Walsingham

I say go easy on the guy, if he's really your mate. There are plenty of people who are there to knock you on your ass. Friends are the ones who help you back up. Get him exploring other fields. Don't try and force him into them.

Don't die, Nep! And don't feel really sick! And cut your nails! And ring your mom!

Well, *cough*, all nations tend to make legal commitments to things long before they mean them. I don't think it's the biggest issue from an administration that uses rape to intimidate its opponents. And until the man in the street feels homophobia is wrong, there's no point trying to use the issue to galvanise opinion against Mugabe. Bear in mind that I don't think the EU makes any bloody sense either. For pretty much identical reasons. It's not geographically, economically or culturally consistent enough to warrant a political or monetary unification. We don't act together on almost anything, since the end of the Cold War. And absolutely nothing I've heard or read gives me any indication that the AU is seen as anything more than a means of excusing action through consensus. ~ I'm now trying to work out why I'm applying seemingly different rules to that whole thing about Putin earlier.

Gir:

On the contrary, it is you who are being selective and suggesting things were there when there's no proof. What was done that was either illegal or unexpected in the chaos of war? I also can't believe you're saying that it's irrelevant that he did this out of a motivation to bolster his ego. It might not matter to the information contained in the leak. But it sure as **** matters to the howls of outrage over his treatment. You make a great show of being a switched on realpolitik guy, but: Axiom: No oppositional or competitive enterprise can succeed without some degree of secrecy. Assumption: You do not object to the use of secrecy in military and diplomatic operations? Question 1: What in the release was not justifiably secret, in the context of military and diplomatic operations? Question 2: What in the release justified Manning ignoring the chain of command? I do not ask these questions because I expect to catch you out. I expect your answer to be though through and interesting. So stop bloody avoiding them.

As much as I agree with your sentiment I disagree with your analysis. Although it was illuminating by way of contrast. 1. Foreign investment opportunities are poor worldwide. Even a credible Zimbabwean government would not receive significant inward investment. 2. Mugabe is not just Mugabe, he is a cabal of family members and corrupt hangers on. These people are content merely to enjoy control. A lack of foreign investment allows them GREATER control of the local economy, because they are the only game in town. 3. The AU has bigger fish to fry, and extremely limited capability to do anything about them. Here I refer to Mali, Sudan, and Somalia. 4. Interventionist First World nations are likewise overwhelmed, and more interested in other areas. It is clearly upsetting for South Africa, which must wish to transition towards a local area of co-development and trade. But to do this it HAS to forget a pan-African Union and concentrate all its efforts on a local union with similar local interests.

Links?

Love me some sardines. Especially the mustard ones drowned in hot sauce I just had an interesting lunch that consisted of some kind of truffled cheese, prosciutto, and a nice tawny port. I'm in food heaven right now Where the hell were you lunching?

Interesting point. Presumably they could get any hot blonde to play him/her. Might sell the script easier.

I quite commend women in their 30s in general. But my esteemed colleague is right. You can have them when you're older. Enjoy the young ones now, before you get older and they seem a bit shallow and weird.

"Excuse me, may I go to the bathroom first?" ROFLMAO

If chemical weapons were easy to make we would see plenty of terrorists use them. Nerve gas is especially tricky to produce and even that cult couldn't get good quality despite access to stupid amounts of money and some of the brightest students in Japan. Fair. It's not easy easy, like ammonia based explosives. But it's hardly a stretch to suggest that a Qaeda franchise _in the middle east_ could do it if it had a good enough reason to want it. The reason more terrorists don't use chemical weapons is - according to Al Qaeda's literature - is that they take so much effort to make compared with an equivalent effort towards explosives. Last time I checked, Qaeda still wanted them, but wasn't encouraging anyone to pick them first.

I had a big lunch, and chocolate for afters, so I'm about to cook a simple broth with a few fresh green beans and carrots. To keep me feeling full I will also boil an egg and slice that into the soup. Toast to accompany with 'gentlemen's relish'. Not gin served from a hooker's shoe, as the name implies. But it is in fact a nearly solid, and very frugal spread, not unlike Roman garum.

Interesting. I can see why you seem pissed off about it!

