Walsingham

Parental accountability would sort a lot of these problems, IMO. You leave your kid running loose around town like a jackal, and they break a window you get hauled out of bed to apologise and get fined.

Two words: Hitler Moustache.

No magazine deat affected me like Roleplayer Independent. They had the best adventure ad-ons and campaign ideas.

It seems to happen a lot in India. I remember one guy who is now an adult with a tail. They treat him as an avatar of Hanuman. Still can't get a date of course. But I agree. It beats the hell out of burning the poor kid as a demon or something.

I'm currently failing spectacularly to woo a friend of a friend who I got recently set up with. She's a gorgeous and very sassy gal who sings and dances professionally. I absolutely love any woman who can sing. When they're a pole-dancer as well, and can discuss Proust or quantum physics then we have a winner!

[buzz lightyear] You're mocking me, aren't you? [/buzz lightyear]

I'm ashamed to say that one of my best days of work ever happened after being up all night drinking. I had to pretend I was sick. By brute force of will I held it together and I think as a byproduct my output was very hard nosed and coldly analytical.

We didn't think we were drunk last night until I pointed out we were in the middle of singing Danny Boy in the street, following a one hour discussion about the correct shape for young ladies.

I'm glad I read the backposts before posting. This just about covers my view.

I hope you'll take this in a spirit of fun, but whenever I think of Belgians I think of Poirot.

Pointless question. It's like 'do you oppose putting corncobs up people's noses for no reason?'

It's a complete myth that closing long threads helps the forums run smoothly. The forum software doesn't store a thread as a whole unit; each post has a unique key and exists independently of a thread, meaning you can make a thread as arbitrarily short or long as you want and it won't speed up or slow down the forum. Man, it would be awesome if I was smart enough to even understand this. I just get told what to enforce. I'm like that sheriff's deputy in the '50s horror film who gets eaten.

You make a good point, Steve. But revolutions are almost ALWAYS bloody, and insurgencies doubly so, as the comrades purge and slaughter moderates and intellectuals.

Tied up with a neat ribbon and continued here.

...Leading on from old thread. So you know, we have to limit thread size to make the forums run smoothly. It was ether this or the blood of countless innocents, and frankly that sounded like too much work.

Thanks for those. Randomn00b, I would suggest that 1. You read the excellent thread debate we had recently on good an evil. Both sides had a good crack at it. 2. I also suspect that to assert there is no such thing as evil is to affirm that you've never seen anything remotely evil. Lucky you.

Indeed. *puff puff* She was not alone by any means.

Well, torture victims have been known to give false confessions to stop the pain - but I believe that those instances were mainly when the persons were subjected to extreme physical abuse. They just tell you any old b*****cks. Whatever they think you want to hear. the only possible good this could do is if you were abstractedly interested in what people thought you wanted to hear. I should also repeat that it isn't just first hand stuff, or even every single first hand professional I've ever met and discussed it with*. It's also in page after page of history. * Amateurs discuss tactics. Professionals discuss logistics. Old soldiers discuss toilets facilities. Weirdos discuss torture.

No. What's preposterous is people who've (hopefully) no experience of using it claiming it does. If I hear an NCO with twenty five years and five operational theatres saying that they've seen it applied by dubious types teh world over and it's crap then I believe him. What's your counter-argument? "It works in my head"?

You read any of the reports, mate? He WAS a pretty good guy by all accounts, but he's gone bonkers in a big way. Weak, mumbling, indecisive, then furious. Almost certainly tertiary stage syphilis with associated dementia.

Aside from the fools who used it in the CIA I've never met any professional, police or Army (above the most basic recruits) who regards torture as anything other than wrong. It's not a case of "It's bad, but if only it wasn't." It's a case of it being completely pointless. The quality of information gained under torture is zero. If you want to get anything useful from people you have to talk it out of them. Read Sgt Chris Mackey's "The Interrogator's War" for more on this if you're interested. If any of you wannabe James Bond types think I'm seeing things through rose tinted spectacles, just read some of the stuff which came out of the declassified confessions of Apartheid agents in South Africa. They tried it, and it was total b*****cks.

Thought this story about a female SOE agent might interest you.

No time to catch up, but great article from the CS monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1117/p01s03-woap.html?s=widep Particularly

I think you are disadvantaged thanks to a lack of The Simpsons. In one episode Homer gets made a priest, and he responds by saying he can't be, because he "doesn't even believe in Jebus!" This is comical because of course he goes to church every week and doesn't even know the name of the prophet and son of god. This is played on later by when, in the midst of disaster he cries out piteously for help. "Save me Jebus!" And that's how you ruin a good joke.

On the contrary, most public assassinations are carried out by loners. I refer you to How to Kill. Ted Kennedy, JFK, Reagan, John Lennon. These are the really dangerous people. Thank you for explaining, by the way.