miked10270

Perhaps now is the time to celebrate his life. And to give thanks. I lived my youth with the likelihood of the "4 Minute Warning". Backfires flying low over the North Sea. Megatonnage and Megadeath. The First Guards Division pouring through the Fulda Gap - next stop Biscay and Shannon. The removal of my basic liberties. I hold President Reagan primarily responsible for the removal of those fears. Fears which my children will never experience and possibly never comprehend. Thank you Mr. President. Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

Health insurance is a strange thing. Basically, as with all insurance you're betting against the insurers that something terrible is going to happen... and they set the odds. With a "group" policy, like health insurance at work, the company takes a massive premium that covers, say 1,000 folk. If one or two of them are skydivers then 990 odd aren't so it doesn't change the odds much, at least not enough for most insurers to care. With an individual policy, if that individual skydives then that changes the odds (and hence the premiums) A LOT! Because of this, the key to cheap insurance ids to get it through membership of some organisation, the larger the better. That way you get to sort of hide your "dangerous sports" risk among all the Whuffos. This is why folk who've got policies through their work don't get hit with massive premiums. Do any organisations like say the Automobile Association or the NRA offer their members access to a group personal accident / health insurance? THat may be the way to go. Regards, Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

The one wiff Florence Nightingale, The Charge of The Light Brigade an' stuff. Anyway... What sort of a Barrister questions a legal argument with facts?!! Isn't it supposed to be the other way 'round? Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

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Hi there, First check out: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38555 Firstly; thanks for the legislation guys, very well thought out. Secondly; under the EXACT terms of YOUR legislation... We'll have our former colony back! Thanks. Thirdly; while we appreciate that this only entitles us to the original colonies per the c.1776 borders, we consider that you have effectively had these colonies on loan for 228 years without payment or interest for this time. compound interest at a nominal 3% per annum over 228years should cover the remaining contigious states very nicely. In the case of Hawaii, please remember that they killed Captain Cook, a serving Royal Navy officer in another act of terrorism. In the case of Alaska, OK, this was Russian at the time, but since they stuffed us in the Crimean war, we'll have that as well. You will revert to a monarchy. you may share our monarch, King Tony I. Your new Governor General, Dubya, being the third person in his family to carry the name, will be known (very appropriately) as "His Excellency George III". For further information please reviev part #1 of the following: http://www.shartwell.freeserve.co.uk/humor-site/independence.htm Which is in the process of being updated for 2004. The good news for you, the average American citizen is that come November, you will no longer have to make the agonizing choince between the cowardly liar who went to Vietnam, and the cowardly liar who stayed at home. Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

Err... Does that mean I've gotta change my signature line? Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

Actualy that's something else that worries me. What is a "Short Bus"? I don't know . Does not knowing what a "Short Bus" is automatically qualify you for the Short Bus? Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

Perhaps more one for the "Non-Americans" http://www.pibmug.com/files/map_test.swf Where're you from & can you do it? Go on. Post location & scores . I got 35. the North-Eastern states buggered me. Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

Like NacMac says... A firearm is a tool to do a job, .22" for squirrels & rabbits, .303" for red deer... Which raises a small question ()... What job does a .50" BMG do? Have the american squirrels suddenly taken to going around in SUVs and body armour? And you REALLY need something to take out the vehicle, penetrate the body armour and kill the squirrel? Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

I did offer to do the paperwork, but apparently MY version didn't make YOU look heroic, handsome, brilliant, caring, and above all MODEST enough! edited to add: Anyway, shouldn't you be busy playing with your Meccano or something!? Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

