1_man_army

Keep this in mind (my old sig quote): "Tip.it - Where everyone is a 6ft tall, hard as nails adonis and has an IQ of 150..."

This really is the safest way to handle a break in. For one, it's far easier to argue that you acted out of self-defense. Likewise, there are a lot of burglars who carry weapons, so it's impossible to tell if a person is armed or not when they break into your home. Since there are quite a few sociopaths, they may also just kill you for the hell of it, even if you give them what they want. What is the moral of the story? Kill that son of a [bleep].... Kill them before they kill you. Somebody who has just woken up and then tries to confront a robber like that is probably much less alert than the intruder and more likely to get hurt, I wouldn't consider that too safe. Either that or you accidentally kill a relative who you mistake for an intruder with you "shoot first ask questions later" approach.

I just had a news email from Demotix about this. Anyway, it's difficult to tell how this kind of widespread protest will work out in the long term. Often these things tend to run out of steam over time as they did in Iran however, they do have form for revolution - they did have one in 2005. A nuclear-armed Pakistan might have something to say about that.

A year. Not that I care too much personally, I'm not a fan of his.

Prison

89 Pages isn't too long, my university dissertation came in at 103 pages.

I love how England is being used as shorthand for the UK in this thread at times. I'm sure all Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish people don't mind that at all...

A completely laissez faire approach to social problems were shown not to work in Victorian Britain. Going back to a system that didn't work the first time makes no sense to me. We've benefited from labour reform, education reform, health reform and much greater social equality in the last 100 years or so because government has taken a better grasp of certain areas. There needs to be a balance where these things are in place while there are still incentives for people to work hard and become successful.

What I find funny is that they are saying "Words are important." Too bad they didn't realize that beforehand, you ignored people before, now they want blood, what the hell do you expect, its kinda hard to ignore a guy when a shotgun is in your mouth. And that protest at the guys house, the lady said "Why don't they protest at the capital where they can be seen and heard?" BECAUSE THEY DID AND WERE IGNORED! I'm sorry that it has come to this but you reap what you sow. There is a difference between protesting an elected politician's decision and intimidating them at home. The people elect their politicians and then politicians are supposed to vote as they see fit based on their platform, if people don't want to elect those people then they don't need to vote for them. What you don't do is intimidate people, their children and their wider families in their homes - that is thuggery no matter what side of the political spectrum it comes from.

That's why we need to abolish the "two-party" system and make it like the UK in terms of how the parties work. Of course, it's better to just abolish all factions and add an amendment to the Constitution stating that no one shall create a political party. Then, we can only vote for people rather than parties. The UK system is essentially a two party system as well. The Lib Dems (our third party) can get a decent amount of the vote but they have no chance of ever being elected.

They have the one country two systems policy with Hong Kong. Hong Kong (along with Macau) has some additional freedoms that the mainland doesn't. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_country_two_systems#Framework

Well it depends on how good you are at shooting from distance. Some people have a gift for it and some don't. Personally, I would have played in the right back and stretched the opposition a bit. Not everyone can shoot at range but sometimes you can get lucky.

Coincidentally I was watching a program last week about earthquakes and it mentioned the fault line along Turkey. Basically, with the Turkish fault, the pressure builds along one point in the line then it gets released (ie. an earthquake) and then it progresses gradually along the line from one end to another. The point was that this is not typically how earthquakes and fault lines work but it might help scientists figure out an early warning system one day. That was according to the program, clearly they haven't made anything work yet. They also showed how at some point that fault line will inevitably cause an earthquake that has Istanbul as its epicentre (or near enough), which could result in a lot of deaths considering how built up it is. Edit - I think California is now overdue a big earthquake now as far as I remember.

Excactly, nobody should be surprised with the rubbish he comes out with, especially with all the post election trouble and how split Iran is. People forget that much of Ahmadinejad's apeal is his anti-western views so he often plays up to his core audience to maintain their support. It's interesting that after 9/11, Iran was one of the first Islamic nations to condemn the attack (along with Libya). That just shows the difference in the style of Ahmadinejad compared to Khatami (his predecessor as President).

I really loath playing on highrise when people are using tactical insertion. Yesterday I played against a team that somehow got one guy on each of the buildings so that they had the entire outside covered, it was a real pain because there was literally no escape other than to do laps of the tunnels under the buildings. Even when the guys got killed with explosions, I couldn't destroy the tactical insertion flare (it must have been a little bit away from where they were crawling at the time). They really need to take that perk out even if it is just because people using kill me lol.

The problem with picking and choosing is that from the taxman's point of view it is unfeasably awkward (probably creating additional costs) and it wouldn't be enforceable - how would you check what each individual was paying for, especially in an emergency? What happens in the case of children as well? See what I mean, that sort of system is overly difficult.

