Walsingham

9 years old and the antivirus isn't updateable? Um.. not wanting to be harsh, but they're asking to get hammered. I'd be very curious about this anti-spyware. Locate it mand make sure it's not a double agent just for starters. *sigh* I know what it's like to do this sort of thing. Parents are the absolute champions of blundering trustingly about the interwebs.

If youw ent totally batshot crazy with the evil then why not die from hunger? You've clearly become such a towering a-hole that you've imploded. Big whoop. However, I would have liekd some more serious complications from being good. I was never good, I just simply didn't like being at the mercy of the little bastard inside me. The gae made no allowance for that, even though it had that option in dialogue. Very weird.

Well, he owes me. I found him his wife.

For some reason the picture of Himmler wasn't appearing. How peculiar.

That's interesting. If your hands are behind your back may I ask how you are conducting your inspections? I'm leaving the answer of this question to your imagination. I presume this means you've learned to touchtype?

Viewing inaction as culpability when you have teh pwoer to intervene? That's a mighty sticky wicket...

I have a friend who would precisely suit this coat: http://www.kaboodle.com/reviews/gothic-ari...uckle-tail-coat (image direct link not possible)

Thats not the same at all. Bombing the bejaysus out of people has a high percentage chance of catching innocents in the explosion. Criminal punishment is a focused deterrent on an individual found guilty by his/her peers/court system. So, it seems to me that the idividual thats been hard done by is responsible for that state due to their direct actions and society has no reason to feel bad about it. I find it hard to disagree.

Good point. Why the hell haven't there been any golems fighting the Nazis games? Golems were supposed to be Jewish revenge creations in the first place.

Please don't turn this into one of those threads. Over the weekend, I was shopping for groceries and impulse-bought a bottle of orange bitters. (This now brings my count of bottles of ****tail bitters to 3: Angostura, Peychaud's, and Orange.) Last night I made what I'll call an "antique martini" because it's how the drink was put together ca. 1880: roughly 3-4 parts gin (I like Plymouth) and 1 part good dry vermouth (Noilly Prat is the best of the common brands, and quality matters here), stirred with ice, strained into a chilled glass with 2 shakes of orange bitters in it, then garnished with a small twist of lemon peel. (Then, take an olive, throw it in the trash, and dump the brine down the sink. This drink does not need to be polluted with seawater to mask its flavor. If you must add one for the look, tradition, and to have a snack when you're finished, give it a thorough rinse beforehand.) Whoever decided to change the recipe over the years was insane. Ian Fleming, of course, is at least partly to blame. As are the marketing firms that popularized vodka in the West in the 40s & 50s. And the famous functional alcoholics likes Churchill and Bogart who insisted upon the 'ultra dry' martini, with a veneer of machismo covering their addiction's need to maximize their C2H5OH intake, did their share of damage to all our taste buds as well. OK It seems a little harsh to balme Churchill. I like my martinis extra dry, but I'll admit your version sounds very good. My friend who mixes me the only martinis I tend to drink uses Hendricks gin. If that helps at all.

The obvious solution to this is a game set in WW2, where your commandos are sent on a mission to pillowfight your way to the fuhrer's bunker and stop the war in Europe using a prolonged sequence of Bethesda style dialogue options. EDIT: I can imagine pillowfighting Goering, because he's always struck me as a big fat jolly schoolgirl, but Himmler? He'd probably put a shoe in the pillowcase.

Kaft makes a good point. It's the main reason why Sand's tinpot gunboat diplomacy doesn't work. Bombing the bejaysus out of people has little instructive effect on its own. They tend to just feel hard done by. In general, again, I think this comes back to a point that Cameron has been making for a few years. Government can't be expected to act in accordance with the wishes of the people without the people clarifying what they want the government to achieve. That means stating clearly and witha degree of permanence what they want in terms of human rights, punishment, safety etc etc. The state we're in in the UK at the moment is one of flashbang, micromanagement by pressure groups on single issues. Which is surely the exact opposite of how things should be.

That looks very good, you should be able to find something similar for a lot less. Just what I was thinking. I mean, frankly if I was going to pay that much I'd have it custom made to my specifications. For starters I think the lapel collar it boring. I prefer a high straight collar for the cold winds, and muttering into.

