Bob The Badger

24 minutes ago, 1of4 said:

I find it strange that there's politicians in America wanting Roe v Wade repealed, claiming they are pro-life and that an abortion is murder. Are the same people who are refusing to sanction stricter controls on something that is causing the death of children at an higher rate than anything else. These politicians don't appear to be pro-life at all.

And the same ones who support the death penalty.

There were some cases a few years ago of abortion clinics being fire-bombed.

Hmmmm.

11 hours ago, Cisse said:

Well the first question is do you have the original papers and the original box? That would make it more valuable. Did you get the original parts with you? Do you have the papers from the service?

The size of the watches used are always changing. Now it has been a trend to make bigger cases and it has actually gone overboard and some manufacturers are starting to make them smaller again. Anyway I wouldn't pay no mind what size of watches are in at the moment. 

You should get it valued by professional dealer or clock smith. My wild guess is that your watch is valued perhaps 450-600 pounds. A right collector might pay more. The original box and papers would raise the value. I wouldn't sell that. It is so retro and it seems to have great lume now. A nice piece. Wear it with pride every now and then when you have a chance.

Thanks mate, I really appreciate the info.

Sadly, I don't have the original stuff, just the paperwork from Tag for the latest work.

You're probably right and I should keep it.

2 hours ago, BathRam72 said:

BEAT you to it ?

That was a stroke of luck.

18 hours ago, Anag Ram said:

When do we ever here a story that says thankfully the shooter was foiled by a member of the public who was utilising their right to bear a firearm?

Never.

Sadly, privately owned guns are more likely to be used by murderers as a protest against society or by children who find the gun and experiment with disastrous consequences.

You do hear of them occasionally in the US.

But the media are less likely to report on them because the media in general are anti-gun.

Not that I'm suggesting they are common or that I think they should be highlighted. But the reality is, there would be no reason for the BBC (for example) to run a story about some dude whipping out a gun and shooting somebody who was carrying a rifle and trying to get into a school.

I must stress again, I'm vehemently anti-gun, but it's important to know what is actually going on and separate myth from fact.

44 minutes ago, Unlucky Alf said:

 the NRA lobby politicians and are supremely wealthy..

They used to be, but they're on their knees now and could even be liquidated if they lose a pending court case.

This is what I mean when I say you cannot just dismiss the US being a bunch of a gun-lovers.

There has been a concerted legal effort by thousands, supported by millions to bring the NRA down over the last decade and they're doing a pretty good job considering the power it held and still does to some extent.

I doubt it will make much difference though as I'm sure some equally dubious organisation will spring up in its place.

1 hour ago, Stive Pesley said:

I've seen the pro-gun lobby people in the US calling people hypocrites for wanting to ban guns in the US, yet supporting the arming of civilians in Ukraine. Like these are somehow totally the same thing?! They don't even understand their own constitution do they?

 

TBF,  legal scholars often don't agree on the meaning of elements of the constitution. It used to bug me, but apparently it was deliberately written ambiguously to allow it to be more flexible and adapt to changes.

It hasn't really panned out as they expected/hoped.

8 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

My controversial take is no Dem can do it and it needs to be a Republican. And actually that Trump could have done it as he was bigger than the Republicans at the time and not very interested in party politics. He'd been a registered Democrat most of the time, and simply said what needed to be said in the GOP debates/primaries to win the nomination. He was only interested in winning. Once that was done he quite fancied being thought a great President and gun control might have been his cause celebre. But because before he'd even done anything at all there were vitriolic protests and marches against him from the entire Dem community he had no choice but to stick 2 fingers up at them and go full-on anti-Dem. They should have "reached out to him" as the Americans say. A real missed opportunity.

FWIW the Tories would definitely say they're not anti immigration, just about being able to control borders and decide who comes in and out. And the idea the high street needs protecting isn't controversial, plus they've already nationalised some railway lines and energy providers.

Trump would never have done it. He was always massively pro gun/2nd amendment which is partly why Steve Scalise became so supportive.

Not only would he not have done it, he couldn't.

His base were turning on him at the end over his admission that he was vaccinated and he was booed at more than one event when he advised people to get tested.

His support would have utterly collapsed. 

