Government outsources most things. It's no surprise the same has happened here. I don't think we should have had an Army recruitment drive to staff the Olympics.
This Olympics has cost an exorbitant amount. I would hope that if they thought it was going to cost this much and if they knew the economy was going to tank, they wouldn't have bid. However, we won and the country has been lumbered with the cost but we have to carry on and put on a good show and hopefully the country has.
With the cost though, as it's a government organised event, I'm fairly dubious of the cost projections. I imagine it includes costs that probably aren't true financial costs or involves double counting of costs. Despite my reservations of the veracity of the £9bn figure, I've No doubt that it has been stupidly expensive though. As I say, I would expect the hosting of the football World Cup in this country would be much less.
the fact that you use the word "implied", suggests that you are reading a lot more in to my comments than you should. As with the other argument that you've tried to pick with me today, I'm a bit bemused by the whole debate.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
no, you seemed confused by the concept of municipality, which as i said refers to urban areas - towns or boroughs, boroughs being part of a town. these netherland antilles seem to be part of the netherlands, not some sort of former colony. they seem analagous to france and guadeloupe. you're spouting a load of auld nonsense here, i see.
I'm not happy with those restrictions but I don't think it is too much a price to pay and imagine the reality was not as oppresive as the news suggested it might be. I doubt there are parades of people employed throughout the country to ensure the regulations are being adhered to. I doubt any lanes on the roads are having a big impact on London's economy. I imagine that the scaremongering about how busy London would be beforehand is more of an isuue, although i was in London yesterday and it looked pretty busy to me.
Where was I confused? I just stated they were municipalities. I didn't explain what the concept was, just pointed out to you they weren't towns when this is what you seemed to claim they were. They are islands. Yes, I would say they are analogous to Guadeloupe. The only nonsense spouted about municipalities is by you. At least after your third post you seem to have almost grasped what these islands are. To remove your remaining confusion, they were a former colony of the Netherlands.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Your wikipedia article suggests they are a part of the metropolitan netherlands; the common or garden use of municipal or municipality in english is to do with urban governance.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
lucky auld london
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
Doesn't mean anything of the sort. You don't need to "read into something" to see the implications of what is being said. Your first comment stated that "it didn't matter as long as they give their best", what other interpretation could that have other than "not giving their best" mattered? You've subsequently invoked ideas of "patriotism", called me selfish and miserable for not thinking likewise.
You're clearly backtracking now to "it's just sports", but clearly all of those concepts carry the implication that it's more than that. That's not "reading too much" into your comments, just reading them.
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
Yes, the government outsources most things, the result of which is massive profiteering. I object to this when it's education and the NHS, the distance between cost and service provision for the Olympics though has been so great as to really push the boundaries of blatantness when it comes to free money for big business.
They could of course have set up a government department for the Olympics, directly hired and organised volunteers themselves, and side-stepped the need to line private contractors pockets. That's what you would you do if you weren't (a) ideologically committed to this horseshit (b) thought about it for more than 5 seconds or (c) actively a shill for the people making the fat profits.
Of course they would have bid. Madrid knows the score and they're still bidding. Because public money going to social services is bad and creates dependence, and public money for their mates is great and creates jobs.
The requirements are 12 stadiums with more than 40,000 capacity. There are 10 such stadiums, of which three would need to be renovated anyway. So five significant stadium renovation (and they'd probably build at least one new one), plus all the fan parks, transport infrastructure. They will find a way to make it pay for their mates.
By way of comparison, Brazil has 18 stadiums of that capacity, and between the World Cup and the Olympics they expect to displace about 1m-1.5m people.
Social services doesn't create a period of outstanding, spectacular, international display, tbf.
Which - IMO - is more significant / important than the 'mates' side of things.
Which I suspect is mostly informal / attributable to incompetence, rather than deliberate, specific, and specifically intentional.
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
What do they get out of the spectacular international display though? A massive networking, grandstanding, gladhanding and self-promotion event for them and their mates. They're both just aspects of the same thing.
What do they get out of increasingly-privatised social services that's different?
Apart from the grandstanding?
e2a: and the fact that it's multiple smaller long-term events, rather than one big shorter-term one.
Gingerman
Is a great bunch of lads.....
Wahay we've just won our first medal,a bronze in the show jumping,a couple of our boxers are guaranteed medals as wellUs Irish would settle for a tin medal right now,we need to make Gaelic football and hurling an Olympic sport
