Walsingham

Yes, you do that you impossibly charismatic bastard. I'd like to see how you score with a massive blue pervert beard.

I ask this having voted Labour my whole life, BTW. But I cannot possibly vote for a party which is sloppy, late to carry out obviously important measures which it had no ideological opposition to - like the bank bailout which every qualified commentator I've read agrees was necessary but weeks overdue. Plus it is almost impossible to imagine a party who could have done LESS to actually win the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. defence secretaries who know nothing about defence, and keep changing. Budgets which keep changing enormously. Feeble political inspiration to the nation or the troops. Attacks on veterans and on the regiments. If I sat down and planned a campaign to render the British military unworkable this would not be a complete list, but it would be on the damn list! I have a lot of interest in Cameron, but at the same time the grassroots of the Tory party are the same ignorant shower of chintz covered bastards tehy always have been. What can we really expect from them?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhage...y-at-stake.html Thought i'd start a new thread since we have a handful of chaps here from the UK, like me. to kick off, do you think Brown can turn around his party's fortunes? This recent green evangelism seems to me to be a cynical attempt to paint himself as the Green Goddess, gambling that climate nutters may actually feel obliged to back him despite his total balls of everything else. Note that he is signing us up to a

Ah yes, the one party state idea. THAT'LL END WELL. It's not a one party state. Do conservative countries (heh, there aren't any) never have parties because they all agree on everything? What about liberal countries? Any time you have elections, you'll get at least 2 parties. I must have misunderstood your plan then. i apologise. I thought you meant that Red states had to remain red (and vice versa). Mind you, I don't see any real problem with national asemblies having a bit more strategic continuity. I'd cheerfully move to a country where I could depend on people being a bit less bloody intellectually lazy, and with clearer concepts of civic responsibility. And beer.

Absolutely nailed the 20 minute run. In one go, no rests, good pace throughout, and 1/4 uphill. Pressups I managed 20/20/15. Situps I managed 3x 30! No burpees... which now I think about it is just as well, since I was supposed to be doing squat thrusts, which are not nearly so bad. Did no squat thrusts tho. Never mind.

I would have thought it was fairly logical to observe that rather than history moving inexorably towards your notion of right it was more probable that your concept of right had been shaped by the direction history already took? I don't mean that in an insulting way. I used to feel similarly until I worked it out.

A man who avows passionate hate for our system and states tells us that something isn't a strategic threat? Forgive me for not being entirely reassured.

Ah yes, the one party state idea. THAT'LL END WELL.

If I have to read another of these pointless religion bashing fests I'm going to get myself made pope just so I can run over Sand in the popemobile.

Apologies for not posting in a while. I've been more focussed on actually doing the damn exercise. This month follows a fairly stable pattern of Day 1 - 20 mins run, upper body 3 times test exercises Day 3 - Ten mins warm up, 10 mins interval training - 10 mins warm down Day 5 - warm up and down as above, ten minutes of circuit training. Day 7 - long walk I've been sticking to this, and doing quite well for effort, but still failing totally to hit the targets for numbers of pressups and situps. I just can't understand it. Still, am clearly making progress which may be evidenced directly from increasing compliments from young ladies.

May I suggest we draw a line under the true/false debate? In either event the question is what do we do? Assume for the moment that the 'truth' is that man the cause, what can possibly be done?

I reckon the USshould do a third world solution and just cancel the debt. I mean, who the **** is going to be the bailiff to call that in?

It's one of the standard methods for preparing baked goods. In recipes, "to cream" basically means to smack the crap out of something in your stand mixer for a while. The method is to "cream" your fat (usu. butter), then add sugar and cream that some more. Then you add the eggs, and eventually your dry stuff and any additional liquid to finish the batter. Explanatory link. Old-fashioned baking recipes would sometimes just be a list of ingredients, followed by "creaming method." Thanks for explaining.

I can see them working with a good ale, but what do you mean 'creaming'?

Yes, and I'm sure Guard Dog has my back on this one. You can keep up military spending constantly no matter how ****ty your economy is going. Indeed, it's very common to do so. See for example, Germany in the late 1930s, and the Soviets during the "Brezhnev stagnation." Your reference to their economy is still irrelevant. No, you can't you. Spending doesn't come from nowhere, but then - and again I'm speculating - I'd wager you've never gone properly hungry for want of money. Economies make stuff. Militaries are made of stuff. Comprende?

