´óÏó´«Ã½

Quelle surprise!

Gay asylum seekers win right to stay in Britain

The climate gate final report should show that the basic science is solid. The view that climate is being changed through the warming effects of CO2 and the CO2 is largely due to human impact is well founded.

For me it shows that there was a lack of confidence in the pure science in the face of industry funded PR people who smoothly tried to undermine the basic tenets of climate change - but could not attack the core science and still can't.

It also shows that academics tend to be obviously well blessed with high and focused intelligence and yet the lamentable tendency to be petty and in fact rather childish.

Even if the software is amateurish - and I bet that it will be - if there are three different models using the same data and giving the same broad results then they should be on pretty solid ground.

They should have more confidence in their scientific principles and remember that reputations are hard to win but easily lost.

The Sangin redeployment does not overly concern me and the Talib propaganda may well be short lived if the extra US troops are put to good effect.

I am becoming concerned though that if the Afghan forces are not making good headway yet then somebody will have to be looking at a plan B for what happens if in 2015 there is a Talib government in Afghanistan and terrorist training camps reopen.

It is an assumption that currently IED's can be planted because there are not enough troops there to deter the bombers and that the US may be able to swamp the area.

If that works I assume Obama may reconsider troop levels rather than lose the war.

If that does not work I assume high tech intelligence led disruption will become more the norm.

Raoul Moat probably does not have much food so surely the likelihood is that he is getting help or is considering breaking in to some remote bungalow or farm for food. Thats assuming he is still in the area where it is all familiar and he is at home.

He does not come across as Mr. Trapper so I would have thought the saga won't carry on much longer.

If his notions that a policeman was seeing his ex-girlfriend were not well founded was that down to mental health or some malicious third party - and will the third party be charged?

The media reports seem to have been quite responsible but there is always a danger of leaving the viewer feeling like a voyeur. On the other hand they do want to know what is going on and in particular if they have relatives in the area.

A passing thought on posters who have previously expressed their far right views on this page on issues such as the alleged Jewish "hegemony" and alleged racial IQ differences.

I have noticed that they tended to use banter amongst themselves such as "useful idiot" or "running dog of the Jews" or "anarchist and Trotskyite" and often to mask the fact that there was no evidence to support their racial views.

Their house of cards is not supported by objective facts, logic or science and so they retreat to the safety comaraderie.

The puzzle for me is that they must know deep down that they are trying to act on false assumptions but just can't come to terms with reality.

Perhaps in time they will with experience learn to adjust and to see that the world is quite a good place for everybody to inhabit.

Meanwhile the BNP can't come to terms with the EHRC requirement that they comply with the law on non-racial membership and can't mount a defence either.

They just put their heads into the sand.

I can't find the article but I seem to recall reading that Labour are picking up a thousand new recruits a day due to the cuts and most are disaffected Lib Dem voters.

So that shows me the Labour really are trying to go for the throat of the Lib Dems and could not care less if it collapses the the government in a time of national crisis - that they largely created.

It also suggests that there is some desperation as the longer the coalition succeeds the more difficult the Labour position will be.

It could be argued that the desperation is also due to the fact that as time passes the rhetoric of Labour will be exposed by the harsh realities of their legacy.

If the Lib Dems are losing a few hundred activists a day then they won't last much more than a month or two really will they?

It also means that Labour must be rolling in the money that they need.

Yet most Lib Dem activists would not see VAT rises that are needed and forget 10p that was not needed.

Most would remember the causes of the Iraq war.

Most would not see the ecenomic tsunami as a "unique global economic phenomenon" but rather a credit bubble in line with the Wall St Crash that was generously contributed to by Labour policy and lax regulation.

The unions talk of coalition toffs but it was their funded party that ran up the debts with the bankers and their public school ex-leader sits on a bank board.

How will Labour react when they realise that for the medium term their ambitions may be limited to being a minority government and they are not likely to get that for many years?

What was the Blair legacy?

Yo gango, hows it going? I hope the acupuncture sessions are working. You do have to stick with it before you start seeing results, so don't be alarmed if you still mention the BNP or Nick Griffin in your posts...that will soon pass, and then hopefully you'll start to feel a bit better.

Gango, if you listen very carefully you may just hear a strange cranking sound; it sounds like a bunch of rusty cog wheels slowly turning..I've been hearing it all week. Well that the sound of a draw bridge being pulled up buddy. Borders, language and culture...that will be your new mantra once your Lib deprogramming process is complete.