A while back I was talking to a friend who was in hospital administration. He happened to point out that in the UK we pay some 6% of our GNP on our socialised medicine system, while the US pays some 13% of it's GNP. Personally I much prefer the "socialised medicine" system. A few years back Iona had a bad landing in the US. Ambulance came, took her away to hospital, she got a painkiller and waited... and waited... 2 hours wait until I showed up with evidence of insurance and a credit card. Once the insurance was photocopied and the credit card run through and the phone call was made to confirm that the insurance would pay for any treatment Iona got... subject to further phone calls at various cost levels..... THEN Iona got excellent treatment. Basically a bruised backside cost around $2,400. I had a "rough" landing in the UK (my foot went on vacation up into the back of my knee!). Ambulance 35 miles to the most suitable hospital (not the nearest), into A&E, X-ray, consultant orthopaedic surgeon (on a Sunday afternoon),manipulation under anaesthetic (to pull my foot back "roughly" into place), then a 40 minute wait before the general anaesthetic and into theatre for joint reconstruction surgery and internal fixation to my ankle. 2 nights in hospital, physiotherapy, 3 further ops to remove the screws and stuff from my ankle in stages... Total cost $0.00 directly. OK I pay $5 a gallon for gas and 17.5% sales tax, but I had my treatment costed and if I'd had this all done in the US I'd be looking at a bill of over $100,000 which MAY OR MAY NOT have been covered by "health insurance". There would certainly have been protracted discussions between the medical staff on what I needed and what the insurance company would pay for . In short, under "socialised medicine" you have an excellent chance of getting what you need. With "private financed" medicine you tend to get what you can afford. "Private financed" medicine is great if you can afford what you need. Mike. PS. When I was in Tombstone I got talking to a guy in his 70's who was still working. He'd retired a few years ago, but his wife's illnesses had wiped out his retirement income so he had to go back to work. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

http://www.lebonze.co.uk/stuff/move.htm Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

It's cold outside, there's no kind of atmosphere. I'm all alone, more or less. Let me sail, far away from here, Fun, fun, fun, in the sun, sun, sun. I want to lie, shipwrecked and comatose, drinking fresh mango juice. Goldfish shoals, nibblin' at my toes, Fun, fun, fun, in the sun, sun, sun. And for all the real fans... It's available on DVD , there's (I think) 3 books. It was all done by BBC North-West and it's pretty obvious that no expense was spent, yet it was blisteringly funny for the script. Unfortunately, as it was moving into the mainstream 2 things happened: Craig Charles (Lister) was arrested and remanded on a charge of rape (subsequently found innocent) and the writers (Rob Grant & Doug Naylor) went their seperate ways. At the moment the planned next series and a film are "pending". Oh yeah... In the UK there's plenty of repeats, but usually at godforsaken hours. Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

$3 a gallon for Bio-Diesel!!? Someone, somewhere is taking the pi$$ charging that. To make your own in the UK costs around 12p, say 20 cents a litre, plus any applicable taxes which in the UK are near enough 25p / litre. This excludes the cost of the processing tank. For 80 litres of Bio-Diesel the materials needed are 20 litres of Methanol and 350g+ of sodium hydroxide. You'll also need to heat the oil in the tank to 40c and stir it for an hour. How much is 20 litres of Methanol and a couple of pounds of lye in the US!!? The processing tank basically consists of an old oil drum with a conical bottom on a stand. You'll need a wide bore tap on tte bottom of the cone and ideally a floating siphon tube. It should come in at under $300 for the processing tank. You'll also need protective clothing and a bit of distilled water and isopropanol to carry out a titration. I don't want to go into long and boring detail on the exact how to here. The book link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0970722702/104-5227722-2227161?v=glance I posted earlier gives the whole process of constructing the processing tank, carring out the chemistry and the safety considerations far more clearly than I could. I recommend the book as VERY worth buying. The main problem for most folk at the moment seems to be that they make a bit too much for their own use, and from there the thing starts to snowball into a business!!! I've made a couple of small test batches with no problems, just followed the book and both my diesels ran no problems on it. I intend going into small scale production as soon as I can get another garden shed built. In the UK this means that I get my vehicle fuel LEGALLY at half the UK pump price. Mike. Edited to add: Oh yeah bill, regarding the whole diesel pollutant thing... Firstly there's effectively no soot from Bio-Diesel (remember the King-Air runing on B-20? NO soot stains on the wings from the exhaust). Technically there's no pollution whatsoever from Bio-Diesel. No complex hydrocarbons 'cos the fuel hasn't been sitting festering underground for millions of years. The CO2 released in burning Bio-Diesel wasn't pulled out of the atmosphere millions of years ago and locked away in the ground, it was sucked out of the air a couple of months ago when the plant (usually Canola) was growing so it's a ZERO producer of greenhouse gasses. It's a completely renewable fuel source . If it's spilt it can be safely washed away with water without treatment. It's also a tree-hugger's dream and disliked by big fuel companies who've spent $giga-tetra-zillions on drilling rigs, tankers, refineries, gas stations etc... Anyone even slightly interested should get the book, even order it from a lending library for a read before buying their own copy. Sorry, but I've just had a vision of MacDonalds being plagued by skydivers ordering a Big Mac, large fries... "And could I have the oil you've just cooked that in for my car?" Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

