Mrs Roops

One letter does not define a world event. Nevertheless if you read the fine print Roosevelt gives Abdulaziz a commitment that the USA will not allow Israel to harm Saudi. Certainly all the constituent parts are there; the state of Israel was established, the USA stuffed Saudi with money and the Wahhabi schools flourished around the world.

You're quite right, my bad. I've corrected the error, so chalk that one up for the good guys.

Judging by Iran's retaliatory ballistic missile strike, probably not.

Your premise seems to be that America's Middle Policy is driven by financial expediency and profit. Without even incorporating the direct and indirect costs including the price of lives lost through 9/11, I would contend that the profit and loss sheet to the USA would be covered in red ink. In fact America's involvement and contribution to the tinderbox disaster that is the current Middle East situation can be traced back to the Bitter Lake Agreement of 1945 between President Roosevelt and Saudi Arabia's King Abdulaziz. In return for Abdulaziz not kicking up a fuss over Palestine (i.e the creation of Israel) America would agree to purchase Saudi oil at a favourable price to the arab state. Also, the USA would allow the Saudis to promote and finance Wahhabism, a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. The unintended consequence led to the nurturing of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda which in turn led to ISIS. The situation today is the result of accident and lack of foresight, not by design.

Yes, a thousand pieces of aeroplane raining down from high rather makes the cause of "engine problems" rather suspect. Thanks to Trump's knee-jerk military action, the USA has backed itself into a diplomatic corner within the world stage. Setting aside the niceties of executing terrorists without the benefit of trial, America was ill advised in killing Suleimani in another sovereign state. Trump has not only embarrassed Iraq (on whose soil the hit took place) he's now inflamed the younger and westernised moderates of Iran who were slowly but surely gaining the upper hand over the unelected theocracy. Decades of sanctions and diplomacy down the tubes in a matter of seconds.

It was relaxed. China now has a two child policy.

The clue is in the name. Its the archive of all the OP's from the original Posting Board and past versions of the forum. On rare occasions some noms attract enough posts to warrant transfer to The Corner. The archive is quite popular with newbies who seem to upload a first tentative post. For that reason and for the avoidance of all doubt, inter member acrimony should be confined to the Open Corner.

The issue is that it's not a spike but a sharp exponential rate of change that shows no sign of abating unless certain actions are taken.

An interesting development is Lisa Nandy's announcement that she is running for the Labour leadership. With the latest polls giving her a 5% chance, she has strategically placed herself on a "Honour the 2016 Referendum" ticket and hopes to capture the Labour Heartland voters who voted Tory at the last election. She's worth a punt but only if she can secure a financial backer to pay for a savvy team of experienced SpAds.

I very much doubt you read the copy beyond the lurid headlines of the redtop press, let alone articles behind The Economist covers. FYI, the "G4 Nations" are the four states that actively campaign and support each other's application for permanent seats on the UN Security Council.

No one has changed anything. Climate Change is a symptom of Global warning. Yes, over the eons there has always been temperature cycles but the current rate of change and temperature are unprecedented and fall well outside known fluctuations. As far as I'm aware the G4 nations are Brazil, India, Japan and Germany.

There's nothing like adding fuel to the fire than the tapping the side of the nose than the phrase, "but the mainstream media will never report it". Actually, the mainstream media did report it, extensively. All the nationals, from the red tops to the establishment and chattering class press reported the story when a journo made a FOI request on some old FBI files written at the time when FBI director Edgar J Hoover er… hoovered any bit of salacious gossip for the benefit of "national security". It was a typical summer silly story which didn't gain any traction when it transpired that the "evidence" was hearsay supplied by an American authoress who had married into minor British aristocracy and had a story to sell. Still, its the sort of story that lovers of conspiracies latch on to.

Mind you, it appears Australia is finding itself gammon-faced as it is fast becoming a pariah state with regards to climate change despite large tracts of the countryside bursting into flames. The Morrison government seems to be adopting a policy of climate change denial and true to recent form used every trick in the book by listing spurious excuses for exemptions at the recent UN COP25 Conference held at Madrid a few weeks ago. Have the authorities raided your swimming pool recently?

The EU parliamentarians aren't really the issue, its the unelected Commission and the army of bureaucrats that's the problem. In fact in a rare moment of collective MEP anger, the EU Parliament has forced the Commission to change the law after they were ignored over their choice of EU President and the shady methods employed in the "election" of Ursula von de Leyen to replace the outgoing Juncker.

I'm calling BS on this. There are plenty of posts by other punters in the same vein on this particular deceased sleb and yet not a peep out of you until now. Write a contrary opinion that demolishes the other person's POV rather than the cop-out "I disagree because you're a cunt". Boys its quite simple - if you want the quality of discourse to improve then up the game. A handful of entitled punters endlessly repeating the same insults isn't the answer.

No it wasn't, it was as you remarked, a genuine nom and you acted like a hysterical diva when another punter maligned you. Stop making up risible excuses after the event to suit your selective narrative.

I don't respond too well to people barking out demands, Ape - besides it seems you've already prejudged the issue irrespective of any explanation that might be forthcoming. Strange you didn't object when the CC Moderation Service intervened and prevented your Home Inkjet Printer nom being derailed...

Withers, you don't seem to bring anything useful to the table at present, so cya.

In retrospect calling you "thick as a bag of rocks" was a bit strong as I put you hovering between the second and third quartile in terms of punters' abilities and intelligence. That said, I note in the first para your alluding to those who are thin-skinned and yet your content in the second para is commensurate with those to whom you so disparage.

Two things Maj; inter-punter abuse is now confined to the Open Corner and Frank is on the Banned List.

It's a safe bet that the opposition will continue to be ineffective and toothless...oh...um...clearly an attitude adjustment is needed before going forward.

It was puerile cry-baby stuff. Anyway suffice to say he's just made another attempt - clearly a lonely git who has rejection issues, no doubt he stalks former partners who dumped him. His IP has now been blocked which means he can only access The Corner from public hot spots or via "free" proxies. Good. No doubt his device will be infected by a virus or a juicy piece of malware.

Salty is a bit more grounded than Sean5302. To get to Sean's level of delusions he would had to state that he is a retired Executive Vice President of engineering at General Motors as well as a leading attorney.

@Salty Piss Flap, I have now declined your third attempt to gain access to the site via a new account. In my experience this is quite desperate by any standard. I understand you feel aggrieved however you received much advice on how to get along and survive but due to your deluded sense of superiority you chose to ignore and not change. In practise I can think of only four people who have received bans where life means life so one day you will be eventually be allowed back in but you are doing yourself no favours with your petulant attempts to gain readmittance even to the extent of using a British e-mail address. FYI, you have a static IP address which probably doesn't mean much to you but with miniscule effort I can arrange that you receive a blank 403 screen every time you try to visit the site so behave.

The impotent rage of a newt census taker must feel...frustrating.