Flyby PC

Closed down???? Oh dear. Must be the in UK right enough..... OT and BTW, since 2004, in the UK we've had Bocastle flash flooding, Carlisle flash flooding, Selkirk flash flooding, Hawick flash flooding, now Newcastle flash flooding, and to extents where it's never happened before. Now it might be coincidence, but it's some coincidence if it is, and maybe there is a change in the air. I repect you fellas' opinions, but I'd rather be wrong and worry about climate now, than be complacent and miss out fixing something when there was still time to fix it.

I thought Buffalo Joes was America. You're telling me those were English girls?

Seems this was the prototype aircraft, and crashed today, killing the pilot. Sad story. http://www.shuttleworth.org/tickets/event-details.asp?ID=148 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-18664332 Event Date: 01-07-2012 AIRSHOW CANCELLED The Shuttleworth Collection can confirm that earlier today an aircraft experienced difficulties and crashed at the airfield.Emergency Services and the Air Ambulance were called to the scene and one casualty airlifted to hospital.We are not releasing details of the persons identity or the nature of the injuries incurred.Todays planned airshow has been cancelled to allow accident investigators to assess the scene.We would like to thank both on-site and external emergency crews for their prompt reaction.The Shuttleworth Trust

That's excelllent Von Baur! Congratulations to both of you.

BBC Scotland. It'll be headline news. Anything to keep Alex Salmond off the TV. Then again, BBC? It might be DOGS DELIBERATELY SET UPON LIVING SHEEP AND FORCED TO WORK LONG HOURS FOR NOTHING MORE THAN FOOD AND WATER!!!! HOW LONG HAS THIS SLAVERY AND ANIMAL ABUSE BEEN GOING ON??? We sent our reporter to ask one local collie dog owner to comment. Good luck UKW. :rofl: EDIT : And I believe there have been numerous trials of sheepdogs throughout the last few years, but with not one single conviction. EDIT 2 : And rumour has it soldiers in the trenches during WW1, and pilots in the RFC were particularly fond of leaner cuts of lamb with less fat, which served to encourage the use of sheepdogs to chase the sheep around the fields for exercise and greater fitness. (It's all lies of course, but they can't send us to the Pub now. Muuuhaahaahhaahaaa!!!)

If you Google Earth 55°25'59.92"N 2°45'39.17"W It'll bring you right down on top of the yard, with my yellow landy in the drive.

No mosquitos in Scotland. The Midges have eaten them all.

When making the World, Jesus looked up to his father, "Father, I'm confused". "Why my son? What's wrong?" "You've created this country called Scotland". "Yes my son. What confuses you?". "Well, you've given it some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, beautiful mountains you can scale in one day, and silver sand beaches you can follow for miles. You've blessed it with temperate climate, neither too warm nor two cold, nor too wet nor to dry, and made it soils productive green pastures and it's shores and rivers abundant with fish. You've populated it with hard working people of stout character and intellect, and neither serpents nor insects carry toxins to threaten them like everywhere else in the world. You've even created the gulf stream to wash it's shores with tropical currents in winter". "Yes my Son. I have done all of this." "But father. It isn't fair." "Fair?" "Yes fair. In Scotland you've created paradise on Earth. Everywhere else in the world there is harmony and balance, the good offset by the bad. Why do you so richly bless this country called Scotland?". "Ah, I understand". "Explain it to me father. What's to stop the rest of the world looking upon these rish blessings you have bestowed on Scotland with jealous eyes?" "My son, the balance is maintained. Look a little closer and see the neighbours I've given them...."

It's OT again, but is anybody else having grief with Google these days? It seems to have forgotten what the back button is actually for, and half the time the forward button isn't much better. What once seemed effortless and automatic now sees me looking at a screen which doesn't change until I press a link again. Do I need to double click my links now? Nobody told me. Now I find my searches are perhaps matching one or maybe two words and ignoring three or four others. I'm given pages of links I don't want, and asked "Did you mean this or that?" No, I typed what I meant, now go and find it. I'm fed up with this. Is it Google chrome or Internet Explorer getting ideas above it's station? I have Firefox installed too, but find all links lead to Bing or Yahoo. What is going on? Why are my tools suddenly turning into such nuisances?

