Verbal

Ten years. By which time the tories will have imploded and Labour can vote her back in. HTH.

You know, I'd really like to believe that climate change was a myth, I really would. The problem is that the deniers are such a bunch of foaming-at-the-mouth weirdos, fantasists, narcissistic attention-seekers, paranoid survivalists and politicians corrupted by greed and oil money that it makes it a tad difficult. If only there was a genuine, balanced disagreement among respected, disinterested scientists, then perhaps this would be a real debate. But it isn't - there's a broad consensus about the fundamentals, and a few leaked private emails from a group of scientists hounded by said oddities isn't going to change that. Of course, expect the paranoids to be out in force after this. But I'll be having fun just watching them work themselves into an awful screech about a global conspiracy bought into by the 'sheople' (© Charlie Brooker) and from which the foamers - and they alone - stand in Olympian and (in their eyes only) magnificent disdain.

It just goes to show you can't be too careful.

Quite. From that link: "The timing of this particular episode is probably not coincidental. But if cherry-picked out-of-context phrases from stolen personal emails is the only response to the weight of the scientific evidence for the human influence on climate change, then there probably isn’t much to it."

Some wise words on the UEA hack: "The problem is that the files and emails seem just too good to be true. A number of files seem to be smoking guns — revealing how to resist Freedom of Information Act requests for their data (which would both be scientific misconduct and actually illegal); long-term marketing plans on how to push the climate-change agenda; and discussions of how to pressure peer-reviewed journals to stop accepting papers that disagree with the “accepted” view of global warming. In other words, just what the skeptics have been suggesting for years. It seems just too neat, and we don’t have independent verification of where the files came from. Someone who is willing to hack might also be willing to create fakes. But then, the whole package is very large — 63 megabytes — and seems to be very internally consistent. Several people have already corroborated a number of the emails as being ones they wrote or received. The package also includes substantial data and computer programs, which are being explored as this is being written. The best we can say right now is that we should keep our eyes on this. If these files are eventually corroborated and verified, it is a bombshell indeed — evidence that there has been a literal conspiracy to push the anthropogenic climate change agenda far beyond the science. It will mean the end of some scientific careers, and it might even mean those careers will end in jail." http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/hacker-releases-data-implicating-cru-in-global-warming-fraud/2/

I'm sure there's nothing in this whatsoever, St George, but does the fact that Senator Inhofe has received $2,182,631 from the oil & gas industries since 1998, (according to OpenSecrets.org) have any possible bearing on his views?

It just goes to show you can't be too careful.

You mean, do we know of any new (ish) 32,000-capacity stadiums hanging about? I'm sure if we all thought very hard we could think of somewhere. And it's a chance to help Pompey out by having them incur the bidding costs but have the games, and the profits, go elsewhere. Winners all round.

I've seen private footage of one of those things in action in Sierra Leone. (The SAS had borrowed it for a raid). Frightening fire power.

Because you didn't get to see the whales' house, stupid.

If that were true, things might be slightly easier. Unfortunately, the Afghan campaign, particularly in Helmand, is directed and orchestrated from South Waziristan, and you'll even find 'mainland' Pakistanis in among the Taliban fighters. And it's far, far more than a few 'small bands'. This is why the Americans spend so much time and effort hitting the Taliban leadership with drone aircraft (and with a fair amount of success). Almost all of these attacks are in notionally Pakistani territory - either the Tribal Areas or Baluchistan. Furthermore, none of the al Qaeda leadership is in Afghanistan - all of the big players are in the Pakistani Tribal Areas or on the Pakistani mainland. (Many al Qaeda arrests, like bin Alshibh, were in Karachi.) My point is that if you pull the troops out now, or soon, the effect would be pretty much what we have already. The majority of Afghanistan is 'pacified'. although under the control of fairly reprehensible warlords. That which isn't is subject to attacks that are planned and executed from the Pakistani Tribal Areas. It would hardly be perfect, but it wouldn't be the vacuum you may imagine - and may even improve, if the real problem of militancy is sorted out in the Tribal Areas.