Hi Gary, I don't want to "bang the drum"... But Bio-Diesel IS the mainstream of alternative power!! The original Diesel engines were in fact designed to run on vegetable oil!!! The design was modified to run on the cheap by-product of making petrol from crude oil. As far as use in an internal combustion engine is concerned, the only practical difference between vegetable oil and diesel is the viscosity. Vegetable oil is thicker so it won't feed through metering units and injectors designed for "fossil-diesel" The pumps and injectors are the same, only the various "holes" are smaller for fossil diesel than vegetable oil. So... to run a diesel engine on vegetable oil you have to do ONE of 3 things: 1. Have the metering unit (pump) and injectors machined out and modified to run vegatable oil. This is impractical because then the engine wouldn't be able to run on the currently more available "fossil-diesel". 2. Reduce the viscosity of the vegetable oil by heating it. There are "dual-fuel" kits available which use waste engine heat to warm vegetable oil sufficiently (70 C) to allow it to feed through a "standard" metering unit and injectors. These require some awareness of the systems and place some restrictions on engine operation. They are primarily suitable for engines used for long periods of time. 3. Chemically change the viscosity of the vegetable oil to match that of "fossil-diesel". This is what "Bio-Diesel" is: Vegetable oil which has been chemically altered by a process called "Transestherication" so that it's "thin" enough to pass through a standard diesel metering pump and injectors. The downside of this is that it needs some equipment (basically a modified oil drum) and some knowledge of chemistry. The upside is that "Bio-Diesel" can be used just like "Fossil-Diesel"...the two can be mixed in any proportion so "fuel availability" really isn't an issue. If you were short of Bio-Diesel", then there's nothing to stop you from topping up your fuel tank with "Fossil-Diesel" at any gas station.

Hi Gary, You don't say WHY you want a hybrid. Is it a gas mileage thing? A green thing? a mix of both? Personally I'd sugest going Diesel instead. That way you're going to get the fuel mileage and modern diesels, particularly the European ones (VW/Audi) are civilised, powerful and economical. In a lot of european countries Diesels make up to 50% of car sales. As for the "Green" issue, once again Diesel wins out. It's possible, even simple, to make diesel fuel from new or waste vegetable oil!!!!!. Check out: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0970722702/104-5227722-2227161?v=glance It's the "idiots guide" to making your own fuel and the base ingredient is basically yours for the asking from local restaurants. "Bio-Diesel" effectively produces ZERO(!!) greenhouse gasses. There's even a King-Air running on a mix of 80% AvTur and 20% Bio-Diesel... The only difference noticed so far is that the wings don't get soot stained! Regards, Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

Crawford isn't missing their village idiot. They know exactly where he is. they know he's nowhere near Crawford. That's fine by them! Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

Mouse (Mickey), Disney Party candidate, has been one of the most popular "write-in" candidates in recent US Presidential elections! It has been established that the Gore and Mouse vote split was such that if only the Florida electorate hadn't voted for the fictitious, two dimensional candidate that has no personality and probably doesn't exist, then the Mouse / Duck candidates would have won by a landslide! Mike. (edited to add: Only a Texan could ask this question ) Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

