costard

Cheers Kd - great work, guys. We want to buy it, we want to play it. soon. please.

He might be talking about his own house, and the owners of Fox. He couldn't get the poison pill into the company's constitution (he left this too late and tried to get it in about the time the US backers took a big slice for themselves in return for access to the market. His personal position hasn't been affected (as far as we can see) but his freedom of action has.) He survived a couple of big downturns (the Simpsons helped hiim out here, more than once) and was the guy expanding - Conrad Black fell foul of some law or another. His business model has proved to be a good vehicle to get [the message] out - it makes money, too. Lots of it. Then he split again - into China. Sure, state-run has the monopoly position for information, but everything else, with a company used to running on the behalf of a leadership clique... He's sort of an Aussie. I'm not saying we don't breed the worst of the bastards, but somehow I don't think he's the very worst.

Aff, tell us about the food. Does it meet expectations? Cheers, ta.

Is that peanut butter on those carrots? Oh... ewww!

Assassins don't take out bystanders; crazies do. For what it's worth, I doubt Palin understands any possibility of a link between her rhetoric and the interpretation made by the crazy. Which is pretty scary given that she wants to be President. Yep, it's about leadership: you have to set an example that you want followed. If you don't have the capacity to understand this, you won't be in a position of leadership for long.

For those who like chilli, beef and asian herbs. Prep: 15mins Cooking: 30 mins Serves 2 oiks or four normal people 400g rump steak 1/2 onion 1 1/2 tblspn fish sauce 1 star anise 1 cinnamon stick pinch ground white pepper 1 1/2 L beef stock (salt reduced is better imo) 300g fresh thin rice noodles 3 spring onions thinly sliced 30 (1 cup) fresh Vienamese mint leaves (or use a mix of Thai basil and normal mint, or all three) 90g bean sprouts (not essential but good to have) 1/3 chinese cabbage, thinly sliced 1 small (hot) fresh red chilli, thinly sliced 1 lime Put the steak in the freezer for about half an hour - makes it easier to slice thinly. Put onion, fish sauce, star anise, cinnamon, pepper, stock and 2 cups (500ml) of water in a largish saucepan. Bring to the boil then cover and simmer for 20 mins. Follow instructions on pack to separate noodles. Divide up into large bowls. Thinly slice the steak (thinner is better, particularly if you don't like rare beef). Place spring onion, beef, 'erbs, cabbage, sprouts, chilli in bowls. Ladle hot broth over the top (strain out the solids if you like - star anise ain't so great to eat whole). A squeeze of lime juice and you're ready to go. The beef will cook in the hot broth and the soup will get "hotter" as the chilli oils permeate, so beware. Enjoy!

Oi! I resemble the implication! Have a good time Aff.

It makes sense: the banks don't want to screw their local economy more than it can stand because they'll lose customers and profit. The level of debt people [in the US and Australia] are carrying has them responding in their spending habits in a very immediate fashion to any cost of living hikes; local small businesses are being squeezed as well, and it is the people who run those businesses who form the bankers' social contacts (by and large). So the banks who hold that debt (in the way of the mortgage on the family home) are in the best position to let their own short term interests slide in the hope of continuing with the status quo, one where they can still pay their top execs hundreds of millions of dollars per annum. Oh, and where all their friends aren't out of business, their workforce on the streets.

Tooze is a real historian - he'd never draw that conclusion in public without doing the analysis. Me, I'm a crank and can say whatever I like. I could probably defend the claim. Most problematical on the military front, given the land needed to be occupied, a static front would have had to have been established into the Urals and south through the Caucasus to link up with Persia. I'm not sure the german military even dreamed this was possible - they hoped for a fast knockout of Russia, or they could kiss their hopes and dreams goodbye. At the end of 1941, the writing was already on the wall, and most of the German High Command knew it. The Nazis' diplomacy advocated the destruction or subjugation of every other "race" and so was not appealing to anyone who couldn't convince the Nazis of their racial and idealogical purity. The practice of subjugation by the military, in line with their stated aims, did not cow the populace of the occupied territories: it stirred them against the invader. When the war extended beyond the planned two years, Germay found itself without the fully geared-to-war economy that it needed and mired throughout the entirety of its conquests in guerilla war. Its navy was out of the contest by the end of '42 (the u-boats had the most notable successes, but were being countered by better Allied technology.) Most of the higher ranked German military knew that once they bogged down in Russia, they were in a war of attrition they couldn't hope to win. On the killing and disposal of 21 million human beings: its not as easy as you'd suppose. "Hitler's Scientists" by John Cornwall explores the subject a little and explains the difficulties with building the process of industrial murder. And that's mostly an analysis of the processing of the Jews: a targeted and socially, religiously and politically separate portion of the populace.

