Walsingham

****ing hell, Cal. Will you get compensated at all?

Actually, Cal I'd have to back WoD on this one. Even in my circle there's not much awareness about Mexico, although Stratfor.com has been banging on about it for a couple of years. At least prior to the most recent events. In many ways I'd say that Mexico is much like Afghan. But before anyone chews me out I mean that the violence is inseparable from the War on Drugs. You simply can't expect a country with Mexico's GDP to tackle an 'insurgency ' that is so well funded and motivated.

Not sure I'm going to be able to make my date this evening. I feel like I have a porcupine stuck in my larynx. And it's on fire.

Reading the Left 4 Dead wiki for the 'Green Flu' I noticed that smart advertising is displaying an ad for Strepsils throat lozenges. That is blackly comic in the extreme, and someone should adapt the cartoon ad so the coughing lady bites the guy's face off.

Mine came out about half an inch away from where it should have been. Actually, I'm not sure I'd have the balls to do it any more.

Just finishing Born Fi' Dead by Laurie Gunst. This is a (relatively) famous book, and in my opinion covers both extremes of excellence and failure in investigative crime reporting. On the one hand Gunst manages to get inside the Jamaican posses, both at home and in the USA. She uses this access to unearth details, and paint a very vivid picture of how they see themselves. Her failure is that she seems to go completely native. That is to say she buys into the narrative version of life painted by the gangsters. Nothing, it seems, is their fault. She quotes their poetry, she describes (several times) their sexual magnetism, and revels in their acceptance. Yet these are multi-multi murderers and peddlers of crack cocaine. Certainly Jamaica has not been helped by its history, its culture, or its neighbours. But these are the men boiling the skin off people, not the ghosts of long dead planters. What saves the book for me is that by betraying herself so transparently I was left feeling she must have been aware of falling short. Just as the gangsters confess through a glass darkly, so does she. And there is, after all, some considerable moral and physical courage which underpins the attempt in the first place. More importantly she cares for her interviewees, andthey for her. Which makes this account both remarkable and an object lesson. I genuinely recommend it.

Your reply is probably more measured than I deserve. The marxist angle is not evident from their wiki page, but comes out through their intellectual sponsors (which you can explore on wiki) and particularly in precisely the subversive approach that they apply and which you remark on. Much of their economic 'policy' surrounding the worldwide Islamic state they pursue is based on marxist notions. From slaves unto God to slaves unto the state of God is hardly a great leap, after all. ~~ On the tactical subject, a stun grenade is hardly entirely safe, and the damage done by it will vary with proximity. Nor do we have the least notion what drove the soldier concerned to toss any form of grenade into the room. They may have received fire from inside it, or been told the hostage was being held elsewhere. I do not say this to preclude censure by proper investigation, but to object to the immediate incompetence angle seized on by the press. As has been said before, more approprium seems to attach itself to the hostage rescue team than the benighted greedy ****ers who took her hostage in the first place!

I shall give you the same advice I was given: let the little bastard have its way and grow right through. Keep it clean and disinfected throughout. Worked for me. hurts like a ***** if you accidentally kick something though or if someone steps on your foot I know. But the alternative is to keep trimming it, or to have surgery. Either leaves one weaker, where my solution leaves the nail stronger.

Allow me to vent my fevered spleen: 1. How in God's name is it strange? It's a firefight we're talking about here, not a game of chess. Never mind the fact that we're all yakking about second or probably 15th hand reports. 2. The Muslim Brotherhood have been around since the 70s, and have been anti U.S. the entire time. They are also Marxist influenced and thereby dingbats. The fact that they have a big following is hardly news. So what exactly IS news about this? The article you linked to seemed more interested in provoking alarmist flapping than providing useful warning of anything.

I shall give you the same advice I was given: let the little bastard have its way and grow right through. Keep it clean and disinfected throughout. Worked for me.