One for ecolizzy

War aims and mission creep : we went in to do what, exactly : kick out Al Quaida for 9/11 attack and remove Taliban rule ( tick box?) ;prevent a move toward an agressive caliphate ( tick box?);gain and hold territory from insurgents ( tick box?); establish 'democracy'(tick box?); rebuild a failed state under auspices of UN ( tick box?); stabilisie the region including Pakistan ( tick box?); stop terrorism on UK streets ( tick box?); protect women in Afghan society ( tick box?) ; combat narcotics trade ( tick box?); train Afghans to fight insurgents ( tick box?)and build modern infrastructure ( tick box?)...all of these arguments or combinations have been used over the nine years of war at various points or strategy reviews. I would also like to know the total ISAF cost of the operation so far to include the sponsor nations' costs.

I heard General Dannett and an expert this morning on Today.You would naturally expect agreement on the aims and objectives, nine years in. General Dannett said that we were there to prevent terrorism on our streets in the UK. I have previously heard him talk of making a stand against the dynamic towards an aggressive caliphate. The military expert said it wasnt these objectives which were the reason for us being there - it was to stabilise this part of Asia.

I await to hear a realistic outline of what our achievable war aim is, how we resource and finance it and what milestones are used to verify its success or otherwise. Then, I would like someone to explain who exactly are the insurgents we are fighting, what their objectives are, how are they resourced and how able are they to undermine our objectives and why they oppose our troops on the ground or the Afghan trainees/governing class.....our lads and lassies on the ground deserve nothing less, is my view.

when is 'redployment' not a retreat? When a government minister says it is....

#7 kevseywevsey

"I hope the acupuncture sessions are working. You do have to stick with it before you start seeing results, so don't be alarmed if you still mention the BNP or Nick Griffin in your posts...that will soon pass, and then hopefully you'll start to feel a bit better."

Now what could motivate your concern!

Do you still think "the Griff" could be a future king maker as you suggested before the election? Has your English nationalism led you to any particular party as a home for your allegiance?

Do you lament the passing of the National Socialist posters that used to pollute this page or do you think the country may now be "ready" for jaded_jean?

What happened to the formal declaration of war?

Is this war or is it you carping because the opportunities for some to promote a long discredited and valueless ideology have disappeared?

Its hard to know or care.

If you get terribly upset just skip over my posts.

Dang I forgot to mention the torture inquiry.

It is still not clear to me from the media whether it will include renditions and its not clear whether it will look at the politicians who were then in charge. If they gave the security services more than a nod and wink or more then they should be queried.

If it is wide ranging then surely the Stafford Smith point that the judge leading the inquiry was dealing with the security services at the time is quite valid - though nobody suggests any wrong doing it may not be appropriate.

It also seems that the claimants would have to give up their civil court cases and any possible compensation from there in order for the inquiry to proceed.

Are they then precluded from going back to the civil courts should they find the process is a well meant, but naive, sham that won't lead to any correction of the political and security apparatus that gave us this situation in the first place?

Also on a practical basis the issue for me is that if they tortured innocent people then it is pragmatically a waste of time and may even hinder normal intelligence methods with "confessions" given up under extreme duress.

Have lessons be learned.

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WAR WINNER DAVE

This is the key year.

Peace in our time.

Home for Christmas.

I have in my hand a piece of toilet paper.

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I actually agree with the proposed changes to aviation taxes but:-

WHAT ABOUT AFTER AFGHANISTAN???

Are there not many, many, hugely important and enormously far reaching foreign policy and UK global-profile/global responsibility objectives that exist today- and that will come up in the future 3-4 decades- other than Afghanistan
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How can the UK functionally 're-assert itself world-wide' while the govt & MoD departments & structures responsible for STRATEGIC PLANNING of the parts of the country's military- such as the Royal Navy- that most 'project UK power and presence' world-wide remain in the dangerous, intellectually dishonest 'facade- mode' prevalent during the previous 12-years??




PART 2:


10) why are the UK's new 'big deck' aircraft carriers designed and being constructed without anti airborne threat missile systems and the types of radars required to operate these weapons??

11) considering that anti airborne threat missile systems are integral to aircraft carriers belonging to ALL other countries' navy's world-wide, why are the UK's new carriers not being fitted with these weapons and the (costly) radars required to operate them?

( "MBDA'S SAAM-FR NAVAL AIR DEFENCE SYSTEM SUCCESSFULLY CARRIES OUT FIRST SALVO FIRING", 30_05-2005:

(

(note:

(a) the above Aster-15 missile test firing was from France's Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier; AND

(b) the UK's presently in-service aircraft carriers were stripped of their obsolescent 'Sea Dart' anti airborne threat (AAW) missile systems in the late 1990's; AND

(c) the UK Labour govt refused to fund a replacement AAW system to be fitted 1998-2010; AND

(d)in order to save money, the planned aircraft carriers won't have any anti airborne threat missile systems whatsoever...

12) why are the UK's new 'big deck' aircraft carriers designed and being built without aircraft-launch catapults??

