Walsingham

I guess I'm war vet by popoular vote. But can I sugest we let Monte be Love Doctor? His role will be to act independently of Tigs and restore points by sage/insane advice. He may also be a RFID!

That pelican should be given a medal for making the city a little better to live in! My car will rest a little easier today. I'm with you there. The day will come when I can get a milliwave radar guided laser system to shoot pigeons. Until then I'm going to use this waffle iron. Hahaha. You could make pigeon waffles. I bet they would taste of kebab meat and prophylactics.

And I love Chinese military science. What's your point? Going back a step, it's all very well to say it's worth it. WORTH IT? WORTH IT? 1. Why this guy and not hundreds of others, as I asked earlier? This guy's not even dead! Which surely might qualify one for having tried and failed. Trying, but not so much you actually die seems rather limp to me. Not by my own standards, but by the standards of human activism. 2. The peace prize was supposed (correct me if I'm wrong) as a form of secular beatification. It's like the Victoria ****ing Cross for hippies. You can't hand it out to people just to make a point that a situation is rubbish. Do so and the allure of getting one is diluted like a Zimbabwean dollar. These are not idle points. What about Morgan Tsvangirai, just to pick one I know about? He struggled, came close to unseating Mugabe, and could have triggered a civil war when the election was so obviously rigged. But he backed off and sat down with a man who had had him beaten, and his supporters raped and tortured. Out of a belief in peace. Or so I've read. The Nobel committee are scoring political points which denase the Nobel, and duplicating efforts that are far more meaningful when made by someone like Amnesty, who actually go the distance by highlighting people, agitating on their behalf, and keeping people informed. You might just as well give the man an oscar.

OK. But national branding still matters. 1. If I approach you as a firm based in the UK offerring the same deal as one based in Sweden, which do you choose? What about one based in Uganda? 2. Ordinary consumers do care about where stuff is made. 'Made in Myanmar' has moral implications which a lot of people think about. Extreme example, but it's not dead. 3. You can't just shrug off regulation. What about the recent spate of court cases against Chinese firms for dangerously faulty goods? 4. National branding is exhibited in the shifting patterns of vacation and business travel. And is it really so much to ask you to use capital letters? If I can type on a keyboard with no goddamn visible letters, you can use the shift button.

We are talking LoF grade revisionism if Starcraft predates 40k. I have a copy of Rogue Trader from 1988!

Well, while I can see the coherence in your view, I think it's not what the peace prize is about. If you give it before the fact then a) How the hell do you decide who gets it? b) You are going to wind up giving it to politically charged people as it was here. This effectively inflames the situation. I think a is important. B is even more important, and although you could avoid it with judgement, but in light of the Obama prize I think the Nobel committee are hardly qualified to make sober and careful awards that mitigate the risk. I'm not saying the guy doesn't deserve plaudits. I'm saying giving it for effort cheapens the whole thing, and in this case turns into an Amnesty INternational prize.

That pelican should be given a medal for making the city a little better to live in! My car will rest a little easier today. I'm with you there. The day will come when I can get a milliwave radar guided laser system to shoot pigeons. Until then I'm going to use this waffle iron.

Well, a peace prize based on results versus one chosen with the (vain) hope of changing things. The committee has a long tradition of being activist. To me it would be a completely pointless trophy if it was only after the fact, but to each hos own I guess. Trying a lot is not the same as succeeding a lot.

Moon be damned! How are you in the presence of an open tin of anchovies?

Boo, if you know someone who says WH40k is a ripoff of Starcraft, then I'm booking a cheap flight and I'll hold the fether while you kick him.

Sweet Jesus. You know if you get bitten by a pelican you normally turn into a were-pelican?

LOL

A day in your office consists of being eaten by a pelican? How do I apply?

As much as I detest the abuses of the Chinese government I did feel that this was yet another example of the Nobel committee awarding prizes based on talk not results. If this continues it can only be a matter of time before LoF receives a Nobel for his socialist economic miracle.

Any, you know, whatsit to back this up? Evidence? I note a startling lack of successful distance selling firms based in Albania rather than the UK, for example. Because the Uk has both legislation and a reputation for upholding it. And nothing better to do.

Shryke is totally going to lose this. ... Can I quickly get my avatar a haircut?

Black gold.

Works for me, chaps. Thanks.

Sweet jiggling Jebus! I assume you're an ex Citadel chap?

How's the study going, though? EDIT: If it makes you feel any better Raithe has promised to teach me how to program in C#. You know, if you ever feel stupid at what you're doing chemistry just imagine me looking like an ostrich trying to swallow a piano.

This could be the burning porcupine speaking*, but in fact it's quite good. Or at least not so bad. Disappointing, certainly, and bloody awkward, but at least this way I'm not going to be doing a PhD. I don't really want to be an academic, even if I quite enjoy teaching in a sense of the challenge. Swallowed my pride and rang round friends and colleagues and called 'fire sale' on my services. Explained it was embrassing but I will be charging half price until the economy picks up. Got a fair bit of interest, because obviously that lets them reduce their costs in turn. Hopefully will haul the fat out of the fire, even if it will still be covered in bits of ash and burnt nail. * Not a euphemism. See earlier post.

Must be fun to play a character with INT 1 and LCK 9. If there's a viable build there, it'd be great. The guy stumbling around stupidly while enemies kill themselves in his presence. I'm sure I've seen that cartoon. That was no cartoon, sir. That was my life.

****ing hell, Cal. Will you get compensated at all? 50 bucks... because my dad sent it at book rate and without insurance. I ain't gonna be replacing half that stuff any time soon. Oh man, that sucks. I'd offer to send you something by way of a gift, but I just heard this afternoon that ALL my PhD funding has been cut. Feth knows what I'm going to do now. With nothing big coming down the pike I may have to resort to temping! Should be quite awkward. Still, never afraid of some hard work.

With genuine respect, Hurlshot just because you've been on a couple of holiday trips doesn't make the comparison laughable. People joke about South Africa not being violent but the murder rate s in both countries are far from humourous. Seeing this as a serious issue isn't just some fantasy of mine. If you watch this link you'll see how seriously Strafor take the situation. They have an entire feed dedicated to the problems in Mexico, just like they do for Afghan. What we are talking about is the Mexican government being denied access to whole regions in any official capacity. Police, army, and even navy are attacked routinely ever since Calderon declared there would be no accomodation with the cartels. Thousands of homicides and kidnappings have accompanied them. And if you think you won't see RPGs whistling around you'd be wrong. I'm not suggesting for a moment that the cartels intend a revolutionary takeover. Their endgame is a return to business without interference. Just like a number of drug dealing clans and syndicates in the frontier of afghan/pak. But in its way that IS a de facto revolution. A state within a state. My perception of Colombia is that it got ****ed royally during the decades of narco terror, and still has a narco fuelled 'marxist' insurgency in the form of FARC. An impression I've received from a number of sources, foremost 'Killing Pablo' by Mark Bowden. This isn't to say they wouldn't be ****ed anyway, but it doesn't help.

I can't begin to imagine how wrong this is going to get.