nacmacfeegle

"Maybe the confusion has something to do with lefties being sucked into believing this whole story and now trying to figure out how to spin and mis-direct their way out of it." Probably. Less likely but equally believable, this is a distraction to avert our conspiracy seeking attention from the fact that entire buildings, walls, roofs and contents, previously earmarked for scrutiny, just vanished into thin air. Lets face it, precision machine tools, laser welders, and stocks of high strength aluminium don't sound as immediately threatening as 380 tonnes of high explosive. Think about it. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"Besides, that wasn't GWB's sign hung up on that ship." Now you're getting paranoid, I never mentioned Dubbya. Definitely gotta go now, cya. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"By the way...how do you know this?" Only photo I've seen is a pile of rubble. Number 4 here.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/3954781.stm When we (the coalition) got every other high ticket personality so far, we have been pretty quick to publish names, photos of the bodies etc. Not this time? Don't confuse Naivety with Suspicion. Gotta go, maybe more info on this tomorrow. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"The Force" has always been strong with me." Yeah, I can sense it even from this distance. Strong faith is by no means a character flaw. Cya.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3954847.stm "a local TV crew caught the incident on camera, but said it was difficult to tell who had started the food fight." I gotta see this. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"How little you appear to understand about special operations. Don't be naive." True, very true, but I prefer the term 'innocent' over naive.

"Why would you believe a “Falluja resident” over our guys on the ground?" I'm not sure if there are that many of our guys actually inside Fallujah, its under siege and under attack, but its not under coalition control. Rumour and counter rumour, nothing new there then. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

Not a great week for Britan's spelling then. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

Hehehe. To be fair, Google gives better results for iacta. But if we go with Plutarch's Life of Pompey, it was said in Greek. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

Pax pueri (digging deep on my latin from 20 yrs ago). http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxthedie.html -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

LOL, my local newspaper doesn't even report on Iraq, Pakistan, or Afghanistan, it is a source of knowledge on the movements of the WRI though. So, OBL is in Pakistan is he? "have you considered the destabilizing effect OBL's capture inside Pakistan would have? " I like your new sense of humour.

If it helps the search, we call them "Hip Flasks" over here. But I've never seen one that would take a pint. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"And if the islamic world is so peaceful, why don't the hundreds of millions of them around the world seem to be of any use in helping us ferret out the evil murderers among them?" Bangladesh and Pakistan are two of the larger Muslim countries out there. Bangladesh and Pakistan together provide nearly 17,000 troops for UN duty around the world, the USA provides 430. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3763640.stm Also "US Secretary of State Colin Powell has praised Bangladesh for being "an elegant, compelling and greatly needed voice of moderation". " http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3003010.stm -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"Long time back I said our political objectives were accomplished by removing Saddam and crushing the regime. A continuation of the message sent by smashing the Taliban." The message I'm getting in Cynic Central Command is "hey, good work, but where's OBL?" -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

Do we have more murders than the US? http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_cap Much maligned source, (CIA, UN etc) but about 4 times more likely to be murdered in the US than the UK. If anyone has a better, more robust source, lets have it. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"Unless you're prepared to obliterate the 3 Million figure written about the black market size in 2001, 3k/yr is mere noise in the data." According to one site I came across on a data mining trip, there were an estimated 4 million guns held illegally in this country in 1987. http://www.jeremyjosephs.com/hunger.htm#power So on the face of it the gun ban is taking guns out of circulation, but I reckon its a tenuous point. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

