Walsingham

How hard is it to make one's own liqeurs, like banana or grand marnier? There will be room in my new house for such activities.

On what bass do you maintain we are losing? 'Cause I hear it from the horse's mouth as friends and coleagues come back, and they say the only place we're losing is in the media. But that's irrelevant, because as I said before second order dynamics dictate that the cost of losing this conflict would be a hundred times worse than any amount you could spend on the war. A big bug out would be a false economy, like refusing to spend money on firefighting when your house is ablaze because your stuff is burning and you need to economise.

A sensible conclusion, but incorrect. Firstly you've got a lot of burnt sugar in this sugar syrup which makes it slightly less sweet and more bitter. Secondly, and I could be wrong, but the process infuses many more of the aromatic oils from the citrus than in Grand Marnier. This gives it a much more complex flavour that works extremely well with ginger. The double helping of ice is simply because it is quite a strong drink and very viscous. But I just tried it without a second serving of ice and it's pretty good.

Long story shorter: I tried to make marmalade. It burned, and I ended up with a four pound block of orangey caramel. This was impossible to eat so I boiled the block in water and seived out the bits. this is the bitter orange gomme syrup below. Essentially, boil up a mass of sugar, orange, lemon, and tangerine peel until it starts to burn and you get your caramel. Provisional Name; "Budayeen Night" Two measures of bitter orange gomme syrup Two measures Decent bourbon or rye whisky Slice of lemon or chunk of crystallised stem ginger on a stick Shake the syrup and whisky with crushed ice, serve in an Old Fashioned glass over ice. Refinements possible: 1. If you are comfortable doing so, shake with egg white to smooth out the flavour considerably 2. Can be served with ginger ale for a taller and more thirst quenching drink; simply pour the ginger ale over the normal mixture in a taller glass. 3. Before serving, coat the ice cubes in the Old Fashioned glass with amaretto.

That sounds like a really good idea. Perfectly legal, and usually ready to be hooked up for electronic control.

Torchwood. Pure undiluted insanity. If you thought The Core had some mad science and suppositions then you may not have the guts to stomach Torchwood.

I think they have to be gunning for outrage. Next stop: flinging the Queen Mother's corpse at Buck House, from an orphan burning steam catapult.

I'm a little bit giddy from all the medicines I'm taking, but for some reason I have an image of Sluggo racing through the streets on a dogsleigh being pulled by hookers in high heels, trailing a cinder-shot cloud of cigarette ash.

I liked this reaction so much I thought I'd quote it rather than Sand. 1. What Sand is talking about is attrition. Define the enemy, identify the enemy, kill the enemy. Which would be cutting edge military theory if were about 400BC. The Romans tried to do it several times under - I can't stress this enough - under their most lead-crazed psychotic emperors. If you want to know what would happen now if you try to systematically mince the opposition then take a good look at ww1. A neverending slaughter without purpose. We don't fight limited wars because we're nice. We fight limited wars because its the only kind of war you can win. 2. The deterrent effect of overweening force is an illusion. Unless one is dealing with Belgium, for some reason. It doesn't freaking work. Sand talks bout levelling things, but the Soviets tried exactly that in 1979-1988 in Afghanistan. They bombed Herat completely flat at one stage. With the net result that it just made them more annoyed. 3. I have already highlighted Sand's patented 'one step' approach to system dynamics. No doubt he's right though. I'm sure the US could afford turning itself into a fortress once it had cut all ties with the outside world. EDIT! STOP PRESS! I just worked out how to explain second order dynamics. OK, Sando it works like this. You seem fixated on first order dynamics. Imagine if you will that you are standing next to a large metal pendulum at rest. You don't like having this big lump o'metal next to you so you give it a hard shove. In first order dynamics it moves away from you. You are happy. The trouble you seem to be having is in second order dynamics. This is when the move you made plays out over time, the pendulum swings back and smacks you in the ear. You are concussed, and there is much hilarity.

Rowwrrr! Grrr! Snap snap! *ahem* Speaking of stalking there was an absolutely gorgeous girl on the train yesterday. Like a young Monica Belluci. However, being a gentleman I refrained from trying to chat her up. The constant rattling wheeze from my lung infection may also have had something to do with it.

That's n interesting point. There's a much more defined barrier to MMO take-up, because of the time factor. Or to give an example, I can buy a shooter or flight sim every week if I want to, complete it and move on. But the MMOs keep ticking, and clog bandwidth for newer MMOs trying to break through.

Sure you'd hate it if you got bad feedback, but there's a world of difference between being late on a first payment as you get set up and being a constant complainer always trying to weasel compensation. This smacks of some buffel-headed sales/PR drone staring limpidly into space and murmuring "People fighting, like, makes the site tense and upsets smoothness. And stuff." Far better to have transparency in my book.

