DodgyPhil

Oh yeah, I'm all for tolerance, not automatic respect. Feel free to laugh at any organisation, it's important to keep everyone in their place. I was just more concerned about the media and some of the more hardcore atheists doing the standard thing of lumping in an entire group with a few mental cases.

You're right; I think a lot of it comes down to national pride. Here in the west the prevalence of national pride is decreasing, mostly due to our obsession with 'roots' (for example, Irish Americans who celebrate St. Patricks day like no tomorrow but wouldn't be able to point out Ireland on a map) and the fact our governments are eager to promote multi-culturalism (unlike multi-racialism, which I think is great, multi-culturalism always makes national pride a taboo and stops immigrants from integrating into society). A lot of us also don't realize how lucky we are. So many teenagers think the grass is greener on the other side (while messing around with their iPads on the way to their private schools). I am a wealthy English teenager but I realize what I have and thank my parents every day, even the government. I don't laugh at my country's history because I realize how crucial it was for our development. I read about British philanthropists from the 1800s and think, dang, we've always had a good streak and now that we do have widespread racial tolerance and a much smaller gap between the rich and the poor, we complain. People from less economically developed countries don't have the same stigmas. They may come from low income neighbourhoods and suffer from horrendous crimes (from gangsters and police) yet they're proud of their country because that's where they were born and it's never going to change. It's why you'll always here chants of "pakistan zindabad!!" during political unrest in Pakistan, but when it starts raining in Britain people start saying "I want to get off this island as soon as possible". Ah, soz. My bad. Also the fact that the original ban on homosexuality was put in place by us British.

Hmmm.. I always find people so eager to laugh at rapture-believers and creationists. The media loves it, but they always seem to make the assumption that all Christians believe in this kind of stuff. I know a lot of these hardcore athiests (the kinds who pick fights over YouTube and think of themselves as vigilantes, saving the world with their Renaissance ideas) will have woken up on the day of the rapture and thought: HA, take that organized religion! But in all honesty, this kind of stuff is believed by less than 5% of Christians and other religious folk. With that said, yeah. It's stupid, but people are entitled to their own beliefs (not something I say a lot).

The French are (as much as I, as an Englishman, dislike them) pretty damned good with food. All their weirder sounding dishes always turn out to be pretty mild. Frog legs just tasted like chicken, and snail was actually delicious (although most of that was down to the relish). Weirdest thing I eat regularly... Probably smoked fish paste (pink goo in a tube that tastes like mackerel x 1000). I smear it on bread. It's just mashed up fish (I presume) but I get a lot of it because I have a Norwegian family. I eat fish at least twice a day. Other English stuff is renowned for being weird but I actually find it pretty normal. Pork pies are probably my favourite food ever but I tried giving one to my German exchange a couple of months ago and he almost wretched. It's just mashed up pork (compressed to the point it has the same texture as steak and filled with gristle), smeared in jelly (flavourless lubrication) and encased in a ridiculously thick, floury pie dish. The things look small but weigh as much as lead and contain about 500 calories each. Were simple folk us English.

Ha, well I?m a bona fide caffeine addict (as in, if I don?t have any all day I get a headache and the inescapable urge to pass out). Because of this I?m usually pretty functional with it, start the day off with a massive 4-cups worth pot of Espresso. Then during the day I usually just drink Boost or Tesco?s brand ?Kx Stimulation? because they?re both very cheap. The best tasting energy drink is either Rockstar Energy Drink or Monster (I can see why everyone raves about it) but they?re too expensive.. Occasionally I just take Pro Plus capsules to bypass the whole obstacle of opening a can and drinking it (effort).

Nice to see someone who isn't me or a friend of mine who studied Latin (but then, I do go to a British public school). At the moment I'm studying German and potentially want to do a degree at University. In GCSE (16+ British exams) I did both Greek and Latin. I got an A* for Latin (booyah!) but a C for Greek (Homer's Odyssey was easy to learn, but I didn't know enough vocab for the translation).

I know a lot of people won't like him because of his image (an annoying prepubescent boy who came from an affluent family but talks about lovin' up his "honies"). But a lot of his fans make the assumption that 'haters' are jealous of his success, rather than contemptuous. We hold contempt for his success because we know it's not all good: he shifts CDs like nobodies business and makes out like a bandit, yet he one of the most hated figures in music, and potentially the most hated teenager of all time (unless France used to have a teenage monarch during the 18th century, I don't know).I personally don't like him because he represents everything wrong with modern music. His songs are commercialized, produced in about 2 hours, and sell in excess of a million copies: all thanks to image. His fans claim to like his music, but if Justin Bieber didn't look like a non-threatening whiteboy with a punchable face (apparently it's quite sexy for 12 year old girls) he wouldn't have a career, nor would he have been noticed by Usher. The message is, if you have some sort of physical trait that appeals to the masses, you can succeed in a career that previously required talent.