According to Tooze, the German plan was to occupy enough territory so that it could be self sufficient in agriculture and industrial supply (oil, iron, bauxite, etc.). The German higher command were aware by 1942 that this would mean, on the agriculture front alone, taking an area in Russia from Leningrad, east to moscow and south to the Ukraine, holding the Caucasus to anchor the south. Oh, and eradicating 21 million people - this according to their own economic data. The size of this work when the entire populace is (understandably) fighting against you is well beyond the capabilities of Hitler's Germany. I hazard that it would be impossible for the US to do it now - especially given the quality of success they have enjoyed in other theatres recently.

..but not incompatible with the dominant myths of the society. Don't worry DT, it's only got another two years to run, then KABLOOIE!, the whole things gonna turn to ****. Just don't be standing too close when she blows, ya?

It was indeed. Many thanks m'lady; your beauty shines amongst this foetid collection of pond scum as the diamond in Joe's nose.

And Christianity has always warred with the heathen, the Muslim and the Jew. And itself. I guess, for the sake of this argument, I'd define a war as a circumstance where a tax benefit accrues to someone willing to go kill someone else. It's only where popular opinion matters that you get the problem of freedom of the press arising, else the lies just pass on in the lukewarmth of the moment. The critical nature of the information, when it means people getting killed (or not), defines the moral defensibility of the lie, according to you.

It is the anniversary of the day I got my first suit. Of course I have been drinking, in modest celebration. A fourteen year old red followed by an eight year old. Good stuff, unlike this shower.

We're aware of your disabilities, Joe; keeping up is for the hale, or at least for the quick. I'm giving myself a field promotion due to the ostentatious lack of ability in this here Mutha Beautiful Thread (on the advice of my liege Lord Rune, may his loins be ever fruitful). I prefer Kenneth to Knigget - it has no association with things of a fishy nature (unlike the Emrys creature). I'm confident the stenographers will back me up, right to the very wall, then light my last cigarette and take my last dictation: "**** youse all, youse is all cunts." It shall be my epitaph. I shall be suffered in the same way some suffer Gnomic diseases of the lower alimentary canal and Boo: with rueful joy.

I don't think I made a statement regarding the acceptability of lying and BS: I identified a circumstance where such behaviour was a little easier to defend. The main points are the consequences of indulging in such behaviour (any discrete information system suffers through providing crap information), and the fact that Fox can hardly make a claim to being part of "the free press". If I had invested in Fox, I'd be concerned that the earnings were taking a hit because Fox doesn't have access to the Wikileaks documents (and is unwilling, because of it's editorial alliances, to publish material from them).

What percentage of the military budget does Fox receive? Using your media outlets for propaganda is somewhat more defensible when your country is at war. At its base, this makes sense - you want people to be informed, you want them to be contributing more to the national effort, in the right ways. Generating a swell of popular opinion in your direction makes stuff easier to do: you might need to get approved for a larger slice of the tax pie, or you might be ensuring that the public has the will to continue the fight. In this cause, standards can be relaxed because you have to lower the level of intellectual capability at which your message will be understood. Of course, if you lower them too far, the message becomes somewhat tied up in emotional appeal and the sort of crass, entertaining behaviours that go along with an emotional debate. A newspaper doesn't print to inform its readers - it prints to sell paper. The customer is prepared to pay for the paper because there is often information contained in the newspaper: advertising deals, for one. In the days when newspapers were local and rare, the need for the information contained within them was generally local and specific: this led to the real need on the part of the reporter to present accurate, or at least factually verifiable information. His/her customers were too likely to find out if they were being duped and the decisions they made based on the information presented would be too likely to affect the relationship between the customer and the publisher. Of course, the relationship could be affected by the exercise of power on the part of the customer, particularly if that customer was the king, president, head honcho of the area the paper was based in. Recognising this we have the myth of "freedom of the press" arise. It is considered so necessary that it is very nearly constitutionally covered by law in a lot of places now. So how does the other side of the relationship get regulated? Mostly, it has been self-regulated by the adoption of a set of values ascribing to journalists. They are/have been passionately interested in the quality of the product they deliver, they want to produce accurate, "true" news. When an organisation like the press needs to promulgate a myth that directs the entirety of the organisation, they have found the instrument of the "code of ethics". These are law, but not quite: usually transgressions lead to an expulsion from the group, this course of action is less likely to be challenged in the courts. Doctors have the Hyppocratic Oath, Lawyers and priests have strict controls on what can be done with "privileged" information. So the reason you have a code of ethics is so that you don't have the decisions needing to be made by the members and leaders of the group being subject to regulation by the government through the exercise of the law. The banking community has got a little dumb on that one recently: the path they are taking will necessarily lead to the establishment of a code in law regulating the behaviour of bankers. They will be far less free because they are quite deliberately flouting their own code of ethics, hiding behind the need for court action before their actions can be acoounted for. What will happen to the newspapers? Information dissemination has changed: where once it was local and rare, it has now reached saturation to the point where I can access the reporting of many thousands of reporters, belonging to many thousands of organisations in practically every geographical location on the globe. The information I seek to gather is not uniformly presented at the lowest level of intellectual capability (and here, by the way, is the mechanism that shows the market for the paper: your populace needs to be educated to read and comprehend before they can make use of the information in the paper.) I can get my information fix without needing to read anymore: tv, presenters, radio (not so much internet, but I suspect that's a statistical blip that will attenuate). The need for the information presented by the media organisation to be accurate, or at least factually verifiable, is just as great as it ever was. Has anyone in government had much experience with turning a propaganda machine off? The problem with Fox seems to be that the society it seeks to inform is being led to the abyss by trusting in the information presented there. If Fox believes it can escape the natural consequence of this, then it is thoroughly in the camp of (i.e. is owned by) the people doing the leading, the people needing to disseminate information.

