Walsingham

That's one reference which I really REALLY don't get.

The issue there though is that while they can form the government, they can't pass any legislation without the say so of the other parties, so they have to woo other parties by including their agendas in legislation in order to get support for it to pass. Thats how we got socialised medicine. The Liberals didn't have enough support so the NDP promised support in exchange for it. Cooperation between parties is a good thing. I'm not personally averse to cooperation. But occured to me today that compromise can be appallingly bad. There are policies which need to be enacted properly or not at all. Half way houses are worse than either main divergence. The analogy would be partial circumcision, to appropriate Robin Williams' alarming point.

Enjoying my garden today, interspersed with rounds of Baldur's Gate when it got too hot. Only fly in the ointment was the neighbour's kids listening to RnB. ...And they say Britons no longer have the endurance shown in the War. Our children freely endure the worst music I've ever heard. Monte has reminded me I've had no booze today. I'm off to the pub.

Well, your childish attitude aside, it's completely fair to juxtapose two social drugs, compare their harms, and ask people to think about why one of them is legal and the other is not. Alcohol is not harmless and to pretend otherwise is immature. I enjoy a pint of Kilkenny with my nachos as well as the next man, but I don't see why I should be stupid enough to pretend that in excess alcohol is not formidably bad for my health. 1. The actual damage done to health by booze is very very small for amounts short of chronic abuse. 2. You're still simply blowing on a lit fuse. Yes, it's going faster, but it is going anyway. Operating on the assumption that you are going to a ripe old age becase you eat carefully and do everything right is pretty daft. I'd say it was a good sight more childish.

mhhm you still be up against rich corporation with more resources than you and an expert team of lawyers. Counting with the chance that you may be able to go through with it, there is still the chance that they may win. That's an appallingly defeatist attitude. Are you really advocating rolling over any time any corporation ****s you sideways? I assume not. It is well worth checking to see if a punitive suit could be brought. And as I say I shall ask around.

On slightly more rational note: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/08/gi..._causes_cancer/ It seems that giving up drinking can be really bad as well.

It could be some sort of revolting salted licorice collection?

What do you mean? that there is no global warming? I see no reason to be dishonest. I used to believe it, but I feel that any possibility of effective action being taken to tackle it is practically impossible without some sort of World Government. And since that's not going to happen without WW3 I am resolved to ignore the issue until I cannot do so any longer. Perils of democracy and all that. Plus everyone I've ever met from the Green party in the UK gives me the creeping willies. Consequently a game about something I'm trying to ignore doesn't really flash my turkey. If that's an expression. Which it isn't.

It just makes me laugh that gamers are so snooty about 'realism' in games, especially in terms of graphical quality. But actual realism - quite predictably - isn't at all what they want. I've just spent 30 minutes searching for armour pictures where the upper torso is covered and the stomach isn't. Couldn't find a single one. Especially not the Romans. Th eorder goes roughly: - Shield, no armour - Shield, no armour except helmet - Shield + helmet + torso - Shield + helmet + torso + increasing limb coverage as metallurgy and metalworking improves. Plus as I say, it simply makes no sense whatsoever. I don't know if youre anywhere near Oxford, but the Pitt-Rivers collection in the Natural History Museum has armour from all over the World. Right down to coconut fibre matting. Have a scout round.

But you notice that you can download the flipping game, and then have your expertise incorporated into the project? Working at DARPA must be awesome.

Everyone loves Denzel. I just hate his agent.

You know that's not a bad idea. I'll ask around.

I hope shall always remember the comment of our training sergeant, as we were waking up covered in frost on exercise, trying to stamp out the kinks in our toes and looking forward to marching and running in general. The sergeant sparked up and some wise-ass inadvisedly said "Shouldn't smoke those, sahn't. What do you smoke for?" Obviously feeling the urge to educate more than the urge to pan recruits he smiled calmly and said. "I smoke so I don't find myself lying in bed at the age of 90, dying of **** all." You can not drink and not smoke as much as you ****ing want, but you're still going to die. And having spent a lot of time in hospices over the last few years I feel I can say that what people who are dying generally want is to make their peace with family, and to have done an awful lot more drinking, smoking, and fighting than they did. I'm not saying you have to live life by drinking and smoking and fighting. I'm just saying that life is for living, not keeping sealed in a bag like a first edition of a comic, or the body of an exchange student.

Dynamite pinata. Putting the fun back in fundamentalist violence.

Pleasure to help, mate. *XP*

Is that a euphemism? Has to be. We all know that Bok's system is of such intensity that it can only be kept at sub-meltdown temperatures with rapidly circulated unicorn blood. I could go for some dusty unicorn's blood right now. With tabasco.

The kind of asshat who would post an article on the first sunny Friday of the year about how you shouldn't drink or you will DIE. ~ I don't want to be a booze Nazi, Tigs, but to echo other people: 1. Drink booze you like 2. Drink it with people you like 3. Drink it in places you like. ...and you may find you like booze.

Is that a euphemism?

I find it hypocritical that you people are perfectly will to ignore any health advice about alcohol and pretend it is completely safe whilst simultaneously willing to judge and lecture those of us who partake in what are in fact healthier drugs such as psychedelics or marijuana. To which I shall respond by observing that your dope smoking has addled your wits! Because I have assiduously argued it should be legal. If sky diving is a matter for individual discretion then so too should cooking one's hippocampus like a fillet of duck. I may also beg the company's indulgence to report that I partook of some eight pints, including three of scrumpy purely to prove the point. I then ate a takeaway curry laden with salt and fat. I may also say that there was an abundance of laughter, a little shimmying, and vast quantities of bollocks were talked. Having woken early and drunk water and eaten three pears, I am now listening to the radio play HMS Surprise, and latter has affected my manner of writing. EDIT: where on Earth did I give the impression that I thought alcohol was harmless? By God, what kind of world or civilisation would accord harmless any high honour as a quality?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12999000 What kind of po-faced lunacy is this? I'm precisely thirty minutes away from my first beer of the weekend, and given the apparently suicidal nature of the act I thought I'd give a grim-faced nod to all you heroic chaps and chapesses who will be kicking dirt in Death's eyesockets, and drinking this weekend. Our courage and dedication may be all that stands between civilisation and the health-Taliban. May we drink, sing, dance inadvisably, and join in comradeship and curry.

Hey now, dont look at us. This is France and the UK jumping up and down for war. Funny, when the US is jumping up and down for war everybody else is expected to ask Uncle Sam nicely "how high?" Situation reverses.... In fairness, US involvement would only weaken the strategic situation. And since a military analysis puts the rebels hope of success at nil, what would be the point of weakening the strategic situation?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news...t-wiretaps.html 1. I think this story deserves to run. **** BT. I'm switching as soon as I have time to organise the move next week. Tell your friends, fellow Britons. 2. Thought this was nicely illustrative of a point I've made before that big corporations can violate your rights and freedoms just as much as governments. In fact, more so, it would seem, since they aren't being held accountable due to the fact that the CPS don't think they can beat BTs lawyers.

LOL. Probably not funny to anyone but me, but it just occurred to me that modern claymores must have a freaking flowchart printed on them, with pages from international law, so that you can work out who the enemy is before pointing it at him.

Um... you either have some seriously marketable skills, or you're being an eedjit. It's neither wise nor kind to be an asshat.

I love how the leitmotif for all political historical whatever thinking for the last ten years has been replaced with the word 'oil' with the word double underlined. And often misspelled. I'm just glad I didn't go for that PhD in history. What a a waste of time THAT would have been.