Darth InSidious

Really. I have a hard time accepting that a man who doesn't know the limits of the law should be considered an acceptable person to enforce it.

The cop needs to be fired; he evidently doesn't know the limits of his authority.

I don't know why, but the title of this TV show makes me think of .

Hi, Dragons, I'm Darth InSidious, I'm 34 years old, and I'm the Chief Executive Managing Director of Inept Solutions, a new retail copmany. I'm looking for an initial investment of 8,000,000 Obz Dollars for a total share of the cmopnay of 0.01%. My compnay is based on our wonderful porduct, the EcoKnit. The EcoKnit is a new breed of dog which doubles as a very warm scarf. It's warm, friendly, and only very rarely ****s on your back. Thank you.

To be clear, those were hoax photographs showing British soldiers abusing Iraqi POWs. And yes, this is the same Piers Moron who made a career out of cheap and nasty journalism, before moving on to a career in cheap and nasty TV.

Don't lie.

There is a great difference, the area is more fragmented, just a bunch of warlords trying to push their interests. Even if we are able to topple the current strong force we are just paving the way for the next one. We cannot hope to destroy all of the groups and even if they are willing to cooperate with the allies now, tomorrow their allegiance may change. So yes, we need to remain in the area but the final goal shouldn't be stabilization of an area that requires more warfare than we may be able to churn out. Instead we should be focusing on strengthening their government so that they may be able to maintain stability. Because pulling out will magically create a stable government in a hopelessly destabilised region. Yes, of course. It took over thirty years in Northern Ireland. I have no illusions that either operation currently in progress will take anything less than half a century, but we're in this mess and we have a duty to clear it up. Not to mention that we will be saving trouble in the long term. Walsingham: I'm not so much against the war as dubious about it. I have no doubt that toppling Saddam was a good idea; its execution, however, was mishandled, and I have to ask why we invaded Iraq and do nothing about Mugabe, or a dozen other despots. On Afghanistan, I'm not sure whether a resolution will be effective, but that's partly because I'm not sure a purely democratic system of government will be able to bind such a fragmented country together.

Quite. And if they're so wrong about something like this, you can be pretty sure that they're no better with anything else, either. But news is not really news any more - it's entertainment. Oh, absolutely. I once had an argument with one of these "pull out now" types over what kind of state we'll be leaving those countries in, but they aren't interested. Duty, apparently, is less important than getting our troops home now, because... err, because... well, because it's important. People are dying, etc. - quite shocking, in the middle of a counter-insurgency operation on two fronts, underfunded and underequipped. I fail to see that there is any good reason for pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan now that we're there. All I see is cowardice and emotional arguments from those arguing in favour of an instant pull-out. Because leaving two seething messes full of anger and resentment in the Middle East won't ever come back to bite us in the arse. Oh, no.

Calling people morans, however, is an entirely different kettle of voles.

Likewise. My copy has run fine since I installed it in June. It's performance doesn't seem to be any worse than ME1, and I've actually had fewer bugs in AP than I have in ME2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lasagna Wikipedia tells me that's an urban legend. Hah! This lasagne says that wikipedia is an urban legend.

Prince Charles will become King Charles III, succession passes down via the eldest male. Elizabeth became Queen unexpectedly when her father (King George VI) died. He has suggested that he won't use the name Charles as king, which might be wise given that it raises interesting questions in Scotland. Which reminds me... @OP: One very important thing about Scotland (if you go there) to remember is that they do not have the same law as England. As an independent country up until 1603 (or thereabouts), they have their own body of law which can differ in significant ways. For example, a Scottish court could find your case "not proven", as well as guilty or not guilty. Anyway, it's something to watch out for. Other inconsequential things you need to know: *When it comes to schools, public means private, but private does not mean public. David Cameron went to a public school. That public school is one of the most expensive (and one of the oldest) in the country. The rest of our schools divide into comprehensives and grammar schools. Grammars and comprehensives are both government run, the difference being that grammar schools can select their pupils on the basis of academic exam, and are generally thought to have a tighter academic focus (though whether that's true or not depends). There are ~160 of these in the country. *Brits as a term will annoy some people immensely. It is very important or both your short-term and long-term survival that you understand the difference between England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Britain. *London is great to visit, but attempt no living there; it is hellish and absurdly expensive. Londoners, naturally, will chiefly tell you that it's God's gift to the Earth. It's absurdly overpriced, people are about as friendly as an armoured tank division, and there are far too many of them. Southerners will tell you, chiefly, that the North is an uninhabitable wasteland full of collapsed mines and bitter, xenophobic people. This is a lie, designed to hide the problems of the South. *This country has an official religion (in the main) so that the majority don't need to bother about practicing it, and for due ceremony and fluff at official things. *While the Queen is off-limits (generally), her family and her government are fair game. On places to live, Reading is a hole. If you need to move to Berkshire or Oxfordshire, they're nice parts of the country, but avoid Reading itself.

Like most of WoD's posts (and like most of this typically ill-informed and silly one), utter bull****. Bush bowed to both Benedict XVIth and Elizabeth II. I'm fairly sure other American presidents have similarly bowed to both the monarch of the UK and the Pope. They do, after all, outrank the President of the United States by a not inconsiderable margin.

If I can make a recommendation, definitely take a look at Dead Romance. Not exactly trashy but well worth a look.

Dear Uncle Monte, Just who was the gentleman when Adam delved and Eve span, anyway? Yours, J. Ball

Working on a playthrough of VtM:B as a Malkavian, though I'm still early on in Santa Monica. Not quite as crazy as I was led to believe, but I'd forgotten how much fun this game is. It's also making me think I should replay Planescape soon. I've also got a game of Alpha Protocol going, but grinding through Saudi Arabia just doesn't seem that appealing. I've also ended up finishing off a game of KotOR II that got cut off by a bug with a mod. Dark Side consular/sith lord, sparing the masters.

Why? It's a Bioware-driven Star Wars MMO. That's three boxes ticked in the "money" category already. I don't like Bioware's games on the whole, but they're popular, and what you have in the making here is a way to cash in on three fanbases - and three different attractions to the game. I see this one running quite successfully, at least for a while. I've no intention of playing it, but most KotOR fans I know intend to at least try it. Hell, I imagine most gamers with an interest in Star Wars are going to at least try it. We ran a poll on KotORFiles, and even in the heart of the Revan fanboy world, over half the respondents were stoked for the MMO. And that's arguably where you'd expect the most resistance to the idea.

TBH, I think you're crediting LA with a kind of long-term thought that's unlikely. It's more likely, IMO, that they're simply thinking that an MMO will make more money. Which it will.

Dear Auntie Monte, I have no talent whatsoever but have enveigled myself into almost every area of modern TV and theatre. Is my career about to crash? Please advise. Yours incontinently, Jim Barrowboy

-Baroque UI/design theme -Ability to enchant full-bottomed wigs That's all I got.

Lies. The game is an insipid, cookie-cutter blotch of pseudomediaeval, elven bull****. Gameplay consists of clicking a lot, and holding the 'Z' button down a lot. It is quite possible that the game was made entirely out of John Major's underpants.

The... whu... who... whuh? This makes too little sense for simply one writing system. ӧτί ό φοκκος ω οβσιδιανοί; ỚΤỈ Ό ΦΟΚΚΟΣ;

The point is that if you've had dysentery for three months then the dysentery is no longer news. What is news is that you have still not done anything about it. At a time when we are collectively up to our eyeballs in debt, why the sainted f*** are we shelling out billions on all this pointless bureaucracy, that serves no purpose but the abrogation of our sovereignty? Why indeed?