I can't argue with a single word of that. We shouldn't ignore the faults with the system and should press for more proportional representation and abolition of the ridiculously outdated House of Lords irrespective of the short term benefits we may see.

But that said, it's hard to ignore the fact that these flaws occasionally have advantages. Having UKIP front the Out campaign would be like having the EDL lead a protest against ISIS fighters being allowed back into the country (why is this protest not happening, BTW?).

Fuck you for notifying me, now I had to take the effort of going back and correct it.

A SWAT team was called in on a family the other day... because their neighbors called the cops after hearing them talk loudly about guns and zombies while watching The Walking Dead on tv. I'd go find the link but I'm tired and lazy at the moment. Just google swat team + walking dead. F'ing ridiculous beyond words.

That news story has no 'back in the day' equivalent for that because that is possibly the dumbest thing ever in the history of dumb. Dumb truly spans the breadth of time. People are literally now calling the cops on each other for being excited and talking loudly while watching fucking television.

We're one step away from people trying to sue their own shadow for harassment for constantly following them around.

I am maybe not fully sure what the issue is there, but isn't that the same for all EU countries? Does UK feel they alone are hit by this? I recall similar concerns here, for Estonian workers coming here (especially in the building industry).

I find that a bit problematic thing. If foreign workers are not eligible for (your or our) social security, doesn't it also mean they shouldn't pay taxes to the target country, but to their own country? So when Polish construction workers come to work in UK, they would pay all their taxes etc. to Poland, not UK, right? I don't find it quite right either that one would have to pay taxes to the target country, but not receive any benefits from there.

Or if the issue is specifically for someone receiving benefits (for unemployment, pension, whatever) while living abroad, doesn't that apply also to UK citizens who have chosen to go live elsewhere, e.g. Spain or Thailand? Should their benefits be cut off because they are not on the UK soil anymore?

As said, I feel this issue is rather complicated, each "solution" can be considered unjustifiable in some way. I can't say what is the correct answer to it.

True, that happened also to Perussuomalaiset here. Once people get into power, their main concern seems to become to stay in power, even if it means selling their principles. Very rarely I see the opposite. Well, the leftist party here did leave the earlier government (because they felt it is doing too right-wing politics), but I felt it was more like a political stunt as the next elections was already getting close.

Oh, boy, yeah. Take today's average segment of vehicle, be it 4-door, SUV, whatever, and just show an outline of it with no other details, and one is hard pressed to tell what model a car is, let alone brand. Getting to be that there is one shape, differentiated only by door panel creases, grille, and head-and tail-lights. Yawn.

Buuut, cars are pretty darn good across the board these days, at least in this market. Reliability-wise, anyway. And if I search hard enough I can still find a stick shift.

They claim they are safer too (for driver, passenger and pedestrians), with all these airbags, better seatbelts etc but I hope I won't have to test if their claims are true anyway. :P

Regarding transmission, it's manual or nothing! :)

Some reasons could be:

- automatic trannies first made in the US and much, much later came to Europe where the manual tranny was already established. Maybe that was a reason that the US people prefer automatics; they learned to drive on them and there is no reason to switch.
- in the US the cars are generally bigger (in engine capacity) and don't really require fiddling with a manual stick since the torque is omnipresent in all the RPM range. In Europe, the cars tend to be smaller and manual shifting is pretty much a requirement. Think of a 1000cc, 55hp, 900kg car; would you put a heavy automatic tranny that it could only slow it down or a light manual tranny with which you could use whatever torque it's engine is producing more efficiently?

I guess there are more than meets the eye on that subject and maybe a better informed GOGer could enlighten us.

We're generally lazy drivers over here. And a clutch can really suck in the stop-and-go traffic found in so many large cities. But screw that. Three pedals or nothin'! : D Rush hour just builds up the calf muscles.

You know there's some older guy out there saying, "Bah - kids these days! Gotta have sychros in their manual transmissions! Back in my day..."

"thru" is not technically correct in American spelling, either. "Drive-thru" was originally spelled that way for trademark/copyright purposes, and the disease spread.

Actually this is quite the same as here. City/town whatever generally 50 km/h, then one street is 30km/h, next one 10km/h being a pedestrian zone :) You get out of town is first 70km/h sign, then a couple of hundred meters after that you get 60km/h, another 70km/h sign after that and then after around hundred meters again 50 and after that you can finally go 90km/h but then you get to next village and its again 50km/h :) so yeah I know how that is :) Constant gear shifting.

It really depends where you live but normal driving time from home to job in Europe is now more or less between 0.5-1 hour eitherway.

But yeah definitely driving long hauls without automatic transmission is taxing but then again I never drove anything else then cars with manual transmission so its hard to understand. Eitherway tried once to drive a car with automatic transmission but couldn't figure how to get it in to gear so I just gave up.

On longer trips, you don't have to use the stick that much anyway. I guess it's all in the mind and how one is accustomed to drive.

So much for "automatic". :P

I ride a motorcycle and that means a 6-speed manual sequential tranny: talk about constant shifting!! And keep in mind that when i'm downshifting, in most cases i have to match the engine rpm to the road speed when i disengage the clutch, so as to not upset the whole bike/ lose traction! Maybe too much for you, never gets old to me! :D

Oh, I'm not complaining about manual gear shifting. I mostly don't even notice I'm doing it :) It just demands a bit more concentration on driving then with automatic.