Walsingham

Surely this debate is misdirected. It's both a religious thing and a fun thing. And these jerks are just trying to wreck it so they can feel morally and intellectually superior. Why not try and blockade Mardi Gras? Or firehose people on St Patrick's Day? Dickheads.

"Thou shalt worship no god" sticks in my craw as badly as "Thou shalt worship no god but me."

Storm broke my roof. Keep snowing. Did some christmas shopping then back to work. Am now wrapped up in five layers.

I know I often hurt myself laughing, but to be fair I laugh at some funny ****.

LOL. I'd forgotten about that. It's an interesting one, asking when a nation isn't one. Given the vast majority of deaths in the 20th century were caused in civil wars (ref?) you'd think we might have given it more thought. Possibly a case of opposed forces. The strengths of the official state set aginst the strengths of all the breakaway movements.

Absolutely agree. I mean WTF? Anyone who has cable internet can afford most indie games. Which is where indie games deliberately price themselves. Plus almost all other arguments fall over. There's no DRM, there's no evil corporate behaviour. Just good people trying to make great games and earn a living. No offence, Malcador, but you can cram your 'consistency' up your exhaust flume. Being consistently a complete funtwit does make you less of a funtwit.

Great. Now I want a pastry called an 'epic ordeal'. I'm thinking light and buttery with maybe some sort of pistachio praline filling. And chopped dates.

I'd like to take a moment to remind us of a little thing, as we read about the LHC: Those folks who say we're no better than the animals? They're ****ing wrong.

Where are you in the US (if you don't mind me asking)? Jersey I'm literally laughing out loud Worried it was just me got that.

Good rejoinders, Tigs. I'll try to tackle them piecemeal, since it's late. ~ Regarding point 2, I think that the answer might be something analogous to direct vetting for government officials. CEOs get checked out down to the floorboards, background, psychology, so on and so forth. Voluntary, of course, but akin to ISO9000 or whatever it is. A baseline check for suitability. Not sure who'd administer it though. I guess all I'm really trying to do is move away from the 'sharp suit and dagger', jobs for the boys, method of choosing CEOs. All too frequently the people chosen are neither honest nor intelligent enough to do their job as head of 'state'. Moreover these are people who get bonuses for _failure_. Which alone should tell you the system is bollocksed. I don't regard this as anti-capitalist. Good governance is good for capital. It's one of several reasons why London is a hub for corporate activity. It's seen as less corrupt and mental than elsewhere. ~ I don't have a problem with poor folks having houses. But to my mind if the government wants to do that it should simply build bloody houses. We call them 'council houses' in the UK. Rather than the cod-capitalist approach of forcing banks to lend on unsafe terms. ~ In general I'm often reminded of one of my earliest jobs processing loan applications. It made me seriously anxious to turn down mortage applications when I could see how much folks wanted them. But my boss would never stop telling us how ****ed up everything would get if the bank lent money to people who couldn't reliably pay it back. How right he was.

Where are you in the US (if you don't mind me asking)? Jersey

Thing is, Meshugger, you can argue almost anything comes under trade. Employment law, equal opportunities, discrimination, banks, pensions. I'm not saying you can't have a free trade area that doesn't go bananas. But putting a parliament and court on it is two of the 3-5 arms of state. ~ Gorgon if I understand you, you are suggesting that it's a good thing Greece is in the EU or we couldn't fix them. But if they hadn't joined the EU they'd have never gone on such a ludicrous spending spree in the first place. As for justifying the EU as the only way to nail down international finance that's a pure chimera. You'd need to nail down the _entire world_ to do that. And somehow I don't see people going for that. Not to mention that the 'science' of economic control struggles at the national level, let alone trans-national.

I've completely misunderstood what you were doing, haven't I?

I was talking to the Prince's Trust last week about enterpreneurship. Maybe give them a call and enquire about how you could support entrepreneurs with your site?

Zesty college girls?

In my day finals were the exams you did at the end of your university career, decided almost all your eventual mark.

I really don't see how that's sensible, I'm afraid. A coalition of the willing is more effective in exerting power than a federation of the unwilling. IMO. Plus it's not as if our individual military or economic power can be simply regarded as irrelevant. France, Germany, the UK. We all have the ability to project influence. If being effective on the global stage is your objective then we'd need to come up with a coherent philosophy to bind our actions together. At present we have uneasy partnership between greed and bleeding hearts. Neither is in our - or anyone else's - interests.

A lot of people said that as far back as the eighties. ...That I know of. Probably earlier. In general I'm quite a fan of not codifying everything and just winging it. But you can't base a currency on that basis!

Thanks for explaining. i think the confusion may be due to some USA way of handling exams, and what you mean by finals.

Purely for calibration purposes, can I ask when you were last genuinely happy about a movie?

Considering we are the second biggest contributor to the EU budget (according to PMQ today) you'd think we'd get a bit more credit. Are we poisoning the EU by objecting to a plan which even supporters of Europe are saying won't solve the problem and may even be illegal? Are we poisoning the EU when we observe that democracy cannot be ridden over roughshood to save a currency whose architecture is _proven_ not to work? A free trade area where we celebrate our shared culture, and collaborate to avoid war is a truly beautiful thing. A superstate whose nameless officials dictate national policy over democratically elected assemblies is a monstrosity. I put it to you that we are, by our economic weight and democratic insistence, saving the EU dream from becoming a nightmare.

Wait, what?

If it makes you feel any better I had a very similar problem with one of my finals. My alarm simply didn't ring. Very VERY strange as had triple checks etc. Worked out OK for two reasons: 1. The rumour went around that I was engaged in extravagant sexual relations and was enjoying them so much I didn't care about my exam. 2. I've never found exam stats particularly useful beyond one's first couple of jobs. Get them out the way quickly, do well, get excellent references, and the exams don't matter. EDIT: Regarding point 1, I wasn't in fact. But apparently people thought the only reason I'd say I was just a doofus was if I had some incredibly deviant secret to conceal.

I'd say Amentep was certainly right that there's an an unbridgeable (but variable) gap between what is realistic and what is game playable. It takes quite a lot of careful planning and chutzpah to wander up to someone and get them talking.

The labour government of Norway is ready to step up and use the Government Pension Fund to support the IMF in these times of crisis! The fact that the population twice voted down Norwegian EU membership, first in 1972 and latest in 1994 - doesn't seem to matter. 4000 EU directives are already implemented. J. I did not know that. certinly chimes with my general perception that the Great European Project cares diddly squat for democracy.