Walsingham

I'm probably getting old, but do we actually need so much violence? *hides*

Zero trick or treaters here. I miss having beer . I'm just saying.

I still blame video games for the Rwandan genocide.

Still enjoying Left 4 Dead 2. Especially since discovering versus mode in earnest. Got a little team of regulars developing, including one other Brit guy who is (I think) ex-Navy, and this little kid from some damn place who is an utter n00b, but redeems himself by doing exactly as he's told and having a genius with smokers. Huge fun.

But do they? Some of the most productive peopel I've ever met have been barely high school educated, and work with little more than hand tools. And some of the biggest wasters have been fully tech enabled PhDs.

Nepenthe, your argument is coherent, but can you point out (even vaguely) one benefit of the revelations?

Damn it.

Speaking as someone who travels a lot for work, I appreciate being able to buy tasteless yet vinegary meat slices within predictable parameters. I buy it almost entirely to annoy my internal organs.

Sorry Cal. I'm being a bit thick, but I don't follow your point.

Thought: given the rising trend in online sales of games, might this just put more people online?

One thing I really don't understand is, there must be some sort of baseline in business ecology. Some economic activity which actiuvely creates wealth, and doesn't just move it around. What is it? Manufacturing? Mining?

What I don't understand is this adolescent obsession with freeing information from 'the government'. 'The government' is elected by us, and bound by rules defined by our elected representatives. If wikileaks steal data from classified sources and share with everyone including the enemy, then they aren't fighting for us. They are fighting against us. No-one appointed wikileaks. No one controls them. That isn't cool. It's lunacy. This has been damaging in two ways. Firstly, I haven't seen anyone able to comment authoritatively in public as to whether people have died. However, I put it to you that publishing names and addresses of informants is almost certain to lead to deaths. Secondly, and in some ways more importantly, the leak has made intelligence sources even more cagey about sharing data - 'stovepiping'. Stovepiping of data is often remarked upon as a leading cause of intelligence failure. Intelligence failures certainly cost lives. And once again I make the point that the actual 'benefit' to the public of this leak has been negligible. It has told us absolutely nothing of any use, and sparked no positive changes whatsoever.

I demand a picture of the scene or it didn't happen. In folded cardboard. EDIT: Despite drinking only lemonade last night I have a hangover today. I can only assume some sort of Pavlovian response to being in a pub.

It's somewhat mendacious to compare the twoon numbers, isn't it? The US can and does occasionally deliver serious weight of power to a mission. The EU can't remotely compare. I'm not saying it isn't an interesting question, but it reeks of a bigger question behind it. What are you really interested in here?

I made roasted pork chops in lime and soy sauce, served on celeriac and carrot mash. With carroway seasoning.

I assume that was a gag. Seems common sense to me. Civil servants don't make money. They enable making money, sure. Roads, police, financial regulation etc. But having more than 50% of the economy doing that... Moreover, running the mass of the economy by any single body is surely bad systems theory. It's a single point of failure.

I may have to make a curry now. You bastard.

That way clinical depression lies. Just enjoy the free curry and the free exercise. Still not signed and sealed, but like the 7th cavalry arriving at the last minute two contracts have been tabled out of nowehere that may more than save my bacon. Immensely relieved. Did dancing. Hurt back. Still relieved.

Talking to my stepfather - who is normally very wise on such matters - he observed that under Labour the govt controlled more than half the total economy directly. Given the way government officials are selected this thought gives me the screaming abdabs.

We've been over LoF so many times it is unutterably boring. I don't think his lunacy merits derailing yet another thread. Back on topic... Krez, I share your anger about torture, even condoned torture. I think I've been pretty clear on that. But your anger here is inconsistent. Hussein's Iraq was predicated on mass torture and unending terror. Do you consider that to have been OK? If not Ok what would you have done differently to end it? If you couldn't end it - as US officials felt they couldn't in many cases cited in wikileaks - then are YOU not complicit in it by the same rationale?

This does appear to be a good motto for yourself. Bravo! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: When has LoF ever flat-out denied an atrocity by communist Russia, or refused to believe the the atrocity was bad? No, really, I'm curious - I've seen him rationalize atrocities, sure, but never deny them. You ask him about the Ukraine famine and see what happens.

The alternative way to look at public sector cuts (which I just thought of) is that we just freed up half a million souls for use in the proper economy - you know - making money.

Sounds fun. I may read it.

If you die because you played FONV instead of going to hospital I promise you right now I am going to piss on your grave.

Yes, I know.. But it's one hell of an advantage for fapping! ROFL