The problem will be that eventhough they can release the Treyarch games under the Call of Duty banner, the'll eventually ruin the quality of the brand. The COD brand has survived because for every Treyarch poor reskin job they can bounce back with a IW produced COD game which improves the game and therefore benefits the brand. If IW no longer develop COD games then the quality is going to stagnate and people will begin to walk away from it. The same thing happened with Sports Interactive and the Championship manager games - SI developed Championship Manager under the Eidos umbrella but then they split and Eidos kept the name and released more Championship Manager games which weren't made by SI and the games were not very good. SI just moved over to Sega and developed their own game Football Manager (they had the rights to the source code) and that series became a huge success. Activision should look at this case carefully.

I used my console offline during the period but what was strange is that the Heavy Rain theme I got with the special edition was declared corrupted but once I put on the console today it was fine - I didn't even redownload it. Maybe that was the case for other people who lost data.

I thought you were implying that I said they should be Argentine (since you asked 'what claim does Argentina have?'). Sorry if I've misunserstood. Maybe I jumped the gun a bit.

But what right does Argentina have to it? They have no historical rights to it, they have no people rights to it (being that the population is mainly British). The only right they have to it is the proximity to the islands, which are not exactly close. Spain and England had claims to sovereignty of the islands. Spain left the islands uninhabited and withdrew from the islands leaving England with the rule there. Argentina then gained its independence and then claimed they owned the islands. They have basically no rights to it. I didn't say they should be Argentine, please don't put words in my mouth - the Isle of Man analogy was to illustrate a point. I'm understanding of the Argentine position but not entirely in favour. However, if the British claim to the Falklands is that we took them (for the 2nd time) in 1833 and that the population are British descendants then we should take huge portions of the old empire. I concede the fact that the islanders voted to stay British, that was always going to be the outcome because they are British - they are essentially colonists but that can't be helped now, it's too late to change that. I don't advocate forcing those people to move at all as it would be impractical and immoral. My main point is that no nation should have the right to control territories that are thousands of miles from their shores, that sort of policy and attitude was supposed to have died many decades ago, so much for living in a post-colonial age. Unfortunately I see the practicalities and the morality of the issue as being very different in this issue for me.

It won't start another war because Argentina don't have a military capable of winning. Their navy hasn't seen active action for years (probably since the Falklands war) while the UK navy has had a decent amount of practice, is still relatively strong and isn't too engaged in Afghanistan. That being said, I don't see what right the UK has to own an island that is 13,000km from its shores, it's a really imperialistic attitude to state that they are ours. Now I understand the people support staying under the UK that would be because 70% of the islands population descend from the UK. To say that Argentina want the islands just for the newly discovered is incorrect, they have consistantly claimed sovereignty of the islands since the British return in 1833 but I can't see the UK government giving them back now because of the oil discovery. To end the UK owning the islands is the equivalent to Argentina owning the Isle of Man and filling it with Argentines.

Of course I don't think that is a reasonable sentence that is why I specifically mention that sentencing should reflect the severity of a crime, I consider rape a very serious crime and therefore it shoulld be treated that way in sentencing. The real problem I have is with people wanting to criminals to be given sentences that are totally disproportionate.

Exactly. That's why I never understood "two wrongs don't make a right". They do, because they discourage immoral actions from happening. The problem with this train of thought is that it tends towards acting vengfully and not in a just a manner. If society is to discourage and decry certain acts/behaviours it would be hypocritical and counter-productive to treat just do away with peoples rights like this. A sentence should reflect the severity of the crime, a lesser crime should warrant a lesser sentence that is blaringly obvious but at the same time you have to consider what sort of punishment is most effective - in certain crimes community service is more effective (as is short sentences in some cases). This may not sit well with many people and there may occasionally be errors but a judge is there not just to punish a perpetrator but to pass a sentence that will benefit society in the long run. Having long and severe automatic sentences often doesn't work as a deterant for crimes, especially ones that involve spur of the moment decisions and crimes of passion (I think we;ve had this conversation before). What is also interesting is that so many people call for tougher sentences for criminals regardless of the crime but these are often the same people who would go mad if their taxes were raised to fund the extra prisons to pay for these things. Too often people want revenge rather than justice in the legal system and that just doesn't help, it doesn't

That sucks, I've deliberately avoided all Heavy Rain discussion other than the 'demo looks good' conversation in this thread. I really just want to sit and enjoy it in my own time, I've even avoided the wikipedia page for it.

The 360 controller is awkward, the buttons are spread apart too much which makes it more difficult to do the split second things. The pad doesn't fit well in the hand because it isn't the most ergonomic shape. The way the back triggers are different from the top ones are annoying, the way the analogue sticks aren't parallel is strange and the d-pad is a bit irratic. I don't have small hands either so that isn't a problem.