13) why are the UK's new 'big deck' aircraft carriers designed and being built WITHOUT ARMOUR and WITHOUT ARMOURED BULKHEADS?

TO SAVE MONEY THE UK's PLANNED NEW AIRCRAFT CARRIERS ARE BEING BUILT WITHOUT ARMOUR, ARMOURED BULKHEADS, AIRCRAFT-LAUNCH CATAPULTS AND WITHOUT THE MISSILE-BASED WEAPONS & SENSORS REQUIRED FOR SHIP SELF-DEFENCE AGAINST ANTI-SHIP CRUISE MISSILES (ASCM's) & AIRCRAFT:

Catapults are necessary for aircraft carriers to be able to embark, launch & recover a variety of the most versatile & capable types of fixed-wing aircraft, such as Airborne Early Warning & Control (AWACS) types:

E-2D Hawkeye: The (U.S.) Navy's New AWACS-



The RN's new 'big deck' aircraft carriers will be restricted to Harrier type (short/vertical take off & land) fixed-wing aircraft & helicopters- that can not duplicate even remotely the function of modern, fixed-wing AWACS...


:

"... In 1982 the Falklands conflict provided a stark reminder of the vulnerability of surface forces operating in a hostile air environment without (AWACS) AEW support... The absence of such a capability in the face of sustained air attack gave the UK Royal Navy (RN) insufficient warning to counter threats at long range, & directly contributed to the loss of several ships...."

:

"... Money has also been saved in side armour protection, though Knight insists this was a strategic rather than a budgetary issue. The CVF's first line of defence is the frigates and the new Type 45 destroyers around us,' he adds. 'Our only self-defence is close-in weapons systems and small guns.

"Instead, what you have on the ship is 36 of the most lethal aircraft*** ever made.'..."

*** aircraft whose designed-capabilities DO NOT include protecting warships from incoming anti-ship missiles...

:

".... A number of protective measures such as side armour and armoured bulkheads proposed by industrial bid teams have been deleted from the design in order to comply with cost limitations...."

14) Should tax-payer funds go towards the building of and re-fitting of aircraft carriers, Destroyers and other classes of front-line surface and subsurface combatants and support vessels for the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary that are fitted and equipped to operate as impotent, incompetent, grievously vulnerable duds, in effect- tax-payer-funded 'make-work-project' schemes'??... or

15) should tax-payer funds go towards the building of and re-fitting of aircraft carriers, Destroyers and other classes of front-line surface and subsurface combatants and support vessels for the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary that are fitted and equipped in such a manner to enable the vessels' competent performance against modern types of known and to-be-expected types of threats and to enable the RN and the UK to continue its/their leading, respected roles on the world stage in the coming decades??



_________________
Roderick V. Louis,
Vancouver, BC, Canada

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Turning point in Afghanistan? What about the 428 other "turning points" reported by the ´óÏó´«Ã½-



´óÏó´«Ã½ = MiniTru - Memory Hole

Winston Smith was an optimist.

5 years ago my 15 year old (prev posted 16) \\\daughter was on A School Bus in London with a load of other kids.

beeb news this morn A head of anti terror clown said we have foiled 15 attacks since then, OH Really

what,where,why,who,when, are they pushing daisyS or heroin and who,is paying for them now, not me

Failed State/ state of affairs.......lunatic Idiots running the show

you cant get the staff

Post Ate nice one, spoke 2 my 13 year other daughter on the dog n bone 2night she has A math teacher that cant speak english, her math will be going places ie down the pan she mentioned 2 other so called teachers I cant repeat it here.

you cant sack useless teachers/you cant get the staff/you cant sack Any public servEnt

1 add 2 equals one.......A Wrong one

One in 69 Oh yes please Misses eh I thought it was 2

AHH 69 people are chasing the one job, is that true. what a mess

only 500 brit workers out of 6000 employed on the Village, is that true.
what A Grate idea

Just off 2 the LOO 2 dispatch another member of parliment

Pass me the Anti M.P. Bog paper love and A bucket of bleach oh and A wire brush

@ 9 shireblogger
"General Dannett said that we were there to prevent terrorism on our streets in the UK."

The IRA (Provos/Real/Continuity) have been the largest cause of that, and their biggest defeat was 9/11 which made Americans stop funding and otherwise supporting them as they finally got a taste of what it is like to be on the receiving end, but this will never be acknowledged, as it begs the question, what if Protestants had blown up the Empire State building back in the 70s in response to IRA bombings, perhaps the thousands of British people murdered and maimed by the IRA would be alive and well now? What if the USA is really our enemy, I mean the Bush family got its start by funding Hitler and the Nazis to power, perhaps the "Special relationship" is that of victim (Britain) and criminal (USA)?

