Toadfish Monastery

Fortunately there's a teensy weensy constitutional safeguard in the armed forces being loyal to the Crown. It would brighten my declining years to see his premiership terminated by a 15" naval gun.

Dash it! Your good grace in defeat takes all the fun out of winning (even vicariously*). I was hoping for something more Daffy Duck.

* The vicar was rowing?

I (along with about ten million other people) invented the 6502 code to copy BBC ROM packs (Pascal etc) to RAM for "backing up" purposes.  It was shortly after that when ROM programs started trying to write to themselves  to defeat this "legitimate backing up", and shortly after that when the switch to convert RAM to read-only after program load was invented.
Eventually I sold my BBC B to someone at the NPL, and got an Amstrad 1512. That's still in the loft and there's a MicroVAX II still in my living room, though it hasn't been booted in 15 years.

The new Dr Who.  I'm now awaiting Piece's review .

Of course some kids are good at advanced theology. As in this extract from "Outnumbered":

----

Ben: Can I ask you another question about the Bible?

Vicar: Err, well yes of course you can Ben.

Ben: King Herod set out to kill baby Jesus, right?

Vicar: Right yes he did, yep.

Ben: Well, why didn't baby Jesus zap him?

Vicar: Well yes, I suppose in theory he could've... zapped him...

Ben: Because Herod was a tiny little speck of nothing to Jesus, cause Jesus could have squashed him with a hippopotamus or -

Karen: But Jesus was meek and mild.

Vicar: Well, yes, that's true Karen.

Karen: And besides, he knew that when when King Herod got to hell, God would roast him until his eyeballs exploded!

Quote from: DavidH on April 02, 2010, 02:20:48 PM

My siblings will decide which to put their shirts on.

It would of course be ungentlemanly to gloat, but any siblings who felt convinced by DavidH's sporting prognostications might find this useful.

Anyway, hearty congratulations on achieving second place.

Quote from: MentalBlock996 on April 03, 2010, 02:59:00 PM
I was watching the submarine races at LaKe Texoma the other day...  Kinda boring...

Destroyer versus submarine might be more interesting.

Ahem

1) Cambridge, England (and Europe's) best university. Home of Newton, Darwin, Turing, evolution, the splitting of the atom and discovery of DNA.

2) Oxford (aka Thames Valley Poly), England's third best university. Home of hobbits.

 HINC LVCEM ET POCVLA SACRA

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Are the losers subjected to ritual sacrifice as in the Mayan ball game?

Actually, as both sides pack their crews with the heftiest boaties they can import from anywhere in the World it's hard to take quite that seriously.

Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on April 02, 2010, 12:42:26 AM

Quote from: beagle on April 01, 2010, 11:58:46 PM
Because the disparate economies are likely to fragment and people suffer real hardship under inappropriate interest rates.

That is something I don't understand well, the UK is not part of the Euro zone which means that is free to manage it's currency as fit as necessary, if the Greeks cry foul to the Germans (or viceversa) how does it affect the UK? Apart from some Polish construction workers (going back home for lack of work IIRC) what is the big practical downside for the UK?

It wouldn't directly, if the status quo was preserved. However the EU works by acquiring ever more control, and never ceding powers back. The suspicion is that ultimately it will find a way to force to the UK into the Eurozone.
Fortunately so far even our maddest chancellors realize that it would be a recipe for economic impotence and home electoral disaster.

So see what I mean look at the case of Ireland. During the Celtic tiger years it desperately needed higher interest rates to contain the property boom, but was stuck with the rates needed by France and Germany. The Irish government tried every other trick they could think of to contain the damage, but ultimately they had handed over the control of the only usable mechanism to another country, with resulting financial disaster.

