Walsingham

One eye-witness reported seeing an 'abandoned jumper' which then exploded. If that is a typical size, and the explosives are non military then fatalities per device should be fairly low. I also just thought that this kind of thing is happening daily to the poor sods in Iraq. We should spare them a thought.

Mother Theresa was not as nice as Role-Player. The myth of Mother Theresa is far sweeter than the reality. Which is a shame. But the myth inspires people nonetheless, so no bad, IMO. I believe we all should dream of perfect peace and tolerance, however often we are obliged to compromise our actions by reality. Just as we should dream of a world free from disease, however much we must allow for it not happening. EDIT: Sorry, that was a pretty cheap shot. I will now return to my usual cynical exterior.

last figure I heard is that she costs 20 million, and generates 100 million. Which means she sustains about four large hospitals. Not bad. The only thing I do object to is the civil list. There are nth cousins of the queen who do nothing but canter about trying to wear more outrageous clothes than their peers, who get thousands a year. ...Then attack the welfare state!

Hear hear.

Hildegard it's not collateral damage when you are aiming at the civilians in the first place! Or are you suggesting the terrorists wanted to blow up Horse Guards, and missed?

The wife of one of my colleagues appears to have been injured. I may be obliged to absent myself lest I lose my temper. She is Indian, btw, so I'm not sure how she's responsible for any colonialsim, but if she survives I'll be sure to tell her she deserved it.

New Orleans after Mardi Gras?

I don't want to see him banned. he can stay here and get ignored as long as he likes. Rather that than he was elsewhere confusing the impressionable. And Hildegard, you're being weird again. I never accused you of being an Islamist and we blatantly don't agree. EDIT: Darth is quite right. We don't call the IRA or Loyalists Christian terrorists. I've tried to make the distinction by saying Islamist. I hope I was clear.

No normal person ever read history and said "Wow, this really seems to have sucked. In fact it makes me so mad i'm going to go out and blow people up." Abnormal people become terrorists and use history as an excuse for their desires. Actual terrorists generally are either sociopathically indifferent to suffering, megalomaniacs, or have a change of heart after a few operations. I've met and interviewed several, in case book learning won't cut the mustard.

Hmmm. A revisionist historian who believes democracy is alien to Islam, and believes we 'deserved' the London attacks. Ladies and gentlemen, say Hi to Nur. Nur is an Islamist. *waves*

My Koreans started fighting a bit better last night. Still rubbish though. Speaking of which, does the experience level do anything other than alter the number of hits a unit takes? Elite units seem to be able to more succesfully engage in each round of combat.

I know it's not ideal, but why do you need a special RPG for a post-apoocalypse setting? I always perfer my referee to come up with somethig of their own anyway. You can use any rule system you like.

So you'd be happy if Africans stared attacking Muslims for all the slave trading that used to go on? Quit mouthing platitudes, and go on down to London. I''m sure that's all the victims need to hear right now. "I'm terribly sorry, madam, but..." ~~ The BBC website has rolling coverage, and also has web feed for the radio programs. For free.

If you disbelieve EVERYTHING the Grand Monkey says then you are cutting off your nose to spite your face. I'm not saying you have to take my word for it. Go on out and have a hunt around for Islamist literature. A lot of it has been translated into English. Read transcripts of 'Promotional' material found in arrests of terrorist suspects. Have a look at the "Encyclopaedia of the Afghan Jihad", a slim 7,000 page volume on how to be a terrorist and feel better about yourself. By western allies I mean the West as Al Qaeda see it. The Grand Old Crusading nations. Like Britain, the US, France... Norway, Holland......... Basically anyone who might object to the rise of a religious fascist super-state.

Cheers, mate. only one person I know affected, so far, but not clear what happened to them yet.

The monarch is the head of state and serves as the 'constitutional longstop'. That is, she ultimately can choose to dissolve or form governments any way she wants. She also is head of the Armed Forces. However, attempting to invoke these powers for any reason other than one with immense popular support would result in the end of the monarchy. hence the theory among those who believe it is that she acts to prevent some sort of dictatorship arising. It also means Murdoch can't elect our head of state, and annoys the fat bastard enormously. Which is cause enough in my book.

Hildegaard, stop talking arse. Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean they don't see "the Big Picture". Al Qaeda: Al Qaeda don't give a stuffed crust weasel whether we are in Iraq or not. They made an explicit aim of killing any and all persons civilian or military, who oppose them years ago. Read their own intentions. They have no lesser goal than a global Islamic Ummah (read religious fascism), and they believe they can get it through causing sufficient chaos and bringing down the Western Allies. They aren't interested in negotiation except where it spread discord and confusion. Also: No-one has mentioned that it could be our very own homegrown Anarchists. Anarchists were the first urban terrorists in History, and I noticed during the Gleneagles fighting that they were waving around flags of Chairman Mao - terrorist poster-child and grand strategist. ~~~ The forensics on the explosives will answer most of the questions. ~~~ Good point Steve. I promise to keep quiet.