Hi All, Well, here we all are again. With the US Presidential Elections fast(?) approaching we're all spending a lot of time discussing the relative merits of candidates Bush, Kerry, Nader... And of course, Mouse. Of course we could all save ourselves some time, quite a lot of time actually, simply by appreciating that Bush has some 80% of the vote in a recent poll of US Supreme Court Judges. This is in fact fully democratic - after all the people voted for the folk who voted in the committee members who appointed the judges... Anyway, the real reason for this post was to remind all you folk in Florida to do some shopping here: http://www.vikingop.com/(phj5dp550fhlkw55bbdbqbja)/catalogFamily.aspx?ID=7013334 But be quick, demand may be high. Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

Hi Chris, Your son may wat something way fast and cool... BUT... I'd bet the insurance companies are going to have something to say about a 16 year old and a fast car!!!! Fast is out! So he's going to have to go for cool. Of course cool, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. What about a beefed up 4x4? Say a basic jeep or landrover defender with raised suspension, all the posey off-road goodies? Despite crumple zones, airbags, etc... crash survivability really comes down to the height and weight of the vehicle - a high / heavy vehicle (say a range rover / chevy suburban) ALWAYS comes out ahead of a low / light vehicle. Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

Check out http://www.hunley.org/. Looks like mid-April is going to be busy there, but it'd be worth it to see a piece of history. Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

For whiling away an hour or two: http://www.kontraband.com/html/content.asp My favourites? http://www.kontraband.com/html/tvads/tvads.asp?ID=1141 and http://www.kontraband.com/html/tvads/tvads.asp?ID=1118 AND... http://www.kontraband.com/html/tvads/tvads.asp?ID=1096 Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

This reminds me of an English Lit. question: "Briefly explain the reasons for Hamlet's depression." The submitted answer was: "Hamlet suddenly found he was the King of Denmark. You would be depressed to be made king of a country that's only famous for pine furniture, pornography and pork products!" Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

Hmmm.... Never seen Haggi fired from a catapult before! Then again, I suppose the proper way to hurl haggis (like throwing the english hammer - but holding the downhill side legs for extra range) would be far too hard to simulate. Now. I don't want to stir up controversy but... WARM, FRESHLY congealed pigs blood mixed with a little pepper IS an English delicacy. Nuthin' to do with Scots... Our idea of a delicacy is a chocolate bar (Mars / Snickers) coated in batter and deep fried. And we defy ANYONE, even Homer Simpson to come up with a better aperitif before dining on fresh caught wild haggis. Now. About Haggis. There's actually 3 types of Haggis: Firstly there's the genuine wild haggis. They evolved on the Scottish mountainsides and in true darwinian fashion did evolve with long legs on the right (downhill) side and short legs on the left (uphill) side. There is no record of there being 2 breeds, one with the legs reversed, but it is possible that the mythical "reverse leg" breed became extinct due to it having a thinner skull thus losing out in the head on collision scenario (but I digress). Wild haggis is a bugger to catch! because of their legs they can run around the hillside fast as feck. The highland terrier was bred to look like a clump of heather that suddenly erupts into barking and snarling specifically to catch haggis. What you do is first peg out nets at the bottom of the heather covered slope, then send the highland terrier up the hill, where it just looks like a wee clump of heather. Around comes the haggis and suddenly this "wee clump of heather" jumps up and starts barking and snarling at the haggis. Of course the haggis turns around the other way to escape and suddenly finds that it's short legs are now on the downhill side. It rolls down the hill into the nets - easy catch and kill. As I've said, GENUINE, WILD Haggis is now VERY rare. We blame the english landowners with their shotguns for this! There's factory farmed haggis available but because they're kept on level ground the legs are all the same length. Some unscrupulous haggis breeders actually cut the legs off and try to pass the resultant carcass off as wild haggis. Thirdly, there's all those bits of sheep that are strictly speaking inedible (even deep fried in batter) all wrapped in a sheep's stomach. We sell that to tourists! Now OK... I know the whole wild haggis thing sounds a bit far fetched... But ask yourself this: Are all you wonderful people going to believe Batbex; a self confessed student at St.Andrews University, where the degrees are printed on softer, more absorbent paper? Or are you going to believe pillars of the community such as me and NacMacFeegle? I hope that the answer won't take long. Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

So we kind of err... forgot to charge the batteries on the mobile phone . Anyone can make that mistake. Mike. Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable. Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.