"having sex with"

Ohhhhhh. :blush:

I'm sure she's a lovely lady, but no, that's not what I meant. ;)

orphaned my own goddamn post there

Aheh.

I live in the North of England. Thatcher is not a very well-loved figure in the North.

didn't Thatcher destroy industry up north?

Pretty much. The Thatcher government did many things, but crippling manufacturing and heavy industry is probably the most remembered. Some of that was arguably a necessary component of moving the country on to a service and value added economy instead of production based economy, but some of it was purely ideological and deeply damaging. Profitable mines closed down. Now, here we are, an island built on coal and we are literally importing coals to Newcastle from the other side of the world.

Like I say, some of what was done can be viewed more positively with hindsight: it allowed us to shift our economy to a different footing. But, and it's a big but: even where such changes were ultimately positive, the way it was done was shameful and cruel. It went alongside a propoganda war against the poor and least equipped to deal with the fall-out of economic change. And that propoganda war justified ever harsher and more draconian responses to the unemployed. So, policies which directly led to increases in unemployment went alongside changes in law that weighted the advantage ever more heavily towards the employer and away from employees, making it an employers market entirely. At the same time that this was occurring the available help for those who couldn't find work was being casually stripped away and their plight being publicly denigrated.

Whole towns died. In some areas unemployment levels reached such a high that there just weren't jobs for people to go to. It is precisely at such times that assistance and understanding is most needed, and and it was precisely at this time that it became most fraught with condemnation and calculated obstruction.

And the shipyards. Gods, the shipyards are gone too. Most of that damage was done during the Thatcher years. She went to war with the dockers just like she went to war with the miners and the nurses, and the teachers, and the firemen, and pretty much every union.

The oldest boatbuilding yard ever found was off the coast of Britain. Hidden under the waters of the Solent, 8000 years old. We've had a functioning navy since the middle of the 10th century, we are a maritime nation, yet we no longer build ships. That one stings. At a symbolic level that one breaks my heart a little.

She also forced all the govt. schools in London to sell off their sports fields. A generation of unhealthy, sedentary adults has followed, and you're all crap at cricket. You're only good players are imports and country boys.

Priorities, Dana. :D

Lol true dat.

They also critically underfunded schools and hospitals and cut many social care programmes and insisted on canteens in schools and hospitals be put into commercial hands rather than in-house provision, which dropped the quality drastically.

Possibly the worst thing though, was forcing councils to sell off their social housing and not allowing the proceeds to be spent on replacement stock. We have a major housing shortage and the private market haas proved unwilling or unable to resolve that problem. Meanwhile we have a culture that stigmatizes any adult who doesn't own a house. She whipped nation into a frenzy of home ownership and sowed the seeds for an unsustainable housing boom. I know so many people who lost houses in the 90s crash, my brother included.

Unless he "accidentally" deletes 10 million e-mails a la Bush.

What a treasure trove of NOTHING these turned out to be.
Lotta disappointed liberals...

not really.

only someone expecting real content from her would be surprised. I don't know many "liberals" that have such expectations.

Oh come on there was such a big deal and when nothing was found the story died.
Comparable to Al Capone's vault hosted by Geraldo Rivera... hehehe

I think the issue was more one of access to public records, valid for any candidate for President or Vice President and based in large part on her initial resistance to comply with the law.

Where Mercenary's initial criticism was wrong is in the fact that Obama's e-mails as state senator or even US senator dont carry the same access as public records.

Merc's initial criticism was absolutely right.

You could substitute any other public records from any other official. His point is that the Palin feeding frenzy is outing the inconvenient truth of wankeries like the LA Times. Faced with only the probability of Palin bashing material, they got way overexcited and published their erections like excited Congressmen.

Ooh, everybody help us go through the emails! In thousands of emails she is *sure* to have said something dumb! She's the most important political figure in the country and has earned our coverage! Although she holds no office and is not running for anything!

And now they stand there, awkwardly, with their dick hanging out. At a time when newspapers are trying to justify their existence by exclaiming how serious and important they are, this sort of non-news bullshit gives away the game.

And not access to anything Palin? Just so we're clear, are you bullshitting yourself as well as bullshitting us?

I think she made some claims during the early days of the campaign, before they muzzled her, that were highly questionable. Like the bridge to nowhere, the troopergate incident, etc.

And the fact remains that her correspondences were public record and Obama's were not. That is a fact, not bullshit.

You dont think the conservative media, bloggers, etc would have been all over Obama's correspondence if they had access...checking for evidence of his birth, his muslim religion, his ties to terrorists....?

added:

Or her claim that as governor she supported divesting from Sudan:
She was totally unprepared for the scrutiny that comes with running for such a high national office and has not stopped blaming the media for her own failures.

more:
Some conveniently forget that the initial request for many of her e-mails in 2008, after she was nominated, came from a Republican in Alaska and she invoked executive privilege. She further stalled release beyond even after having left office. All of which lead to the delay.

Should the media have ignored it all now, after all the forced delays in complying with the court order? Perhaps or perhaps not if she is still a potential candidate.

One last thought....remember the main stream media frenzy over Clinton in 1992, with reporters all over Little Rock digging through public records.