Outstanding pictures Corsair31. I have a soft spot for Robins. When you're building a wall and picking up stone that's been lying a while, there are always beetles and worms exposed, and the little robins are always the boldest and first in there for the feast. If it's a big wall and you're there for a while, you'd be surprised how close you can get the robin to come, to the point it's almost tame. You may not believe it but I once had a robin sunbathing not 10ft away from where I was working. He was perched on the ground on top of a flat bit of stone, with wings exposed, sitting there sunning himself. I'd never seen the like before, that's exactly what he was doing. All that was missing were his sunglasses and cocktail. I actually wondered if he was so stuffed full of worms he couldn't take off. Just don't go home and tell the Mrs you've spent all day watching a bird sunbathing.

My Yard is where I belong. I've tried all my life to own somewhere that was properly mine, and mine alone, and my yard is it. I can do what I want here - at last!!!. We've hit a bit of trouble lately with the credit crunch, but we'll be ok, and we'll get back on the front foot once the economy improves. It's frustrating, but it reminds me why I hate money, and how it pevents people reaching their potential. So does TV, but that's another story. It's tough having to put your ideas on the back burner just to make a living, but that's Bankers for you. It will be grand when I'm finished, and a haven for wild birds too. In fact, I'm experimenting with building a couple of nest holes for the birds. It's still being roughed out, but I've seen blue tits nesting walls before, and the hole is the right size for them, so if I build a little crevice in the wall for them, we shall see if that works out. I feel more at home here than I do at home. In fact, I could sleep anywhere, rough, under a tree, anywhere, and not really care for 'home'. The yard is a means to an end. Once it's finished, then I'll think about making a proper home, and it'll be a cracker, but I reckon you'll still find me in my yard most of the time with my dogs.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8393984/Safe-nuclear-does-exist-and-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html It's supposed to be a much safer form of nulear power. I don't care who develops it, just develop it well, and develop it quickly.

Wait Olham, if OFF is part of the Da Vinci code, you'll need to enter those numbers into this funny looking codex thing I found when I was visiting Roslin Cathedral last week. I have it here now. Give me a second, I'll just type those numers in for you. 2,3,1,5,... Oh hold on, wait a minute, there somebody standing at the gate. How strange. He's dressed like monk with really, really white hair, - and a badge saying OBD. I'll just go and see what he wants. I'll be back in just a moment..................

I'd like to hear Matt Milnes song he's written, - but with somebody other than me singing it.

It also heads off the growing race to plunder diminishing resources. The fly in the ointment? For me, it lets us off the hook before we've really got the point. There's something about respecting the environment and the critters that live there that resonates with me. The whole problem is we're plundering the earth and not living within our means, and finding more 'means' isn't really the point. We need to start looking after the big blue marble, or time will render scientific progress obsolete before we even get the chance to use it. Thorium sounds pretty good, but not as good a Nuclear fusion, and they're getting very close to this commercial breakthrough too. http://www.ccfe.ac.u...troduction.aspx Commercial fusion power is a bigger story than Thorium. There are answers coming, and things can get better, so why are we still plundering rain forests and oceans? If there are energy solutions for our future, please, let us all be responsible in distributing the wealth and opportunity that comes with it fairly and humanely, so nobody is forced to clear away virgin rain forest or drive fish stocks past the point of collapse. There's no need for it, so there's no excuse for it either.

I've got my own Ogie. Mine is called an Odin, and he's not happy because its raining on his blanky...

They say this Thorium Nuclear energy can actually consume our existing nuclear waste. Nothing's THAT good I'm inclined to agree. There's always a catch, but Thorium is getting good press, so I'm optimistic to see what follows. It also doesn't melt down like a plutonium reactor, there's no chain reaction which gets out of control, so there's no possibility of another Chernobyl type incident. I also agree with BH about green issues. It feels like an exercise in mind control, - be concerned, but not too concerned. Don't get me wrong, I want a healthier planet and environment, but there's too much propoganda and not enough action for me to really think it's serious - yet. It's playing as if 'somebody; knows the solution to it all, it's just we'll be more willing to accept the bad news and impact on our lifestyle once we're desperate enough. Stage 1 was identifying the Global Warming problem. Took us a while, but I think we've got there in the end, although there remain those yet to be convinced. We're still at Global Alert Stage 2- "Wringing of Hands", and worrying what can be done about it. .

