Mandy Lifeboats

I agree. But my point was that he left Spain in a reasonable state which is unusual. Most modern dictators have left their country under attack and/or financially ruined.

We....... 1. Read and write English to a reasonable standard 2. Have a birth year beginning 19 or 20 3. Have seen or felt the sun 4. Are aware of Aston Villa, Coca Cola, Disney and Microsoft 5. Are related (if we go back far enough)

There has been a reoccurring pattern in this war. If Russia make gains NATO provides more help to Ukraine. The recent Russian gains leave me in no doubt that NATO has provided something new. It could be as simple as providing targeting information for planes that are in mainland Russia rather than over disputed Crimea. I hope NATO has integrated its command and control with weapons based in Ukraine. Earlier this week Putin threatened war with NATO if troops went into Ukraine. A senior German politician said that UK troops were already in Ukraine. He suggested they were helping fire Storm Shadow.

There is no god. I was "not alive' for several billion years before my birth. There was nothing. Death = Not alive.

Probably not. Getting air supremacy with ground based missiles would require a lot of missiles. Getting air supremacy with F16 requires a lot of trained pilots. Ukraine doesn't have an inexhaustible supply of either. But stopping Russia gaining air supremacy is massive achievement. Hopefully the incoming F16 will allow Ukraine to assert air superiority over more of their territory.

I last went to Liverpool on a business trip on 5th November. The tracksuit wearing youth had an endless supply of fireworks to throw around. I saw 3 shoplifters just grab stuff and run. Two tables did a dine and dash whilst I was eating supper. Wearing pyjamas to go shopping seemed perfectly acceptable. Every other resident thought they were hilarious. They were wrong.

And miss my opportunity to view 10, 000 teapot designs dating back 2000 years?

1. Take indirect flights. You save money but double the least enjoyable and stressful bits of air travel. 2. Eat vegetable soup in a cheap restaurant. A mate is a chef. He's worked in places where leftover vegetables on dirty plates become tomorrow's soup. 3. Visit Middlesbrough. The right armpit of Northern England. 4. Visit Liverpool. The left armpit of Northern England. 5. Visit a circus that uses animals. 6. Camping. Miserable. 7. Visit the V&A museum. Pure boredom. 8. Juggle pint glasses whilst drunk. It used to be my party trick. When sober I was excellent. Then one day.......

Hey little girl is your daddy home? Did he go away and leave you all alone. Oh no, I've got a bad desire. Oh, I'm on fire. ....................

The 1932 Emu War. In 1932 the Australian Government decided to conduct a cull of emus. They wanted to cull 20,000 in order to reduce damage to crops. They sent in the army with heavy machine guns. The army reported that emus were exceptionally difficult to hit once the first shot had been fired. Even when hit by several shots the emus just ran away. The army ran out of their alloted ammunition having killed only 986 emus. The cost of ammunition (10,000 shots fired) far outweighed any reduction in crop damage and the total number of emus remained the same. The emus won.

It obviously needs to be a legitimate military target. NATO has a history of attacking civilian infrastructure with military value as part of military operations. Power, water, bridges, dams, factories, trains etc. But its probably best if they avoid civilian airliners belonging to China. Even if they think there's a few missiles in the hold.

It's true and widely reported. https://www.eurasiantimes.com/f-16-fighting-falcons-nato-boss-ruffles-kremlin/

The plane was 200km behind the front lines. I am no expert on air defences but Wikipedia tells me that the Patriot system has a range of 180km. I doubt Ukraine would have set up a Patriot system literally within sight of the Russian front lines. Surely it would have been at least 30km back?? So it's something with a range of about 250km?

I think a missile fired from Ukrainian airspace (whether from an F16 or from something else). I don't think it's a coincidence that NATO recently stated that Ukraine has the right to strike targets on Russian territory. That was a clear indication that NATO is now happy for NATO supplied weapons to hit mother Russia.

Russia has lost another AWACS plane. It was well within Russian territory. We may have just seen the first F16 kill of the war.

I worked in civil defence in the 1990s. There was not a computer to be seen. What was laughingly described as "the doomsday computer" was actually a series of slide rules and plastic disks. Dyno tape would have been am improvement. Have a look at the "Weapons Effect Calculators" in this link. Those are what we used to make life or death decisions. https://orau.org/health-physics-museum/collection/nuclear-slide-rules/index.html

We have 4. He oldest was built in the 80s and entered service in the 90s, Our replacements aren't due to enter service until the 2030s with the existing subs expected to remain until the 2060s. That's awful.

Sanctions do not prevent exports or imports. They simply make imports more expensive and exports cheaper. Russia once sold its fossil fuels to the west. The transport distance was short. The price was good. They now sell the same goods to India and China. The transport distances are long. The price has reduced. The difference between the revenue received is the impact of sanctions. The references to the Russian economy being high performing are laughable. Statistically its correct but you need to consider how it's been achieved. 1. Expenditure on prisons has dropped dramatically because so many prisoners went to the military. 2. Unemployment is low because of all the dead young Russians. 3. Foreign companies were forced to sell businesses and assets to Russians for 10% of their true value. 4. Russian companies and citizens were obligated to exchange their euros, pounds and dollars for rubles at an artificial exchange rate. 5. Manufacturing is booming. But its not being sold. Its literally booming on the battlefields. 6. There are lots of Western goods in Russia that are still within their shelf life. They have yet to experience BMW cars tripling in price because they have to be imported via China or spare parts for their Boeing being made out of scrap in Turkmenistan. Russia's economy is fine if you ignore the high inerest rates, high inflation, loss of foreign currency reserves, the worst performing currency in the world, skills shortages and tens of thousands of severly disabled young Russians who will require state support for the rest of their lives.

Agreed but...... 1. The last test was 8 years ago. 2. There have been around 200 successful test firings. 3. The USA launched a Trident from a sub in 2023 without any problems. The test failure made good headlines for the press.

Exactly. There wouldn't even have been a warhead on the missile. That fault was with the missile. That fault might not be present in any of the others. If you are sitting in a bath of petrol It doesn't matter if the first match fails to light.

All missiles (including nukes) have a failure rate. Even if 95% of our nukes failed we still have more nukes than 95% of the world combined. Having a single failure is inconsequential. Especially when the fault could have already been identified and rectified. Even if the nukes hit their targets there will be plenty that don't detonate. It's exceptionally hard to set off a nuke. In the big scheme of things, nukes haven't been tested to the same extent that we would test any other weapon. Very, very, very few tests have been a true simulation of a real nuke on a long range missile hitting a land target. It's just too expensive, difficult and dangerous. The test failure is embarrassing but inconsequential.

Do they pay the £30 directly into your bank account or is it cash on the day to ensure you turn up?

A man collapsed unconscious onto the luggage carousel at the airport. He's okay. He came around a few minutes later.

@Chindie You are an eloquent and intelligent poster. Use those skills to help yourself. Write to your MP. Write to the Health Minister. Write to the PM. Write to the prospective MP candidates in your ward. Write to the Chief Executive of the NHS. Contact some mental health charities. Write to the Daily Mirror. Ask some friends or relatives to also raise the issue on your behalf. When you don't get the replies you want - write again. Make yourself the biggest pain in the @r$e possible. When we get a new government- Write again. You need to push the issue and we can all see that you have the skills to do that.

Jeff Hardy's broken nose. Ouch I doubt he' spent too long finding some strong pain killers.