And of course the Tories wouldn't say there are anti-immigration, just like almost no Senators say they love guns. 

Tories sell being anti-immigration as looking to protect the average British citizens' jobs, safety and way of life.

Even the clearly gun-obssessed nutjobs like Majorie Taylor-Green and Laureen Boebert don't say they just love guns. No, they dress it up as protecting the 2nd amendment from people who don't respect the founding fathers wisdom.

It's crazy complicated, which is why I think it's meaningless and unhelpful to just label a country of 350 million people as being this or doing that when it's so diverse.

BTW, the 1st amendment, as you probably know, is the right to free speech. And whereas it gets nothing like the coverage (for obvious reasons), it's fought almost as hard for as the right to bear arms which is why it took so long for social media platforms to start banning people who are clearly stirring up race hate.

They take their constitution very seriously.

But sadly, just about every element of it is open to debate and interpretation. Which was intentional by the authors, but not very helpful now.

1 hour ago, Carl Sagan said:

Effectively America currently tacitly accepts child sacrifice. 

Millions of people in the US are anti-guns and scores of millions in favour of tighter legislation. 

If there were a referendum tomorrow on implementing much tighter background checks and banning semi-automatic weapons it would win comfortably. 

The problem is, that the power in the country is dictated by a small number of states. You can't take Texas by being anti-gun and almost certainly not Florida, which is a crucial swing state, either. 

No Republican would ever get the nomination in those and a whole host of other states, so standing up against the gun lobby is ensuring political irrelevance and utterly futile. It would be akin to trying to get the Tory Party nomination for a parliamentary election after declaring you want to lift all immigration limits and nationalize corner shops  

There is no one thing that is America and blanket statements like that sound good, but are meaningless and superficial because even hardened gun lovers don't want kids to die any more than drug dealers want their customers to die  

And fwiw, I'm massively anti-gun.  

3 hours ago, Leeds Ram said:

There will be a tipping point soon where the number of mass shootings outweighs the need to protect what is a very dubious constitutional argument (if you read the second amendment it's pretty clear the founders are talking of a form of citizen militia). I believe after sandy hook Obama simply tried to pass small legislation such as a 30 day wait period for a background check and the right balked at that. Biden and democrats need to actually make it seem like they are coming for the guns wholesale to inch a compromise like background checks, a wait period and the types of weapons that can be sold at a supermarket. 

Nope, they're not even close to a tipping point. No nearer today than on Monday  

Anybody who thinks that hasn't lived in a Red State and doesn't understand the American psyche. 

This is a topic based 99.9% in emotions. Facts, rationale and logic are utterly irrelevant. Mass killings don't change peoples opinions. If anything, they just harden positions  

To invoke any serious change would need the Republicans on board and for many that would be electoral suicide. 
 

I have a Tag that I've owned for over 30 years. I just spent having it £400 serviced it complete with a new battery, dial etc. 

But now I realise I prefer wearing my Apple watch and in any case and as @Eatonram gleefully pointed out when we picked it up, it has a much smaller face than is usually the case with mens watches. I think he referred to it as a woman's watch.

Anyway, where is the best place to sell such a thing and how do I get it valued? I can only presume it's worth more than I just shelled out, but I could have made a real rookie error here.

It's the off season, so what are some things you'd never hear a Derby fan say.

I'll kick off with a few:

I have a real soft spot for Kenny Burns.

Bobby Campbell was a much underrated striker.

I always knew that Claude Davis was the final piece of the jigsaw prior to the 2007 season

Robert Maxwell loved the club and the city with all of his heart.

Leeds were too big to come down, I'm happy for them.

It was great to see Cloughie take over down the road.

We never really deserved to beat QPR, it  was a fair result.

I really admire the sportsmanship of Brice Samba.

I felt terrible for the home fans when Marriott's second goal went in during the playoffs.

I quite liked the BBG, but it never really had much atmosphere.

I thought the ref in the Juventus game was outstanding.

And finally, for @B4ev6is - I LOVE those pink shirts.

David Baddiel and Rob Newman were doing Chinny Reckon way, way, before Greg Davies was on I *think* the Mary Whitehouse experience. It means I think you're telling me a huge porky. 

