Walsingham

I'm just going to assume that you know this because you live in a tree outside their offices.

Wouldn't that make them LESS evil sounding? And in any case I don't think racist sounds any more innocuous.

1) Perhaps it's easier to sell, because it's better? 2) Again, I'm interested to see what you turn up. But I recall from many years back several analyses citing numerous officials, and foreign fellow travellers all attesting to it being a deliberate measure. I mean we're talking about a regime that slaughtered millions _outside_ the Holodomor for thinking too much. Being a kulak is practically suicide by commissar in comparison.

My friend bought me fish and chips to celebrate the new job.

I only just noticed, but Spain is wearing a really weird hat.

Okay, so what differentiates annexing, say, Swaziland different from annexing, say, Cardiff?

Chiefly my duties are running around the Old Smoke, distracting toffs so my thief boy comrades can make off with their wallets. Due some old charter we are only allowed to keep old money. Shillings, etc. And custard.

I now support this on two grounds: 1) I think mkreku would make a good dwarf 2) I'd like to hear Volo voice anything. Ideally a trestle table.

WTF did she want to fight the aliens with? Bad language?

Accepted new job. Surprisingly feel a bit sick with nerves!

Bit rich you mocking the Poles when there's every chance you're not even a proper Russian!

Could you duct tape a bag of earl grey to your arm?

So, if someone likes to play differently than you do, you think they are mental...interesting... If a man takes a good ribeye steak and boils it, he's not exercising freedom of choice. He's an idiot.

I couldn't sleep until 0330-ish. Must have been something loose in the night!

Not sure how your point meshes with mine, Zor. Could you elaborate?

Contradiction, no. After all, to a certain extent it's exactly what I'm doing. Irony though, yes, if you're going to say that doing so is stupid when you did exactly that twelve hours ago. 1) You kind of do. From the other thread (or earlier this one, asterisked if I can keep it straight) you were talking about post colonialism stopping the UK from interventions and replacing people's governments- which is exactly how much of the British Empire was built and even administered, eg all the Raj statelets that persisted until 1948 and the White Man's Burden bringing of enlightened administration to the Zulus etc. If you're going into countries and replacing their governments, inevitably with 'ideologically pure' ones, then you are being a neo colonialist even if you don't think of it in those terms. Especially with the inevitable double standards that will come in to play where you have to save country X from oppression, but country Y which is already friendly is AOK to do the same things. That's just the Raj principality program with the serials files off and more nominal independence. 2) Evidence required for it being deliberate policy, and not the sort of evidence that has Stalin killing more people than Hitler by counting all the Russians Hitler killed in Stalin's column. Sure Stalin was a monumental asterisk, but if he wanted people dead he was more than capable of getting and frequently did get a metaphorical Mosin Nagant for a lethal lead injection. It wasn't specifically aimed at Ukrainians or anyone else, plenty of Russians and others died too during the same processes, the primary cause was continuing to export food even when in shortage which British India also did on several occasions during famines- as well as the small manner of being the biggest international drug pusher of all time! Of all time!! and producing opium while the population starved. 1) It is a dangerous bloody business to go slapping names on things. Evocative. You sound a lot like the people calling Obamacare communist, because the communists had state healthcare. I believe one can deal in the business of influencing other nation states (using force, money, or diplomacy) without attempting an empire. Merely attempting to achieve security. If you assert not, then how the hell is a responsible government to deal with the World beyond its borders? 2) Better men than I have done this research. Do you want me to Google it for you? I'd almost prefer to see what you turn up.

My mother often said I should have been a lawyer. Which is odd, because I always thought she had a high regard for me.

Spent the whole day waiting for other people to do things. They didn't. Am now listening to the rain absolutely hammering the house.

Start in January, you fool.

*eye begins twitching involuntarily*

You do realize the point of a drinking game is not dying of liver failure? I'm not sure that's the POINT of drinking games.

Black pudding and mushrooms on toast for tea. Probably pasta using the oil as above, plus a little olive oil and basil.

All definite high-quango statements. Coincidentally, I found this image, reinforcing the earlier point about octopuses.

I should add that my opinion radically shifted a few years back when I got access to the Colonial Office files on Nigeria. If you have more than dilatory interest in these issues then I can't recommend them highly enough. A lot of work was put into planning good governance for Nigeria. It's not like we just snuck out in the middle of the night. There main mistake was assuming that power brokers and intellectuals and so on would behave consistently with our experience, and in their own best interests. You know, by making a go of commerce and politics. You can criticise the speed with which we left. But I think it was a combination of selfishness, and the fact that once you accept we had better let the locals get on with their lives, how long do you WANT to wait?