dieseltaylor

VAB - Nice link but I never said was it possible I just asked if it were easier. : ) Incidentally if my memory serves me well there was a lot of pressure to stop the genocide from countries who supply the world with oil. And I reckon a full-blown invasion counts for more soul-searching than a limited aims role to prevent something.

Ok lets talk a mangled psuedo gobbledy-gook to impress. Anyway a little summary - of the misstatements [lies] provided. Personally I think there are more holes to be picked but .... http://www.alternet.org/story/150857/7_deceptions_about_bin_laden%27s_killing_pushed_by_the_obama_administration?akid=6926.215334.5UfdWj&rd=1&t=5

Sorry I did not realise that method was a criteria. : ) However I was actually thinking and linking to the bit I quoted and did not address at all methods of violence. It had not crossed my mind that comparing Christian and other religions methods of attack would be very fruitful. Through history most religions have done some foul things , or had them done in their name. My instinctive response for fundamental Christians is here - though truth be told it does not actually say what religion most of the perpetrators are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence As for killing civilians, and airplane attacks I think we can say the Japanese[shinto] popularised it, and the [Jewish] St. Davids Hotel attack showed how to use buildings to make a point. A more recent exponent of civilian targetting is the IRA with the money and arms of its supporters. And for hundreds of years Christians have been attacking the original US constitution adding religiousness to the coins and oath. : ) BTW if you have a formal warmaking structure then of course your wars may well be mainly for the god Mammon but of course coated with a veneer of civilisation or a suitable casus belli . In societies where they are not so well organised appealing to the religious rather than nationalistic chord is understandable. You mention a requirement to be Muslim to vote which I found dubious so I have had a look at the Middle East. Wikipedia is good on age so further research was required. Incidentally in Israel the Arabs make up 20% of the population but return 10 MP's or roughly 8% of the Knesset makes you wonder , other than trying to ban two Arab parties at the last election, what other reasons might apply. It is of course possible that Arabs vote tactically. In Egypt according to the CIA Factbook suffrage is universal and compulsory. In Iran " Five other seats dedicated to Iran's Jewish, Zoroastrian and Christian minorities have been decided." Wikileaks. Lastly you say their Imans are calling for Holy War. Perhaps as we know this is not true for the huge majority of Muslims you ought to be more specific as how many radical Islamist are out there. And finally if I were a Muslim the actions of Bush and Blair in invading Iraq might well be seen as an unprovoked attack on a weakened Muslim state to wrest its oil wealth for the benefit of the West. Blair and Bush had cosy little prayers together and one wonders if attacking an Arab/Muslim country is actually easier than if it were Christians that were to be casualties.

AB - I was just seeing how much of your piece could be usefully read replacing Radical Islam with fundamental Christian - works well. Excuse me but my history is lacking, can you advise me when the West was attacked between 1800-1940 other than when the West was interloping. Incidentally you say the radical Islamist attacked first but you are aware that the US was the first country that recognised Israel which might be seen as a continuing and expanding occupier of Arab/Muslim land. To a Martian without any axe to grind that might seem to be a tad provocative to drop a new nation into a region. I don't particularly want to start that thread but just mention possible continuing salt in Muslim wounds. Unless I am very very much mistaken Iraq was the most secular of all Arab nations pre-invasion so I do wonder why you are so misinformed. Some extracts from a UnICEF report shed an interesting light on the social responsibilities of a Muslim society.

All part of a wider piece in Pro Republica which reveals the largesse distributed to doctors, and their professional bodies. http://www.propublica.org/article/medical-societies-and-financial-ties-to-drug-and-device-makers-industry For non-Americans it is a chilling thought that perhaps our health systems are being suborned by the same tactics and how we need to define what and if national health services should cover. It also shows a system which allows those companies who pay kickbacks to buy freedom from justice. Given a person must have authorised the kickback system which is illegal somebody should be going to jail. Preferably a Board Member.

Quantrill? I think you might say the US army was keen to nail him. There may be others. BTW as names are apparently assigned at random ... by computer ... do you buy that? : )

BD6 - generally I think your posts are spot on but I do find this piece singularly devoid of figures but strong on the assertion that the Apaches killed thousands etc etc. And were cruel/vicious etc. All possibly true but then people defending "their land" and aware of the White's record with Indians no doubt felt that genocide or slavery was effectively what was happening to them. Perhaps you could provide some figures on Indian deaths by violence and starvation against Whites killed. But lets start here which is just a Google away: http://www.laughtergenealogy.com/bin/histprof/misc/indianwars.html Anyway to what I think is the nub of your post: As far as I know Indians are US citizens and just because they ARE a minority does not mean they cannot have their own different heroes. If the US Army then feels it can equate Geronimo with a vengeance attack on OBL I do think that it is probably offensive and at least insensitive.