Even without the Euro though, the UK is a huge net contributor to the EU (after Germany). France has always benefited hugely
because the Common Agricultural policy subsidises its inefficient small farmers. Mrs T got rebate to correct for that but Bliar/Brown traded it away in return for nebulous promises about CAP reform that France had no intention of keeping.
I've never seen an adequate explanation of why a Glasgow high rise flat dweller's taxes should be funding an inefficient French farmers bucolic rural idyll.

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As for the Imperial Europe, while there is always a risk, it think there is a bit of hyperbole right now. There is an EU parliament already, so there is representation although the level of participation from voters has been lacking according to the articles I read. Ironically it would seem that precisely the euroskeptics are more keen to vote, which would bring some balance, all things considered.

The European Parliament is a bad joke; everything of consequence that happens in the name of the EU is decided by the commission or by leaders behind closed doors. It is the definition of that joke that starts "If voting could change anything...".

Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on April 01, 2010, 11:01:21 PM
The other side of the coin is not only the how (as you guys have clearly pointed out) but the why the backlash against the EU project, which is where I do see things differently. I haven't heard a really good reason to stop the project beyond the emotional backlash against a pushy elite.

Because a "goverment" that mandates directives from an unelected commission, and ignores constitutional referenda is a throwback to divine rule. A unified Europe does not justify the means, any more than for a Hitler or Stalin. And this is how it behaves before it has absolute power.

Because an organisation whose auditors have refused to sign off the accounts for more than a decade is terminally corrupt.

Because the disparate economies are likely to fragment and people suffer real hardship under inappropriate interest rates.

Because government by the unelected from several countries distance went out of fashion a hundred years ago. Your big is beautiful argument would work just as well for resurrecting the British Empire. and you guys didn't like that, despite the trade and defence advantages.

Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on April 01, 2010, 02:29:40 PM
But what are the big objections, the regulations imposed by the central authority, or are more related to the obvious drawbacks of a large bureaucracy?

Exactly what DavidH says. Imposition by deceit has always been at the heart of the project.  Underlying that is the scary Jacobin view that the "intelligentsia" know best, and the electorate are there to follow.

Radio, live transmission.
Radio, live transmission.

Listen to the silence, let it ring on.
Eyes, dark grey lenses frightened of the sun.
We would have a fine time living in the night,
Left to blind destruction,
Waiting for our sight.

And we would go on as though nothing was wrong.
And hide from these days we remained all alone.
Staying in the same place, just staying out the time.
Touching from a distance,
Further all the time.

Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio.
Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio.
Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio.
Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio.

Well I could call out when the going gets tough.
The things that we've learnt are no longer enough.
No language, just sound, that's all we need know, to synchronise
love to the beat of the show.

And we could dance.

Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio.
Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio.
Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio.
Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio.

Joy Division - Transmission

Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on March 31, 2010, 07:36:20 PM
... that much is true, the question is one of influence and negotiating leverage, do you believe that it's easier to negotiate with China for the UK or for Europe as an aggregate?

I've no problem with the EU as a trade body (the EEC), indeed that was what the UK was sold the last and only time we got a vote on it. Ever since it's become apparent that was just one of the many deceptions.

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(not that I'm going to convince you anyway...  )

I think the West Country (DavidH-land) and Cambridgeshire are two of the more Eurosceptic regions. You see big UKIP banners in fields here, and UKIP easily beat Labour and the Liberals in the Euro elections. Even if they get nowhere in the general election I'll still have the satisfaction of not voting for parties which blatantly broke their promises of a vote on the constitution/treaty (i.e. all of the big three).

Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)
(sadly they haven't made a graph for this years elections and UKIP doesn't show up).

The media like to portray UKIP as off-the-scale right. However they're not the ones using lies, deception, tried and tested 1930s ratcheting techniques, and rigged or ignored referenda to try and build an unaccountable empire from the Urals to the Atlantic.

Last time I checked the Greens weren't too keen on the EU either, and they're not usually considered *very* far right.  It's sort of interesting how the EU has been sold as a liberal project, despite ignoring or bypassing  public opinion at every turn. Goebbels could take lessons...