nigel99

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today4_basra_20071217.ram If you want to hear it from horses mouth. Listen to Adam Ingram interview 8:10am I think you may hear the interview with the soldier (he was just before hand). Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I think Skyrad has made a good point about the UK side of things, and besides not growing up around guns it would appear that there are less "legal" outlets for gun fan's anyway. Space is at a premium and I don't know how many shooting ranges exist across the UK but I doubt there are many. I guess there is the pheasant hunting crowd but that is a small minority. As people speculate about the gun ban - I assume it was brought in to address a growing problem and therefore you can't tell if it worked or not (would we have 10x the gun-crime without it?). Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

There was a very interesting comment by a UK Colonel on the radio this morning covering the withdrawal of UK troops from Basra. Doing my best to quote verbatim (can't find it on BBC) he said "The UK is leaving Basra in disgrace and defeated. The American's are starting to get the rest of the country under control and they will then need to come and clean up this mess". It was a very different view from previous UK military people slagging off the US. Maybe things are turning around at last. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I don't think that positive change will come in my life time - cultures take time to change. We are the lucky ones who through grandparents and the like can get out to the UK etc. It would be foolish to go back. Over the next few decades there are white and mixed race minorities with no ability to exit the country who are going to become reviled and hated, with no economic wealth to protect them. Already Zim laws are framed in accordance with race and those people are going to go through hell - with no rights and no escape. Actually in Southern Africa there are countries that are not actively looking to de-westernise themselves and people are getting on pretty well together. Botswana probably leads the pack followed by Mozambique and Zambia. I think SA is looking to follow Zimbabwe's lead to be honest and I haven't heard much about Namibia to know one way or the other. Finally yes the African American thing is funny. Does that me African-British or British-African? I am now British - my wife prefers to continue calling herself African. We once had an African-American stay with us as they came to find their "roots" they had such a culture shock it was incredible - I was to young to remember much but I think they went back to the US as plain "Americans". Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Hi Skyrad, Actuallly I don't appreciate any politician having double standards and that includes us in the UK. Examples are many and actually a dictator is only a dictator in the west when he isn't useful in some way. I think that you should research the facts on the sanctions though as the "sanctions" are the assets and travel restrictions on aproximately 120 individual people - not the entire country. No I was not trying to imply that only Southern african blacks are racist - I was purely focused on what I consider to be a key aspect of the current situation (as Ian Smiths racism was central to Rhodesia's UDI). I don't expect any country to adopt western standards of governance however IF they want our aid money they have it on our terms. Do I bitch about Zim and do nothing yes - why because when the MDC was founded I supported them I went to London meetings and guess what on the whole they are no different. Zim will be just as corrupt and despotic under Morgan as Mugabe. The entire national structure is flawed and to be honest I no longer feel much "patriotism" to a country that refused to renew a passport on the basis of race. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Mugabe has got his way and is attending the summit. Thankfully Gordon Brown has stuck to his guns and not gone. How can Africa be expected to be equal partners on the world stage and yet stand by despots and dictators? A large swathe of southern africa is blatantly racist (look at the last AU summit where Mugabe was the only leader who got a standing ovation) - why because he tells the west where to get off. Personally it sickens me that we in the west stay involved with nations who hate us and don't want to adopt our principles, they are just looking for free handouts. Africa should be free to go its own way and we should not bitch about it BUT we should not continually bail them out of trouble either. The destruction that Mugabe has governed is beyond belief and yet he STILL has a large amount of support within the country - because he is racist. To provide a personal example of the effect of the collapse 10 years ago I thought I may go back and so rented out my house. Within a few months the cost of paying the mortgage from here was £60 for the mortgage payment and £40 for the tranfer fees. Being rather naive to the ways of economic collapse it made sense to move from Zim's 25% interest rate to a UK bank rate so I took out a £3k loan from the bank and cleared the mortgage. Things continued to deteriote so we sold the home for Z$1M after 12 months which was aproximately £20k at the time. Due to wild currency fluctuations and waiting for a better time we ended up with nothing. Our money in the bank in Zim is now worth 0.0001p as the currency has been devalued twice with 6 zeros being chopped off and it is now aproximately Z$4 to the £1. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I sat next to a guy who kept blowing his nose on the blanket Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Bumper sticker that I saw today: Men are like parking spaces, the good ones are taken and the rest are either Handicapped or to small. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Perhaps I have misunderstood English law. Firstly we don't have gun ownership so that line of defence does not exist. But if you were to sleep with a large knife or pick axe handle under your bed and you subsequently killed an intruder (in your house) I thought the law took a dim view in that you were prepared for the situation? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

This reminds me of a situation with a military military jumper a few years ago who had some sort of mal, with 2 out. So he pulled what he thought was the main into a bundle in front of him and then chopped it (LR288). Anyway he had actually pulled in the reserve, but he just let go and had an unneventful reserve ride. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

The cheaper than life is a little tongue in cheek. I don't think that it should be part of the equation - although with our current prison levels maybe space could be used as an excuse for CP No life not meaning life is not a reason for CP - just a reflection on a society that upholds human rights without making people accountable to their human responsibilities. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

The UK laws on self defence should be closer to those of the US. I dislike the pretense of using "reasonable force". A criminal breaking into my house, is fully awake, knows before hand whether he will fight or flee. As the victim I have no such prior knowledge. It should be legal to use lethal force to defend your home (inside the front door). With regards to the death penalty I am not so sure that it works as intended due to the complexity of our legal systems. Murder is defined by so many legal shades of grey that it becomes extremely difficult. As Pirana said I feel that life is sacred and I really object to somebody getting "life" with all of its attendant benefits that a modern prison provides when they have deliberately taken the life of an innocent. Benefits of the death penalty are - Justice, deterant, cheaper than life. The downsides are the inability to appeal if there is a wrongful conviction and from a religous point of view the removal of the ability to be "saved". Lets not forget that in the UK life no longer means life - the minimum tarrif system and time off under parole means that life sentances are usually completed after 10 years inside. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Hey John if you hadn't noticed nobody reads anyone elses posts anyway. All threads are simply a collection of opposing views PS Just to keep this thread off topic I saw this youtube video and thought that you would enjoy it (strong language) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojXT9-7IGZU Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

