Perhaps a picture of someone who has fallen from a great height might wipe the stupid looks off some peoples faces.

Probably not.
You are an ex-para – not having a go but would a photo of some whose parachute hadn’t opened have deterred you? They put warnings on the side of fag packets and in other countries there have been images of a diseased lung during a postmortem. A firefighter I used to know wanted to make every m/c rider watch a brigade video that he’d had to watch which showed brains being tipped out of a helmet, post crash, and also illustrated graphically why riders should wear leathers. Drink drivers don’t heed the warnings unless they’re sober either.
What makes you think these danger-seekers will take notice of anything except a 3m wall near the edge?

There would be no nukes; whereas, the U.S. is fully aware that Russia could send in Bear bombers, or Blackjacks, using them in the same manner as B-52s were used in “Nam with the difference being of those shot down, the air crews would very close to safe territory so air rescue would be much easier for the Russians.

Bear bombers? You mean a Tu95MS – the only version is service – with bombs?

They’d need to do some modifications first – they are strategic missile carriers.

Armament
Radar-controlled Guns: 1 or 2 × 23 mm AM-23 autocannon in tail turret.
Missiles: Up to 15,000 kg (33,000 lb), including the Raduga Kh-20, Kh-22, Kh-26, and Kh-55/101/102 Air-to-surface missiles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95

And the Blackjack is not exactly running like a dream…

There is a particular problem with the engines; although Kuznetsov designed an NK-32M engine that improved the reliability of the troublesome NK-32 engines, its successor company has struggled to deliver working units. Metallist-Samara JSC has not produced new engines for a decade and when it was given a contract in 2011 to overhaul 26 of the existing engines, it managed just four in two years. There are problems with the ownership of the company and it lacks finance to build a new production line; it insists it needs an order of 20 engines per year but the government is only prepared to pay for 4-6 engines per year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-160

Still, I don’t suppose it will come to that. Hopefully.

I’m not sure how this gentleman died ? I had heard that he sustained a severe attack of sunstroke as a consequence of a lengthy and some say expensive recent stay at that millionaire’s resort; Cancun, Mexico.

It might be that his stay at this luxurious hideaway was funded from his alleged union salary of circa £140,000 p.a.

According to those parts of the media you obviously don’t take notice of he died from a heart attack.
Yes I believe he did have a holiday recently – because your favourite Daily Heil got its traditional bullocking for papping somebody it failed to prove was sufficiently newsworthy (as it has done repeatedly) despite swearing never to papp again after Diana/Paris/1997.
High wages are something you have not been worried about before (that I’ve noticed, anyway) unless they were connected to bankers (probably). I am not going to be your poster boy for socialism (or, indeed, anything to your left – by which anything short of Hitler in a KKK hoodie is not suitably right wing for you?) but the guy, as I understand, was employed to get results for his unions members. He got results, he got publicity, he got paid.

This coming Sunday, I will be attending Trafalgar Square carrying a black and white Socialist Workers Party banner bearing a picture of the elegant features of a true descendant of Red Robbo. Who will join me ?

You’ll have to watch out for the St Paddy’s parade people. Play nicely, won’t you…

The guy was an elected trade union leader who did a damn good job of looking after HIS members interests, funnily enough that was precisely what his union paid him for.

Now if our politicians of whatever shade, worked half as hard and achieved a quarter as much for their members this country would be a much better place..

Not sure about it being a better place, as such, because there would be politicians involved – but people might be better treated for a change.

Looking after his members interests? He siphoned that much money from HIS members, that he became the wealthy elite that he had spent his life demonizing. The man was a hypocrite of the worst kind.

‘Siphoned’? That sounds like a legal case in the making – hopefully you have all the proof with your legal team because defamation of character is easily defined thus: under common law, to constitute defamation, a claim must generally be false and have been made to someone other than the person defamed.
Next of kin can be very protective of the recently deceased and their reputation…

Silver fox do you drive a tube? Good riddance to the commie loud mouth hypocrite.

