Walsingham

Good luck starting a business! I'm not trying to rag on you, mate. But seriously? I suppose that might work on a simple construction job, but any skilled job or where teamwork is important and you can't just parachute people in when you get work. You up capability then get the work. Why? Because of the time component. It would be the same for any large infrastructure change. If you move into new offices you have to take growth or reduction into account in advance. Government is not different, although I can see where you get that idea, given your previous comments on the subject. Governments derive their working capital from the economy they are based on. If they invest in things like better roads, rail, universities, reduce crime, reduce sickness then the economy does better and they get more money.

Damn those paparazzi!

How strange. When I look in the mirror I see a bemused penguin with hair.

I was about to do it, then I remembered that the pound is as weak as a kitten at the moment. I may wait.

Probably. I doubt their indian allies had much use for french mustard. I expect buffalo needs the far superior and stronger english variety.

Couple more points on military. 1. Frontier cities need at least five garrison units to deter the AI players from attacking opportunistically. 2. Frontier cities should ALWAYS be built on hills so you get the 20% bonus even after the walls fall. 3. Try to maintain a flying column of 4 cavalry units with 'flanking attack' upgrades whose job it si to travel to cities under threat and counter-attack enemy armies. 4. Being purely defensive wil make you lose. Try to maintain at least one strike group. Their job is to counterattack in the event of war and seize then burn enemy cities on the border. It seriously weakens the AI's focus on your cities, and helps reduce tensions in the long run by spacing out settlement. 4b. A strike groups should consist of four divisions of four units. The divisions are - cavalry with flank attack; they weaken defenders, and the fourth man is kept in reserve to dash in, burn the pace and get back - defensive, with mixed archers/muskets and spearmen/pikemen; in late game soldiers with appropriate upgrades - storm troops; swordsmen, axemen, macemen, pikemen with city assault upgrade. Cultivate and keep these alive - seige artillery; four of whatever you can scrape together I like to pad my strike groups out with obsolete units to weaken defences, and to be left behind on the march to distract counter-attacks.

Oh well excuse us for taxing a fething LUXURY after paying for defending you against the French. What else might have provoked your mighty yearnings for freedom? A tax on wafer biscuits? Hair pomade? You may take our lives, but you'll never take our GREY POUPON!

One of us has clearly not been attending enough meetings. Because to my mind 'producing' growth usually means capital outlays in infrastructure, training, inducements. Only puritan farmers grow more stuff just by deciding they're going to be more productive. Suppose I take on a new member of staff. It could be a year before they begin cultivating enough work to begin paying me back. Is that good or bad? Does this mean I shouldn't ever hire new staff?

Hang on. I wouldn't describe them as having terrible aims. They always seem to want niceness. I think having someone a bit woolly but keen could be just the ticket in health and education at the moment.

How is debt an essential part of that setup? Surely the expensive delays could be prevented by purchasing the spare tanks with funds provided from current revenues, no? I'd like to reiterate that I'm no sort of financial genius, but I do feel able to discuss what is surely a mathematical question. I don't know why you chaps have this notion that using current revenues is automatically fiscally prudent. Either you are using money you expect to have in this year, perhaps; which is going to be accessed by taking short term debt. Or it's money you've saved up. But money you've saved up is money which isn't doing any work for you while it's sitting still in your piggy bank. This may not be an issue for small sums, but sit still on a couple of billion as a reserve and that has proper ramifications. Doesn't it? WoD: you say 'living beyond your means' as if that's a bad thing. The whole essence of growing is living beyond your current means. The problem - I believe - only occurs when one's projected growth does not materialise. Krez: If you want to cite the space shuttle tank example it's from 'In Peril' by Skip Strong and Twain Braden; The Lyons Press 2003. It's a cracking good read, too. hurricanes, desperate rescues etc.

I think the central problem is that we are witnessing a collision of the rules of war with the laws of peace. The core of the this problem is not simply one of precedent and practice, but jurisprudence (I think that's the right word). It is simply not possibly to treat enemies on the field of war with same demands of evidence and judgement. Picture CSI Getting Shot in the Ass. So, being as how we are a democracy we have to make a choice. On the one hand this means we have judges insisting people who've been picked up in Waziristan can't be held. Indeed in the UK we just had a judge rule that susepcts have a right to hear the evidence against them which would mean a really REALLY short life for any human informant who helped us. On the other hand we are justifiably wary of the standards applied in war being applied in peace, and to us. We have to choose where we want the balance to rest. For my money I would suggest we draw a line based on where the suspect was apprehended, and the balance of evidence has been gathered. If they were apprehended in friendly territory, and the evidence is electronic or drawn primarily from friendly territory, then go with a criminal standard. If they got picked up in unfriendly territory, or the bulk of evidence is in enemy territory, then the reverse applies. The problem I suppose is where there's no evidence at all. I'm not sure how one would stop that.

