Walsingham

This is a redundant question. The question isn't 'Should we ban drugs?' the real question is 'Can we ban drugs'? Banning drugs, as in effectively banning their use, is inarguably a difficult thing. We spend vast sums of money and blood attempting to ban them, with the consequence that they are perfectly freely available. If we intend to succeed we can either intensify the effort (which seems implausible), or we can focus the effort. Intensifying the effort must mean cutting efforts on some substances. It seems logical that the ones we cut should be the ones with the smallest impact, and with the most reversible effect on the user. All this flimflam about marijuana being bad for you is irrelevant. The only question is whether its effects are reversible - and they largely are - and how they rank compared to heroin and the stimulants (coke/crack/meth).

'adumbrate elephant'?

I think it would make sense (sorta) to set at least one fallout in Europe. You've got so much more to play with in terms of the retro '50s. ...um ok I just tried to think of some things and fell flat.. but there must be something you could use?

Great now I'm imagining a portable, directional infrasound generator (since infrasound has been claimed to cause things like vomiting, uncontrolled bowel movements, lung collapses and heart arrhythmia...) You're thinking of that new perfume by Jordan.

I may be being overly cynical, but is it possible they are 'banking' KOTOR3 for when they run out of other ideas? I mean in video games it seems we will cheerfully wait many years for a sequel? Literally this just occurred to me.

I think I know who you mean. Do they have a track 'tamacun'?

Not much fun at the hospital but it got me down the other end of town to see a few folks I used to greet daily. Some work done, but finding it hard to concentrate. Anyway, good stuff, and more confirmation of new contracts forming up like thunderheads of awesome. May have to take on new staff, which is always fun since I involve all my existing staff in the process.

A lot of fraudsters are pretty dumb. They just repeat the same old lies and expect the same sorts of people to fall for them. The greedy and or desparate. My favourite fraudster incident was when one of them threatened another member of my team with a police complaint for harassment. Which, given that we had no positive ID up to then was greeted with warmest encouragement! Fantastic day yesterday. Today shaping up to be another belter. Heaps of work done. Good food. Friends around. Happy days.

a) The industrialisation you're so proud of happened specifically because the people of the Soviet Union - itself an empire - were exploited ruthlessly to achieve it. b) The British Empire was certainly sexist, racist, homophobic, and I have no idea what transphobic is. This was the underlying culture of Britain before the Empire. To assert that communist regimes do not indulge these traits when the underlying culture supports them is pure fantasy. c) Communism stratifies society just as badly if not worse, although I don't expect you to accept this because we've already discussed it as great length. All I can say is that it seems incredible that you could think Party Officials, Policemen, Secret Policemen, Soldiers, and other apparatchiks were not classes in their own right with a far more brutal and ruthless supremacy over regular workers and intellectuals than anything seen in Great Britain at the same time. Suffice to say I don't think anyone else is as blind, and would be entertained if anyone else would confirm they agree with you.

It would be an audacious farudster who'd claim they'd been around since last Tuesday! I'm not blaming you, mate. The only people I blame for fraud are those who commit fraud.

Stay well away, Cal. I agree it sounds like fraud for all teh reasons above. But even if it isn't what are the prospects if you work for a company that can't run either recruitment or its website properly?

I actually liked it. ...Once I got used to it. I've played through four times and only just got the hang of the architecture. The only thing I would have liked is to be able to spraypaint so I could keep track actually in the game. I wonder if the engine would allow it... That'd be a nice little addition. On that note, I wonder what kind of flexibility id Tech 5 would have... Mmmmm Obsidian RPG on an id engine... *drool* If the engine could support it, you'd think there'd be a mod for it already. There is even a chalk mod for Morrowind, allowing you to paint/write on any surface. ANY surface? I'm sorry but that would turn the entire game into a moustache drawing simulator for me...

Thanks, but on reflection I think I shall stick to air-cooled. I don't see me overclocking without exploding something, and frankly I've got used to the engine noise. I sleep well in cars, planes, boats and I think I enjoy the noise. Like Talia says in Mass effect, when the noises stops there's something wrong.