Hear hear.

Deply touched, and hugely surprised to discover a work acquaintance sent me a note saying how I had cheered him up, and made him look forward to the new year, with a simple phone call. Yet again, I amazed and pleased to note how a tiny amount of kindness can have a disproportionate impact. A lesson for the Christmas period, I think.

An interesting article, Meshugger. However, while I agree that it smells fishier than an unsanitary mermaid US politics always has such shenanigans. It could turn out that the Citibank bailout was a good idea. I won't get really annoyed about it until it turns out that the decision on the bailout was both corrupt AND wrong. For comparison, consider all the companies who appear to have corruptly inveigled themselves into the (non)reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't care if they were blowing GWB on the lap of the LIncoln memorial, provided they had carried out the contracts satisfactorily but they haven't.

Actually, deriding him for using the term merely illustrates how far up Das Kapital you've been rammed. Fascism has few central beliefs. Stylistically it is in favour of 'strength' and against democracy, wrapped around a core of 'whatever the **** I feel like'. Fascist also had a love of death and martyrdom. This is perfectly consistent with Al Qaeda's poltical views, and certainly consistent with the training and mindset of their operatives. The mere fact that you are still alluding to wahhabist links in Al Qaeda underlines the fact that you are dabbling in this arena. The consensus for several years has been that Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood thinkers were key in the creation of Al Qaeda, and certainly vital in its maintenance and growth. The Saudis may have sent men and materiel, but men and materiel only constitute the 'tip of the iceberg'. Leaving LoF for a minute, several people have said that atrocities occur on every side. To me this smacks of intellectual laziness/cowardice (although clearly in this instance I know it isn't). There is a difference between the actions of a movement predicated on the sacrifice of innocents, and the wholesale use of terror, and our own forces who investigate, prosecute and punish people who do this.

I've been spending a lot of time with one of my exes. And as usual, having a woman around who laughs at all my jokes, smiles at me, and brings me beer is making me paranoid. She's clearly intending to steal my kidneys to sell on the black market.

I'm currently struggling through Dawnthief, by James Barclay. Now, it's a very popular series, but I simply can't see why. Basically so far it's a medium fantasy setting, with dragons and elves, but no dwarves or orcs yet. There's magic but - and here's just one bafling thing - it's described in the most mundane terms. Spells have names like 'fireorb' which neither give nor leave anything to imagination. In addition, the nature of the storytelling introduces charcters and kills them at equal speed, which could be awesome, but with all the made up names it's impossible to keep track. Finally, the plot is - so far - unbelievably vanilla. Find widgets, stop bad guy. I was hoping someone might have enjoyed teh book and could hjelp me see it in another light.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from...ent/8408202.stm I know it's from an embedded correspondent, but it tallies with other stories I've heard back from Afghan. Plus the Talibs are widely accepted to throw battery acid on girls who try to attend school, so it's not as if they are exactly anti-child attacks.

I did not assert that he fired anyone with control over legislation. But implementation is the key. A couple of examples I dug up in a few seconds: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/17/opinion/ed-epa17 And in case it looks like I'm only picking on Bush, here's a Clinton example which illustrates how bureaucratic management of priorities and manning overrides legislation. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/04/magazine...t&position=

The para inf squad costs 375 MP. You can drop them anywhere on the map, they can be 'pumped up' a bit like rangers and they can hurl satchel charges for 50 munitions. Equipping them with RRs costs 125 munitions. Two squads will easily take out a panther quickly, especially if they immobilize it and start throwing satchel charges. They are difficult to suppress when pumped up. They ain't rangers or sumper-infantry, but they are fast, durable infantry that punch above their weight. Ostensibly the airborne look the most fragile of the three companies - no calliopes, rangers, pershings or howitzers (in fact airborne's reliance on air support late in the tech tree is a big weakness, I find myself building mortars a lot). However, used skilfully the fact is you don't really need a support company or infantry barracks and can squirt tanks out hellish quick. Plus you get those supply airdrops for free munitions and weapons. I don't know why you'd be building mortars.

Numbers, I think you and I have already been harsh enough. Give the man room to breathe. I'm sure he will oblige with data if you just ask politely.