Walsingham

Well, I take your point about conserving outrage in good faith. But if I can't get upset about soldiers being beheaded on the streets of London I don't really know what I'm saving it up for. Racist squirrels butt****ing the queen on prime-time TV?

Crowds aren't frightening. Each individual is less alert and focussed than they would be normally. They go back down the evolutionary ladder and want simple things. If anything I'm less wary in a big crowd than in a small one. The only issue is if someone in the crowd is chasing you, but how often is that the case?

Isn't that rather the point? I was curious to see how a modern audience of youngers would react.

Heh. Well, I will say, my greatest fear in getting old is that I'll stop giving a **** completely. Sounds like you're way ahead of me, Malc.

Can I just say "Bayonnnnnneettts!"

That... elf... has quite _literally_ no genitals. Although the leather waistcoat over bare chest was what made me look.

It strikes me as rather ignorant to suggest that rules constraining behaviour simply paper over bad behaviour. I have to ask if you really think that is the case, and if so whether you've been in charge of any groups for any period of time. Mostly conduct in groups is down to personal leadership and example. What the rules do is permit active trimming of poor conduct without that trimming being unfairly applied. They do less to govern the governed and more to govern the governors. And before you ask, I simply got too old to care. Now someone else has to keep me in line rather than the other way around. It's quite liberating.

I really can't see either side winning this. I mean a civil war could drag on easily for, what, I think 12 years is normal. But this could just run and run, quite honestly.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/31/world/meast/syria-civil-war/index.html Russia sending 10 Mig 29s over. It just occurred to me that perhaps the Kremlin is using oby's posts as some sort of foreign policy generator. I'm at a loss to conclude how supplying migs is going to calm the situation. Also, how the hell are the Syrians paying for all this new kit? They can't export any oil or gas ta the moment.

I fear you have got confused, Zoraptor. There are differences of opinion, and then there is cutting a man's head off in broad daylight. Not much to debate there, at least from the pesrpective of the man who had his head cut off. Or his wife and kids.

How. Do. I. Make. It. Stop?

My goD! That TP thrower is genius!

I just think it's yet another one of those historical situations that belies glib summation. *snip* EDIT: I guess what I was driving at was that perhaps if the flag could be used in some successful practical campaign as a symbol of _civil freedoms_ it might legitimately win the right to be honoured as such.

Trashman, I can't really claim to be the world's best online debater - insert mass debating joke here - but it seems pretty logical that if you up and tell your audience that you don't give a flying **** what they think then they'd be more likely to tell you to **** off and stop listening. Either you're debating the point because you care about our opinion or you're simply a timewasting arse.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22741644 I apologise, but while I can't remember who it is, I seem to recall some members are Turkish or live in Turkey. I just wondered what the local view is. I don't trust the BBC;s coverage as far as I could kick it when it comes to this kind of 'populist angle' stuff. This could just be a few handfuls of ne'erdowells.

People's fetishes are their own business, man. What a man chooses to do in the privacy of his own ...attic...

*whispering* Mad as a custard hat.

Being a product of my era, my emotional reaction was superbly developed:

GD will correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't many confederates of the opinon that slavery was the wrong point to rally around? My favoured understanding is that most confederates were defending the constitution of the United States as they understood it. Freedom and direct democracy over distant (more so than today, even) abstract waffling. The reason slavery cut is that the Washingtoners were prepared to wreck entire states economies when they themselves weren't affected. I can understand why they marched, tbh.

For my finals I paid a man to come in an throw water over me if I was still in bed at a certain time. I recommend it.

I think my point was that if they're thinking that way then they are most assuredly in no need of soft-minded fools making excuses for them.

It's a shame this thread doesn't have a door....

This conversation reminds me just now that I'd quite like to fly a union jack. But the bloody BNP have 'stolen' the jack for their own sordid purposes. I think the Queen should officially lay claim to the flag as a trademark or something. Then you can only fly it if you aren't a t**t. Officially speaking.

All alarm clocks are sadists. Don't trust them.