Whether he does or doesn’t, at some point you would undoubtedly complain about the number of unemployed hanging around, not working, not paying taxes, with no hope of employment in their most recent career field because somebody decided to make the world a more dangerous place (remember the Kings Cross tube station fire? It was found that staff were given little or no training about what to do in the event of a fire, and that there were too few on duty at the time. Lots of resignations all round!).
Underground trains still have accidents with a driver aboard – why should that change because there is no driver?
You lot complain about using the self service tills in supermarkets, yet when the counter staff on the underground try to save their jobs from (effectively) a self service machine by using the only thing that the management will take notice of (ie their union) they are whitewashed as being commies, blah blah blah.
You in the managements pocket much?

Just for fun let’s try a few facts, the guy’s salary was actually £89,805, plus payments to his pension fund based on results, now considering that under his stewardship membership of the RMT rose from 57,000 in 2002 to 80,000 in 2008, I would imagine that would be substantial.

No matter what, his job was looking after the interests of his members, as far as I can tell he did that very well, just what did any of you expect him to do?

Forget it. They would be complaining about the guy being over paid if he’d done it as an unpaid volunteer…

Re 13

Just for fun here’s another fact. Yes, he certainly looked after his members interests and he certainly did not look after his commuters interests.

So we know where his prime loyalty lay.

Why do you think there are staff present at any job serving the public? Yes they would be selling you a ticket, but they would be there to assist in the event of an ‘incident’ (see mention of Kings Cross disaster, above) and when there is no one about because the tube station has just three members of staff on duty and they were all deceased in the initial event – what happens to the unsuspecting travelling public? 31 people died at Kings Cross, and whilst there is now no smoking, no wooden escalators and no facility for flash-fire on the underground there is nothing to show that the public would not be directed into the danger zone again by staff who would no longer be there. Still, you lot will undoubtedly moan about the compensation culture when the next of kin sue…

His remarks about the demise of Lady T damned him in many eyes.

Many? Did you not live in Britain in the Thatcher era? Her grave (when found) is destined to be the most popular public convenience in Britain – so I imagine that the damned would have been preserved in a grave of urine, had she not been cremated and the ashes interred at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, beneath a stone not really big enough to dance on.
I haven’t seen or heard his remarks, but they wouldn’t have been any different to those made by ‘many’ of people who were affected by policies made to protect Thatchers friends and family. They say the rich got richer and the poor got poorer – were you related by any chance?

So you have no problem with union members, or any worker, doing whatever (legally) is within their power to protect their job and maximise their earnings; even if it causes disruption to those that use the service they provide and ultimately ends up passing more costs onto those that use that service?

Strewth! Read the first part of your sentence, then have someone else explain it to you. Really, I’m not trying to be insulting but when you’ve posed a question by giving the answer I am trying very hard not to ask you to let a child ask the questions instead!
Striking was i/ to save their jobs, ii/ to protect their jobs, iii/ to make others aware that there was a proposal to cut or reduce staffing levels to what is either considered a dangerous safety level (unions and apparently H&S examiners) or whatever the management think (having not responded to the H&S people, and of course the union concerns don’t count where profit is debated). Whether you understand or not the fact that commuters where ‘inconvenienced’ makes them aware of what is happening; ok, it would make the strikers unpopular with some, but tube management will be asked why they let the situation get to a point like that and why are they not communicating and trying to strike a deal? Commuter anger hits both sides in the dispute…

The recent fuss about closing ticket offices is typical. That was all about protecting non-jobs. I can recall identical wailing and breast-beating as the buses phased out clippies and that doesn’t seem to have worked out badly.

Non jobs include providing assistance, first aid, and emergency support – a self service machine will be utterly useless at any of those things. Seriously, they can get computers to write PR guff these days!
Several years ago I can across an accident involving a bus where the driver was seriously injured and there was no staff member to field the passengers out of the wreckage to safety. Having parked to prevent speeding idiots from crashing into the accident there was a small group of idiot commuters standing in the road discussing how the bus company had left them to fend for themselves by not providing another member of staff to look after them in the event of an accident… The driver died.

Driverless trains are being proposed for the London Underground!

