Walsingham

You know I don't have any personal beef with you Aram, but you're talking like an arse. What on earth makes you think he didn't value his own life? Duty being an obligation doesn't take that away.

I've been to a few battlefields and I'd agree that the land remembers. Damned unscientific, I know, but there it is.

I'd say so. I'm talking a guy who is heroic in some way, not just some child-murderer. I've been to the German war cemetery at Cassino, and it was no less a place of reverence. Obviously you also feel sorry for the stupid bastards, but they still suffered and fought hard. In fact it just made me more sad.

It is very common to scoff at all forms of courage and undermine heros. It is therefore a pleasure to present this account, taken from the Telegraph, of an undeniable hero.

Plenty of molasses sugar, I'll bet. Mmmmmmm...

I get quite angry with professionals who make the mistake of believing in big battalions. To say that the North would inevitably win due to economic weight is nonsense. Mass is quite useful, and logistics are essential. But both can be easily mismanaged, and ultimately they both have to withstand fighting. Fighting is partly to do with mass, of course but it is far more to do with determination, initiative, and firepower. GD: I did not know that all the officers in the North were westpointers. Can I at least continue to take on superior airs because West Point was relatively young? Gorgon: especially early in the war it is important to realise how fragile morale was. You had enthusiastic men of all ages and backgrounds joining in, and being confronted with a savage and often impersonal slaughter. Fighting in a block may expose you to fire, but it is a tremendous boost to morale. Even today men have a dangerous tendency to clump together under heavy fire. It's also a question of control. The bettlefield was covered in smoke, very noisy, and you had to articulate these massive armies somehow. Blocks was one way of doing it. I'm a bit of an apologist for WW1 generals. The tactics they used were defined by the aims set for them, and the tools available. If you've been taught and told to apply attrition - that is grinding away at the opponent until he is dead - then standing more or less still and grinding makes good sense. They did try to break out and use manoeuvre, but when the defender moves at the speed of a railway engine, and you move at the speed of a mark 1 foot, then the breaking out is impossible.

I defer to GD ebcause he's clearly an expert where I've only read a few books on it. 1. Slavery: Britain's contribution to ending slavery was far more significant than the ACW. However, it wasn't just a question of morality. Slavery meant offering a cheap alternative to industrialisation, but industrialisation was the only sensible long term strategy. Failure by the North would have meant extension of slavery, and probably the subsquent stunting of growth. The USA might not have been in a position to interveen in WW1, and that would certainly have been significant. 2. I can say with comparative authority that the tactics and techniques used in the ACW were regarded as laughable by the rest of the military world. This was most due to a combination of cost-cuting measures, like avoiding the use of breechloading rifles, and the unavoidable amateurishness of the officer classes. 3. industrial might only goes so far. I agree with GD that the fall of the capitol would have opened the way for a negotiated victory for the South.

Essays: simple. Write a short comedy version. It breaks writer's block and you'd be surprised how often funny means well observed and interesting.

The only time that has ever worked I was aiming at something for the hell of it and his rangers happened to walk into the firestorm just as it landed. My opponent was so mad he ragequit. That was on Lyons. bridge chokepoints and water are the only possible ways to nail the bastards. Or explosives on bridges, presumably. That would be hilarious.

Me and you are cut from the same cloth Wals. Maybe I'm your alt? I don't know about on the forum, but certainly in real life.

Don't know why, but I just burst into tears when I heard this. Bloody odd.

Did the twenty minute run, with three breaks of 30 seconds walking in it. Top quality, head up, good bounce, ran hard. Less impressive I warmed down before I remembered I had to do the upper body stuff. Now I've got to get to meet a friend at the station and there's no time. Ah well. At least I did something.

Spoiler filled but amazing

1. Stormtroopers aren't rangers. They don't get instant free bazookas. Nor are they as large squad size. Nor do they have instant free get out of suppression skill. 2. MGs don't work on rangers because rangers CAN'T BE SUPPRESSED. No suppression, no mortar fire. 3. Propaganda war doesn't kill them. It just makes them run away, and it costs nearly the same as an actuall artillery barrage. And it doesn't work when they are in buildings. It is possible to kill one squad of rangers, provided you mass combined arms against them (about 2000 points to their 400). but in the same space of time the AI will have swung round with something else. Moreover, since they only cost manpower they are impossible to neutralise once he hits that stage in the tech tree.

That is why there's an amendment process, which works and has been used a number of times. And I believe your quote is from Lenin, not Stalin btw. True. But I believe out fellow member was accusing those persons who treat the amendment process like a vestigial appendix.

A paraplegic infant on top of my head like an outrageous post-apocalyptic hat.

And Enoch. Incidentally, isn't there some way we could sample comments from each member automatically on given topics, and allow choice that way?

Mate, I'm the first to admire pig-headed defences of tradition. I'm English FFS. But Your man Sawyer has a point. The fouding fathers would have had to have been ****ing precogs to design a system perfectly suited to life 200 years later. If that seems plausible I invite you to study their record in handling the Continental Army, and you will wonder if it is.

You just reminded me; what has happend to thepixiesrock?

I'm not having a go at Belgium. Anyway, I'm on record just recently for saying the whole thing has gone awry. I don't see why we can't have the no-war goodness of the EU without all the waste and misrule. Apparently the choice of these two was in order to placate people who are threatened by the EU. Frankly it just scares me more. EDIT: quote from the goon on the right "Over the next few months and years I aim to show I am the best person for this job," she said. "I think for quite a few people, they would say I am the best for the job and I was chosen because I am." And with scintillating rhetoric like that I can see why.

It's just the tears? Aw jeez. I've been going around with an infant strapped across my temples.

OK. What the hell is a registry cleaner?

Yes I have seen Fight Club.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8369674.stm I'm stunned. Have we really not advanced as a species beyond the point where people will be rendered down like whales?