Who is in the wrong there?

Husband   1 vote - 33 %
Wife   2 votes - 66 %
-   0 votes - 0 %
Those cult systems look interesting   1 vote - 33 %
Those cult systems look boring   2 votes - 66 %
 
3 Total Votes
Cult systems by Merekat (4.00 / 1) #1 Fri Apr 11, 2008 at 06:31:09 AM EST
Fuckin' hell, it really is like reading rfcs...



I might try sticking random scientology terms by TheophileEscargot (2.00 / 0) #2 Fri Apr 11, 2008 at 06:38:51 AM EST
Into whatever technical document I have to write next.
--
"Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise." -- Bertrand Russell
[ Parent ]

Either that by Merekat (4.00 / 1) #4 Fri Apr 11, 2008 at 06:48:16 AM EST
Or copy/paste from the next spam you get. It is about as coherant.

[ Parent ]

Or... by anonimouse (4.00 / 1) #14 Fri Apr 11, 2008 at 01:18:16 PM EST
..the latest changes to AD&D

Girls come and go but a mortgage is for 25 years -- JtL
[ Parent ]

Definately husband. by hulver (4.00 / 2) #3 Fri Apr 11, 2008 at 06:42:45 AM EST
He should have run far far away by now.
--
smart, pretty, sane. pick two - georgeha


Food crisis by nebbish (4.00 / 1) #5 Fri Apr 11, 2008 at 07:25:20 AM EST
This is just an idea and speculation on my part, but wouldn't a poor harvest/civil war in one area have a small knock-on effect globally in the modern world economy, instead of causing a devestating local famine as in the past?

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It's political correctness gone mad!


Possibly by TheophileEscargot (4.00 / 1) #6 Fri Apr 11, 2008 at 07:37:50 AM EST
On the other hand, it might be more balanced out gluts and exceptionally good harvests elsewhere. I'm not sure.
--
"Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise." -- Bertrand Russell
[ Parent ]

I heard an interview with a farmer recently by lm (4.00 / 2) #7 Fri Apr 11, 2008 at 09:13:15 AM EST
He was saying that the biofuel companies that buy with him are selling to the food producers post processing. Traditional processing of corn for ethanol doesn't remove enough of the energy from grain to reduce it's value as a food source all that much so they can sell the resulting slurry or meal to various producers and it ends up either in Corn Flakes or as feed stock.

The big increase (for him) was the cost of fuel and fertilizers. Grain prices have been good for him, but not unusually so. I suspect that bio-fuel is a relatively small factor. Another story I heard on the radio, the increase in the price of rice which is not to my knowledge used for bio-fuel, seems to me to confirm this assessment. Rice farmers in Asia are getting hit with increased costs for pesticides, labor, fuel, and fertilizers. This is in places where I don't believe there is competition in arable land for crops that would be used for biofuel.

All this said, personally I think the best source for biofuel is bio-waste. I'm not opposed to growing crops specifically for biofuels, but I think the best spot biofuels can hold in a rational economy is as a method to reduce losses due to waste. A great example of this are the start up biodiesel processors that set up shot next to animal rendering plants and convert the leftover skins, bones, feathers, fat, etc. into fuel. I think it would do the world well if more companies started getting into a mindset of looking into ways to reduce losses from inefficiencies. Another example of this would be using the waste heat in factories, especially ones with blast furnaces, to produce the electricity that very factory needs.


There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic


Complex cult systems by lm (4.00 / 2) #8 Fri Apr 11, 2008 at 09:16:54 AM EST
I think they offer the same attraction as conspiracy theory, a `hidden' answer that only the initiated/sufficiently enlightened can understand. This offers the adherents a sense of community that they otherwise lack, provides relief to existential longing for meaning, and offers continual hope for increasing understanding of the hidden knowledge.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic


5. Protectionism / Low liquidity by Scrymarch (4.00 / 1) #9 Fri Apr 11, 2008 at 09:28:10 AM EST
For instance, a lot of the big rice producers in South and East Asia produce almost entirely for a protected domestic market. Only the excess is traded on the world market for a freely determined price. Now I have no problem saying that is the real cost of rice, but as a result that global market is pretty illiquid and thinly traded by comparison to the actual rice supply. This makes it quite volatile under pressure like the supply shocks of this year and the demand pressure from biofuels.

I think you could be right that biofuels are viable for the last mile, but conversion of carbon sinks (ie forests) into eg palm oil plantations is a nasty case of unintended consequences ...

The Political Science Department of the University of Woolloomooloo



Women Authors and the Military Fiction Genre by ammoniacal (4.00 / 3) #10 Fri Apr 11, 2008 at 09:31:37 AM EST
Nearly as authentic and convincing as my latest pamphlet entitled Childbirth Made Easy.

Irony: ammo says it's time. Tom is blocked.


I preferred your earlier pamphlet by anonimouse (4.00 / 2) #12 Fri Apr 11, 2008 at 01:04:31 PM EST
Dilation and Curettage made easy.

