nacmacfeegle

"Not in true standing with why the constitution exists - but that's pretty normal." With all due respect to The Constitution, it doesn't mean a thing in Newbie's country. So yeah, it is pretty normal. -------------------- 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 understand...You mess with us and we would crush you." I'm a peace loving guy, I have no desire to mess with anyone. Besides, only a fool would..... "As long as you agree to leave us alone, and not beg for any aid. " This one is a bit trickier, aid is often offered for a number of reasons, and refused for even stranger reasons. Point being, its seldom a one-way street, but "aid trading" (you help out a wee country, and they back you at say the UN security council, allow foreign companies to operate in their borders, buy their weapons from you, provide strategic resource reserves, allow you to over fly their territory en route to those who may have messed with you, allow you to base forces in their countries, etc) is surely acceptable under Ron and Nac's plan for world security and ultimate peace? -------------------- 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

"Maybe it has something to do with him making reperations for his past actions" So, if OBL came up with some loot he would be forgiven? Nah, I don't think so. "would not fit on a bumber sticker as "It's for the Oil"... Och Ron, you should know by now that I'm one the stronger critics of that particular theory.

"Leave us alone, and we will not meddle in your affairs." Promise? -------------------- 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

"Why did we drop sanctions against Libya then?" Beats me how we can even comtemplate doing business with Gadaffi after all the shit he was involved with. Ah, maybe it has something to do with this.... http://www.mbendi.co.za/indy/oilg/af/lb/p0005.htm Its getting busy down there....... -------------------- 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

"If China moves into Hong Kong," Huh? I can't imagine why. Since 97 its been under Chinese administration. "yet just as poor version, of the former USSR." I'd keep an eye on Russia (look up Sakhalin) and the former FSU (Khazakstan and Azerbaijan in particular), they are about to become major players in the energy market. -------------------- 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

Playing with one right now. I think it is an AV300. A mate took one into work to catch up on CSI, which was hosed in from Sky plus box (hard drive VCR which stores digital signals straight off the dish). It looks really cool, the compression system seems pretty good, and when played back on a TV the footage looks no worse than standard vhs. It gets crappy on an overhead, or I would imagine, a good quality tv. Picture quality on the unit is awsome, people are already working on an alternative OS for it, so it may end up taking on a PDA-like persona. Other folks are also experimenting with changing out the HDs to ones with larger capacity without raiding the kids college fund. (secret stuff is all advised by the mate so second hand info to here). If you are just using it as a footage dump, it would be cheaper to get more tape though. I reckon it could be useful for a busy coach, who could review footage on the ride to alt with an intensive student, or team who may not have time for a proper look (or mutiple looks) at their last jump. As a hardware driven video compressor it seems to work fine, with conversion to MP4 happening in real time, no rendering. Now then, if it could suvive or even operate under the rigours of freefall, we could be looking at a useful product if it were combined with lipstick cams....... Right now, I reckon the HD is too fragile for this purpose though. -------------------- 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

"Vaccinating kids is taking it a step to far and sounds like a load of bollocks to me." Likewise. -------------------- 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

"Two events, 9 years apart, and they felt the need to disarm the ENTIRE population." No, they banned handguns, shotguns hunting rifles etc are still allowed, they only took weapons from the hoplophilliacs. -------------------- 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 can say is I can't wait to leave." You want to move to Scotland mate. -------------------- 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 still haven't found the real root for the word, but I believe it means "having a phobia of weapons," or maybe power or guns." Very close, the word your missing is "irrational".

"There likely wouldn't have been a repeat of that no matter what the current law." The Dunblane massacre followed the Hungerford massacre by about nine years. I guess thats about as close as we get to a repeat incident, fortunately. The Hungerford nutter admittedly didn't go at it in a school, he went on what could only be described as a rampage around the town. -------------------- 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

"My scenario was an appropriate analogy and more of a question as to whether people feel that MM is dishonest or not." Well this leftie is prepared to hold up his hand and admit that he doesn't really like MM's style.

Whats a hoplophobe? and where is the box that says "I am happy with the current legislation, no change required here thank you very much". -------------------- 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

"A man who has no problem shooting 16 children of that age has no problem beating them to death either. Or using a steak knife to cut their throats. You've done nothing to prevent a reoccurrence, instead you've found a scapegoat for it." Ah, the "ban the cars and pointy sticks as well" argument. I find it hard to imagine that anyone could cause a similar casualty toll, 17 dead and a further 17 wounded, even amongst a large group of toddlers, in the same timeframe with a piece of 2x4, or a steak knife. 3-4 minutes is all it took to fire 105 rounds from 4 handguns, that was the one of the big shockers at the time. By the way, there hasn't been a recurrence of that sad day in this country, so your assertion is basically incorrect, or speculative at best. -------------------- 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