To be fair on the families side, they did ask the Americans not to go gung-ho and charge in, because they knew some people that were negotiating for their daughters release.. So I can understand why they're so pissed that the Americans went in anyway.. But yes, I'm amazed at the one-sided reporting again. According to the Telegraph the decision to go in was prompted by intelligence suggesting she was about to be moved across the 'border' to Pakistan, and into the hands of a different and more violent group. To the best of my knowledge every manual on special operations warfare is scathing on the topic of political leaders second guessing tactical behaviour. If that is so, how much less helpful is it for civilians to do it? If anyone is interested the best book I've ever read on the topic is by William H. McRaven Special Operations Warfare, Theory and Practice. For what my opinoni is worth, of course!

I noticed that too. As if hostage rescue is a quiet controlled process and only incompetence can explain the hostage dying. What a bunch of wankers journos are.

Well my comment wasn't aimed at you Wals, but since I live in a student city.. I'm forever stumbling over alcohol ganked up students around town on the weekends. After all, there's something to be said for quiet parties where you drink a bit to the merry side, and have a raging fire pit in the backyard while the guys sit back with some fine spirits and cigars brought back from mexico, cuba and points around there.. But I just can't get into the mindset of several associates who drink to the point of throw up/pass out.. purely for the sake of reaching that point and declaring it fun.. If you're trying to reach unconsciousness for other reasons, that I can understand.. but to say it's fun is something I just don't get... I take it you've never tried to do a 360 degree backflip from a standing start just to see if you can?

I was raised the same way. However, when I got older I discovered that one can mix alcohol with overexcited females, chips, and running around very fast, while laughing. This particular c*cktail is most habit forming. Nevertheless I've decided I need a proper detox chance for my liver after all the boozing I've done in recent years just to stay sane.

Troo dat. Also, the notion that some middle eastern dingbat saying he hates the Great Satan is news is a little alarming in itself. The really alarming tidbit which should be scaring the trousers off us is that around 100,000 young men come of age in Egypt every year (Ok, I don't remember where I heard this, but it was quite reputable. Unless I was drunk.) and there's not nearly enough jobs for them all. It's just not possible to imagine NO political violence with that many unemployed beefers hoofing around.

Having got the blues out of my system from last week, into this one with a will. Discretely sent around my CV just in case everything goes belly up and I need to sell out to some ghastly multinational. Good weekend with lots of pretty ladies at the wedding, which was jaw-droppingly insane. How else can you describe a spiritual service which was one part best-man's speech and one part scat singing? The only upside wasthat it was so mad all the vaguely normal people in the family got along splendidly. I have also sworn off alcohol for a month, more or less just to see if I can.

Rabid opossums has nothing on drop bears... Besides I hate those noisy little buggers. If you thought cat fighting was bad, try getting sleep while territorial opossums slug it out With shotguns.

*FAPFAPFAP* (selective reading at it's best) Pretty much.

I STILL can't believe the daft sod is dead. I've actually been sticking more than usual to my diet and my exercises due to teh thought of him calling me on it.

Hey, Stampede. How about a poem....

Oh, I think it's fun. I'm just saying I'm seriously tempted to try it to win on high diff. And thanks, Deraldin. You were right about renaming.

I love how as of 10 votes, no one chose the doctors. For myself: 1) Any woman I love is going to haunt the **** out of me for not saving her. I tend to go for tenacious women. 2) If I love her, then by definition that includes letting doctors die. A more interesting question would be whether you'd save your best friend or the woman you love. And anyone who thought "the woman I wub IS my best friend" should immediately report to the French Foreign Legion.

I like the streamlining. No more accountant tasticness. Is it just me or is the german special ability hilarious? I had a twenty strong army by the time we hit the middle ages. If we'd been on pangea then I'd have been able to conq everyone almost immediately.

OK, you're both scaring me now. Surely the logical thing to feed it in London would be rats? And as for a location, what about an abandoned 1940s civil defence shelter? Then you can put it anywhere you like.

Sausage therapy is for a broken heart, you fool! In more ways than one... As for my new physio, let me tell you that I've NEVER been so glad of strong self discipline as when the most attractive woman I've seen in ages* stripped me to my pants, telling me to close my eyes, and carried out a check of my spine's tactile functioning by stroking my whole body very lightly then hitting me with a hammer. EDIT: Note that under the glorious NHS I get all this for FREE! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! *I was going to say a specific time, but you never know who's reading.