Makes your heart beat just that little bit faster with joy, don’t it?[/sarcasm]

And lets not forget while earning all this cash he was living in a Housing association home, thus preventing someone more needy from benefitting from it… good riddance i say.

I believe it was the family home, the place he was brought up in, and had been a council house; under the regulations in place he was entitled to live there.

Tony,

He had to somehow show that he was a man of the people. 140K per annum tended to disqualify him somewhat !

140k or 89k (his actual salary – displaying your utter ignorance by misquoting the facts as per the Daily Heil doesn’t make it correct) yet he still couldn’t afford to own a home in London; doesn’t that say something about society today?

What a bizarre comment. We only pay for lottery winners if we buy lottery tickets, which we do in the vain hope we might become “non job fat cat lottery winners”! Whatever that is supposed to mean.

Good luck to the winners!

Charlie, I expected more, so much more, from you.
The lottery winners are, I expect, those ‘fat cats’ who get millions for doing non jobs – those jobs for the boys given by other fat cats in a self-beneficial back scratching exercise…

Re 25

I’m tugging my forelock in recognition of your expertise in ‘sweeping statements’, sense of entitlement and expectations that the world owes you a living…. Blah blah blah.

Zzzzzzzzzz

Blah blah blah…I could go on but, what is the point. Don’t spout your Marxist inspired claptrap to me. It’s offensive. Uncontrolled trade unionism is as evil as uncontrolled capitalism but without the ability to create genuine jobs – only non jobs.

If you don’t agree with it, its Marxist. Says it all, really.

Uncontrolled capitalism does not help anyone but those at the top who control the reigns – need I mention food banks for the poor, since you don’t care about anyone but yourself and anyone you can brown nose!

Oh it is amazing how in times of a shooting war things suddenly seeming impossible or near so can be made to happen rather quickly.

The U.K. showed in the Falklands how that works and the Ukraine is not near as far away.

Britain took up civilian ships to transport men and supplies all that way, yes. Totally different premise though.

But Russia is never going to be able to magic up a few more Blackjacks – unless they are after the long out of service ones that the Ukrainian air force had in the early 2000s…

(There are so few Blackjacks in Russian service that each one is named, like the B2s!!!)

OK so it wasn’t about the driver’s death but the fact the bus passengers milled about for a bit?

Did I say that? No. Did I mention the stupids who muttered about how they were not being taken care of by the company because their driver was incapacitated? I rather think I did. It was an observation concerning some people making remarks about the lack of staff.
In fact I can see the point about getting rid of conductors (who retained their tickets anyway) and making buses with only one entrance.

So this is your argument then – unless you have a member of staff locked away in a small room the opposite side of the barrier to the active (rail) side of the station, then once every few years some passengers who for some strange reason cannot communicate with the staff member customarily standing out at the barriers, may be slightly inconvenienced through their own inadequacy?

I’ll give you that, but I still don’t see that it makes manning a ticket office anything other than a non-job.

I guess that being a soldier is a non job most of the time, then. (That will get a few backs up!!!;o)

How many teachers should there be in the classroom? How many prison officers per wing? Guards at Buckingham Palace? What about crew in the cockpit on an airliner? Or in air traffic control?
Some jobs have a specific requirement about the number of personnel on duty at any one time, and some of these are for the sort of safety reasons I have gone on and on about and you have ignored. Station staff might appear to be there for the purpose of selling you a ticket BUT they are essentially there to handle any problems or incidents that occur – which is apparently the reason the ticket offices appear closed and you have to buy your ticket from a machine, or do your best to tackle the timetables without the aid of a safety net, but in fact the staff are off sorting out some problem.

They always struck me as a bunch of Luddites, technology moves on and paying hundreds of people to do jobs that no longer exist is just barking.

But in some cases it is cheaper to employ them and let the company go to the wall, rather than pay redundancy.

Re 41 (Do your own homework)

You don’t cultivate popularity do you ?

Are you the one who didn’t click the ‘like’ button?

If Blair was ever a Marxist in your eyes then there is seriously something very, very wrong with those eyes. In fact I would be really concerned if you had labelled him a socialist.
Imperialist capitalist running pig-dog, yes. Marxist…no.

Not this century, anyway.