15 minutes ago, Mostyn6 said:

sadly, very very sadly, it's a vastly different era. Derby would never be able to recruit the kind of players akin to those Arthur signed, these players are now squad players in the Premier League. Back in 1985, there were probably 350-400 players on the books of ALL top tier teams in Division One. I would suggest that the top 8 teams probably have more on their books right now!

Arthur never had an Academy like we have now.

Plus, there are a LOT more overseas players taking up those extra slots now AND the technical standard of young player is higher.

Oh, and Arthur never had the pull for younger players like Rooney has.

I suspect a lot of teams would happily send young talent to learn under him over a lower level Championship team.

I'm this guys advocate. 

14 minutes ago, Mostyn6 said:

Brain Clough never won the Premier League

And Barbara was never compared to Agatha Christie.

What a L.O.S.E.R.

2 hours ago, Mostyn6 said:

I think you should temper your expectations.

It will take a good few years to rebuild the club unfortunately.

It does look brighter than it did, but time to be realistic. Promotions are NOT easy.

Our infrastructure and club have been decimated.

We will be restricted on what we can spend on player transfers and what wages we can offer. 

We will have the basis of a brand new squad, which need time to adjust and gel.

This will not be easy.

If the internet was around in the 80's this could have been a post asking people to temper their expectations when Arthur came in.

I mean seriously, you'd have been able to copy and paste it over.

2 years later we were out of the 3rd and then blew up the 2nd playing some fantastic football.

I'm in no way saying this will happen, but it's no less likely imho.

I say raise your expectations and enjoy the moment rather than worrying (to paraphrase Ian Hall)  that we won't have jam tomorrow.

19 hours ago, jono said:

I had trouble with Barclays and Internet explorer a while back. They advised I used Chrome. It worked. But jeeps you are a zillion pound bank and your site has bugs when using the universal browser for half the world .. odd ! 

IE only has about 5% of the market these days and it's really hard to get stuff to work across all platforms and that is the same for big companies. I bet I have to change browsers once a week for some form of buggy software

1 hour ago, Eatonram said:

Miserable *******

Being accused of being miserable by you is like being told I'm a warmonger by Putin.

46 minutes ago, JoetheRam said:

Has something finally happened?

Not yet.

I doubt it will tbh.

Better Call Saul. Jeez can they make it more complicated and more reliant on remembering every plot twist from not just previous serious but previous series of another show?

Especially as characters get progressively older than when they should have been older.

We're 2 episodes in and I'm getting fed up with having to think too hard.

On 12/05/2022 at 12:27, 86 Hair Islands said:

A few folk have mooted the notion that they can't be 'invested' in shows without likeable characters. Don't feel that way myself. I love Succession despite every character in the show being the type of individual I'd throat punch in real life, yet I think the show itself is utterly brilliant. 

I tend to agree although Wendy in Ozark makes me puke.

A bit like you I loved Ozark season 1 and 2 and 3 dipped. But unlike you I didn't rate 4 that much but stuck with it for Mrs Badger. I had no clue they were doing a fifth. I wish they'd not bothered.

Crypto is coming.

It's utterly a no-brainer.

When it's coming and in what specific form(s), is entirely another matter however.

It could be next year, in 10 years or 25, but it's definitely coming.

Nothing can stop crypto in the long-term this side of something that is apocalyptic. It's merely a natural transition.

A reversal to gold or bartering is far more likely than sticking with a fiat currency.

And fwiw, I have a tiny bit of crypto, but not enough to even bother following the crash other than to read the headlines.

19 hours ago, tinman said:

How’s Cardano working out for you?

and NFT’s for that matter?

Gloating like that really should have me popping over to the thread about stuff that annoys me which shouldn't. 

Of course, you will claim that you're not gloating.

On 03/05/2022 at 20:12, Steve Buckley’s Dog said:

Went to see Stewart Lee last week. Superb. 

I'm seeing him next month in Truro. 

2 hours ago, Unlucky Alf said:

Is your car an Automatic ?, Done my collar bone twice, Yes it is pain full, Speedy recovery fella, And keep that sling on!

It is mate. Couldn't have done it otherwise as it's my left side.