Walsingham

You know, it's that great scene in The Shining. ADULT LANGUAGE WARNING. Skip to 03:18 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4nKL9smq7c...feature=related don't stress teh old lungs. I'll be right as rain soon enough. Assuming rain is right, of course. Odd sort of saying, really. Krezo, how come you've been handing out samples of your blood? Wouldn't sweets be better received?

I can't blame youf or being suspicious, but duping/forcing innocent third parties to carry bombs taht are remote detonated is a very old tactic. The IRA used these so-called "proxy bombs" in the 1990s. Extract from the book "Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA" An IRA technique used in the early 1990s was the "proxy bomb", a type of involuntary suicide bomb where a victim was kidnapped and forced to drive a car bomb to its target. In one operation in Derry in October 1990, the Provisional IRA chained a Catholic civilian to a car laden with explosives, held his family hostage and forced him to drive to an Army checkpoint where the bomb exploded, killing himself and five soldiers. Another "human bomb" killed one soldier the same day, but the driver saved his own life by jumping from the moving car. This practice was stopped due to the revulsion it caused among the nationalist community. Personally I have long suspected that individuals are being used as proxies rather than true suicide bombers in Iraq, due to the frequency with which operations get botched or the drivers of vehicles bail out on running into patrols. I reckon the offer made is along the lines of "Congratulations! You've won the option of beinga martyr and your family getting paid 5k USD! Failure to accept means we shoot all of you." Not much of a choice. EDIT: I got the above quote from wiki, but I have read the book, along with Peter Taylor's excellent "Provos".

Well, like I say it's always sad, because often they are taking kids of fourteen-eighteen and isolating them, indoctrinating them, and then turning them loose. It's just that using people with Downs is particularly symptomatic of their totally blinkered view of what constitutes 'right'. And that's before you think about the victims.

Not that I expect a fanfare, but thought I'd apologise for my absence. The short explanation is stupidity. You don't want the long explanation. I now have a lung infection, producing chewy chunks of infectious goo. I only mention it because a lump landed on my arm this morning and the patch of skin around it has gone red. this cannot be good.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7222809.stm Two bits of comedy for me. I don't know if anyone else will share them 1. The increasing size of drug shipments (admittedly not VERY funny) 2. The quote from Monrovia's chief security official stating that if the two and half tonnes of cocaine had hit Liberia's markets it would have destroyed the country. The very idea that anyone, least of all a security officer, could be so naive as to think anyone would be so stupid as to sell cocaine, a 'designer' drug for trendy ***holes to dirt poor Liberians literally collapsed me in a heap laughing. OK, maybe I have a weird sense of humour.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2251283,00.html I always feel sorry for the poor saps duped and brainwashed into becoming suicide bombs, but this takes the biscuit. If any of you have worked with Down's syndrome people you'll know how wonderfully trusting and free of hate they are. Interesting that Al Zawahiri said before Christmas that the West was beaten in Iraq. Clearly there are so many fine upstanding heroic male jihadis willing to become martyrs that they instead send people with Down's syndrome as suicide bombers. EDIT: There seems to be some confusion as to how the authorities know they had Downs. I can't be sure in this specific case, but it is very common that suicide bomber's heads remain intact if they detonate a backpack or vest. Don't ask me to explain the physics. Blast wave propagation is barmy. Anyway, although the outward signs of Downs do not always occur in Downs persons they are often present.

It's completely impossible. Religion is a retrovirus left over from paleolithic times and contracted from touching religious icons. It changes the way neurons connect so they flap about in the brain like seaweed at low tide. Which is why fundamentalists should be vivisected alongside other groups with proven lowly IQs like coloureds and poor people.

I think it's a little harsh to force the use of two long words instead of one short one. We need a new word to replace 'Indian'. As a bizarre sidelong view on this, are you sure you want to be registered 'non-white'? A couple of dud elections,a nd you may have to get used to living in some sort of wire enclosure and regular beatings.