NO. My role is best described as 'commando scientist'.

That's interesting. If your hands are behind your back may I ask how you are conducting your inspections?

The only paperwork I've had to fill out for the NHS as long as I can remember is signing my name to acknowledge receipt of medicine.

You're all acting as if there's one sort of human being. Punishment does deter some people. Others it does not deter, either because they miscalculate the odds of being punished or they simply can't control the urge to do the thing which will get them in trouble, or they are essentially self-destructive and want to get caught and punished. Weirdly, I read in today's 'paper' that an accomplice in the beating to death and torture of a child has won their appeal against an indefinite sentence. The judge specifically mentions the fact that they saw no evidence to suggest the guy would pose a threat in and of himself. He will serve only three years.

But Kaft, I'll put a case to you which someone else put to me. Take Josef Fritzl. He's clearly too old to do what he did again, and besides which he'd be watched like a hawk by any new neighbours. In terms of protecting the public from him incarceration is totally pointless. But I for one wouldn't want the evil bastard to just stroll right out the court room.

It's an interesting achievement but that article looks like it fails hard. Vitalism means only another living thing can produce life. But in this case he's cloning the DNA using a bacteria. If I may steal terminology from Oner if it's not done in a glass tube, or with hammers it's not artificial.

I'm afraid one of my clients wear a coat like that, and although he is excellent in most respects it is the general agreement that he looks like a knob.

That is weird. I can recall the bit before right up until the anaesthetist asked me to begin the count down, and I told him to **** off. ( I had been given a morphine pre-med, and was loving it)

We've discussed this sort of a thing a lot recently, and once again it comes down to what we want to achieve through the justice system. Is it punishment, protection for the remainder of society, deterrent? As you may have realised I'm firmly of the opinion that protecting society is the key, and release should always be contingent on an individual being of no further threat (a probabilistic statement, of course). Having said that, mkreku puts forward an interesting test. It sounds as if the chap in question was genuinely unlikely to repeat the performance. On the other hand it seems grossly unfair that a spat of (heavily armed) petulance should be permitted to ruin so many lives. I think this may reflect upon a second question: when is a crime the product of disturbed basic mental functioning? It seems repeatedly that the courts cannot accept that the most vile crimes can be the product of a normal healthy brain, when I believe they can. For proof of this consider the behaviour of a mediaeval army. Soldiers in such armies routinely tortured, raped, pillaged etc, yet they cannot all have been clinically insane. At the same time the courts fail to adehere to simple logic in the treatment of people they find to be dangerous through mental illness. If the incident was unavoidable then the condition must be regarded as so deeply ingrained as to be effectively permanent, and if you plead mental illness you should be prepared to remain in mental hospitals for your lifetime. Going back to Victor Chang's murderers I believe the sentencing was flawed from the start. The motivation appears to have been purely monetary. The use of lethal force was implicit in the entire plan, and thereby constitutes premeditation. There seems to be no reason in behaviour or circumstance to attribute to the criminals any finer feeling which might prompt mercy. They have therefore by virtue of a simple calculation and absence of conscience robbed the entire community of a great man, and robbed that man of his life. Sentencing to protect the community need not actually be any harsher than given, since they are unlikely to repeat the performance at this stage in their lives. However, there is a case that can be argued in favour of the importance of deterrent. These two committed the offence as a business enterprise, weighing risks against benefits. To deter like-minded persons these two should have received a far tougher sentence, or more effectively, should have had the Home Office propose an executive order to retain them behind bars.

The closer I get to my ideal coat the more expensive it gets: http://www.bluefly.com/Corneliani-black-po...0801/detail.fly $870!!!!!! Although to be honest that one is probably badly made italian designer wear. I want it for the pockets and I have to be able to shin up fences in it.

Another day entirely wasted. Read, played games, ate the hottest curries I could manufacture with the limited means available. Dammit I want to be better! It's a fantastic autumn! I want to be wandering around, throwing things at squirrels, not by my PC, ranting about my crotch.

You have to admit this is true, Lucian. It's was always "oh, I wonder what the comedy geocities link will be?" I just realised I'm old enough to remember the old internet. Christ even teh fact that there is an old internet is worrying. Except naturally I remember it being weird and badly designed with hald as many animated adverts.