chicot

Live and Dangerous - Thin Lizzy.

Well, at least the US did manage to put down the two Mars Rovers successfully unlike the Beagle 2 fiasco

?! I think you've got something wrong there. We are far closer to the Sun than we are to Jupiter. Look at any half-decent map of the solar system and you'll see quite clearly that the distances between the Sun and all the terrestial planets (Mercury to Mars) are tiny compared to those from the Sun to the outer planets (Jupiter onwards) or indeed between the outer planets. Not sure what the figure is for Jupiter's distance from us is (it varies considerably depending on the relative position of the planets in their orbits) but, going on memory, the distance from the Earth to the Sun is about 93 million miles and that certainly does not convert to 150 billion km! 150 million km seems about right.

Actually Titan is far further away from Jupiter than the Earth is from the Sun. The distances between the planets in the outer solar system are much greater than those in the inner solar system. The distance from Saturn to the Sun is 9.54 AU and from Jupiter to the Sun is 5.23 AU (one AU = astronomical unit = distance from the Sun to the Earth). Thus even when Saturn is at opposition with respect to Jupiter (the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn forming a straight line in their orbits so this is when they are closest), the distance between Titan (which is a moon of Saturns, maybe you thought it was a moon of Jupiter's?) would be some 4 AU or 4 times the distance from the Sun to the Earth. As for Titan, even if it had a twin of the Sun at 1 AU's distance from it (and it would require an object many times the mass of Jupiter to achieve that) it still couldn't become a second earth. The key thing about why Titan has such a thick atmosphere when, for instance, Mars which is many times more massive has a relatively thin atmosphere, is that Titan is extremely cold. At lower temperatures gas molecules can not achieve the escape velocity that they can at higher ones. If Titan was to be significantly warmer it would lose it's atmosphere.

Strange. You have said in previous posts that the Shiites and Kurds have been cooperative and that the problem lay with the Sunnis and yet you are now telling us that "the average Iraqi didn't have the guts or brains to appreciate freedom". So by the "average Iraqi" do you mean just the Sunnis (in which case, the "average Iraqi" label is somewhat inappropriate since they are only about 20-25% of the population) or do you mean that the Shiites and Kurds are as lacking in guts and brains as their Sunni brethren?

No good. Mega tsunami caused by landslides can apparently cause waves higher than skyscrapers.

I think a more likely danger is another takeover by the Baath party. In any event, these are possibilities you just have to live with in the post-colonial world. What should the US do? Go back on it's word and refuse to leave when asked? Reinvade if what emerges is not to it's liking?

What everyone seems to be forgetting is that, theoretically at least, that is not a call that is the US's to make. Both the US and British governments have stated that they will withdraw their troops if requested by the Iraqi government. If, after the election, the government calls for an end to the occupation (and Sistani's party which almost certainly will win most seats has, as one of it's policies, the setting of a firm timetable for this) then that should be that.

I dug up this BBC link on the subject: mega tsunami

The island in question is La Palma in the Canary Islands. I saw a documentary on the subject a while back. Apparently, there would be about eight hours warning before the tidal wave crossed the Atlantic. I still wouldn't have much confidence in the entire east coast being evacuated in that time though.

I wasn't suggesting that the British model be exported to the US. I know better than to take you on in a debate on gun control in the US The culture with regard to guns is very different from that in the US. Very few owned a gun for self-defence purposes even before the gun control laws were brought in. Thus for the majority of the population, the equation after the Hungerford and Dunblane massacres was very simple. Unless you happened to be in a gun club, there was no downside to a ban on guns, the upside was making these sort of incidents far less likely to take place (yes, I know statistically the chances of you being killed in these sort of incidents is minute). The gun control laws were not imposed on the population by government, on the contrary it was the government responding to the public demand for these sort of measures.

The rise in gun crime was due to a whole host of factors - you seem to be implying that gun crime rose due to the ban which is highly unlikely as the self-defense argument is pretty null and void since the vast majority of the population over here didn't own handguns before the ban. The ban was brought in with massive public support after the Dunblane massacre to prevent similar incidents and, in that respect, seems to have succeeded.

"That's just ridiculous. I'm talking about the utter devastation of cities which refuse to accept surrender." "Utter devastation" is probably a pretty good description of the state of Fallujah at the moment, which is really the only city which could be said to have refused to surrender. What more do you actually want? The death of all 300,000 of its' inhabitants?

No.

It may well lead to a better Iraq in terms of prosperity in the long term, although in the short term the mass unemployment caused by the economic shock therapy has led to hardship for hundreds of thousands and has been a gift for the resistance. The thing is, though, people prefer to govern themselves for better or for worse. I think it's highly likely that many african nations, for example, would have higher standards of living were they still to be ruled by the colonial powers, but, given the choice, I doubt that many of them would opt for a return to foreign rule.

The problem with that assessment is that sometimes you have to go with the guy who gives you the best chance to win, not now but in the future. If you always start "the best quarterback" then hardly any rookie quarterbacks will come through as they are almost always going to be worse than a solid vet at first. I think the key consideration has to be whether this team is ever going to achieve anything with Bledsoe as the qb and, as far as I can see, all the evidence suggests not. For most of yesterdays game he looked like a disaster waiting to happen and could easily have thrown more interceptions than he actually did. Can you honestly see the Bills going to the superbowl or deep into the playoffs with Bledsoe? I can't and, given that, it's only prudent to start looking for alternatives. Maybe Losman isn't the answer, but we don't know that for sure yet. With Bledsoe we already know he isn't.

I don't know - you wait around for ages for a Rich in Ohio thread and then three come along at once

Ah, I wondered if someone would take offence at the website. I didn't actually have an ulterior motive for posting that (honest, guv), just thought it was an interesting report. Still hasn't been confirmed so perhaps it's incorrect.

Those stats are absolutely meaningless unless you have some idea of the length of the kick.

The problem with that is that you have to be prepared to lose games while hoping your substandard kicker will turn it around. It's not like Lindell is a normally reliable kicker who just had an off day (I remember Christie had some terrible days but when the pressure was on, you could rely on him) - most people thought he was a disaster waiting to happen. Donahoe's attitude seems to be that you can just bring just about anyone in as a kicker (remember Arians?). Good kickers can win you games, bad kickers lose them. I don't know what sort of money Hollis was asking for but I wish more of an effort was made to keep him.

Haven't seen this picked up by any of the major news networks yet. Be nice if it was true. Zarqawi arrested?

Drew had plenty of time on his first interception - he wasn't under any pressure but still threw the pick.

"They couldn't care if all Indians, Sri Lakans and everyone else died. They would just claim the deserted land as their own. This is how their government and 100% of their people think. " If this is how their government and 100% of their people think, then why exactly are they donating $500 million? Don't you think "100%" might be overstating things somewhat?

As far as the Miami game goes, there's plenty of blame to spread around - Reed got himself ejected from the game and Moulds made a fumble on the first play of the game after hauling in a bomb from Flutie. If Moulds doesn't fumble we're looking at least 3 points maybe 7, instead we get nothing and Miami get a field goal from the turnover.

That looked more like something from the film Rollerball (and I mean the James Caan classic not the dire remake) and has no place in the game, unless they want to go back to the time when players were getting killed every year.