pap

Even more now. The weaponisation of space is a big deal. Bush's administration were keen on it, while China and India are avidly pursuing their own space programs. As far as the moon goes, I take your points to an extent - but not on the distance. Absolutely zilch to stop someone from letting a load of nukes fall into Earth's orbit, bit of correction on route, before re-entering at chosen destination, just falling from the sky. If the purpose of a first strike is to survive MAD, the moon is a pretty good base. Just not necessarily for a conventional missile launch.

Damn! Argued into a corner by the Bear again! From memory, velcro was an invention that fell out of the space program. For your query to be the "fox in the box" you want it to be, velcro kinda needs to be something that can only be found on the moon. Is that the case? I am not an expert on velcro.

Deary me, The Kraken. We're going to have to send you back to super villain school. As a strategic location, the moon has massive benefits. Giant fricking laser beams? Hello? But seriously, is there a better first-strike location? Not too shabby for early warning and observation either.

Give us a link, TDD. Genuinely interested in stuff on both sides of the argument.

The counter-claim to this little fella is that you don't need a human to put something on the lunar surface.

That's fair enough, I suppose. The pro-conspiracy view's main points are:- Big problems with the photography from the lunar surface (ton of evidence that different light sources have been used). The debunkers usually point out individual shots that can sort of be explained on the fringes of photography, but what they address is a tiny fraction. Effect of Van Allen radiation belt on humans going to the moon and/or equipment passing through it. This is another big problem; is it technically feasible? I'm real patchy on this so will defer to superior scientific knowledge. No stars. Flapping flags on an airless moon. Technology has moved on 40 years. No one has managed it since. The central premise of the conspiracy theory is that the Apollo program was fake. You can't really include later missions. Blueprints for massively expensive space equipment "missing". It's odd. NASA has made repeated concerted efforts to establish the veracity of its claims, from the LRO to the reflectors, etc. The funny thing is that they're just providing more ammo to the pro-conspiracy crowd. Recently released stuff gets just as much analysis as the original shots; plenty of new discrepancies are emerging. The Yanks didn't think they could do it in the early 1960s, but Lyndon Johnson convinced Kennedy to go for it; that this was a way to establish world leadership in the height of the Cold War. I do find the subject matter interesting.

Nothing changes unless we leave the EU. Labour were mental to allow the Eastern Europeans in when they didn't need to. They could have had seven years grace, bit of time for preparation. They chose not to take it. In any event, rules of the single market means free movement for any citizen once their country has been a member for seven years. We won't leave the EU.

Arf. That's that then. Top input, TDD!

Since watching Capricorn One, the notion that the moon landings might have been faked is my current favourite conspiracy theory. As a consequence, I've trawled loads of websites, watched a couple of documentaries, and know a little bit more about light sources and the Van Allen belt. Have to admit; not an expert on the science of photography or radiation, but a lot of people are. Moon landings. Humanity's greatest achievement or big propaganda whopper?

Mid-table obscurity?! You lucky b@stard! How I long for a bit of mid-table obscurity!

I keep hearing good things about The Raid. Time to run the rule on it, I reckon.

I watched Capricorn One. Excellent film, proving once again that all the best films were made in the 1970s. A few minutes before a manned mission to Mars, the astronauts are pulled off the ship and coerced into faking the landings. I've been aware of this film for some time; didn't quite take the direction I imagined - actually a lot better than I expected. It has some bloody impressive action scenes for the time. Great cast, great yarn; well worth a watch.

First amazing thread, surely? Next might give the new SaintsWeb visitor the distinct impresssion you've had one before! Can't have that, mate.

A small update on this. We took possession of our Wii U today. After about 2 hours of downloading and installing stuff from the Internet, the little beast is running like a champ. Note to parents; set the bugger up before presenting it to kids at Christmas. Bigger than a Wii, but smaller than any other home console. Much has been made of the gamepad; people have knocked it for not being multitouch, or only being 480p. Nintendo know exactly what they're doing. This isn't supposed to be an iPad replacement; it's just a vehicle for a sort of gameplay style that Nintendo have been toying with for years. The problem beforehand was that their efforts required a tremendous amount of organisation and hardware purchase on the part of the user. With the Wii U, they've just made that setup the standard. When you look at Nintendo's back catalogue, and particularly when you read interviews with Shigeru Miyamoto, a lot of the inspiration for those games have been the games children play. Miyamoto claims that Zelda was inspired by his childhood exploration of caves. The Wii U is a vehicle for the "I know something that you don't" mechanic of gaming; not a new concept, not even in computer games. The Wii U has been designed to put this sort of gameplay front and centre, in your living room and something you can do with your family. Accessible. Another very cool thing is the notion of sending a playable screen to the gamepad. Not only does this open up five players (1 on gamepad, 4 on wii-motes), but juvenile unit #2 and I were playing that new Sonic Karts game, and both got a full screen each in two player mode, her on the gamepad and me with the plasma all to myself. Both parties were happy; I offered to swap numerous times but she was having none of it.