Pretty much SFW video of attack victims: A few things strike me. 1) It would be extremely challenging to fake up such a scene without a first rate film crew and good extras I therefore rate it the scenes on arrival as genuine. But they are curious. I'm no CBRN guru, but I know a bit, combined with what I was told in training, and having sat down and read through the Chemical Weapons Convention webpages back when we were debating WMD in Iraq. 2) Why are people handling the bodies seemingly unaffected? 3) Why would Assad choose to utilise a large scale attack when a pre-scheduled visit from UN weapons inspectors is under way in the same area*? And why bother when his forces - combined with Hezbollah - seem to be winning? 4) Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo was able to make home-made sarin, and affected thousands by simply letting it evaporate in subway tunnels. Presumably sarin could be manufactured in equivalent quantities by the rebels, and could kill hundreds if dispersed only slightly more effectively. ~ Points 2 and 4 suggest a hypothesis that this could have been a false flag operation by jihadis. They are more than willing to kill their own 'civilians' to further their aims. And what possible harm can it do their reputation even if they are found out? Their supporters would never believe it was them, and they are already hunted worldwide. And they potentially get a huge win if the scam works. Draw the West into a confrontation with Assad who is aligned with the apostates <sic> of Iran. I like this hypothesis for obvious reasons, but also because it would account for rescuers being able to handle the bodies. A poor quality dispersal, concentrated in a few areas, and leaking outwards from those. Treating it as a hypothesis, what would disprove it, though? *Although Assad is baulking at letting the inspectors go to the affected site, which also seems weird.

Hm, you have a high opinion of strangers. Helping some random person here would end up with you robbed or taken advantage of somehow or even if they dont that, fat chance of any return. Also, today I found out that guys don't like jokes about being whipped by their wives. But really, telling someone you have to ask her permission to go out drinking just invites that But wow, coworker got pissy. Family can also take the ****, tho. maybe they wouldn't just run off with your stuff to buy crack - I'll grant you. But they can wind up costing a lot more. And stop bullying your colleagues! The poor bastard already has his wife giving him grief.

I regret to say that our oppositional argument thus far seems to have made to dig in on an untenable position, for once. 1) You are denying that Manning had gender issues, and behavioural problems? Or you're just denying that they were the most important thing in his life, and that unconnected to those he decided to betray his uniform and position? 2.1) You are perfectly well read enough to know that contextual information is often the hardest bit to get a good grip on in intelligence. What Manning did, by posting everything he could get his hands on, was hand out vast amounts of context along with specific data. 2.2)I would assert that, given that his actions were illegal, the burden is on YOU to tell us what he revealed that was so important and so heinous, it warranted his actions?

Can you say "presenting like a mandril"?

I agree with Bruce. Family is as family does. I have mates who I am far more fond of than my randomly assigned direct blood relations. IMO, the benefits of sticking to your family through thick and thin - often referred to in such discussions - are pretty much identical to those you could get for helping people you met in the street.

As an aside it's interesting how similar the Egyptian military has evolved to be similar to the IRGC. Business links, kingmaking status, smuggling... I wonder if we're witnessing a new kind of creature that should be formally recognised in theories of government?

You mean like, where was it Messines - from memory to see iirc - when canisters of gas were blown back onto British or German lines?

You mean like bionic targeters?

Meh. I'm a about as dusty and wound-down as tweed yoghurt, and even I don't pay much attention to sleeping with lesbians. It's not exciting for them. It's not exciting for me. Except for the time I awoke after a party to discover I was lying between two lesbian nurses with big bazonkulas. This was so clearly some sort of late-delivery from my teenage years that my temperature began climbing. Then I realised that of course being sandwiched between two well-upholstered bodies meant that no heat was escaping. However, I did decide that the situation was so good on paper I was morally obliged to remain where I was, on the off-chance that I died, and could have the circumstances on my tombstone.

So you're taking the view of wikileaks itself that this was a cynical move to reduce his sentence? At least you've waited until after sentencing. Wikileaks did it before sentencing. Way to go, wikileaks! Obviously it wouldn't do to suffer a temporary diminution of the shine on your asses until after the trial! Seriously, though, Zor. I'm quite astonished at your stance on this. You're a smart chap. Is it so hard to believe that your man was just a nutter? You think every VC citation I've ever read indicates a well mind?