Walsingham

Nice one, Aram. I was just talking about this to the guys at the corner store and they observed that while we think of these tunes as definitive, the top ten was full of completely different stuff. Made me wonder how much about Vietnam we absorbed from films and artsy types.

At last! A clue! So Ed-D'Oh, what war did you grow up fighting? Weren't you listening? He grew up fighting Godzilla and the Vietcong* in the mean streets of Swansea. Congratulations on displaying the empathy of a psychopath. I suppose you would extend your philosophy to others butchering you for small change, raping and murdering your loved (a big assumption, I know, but I'm talking hypothetically and assuming you have a shred of humanity) because you matter not at all. Or are you a hypocrite as well? And now I wonder why anyone would want to live in the same society as you. Steady on there, Meta. It's quite normal for peopel to feel less emotional about things that don't affect their immediate family. For example: some kid being flung into a churchtower = mildly funny. My brother getting flung into a churchtower = hilarious. * Some people still seem to be ignorant of the fact that the main reason the yanks lost in Vietnam is because LBJ refused to bomb Godzilla or Swansea.

*follows retreating Mus? stepping carefully backwards*

Mayyn, I'm sorry to greet you with teh proverbial hail of fire. I hope we'll continue to see you here. BUt I really can't believe you've considered the consequence of your position. If you are honestly saying that you are unomved by the systematic destruction of an individual's mind, let alone taht of a small child, then I can only feel sorry for YOU!

You echo a comment one of my colleagues made last week before the incident, which was that it was too late to repeal gun ownership. I'm not certain about that, but having studied prohibition, and the subsequent war on drugs, you can understand my skepticism. What I don't agree on is the notion that a gun culture is somehow immutable. Culture is inherently changeable.

All excellent so far. Keep 'em coming.

I picked up this game Shellshock, Vietnam '67 yesterday, largely because I was too fatigued to see straight. It's a rubish game, due to the control and combat interface (filthy console game if you ask me), but it is very stylish. In fact it's so stylish I've decided to go totally Vietnam era with my music this week. I want suggestions on which tunes to listen to. That is name and artist, not just film soundtracks.

I still can't understand how late in the day you yanks get to drink. In fact, just thinking about it makes me thirsty. I'm off to get some beer.

Sadly I don't have that luxury. BTW, I caught this article, and wondered how it looked when you got more detailed about what it means to use kids as combatants. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6579487.stm

Went to a Turkish restaurant, and was dragged up to belly dance by the hostess. Now, an Englishman dancing is a traumatic event at the best of times, but an englishman with a gut and two bad knees bellydancing is practically an apocalypse.

Riiiight. Because the quality of the life in between is irrelevant.

Actually, as Rousseau notes, a "citizen" is a member of a city state (city-zen). Similar to subjects of a monarch, or the public in a republic. What if you live in a upturned milk crate?

Gentlemen! There's nothing to be gained by slinging ... erm... I don't know what the analogy demands you to be slinging, but it isn't doing us any good. I think, if we are being generous, that as Aram alludes the debate on slavery and the constitution is relevant to the debate on gun control. I may have misunderstood, but we are saying that slavery was in the constitution, but we have since grown out of it. We can do the same thing, and many would argue that we SHOULD do the same thing, with guns. If we are going to draw on the constittion here I would refer to the fact that the amendment refers to a 'well regulated militia' not random yahoos. The militia is referred to elsewhere in the constitution in ways that implies it is a regulated body of men. I have no great affection or admiration for your 'militias' but they have a far greater claim to the legitimate bearing of arms than any individual. Moreover as I have said before: 1) a regulated militia implies the capacity to vet people who bear arms to see if they are three bananas short of a cupcake. 2) is far more credible defence against oppression by the State than a mess of individuals

Absolutely. The British Empire narrowly avoided a total disaster in the first Boer war because one of the officers was practically a midget. He was the only leader in the force not killed by snipers. Lead his men out of an ambush. Also, midgets rock.

Yeeees. Swimming. I'm 100% with mkreku on the fact that you're swimming in the bathwater of about 1,000 people. Then there's the excruciating boredom! I have to take an mp3 player out on my runs AND vary my routes to avoid tedium. On the few occasions I've tried laps in the pool I became incandescent with the stutilfying process of repeating the same stretch of water/ceiling/ceramic tiles within five minutes. I'd rather be forced to stare at paint drying!

What if there are dancing girls and tasty treats? If you think they can dance around the snare cord then it may work. theres candy on the ledge... Candy? *pitpatpitpatpitpatpitpatsnickt* eeeeeeUUUURGGHHHHHHHH! *zoing* You rotten swines!

I'm amazed we were that convincing! Seriously though, the concept is good, but I reckon you'll be wise to redraft it a couple of times.

...And your llamas. And get aheliograph. We had them in the Sudan, you know.

Children are, by their very nature not osychologically the same as adults. This is one of the reasons that child soldiers are used. They are far lesss likely to disobey orders, and far more ruthless. However, they are also affected in by their own brutality and the brutality around them in ways that an adult is not. Probably because they are encoding those experiences differently at the time. They do not know how to construct defences against what they witness, nor that they should construct defences. The effect of brutality on child soldiers is tantamount to any type of abuse on children. It destroys the mind, stunting its development, and twisting the emotional complex. You destroy the individual who is the soldier, and many absorb the template of abuse into themselves, later going on to perpetrate abuse on others. I have no idea why on Earth anyone would consider these consequences worth the 'benefits'. The use of child soldiers in combat is utterly wrong on almost every level.

Are we not getting a little sidetracked?

I hope you won't be offended if I say I didn't think it was the best poem I've ever read. But it had some fresh ideas, and wasn't completely awful!

Speaking as a man whose knees used to feel 'kinda funny' before I broke them semi-permanently I would encourage you to take hurting knees very seriously indeed. Go see a good physio therapist and have them look at your gait when running, and also your foot/thigh alignment. New shoes may also be in order. And good luck!

I must say that I find that in very poor taste. If we can respect the deaths of 33 Americans in senseless brutality I thin we should give more respect to the hundreds dying monthly in Iraq due to senseless brutality.

I do not agree that human rights are shifting in a vacuum. We may have only arrived at some notion of what the inalienable righst of Man are over time, but it does not mean they have changed. I suggest, for your own edification, that you read: http://www.hrweb.org/legal/udhr.html

It's about 400 pages. I read fast, and particularly fast when something in written in as digestible a fashion.