I like this description of the main board. It evokes a touch of Mad Max 2, which I feel is appropriate.

See, I happen to like the sister. I also think Julie Benz is pretty amazing.

It's a disgrace. When you start on here the mods are all "Hallo mate. Can I see your fiver real quick?" When you're locked in they just don't care!

Is there any point to Site Suggestions? Out of interest, when was the last time one was implemented?

The notion of gateway drugs is either nonsense, or a direct result of the one size fits all approach to the way that drugs are discussed in public. As a kid, especially one that grew up in the "just say no" culture of Grange Hill's 1980s crowd, I almost reached adulthood believing that all drugs were just as likely to f**k you up equally badly. As an adult, I know that's a load of crap. I have never been interested in heroin or crack, yet I have done other recreational chemicals in my time; heroic amounts on occasion. Hard stuff has never appealed to me. I also don't buy into the idea that drugs ruin lives, at least not on their own. I know that countless people have died in turf wars, contamination incidents, overdoses etc, so the observant amongst you might be wondering how I can make that claim. Well, turf wars, contamination and (many) overdoses are all a result of the status quo. We don't have turf wars over alcohol, but they did in 1930s when alcohol was banned in the US. We wouldn't have unregulated "bashed" product on the market. We'd have better education and when people have taken a potential overdose, fear of arrest would be diminished to the point where lucid patients or friends can give the medical staff correct information. Finally, let's address the heroin/crack/crystal horror stories. We've all seen the before and after shots - the once beautiful prom queen ravaged by substance abuse. I accept that drugs are a huge factor here, but equally, life has to be pretty f**ked up in the first place for someone to even consider it. I said on the alcohol pricing thread that all substance abuse is a form of escapism. If we want to address it, we need to make real life less sh!t. Seeing as that won't be happening in any meaningful sense, we may as well stop spending billions to say we don't approve ( we do, in droves ) and stop pretending that because someone has a j at the weekend, they'll follow it up the next week by plunging a needle into a vein before going out on the rob.

S4 is probably the best one. I haven't gone back to Arrow since I realised that it's basically Batman without the rights to Batman. Ms pap has strongly urged me to watch Revenge. Gave it a few goes. Not really my thing.

I got it on PC, and had fun with it on there. Depends on how good your PC is, I suppose.

Right here. First, I've said it before and I'll say it again. I am amazed that Steve Messham claims it was mistaken identity and find it almost inconceivable that the BBC didn't triple-check that (if not more). Then I consider the fact that the mistaken identity (or more generally, the person making the allegations admits they are all a load of sh!t) revelation is literally the /only/ way that an alleged perpetrator could walk away from such allegations unblemished. As long as we're keeping our hats metallic and reflective, may as well consider a couple of other names that have been thrown into the mix. Can't really think of a bigger conduit of rumour, gossip and secrets than Max Clifford. Perfectly conceivable that he knows enough to blow the lid off things, but it doesn't matter now; his name is in the mud. My suspicion is that this is all a bit of public bloodletting to disguise the greater ongoing injury to society.

Two of my favourite shows are currently on hiatus, so I've been catching up with Dexter. Last year, the writers put most of their energy into one big idea and the series suffered as a consequence. It did end rather promisingly with a game-changing plot development, so I have been keen to see how they pick up the pieces. This year, the series seems to have returned to familiar ground; a little change up of loads of stuff that has worked well in the past as well as a lot of setup for the 8th and final season. I've enjoyed it quite a bit and some may argue that 8 seasons is already pushing it. As a long time fan of the show, I'm enjoying the relative calm before the storm.

Aye. Bit gutting watching the YouTube footage of Matty. The fact that he's being discussed in-depth by foreign media brings home what a renowned and talented player he was. Proper genius.

I bump into a lot of scousers who tell me the same Southampton story; how they were all so amazed at a MLT goal they stood up and applauded. Respect for the game; it's good to see.