Thanks, mate. But I'm not really clear (speaking as someone considering it) about two things: 1. What DO I buy? 2. Is water cooling better than fans for actual cooling.

That reminds me: how's the domestic revolution going, Calax?

Obviously you feel those statements make me equivalent to a Belgian apologist. Very well. Let us suppose they do. Where does that leave us? It leaves us precisely where we began, with you posting hypocritical articles and trying to label all Europeans as deluded. It is hypocritical because you yourself fantasise about the glorious of communist regimes who are themselves steeped in blood, and you call it 'nuancing'. Is this not more nuancing of the Belgian empire?

Oh so YOU are the bastard whose not been poking me.

Yes, I do admire the man who industrialized the Soviet Union and lead it against the Nazis. Certainly the Great Purge was overzealous, but the net effect of Stalin was the defeat of the Nazi menace, a monstrosity far greater and more terrible than the Great Purge. I'll remind you that in four short years the Nazis killed over twenty million Soviet citizens, and they would have done far, far more if they'd had the opportunity. Stalin (alongside the Soviet peoples, of course) denied them that opportunity. It had its price, greater than it needed to be, but "Stalinism" was a net good for the world. *chuckles* You're saying Stalin, the man whose purges (pre-requisites of communism as they were) crippled the Red Army on the eve of battle... The man who personally over-rode the warnings of invasion even when it was happening... the man who went into a catatonic funk when the Nazis reached Moscow... This man and his system that was so terrible Russians in their millions surrendered at the first oportunity until they realised the Nazis were unaccountably even worse... This man was the reason for victory? Russia did not win because of Stalin, it won in spite of Stalin. On the other hand you could argue that without Stalin communism could not have survived the debacle. And incidentally, I don't deny there were crimes committed by the Raj. But since I have only heard about them from a man whose concept of history is doubtful, I'm not wasting time looking into them.

I actually liked it. ...Once I got used to it. I've played through four times and only just got the hang of the architecture. The only thing I would have liked is to be able to spraypaint so I could keep track actually in the game.

I'm still playing Moo2 and Civ 4 until I get word on all these new bits of work, and I know if I can afford a new PC.

Clarification: I didn't see Suarez play on the occasion in question. I've been talking about players who deliberately foul/fake to 'win'.

Which is an entirely different issue. I think unisex bathrooms would work fine. However, if the law states that bathrooms should be separated by gender, then the bathroom which is available to a transsexual probably should be decided based on whatever reasoning responsible for having the bathrooms separated in the first place. If it's not treated in that manner then the law loses significance and should be entirely rewritten. Can't disagree there.

Do you think he gets paid to post this? I mean besides his student grant.

Fair points, Monte. - I said I 'doubted' they could maintain people smuggling to the same extent without drugs to keep the rest of the machine running. I don't have a study to back me up on that. I don't know of any comprehensive audits of organised crime syndicates, but it's possible they've been done. My points was that to be effective it helps to have safe houses, a network of feared enforcers, and a distracted defender. This is all consistent with syndicates being pumped full of more money than they know what to do with via illicit drugs. - I don't know if you CAN fix Mexico without ending the drug trade. Mexico is always going to be the most logical transhipment point of drugs to North America so long as South America continues to make them. The sums involved are staggering and as we can see in Afghan even full intervention doesn't necessarily solve the problem. - I certainly accept that there are finite resources available, and that disparate populations fall into bickering, and violence. It's a lesson taught by no less an authority than the old apartheid government of South Africa, which sought to resettle black Africans whenever it got the chance on (usually spurious) grounds of returning them to their 'homelands'. I don't see how unrestricted immigration can possible help any more than unrestricted loading of people into a lifeboat. ~ I'm not convinced that there aren't patronising roots to the hippy-dippy insistence on accepting everyone claiming asylum. For ****'s sake there's nothing wrong with most of the countries people want to emigrate from besides the people. I'd have thought the logcal solution was to work more effectively to solve these problems, not act as a massive safety valve/brain drain until the only people left are too stupid or too scared to leave. Do we really want the whole world to become like Wales?

I'm planning on completing the order today. Just one last question: What's the reliability curve on these babies? Is it worth getting a 2 year warranty?