My wife had the test last week. I believe she was told that the "new" method was to test the heel as it is load bearing. She scored 131% so she's happy. The test took about 10-15 minutes and she was given the results immediately. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Personally I dislike unions and believe much like Bill that people should stand up for themselves. Times have moved on the days of unions truly protecting individuals has past and they probably do more harm than good now. However valid reasons for a union come at the lower end of the skills spectrum where I don't believe the supply and demand mechanism works very well. Firstly if we take the guy who pushes the broom as an example - if he demands more money then he is out of a job as a spotty faced kid can replace him in 10 minutes. Human nature and greed being what it is companies and individuals WILL exploit the weakest in society. Also less skilled people probably don't have the necessary skills to negotiate a pay rise, HR dispute etc. In the UK the unions will fight tooth and nail for pay rises, benefits and against cost cutting measures with the end result that EVERYONE loses when the company goes bust or moves to a different country. I guess it is the same in the US. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Yes that it probably the biggest concern that people should have - once you set aside civil liberties. It seems the inaccuracies could be used for scaremongering - knowing our government it is more likely the mistakes will let guilty people free (Ian Huntley?) I know that this is Naive but I would have thought that a very simple due process procedure would remove most(all?) the potential for mixups. So if you are a suspect based on DNA evidence the original material must be re-referenced/checked and your sample should be re-validated and updated. I noticed in the wikipedia link that it uses a subset that can match up to family members - it would be a bitch to be charged for a crime your brother/cousin committed. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Call it a knee jerk reaction but being a very recent "victim" of a crime the reassurance that the tools are in place to put the dipsticks back inside ASAP is a relief. As many petty thieves are recurrent offenders and as acknowledged by the local cops our local crime rate is rapidly rising as a number of known individuals are being released at the end of their sentances the sooner they are back in the prison system the better. BTW I find the taking of this information on arrest far more palatable than the US method of putting arrest details online - including personal information. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I don't think it will. The debate is deliberately masked in technical terms. So the politicians use ID card instead of ID register, which is actually the real power and tool behind identity schemes. They then use the term Biometrics as "reassurance" that your data is secure. Of course it is all based on misconceptions and half truths. I honestly think that the politicians don't understand the technology - i.e. stupid rather than deceptive. So you end up with discussions focussing on "biometrics" and cards and the simple fact that biometrics COULD have DNA as 1 of the metrics is ignored. Added to the problem is that there are good and logical reasons that security services would prefer the information to be available and most (if not all) civil liberties groups tend to be so extremist the average person ignores them. It is a fact that our government is collecting biometrics already - the US have forced that onto us, by requiring all passport holders under the VISA waiver program to have biometrics (do US passports have biometrics? interesting thought). If the information has already been gathered, it may as well be put to use. Secondly to be perfectly honest when it comes to trust - I trust European governments not to abuse my personal data alot more than the US. In light of this I find it very difficult to "object" to the police having access to the biometrics for my passport, when I let some unaccountable foreign person have my full biometrics, passport details, travel history, credit card details, frequent flyer details, what I on the plane etc etc etc just for the process of me entering the US. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

The UK has a policy whereby on arrest your fingerprints and DNA are stored. Speaking to the forensics guy for the time he was on site it is very useful. Sometimes 2 years after a crime a person can be arrested for a minor offence and suddenly a string of crimes is solved. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_National_DNA_Database The forensics guy was very keen on the possible implementation of a National DNA database for all citizens. The UK occasionaly discusses the ID card/register which would have DNA details recorded - with extreme advocates wanting DNA recorded from birth (including the forensic person). I dislike an ID register but similarly having watched CCTV images of people who clearly know what they are doing and knowing that they "watched" me leave I am re-evaluating the potential benefits against my lose of "privacy" It would be nice to know that Joe Crook would be getting a visit within 24 hours. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Interesting weekend. I worked late on Saturday evening. 10 minutes after I leave 2 bloody hoodies broke into the complex - confirmed by CCTV. Within 15minutes they had ripped off 5 offices. UK police officer told me "you need a bloody machine gun nest under your desk". I agree I hate to think that I could have chosen not to wait me out. Anyway police responce has been pretty good and while they won't likely catch the bastards I am pleased with our local coppers. 1 break that we have is that they dropped a screwdriver in my office so the national DNA database may help. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I don't think that they are allowed as such. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=563662; Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

And the flight crew are/were pretty hot (or they were on Nuremburg flight) AB is really good. We went Ryaniar to Austria for the family holiday and it scared the hell out of me due to the lack of maintenance. My wifes armrest was broken in 2, and there was frayed/exposed wiring where someone had pulled a switch mechanism from one of the kids seats. I wanted to take photos to send in but the dominatrix nearly kicked some poor bloke off for using a camera to take a snap of his mates. If they can't maintain the visible portions of the a/c what is the rest like. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I think as with all of these things it depends on where your starting point is - regarding how much carbon is used. If your argument is that your "raw material" is chocolate scraps as they are pre-existing then I am sure it helps the maths. It is like the cars that run on compressed air and the like - I think they often select the idealist format for the compressor in their calculations - but in reality the compressor is probably powered by the local coal fired station. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/7109085.stm Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/7105699.stm What the heck why don't they just have chicken nuggets and be done with it An amusing story anyway. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.