Stalins Organ

I do recall a sci-fi short stoy once where "the voter" was chosen by lot from among the registered millions, then a computer checked out his/her attitudes & "elected" representatives that reflected those. Of course there were billions spent trying to figure out who "the voter" was going to be, influence anyone who might be him/her, etc. So the phone book sounds like a better idea.

Thanks for those - that last one may be it.

They'd still have to suffer carrier envy..... Hint - the one on the left is the Ark Royal from that episode....

It follows with currency and commodity traders making a fortune for gambling.

"God" wasn't added to the currency until teh 1950's or thereabouts wasn't it?

One anecdote I always remember about Patton is how he lost an aide he was close to in Farica - he had het guy set up an observation post & had him report by radio for a few days. then the LW bombed it and killed the Aide. Patton blamed the air commander (Conningham) for "letting" the german a/c through - although he had been advised not to leave such a post up for so long, and that it was well known that German airpower was still capable of isolated raids (and no it's not the incident from the movie.....)

He didn't suffer "minor injuries" - he was paralysed from the neck down! Sensationalist tripe!:mad::cool:

Good argument..... Neither are all nuclear plants. Not for us, but in many places they are - it seems unlikely that France will ever generate enough "renewable" electricity to replace it's nukes...or at least not within the lifetime of anyone alive now, nor China generate enough to replace its coal. But hey - I'm being an ass, so that makes up for it....right??

Coal seam fires worldwide, thousands of them....many unreported...chinese ones are probably the worst ....generating as much as 40 tons of mercury perannum. Then there's the outpot from yuor average coal fired station, which might not make any given area uninhabitable, but the idea that it is harmless is patent nonsense - in an average year a 500MW station emits: 3,700,000 tons of CO2 10,000 tons of SO2 10,200 tons of NOx 720 tons of CO 220 tons of hydrocarbons 170 lbs of mercury 225 lbs of arsenic 114 lbs of lead all that pollution is not making he planet a nicer place to live, and quite frankly it's killing a lot more people each year than Chernobyl ever will! So how keen are you to do without your coal generated electricity??

whever evaluating the dangers of Nuclear power I always find it disturbing to come back to the number of fatalities caused by/in hte fossil fuel industry - eg 29 miners killed here on the West Coast last year, and I think a simlar nubmer in hte US somewhere shortly before then too?? I would hate to guess how many coal miners have been killed in, say, the 50 years since Nuclear power has been really "popular". Along with 11 oil workers in the Gulf last year, 11 on Petrobras 36 in 2001, and going back further 167 on Piper Alpha, 22 on KAB 101 in 1994, Alexander L. Kielland killing 123 in 1980, Ocean Ranger in 1982 killing 84, Sea Gem in 1965 killing 13. And then there's all the oil spills and their effects on lives and environments, and just general industrial accidents in & on oil facilities, pipelines, service stations, etc. plus people killed or injured by fires fueled by petro-chemicals, and the bilions of tons of air pollution from our addiction to the black stuff. and all that is more-or-less socially acceptable - oh sure we wring our hands about it a bit - but the vast majority of us are happy to drive to work, to fly between cities, to have our global-economy delivered on shipping that burns heavy oil and is delivered on trucks. So I hope you will forgive me if I currently think that the "concern" about the nuclear situation in Japan is just a little hysterical!

Here's a great presentation on the technical aspects of just what the e/q & Tsunami did, and what happened to the reactors afterwards and why - http://energyfromthorium.com/2011/03/30/areva-fd-presentation/ For those of interested in the pro/anti-nuke debate thing I got this link through Depleted Cranium - a blog that is quite aggressively pro-nudcelar power & makes for interesting reading.....but I think the other thread is probably the best place for that debate - can we keep this one technical??

John that is what the guy in the video is famous for - read the wiki entry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kanzius - and ultimately it still requires more energy than you get from the fuel although it may or may not be more efficient than using striaght electricity.

Yeah I've seen that document thanks - it is certainly an interesting read. But there was a case reported from 2008 in Sadr City so several years later, and there's a video that looks like it might be that actual attack on Liveleak ....I know I saw a discussion of it somewhere - thought it was here

Hey folks - I'm trying to find a thread or 2 that I thought was on here about an M1 (or plural) being KO-ed by RPG's - RPG-29? I've spent a couple of days searching here & on the 'net - there are plenty of articles on the 'net, but I am sure the discussion here was more complete than those I've found. Does anyone else recall it? TIA SO

If you try to share your steak with them then it is you that will be getting the leftovers......first in, best fed and all that

I'm happy to share my steak with more of the female meat eeaters.....

I think one of the points is that if you get the civil population "on side" then agricultural production doesn't drop away, you don't need so many troops in rear areas and local "militias" can often take care of the smaller partisan groups that can survive in such conditions. You also have less stress on the transport situation as civil transport and storage works more or less properly. Directly recruiting people into the front line military is not necessarily the aim of "humane" policies. the Lokot autonomy was such a "state" in occupied Russia. It supported a substantial military force (8-12,000 men including some armour & AA - the equiment mentioned is captured ex-sov, so not a drain on German production), was substantially free of partisan activity & existed until over-run by the Sov's

Sorry - a misunderstanding here - there's nothing WRONG with the maintenance - they are doing all the things they are supposed to do when they are suppsoed to do them. However they were not doing some maintenance "in advance" of when it was supposed to happen, and did not make plans to do it when it would be due because that was goingto be after the a/c were out of service so someone else's problem.....so now have to rush around to get it done on time. planning down time for a/c to have maintenane is a big deal - it costs a ****-load of money, you want to know it is happening a long time in advance to cover flight schedules, major spares that might be required, and ensure you have hanger space.....and if you don't do that then you have to pay through the nose to get the resources at short notice

This article in the SMH from late last year mentions that QANTAS's fleet replacement plans are "in tatters", however a colleague has just discussed with me what this actually means for their 767 fleet. QANTAS had "arranged" for their 767's to fly right up to their maintenance limits and then be replaced by the 787's - anything that was not due before the replacement has been deferred - typically some maintenance is performed befoer it is due because you are in the area for some other reason, so it is convenient and efficient to do it early rather than having to bring the a/c back a 2nd time at a later date. Only now the a/c are NOT going out of service they have to catch up with maintenance again. All rumour....but it seems plausible to me as a former a/c maintenance planner....and....oops!! It was probably not quite so bad for the 747-400 fleet, as those aircraft are not nearly so old & maintenance was probably being kept current as to maintain their resale value.

There are journo's still reporting from Tripoli tho. As an aside, a couple of news articles from the last 2 days: Gaddafi is sitting on 143 tons of gold, enough to pay his mercenaries for eyars, and He's offered shares in Libyan oil to China, Russia & India in the future...... I reckon it wasn't about oil before (with general rapproachment between Libya & the West in the last few years there was no need - indeed the violence seems counterproductive to increasing any control!), but it is now!

I think you will find you don't have to be on the property - I recall this from a few months ago - taking photos from the raod would be a crime, or from an aircraft. Even "innocent snaps" would be a crime if they happened to include a cow or a sheep in the idyllic countryside.

Grog grog 10.......

It seems the Arab League are back to supporting airstrikes.

Media has a role in exposing crime of all varieties - it's not like they aer actually usurping hte role of federal or any other police force. If the populace is rarked up by media expose's then that then becomes the population usurping the police role - not the media. And since the police are, arguably, acting as the agents of the wider population/social structure there's at least an argument that the population has the right to do so. Certainly no-one supporting the Libyan/Egyptian/Bahrain/Saudi/ etc populations in their objection to oppression could logically claim otherwise.

Never mind - I finally caught up