There have been Thorium reactors in the past, but they weren't given similar investment because they didn't produce weapons grade plutonium.

Not so much the flying part, but flying into battle... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDgODBhdYzM It was used as the soundtrack to We were Soldiers, but it's feet are firmly placed in the trenches of WW1. It was written and sung by Joseph Kilna Mackenzie lamenting his great grand father, Sgt. Charles Stuart Mackenzie of the Seaforth Highlanders who was killed during WWI. There's a story goes that when Sgt MacKenzie was killed, at the same instant, his picture had fallen from the wall back at home, and his wife had known at once that he'd fallen. Joseph said "My great grandmother looked, and said to my grandmother "Oh, my bonnie Charlie's dead". Saddly it was true. He'd been killed by a bayonette, standing over the body of a wounded friend and comrade. Edit - Scottish: Lay me doon in the cauld cauld groond Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun Lay me doon in the cauld cauld groond Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun When they come a wull staun ma groond Staun ma groond al nae be afraid Thoughts o' hame tak awa ma fear Sweat an bluid hide ma veil o' tears Ains a year say a prayer faur me Close yir een an remember me Nair mair more shall a see the sun For a fell tae a Germans gun Lay me doon in the cauld cauld groond Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun Lay me doon in the cauld cauld groond Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun English- Lay me down in the cold cold ground Where before many more have gone Lay me down in the cold cold ground Where before many more have gone When they come I will stand my ground Stand my ground I'll not be afraid Thoughts of home take away my fear Sweat and blood hide my veil of tears Once a year say a prayer for me Close your eyes and remember me Never more shall I see the sun For I fell to a German's gun Lay me down in the cold cold ground Where before many more have gone Lay me down in the cold cold ground Where before many more have gone Where before many more have gone

I recently came across a quiet story about Winston Churchill, who was supposed to have said that the US becomming involved in WW1 was a complete calamity. He later denied saying it, but the subject matter is explosive. The premise is, that if the US had kept itself detached and outside the conflict, then the warring parties, the UK, France, Russia and Germany were so utterly war weary by 1917, that they would have settled for peace. The attitude adopted by the US to become involved made the war a winnable proposition for the Entente side, as proved to be the case, which lead to the humiliation of Germany leading in turn to WW2. Peace in 1917 would have perhaps changed the course of the Russian revolution. Imagine how different our world would have been with peace in 1917. No Communism, no Nazism, no Fascism, and millions of lives spared. Please don't assume for a minute that I'm inferring any responsibility for these consequences on the US, but the prospect of peace in 1917 was very real indeed, and a moment in history when everything changed. With no communism, there's no space race. No cultural revolution in China. No atomic bomb. This is the gist of the statement Churchill denied saying.. "America should have minded her own business and stayed out of the World War. If you hadn't entered the war the Allies would have made peace with Germany in the Spring of 1917. Had we made peace then there would have been no collapse in Russia followed by Communism, no breakdown in Italy followed by Fascism, and Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which has enthroned Nazism in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war, all these 'isms' wouldn't today be sweeping the continent of Europe and breaking down parliamentary government - and if England had made peace early in 1917, it would have saved over one million British, French, American, and other lives."

Might fine thing to do Marine, and I'm sure Cody's parents appreciated it too.