Girls come and go but a mortgage is for 25 years -- JtL
[ Parent ]

I don't know for certain she's a woman by TheophileEscargot (4.00 / 1) #17 Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 04:16:52 AM EST
And her later books are much more realistic militarily.
--
"Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise." -- Bertrand Russell
[ Parent ]

Not to be an arse, but... by ammoniacal (4.00 / 1) #19 Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 03:39:42 PM EST
more realistic militarily

How would you really know?

Irony: ammo says it's time. Tom is blocked.
[ Parent ]

Because by TheophileEscargot (4.00 / 1) #20 Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 04:00:31 AM EST
Having read a reasonably amount about ancient history and ancient warfare, I have a sufficient knowledge of pre-gunpowder warfare to spot military implausibilities in her early books. Since I did not spot similar problems in her later books, I think they are more realistic.
--
"Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise." -- Bertrand Russell
[ Parent ]

Once upon a time by anonimouse (4.00 / 1) #11 Fri Apr 11, 2008 at 01:01:15 PM EST
An army of Roman Legionaries marched in Parthia, led by this guy called Crassus. 35,000 heavy infantry went in, plus about 8-10,000 support troops. They met an army of horse archers. 10,000 of the 45,000 that went there came back. Crassus was killed, allegedly by having molten gold poured down his throat...

This is not to say that the Roman Army always lost in such circumstances. They chose the wrong battleground and tactics for their strengths on this occassion.


Girls come and go but a mortgage is for 25 years -- JtL


Not quite the same though by TheophileEscargot (2.00 / 0) #16 Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 04:15:29 AM EST
Roman legionaries were equipped with two javelins, so they had projectile weapons. And while they downplay their significance, their Italian allies provided them with cavalry auxiliaries.

Parker's halberdiers just have halberds: no cavalry at all, no projectile weapons at all. Also they've apparently never heard of the concept of scouting, preferring to blunder into ambushes all the time.
--
"Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise." -- Bertrand Russell
[ Parent ]

Scouting by anonimouse (4.00 / 1) #18 Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 05:47:56 AM EST
Lots of armies have made similar blunders. Varro in the Teutoburger Forest springs to mind. Hannibal also punished poor scouting by the Romans.

I also don't call pilums projectile weapons (effective range 30 yds?) compared with that of a compund bow (1-200yds?).

With Crassus, about 2,000 of the 4,000 light cavalry lead by Crassus son went in pursuit of the horse archers; they forgot about the 1,000 heavily armoured cataphracts just waiting to play..... and the result was predictable.

Roman legions are primarily monolithic in terms of weapons; the auxilia are largely a sideshow, used to harass the enemy or pull them into the arms of the heavy infantry.


Girls come and go but a mortgage is for 25 years -- JtL
[ Parent ]

The Teutoburg Forest by TheophileEscargot (4.00 / 1) #21 Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 04:17:41 AM EST
Was a bit of an anomaly. Varro thought he was moving through friendly territory with his German allies, not realising they'd just switched sideas and were now his enemy.

He didn't repeatedly blunder into ambush after ambush after ambush in hostile territory, while never bothering to send out any scouts at all.

As we've discussed before, relatively little is known about the details of Roman tactics. I don't think you can assume that the auxiliaries were a sideshow though: Roman writers would naturally have played up the role of the Romans and downplayed the contributions of their allies.

The Romans worked very hard to secure agreements with their allies to provide auxiliary troops, giving preferential treatment in terms of taxation, trade and citizenship to them. Those incentives were sufficient that even when Hannibal was rampaging through Italy for years the allies didn't switch sides.

That suggests that the Romans regarded the military role of the allies as important. They were certainly willing to put their money where their mouth wasn't.

It's quite difficult for a city to provide large numbers of horses and horsemen, but pastoralists can graze horses relatively easily.

The auxiliaries supplied Roman armies with both cavalry and archers. An auxiliary cavalry would have prevented the situation Parker sets up, where much smaller formations of infantry archers set up a distance away from the Halberdiers and run away when the Halberdiers advance.
--
"Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise." -- Bertrand Russell
[ Parent ]

Homogeneous armies are perfectly plausible by Rogerborg (4.00 / 3) #13 Fri Apr 11, 2008 at 01:16:13 PM EST
You just turn away any troops who don't match the ones you've already painted recruited, then you go and lose horribly to the first force that goes to war with the army that it has, rather than the one that it wants.

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Metus amatores matrum compescit, non clementia.


food prices by MillMan (4.00 / 1) #15 Fri Apr 11, 2008 at 04:45:47 PM EST
I think lm is right in reference to fertilizer and pesticide costs being the main driver in the recent price increases.

Fundamentally we're no increasing yield per acre the way we were able to in the 20th century during the green revolution. So while it may appear that localized events such as the drought in Australia or biofuel demand are driving prices, those events are simply riding on top of our decreasing ability to increase supply as demand increases.

When I'm imprisoned as an enemy combatant, will you blog about it?