Quick one: I love it when Sand gets all butch, talking about "killing them all". Sando, there are literally millions of Al Qaeda sympathisers out there. If you want to send us chaps out to kill them we'd be grateful if you could find some method of correctly distinguising between them and patriots/poor people. And find us a really big hole. Which brings me to: I wonder how much of each candidate's policy is purely down to distinguishing themselves from the other candidiates? Assuming GD's observations on Obama's foreign policy represent statements he's made (and it would be rude to do otherwise) they seem extraordinary. Viz: "1) Pull out of Iraq now no matter the consequences. That will of course leaves another war to fight 10 years later just like the gulf war did. 2) Negotiate with Iran and Al Qaeda (as if that were possible). 3) "Take our allies to task" were his exact words. He has even mentioned attacking Pakistan." 1. Who the hell is advising this guy? I don't know any professional sources (and I exclude terminally lazy op ed journalists from this) who believe a precipitate pullout would provoke anything other than a maelstrom of killing, and a festering failed state. Some even believe it would lead to an expanded Iran, leading to a showdown between Iran and Saudi, which would necessitate an immediate RETURN to the Gulf for the USA. 2. Negotiation with elements of Al Qaeda and the Taliban is sensible. But the degree to which it is sensible is already being done. Believing you can negotiate with a group which has as its purpose a worlwide religious dictatorship as its end goal, and the erasure of the last seven hundred years as its end goal is fairyland. 3. We obviously have to apply pressure to allies who do stuff we don't like. But there are times to do so and times not to do so. And: While I hate to say it, with so much riding on foreign policy toward old skool countries with no feminism, is having a female President just going to egg the resentment pudding?* *Resentment pudding is like distressed pudding, but with more laxatives and thalidomide.

Al Qaeda now recruiting child soldiers. Not the de rigeur 15 year olds of Africa, but 11. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7231829.stm Echoes the sentiment: http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=48888 That they are getting increasingly desperate. The news in general is full of stories of locals being sick and tired of jifascists running around slaughtering anyone they suspect of impurity and whatnot.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7228460.stm Ebay plans to abolish the right of sellers to leave negative comments about buyers. This strikes me as nonsense. The fact is that the world contains a percentage of unreiable eedjits and fraudsters. Of these many will make their way onto ebay. Sellers should have the right to respond.

As a matter of fact is isn't, any more than writing clear English is a prerequisite of being a member. Your statement "After ToEE I am wary of any game that has Tim Caine's handiwork in it." I took to imply that after you witnessed ToEE his games were suspect in your eyes. Rather than his game making ability suddenly went kablooie after writing ToEE.

I've held off tracking the elections up until this morning, since I had better things to do. But my lung infection has got worse and I'm loafing about wheezing. My considered opinion is that if I were voting I'd pick McCain from the Republican camp. He has his head on square about Iraq, and is considered to be maverick and not socially conservative enough by the party's far right. The former is important because I feel Iraq is a hugely important historical crossroads. The latter is important because I find social conservatives as welcome as a prophylactic full of fire ants. My ill considered opinion of the democrats, which is still out, is that I think Clinton has got potential to win, but the last thing America needs is a repeat of the dilatory Clinton years. Nor do they need her to go Rambo as the first female president (like Thatcher) and rush about putting smackdowns on everything just to prove she can play with the boys. Obama strikes me as the best social and economic voice, with the major flaw that he doesn't seem to have a policy on Iraq besides "leg it". I've only been reading for the last couple of hours, so please do correct me if I 'm wrong.

You mean, like Fallout?

Quick! Someone fetch a large map, and some pins.

I had already grasped the importance of not looking too snazzy. But thank you for pressing the point in case I hadn't. It is important. However the whole point is that with IR, tremblers, mics and motion sensors you don't really show much of a profile. Unless the burglars have IR themselves, in which case I say points for effort.

how could it not be Boo?

We've had some snow here in the UK. I keep being in teh wrong part of the country when it is though. Worse luck. I love snow.

The Sandbox?

Or knows several techies, and has access to fresh doughnuts and real ale.

Great thoughts, hgentlemen. I particularly like leaving a bobytrapped eldster in the front parlour, but sadly have no grandparents left besides my gradfather and since he already fought for six years for his country I think it would be churlish to make any further demands on his time. I agree that strong doors are a high priority. I'm going to also go with new tough double-glazing on the windows. Active IR 7-12nm external, tinkle sensors on the windows, motion sensors and microphones internally feeding to a bayesian alarm controller, triggering an audible alarm and remote dialling of preset numbers. And a pig on a piece of string. Boobytrapping stuff sounds quite interesting, although it would have to be plausibly deniable. I'm pretty sure a UK court would award damages to the thief!