Walsingham

NWN2 could marry my sister, if I didn't like it too much to let it.

I don't buy the argument that it ain't Fallout if ain't rubble. The Pitt wasn't total rubble but it worked extremely well, IMO. I'd move my house there from Megaton if I could. I love the location music notion a hell of a lot.

Never ever heard of it, mate.

Ironically, I'll be f***ed before I'll bow to such a demand.

So you should be ashamed of removing Saddam and his regime of rapists and mass murderers? Both your country and mine have many things to be ashamed of, but the decision to go in is not one of them. Failing to handle the peace we can be ashamed of.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/killing-w...es-is-ju,11564/

Aren't all faces slightly asymmetrical? Or is it just mine?

Ok. I obviously didn't express that foundation point with sufficient depth. I was trying to be focussed on teh chain of reasoning, not each point. I actually think you're pretty correct that human's aren't generically bastards. We do cooperate. We often make the most tremendous collaborative efforts. However there's a big difference between sharing when and how we feel at a given point in time, and being bound to share consistently. This is the point I made about power, which I think is central to both this point and my whole practical understanding of human dynamics. People NEED to feel in control. The next time you see some poor unfortuante, even yourself, getting upset ask if it's because something happened which they couldn't do anything about. Now, having said that, LoF is going to argue as he has done that wealth will be controlled by local committees, hence greater control. I haven't fully formulated my objection to this, and need to work on it. But I feel very strongly that such local committeees will either be amateur and ineffective or professional and favour the class of professionals who will accumulate in those committees. More crucially, what recourse will the dissenter have? They cannot elect to remove themselves from the committee's decisions or the entire foundation of the communist state is void. Abuses of power become inevitable, and stupidity almost unpunishable.

I personally take no offence at Kaft. I'm sure it wasn't meant dismissively, and even if it was I don't mind since it's him. This ought to have been quickly settled since BRIXMIS has an appendix which neatly lists all the big successes they achieved. Unfortunately I appear to have loaned out my copy and I'll have to buy another one (my fourth). The real point is that defence companies like Raytheon employ standard rentacops to guard their tech. The main obstacle would be knowing where it was at any given moment, not getting hold of it physically.

That picture reminds me. Can we please do something about the crappy eyes in Fallout? Eyes are the most focal point of human attention, yet you can't even tell the difference between the colours. I'm not saying everyone shoudl have gemstone eyes, but it would be good to have simple variation in saturation. High CHARISMA characters should have striking eyes. And before anyone says 'post apocalypse', need I post the picture of the Afghan Girl?

And if that headline had read 'Dolphin breaks into child's nursery to bite their tiny faces' then I might agree. I don't know why I should think the great outdoors is automatically great, anyway. Black mambas are natural. But if you see one in the neighbourhood you don't **** about setting up a special nesting habitat for it.

I wonder if I could apply the same justification to eating pies? "I need to eat this pie because later I am going to bake a pie, and it must be a good pie."

Krez, there's a massive differnce between redistributive taxation and social services, which even the Tories believe in a little bit, and communism. Let me try to be more plain, since it seems my previous explanations sank without trace. In sequence 1. Foundation point 1: Humans are not naturally communist. They are acquisitive, self-centred, and driven to achieve personal power at a fundamental level so strong it is hard to overstate 2. Foundation point 2: The degree of control required for a purposive system is a function of the discrepancy in energy state between the system and its environment, and the natural tendencies of energy (chaos) in that system. I could find references for these, but I think they speak for themselves or not at all. 3. If you follow the logical combination of the first two points then the conclusion must be that humans may find communism acceptable at very low energy states (hunter gatherers like the Bushmen), but the introduction of greater energy whether deliberate or accidental, places intolerable strain on the control systems. The controls fail, and the result is either self-correcting failure which lowers the energy, or evolution into a more natural/chaotic pattern. History shows that the reversionary mode is a sort of bureaucratic feudalism. 4. Of course communism isn't simply an economic model. It has an entire philosophical adjunct. One part of which is the notion of revolutionary commitment and the obverse principle of 'heresy'/reaction. This is tied into the fact that they need to exert extreme and pervasive control, not just of the body but the mind. Imprisonment, re-education, atonement through labour, public recanting of 'sin'. These aren't accidents in the history of communism. They are an inescapable component of the need for control. ~~ My point here and earlier is that you can have communists in a parliament in the same way that you can have right wing white supremacists in a parliament. They can sit there, they can vote on road traffic safety measures, but unless they are living in their ideal state then they aren't actually being either communist or white supremacists. They're just ordinary MPs with **** dreams.

Yesterday I bought some merino wool socks. I could never have conceived how good they feel on my feet. It's like I have the feet of some kind of baby or angel, wrapped in cloud. I mean, not like those ones in Revelations. You know, fluffy happy clouds.

I can't stand women wanting to change me. I'm too honest and always object rather than just pretending.

Hold on, Monte. I think it was an honest musing on the part of Idol, there. I can almost see his point. However, the difference is that dogs exist as companions and servants to humans. Foxes are verminous pests which interefere with and attack out interests. Does that not answer the point? I mean rats and 'roaches are just being natural; it doesn't mean I shouldn't slaughter the wee bastards. Having elected to cull the little perishers I see no reason why the public purse should have to pay when there are rich folk willing to pay good money to do it for us. If it's less than Amnetsy International quality compassion then frankly who gives a ****? I mean seriously. There are people right now being pursued by janjawiid or what have you in worse conditions. Let's spend our time and money on them instead.

I actually dropped something yesterday and realised five minutes later that I hadn't picked it up because I figured it would only persist for so long before disappearing! And if it was a quest item, it'll probably respawn in your inventory, anyway! Jokes for nerds +3

You should read the book 'BRIXMIS'.

Two project bids in yesterday left me feeing curiously flat. I can't work out if it's because deep down I think they'll fail or because deep down I think they'll succeed.

I actually dropped something yesterday and realised five minutes later that I hadn't picked it up because I figured it would only persist for so long before disappearing!

You are truly ignorant. Simply because the overall leaders of communism were despotic totalitarians doesn't mean the average communist (especially prior to the end of WW2) had anything to do with such. They tended to in fact be progressive. Even to this day you have communists and socialists all over Europe who happily coexist with democracy and are staunch champions of human rights. You also have far right parties like the BNP and National Front 'happily coexisting'. Honestly, Krez? The only reason eitehr sort of extremist can coexist is because they aren't allowed to enact their planned system.

Can I interject, gentlemen? Surely the point is less how spotless the science is than how enormous the consequences of either theory. Global Warming, and especially man made global warming, both have massive logical implications for our individual and collective behaviour. Implications which include the loss of life, loss of territory, and loss of strategic interests which would constitute reasons for war at any other time. I don't think the Anthro Global Warming crowd grasp this at all. If they ever did get their message across to the ordinary public the panic, and the demand for extreme action would be overwhelming. It wouldn't propel us into a new age of cooperation! Linking this back to the topic, having the debate seeded with nutters doesn't so much bolster one side over another, but makes the ordinary man giev up in disgust and preserves the status quo.

I can't believe you all thought it was the TV station!

The beggar obeys an old trick of mine. If a player is likely to be absent make sure his character is prone to fits of extreme drunkenness or catatonia (the mental illness, not the band). With this in mind he's been canvalescing in a room attached to the dwarven chapel. Incidentally, one of the players hads found this blog, so I'm going to have to use spoiler tags at times. Please remember to respond to spoilers in spoiler tags. Apparently this will be enough to keep my player honest.