Walsingham

Interesting. i wonder if the same holds true in other hardware markets?

In way though, Ros, it only works because other people are such ****s.

Actually I believe he called him spinless. Some sort of rotary prejudice at work? EDIT: Almost forgot. The friends of the fellows in the OP just blew up a Red Cross office. Lot of evil crusaders killing women and children there no doubt. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22711612

Nep, everyone knows that Italian fascism was purely for comic effect. Mussolini was an operatic tenor who took things too far during a performance of Tosca.

It's my fault, because I keep calling everyone a c***.

It's faintly amusing that you're 'tired' of WW2 and all it's baggage. You want to pretend it never happened and won't happen again? I suppose you could argue that the poor little thing has a right not to be used as a symbol of race hatred and organised cruelty. But I don't think it does. I think the absurdity of cursing a few right angles is just one of the many things we need to remind us of what happened so that the World never goes down that road again.

I just finished a project so I'm kicking back for the rest of today and indulging my head cold. Thanks to Bruce I'm also maudlin so I've made myself a pint mug of black coffee and aquavit, while I wait for my curry to cook.

If I may run with your point, I think that pride is something much under-rated and or abused in our culture. I'm not saying that pride isn't a problem taken too far. I'm saying that pride in who you are, what your roots are, your values and standards... that is part of what keeps you solid as a person. Consumerism takes pride away. You are your wallet. People don't sing to a flag or carry one around on their car because it's pretty. They do it because it means something to them. And as I said earlier about context, what it means is very specific to them. Thinking about it a abit more I guess some of those person specific things are common to others. When we recognise those thing sin others it make sus feel part of a community, and we humans are a community animal. It's an essential drive for us.

OK. Everyone has to confuse Bruce now.

Woah, sorry Walsie but I have no idea what this means in relation to flags? ROFL. Wrong thread.

*snipped* *sleepy lunacy*

LOL. I just realised I've been concentrating so hard I just realised I haven't eaten anything since tea yesterday. Hmmm. I think a quick stir fry with plenty of chilli.

...And now I have a bottled example of a cri de coeur I had some good advice a long time ago that it is pointless being in th business of comparing oneself to others. There are always people better off or worse off. I would add that it's even more pointless to worry about other people's opinions of your life. They don't share your objectives, they don't understand your difficulties, and they don't _want_ to believe you can overcome the latter to achieve the former - it would only upset them. EDIT: This doesn't include people working actively alongside you. But they're obviously joined to you by the same objectives.

I didn't like it so much until I slowed down and started paying attention to what was happening in each panel, art wise.

So will that shunt down the price of other cards?

You poor stupid bastard. You're ****ed now.

Godwin's law? Also, prospective defence from a colleague: "An extremely fragile and misshapen childhood results in a volatile adulthood. Already from the crib my client was grossly cheated of his rights and devoid of privileges, kindness and caring. Not to mention they didn't have soap." I assume there's an original source for this, but I've had a pop culture fail. Sounds like Rumpole to me.

I'd take the view that the flag is a communicative signal. The theory of communication I learned was that they consist of three things: grammar, lexicon, and context. Context is _inescapably_ part of any message, whether we like it or not. However, it's been my observation that context can be de-emphasised if you have a very elaborate and specific lexicon or grammar surrounding the word. The issue with flags is that they are (in many instances) a very simple lexicon - only Arabic flags have mottos on them these day I think. And they have about the simplest grammar I can think of because - with the exception of naval signals - flags fly alone. Therefore, when it comes to flags, context is _everything._

There's a good discussion of these issues on Vaginal Fantasy, Felicia Day's book club on Goodreads/Youtube.

The phrase "something popped" is not one I can imagine being good in a human body.

Need to clean out the inbox, old son. Will get on it tomorrow. No time now.

Bruce will save me the trouble of describing what a necklacing is if anyone is interested. But logically speaking it could be fixing a person's roof for free. I saw evidence of black people doing it in South Africa. It doesn't shape my expectations of black friends and colleagues. There is some ****ed up **** out there right enough. But it's down to crises in organisations and individuals, not down to easy to apply labels.

Yeah. Who'd a' thought racist stereotypes would be right wing?

Hey, I know HOW to do it. I'm just not doing it at the moment. When I'm trying to discipline my thoughts I don't discipline my emotions. Fight everywhere lose everywhere, baby.

Up to my ears in old Chinese legalist texts about statecraft and warfighting. At first they were fascinating, and now they just strike me as irritatingly scatty and unstructured.