Walsingham

"...Anything can happen, anything is possible. Time and space do not exist..." That really does sound terrifying.

I was just re-watching Dawn of teh Dead (the recent version) and have decided it is my scariest movie ever. I've had bad dreams about it since watching it for the first time a few weeks ago, and generally get very disturbed every viewing. It occurred to me that when something scares us a great deal it says something about who we are. I ws wondering what Dawn of the Dead says about me, and what your scariest movie is.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6368505.stm The report indicates that an anti-polio campaigner was killed deliberately in a bomb blast by people who believe teh anti-polio jabs he was giving out were a US drive to produce infertility. It occurs to me that while I care a great deal about the region we are on a steep slope. How can we hope to communicate and work hearts and minds with people this vulnerable to what are tantamount to claims that the US are witches? It's like something from the 1600s. I suppose my question is, how soon can we expect change?

I thought that was the whole 'underground lizards' thing.

I have no intention of starting a huge discussion about the issue, so let me just remark that personally I prefer the IWD series to the BG series. I greatly prefer the overall feel/atmosphere and the graphical style in IWD and actually think that IWD1 has the better story compared to BG1, but, like I said, that's just my personal preference. How very civilised of you, sir!

Dynaheir was great. I wish she had a place in BG2. Hey, I liked Montaron.

Leadership is about precisely the process of getting the apathetic majority to do make sacrifices for a goal they don't yet understand or care about. Your question revolves solely around the issue of whether the objective is worthwhile. However, I seem to recall this being about a man who volunteered to be a soldier then defied the very processes of discipline he must have known were there.

Speaking for myself I draw the line at IWD. Without teh storyline, and character interactions it's just a perfectly inferior version of a modern RPG.

I liked the BG approach. Some NPCs come with baggage, e.g. Minsc (superb) and Dynanheir (awful). However, it wasn't wrong before I realised I could hand Dynaheir a bottle of mysterious potion and in a friendly fashion command her to drink it. The rather predictable death was met with cries of "Good heaven's how dreadful!" Then cheerful whistling.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/listenagain/friday/ The play in question is the "Sword of Honour" by Evelyn Waugh. It's an excellent and digestible insight into how Britain approached the war. It's also quite funny. I menttion it because we're more or less inundated with TV and computer games about the late war from the Ameerican perspective. Britain's experience is well worth it.

The problem with tackloing overpopulation is that YOUR overpopulation is MY strength. Particularly where democracy is concerned.

I think manadatory alcohol consumption is a terrible idea. Given the power of big business in the States you'd all be forced to drink budweiser *euch*

I didn't know it was Lord Acton, and I agree with Blank. Apart from anything else I have against aphorisms, I disagree with ethe statement. Power attracts the corrupt. Duh! I don't recall getting mhy first penknife, with the widget for horses hooves, and thinking suddenly "I am going to do maladaptive things to horses".

What was the question, again?

Launch them from mine!

*bows politely*

Er.... *boggled* I too have wondered why on Earth I'm spending so much time echieving levels in something that has no point to it. This is why in general I play for storyline and characters. And why I haven't bothered finishing Oblivion, even though I paid forty quid for it. If there's one thing more frustrating than slaving for hours so I can be a badass, it's slaving for hours and NOT being a badass.

I sympathise with your perspective, but as Macchiavelli said "You can't move a man's donkey without messing with his ass." And no man enjoys government doing that. Or to put in a more coherent way, sure governemnt could move to reign in industry and teh developing world, curtail population growth... but they'll get booted out as soon as may be.

One can compensate for a small sample size if the size of the change is very large. So the statement "we are experiencing a significantly different global climate now to ten years ago" becomes possible.

I'm betting he sells icecream.

I do think it's a little daft to support a guy for his religious beliefs or lack of them. It seems to be symptomatic of our five second attention spans that we are constantly looking for some 'easy' decision maker on who we vote for arther than expressing our views, educating ourselves, and making informed decisions. Which, again is really the fault of the media for being so lazy.

How would changing the election process for the executive branch effect the legislative branch, which is already majority ruled, in such a way that they would seek to radically alter the Constitution? No state has more than 2 senators and the House is already based on population of the state in question. I was talking about government as a whole, rather than the slightly odd (to a Brit) subdivisions you persist in.

You write your constitution to guarantee certain righst and protections to all. Then you make sure the constitution can only be changed by such an overwhelming majority that democracy is the best chance the minority has. Certainly in any state where a huge majority, over a long period of time, wishes a minority harm sooner or later they will get their way. Bar outside intervention, of course.

what about nuclear waste? there's still no way of disposing it, they just put it in underground vaults and hope it'll go away. out of sight out of mind indeed. nuclear power is just stupid, sure it's cheap but the drawbacks are huge. maybe not for us, but to future generations. We (the human race) are about 10-20 years away from commercially-viable fusion power. Nope. What we need to do is create a cost effect transit for the nuclear waste and hurl it into the sun. Transport nuclear waste materials to an orbital platform thensend it into a trajectory that will make it impact into our sun where it will be burned away. It's a LOT less risky to put it in a subduction zone and let the Earth swallow it back down to(wards) the Mantle, where all the Earth's radioactive materials are, in situ. Or, as has been elucidated before, the Australian continent (for one zone) has been stable -- for the past, oh, 400 million years or so -- and is a perfect place to build containment. Just build the price of containment into the cost of production, and the process will pay for itself. Aha, so THAT's your plan, you filthy weasel! Mutant batsmen.

Let's try to be as clear headed as possible on this. All candidates should be judged (in a society which guarantees freedom of religion in its constitution) independently of their religion. http://www.beliefnet.com/story/40/story_4080.html?rnd=33 "I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish--where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source--where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials--and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all."