Walsingham

I'm going to step a degree further right, in case anyone's tracking me, and suggest that NOT invading countries with oil while stampeding towards countries with none nor any other mineral assets is going to make not one single currently unhappy 'intellectual' any more happy. You're still going to find a hundred other reasons why America is evil, and we are it's little dancing puppets. There is a word for a plan which costs massive amounts of blood and treasure and isn't an improvement. That word is 'bollocks'.

Well, that's one of the sanest looks at gaming piracy I've ever read. But it's not quite as exciting as hearing about how a few thousand shoeless bastards* are costing the global economy - and the environment - billions. *Backed by large syndicate investors, with a specialised stock market in support of them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0109..._Sea_Gangsters/ BBC radio, may not work for non-UK listeners. But try and persevere.

UK Ministry of Defence official discussion on unmanned vehicles. Includes moral discussion alongside look at the battlefield of the fuuuuuutuuuure.

I've only read The Handmaid's Tale, and that was awesome. I'm assuming you've read other books of hers though.

Enoch just clarified an analogy for me. Basically what happens is someone offers you a trip to a private beach, and discounts on fabulous swimwear. Then when you are at the beach it turns out they are charging perverts for the privilege of staring at you from the bushes. It's creepy and wrong, and you shouldn't put up with it.

Of course it's narrow, it's a two-line off-the-cuff remark I wrote while flushing the mental toilet between switching chapters in my dissertation writing. If i understand you correctly, you just called me a mental toilet. But since I'm recovering from a pretty vile hangover I can't technically refute the allegation.

Yes. Because the best thing we could do is bomb the crap out of schoolchildren. ~~ Bombing is the only way to go after someone, that's for sure. I can see now how you guys got your empire. I can honestly never work out if you're 14 or 40.

FFS, Morgoth we've been over this a million times. Wars cost money. If they aren't remotely beneficial to the economy of the country funding them, then ...er... they don't ****ing work. But that still doesn't mean it's only about money. You might just as well look at a paediatrician and say "You heartless c***. Why don't you help kids for free?"

I'm amused that Nightshape thinks I'd have anything as modern as air conditioning.

I know the media are making it sound like Vietnam, but so far as I can tell it really isn't. 1. Numbers - simply too few to train anyone in infantry skills. They really must be going to teach them staff skills. It's still useful. But it's not anything like the tales of combat advisors tagging along in the early days of Vietnam. 2. With basically every rebel in the field when would you train them? Would they even react well to being told to soldier in the professional sense? I think not. 3. Everything I've ever read about urban fighting suggests the only way to learn it is to do it. The rebels are already doing it. Let them get on with it. 4. Finally, it's the logistics and operational control which the rebels are getting bongo'd on. So by sticking to just that we can achieve a lot of 'good' without anyone coming home in a casket. ~~ I think the really interesting thing is how fast the merc-lead training got shot down.

Considering that the (well, at least on the non-strategic level) main purpose of management is to guarantee the efficiency of work, I'd say that you were on the money - at least if you assume that by cutting them loose today, they are going to remember it next week and work at least the same amount they would've done if they'd stayed at work. I'd gently suggest that even that's a bit narrow. If a couple of days off now simply make them less stressed and it avoids a bout of flu then it's a win. Never mind intangibles like them just not being bloody miserable.

Does anyone mind if Steve Jobs stays the hell away from my undercarriage? I agree that people don't seem to give a ****. Yet if the government did this there would be an uproar and riots! I loved the justification in the license people sign: that Apple needs to be have the data so it can improve its advertising! By all means track me like a pet poodle, provided it means I get my cortex palpated more expertly! I don't have, and strongly resist using a smartphone. I have a simple ruggedised phone, with a large battery, and most of the time it's turned off.

Displaying the leadership skills for which I am justly famous, yesterday and today we've all got ad hoc holiday. The way I figure it, losing a couple of days may be uneconomical, but it's inhumane to keep people indoors with this sort of weather. They don't work well at the time and it misses an opportunity to build loyalty and goodwill. I should write some sort of management text about The Hobbit and the Art of Management.

Gloriously sunny day today. Mix of work and pleasure. Had great singing lesson this evening, at which I brought up that quote about Bruce Lee which I saw on here, and had a long discussion even after the lesson about it. Am sitting up late watching the moon, and remembering Spain.

Buffy and Angel were fantasy. I honestly can't begin to articulate my response to this.

Back, and to the left...

Can't agree with you either, Hurlshot. I don't see anthing wrong or weird about shutting down a school which preaches extremism. You yourself mention how a lack of education is key to the phenomenon. But if kids are being reared in 24/7 isolation and brainwashing, how can you educate them? Exploit loudspeakers? Skywriting? You have to 'break' the hold over the kids to get access to them. That hold is the school, surely? Of course, accessing schools in another country is a wee bit tricky. Setting up better schools is even more problematic, since your schools are in turn vulnerable to the extremists you are trying to combat. Don't forget that these ****ers consider it quite consistent with honour to throw battery acid in the faces of little girls for daring to get an education.

I haven't seen any of those bugs since I installed Dead Money. Except sometimes coyotes do that revolting thing where dogs scoot around on their backsides. But at enormous speeds. Only happens if you observe them from a long way away. Made me stop using the binoculars.

I think I heard of it, but nothing besides the name, mate.

I simply uninstalled both tutu and BG, then reinstalled BG. Because I had a 'classic' character I didn't lose the save game. Mobs are back under control. Although interestingly not on the map I was on at the time....

I'm actually writing this via a system of dictating my data requirements to a succession of soot encrusted orphans who cough consumptively at one another up to the exchange. They then communicate the data back to via their harrowed expressionless faces.

Yes. Because the best thing we could do is bomb the crap out of schoolchildren. ~~ My understanding is that this is about 24/7 indoctrination as Gorgon says. This kid is genuinely a victim of terror, at least in my eyes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13111948 You may have read similar before, but this one is particularly neatly put together.

+1