Just to throw something in, a couple of counters to the paper ballot: 1. Voters who have to arrive in person to vote are very vulnerable to intimidation. I have seen gangs outside polling stations in South Africa, and 'policemen' peeking into voting booths in Thailand. Maybe this doesn't apply so much in the first world, but if things started sliding, it could become an issue. 2. how hard would it be to fake a paper ballot if you really set your mind to it? I've never given it much thought.

Rat infestation triggered again. Having trouble sleeping. I had a dream last night that I was on death row, and as I was taken to the execution chamber I looked around and saw the priest and the guards and the governor... and although I knew the injustice of what they were doing I forgave them. And I thought hang on, this has to be a dream because why would I forgive these idiots. And I thought in fact how easy it was to forgive them. How I coud see inside them and recognise their limitations alongside my own. How easy it was to forgive anybody, and how if I could forgive men who were going to kill me that I should forgive the many lesser things which had been done to me. ...Why the hell can't I have normal nightmares?

I know you're only kidding, but keep in mind the fact that you have to carry the bastard around with you. I know i wouldn't carry any laptop bigger than 15" for work.

It can find out ANYTHING IT WANTS TO. You give it permission to establish who you visit, what you say, where you bank, what kind of icecream you like... ANYTHING. I could pay them to stare vacantly up your nose, man.

I never understood the business of signing up for individual classes. It always struck me as more random and prone to over-booking than UK university. or maybe it's just that you blokes turn up?

*Drumroll* Flood A surprisingly good cast, including Robert Carlyle and David Suchet Highpoints: a general Mystery Science Theatre vibe. Unnecessary violence to a Scottish grandmother. A tidal surge travelling the wrong way up the Thames... then reversing direction. Lowpoints: ALL the soldier's berets were wrong, unmolded, looked like Russian sailors. The heroic sacrifice at the end which could have been simply avoided by giving the man two air tanks. OVERALL well worth watching. If you are a fan of bad movies.

Hung out with an ex yesterday and today. Lovely woman, with a really fun son who's sixteen and loves stories with guns in them. Back home to my proper home away from the family seat tomorrow. Oddly sad and hollow feeling., echoed rather conveniently by chill blustering winds. It's been a pretty eventful and emotional Christmas. Or maybe it's just a desire to avoid getting back to harsh realities that has me feeling blue.

I don't even know where to begin to answer that question. Do I point out that I'm not a big fan of drum 'n' bass? Do I ask what a double ristretto is? What is fully functional in regards to a warzone? How does that relate to a more realistic scenario? All good questions. 1. It's interesting that you don't like drum'n'bass. 2. A ristretto is a short espresso. Highly concentrated; like being hit with a sack of coffee beans. Until your nose breaks. 3. Most importantly, by fully functional I mean once at a high level of arousal are you able to engage in lower arousal tasks? A classic high arousal person, once they're firing at the right pitch is quite happy doing 'normal' things.

Out of interest, how many of you anti immigrant types actually know any immigrants?

OK. But what I'm saying is, how about I get you, load you up with drum 'n' bass music then send you into a warzone with a double ristretto and a string of firecrackers? Are you going to be fully functional?

I eat at MaccyDs. Doesn't that make me even more stupid than the guys who work there?

The aliens will force a meteor into our orbit that will spread the diease that turns everyone into zombies. Then a nuke goes off. Can everyone go blind due o the meteor as well? I like my armageddons oldskool.

No more a lady than you are. Despite that fabulous diamante twinset.

If you read the article carefully, its much more than just her stirring up anti India sentiment. It deals with her perspective on a lot of issues, such as nuclear weapons (the ultimate weapon for asserting the moral superiority of Islam? WTF? Is this woman insane?), denial of the genocide in Bangladesh, sacrificing the welfare of the Pakistani people in order to maintain the conflict with India, her bigoted views of history (Pakistan and India were never one country), her incompetence and corruption, her desire to ferment terrorism in India, her role in the formation of the Taliban, encouragind jihad and radical Islam and so on. But you are free to gloss over all these things if you wish. When one makes alliances one rarely gets to choose the perfect partner. But I agree it is only sensible to recall that she was not perfect. But then I think the dynastic progression in her political party should have done that.

Warm, and sticky. Ew.

Anyone who can come back from crack addiction gets superpower points in my book.