Looks like the spin-off does exist

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Islamabad,+Islamabad+Capital+Territory,+Pakistan&daddr=Abbott%C4%81bad,+Khyber+Pakhtunkhwa,+Pakistan&hl=en&geocode=FYd_AgIdw9BaBCkvcpF40L_fODG2Ats7XFFZYA%3BFWsJCQIdhTFdBCkXxXpVETHeODEslS6xNaZZbg&mra=ls&sll=34.146667,73.216389&sspn=0.114222,0.200329&g=Abbott%C4%81bad,+Khyber+Pakhtunkhwa,+Pakistan&ie=UTF8&z=10 What is it with American officials - suburb of Islamabad? I know geography is tough but for Petes sake its meant to be 75 miles by road which in most countries does not make it a suburb. Particularly given the quality of the roads. And the mountains. Now if you are flying its not far - but then most distances and times to travel are not calculated by flight times.

This is worth watching, even if the title is possibly misleading http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13274947

Condom use could become very much more popular soon : ) The company also do a similar thing for the other problem

Fictional campaign game using WW2 artifacts on an isolated continent warped from earth to another dimension by huge aliens : )

Seems very honest of them. Cannot spell suburb and mis-locate the site. Quality journalism. VA- Lets cut to the chase. They could have said immediately what the context was for Geronimo. But no they had to fanny around. Which seems to me that the US yet again has a success but manages to drag defeat into victory. Let me explain. I now I am going to launch a mission which has several possible results. Before it is launched I prepare my stories to cover the eventualities, this includes what to do with the body AND whether photos actually make a blind bit of difference to conspiracists. In fact my list of points to cover in the various eventualities is huge but then at the end I only need the one and that is the success story which surely is honed to cover everything. I also arrange to have one point only that provides information and I make darn sure anyone who is thinking of doing unofficial leaking knows their butt is seriously seriously on the line. SO how many story changes have we had since Sunday, liitle snippets, contradictions, eventual dragging out what could have been said at the beginning. It just seems so incompetent.

Somalia. The AIS would be provided to ships and boats by the national governments presently failing in policing the area. ANd in the next 12 months AIS for sizes of boats will be available. http://www.digital-seas.com/haeufig_verwendete_inhaltselemente/regions/baltic_sea_south.html Pirates can of course buy their own kit however I expect that they each have a unique code and a database of what ship buys what set would reveal that some were suspect. The converse, not having any AIS transmitting would identify you as suspicious and mean naval vessels could concentrate on looking for non-transmitting vessels. Now they would be as hard to find as previously but chasing properly ID vessels would give more time. For merchant ships they would compare visual sightings with AIS to make sure they chimed, if you can see a vessel but no AIS then you know you need help. A quick call on the blower may then be effective to get some response. Convoys help too and this would enable ships to form convoys far more easily. As for resurrecting Somalia I am all in favour of that. Firstly lets recognise it is not an indivisible country and actually use the clans to make the self-administering areas. I understand Northern Somalia is much quieter and coherent but no country is willing to recognise it as independent. Seems silly to me. If we favour one or other of the clan areas for good behaviour then that encourages the bahaviour of the rest. Violence. I am cowardly myself so dislike violence. However there are those who trade on humanities general desire for peace and self-preservation to do unpleasant acts such as killing people. Within a country hopefully the police and judicial system will put them out of the way. Where the violence comes from an outside country we generally go to war and people get killed. I do not see that an attack from any outside group differs markedly from a proper war other than the difficulty of identifying the enemy. I am not in favour of killing people as a first option, I would consider the cause of their grievance to consider its merits. Its possible solutions. And enter dialogue to see if an accommodation can be made. However that does not mean at the end of day that assinations etc are not the safest and most effective solution. BUT generally I doubt that killing is the correct solution.