YES. Just think. I could be a governor general, hammering around Venice Beach on a steam driven mechanical ostrich, powdered wig askew, and clutching a bikini babe.

Hungover most of today. Not much work done. Played a lot of Fallout 3. Considering buying the game of the year edition just so I can get all the DLC at once. Back very uncomfortable. Looking after friends' dog. Poor little fellah keeps expecting me to run around and play with him like I used to do. He's had to make do with a howling contest, which has left him very very very confused.

Although I'm chewing over the concept of STV, thanks to Krez, I'm still fundamentally in favour of FPTP. FFS according to the BBC the BNP polled more than half a million votes countrywide. Do we really want them in Parliament? If I were Cameron I'd offer the Libdems a couple of high profile but tricky cabinet positions. Health and education should be enough rope to let them swing from, but both are sufficiently well padded with bureaucratic inertia to prevent a total mess. EDIT: I may have mentioned that I have a friend who worked with Clegg through the election. Apparently he really is quite impressive, having matured considerably under the pressure. But he was described (with noticeable tact) as being 'uttterly driven' to achieve power.

Small aside: there is an excellent history book called 'Alamein: War without Hate'. My grandfather fought through the whole of WW2 on the front line, and he said it was one of the best books about the experience he had.

Loved it. Great film. Lousy sequels, but you can see why they became lousy. Fething producers boil down refine and ramp up keye elements while paring away the filler/impurities. If the fethwits were allowed near a bottle of laphroig they'd triple distill it and leave you with pure alcohol. ...then dump in a teaspoon of charcoal and peat and wonder why you punched them in the sac.

This entire argument merely underlines a conclusion I made earlier this week: that context is vital to an understanding of effect. Boo, I don't wish to attack you as such, but you seem to be the most extreme exponent. It seems that you are arguing that wearing the shirts is not and CANNOT be offensive because the flag is an inherently neutral thing at worst. But this defies common sense. The effect delivered by an object or event is completely interlinked with the other objects and events linked to it. For example, I just farted. In the privacy of my own house, with only a dog for company, this is a healthy thing to do. If I were to emit such a noise and smell actually from the podium during a speech by Barack Obama it would be disrespectful and offensive. Similarly, I can enjoy a cigarette ...unless I'm working with petrol. As for my opinion of their motivations I am going to appeal to Hurlshot in his capacity as a teacher. Kids push the line. All the ****ing time. And if a teacher intervened it's almost certainly not going to be just on the basis of what shirts they are wearing. Just consider the known facts. There were a highly concentrated group all wearing Old Glory. Coincidence?

I thought Clegg was extremely impressive this morning on the telly. It's just a shame he's leader of such a bunch of dingbats.

I'm kind of in line with Amentep. I mean for all we know the kids themselves may have been aggressive **** looking for a fight. I don't know how it works in the US, but our right wing have practically adopted the flag as their private hate symbol. Evil ****ing bastards.

Surely it's pronounced 'hotlips'?

Yes, because obviously you all can understand finnish perfectly? No. But there are people who can who I trust a lot more than you, sonny.

It's just a school. I remember my school tried to enforce a strict 'shiny shoes only' policy, so we took to wearing plastic ones.

Note: I am still pissed this morning. I can't believe the high vote for the BNP. They consistently polled at least equal to and as much as the Greens. I think people should keep that in mind when they demand prop rep. Unfortunately I CAN believe Gordon will try to cling on to power in minority government. What colossal and unmitigated **** that man is. i don't so much object to Labour still being runners, but Brown and Mandelson et all Need to f*** off, sharpish.

If there's a low turnout, as I suspect there may be this time, then you may be surprised how much your vote counts.

Sorry, WoD. By that rationale taking on business debt would be bad because the interest could be translated into cutting sale prices. Most businesses regard the optimal state as growth, and debt is usually the only way to accrue funds to promote growth in a timely fashion. New point: debt can be used to manage risk. Actual example: NASA acquire spare extrenal fuel tanks for the space shuttle at 50 million a piece. Doing so means taking on debt. But the reason for this is that accidents and faults in the planned for use tanks could delay the total program by billions. Hence a calculation is made to spread and undercut the expected cost of failures by holding spare parts on standby.