Walsingham

I'm sorry, Zor. Maybe I'm just having a bad day, but i just can't sympathise with your take on it. 1) The prosecution in most murders has to contradict the word of the alleged murderer. SYG doesn't make that worse. 2) In situations where an intruder on property is shot/stabbed/waffle-ironed, and dies I think it's wrong that there should be a heavy burden on the defendant. Although having said this, 3) I accept that this was an - in context - public area. *Except in Scotland - interesting system.

Again, it's a case of spotting ducks you've no shot for. (NSA surveillance) Child pornography is an enabler of offending, no doubt. But I'd be a good deal happier if there was a serious and coherent strategy for tackling actual proven offenders.

Reading Luridis' comment has made me realise that my raletionship to science is roughly analogous to the relationship between that curious student and the Illuminated Order of Dagon in the Cthulhu books.

I don't know why but I found that very funny. Oh thank god. I thought I was the only one. I think it's a Sherlock Holmes reference. ~~ Working today, customer facing, I realised that there is nothing in all the world so helpless, smug, and depraved as an English middle class parent. Had to deal with two 'families' today where I was possessed of such a strong urge to vault the counter and punch their children that I had to hand over to a colleague. Everyone else at work hates the chavs, but I don't mind them now I'm used to them. They come in, know what they want, and pay in cash. Then, like as not, they say thank you. Granted they may be a bit warty or be inexplicably wearing a baseball cap, but at least they don't pretend it's some kind of ETHICAL F***ING STATEMENT about the nexus of church and state.

As I understand you, Raithe. They stopped light. But light is a constant universe wide. So they effectively shunted part of the universe out of kilter _with the entire rest of creation_. Meaning we as a species just divided the universe into two parts, one part slightly less old than the other. I actually feel a bit dizzy just thinking about that.

I am reminded of one of my best surprise finds, and favoured bands: The Afro-Semitic Experience

I don't follow your last point, Zor. What do you mean it favours who kills first? Surely it favours whoever is standing on 'their' ground? ~ Can I just confirm that the young man attacked Zimmerman? If Zimmerman had been in pursuit with his weapon presented for firing, it strikes me as unlikely that Martin would have attempted to attack him at all. If he did not have the weapon presented then it strikes me as a decidedly sporting way of approaching someone you wanted to shoot.

Maybe if we all 'like' bunch of his posts in this thread he'll be deluged and have to do it.

Because the forum's members might like to be forewarned?

OK, well thanks for clarifying your point. Were you aware that we have special sentences in the UK for 'racially aggravated' crimes? It's a relatively new development, and one which I feel represents the worst excesses of Parliament in this generation. The problem is that our criminal justice system is stretched so thin that we have made prioritisation of certain crimes a priority in law. It's complete lunacy.

:LOL:

I should imagine it works even better if no-one is called Steve. Then you have a free ticket for looking for him. I shouldn't go around observing people. No-one likes being spied on, whereas the sight of someone else dashing around working harder than you is always soothing.

Swastikas are not, and can never be used for comedic purposes.

Pro tip: if you have noting else to do, grab some papers and march at full speed to the other end of the building. Ask someone a question like 'have you seen Steve?', frown, then march back. It lends you an air of furious endeavour. Even, I discovered, when you tell people you're only doing it to look busy.

That's their excuse. But the ever dwindling consumer interest in film releases just shows how fethed their reasoning is. They make films which reassure film goers enough to get them through the door, but erode their interest in seeing any after that. It's like any firm suffering weak demand that lowers quality to cut overheads, and just accelerates the rate they are losing customers.

Thanks to a thread over in C&C I'm listening to music from the game This Means War. Synth, clappy, goodness. https://soundcloud.com/the-fat-man/this-means-war

most massive discrepancy between soundtrack and the actual game: This Means War Soundcloud link

This is 90% me just going off on one. But the problem with franchises and remakes sits squarely with the gatekeepers. The people who screen ideas. The sheer scale of the industry, and the narrowness of the bottleneck to funding means that the people who are screening for genius are about as far from genius as it's possible to get. So, if someone walks in and says "I have this script fora film where we explore the issues X and Y, in the context of Z, and there's a talking gun." That's rarely going to get past as opposed to "I have a script here for a remake of The Dark Crystal. You remember that one with all the animatronic vultures." Because it takes imagination and vision to make the former statement come alive as a winning combination, and a great director to actually deliver. Whereas the latter is already a proven concept.

Just to clarify, if I ever get sent back in time to Shanghai in the year 1932, and, having saved a passing businessman from a runaway baozi cart I am rewarded with enough money to set up my own private investigation agency, and I am dressed in a white suit, and walk into the best gin joint in town to meet the most dangerous gangster in town... Maggie O'Connell will be standing at the bar, wearing a green silk dress, and she will turn and look at me. And THAT is when the trouble will start.

The system affects gameplay. Gameplay affects the total experience. I would suggest that building their own system was a concomitant of producing a wholly superior gaming experience. Note also that a good system means they can publish 10-15 follow up games without worrying about licensing.

Welcome to the internet. Apologies for our total lack of social graces. Like your points. But what military are you talking about? *thinks* My god! maybe that's where all the Soviet troops went before the coup? The 1st Shock Army is just biding it's time!

For you: Maggie from Northern Exposure

Could you explain what an ascension rebirth is for us thickies?

I do think it's highly amusing that outside the films, Gandalf is supposed to be the mightiest wizard ever, and his spells seem to be: - set light to pine cones - set light to wolves - collapse tunnel All of these feats leave him completely knackered. He's basically got destructive power very slightly below the ebullient kid you knew in high school who experimented with fireworks.

@Longknife. I think all you've done is reveal you weren't paying as much attention as you'd like to think. We have self-defence and minimum force in the UK. But having several acquaintances who work in bodyguarding (and just generally watching the news) I'd say it comes back to the judge and jury's interpretation in most cases. A good lawyer defending the killer argues how much they had to lose, and how crazy the deader was to be in the situation in the first place. I am therefore irked by your implication that US law, and US society, is barbaric and perverse. I should like some contextual facts and figures about German prosecutions in similar cases before I'd START WRITING IN MASSIVE LETTERS.