You've got it the wrong way around. The 'spill over' to Pakistan that you're worried about actually happened years ago - and the problem now rolls in from Pakistan to Afghanistan. I know this all too painfully well, having had my Karachi-based 'fixer' kidnapped by the Taliban last year and held in South Waziristan for six months. Much of the threat in Helmand actually comes from the notionally Pakistani tribal areas - that's where the 'real' battle is taking place. And it's taking place right now between Pakistani military forces and the Taliban. To equate the Taliban with some random plane-bombing nutter is to misunderstand the nature of the beast. What they do, and why they do it, is so ingrained that it pre-dates Islam. They live by an ancient warrior code and have always fought any and all invaders. They have never been defeated, in the sense that the invaders have always left. They don't need to be in power to gain advantage over outsiders - and it seems they're better off when exiled to the mountains, as they are now. The best way to minimise risk, in my opinion, is to support and encourage the Pakistani army to see through the assault on the Taliban in their tribal strongholds in the Waziristans. Cut off the head rather than nip at the tail. That won't in itself 'defeat' the Taliban, but it will cut out a supply route for assaults in Afghanistan. Western support for and pressure on the Pakistani army also serves to protect the nuclear warheads...hopefully.

You should save up for a telly. and what's the deal with you, exactly, deciding that you're the only one with a valid opinion?

aintforever has a point though. Even Khaled Sheikh Mohammad, the architect of the 9/11 attacks, thought the training camps were a waste of space. When Clinton attacked the camps with missiles, and in the subsequent ground assault by Afghan warlords, the camps were all but abandoned. Those who carried out the attacks were from Saudi Arabia, aside from Mohammad Atta, the leader, who was Egyptian. All of the serious preparation for those attacks was carried out in Hamburg and the US (on flight-training courses), not Afghanistan. The camps were symbolic, and little else. The real training was not in jumping over puddles of water and under barbed wire carrying a toy AK47. The 9/11 attackers needed to drive planes into buildings - not something easily mastered in the blasted desert plains of Afghanistan. The real problem was the alliance that had been forged between the Taliban and Al Qaeda - an alliance that is now shattered, and that long ago moved on to the wild margins of Pakistan.

It's quite simple really. If the MOD could find anyone on the ground who had a clue they'd be rushed in front of the cameras in no time. The reason? To counteract the corrosive PR effect of an endless procession of returning soldiers complaining about not understanding why they're there. The modus operandum of the MOD press office in these matters was well illustrated with its reaction to the death of Andrew Fentiman, who'd blogged about the lack of up-to-date body armour. A uniform was wheeled out double-quick to say that the new armour probably wouldn't have saved him.

And what is 'the job' exactly? Too many of the troops on the ground have little or no idea what that is - unless it's to offer themselves up as target practice for the Taliban. The Taliban - essentially militant Pashtun clansmen - will never be defeated by conventional armies, as centuries of military history in the region have brutally illustrated. Sadly, there's even a case for arguing that the presence of Western troops in Afghanistan actually prolongs the war and the growing list of casualties among troops and civilians. Which is I think the corporal's point, regardless of the merits of his actions.

'Dune', you make no sense at all. And I think I might trust a few people with actual scientific credentials a bit more than this myopic twaddle.

That's just stadium envy.

St George: Can you tell me why the 'Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine', upon which you heavily rely, seems rather more interested in survivalism - specifically preparing for nuclear annihilation and 'homeland defense' against war and terrorism?

Can you please tell me what John Daly's qualifications are? All I know, from a brief google search is that he's a Tasmanian school teacher who's dead (presumably from heat exhaustion).

And close that damned Southampton University now. How dare it be one of the better British unis. Hoq dare it and Solent make such a huge contribution to the local economy.

January (not sure of the actual date) 1970. Spurs 0 Southampton 1 (Davies, of course). Also my first glimpse of hooliganism, on the terraces directly below me - a few Spurs fans fighting each other at the final whistle.

On the usually reliable principle that a leopard doesn't change its spots, I'm sticking with the idea that Oldknow has acted in much the same way that made him so deeply unpopular the first time around. BTW, why are we talking about 19C's compulsive but wildly irrelevant obsession on a thread about Oldknow?

It'll be a short drive over from where I'll be that day - but do you know of any parking? Don't mind the walk as long as the car is safe.

Good grief. Have NONE of you seen or heard the theme to The Prisoner? Unbeatable.