Loch Ness is open to the sea. Several large whales or sharks can appear monster like in certain conditions and have been known to frequent it’s murky depths.

Eh???

The most frequent mumbling about Nessie is that he/she was trapped when Loch Ness was cut off from the sea…
There are locks at both end of the loch (at Fort Augustus and Inverness, and very nice they are too) so shipping can navigate the Caledonian Canal without running aground or needing to leap the weirs like salmon on the River Ness from the Beauly Firth – sea level there is lower down than the water level on the loch.

All that from one sentence? I think its referring to the Nazis, who murdered who they liked when they liked.

I took it as being a thing about letting the population be armed so that the police would think twice about the indiscriminate shooting of civilians. But maybe others took it differently…?

who does America as a country spy on the most? Russia? China? Uzbekistan? Well its not those countries, oh hang on wait a minute, nope its their own population! Just exactly why is that?

Because they (the authorities) are scared of the people – just like, for example, North Korea. And before the usual crowd barge in blaming Obama just remember that it has been going on for decades.

Hmm – does that mean they are/have been doing the same in Britain?

As for killing the guy, premeditated murder, and you really do have to be blind not to see that

Blind, or an armed member of the law itching to use up that months quota of bullets.

The UK was the only country signed up for all of the organisations, NATO, CENTO and SEATO, though some have gone I bet most of you didn’t realise there were several.

Did, but was unaware that the UK was part of the late Warsaw Pact…;o)

NATO does what is intended and secures our borders by mutual military cooperation, hence why Russia feared the Ukraine and Georgia joining, as they wouldn’t then be going to war against one country, but all of them. It is now important to some of the smaller nations such as Latvia and Poland, the likes of the US F15’s and UK AWAC’s deployed to the region are working as part of NATO in the defence of those states whilst sending a clear Warning.

Since the Wall came down on the basis of NATO, etc, explicitly promising Gorbachev that it wouldn’t expand Eastwards it is hardly surprising that Putin is edgy. Yes, those states should have self determination but we, as NATO, seem to have (for want of a better word) cheated on our promise, thus creating problems which might throw it all away. Not sure if that promise included the EU, but you can see why the Russians have geared up.

The UN these days is a Joke, they used to have a military role to back up the threats, but when one country can veto a proposal ( often the aggressor ) then what is the point?

The UN doesn’t matter: the US always does what it wants anyway – except (do they still owe millions of dollars to the UN?) pay their membership fees.

No problem with me either, at least not that I could attach to just one website rather than a cranky laptop…

The sand is there, it always is.
I was just about to get out of my car yesterday when it started to rain; several large splats on the windscreen with noticeable grains inside – maybe 6 or 8 and slightly reddish, which disappeared as more drops fell. Later I noticed that darker cars had smudges on them that were also red tinged. And that was it for the Sahara sand storm, but it is not a rare thing; I think it is the quantity this time that is.
The process is/was the same for acid rain – the smoke ejected into the atmosphere is/was brought down to earth with the precipitation. To see what is in the rain find somewhere cleanish where rain water can evaporate in the Sun and have a look at the sediment left over; it didn’t start off around here.

And as I understand it the volcanic ash is much sharper than sand – it might be to do with the fact that a grain of sand started off life as a boulder (or similar) and eroded down to the tiny thing you (almost don’t) see today, whereas the volcanic ash is blasted into particles which are carried on the breeze without being eroded prior to hitting your average turbofan (or whatever).

Assuming that the minke population (e.g. in the Atlantic) is sufficiently large and sustainable and that the whaling methods currently in use are effective and humane (at least as good as they can practically get today), I believe some of this debate boils down to cultural issues.

Well, don’t ask the Japanese whether the Minke are at sustainable levels since they have been researching for years whilst claiming that very thing since before the moratorium; the only problem from that angle is that they are rather unreliable where their interests are concerned, hence the repeated claim that there are sustainable levels.

I don’t however think it’s wise to let the “disneyfication” get out of hand, so to speak. While I generally respect e.g. vegetarians for their lifestyle choices, I also think of us human carnivores as part of the food chain – with a responsibility attached to our unique cognitive abilities.

Its not ‘disneyfication’ – I can’t think of a cuddly, lovable whale-like personification other than one on Sponge Bob (a whiny teenager-like female who, if I recall rightly, is not very lovable). Maybe you can think of something better?
‘Disneyfication’ does not enter into the mind when seeing images of a whale ‘cow’ (female, mother) and its ‘calf’ being hauled aboard a whaling ship; the calf stayed with its mother after she was fatally injured or killed and so was killed by the whalers for…research purposes.

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But, to me anyway, it is a case of a culture expanding something minor into an industry; that’s why it doesn’t matter so much about the (relative) few that are taken by native peoples since they are not taking the whales out of the system in huge numbers, more or less slaughtering whole pods (groups) and leaving the survivors traumatised.
Cows, sheep, pigs, etc, are all bred to be eaten – it is a fact of life; whales are wild creatures and (at the moment) cannot be bred for the purpose of human consumption, so we have no way to manage them as we would farm animals and we have no way of knowing if they are on the verge of extinction if we (or rather the Japanese) don’t track them but kill them for research. If, next year, none are found due to over research this year… what do we do?

Sure it goes on but what astounds me is that the NSA is listening in on every single mobile telephone call, has the capacity to read every single E-mail and I’m sure has the capacity to do much more, and thats happening 24 hours a day 7 days a week! That’s not scared of the people that’s extreme paranoia!

And reading your email too. And they know what websites you look at (oo-er) and what you watched on TV last night…

Then there is the SS.

Godwins law! I win…[/smug]

I would be scared of the general population if I happened to be paranoid enough and realize that 313.9 Million people could all have guns pointed at me, if I did something wrong!

So you check up on them, see what they are doing, call terrorism on anyone who disagrees.

The North Korean government are not scared of the people, its the people scared of the government, big difference.

All dictatorships are scared of their proles – look at what has happened in the past when the downtrodden masses have risen up. Hence the premiers personal bodyguard, sometimes made up of mercenaries because you know all they want is money and they won’t get that if el presidente is overthrown.

Putting animal life on a par with human life

But then you need to start rating which human life, and explaining why a Masai warrior is lower than a Patagonian gaucho who is higher than a German Shepherd.
I have no idea what I am talking about, you will not be surprised to know.