The above may make sense. If it does, it was pure fluke: a case of beer and half a dozen jaeger bombs does predicable things to a person and their arguments. Apologies to those who have struggled through it.

Have a thistle: excellent translation that donkey. I must away to find what other damage I've caused. **swish**

First night off in two and a half years. I sh!t you not: welcome to kids and the modern interpretation of sexual equality. I am mindful of the obligation you lay unto me, my leige: may you contribute the legend of House Rune more than myself. In the meantime, how goes the beta testing? We're seeing some sh!t+hot stuff, but we're continuously disappointed by the late arrival of the cheesy comestibles. We hunger, oh lord: let spew your cornucopia and save us.

I think the issue isn't the value of the service so much as the value of the trust that is placed with Fox. In a market situation, the value ascribes to the monetary outcome - who makes money by believing in the information provided has disccerned the "true" value of the information prvovided: they are rewarded, they prove the truth. Where this evaluation of trust is abused, that is, where the predictive value of the information turns out to be detrimental to the wealth of the group of people thus informed; the value of the commonwealth, as a whole and determined by an analysis of the group wealth, shown to be decreasing instead of inreasing. Commonwealth - common wealth: that wealth to be held by the group in common. Not neccessarily to be held by the individual in the group, in fact to be held separate. The myth (and it is a myth) that has been behind the growth in commonly held wealth of the globe's population is that of the English gentleman. He is Christian (whatever that means) and his word is his bond - he can be trusted. To a large extent this has made itself manifest in the english language: stories, tales, fiction and non-fiction have led to the promulgation of this myth. The immediate apparence of the value of scientific discoveries written about in the english language is a good example of the investment in the commonly held understading of our universe: it describes more than ninety percent of the increase in "knowledge" over the last 150 years. In the recent past, as the value of an understanding of our history has faded within common consciousness (who opted for history as a course in the eighties as a career?) a lesser understanding of the counter-truth: that you can make more, quicker through the use of deceit and misinformation, has made it's way to the leadership of the race, [sure, they had other concerns, mostly about the increasing vectors of information, but this hardly credits them (the leadership) with guidance to a secure future; the message has been "believe, and it will be so."] With this decay in the values of our leadership has parallelled a decay in the common wealth; the true value of vital infastructure, including "racial memory", "tradition" "culture" and "law", as well as roads, buildings, communications and industry, the prevalence of corruption and corrupt practices (which eat directly into the taxable returns of investors, by the way) leads to the inevitable decay of the society that supports the value of "the common wealth". It loses wealth whilst convincing itself that it lives on, getting better all the time, and doing so for the conceivable future.. Trust in yourselves, but feel that which you feel. Fool your boss, your wife, God, whoever - don't fool yourselves about the way you feel. You cannot grant a leadership role (what is a leader without a group to lead?) where you cannot trust the leader. It just doesn't work.

I'm not sure I like the sound of this - we have enough pinko-commie-journo types down here already, thankyou very much. Surely you could have got a gig in Cairns or Darwin, they'd love you to bits up there.

Boo has succeeded in getting his two flanking platoons (with supporting armour) wiped out and now sits on the middle of the map ducking 150mm shells, waiting to see where the final stroke will come from. If I get around to sending him the correct file he'll find out. Does the donkini double as a crupper?

Must have been a Kiwi cop.

Is that Boo flogging his oggin'? Speaking of floggings, said same Boo is definitely having troubles with his armour, his engineers, his arty spotters and his flamethrowers. He has another thirty turns or so to consider the wording of his surrender.