That is pretty coincidental, but maybe not as strange. Las Vegas is quite a hotspot (or so I hear) and unless both your father and Dr.Graham were compulsive gamblers who knew casinos like the back of their hands, it's likely they just made their way from the airport (or bus depot, I don't know how people travel in America, seeing as Nevada is twice the size of my country) to the nearest club and sat by the newbie slot machines. ;)But the actual talking to each other part is pretty trippy.

I heard Coca Cola carried out the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center! But seriously, all of these flesh/metal-melting rumours are false. My favourite was about the factory worker who fell into a vat of Coca Cola and was dissolved in 5 minutes. P'shaw!

I'm amazed no one's replied to this, but I guess most people are too busy being egomaniacal web admins to read books. :PYou don't have to give too much away, but if you could give us a hint as to what you're writing? Remember, some genres are already saturated with new writers- while others are fairly fresh. I'm afraid I'm very skeptical about community-created content. I'd rather read something by a published author with a thumbs up from Time magazine than "Adventures in Ozeurathorioan", a self-published book by a World Of Warcraft player. On a site like Lulu, I'm presuming non-fiction will fair better than fiction, as a book with a niche on a specific subject (e.g. How to wire hotrods) will already have a fanbase who're likely to search for it. But Detective thrillers will need some sort of seal of approval before people will even contemplate purchasing them. I think Lulu is a little overhyped. It's a great website and all, but great authors come in small supply, and the amount of rubbish that must get circulated on the site will already put you at a disadvantage: however great you probably are at writing.With that said, the right advertising and a good word here and there could probably shift a few units. Good luck!

Recently the BBC weeed their collective panties over this story. The gist of the story is: evil Americans have been torturing poor terror suspects in lovely Poland (lol, incorrect adjectives ftw). Needless to say the European Union (home of the unofficially elected Belgian scrounging politician) had just the person to comment on the issue: Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's Commissioner on Human Rights (the same council that ignored the genocide of 8000 Bosnian Muslims under the watchful eye of 400 useless Dutch soldiers and a whole continent of cowards). Thomas Hammarberg (or Hammers, as I like to call him) said he believed terror suspects had been subjected to intense torture, and called for the CIA involved to be prosecuted. Now, just to confirm, the people being tortured in lovely Poland by evil Americans werent Pakistani youths from Sheffield, nor were they over-zealous left-wing bloggers of Arabic descent: they were men on Americas most wanted list for the planning of 9/11 and other atrocities- namely Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (commonly seen sporting an ill-fitting vest that makes him look like Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force). Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was subjected to 183 applications of the waterboard in a single month, one of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques. In an interview in which Khalid Sheikh Mo-ham talked of his torture, he described his waterboarding experience: I was placed upside down on a vertical bed and a cloth was put over my mouth on to which water was poured. It felt like I was drowning as I struggled to breathe To which I could only respond: awesome. In this story the emphasis should be placed entirely on the issue of Poland. Weve already confirmed the torture part and we know how the CIA roll. The only thing we need to hear about is whether the CIA is justified in using Poland as a base for torture (to which I kind of thought, so what?). Yet the main emphasis of the article seemed to be about the brutal torture of a terrorist. (To which I kind of thought, so what?) Am I wrong in my thinking? Is it weird for me to find Amnesty Internationals efforts farcical? I personally dont believe everyone is entitled to human rights, and that our planet is- in the words of rock star and hunter Ted Nugent: tooth and claw. If you commit an atrocity (like 9/11) and are confirmed to have been in any way involved in its planning: you deserve to be punished in whatever manner the CIA sees fit. But don't take my infallible word for it, why not form your own opinion and then preach it in the posting space below this topic? Ciao!

I love it, but I can't explain why. The game engine is so simple, but it really feels like the possibilities are endless. My friend was talking about it the other day- trying to get me to play it- but he refused to describe the game. Looking back I think he realized I'd have found the concept of breaking blocks for hours on end rather lame.I had a go on Alpha at a friends house (I'm too poor for that $10 price tag..) and found the new gaming style intriguing. I enjoyed the construction aspect most of all. That, and the random animals that just squiggle around the map doing bugger all..