RE: Belgium sells weapons to Nepal

I don’t see why not. Belgium has no right to interfere in Nepal’s affairs by withholding business. Besides, BAE SYSTEMS would sell them instead!

RE: huh?

…which raises the question of a lack of accountability and transparency within religous organisations.

In my sytem, all relgions must register with a notional UN Religion Council. The codes would mean each relgion must have an elected Board, must publish accounts and must be tolerant of other religions. Non-compliant religions would have their assets seized by NATO forces.

I just can’t see how else to get rid of the bone head Bishops, Rabbis and Mullahs who openly tolerate terrorism, intolerance and relgious hatred.

RE: British withdrawal from Northern Ireland

A federation needs a President, Geforce! Haven’t we gone down this road before…

Whenever you read one of the SAS books, you can’t help but pity the poor IRA chaps who get dealt with! I think if we have international support (FBI – start arresting US terrorists!!!) and more pragmatism (The Brits mistreated the Irish hundreds of years ago, so they are allowed to become terrorists!!!) the IRA can be essentially cracked.

I see the Loyalists as just a reaction to the Republicans. They are as bad as them, but can probably be dealt with a bit more easily if we firstly remove the root cause – sympathy for terrorism.

RE: Nepal Crash Kills 18 People

What sort of plane is that Keltic?

Do you think your safety concerns are weather-based or rather more general in nature?

RE: I was just wondering.

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 23-08-02 AT 08:28 PM (GMT)]The US system is further complicated by the fact that each state replicates the machinery of government after a local fashion.

I do also agree that the President has too much power. The idea that one man has his hand on the button is very disturbing. No individual in the world should have such power. I know that commanders of nuclear submarines do, but there are very well established “checks and balances” there. In the UK, the PM cannot order a nuclear deployment. He needs the consent of his cabinet, at least the “war cabinet”. I might also add that in the UK, all cabinet ministers are elected, and not simply appointed as in the US.

Anoter way of looking at is to consider Corporate America. In the US, it is routine for the CEO of a company to also be the Chairman or President. This is illegal in the UK, at least for listed companies. The two roles cannot be combined, as there needs to be a body of non-executive directors overseeing the Board who have the power to put a stop to anything nefarious. The Chairman is simply the head of the non-executives. Post-Enron, US corporate governance standards have been severely criticised over here. It used to be the same in the UK, but we changed after corporate disasters like Guinness/Distillers and Polly Peck.

RE: British withdrawal from Northern Ireland

Going off at a tangent, I wonder why the Russians never learned the British lesson and persisted with a very oppressive Empire?

RE: are budget airlines trying to take over europe !!!

I flew MAN-JNB with KLM recently, connecting through AMS.

The reason I did it was that the connections were convenient and being a lazy bugger, I couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of checking-in again at AMS if I’d used Easy. With KLM I could check right through to JNB.

That’s one of Easy’s failings – they are not an option if you are a transfer pax. Their business is just point-to-point.

But, KLM was very poor going to AMS although it was actually quite good on to JNB. The plane was a Fokker 100, very scruffy inside. I had a small roller case as hand baggage, which they wouldn’t let me check in at MAN. I used it when I flew IOM-LGW about a month ago, so I couldn’t see the drama. They said it was too big and they got stroppy when I had a go at them. When I got through to Departures, it seemed lots of passengers had similar sized roller cases. So I bought a disposable camera and snapped away. A friend is a lawyer and I’m going to take legal advice. I felt discriminated against, just because I don’t suffer fools and I argued with the check in staff.

A lot of big airlines are hit and miss and the service from the budget airlines isn’t so bad by comparison. It’s just their refusal to cater for transfer passengers that usally costs them my cash.

RE: Pic Of The Day-IL 86!

I don’t know much about Russian aircraft. But the IL-86 looks thin but with a tall roof, juding from that pic. Also, does it have turbojets? Then engines look realy long and thin.