Walsingham

I want to see Preacher team up with The Flaming Carrot.

That was your answer to the Iranian nuclear crisis, as well, if I recall correctly.

I've seen so many conflicting arguments on this topic, my head is beginning to water. I'm going to indulge in complete fantasy and pretend Iran is simply perpetrating an elaborate hoax to mask its preparations fora surprise birthday party ...for me! :D

I am also confused.

If only the same were true of cookery books! No useful advice, except hope it gets better soon. Which isn't any use.

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/video/cabbie.wmv The BBC mistakenly bring the cab driver sent to get a technology 'expert' onto the set. The thing I love is that despite his trouble with English he basically gets across the key points. Either he's a smart cookie, or the experts talk toffee. :D

Come one now, you're not trying to tell me that wasn't you in Cameroon the other day? That had to be the most ridiculous false moustache I've ever seen. Seriously though, aren't we going in a circle? We agree or disagree on the notion that Mexes should be allowed into the US to work. However, I fail to understand why they should do so illegally. If the law is silly, redraft it. If not, enforce it. Otherwise, why have it?

"Only the dead have seen the end of war" - Plato. [according to the opening credits of Blackhawk Down :"> ] As for the legality of both the Iraq war and war in general, I can only recommend the UK Attorney General's official advice to the govt. It is exceptionally clear, and most interesting. Just make sure you get the whole text. I've seen plenty of anti-war sites that cut out the bit about war being legal and even obligatory where a nation is engaged in acts of genocide, or there is a humanitarian catatstrophe.

What do you think are the elements that make a great villain/foil for the PCs?

The girl on that poster at the bottom looks cute!

I do find it rather funny that one only ever hears civilians talking about blindly following orders. No soldier, private or otherwise that I've ever met blindly followed even an order to shower.

I like jediphile's approach.

Smokescreen if you ask me. Trying to make tough guy moves to shore up some popularity. I agree that illegal immigration should not be permitted. Either make it legal for Mexicans to travel across the border, or keep it illegal and enforce it. BUt it isn't that big a deal to warrant all this coverage.

Only if you can do the shamrock in the head.

I'd like to kill Eldar's players too. Seriously, though, I do agree with him. But at the same time, don't assume that an unlikely character isn't going to produce a good campaign. They can be the spur to true originality. In your example, why not read up on some pirates, have a tihnk about what his life might be like. Introduce crewmen and victims with interesting points to make. If he persists in killing everyone, why not have a few characters IN HIS HEAD?

*slam*

War is not a form of population control. We breed MORE after a war and the overall population jumps. As for the veterans, my point was more to observe that just because Wilfred Owen thought war was pointless doe snot mean every man there thought it was. I have a shiny collected biography of Field Marshal Montgomery, who was badly injured during ww1 as a subaltern, and he was an enthusiastic soldier. And thousands of veterans volunteered for the Home Guard.

Well, in light of these constructive suggestions I am going to draw this to a close.

Brooke? That's a famous Wilfred Owen poem. You're pretty ignorant for a war nut. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> *zing* :"> Point scored, sir. But I CAN recite the poem off by heart, so there. I notice that in your glee you ignore my second point about plenty of men who served in WW1 going on to serve in ww2 with enthusiasm.

Actually, the nukes have been ordered fired (mistakenly) on several occasions, and the human operators in the silos concerned have refused. At least according to a friend of the family who worked for NORAD. He was furious.

I mean the 18-20 years prior to ww2 when squaddies would be nurturing. Not some vague notion of 'national character'.

The whole point of military training is to get someone to engineer and provoke situations where the other fellah dies for his country. So it's very rarely the case that you get the direct fight or flight. Even when it is, the mk 1 human mind can't understand firearms very well, and rarely grasps that it needs to fight to save its skin. If it was nurture then why did British infantry, coming from a largely peaceable democratic nation outperform Italians coming from a Fascist nation?

I like pigs too. Excellent creatures, with some exceptions. I'd keep one as a pet if I had the space. I also knew that Brooke died in WW1. So too did a number of men who believed it was worthwhile. Even ones who died thinking of England, if their diaries are to be believed. Indeed, thousands of men who fought in the war stayed in the Army, and went on to fight in WW2 with great enthusiasm and skill. To name two off the top of my head: Bernard Montgomery, and Archibald Wavell. On the subject of oversimplifying the causes of WW2, what do you want? A book?

I'll be one of the few trying to fend God off on Constitutional grounds.

I've often thought that perhaps the reason all poetry is anti-war is because the buggers who thought it was worth fighting were out doing so, or looking after their men, not wasting time with pen and paper. "Damn your writing. Mind your fighting." I admire his skill as a poet, but beauty does not equal truth.