It depends. We're always told that cost is the bottom line, but what if it isn't? What if we've got that completely wrong? We're born and bred to think like economists and value everything on lowest possible cost. That's the supermarkets way of way of thinking but it doesn't deliver value, it delivers cheapness, which isn't the same thing at all. Follow that argument, and we are destined to suffer unemployment until life here is so cheap and desperate here that we become attractive cheap labour for foreign investors to recruit. Is that really a dilligent way for any government to run an economy? Why are we compelled to stand by and watch it happen? Hellfire, we even had one elected 'milk snatching' leader right here making the process happen overnight! I think most of our Western economies have not been well run for decades. We're all driving along the same roads, reacting to what we see on the road, but there's no roadmap giving a bigger picture for the whole journey. We're just going to keep chugging along until we run out of fuel or we breakdown. Subsidy is a dirty word, and I don't approve of the context, but I don't have to call it a subsidy if I tax cheap imports up to the same price as my home grown domestic prices. How is it unfair to do that if I truly understand and respect the value of human dignity? "Go ahead and pay your workforce peanuts, but you won't profit by it selling your goods in the UK". Sounds a better message to be sending out to me than "Got any more of that cheap stuff?" We kid ourselves we're all being green these days, and doing out bit for the environment, but we turn a blind eye when the Asian markets plunder the worlds resources to make us all ipods, 3D TVs and laptops. OK, we reduce the carbon footprint of our own domestic energy consumption, but we spend all our wealth paying others to pollute their part of the world on our behalf. It's insane, the process is destabilising our economies, destroying our planet, and it's all getting faster and faster. It's stupid!!! Look at 'cost' again. What are we doing but investing heavily in the dirtiest sweatshop economies? We're rewarding most, those ecomonies we criticise the most for their pollution and employment conditions, and the best answer we can come up with to reverse the trend is undercutting them on price? Wow. What genius thought that up? Call me a cynic, but I don't think that's going to work. I want to see a world market where clean and green production and manufacturing is valued and rewarded and there is competent, repeat competent, fiscal management to offset the market imbalances created by economies which cut corners and don't produce goods to the same environmental and social benchmarks which I demand of my own industry. Things get better when you raise the bar, not lower it. Pipe dream? Yes........ but only for now.

I don't 'blame' the far Eastern economies. It's the nature of things that are fed to grow, and the nature of things that are starved to fail. In the UK, we've been starving our industries of investment and patronage for as long as I can remember.

Defence is versatility. You're very unlikely to suffer an attack which your prepared defence is ready for. It's highly likely your initial defences will need to be improvised and adapted. But to improvise, you still need raw resources you can improvise with, something to plug the gap while you get off the ropes. Take 9-11. A horrific attack on the heart of mainland America. There was no defence ready for such an attack, and frontline supertech fighter aircraft were no defence, not until they had clearance and instructions to shoot down civilian aircraft, by which time the damage was already done and the attack had already got through. Ok, perhaps currently we don't need tanks, but we definitely do need the manufacturing skills and capacity to make whatever we do need, and be able to tool up to make them in a hurry. WW2 saw every nation re-tooling it's workshops and foundries to manufacture arms. When your country is an industrial wasteland and your people are accustomed to indolent indulgence, you're already well on the way to losing your next war regardless of what form it will take. When you look at most wars, the winner is the side with the superior industrial output. We should invest in industry and technology, not bankers, and hammer these flyby economists and investment brokers back into the subservient roll supporting our industry where they belong and stop treating them like gods. The dominance of financiers is the tail wagging the dog.

I don't pretend to know about Banking, but if your government can afford to bail out a bank for multiple billions, it occurs to me you could have let that failing bank with it's poisonous assets go to the wall, and using the same billions, financed a completely new Bank without the tarnished reputation, and set that bank the task to help those left in trouble by the failed Bank. We're always told how a free market economy is best for us all, best that is right up until it's a bank in trouble and suddenly we're handing them billions, which they lap up and laugh at us as they squander great lumps of it away in bonuses. Save the banking system? It's rotten to the core. These clowns crippled my customers, slashed my turnover to near 10% of its former peak, and then have the damn cheek to look down their nose at my business looking for some help to restructure ourselves and get ourselves back on the front foot. This country needs industry, manufacture and produce to drive our economy, not see it held hostage and sqeezed between some fat parasitic banking industry milking us dry on one hand and an impotent clueless governent taxing us to the hilt every time we move, only to fritter it away on welfare for people who've never worked a day in their life but can somehow afford to raise kids by the dozen, go on holiday twice a year, have a party every other night, and race their quadbikes in the sun all afternoon. It's disgusting and unfair, and inherently unstable. You don't get something for nothing in life, and all these people on the property ladder are suddenly rich (?) but did nothing whatsoever to earn that wealth other than happen to own a property. Darn right it's not real money. The 'real' money was the folding stuff in your wage packet which went towards interest you paid on the mortgage which is now sitting in some off-shore account paying for some blue chip Bankers lifestyle. Think you're going to see it again when you come to sell your house? You might see some of it if you're lucky, but pardon the irony, don't 'bank' on it. OK. As you were gents I'm sorry for being so grim. I've had a long day. Rant is over for today....