I think too demeaning names might also be dangerous so favour neutral words. However if freed from deep-thinking its much more fun to demean the enemy Diaper? Snuffles, Rose, Knob, Panto, Shirley - surely : )

You do realise that if the DoD said from the outset that it was the long used code for the operation and was chosen because of the similarity to the hunt for Geronimo they would have got marks for logic and truthfulness. I would have been OK with that. If they had named the target as Geronimo [which I suspect is likely] and said on reflection it was perhaps not the wisest choice for the reasons raised they would have got marks for honesty. What have we got - pure bloody lying or incompetence. And what is the most galling is that they REALLY believe anyone with an ounce of intelligence believes it is a random choice.

See my other thread regarding this. Suffice to say that because a name is chosen by computer does not make it right or acceptable. And do you honestly believe that of the roughly million words in the English language that this was chosen by random choice? Making allowances for unpronounceable words and obvious ineligibles would probably leave at least 50000 and more if you include place names. Which makes me doubt hugely that this was randomly picked from a dictionary. Now from a short short list put together by the military ..... and then picked by computer .. That the long term chase for OBL has a similarity to the long campaign to cage Geronimo must surely be a coincidence of a freakish nature. In fact some people might actually believe that a computer did not strike lucky with a code name. However as the DoD says they are allocated by random computer pick then it must be sooo totally true. Run program: Gronimo Geronimo Geronimo Gerima Lilo Adolf Maceys Run remove non-names: Remove Christian names: Remove Brand names: Print results.

BBC 3/5/11 Fair point. In that case think of it in both contexts Still seems to suck.

As I am totally unimpressed with Geronimo I wondered how one could offend more people with carefully chosen codes. I am excluding the opportunity to use neutral words like Arctic as it seems alien to the military mind. But I am not the only one: As the DoD say they are chosen randomly it makes me wonder two things: a] it is a very short list they choose from b] it is all possible words and this was just unlucky coincidence and in either case we don't give a blind **** if it may offend. So drawing back from something obvious like Mandela, or Pope, and I can see why Obama and Osama had to be avoided what names do you think would be most likely to offend? I assume there are contractual reasons why you cannot use names like Popeye ... Adolf might have been wrong..

Looks like my initial hunchs are becoming more solid. I have no doubt he was ratted out. And that some Pakistani group knew where he was. As for Geronimo I really really do believe that there are some very stupid Americans in the DoD. I suppose they could have called him Mandela Re: untouchables and garbage. Wrong religion.

Firstly the sanctity of life bit is such hogwash. If it were why have so many Iraquis died by the hand of the liberal West. There is the view that if you call it a war and kill tens of thousands its OK but if you kill an individual that somehow becomes a crime. Where is the logic in that? I would much prefer it the other way around myself. As for the pirates - as you did not propose a solution I can tell you mine : ) Fit all legit vessels with AIS. If you have not got it you are a target and with no boats you are unable to go to sea. There may be some refinements needed but the basic idea is a mega-step forward. The exclusion of non-Somali fishing vessels is probably also a good idea once peace is restored. A tight screen blockade off the Somali coast in smaller vessels should not be beyond the power of the navies of the world. Introduced and relaxed at whim to keep the bad guys off balance once the initial AIS distribution has been enforced.

My first instinct is that is the base of a windmill rather than a silo for grain. AFAIK Normandy was not known for grain, historically people would grow sufficient for their needs plus a tad. If in the decades before WW2 grain had been commercialised to a scale then I would think you would have concrete or metal silos and they would not be isolated. As for the Normandy style I can recall a few manoir which might have had a round tower but rarish say 3%. Now whether that is because they were destroyed, or in fact where rare in the first place I have no idea. Fortunately we do have French players here so perhaps one is an architectural buff. : )

I think possibly everyone realised that getting to the Moon was one thing but anything more substantial was way way beyond the technology of the day... and now. BTW do you know every one who has walked on the Moon was a first-born. Well so says the BBC Radio Four play today : )

And just to show that coincidences do happen: SO if I were seeding an economic/research area the sea looks pretty useful. This article only looks at power generation but in the event of a rising sea level actually sorting out under water use might be better than just power. And given there is water adjacent to a lot of countries the expertise could be useful.

VAB - I am positive you are right. However it is beginning to get a little murky with the new story. It irks the hell out of me that getting wrong stories out quickly seems more important than the correct story in due time.!!! Who the hell is responsible for the "stories". I had looked up the helicopters for payload and range as I was wondering what fallback plans were in place. However given the huge range of variants I was at a bit of a loss!.