Harold Shipman. Google laddie, google. Digression aside for moment please, nobody has given us a rock solid (supportable) justification to change our laws. Nobody can produce firm stats or case studies showing that the British population will be safer if we adopted more widespread private gun ownership.We have seen talk of self defence, potentially the strongest argument for revisiting the handgun bans, but nothing substantial as a reference point. The risible notion that we need a militia to keep our government in check won't cut it with our legislators, aka the government, neither will the admission that our armed forces are incapable of defending our shores from external agression by our neighbours. Remember we are not arguing to take guns away from people, that was done following the mass murder of 17 people, mostly kids. We (as in this discussion) are trying to justify providing people with weapons, the onus is on the pro gun lobby to provide this justification, and so far I ain't seeing it. Side track and dodge questions as much as you like, I'm still not seeing valid (ie not just an opinion, or a bizarre scenario) justification that could be used to initiate the change in our law. It will need to be something that wows our populace more than the killing of 16 kids and their teacher in their quiet little town school....... Otherwise, guys, I'm afraid your just pissing against the wind. -------------------- 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 don't want to go into it again, since I've done it quite a few times in the past, but CCW and such has been proven to reduce violent crime drastically, basically with no ill effects." Hey Dave, all that demonstrates is that CCW laws work in your particular circumstances. This is something I'm not challenging. What I am taking issue with is the pro gunners advising us to change our laws based on your success. The point I'm arguing ad-nauseam, is that what works over there may not work over here, and its not such a burning issue with us Brits.

"There are many reasons to believe that widespread civilian gun ownership would be a major aid in the battle between civilians and a tyrannical government. " They are also good to defend oneself against attacks from wolves. However like wolves (last one shot in 1743, ironically around the last time we went to war with a repressive government), we haven't had anything even remotely resembling a tyrannical government since the Thatcher years. -------------------- 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

"When it comes to eradicating a right held by the people, I hold the government to this standard:" Gun ownership in this country is not a right, it never was! "Provide a reallllly compelling reason why our giving up this right is going to make some situation that is bad a LOT better." No, the onus is on those who would advocate a change in our laws to provide justification for that change. Here are 17 reasons why we changed our laws originally........ Victoria Elizabeth Clydesdale Emma Elizabeth Crozier Melissa Helen Currie Charlotte Louise Dunn Kevin Allan Hasell Ross William Irvine David Charles Kerr Mhairi Isabel MacBeath Gwen Hodson or Mayor (schoolteacher) Brett McKinnon Abigail Joanne McLennan Emily Morton Sophie Jane Lockwood North John Petrie Joanna Caroline Ross Hannah Louise Scott Megan Turner Everyone listed above, apart from the teacher was between 4 and 6 years old, the weapons used to end their all too short lives were held legally. -------------------- 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

"If there is something that we should all be most scared of in our daily lives, it is this: getting in our car to drive somewhere." [chucks a wry smile at Peacefuldude] Y'see, whats you guys are doing is driving on the wrong side of the road.... [/wry smile] -------------------- 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

"It's not exactly rock solid proof of the efficacy of gun confiscation." No John, its not solid, I agree with you there, but it is a reference point to begin, or in this case continue, the debate based on something solid, as opposed to bouncing unsupported (by that I mean unsubstantiated) opinions around, as witnessed in your statement that I quoted, ie "That smugness lasts only until the crime reports keep coming out, showing continuing increases in murder and gun crime." Well there are the reports, or as good data as I can locate for my country, and lo, I can't see continuing crime increases as you describe. Until we have something solid to debate, all we are doomed to do is staunchly defend a (right or wrong) viewpoint. That won't get us anywhere, as both sides of this debate are too entrenched in opinion, and may be blind, or ignorant to available facts or stats surrounding the issue. I'd much rather discuss facts, or statistics from reputable sources, with you guys than opinions.

"To me culture is roote a little deeper than the last 100 years." Why? Culture doesn't have to have a history, all it needs is popular support. I can find no reference to timeframe in any of the definitions of 'culture' on-line. In my opinion associating culture with a timeframe could be construed as cultural snobbery, Brahms is better than Black Sabbath because its been around longer kind of thing.. Is an appreciation of Picasso's work any more or less 'cultural' than an appreciation of Warhol, or Monet, or Van Gogh? How does JM Barrie (Peter Pan) compare with JK Rowling (Harry Potter) culturally? No, there's room for all, and a whole lot more we don't even know about yet, in my definition of 'culture'. -------------------- 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 think what we have here is that old chestnut, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Take the curious case of The People's Mujahideen, or Mujahideen-e Khalq as an example of this. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3928499.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

Sorry for the side track Tony. -------------------- 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

"That's champenoise method sparkling wine, not champagne" You are of course correct Rem, aplogies, and I'd be the first to correct you if you started talking about French Scotch. -------------------- 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