RE: American Invation and Agression

Pretty sure this is a case of somebody standing up and saying “I think we should do THIS!” and everybody else saying “yeah, that sounds good” and not actually following it up at all. Because, at a time when the US and Europe are somewhat on the outs, it ain’t gonna look good if a load of Army Rangers storm the Dutch admisistrative capital to bust alledged “war criminals” from an open prison with decent food and digital TV. Even if you think it’s justifiable, you have to admit: IT DOES NOT LOOK GOOD to go tooling round a major city of your ally, possibly shooting folks, all so you can court martial said alleged “war criminals” and find ’em completely innocent or give ’em a year in the stockade or a discharge.
Most policy seems to revolve around achieving objectives while still maintaining the appearance of righteousness. This scenario would be too difficult to paint in a wholly positive light to anybody but a proportion – and maybe a small one at that – of the American people. Yeah, you stood up for your people and their right to a fair trial under American law, but the way you achieved it made you and your country look – well, a bit daft. A bit knee-jerk. It’d have consequences that would not be in the USA’s interest. Nothing military speaking, but that gap across the Atlantic’d get wider; probably for years. Which would hurt ecomonically, not least if the EU subsequently became a powerful isolationist power bloc in its own right, and thus even more of an economic threat to the US than it already is. Not good. Who’s going to buy JSF, for a start?
If it was actually the case that as a politician you alone could get the government to do what you want, then the US could have ended the war in Afghanistan in one fell swoop by nuking Taliban Central. No mucking around with Special Forces teams, or working with neighbouring states and the Northern Alliance. Wallop! Decapitate the Taliban and the rest of the factions there can sort it out for themselves. Somebody in US politics must have wanted that to happen, at least fleetingly. An eye for an eye, and so forth.

RE: Log-in names

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 30-05-02 AT 11:01 PM (GMT)]When you start playing Counter Strike (or any other online game) you want a handle that ideally is daft, but neutral. Show me somebody with below-average skills going by a name like “God” or “Killfrenzy” or some such, and I’ll show you a major ass-kicking waiting to happen, as everybody gangs up on The Guy who Sucks But Has a Really Cool Name. I chose the name JimmyRiddles. I thought that this was a clever play on words; this was a serious mistake, but one that took me many long, sad months to realise.
Being a shiftless lazy sod, I turned to http://www.wuname.com for inspiration. Bang! Out came Radiophonic Oddity. Busted down to RadiO, it served me well in my battles against the SAS and GSG-9 on the net and I can’t be bothered to think of a new username. So I’m RadiO everywhere.

RE: Chinese MBTs

Don’t know if you’re familiar with this one, Ivan, but here’s quite an interesting site:

http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Lair/1509/Army.html

It looks as if it’s still in an early stage of construction, and it’s probably not as rigourous as it could be, but there are some tasteful photos; including some of the Type 98 that weren’t in China Defense’s article on the beast.
The same person by the look of it has this page:

http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Lair/1509/newunits.html

Which seems to be supporting a mission pack for a PC strategy game, but has photos of a recent Chinese AA vehicle that I’ve never seen before (as if that means anything 😉 ). Interesting

RE: Star Wars Episode II

Actually, I might have gone a wee bit over the top in my wholesale assault upon Master Jar Jar’s person. Thinking about it, a CGI puppet created to entertain might not really deserve to be called a “stupid annoying pr*ck”. Sorry for any offence caused. 🙂

RE: Star Wars Episode II

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 17-05-02 AT 12:04 PM (GMT)]Let’s put it this way:

Episode IV: You have Chewbacca, a massive, furry death machine who’s also a skilled spacecraft engineer. This is good.

Episode I: You have Jar Jar, who’s an stupid irritating prick with no redeeming features at all. This is demonstrably bad. The already dragging story comes to a screeching halt every five minutes as he mindlessly arses around. True, you can laugh as the pit droid kicks him in the testicles, but laughing at Jar Jar feels disturbingly like laughing at the disadvantaged.
He sucks, and dare I say he only exists because George Lucas realised that Episode 1 (trade… taxation… politics…) was actually a dull story for ardent SW fans to sit through, let alone hyperactive 6-year-olds. So he overcompensates, tragically.
I’m sorry, but Jar Jar just winds me up. When I saw the scene where he’s put before the Boss of his underwater city and is told he must be punished, I was actually chanting the word “punish” under my breath – this in a packed cinema full of people I really hope I never have to apply for a job with. And Jar Jar had only been on screen for about four minutes, yet I already hated him intensely. By the final slapstick battle sequence, I’d passed though the disgust event horizon, and no longer actively wanted “General” Jar Jar to die. I just wanted him to get the hell away from the films so I could watch them without clenching my fists.

(Although if some of the things I’ve heard about Episode 2 are right, Jar Jar will have a massive stain of guilt on his conscience by the time of the original trilogy. Interesting…)

RE: Train crash kills 6 in UK

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 10-05-02 AT 09:12 PM (GMT)]My deepest sympathies go out to those who have lost loved ones or those injured in this tragedy. And I know that it’s too soon to start proportioning blame. But…
It’s privatisation. It’s broken up a positive safety system, which took pains to take responsibiliy and learn valuable lessons from any accidents – and replaced it with one where everybody tries very hard to pass the buck, nobody is actually responsible for anything and God forbid anything should actually be learned. It took track and signalling infrastructure out of the hands of experienced railway engineers and put it in the hands of a company run by accountants, whose first duty is to their shareholders.
It took day-to-day maintenance out of the hands of a dedicated support organisation and gave it to outside contractors, who work down to a price rather than up to a standard.
It’s terrible. It’s unworkable. In all probability, it’s actually directly cost people’s lives, if not here, then definitely elsewhere. Sorry, but I’m annoyed.

RE: Word Game

Knack