Walsingham

Trying to get into power. They are extremely passionate about it.

samm, I thought that in order to becomea swiss person you had to 1. find gainful employment in the country 2. collect 100 signatures from swiss citizens endorsing your application. 3. submit to the bureaucracy I call that quite tough. Either I have that wrong, or the SVP want to introduce some kind of maze with flame traps and wild pigs as a test. Or maybe they will challenge immigrants to get the golden fleece!

Interesting issue. I have a friend who runs an immigrant psychiatric aid charity in Switzerland. My opinion from talking to and visiting him is that there are a number of ways in which immigrants become likely to commit crime. He focusses on helping deal with the mental scars many refugees inevitably possess. Other reasons would obviously include impoverishment, and the exclusion in Swiss society of immigrants from certain jobs. However, I've been slightly side-tracked. Immigration to Switzerland has to be among the toughest in the world. Therefore it seems odd to me that they could actually have an immigrant problem per se. They may have immigrants involved in a high percentage of certain crimes like smuggling, vice, and drug dealing because immigrant cultures - especially isolated from mainstream culture - are fertile soil for organised crime. However it would be muddled if we ignored the fact that it is the native Swiss who provide the market for these crimes.

And one capable of scoring, no less.

To be perfectly noest I was running a pretty high fever, and I may have just imagined it was helping. It certainly ensured I got triaged and treated quickly!

I was stuck at a rural train station at the time.

Those are indeed some skanky parasites. The fish worm thing sounds like MoD outsourcing!

Am I the only the person who found this funny?

Awful stuff. Nearly died. Terrible wracking cramps. Sang almost constantly to fight off the cramps. My singing also very bad.

That certainly is interesting. What that tells me is that ad campaigns should simply use 'surveys'. As for the vaccine being worse than the flu in my experience that's nonsense. I've had negative reactions to typhoid and japanese encephalitis shots, and had proper influenza (the stuff that killed 19 million after the Great War), and actual typhoid. Both the real things were bloody awful. I can't speak for the jap enceph. I hallucinated small children.

Quiet, you, and fetch me more tobacco.

Tigranes, and Azarkon, your arguments are strong. Certainly national and smaller ties are real. My own loyalty is first and foremost to the United Kingdom. However, it is precisely due to that loyalty that I believe in keeping a hand in the international game. One the one hand this is almost certainly influenced by the fac tthat Britain's security is perennially underwritten by ensuring no one hegemony exists in mainland Europe. Preventing such a hegemony has been our primary objective since the end of the Dark Ages. On the other hand it is due to a recognition in general terms that nations rely on one another for trade, and can benefit by mutual assistance. Something which I have troublel explaining because it is so self-evident. Europe post-war is a good example. On the third hand* I believe that the national interest is more than just survival. Because survival is of course finite. All nations eventually expire. The question then becomes what were they while they existed? Did they merely grub along, as selfish as earthworms? Or did they act with some special qualities that demonstrated a superior resolve and energy? *Huh?

Then by way of an apology I invite you to move Denmark to Northwest Scotland. I know that strictly speaking I should ask the Queen for permission, but I've done her one or two favours in our time, and I'm sure she'd approve in any case.

An extremely lazy day if you excuse my cardiac exertions on the running route, and a short bout of Sand-induced apoplexy.

Crikey. In which case I would suggest that you exhibit more courage in daily life than any hockey player. Even one playing against women.

If I was leading this country I wouldn't have invaded Iraq to cause this situation in the first place. I firmly believe that a nation, and people, needs to stand on its own two feet and take on the threats, either internal or external, on its own. If it is meant to survive, it will prevail. If not, then it won't. I would help as much as possible, don't get me wrong, but I would not help a country to a point that puts my own in risk, either economically or militarily. And if I'd been in charge we'd have prepared differently for the post-war situation and listened to the generals who suggested we shouldn't disband the Iraqi Army. All of which isn't worth a brass dollar. This isn't an exercise in flattering your peculiar drive to achieve total isolation from everything except earwigs. This is the centre of gravity of the next 100 years. Globally and locally. As for helping only in as much as you are not cost anything or put at risk. Drivel. 1. You are always at risk, and every action and inaction has a cost. Your proposed line of action would reduce the United States to a fragmented mess of two-bit states, bereft of influence, or protection from exploitation by other less bizarre strategic minds. 2. I put it to you that you are talking like the farisee as described by the esteemed Martin Luther King. You are asking 'If I help Iraq what will happen to me." I've already made clear my prediction on that. But I also put it to you, as Dr King did, that the more important question is if we do NOT help Iraq what will happen to them? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_agUA-htonQ

Small aside, if you want NA 'booze' to taste stronger, add the juice of grated root ginger.

I'm guessing our regent thought "with allies like that, who needs enemies?".. I mean Lord Nelson took our entire navy (the second biggest in the world at the time) and bombed our capital. Talk about hurting our pride. Besides, Denmark has always had a good relationship with France - how could we kiss-and-forget. On behalf of Lord Nelson I apologise. In his defence I can only point out that according to letters of his he is known to have been unable to sleep because he was not "killing Frenchmen". Clearly this genocidal enthusiasm overmastered his natural finer feelings towards our no doubt gallant allies.

Sand, you are truly suggesting that if you were decision maker (and since you live in a democracy you are a decision maker) you would cheerfully abandon the entire country to disaster? As a human being I put it to you that you must be on just about the lowest possible rung, bereft of either compassion, honour and even common sense.

More context: A survey shows 2/3rds of British public believe we are losing the war in Iraq. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6976637.stm This contrasts with the view of soldiers of all ranks coming back who believe they are being undermined at home, rather than in country. They believe not enough is being done to tackle foreign support of the insurgents, and just generally get very irate about the total ignorance of the public! As I said above, there is a great feeling of shame at leaving in the way we are, after so much effort. Many have sevred multiple stints in the country, and many of teh officers also served in the Balkans. They know what could be coming, despite the years of effort to avoid it.

Since we never seem to get anywhere on this topic, I may as well revel in it and begin with Sand. In fact, call me Bill Murray from now on. The Iraqis are deciding their own fate right now. They had a pretty good stab at a free election and are now governed by their democratically elected government. I'll say that again, because it seems to escape the cheap seats. The Iraqis voted in their own representatives, and at no point have those representatives asked us to leave. The people who want us out do so on the authority of the balaclava and rifle, nothing more. I'll say again that abandoning a country, indeed abandoning an entire region, over a point of order in the circumstances leading up to the current trouble is nothing short of infantile. We face a situation now with real people. Do you think it is going to be of any comfort to anyone on the ground if we say "Hey ho, chaps, never mind the outbreak of civil war, genocide, ethnic cleasing, and the partition of your country between Iran, Turkey, and Syria. If you think about it we should never have gone in in the first place. Ta ta." We're in a very sticky situation at present and finger pointing, as usual, gets us nowhere. Since we've become serious now, I'll add that I am sorry that out troops are pulling out, as an obvious component of a general withdrawal. As you know I have many friends in HM Forces and they're none too proud of it either.

Denmark wasn't interested in joining the war, but considered England the most realistic ally if they were to join anyone - then England demanded Denmark navy, obviously we refused, they bombed, and then Denmark sided with Napoleon.. call us bitter loseres, but would you do any different? *thinks* Yes. I'd have puffed on my pipe then kicked Bonaparte in the chins.

Not so. It greatly complicates urine tests.

Indeed. Destruction to our heritage! A pox upon all beauty! etc etc.