Nur: Attacking the Jews for fighting mean in that period is like criticising them for wearing sandals. It is total hypocrisy. Everyone was doing it. The Romans simply tried to do the same thing as Stalin and Beria - uproot a whole people as a supposed means of calming them down (the Chechens among others). Unsurprisingly, collective punishment didn't work. How would you feel about the suggestion that just because we have terrorists claiming to represent Islam in the UK we toss out everyone who is Muslim and keep their stuff? Ender: Historical 'right' simply can't be applied anywhere. Take South Africa for example. Everyone says the whites should leave completely, and hand Africa back to the Bantu. Yet in fact the first indigenous peoples of the area were the Bushmen and the Hottentots. The Bantu began slaughtering these simple and unblievably peaceable people long before we turned up, and had been moving south and occupying ther lands. We joined in, of course, but the point is that South Africa does not belong to the blacks, but to the creamy coffee people. There are only a few hundred bushmen left, eking out an existence on the verges of the Kalahari. We shouldn't have set up the state of Israel in Palestine for the simple fact that the Palestinians were using it. However, if you read the civil service reports coming back they give the impression that it was virtually uninhabited. I am sure that wherever you suggested it be set up, people would already be living there and get annoyed. The better option I feel would have been universal acceptance, although I could just as well advocate that Unicorns carried the Jews to Alpha Centauri. . However, many Jews feel that you can't get much more Jewish than wanting "Next year in Jerusalem." I'm just glad that being CofE I am only obliged to want milky tea and cricket. Calax: No worries. I do post a lot at a time, and I forgive anyone who gets bored and doesn't read it all.

An uncoordinated attack like this does not require weks of planning. Once you have the devices required (and these look like small ones) you simply need to get everyone to go to the right places at roughly the right times. It's no harder than organising a party. Fortunately, thanks to our freedoms being eroded the authorities will now be able to sift through masses of data, and more than likely establish who is in the cell responsible. I think we will find it is a foreign inspired group. The IRA are keeping a low profile, thanks to their inclusion in talks, and the recent public condemnation of their 'work' by Republicans. I also think that the persons concerned will be homegrown Brits. Just a feeling based on past foiled attacks. I don't think that Londoners in the main will take long to put a brave face on this. There will be some who stay off public transport for a while, but it will not continue indefinitely.

"Nah. It's beer, mate." - Doug Anthony Allstars

Thanks for the luck, Steve. Maybe I'm supposed to be learning some kind of lesson about peaceful conflict?

I just remembered the only conspiracy I ever actually believed in, and I'm afraid I take it so seriously I'm not even going to mention it. I can't post you any links, or articles because they are just NOT AVAILABLE. At least one person killed over it. And I shall say no more. Kaftan: sorry. I really didn't mean to be obnoxious or anything. I know it looks funky, but at the same time I do think we must draw a clear line around any of the paraphernalia of the Nazi war machine. There is far to much closet idolising of organisation likes the waffen SS, who were not nearly so elite as people think, and IMO it is unhealthy. Thought: why not get your own uniform made? It could be cut perfectly for you, and incorporate all sorts of stuff. I have to say though I WANT THAT HAT! No more briefing jitters wearing that monstrosity on your noggin. ~~ My grandfather also spoke about Italians. He said there was nothing cowardly about not wanting to die for Mussolini.

Calax, Like I said in my post earlier, that's Great Britain's bad. Don't blame the US. And like I also said in my post we buckled under because there were a whole bunch of seriously terroristic jews blowing up British personnel in Palestine. Essentially we got fed up, and left the locals to get on with shooting each other instead of us. Azarkon, you can't complain about people presenting facts to cow the oppostion. It beats the hell out of random ranting. Facts are at least something you can check up on, or should be. You take into account the number and the sources and you modifies your position, if necessary. And while most people don't change their minds thorugh what they read, sometimes people do. And being a tedious bastard I don't like the thought that anyone might read some feckless yank bashing, and go along with it because no-one objected. I take issue with racism and bigotry wherever it shows up, against muslim, jew, american, and even though I don't like it, the welsh.

I've been struggling with playing the Koreans recently. I know it is probably just the luck of the 'dice' but the filthy peasants only seem to win 30% of the time, swordsman versus spearmen. While my korean swordsmen lose 50% of the time against warriors and archers! What the hell is going on?

I went out last night and got drunk, but was too drunk to start a thread, when I got home. Curiously enough, I met some bloke completely at random in the pub, and we turned out to be working on parallele projects. Many good ideas swapped, along with beer drunk. Luck, anyone?