@Lincoln 7
There’s another factor to it too. When you let the surgeons do private work they have a massive financial incentive to keep waiting times long so that you will pay them privately. Medical workers should have to choose between NHS and private work. The governments know about it, they just don’t have the courage to do anything about it.

O.K., It’s a great achievement, BUT, what good will it do US whether there was, or is life on Mars?. We havnt explored most of the seas and oceans on this planet yet. So if there was or is life on mars, say in the form of miniscule life, what would we gain by knowing that?.would we then send a manned flight there, just to see a few bugs?.
What have we gained from landing on the Moon?. Just a whole lot of money wasted, and for what.
I suppose it’s like the folks who climb mountains, when asked why they did it, and the answer was “Because it’s there”.
Lets get this planet sorted out first before we go jetting off to other outer space missions.
Beam me up Scotty:)

Jim.
Lincoln .7

It’s different to climbing mountains as it advances our technology. It effectively gives scientists something of great use to work on in areas where there isn’t much commercial benefit to be had, and providing that the money is spent in country and not wasted then I’m all for spending on these things and in much greater amounts. Most of these programmes have a large net gain for the economy, but that’s not the main objective. Much like the LHC it’s hard to say what the benefits of any discoveries are, though the benefits of the previous ones are all around you.

If they are trying to be “multicultural”, then they got the Middle Eastern practice wrong as they didn’t set fire to the US flag and shout “Allah u akbar” after…

Had to wait a couple weeks for dental treatment, wasn’t really bothered. My doctor, who I’d never met before, was kind enough to see me and give me the specific painkillers I requested in case I needed them. I appreciate for more serious stuff timing is more of a concern. As to ageism, I’m quite obviously opposed. Forced retirement is one that I particularly disapprove of. The NHS unfortunately wastes vast amounts of money which could be used to improve services. A lot of elderly people live at home, so maybe we could swap some pen pushers for community nurses or whatever the correct job title is?

Not sure if we can rely on it provide proof of life on Mars, particularly intelligent life. Proof of that is going to rely on them being willing to release the info, and they might not be willing to do so, as it could be a little destabilising.

On a side note, the appearance of the stereotypical aliens resemble humans in many ways, which suggests one of two things (assuming they are real). Either we are descended from them, or they live on our planet too, and aren’t really aliens. It’s a near certainty that there is intelligent life on other planets, but it’s extemely unlikely they will look like us, they may not even be of a form we would immediately recognise. Consider for example, if humans continued to learn and evolve and how intelligent the race would be in say 10 million years time… There is a higher probability of life on planets near Earth for obvious reasons, but the “certain” intelligent life is probably a very, very long way away.

It looked like a pretty rough start for team GB, things were not going well.

By yesterday (or the day before yesterday now technically!) they’d really pulled it back, and I was going to make a post about how brilliantly they’d done.

I was out all day today (Sat) and so I’ve only just had a chance to see the latest….

14

gold

medals

7 silver

8 bronze

29 in total

the best day in 104 years

these guys and girls are a real credit to themselves, and to team GB. The results speak for themselves. That said, the athletes who did not win are still extremely impressive due to the dedication they’ve shown in their training!

Probably done by the Argentine state, just like when their athletes exercised on our soldiers graves.

A Typhoon has a reasonable chance against an F22, assuming “realistic” engagement scenarios, it just depends on the circumstances. Both sides obviously talk up their jet, perhaps the US a little more so, the US also talked down the F15 a little too much too again for obvious reasons. We should also consider that not all Typhoon operators use aircraft of the same spec, some missing many of the self protection systems and the optics system. Exercises are pretty suspect as a source of kills given that we don’t know the specifics, but if it was just a straight air to air battle with no ridiculous restrictions on them (i.e nobody is playing super enemy or striker only) then it could be more valid. As for RCS figures, we have no idea what they actually are, I’ve seen a very wide range for Typhoon.