but world wide we must look at population growth and somehow slow or halt the rise, how to do this is the real question (…)

I don’t see anyone proposing anything on those lines anytime soon

I haven’t looked very closely at the issue, but AFAIK, poverty has a role in this.

All we will get, will be another round of initiatives and green projects all designed to extract even more money from the people and into the pockets of financiers and assorted fat cats, yet so many green campaigners wonder why there is so much cynicism regarding the whole issue.

For all I know at this time you might have a point here, but I also suspect that some of the cynicism as you put it stems from feelings of helplessness and a prospect of reduced standards of living, for instance.

Regular use of CCleaner combined with some anti-virus and anti-malware software seems to work for me, so far.

UNHCR report today officially records just over 2 million refugees in camps in Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Egypt plus an estimated 4.5 million displaced in Syria. And still it goes on with or without chemical weapon attacks.

Sometimes I think the focus on chemical weapon attacks alone (more or less) gets a bit absurd when you look at the massive circumstances of “conventional” violence.

Just have to love dilemmas.

Judging by this vote, and the comments here, it looks like the UK has lost the stomach for any sort of fight, no matter how necessary.
However, the people (through their elected officials) have spoken…back to the telly then off to the pub for a pint. I’m alright, Jack…let the Americans sort it out.

I just saw President Obama on TV say briefly that they are considering a limited operation to demonstrate a will to enforce the chemical weapons (CW) ban. So far I can support this thought in principle, but I’m worried that it will be more or less futile. A number of possible outcomes should be considered. Indirectly aiding AQ and / or other shady players in the area, any impact on the refugee situation, regional consequences, any sort of backfire and so on.

How can the U.S. “sort this out” when we’re talking about a limited attempt at making a statement? It seems that a deep and prolonged engagement is pretty much out of the question anyway, and I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult that would be.

Some people have also raised the point about the use of CWs and associated casualties compared with the fact that war crimes have been taking place in Syria for a long while now. AFAIK, many more civilians have suffered and died due to “conventional” violence. I think it’s important to focus on CWs, but at the same time I think the overall perspective (in terms of civilian suffering and casualties caused by CWs versus conventional weapons) should be debated more.

John Kerry stated in his speech that rockets were known to have been fired from Assad regime areas into rebel held suburbs at a time consistent with the chemical attacks; difficult to fake this part but if you had to? ‘Friendly’ elements in rebel held areas with chemical weapons wait until conventional rockets are fired close by and then release chemical weapons on unsuspecting local population? That is beginning to sound far-fetched (but pretty familiar by conspiracy theory standards)!

I can only speculate about this as I have no knowledge about how to effectively use chemical weapons (given that this attack was an example of “effective use”), but are any of the rebels actually able to pull off something like this? (I really don’t expect anyone here to be able to answer this with certainty).

I’ve got a few hours in the SR20. I think it’s quite good for e.g. cross-country VFR (120 KIAS cruise speed, good autopilot etc.) and instrument training in VMC or IMC outside of icing conditions. The Avidyne and Garmin gear can be useful for teaching e.g. CPL(A) students some systems management. General EFIS familiarization also comes to mind, although it might cause an issue with some pilots (both students and licensed) who fixate too much on the screens during VFR flying.

4 Serbian Soko G-4 Super Galebs

I believe those were Bosnian Serb J-21 Jastrebs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banja_Luka_incident

You can also refer to the ACIG.org database for further information.

http://www.acig.info/CMS/index.php?option=com_content&task=section&id=5&Itemid=47

I’d agree. The whole evolution is extremely controlled, due to safety concerns. There are about 100 million people that need explicit confirmation that you are about to shoot the right thing in the sky, before you ever pull the trigger (or pickle button in AF jets I guess). Beyond that, its the ordies and the avionics techs that actually make sure the thing works.

I imagine it’s pretty important to have your situational awareness in order when launching an ARH missile? Must be a bit boring if you’re not sure about the traffic in the airspace ahead due to this and that and you really need to get one off due to a threat in the same area.. Sounds like a potential squeeze. Not asking about specific procedures, by the way.