Spare a thought for Polish dependants on housing benefit
As above.
508 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Aug 2008
Osama bin Laden was a source of funds, ideology, strategy and initiatives.
He did not work fifteen hours every day plotting the next atrocity. He occasionally gave someone a cheque drawn on a bank located on a small island in the Caribbean, in the real world enough to settle a decent mortgage, outlined the purpose and said "Get on with it.."
He communicated through a few trusted colleagues.
He had to observe the world, so he read newspapers like you or I.
His hard drives are empty of intelligence.
You statement is of course true Graham. But this is for long range forcasting, which is normally the job of a government agency so that all arms of government benefit.
Our beloved Met Office is an exemplar, it started as a part of the RAF. The wider value was recognized and it was hived off, but for many years temperatures were reported as read on the Air Ministry Roof. And that was before long range forecasting was in any way possible, and I am not sure that it is.
As has been said this is an extension of cruise missile and drone war technology. It is also an extension of the autopilot.
So a good games designer should be able to get this coded for a pilotless Typhoon to intercept mythical intruders within a year and fly home. Then add one year for carrier ops.
Yes, that is possible. The reality is that the contractors would be greedy and the client incompetent. So lets say 2022 for demo, 2032 for service and it would be 2042 for fleet use. So lets not bother.
I agree with Lewis, this war demonstrates what we all knew : the Defence Review is an illogical, and dangerous basis for the UK armed forces.
But surely the reality is that we don't need to do any of this.
Israel v Egypt, Mujahadeen v Russia, Serbia v NATO all demonstrated that infantry armed with modern weapons beat ground armour and aircraft up to 15000 feet. I bet modern modern shoulder launched anti aircraft weapons go higher.
So there is a problem with long range artillery shelling a city or high flying bombers. These could be stopped by UN authorized action, but would not require the substantial war that we are now fighting.
We have seen Libyan rebels touting the traditional RPG, and not many of them. We could supply essentially defensive infantry weapons and the conflict would be virtually over. Anything else and we are fighting a war for them. I know, the UN Security Council passed a different resolution, I blame the advocates.
Here is the Fukushima plant on Google maps :
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=&aq=&sll=37.301914,141.043854&sspn=0.22667,0.441513&ie=UTF8&ll=37.315499,141.039906&spn=0.028329,0.055189&t=h&z=14
About last Wednesday the Guardian published a two page spread of a satellite photo of the damaged site. Yesterdays Observer showed a crop of this. I cannot find this image on the web.
The Google maps reference shows that the site is on a totally open coast.
The satellite images show no sign of tsunami. There are tidy lawns dotted with small bushes.
It is reported generally, in particular by the BBC yesterday, that the site was damaged by the tsunami. Where exactly ?
Time travel is impossible because we would have met tourists from the future. The same logic should apply to messages from the future. We are still waiting.
Whatever is received from the future cannot change what happens because the source is a result of the message back. There is no worry about killing your father. Back to the Future was wrong.
The best case discussed above is that 30 year old reactors are dangerous. So why do we use them now ? We could switch a few things off.
Nuclear is great provided that it is totally safe from mine to waste disposal, and provided it is economic.
Following energy disaster after energy disaster the problem is : Whose advice can I trust ? Everyone involved gets committed; compare the confident assurances from thirty years ago.
I would have thought that oceanic CO2 would have been a crucial measure, along with the age of the carbon by carbon dating. With all the effort we have to learn that oceanic CO2 is increasing whenever a significant coral gets sick. They are not trying.
But to the main point, 'climate change' is neutral whereas 'global warming' requires a response.
... aircraft and fission power ?
What are the Western economies to do then ? An easy answer is design better aircraft and power sources. I don't believe that will be possible because the Chinese are competing intellectually. In 2030 expect a crisis as state management smashes the free economy.
It does not look good. Should the west invent a new sort of capitalism, or a new sort of society ? Lets talk about it for thirty years.
Remember why juries were abandoned for fraud - because cases were so complex and detailed that trials took over a year.
In that time jury members were off sick with flu, childbirth and all the other excuses, or reasons, that keep us from work. When three jury members were permanently off the bench, perhaps through death, emigration, debilitation or any other reason, then the trial collapsed and had to be restarted. In practice it is impossible to try such complex cases.
So what happens in future, are the spivs to be given a free pardon ?
The law cannot compel a trader to simplify his, or her, activiies. It can't compel simplified accounting of complex business, hundreds of thousands of transactions with mergers and break ups along the way. The issue often hinges on the trivial matters of were individual deals legal or crooked.
I need answers.