Post one Par for the course, how much did that cost the dozy taxpayer

I have rare foot disEASE among other things can I claim compo

Troops out of afghan I feel sorry for the Female not the male.

start booting out the idiots we have here

There will allways be Beachyhead, My Preferance Buchan Bullers

Global Warming eh you cant believe A Word or A politician, is that spreading 2 scientists, its A new virus/flew telling porkers

GloBalls WARming yawn debate sounded/smelt I Like Air on A G string/Hot Air

prefer the G string butt I SUSpeckt it was hot air, yawn

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

I see I'm still in purgatory, can't speak the truth on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ that's for sure. : (

zizek excellent last night, if i understood everything he said and implied... which i'm not sure about.

does he run any open courses? I'd *very* much enjoy a conversation with him!! :thumbsup:

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on sangin - when our troops first went into sangin, they had a large amount of local popular support - after all they were supposedly there to drive out the hated Taliban and bring development, peace and democracy. That is largely why so few paras were needed for the large population.

unfortunately, as the occupation has continued, and afghan civilians have continued to die in extraordinary numbers (which oddly are never reported, i wonder why?), AND the US-backed Kabul Govt has revealed itself to be corrupt to the core (the afghans must feel so strongly that history is circular!), AND there still has been no development or improvement in standards of living, AND the west controls the drug trade that not only destroys western home cities and citizens, but also afghans as well - that early support has dried up, and now areas that were largely either neutral, or even supportive (!) in the beginning are now fighting 'the foreign occupying forces'. Its all so depressingly repetitive.

but despite the inevitable desire to "finish the job" by our forces, without a proper political plan in place, all our troops are doing there is being wounded. Or coming home in coffins. Let the americans do the dying, it is THEIR war, not ours.

i do however feel sorry for the afghans, who NEVER asked for any of this, and used to regard the West as the people who helped drive out the Russians.

this whole Al Qa'ida 'training camp' BS is precisely that - pure fertiliser. If the terrorist and torture training camp based in Langley, Virginia was "bombed into history", the CIA would simply move their training elsewhere, even out of the USA altogether, if necessary. The same is true for their off-shoot, Bin Laden's Al Qa'ida. This must be the worst 'excuse' to justify a war in the last few decades, even including Ray-Gun's "commie-under-the-bed" infantilism.

which really begs the question - why ARE we there? The only 'benefits' to this are that Islam has become a globalised force, and an enraged force as well - creating the reaction that can be used to justify further horrors by the West? And of course the profits to the CIA and MI6 from controlling the heroin trade. And of course the enormous profits from the arms sales to the Corporate Rulers of the US and UK.

and, as a side-line, we also managed to remove the Pakistan/Saudi/US financed and trained Taliban for a while. I suspect of all the 'benefits' that is the only real one that most would recognise, but i also suspect that women's rights and an open liberal society were not exactly top of Bush's agenda...

it is a crying shame, that WE have spent so many hundreds of £Bns bombing and murdering Afghans, with nothing to show for it except corpses, when that money if used responsibly could have brought Afghanistan into the modern age, the Taliban a vague memory of religious ignorance and intolerance.

but it became obvious quite early on that that was no intention of the US/NATO.

well, until we get a well thought out and decent political/economic solution to the mess, where we can once again have support from the Afghan locals, i see no reason why British troops should be dying to enrich american multi-$Billionaires.

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roal moat - we just need to capture him, he is hardly worth all this media-frenzy. And, btw, police have been murdered - could the journalists remember that and seem less light-hearted about the whole thing?

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#2: gangy, well said that post. But do you *have* to continue to go on about the BNP **ALL** the time? I don't think many apart from you actually care if some other posters have some right-wing opinions? Its a free world, and why don't you try actually debating them on the issues you raise rather than just attacking?

it is actually a fairly widespread belief that IQ and race are connected, and certainly, if you look at it statistically, honkies make up the vast majority of serial-killers. Worth a ponder, and i wonder how many of those willing to slander other 'races' about apparent statistical connections would be running for the 'culture' answer to such a question?

its much easier to change a mind through debating with them, than it is to just repetitively attack.

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watched 'wargames' yesterday, hadn't seen it for 20 years. Surprisingly Superb!!

This comment has been referred for further consideration. Explain

Frankly, much more of these, or the DEFears5 Nuke 'House Rules' option, and there's going to be more than explaining soon required.

These are not people who usually abuse. Yet this is beyond 'watertight oversight'. There must be a suspicion the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is allowing editorial control now into areas of free speech. A slippery slope.

- amused i got away with "honkies"! :D

Zizek is right that the climate debate is a communist debate. That is where the marxists went. Into climate activism. which is why there are bonkers polices like 'climate justice'

Shouting

isn't the original meaning of 'to vote' is 'to shout'.