The law changed after Dunblane, but was also influenced by Hungerford. "Do you, as a corrolary to that, state that prior to the ban in 1997 you were having a problem with gun crime due to private legal ownership?" The killings at Hungerford and Dunblane were comitted with legally held firearms so yes, prior to the ban we had two, albeit anomalous, incidents involving shocking murders and the use of legal firearms. It may have been a knee jerk reaction by the govt at the time do something, regardless of whether it was effective or not. There was a huge public outcry at the time. "Taking the guns away in the first place was the change in the status quo, and the decision never was rationalized, and still isn't being justified." Spilled milk. Fact is that we can't wind the clock back and undo the change. We don't have the same legislative structure you have, so saying that we can have laws on a time limited basis doesn't apply, although it is a good idea. "I never said that CCW would have saved this girl, or home ownership of firearms would have saved the girl." Yet you cited it as an example of gun crime, in a debate on whether we should change our current law. Why did you mention it at all? Nah enough, its just a distraction. "In every year since then, your gun crime has been increasing. YOU explain THAT. I'm listening." I don't have to explain the causality of crime or the make up of the victims perps etc, however its been done before in the past by MRM2 and Skyrad, look it up. Long story short its mostly in-fighting between gangs, and legal firearm ownership will have little impact upon it. "What I am advocating is a return to how things were before YOUR change." Which was gun ownership on a sporting basis, vermin control etc. Not for personal protection, not as a right, and certainly not as part of a militia. It required guns and ammo to be kept locked in separate 'gun safes'. Our previous legislation did not allow widespread firearm ownership for personal security purposes or CCW. A return to our previous status quo is not going to have a huge effect on gun crime, unless the legal gun owners break the law, which kinda defeats the purpose does it not? -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"You seem to be willfully missing the point." Not at all, I'm trying to stimulate further discussion without the abrasiveness we have both seen all too often from both sides. We get a good going gun thread and then it gets all nasty and raggedy, then it is locked. Yep, we lost our guns, how do we get them back is the question. The point I'm trying to make is that we will have to convince the government that regaining our priveledge to own firearms will solve a problem that many people don't believe exists. The government certainly won't entertain the thought that we can justify a change in the law because they (the govt) can't protect us from armed criminals. And btw 68 gun deaths a year is not rampant, neither is it a rising tide about to deluge us with chaos. The example you cited is pretty typical of gun crime that makes the news over here, a seemingly random drive by, they are not really the type of scenarios that could be avoided by keeping a firearm in your house. Even CCW would go little way to avoiding a very small percentage of this type incident. The victim in question, had she been of legal firearm bearing age was returning from a nightclub, which means she would have had to take the weapon with her to the club in the first place, an aspect of CCW that I am not comfortable with. So back to the issue at hand, how would you go about re-instating the pre-ban gun legislation, make a rational case for it PJ, I'm listening. You know by now I'm not interested in changing your laws, but I am genuinely interested to hear a valid and workable justification for us to change ours, if one exists. Johnrich and Kennedy, feel free to add some opinion too. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

From the linked article.. "The complaint said Greenhouse objected to the five-year term, asking why the certainty that the emergency would continue that long." Actually 5 years is beginning to look optimistic. Hasn't this all been looked into before, and found to be legal, if somewhat morally suspect, given the VP's links to Halliburton. Or is there a cover-up/conspiracy at work here? -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"Here's one that's closer to home to you in Britain." So how would private gun ownership have prevented a drive by shooting of a person too young to own a gun, even in an enlightened society such as yours? -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"How would you prevent the mine from killing a mailman or a meter-reader?" Put a sign up saying "Keep off the grass, I really mean it." Word would soon get around. "So please explain how getting rid of guns from society would benefit society, when we can show very easily that people bent on committing violent crime will use all manner of non-banned items to do it" Au contraire, its is not for the people to justify maintaining the current status quo, rather it is up to those who would advocate change to justify that change. So your statement should read something along the lines of... "Allow me to enlighten you and here are the arguments you need to take to your government to enable the change you so desperately need......." -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

I prefer the AN72 Coaler over the C130 Herc. It climbs faster and looks far more funky. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

edited ........Billvon covered it. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"I'd say that if its stated that you don't want to participate in a conversation that continuing to do it shows lack of control." Aye, but how often do we see exactly that going on here.... -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"I understand that people get banned for misbehaving, so could someone tell me how this Jeffrey person is still here?" He is playing by the rules, he has not, as far as I can see, insulted any person directly, he has of course had a go at an entire nation, but thats within the rules. "violent, plastic, infantile shitsacks like peacefull Jeffrey" Y'see, thats a personal attack, and its likely to get some sort of reaction from a green coloured overseer. "He, however, can spout as much as he likes about our country, seemingly unchallenged." The trick is to either ignore him, or to retort with facts, you have to attack the argument, not the person. It is often very frustrating, but thats just the way it is. "He, however, can spout as much as he likes about our country, seemingly unchallenged." Challenge him on it then.......He's fiesty, on the subject of gun ownership quite knowledgable, as ignorant as they come in most other areas, and normally online around 7-8 am our time. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson