Conquest of the Planet of the Bride of the Son of the Return of the Open Bar

[Cain]

Most people are spending their Easter with family, eating chocolate and watching films on TV.

Not me.  I'm engaging in a Game of Thrones marathon before I watch the season three premiere (spoiler: Snape kills Dumbledore).



Also waiting for Season Three to set a new low in idiots screeching on the internet about George RR Martin killed their puppy, morality pet, belief in the inherent goodness of man favourite character.

[LMNO]

My brother and his wife sent Mrs LMNO and myself an Easter card.


Consider:

Two Scientologists sent two agnostics a card celebrating Christianity that was borrowed from some Norse goddess.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Hey, TGRR's work internet is down. Let us hold a vigil for our fallen brother.

[LMNO]

 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

He says he's gonna write anyway and post it later.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Thanks for the heads up, Nigel - LOBB was the first thing I looked for.

[Juana]

Bermuda grass is an evil, ugly alien life form. You have to get all of the rhizomes, down to the last section, or it will invade and strangle everything in a given area.

[Cain]

I can sympathise.  Ever since our system updated, my internet will spazz out once every couple of weeks, and leave me unable to get online for half a day.

Half done on my essay.  Finally getting somewhere, though I'm worried I may be putting down my main argument too early in the piece.  Here's a sample for you spags:

Here we see violence and politics being added to our understanding of terrorism.  It should be noted that by Schmid's research, violence/force and political have the two highest proportions of frequency in definitions of terrorism offered.  Nevertheless, some scholars, such as Hoffman, have urged caution at using the historical understanding of terrorism as a starting point, as "uselessly anachronistic," because the Terror was "an instrument of governance wielded by the recently established revolutionary state."

Thus Hoffman is suggesting that modern day terrorism is not carried out by the state.  This assertion seems to have some backing in the study of terrorism, as "it is unreasonable to insist on encompassing analyses of the complex processes of and implications of both regimes of terror and factional terrorism as a mode of struggle in the same covers." 

The problem with this assertion relates to what Jason Franks calls the "orthodox terrorism theory" discourse.  By assuming a priori that the state cannot or should not be analysed as a potential terrorist actor, a distinction is made between the state as an actor and sub-state groups, and this distinction rests on the legitimacy of the state relative to the sub-state group.  While state mechanisms of force are accepted as legitimate, due to the Weberian understanding of the state as the entity holding the monopoly on the legitimate use of force, terrorist groups reject state legitimacy in the first place, thus leading to "a cycle of violence that can be characterised by a protracted and intractable conflict over legitimacy."

Because of this, terrorism as a term is frequently used in the literature to describe acts of violence perpetrated against the established legitimate government, and not by it.  Franks concedes that orthodox terrorism theory "does expound state terrorism", this is rarely referred to or employed consistently, due to the theory being "employed [...] to legitimise state violence whilst simultaneously delegitimising the use of political violence by opposition movements."

[Cain]

Also finding some amusing contradictions in the literature.  Most of the "serious" political scientists are adamant that the Red Brigades were middle class, bourgeois student delinquents, sociologists and criminologists insist that they were blue and white collar factory workers who arose from study groups that discussed Marxism and militant unionism.

[Elder Iptuous]

Bermuda grass is an evil, ugly alien life form. You have to get all of the rhizomes, down to the last section, or it will invade and strangle everything in a given area.

at least it can be passed of as intentionally planted.
dallisgrass is the devil of grasses afaict.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I went on a six-mile hike the other day. On an island, with nothing but wilderness all around. At the end of the trail, on the westernmost tip of the island, I found a small potted plant.

Should I be afraid?

[Cain]

Unless you found a foot next to it, I think you're OK.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Well now you know what you have to do.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Unless you found a foot next to it, I think you're OK.

Gotta love the Salish Sea.

When I was pregnant with EFO, I wrote a poem about disarticulated feet.

Pregnancy hormones, or something.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Well now you know what you have to do.