Walsingham

1 trillion dollars less government debt every decade is "nothing"? How economically responsible of you. I'd rather pay a trillion for defense than for social programs and other such bull****. You do realise that the military are drawn from, and fight for, social factors? So even if you only cared about the military you'd still want to fund social programs?

Anyone who understands what the mutt is really saying. A parrot is someone repeating stuff without reflecting upon it. How "two tour vet" or reading foreign papers would have any relevance to this is beyond me. I would probably care about the second part of the sentence if I didn't realize I was replying to a guy who'll **** his pants if I folded a piece of paper the wrong way. You simply assume he hasn't reflected on it. Which seems unlikely given his other behaviour. And you really need a new comeback.

And the other man is a c***.

I think you'd be hard pushed to find anyone who thought the DoD couldn't run themselves more efficiently.

You're calling a two tour vet, who reads foreign newspapers, and talks at length and coherently a mindless parrot? You think you're a freedom fighter if you demand the right to look at **** on the forum.

Well, obviously in my opinion, almost all terrorists are just murderous bastards who claim causes as an excuse. Not including the poor ****ers who get brainwashed. So from that perspective it's just a pr spin. My analysis is that they want to capitalise on the inevitable funding cutbacks N Ireland is going to see as part of the overal UK budget reforms. They've had a high degree of funding for the last twenty years, and so the cuts will be a big shock. Soon be back to business as usual.

Nikolai mother****ing Dante. From 2000AD. Imagine steampunk without the steam, and more nanomachines. But all the high drama and frogging. A bit like Flashman meets Burning Chrome. EDIT: Basically, what Raithe said.

There's always beens socialist element in the IRA. But my feeling is that in the 1960s and 1970s that was just trendiness. Everyone with a grudge to bear put on a French beret and claimed the proletariat.

Righto, squire. *squares shoulders*

My guess would be that he offered to work for peanuts so he could make up the money from other media whoring. For my money I'd suggest the alternative scheme of tethering him to a post in Khabul Market, and letting the local boy-botherers have their way with him. As a message of cultural sensitivity, you understand.

I've said this before, so I'll just mention it briefly. Governments have two worthy functions: 1. To prohibit activity which the people cannot prohibit. For example, I can be against eating melamine in my sweets, but I need a special inspector to search for and detect it. Then I need a justice system to administer the punishment fairly. 2. To engage in collaborative projects of a size and scale - and timescale which woul be totally beyond private institutions. E.g. the space programme, wars, the eradication of polio etc GD, in the friendliest way possible I have to say I find your insistence on a 18th century view of government as nonsensical. The degree of government required to perform the above functions in the age of the steam driven cotton loom is fundamentally inappropriate to the world we now live in. It's a question of space, time, and complexity. Rather like saying "In the 18th century it took the Navy a year to design and make a new ship. We should be able to do the same." However, in an equally friendly way I can understand GD's and Gfted1's* comments that the US government has demonstrated numerous times that it isn't capable of doing its job, and that giving it more money isn't logical. But I would suggest that the solution is not merely to starve it of funds, but to restructure and re-equip it. I'm not sure how, but generically in most engineering/management situations I'd expect that to be the way forward. *Made during our healthcare discussion

..also, those photos are art, you friggin' philistine. No form of art should involve that much buttermilk.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ter...sh-bankers.html Leaving aside the fact that the financially panic-stricken Grauniad have decided to pump oxygen into this drunken rambling, I thought this was interesting as the career terrorists trumphantly announce their 'relevance'. Nice to see that they'll be back to their large scale bombing and shooting now that they have the perfectly sound justification of being the champions of the proletariat.

Symmetry means genes are firing clean, and no parasites, well fed etc.

You could always go way back to the South China Seas incident.

Calax, I think I talked about the XM8 a long while back. If the rifle saves one squaddie then it's worth the 12k it costs. My other point however, was that the same 12k can pay for a school or a simple clinic which means no-one shoots at the squaddie in the first place. It depends on context. I certainly hope we don't have to fight China because an awful lot of good people (and some bad ones) would die. Probably to not much avail in either direction. Although I've read a lot recently about a new generation of bullish Chinese military officers who are forming cliques a la Japan in the 30s. ~~ Steve, I think a big problem with procurement in this country is largely down to two factors. Firstly, the government refuses to accept that a portion of GDP is always going to go on defence, and that money is quite well spent on defence. This causes problems of uncertainty and dissipation in big projects because people keep expecting them to be abandoned. Secondly there's an absence of personal identification with big projects. "I'm Steve, and this is my tank." Which is why you get things like FRES (stupid fething name for a simple idea) taking ten years to move. What's needed is some bigwig to chair the process and simply and quickly adjudicate on decision like "will it go by air?" For my money I think it comes down to a Peter Pan mentality on the part of the electorate. Everyone's full of praise for the troops, but there's neither interest in or support for the complex business of provisioning them. everyone wants body armour because they can understand it. But what about Forces education courses? What about a new lorry? What about a new inventory system? Or expenses claims? They all shape the end result in different ways. Getting an awareness of these issues is the sole reason I've ever agreed with for National Service.

When I found out about my Mum's cancer diagnosis I spent three days playing non stop GTA, as a sort of mental airbag thing. Absorbed the shock, tidied up the house, and got cracking on the practical business of helping. I guess it would be simple enough to get absorbed in the escape tho.

Sending abusive emails is not the freedom of information, Kaft. Any more than those disgusting photos your mom keeps sending me.

And here I was thinking you a man of elegance and taste... Clearly any old hooker will do. It has been a long dry year, my boy.

The is a serious escalation of awesomeness in this thread, I particularly like the guy at the front's Were-Paw. Graraaahhhllll! That's not a were-paw. He's fisting a chihuahua.

Can I just mention, since you bring it up, that I'm in the market for a cheap chav harlot with bloons for breasts, if there are any going spare.

The strangest thing is how I've gone from being preternaturally incapable of racing to being actually rather good with no discernable transition in skill level. I think it's something to do with relaxing into the dynamics of the car, rather than trying to force it to do what I want.

Defence spending should always be looked at in terms of GDP, though. US defence spending sounds like they're planning to take over the galaxy, until you notice the percentage is comparable with most places. To develop this further, I think the value for money of the US military has been almost incalaculably great, since you've managed to avoid a direct confrontation with almost everybody for decades. This isn't to deny that this has forced most of your enemies to try to hit you in unconventional ways, and often with some success, but the alternative might have been genuine shooting wars. In an era of genuine shooting wars conducted at increasingly long range and at increasing velocity I'd call that a massive WIN. Steve, good to have you weigh in. I agree with your division of possible spending, but challenge all of us to produce some figures on the nature of that spending. I also challenge us to produce some metrics on the performance of those bodies. Because quite apart from Afghan, the MoD is ALWAYS working to provide a deterrent effect, protecting trade and other interests. Not just pretending to provide a service like the FSA. EDIT: I neglected to clarify my central point which is this: Having a military machine, or even a single military system that is three times better than any opponent may sound extravagant, but if it obviates the necessity of any actual shooting because any opponent would be stupid to try then it is exactly what you want. ~~ Monte, I see your point about light armour, but there's no way you can get armour without weight and overall operational lack of manoeuvreability. If you want light, operationally agile forces then they don't get big plates of steel or aluminium composite, and they don't get to turtle along cautiously. They get drop kicked into bad situations, and trust to luck/firepower.

I like this idea. What steps have you taken to protect the IPR?

I call this awesome. I'm sick of teens thinking they're cool calling people names online. They should have actually tomahawked his house. Just to prove the point.