Walsingham

I'm not sure if I'm arguing against you, WoD. But again I'd refer to this fantasy that you can do humanitarian work without casualties.

You have lead a disturbing life LOL I just meant that they sum up the town.

The toilets at the ferry terminal in Stranraer.

I calls balls on your argument, sir. Just because we don't have the resources to treat every person with a disease doesn't mean we can't treat any of them on the grounds of 'fairness'. Not to put too fine a point on it, but **** your fairness. **** it in the ear. Seriously though. When have I ever said I was cool with, say, the Myanmarese junta?

I have to agree with Oblarg on the knives. Investing in a good paring knife makes more sense for the obvious reason that paring knives are much cheaper. However, I don't see why you can't get away with _carefully chosen_ knives of all sorts rather than expensive. By which I mean soft-ish steel, which you sharpen regularly on old broken crockery. I sharpen mine maybe twice per session, and they cost a couple of pounds each, but cut through meat with surgical precision. For big stuff I buy big chinese cleavers. Again, these cost you a few quid in the right store. Do sort this out, as a good knife encourages the urge to craft your food, rather than sawing away at everything which has the opposite effect. ~~ Reheated pasta for lunch from yesterday. Normal procedure of adding chilli powder, and tomato paste, then cooking up very slowly on the stove. Delicious! Really getting used to wholewheat everything, since realising it just means darkening the flavours and using a little molasses.

You had attacks on US interests from Al Qaeda under Clinton. The general response being that the intelligence services were trying to pad their portfolio. This is one of the big points people fail to grasp abou tthe threat. AlQ at al. isn't a response to some sort of aggression by us. Under Clinton they claimed it was because we weren't doing enough to help muslims by refusing to deploy troops!

I call it reciprocity.

So which service will it be watchable on? Thinks: is it morally sound to watch a bootleg version if I sit down afterwards and read some ads from companies who normally advertise on the sat channel?

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/health/...k-201011053225/

I think it's more complex than that. the whole culture of the body emphasises being smarter and more loyal to the public than the commons because unlike the Commons the Lords know they shouldn't actually be in government. So the Lords work bloody hard to assert that they should be. And of course, even if a Lord buys or weasels his post, there is nothing his 'party' can do to him once he is in place. Sometimes this means they become total bastards, and more should be done to (frankly) push them into barrels and chuck them in the Thames. But often they develop a kind of giddy determination to enjoy governing for the people. The other reason I like the Lords is that all this confounds and annoys (generally socialist) political students.

I learned to cook because my mother was a terrible cook and my absent father was not. That is he taught me the basics. How to kill and clean animals, how to grind spices, how to approach cookery. Rabbit stew, steamed mussels, pig's feet in molasses, and so on. Then I was obliged to use these skills or be forced to eat pies made out of things like hazelnuts and potato with tomato slices in. My most notable meal recently was wok fried lamb's liver. Put in a deep slug of olive oil, white flour on the 2cm chunk's of washed lamb's liver. A good dash of salt. Cooked until only a little pink left in the centre of each cube. Added some red wine vinegar to the sauce and a very small dab of pepper. Served over boiled potatos in their skins. No extra butter is needed as the thick gravy is enough.

What? If someone gives you something because they are nice and you are nice, how can that be bad?

That's your pick-up line?! Better start seducing that right hand of yours because you and it are going to have many lonely nights together. Unlike in the land of the midnight sun you can't just commence feeling a lady up and expect to succeed.

Debate in the Lords may occasinally be eccentric. But I wouldn't call it insane. Unless you call it insane for a member of one party to deliver a speech on an industry they helped build then for other party leaders to stand up and thank hom for an interesting and enlightening experience! Contrast the Commons where any speech bar the most derisory is met with automatic partisan hostility. I shouldn't need to remind anyone that it was the Lords lone who tried desperately to protect us from extended detention without trial.

Oh yeah, nearly forgot. I made my 'move' on my physio by casually mentioning I'm going to be singing for charity next month. She didn't go for the obvious opportunity to jump in. Nevertheless I'm nothing if not pig headed so I'll mention it again next session I get.

The website I linked to is now getting 90k plus hits an hour, apparently. So don't be surprised if it takes a while to load.

Are you sure it isn't just Machiavelli's point about new leaders not changing anything?

Well I don't know about Reagan, but our current government is very keen to point out all the mess left over from Labour. And most everyone here seems to just nod their heads and agree. I mean, how can you have a debate on defence spending and not point out the bilions of overcommitment written into the budget by Labour? It wouldn't make the slightest sense.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-stati...y-theories.html All detailed from Hansard, no less.

See that's another thing I don't understand. I mean, how could the state of the country NOT be Bush's fault? He was a two term president. I'm not being partisan here. Just as many of GWB's foreign policy headaches came from Clinton.

Props to Nepenthe on this. I have to say as I get older and see relationships failing like autumn leaves the more I think that love is as much fixed in time as it is to a physical person. Love fades, and I do sometimes wonder if seeing is pale and wither would be worse than just losing it. On the other hand losing because some ****ing **** decides it would be funny to mess with the love of my life chemically... I'm proud of being pretty civilised when it comes to rage, but if someone did that to either of the women I've loved I'd probably kill them. Definitely if they'd done it to the first one. I'm not advocating this, just making an observation.

I think that all this hooha over prteis is balls. Every American voter I have heard from seems to be working on candidates, not parties. Meanwhile all this bushwah about referanda on Obama looks to me like we've got another split Congress as normally happens. Thoughts?

It depends. Do I think that the people of Iraq are better off now than under Saddam? I certainly do. I say they are in the same way a surgeon would describe someone as better off after surgery even if they were now in intensive care battling a secondary infection, rather than hobbling about. Yet the secondary infection and the incompetence leading to it should have been avoided. To pursue the analogy the infection is a result of a failure to deliver on promised regeneration and basic amenities as was our legal obligation and a contracted commitment from the greasy corporations who signed to do it. Unliek the analogy it wasn't a virus that infected the populace, but deliberate destablising violence coming from both Al Qaeda and Iran. I note that throughout this discussion virtually nothing has been said about Iran. Yet the wikileaks material discloses very clearly how much fuel Iran had been pouring onto the fire. Yet I seem to recal strident voices claiming Iran was a scapegoat and a gratuitous target in the war on terror. I'd be much happier about wikileaks if any of the media sources harping on about the torture apologised by the same token. Not because there's anything wrong with condemning torture but because they are so blatantly manipulating the source for their own ends. We cannot have it both ways. Again this comes back to my central developing thesis: that talking about **** doesn't change anything. Surely the defining lesson we ought to have learned from my generation. Yet one we seem to refuse to acknowledge, probably because it would mean that blarting half formed notions out is not going to save the world. Only hard, dangerous work and sacrifice. A hard sell.

Raithe: holy f***ing ****. Man, that is one of the worst stories I've heard in a while. That would have torn me up like an old betting slip.

Now there's a sentence I never expected to see.