Apollo

It aint good looking indeed. Deffinatly ,i wouldn't like to be one of those new ministers of Iraq ,i wouldn't be surprized if they have a price on their head already and it wouldn't be the first of such American supported ministers are murdered. The reality on the ground and control of the coalition is an almost exact copy of the situation in Afhanistan ,rebels and warlords of various faction's religions or ethnicity's with different interrests are controlling most of the country ,while the U.S toghether with the Iraqi security forces try to hold strategic strongholds of their interrests being the capital ,the inportant airfields ,certain transport route's and probably also and maybe foremost oil wells ,oil pipeline's and harbor installations. It's not like many people hadn't expected such an eventual outcome ,i could predict such a level of post war insurgency before the iraq war started so could some other member's on this board. The Iraqi minister expressed that his foremost task would be to restore stability ,afcourse it is but then the foremost task for all those rebels and terrorists has always been to destablize the country as much as possible and up till now they are still more effeciant in creating destability than the iraqi goverment can create stabilety.Figure's of death's and terrorist attacks in Iraq over the last year clearly show a growing trend of violence ,this while the U.S more and more looks at ways to pull those forces back from Iraq ,understandable as opperational army's cost a lot of cash and it's nice to have "the boys" back before the ellections.

3-0 Czech's win again. Â

Match stats Goals : Czech 0 Denm. 0 Total : shots Czech 9 Denm. 4 Shots : on target Czech 2 Denm 0 Shots : wide Czech 5 Denm. 2 Blocked shots : Czech 2 Denm. 2 Fouls commited : Czech 13 Denm. 7 Corners : Â Czech 4 Denm. 0 Ball possesion : Czech 38% Denm. 62% Few ball posseson for the Czech though effectivly they are creating much more opportunity's and eventually that maters. Typicly Czech is a very offensive style of play while denmark fairly defending and as it seems deffinatly at this moment.It's typical that when the two style's mix and the teams are of relative equal qualitty to eachother then both strategy advantages will kinda be neutralized. At this point however ,the Czech's are creating much opportunity's wich will probably lead to atleast one Czech goal at this pace ,while Denmark hasn't really created a chance atm ,so my bet is on the czech's. If the Czech's make 1 goal the game will beome very interresting as Denmark will then be forced to play offensive. I hope that the two finalists will be offensive type of teams so that the final will be a real thriller.

And what exactly is the armor on this beast? Given that it's not exactly a low profile target and balloons tend to be filled helium i can only suppect that this is a crawling coffin ,shilka's will have a field day on these ones ,how much could such a zppelin in reality endure?

Well there is a bit of Turkey in europe (Istanbul/Byzantiun) and a bit of europe in turkey (lot of greeks there and greek culture at certain coastal regions) ,so i kinda count it as part of europe. But beaten by LATVIA??? Damn Turkey reached the semi finals in the world cup ,and they have individual quality that with some good coaching should give a nice result ... normally.

Underdog's? Youre average European national team has a quality of players that is not far at all from the quality of "top" teams like Italy or France.Sure the top team's have a bit more raw individual quality ,my experience tell's me that this individual quality needs a good team organization to really make a difference.In my oppinion the Coach of a team is the biggest influencing factor ,it's easy to fuck up an excelent team with an bad coach and a relative weak team can be seriously strengted by a good coach. Take as example Guus hiddink's exploit with South Korea in WK 2002.On paper the individual quality wasn't there to make the semi-finals (by far) ,however the sucses of that team in that WK came mostly due to their excelent organization and physical team effort. It must be much more difficult to form a solid team with a bunch of millionairs like the French or Italian players ,guys with an ego of a mountain and with personal goals inside such a cup ,than with a country like Greece or full of young players that have nothing to lose and everything to prove.In any case ,you can see an evolution in the decline of big football nations supremacy the last decade in the big cups. I noticed that almost all the deffensive style teams are out of the game .Italy ,Germany and Brittain to name a few who usually play an overall defensive game.It's good for viewers fun to have mostly offensive teams left ,atleast you know these teams will sacrifice defenders in favour for attackers and as result the number of goals will be larger. I got the impression already since WK2002 that offensive style teams have a better chance than deffensive teams because offensive tactics might better developed the last years ,though it could also be that the defensive teams lacked good defenders this year. Btw. Anyone of you guys know if turkey isn't considerd Europe in the European Cup or if they simply failed to reach the first round? (the latter would surprize me)

I'm a regular Cycling fan and do it as hobby a bit to ,then again i'm Belgian it's in my blood.Every year i go watch the classics and ive been to the tour 2 times. (climbed Alpe Deux once myself ,well "climbed") Anyway most fun story was 2 years ago in Gent-Wevelghem. Now Erik Zabel ,a famous German sprinter ,was already known for his abbilety to hit the dirt unpleasently (he falls a lot) ,fell that day off his bike in an unusual way as he was hit by a speeding pony.Apparently 2 pony's managed to flee their meadow and chased the leading cyclers group for 5 minutes ,resulting in an increased gap between lead group and peleton because the cyclers were scared of the Pony's breathing in their neck. (seriously) I laughed my ass of when Zabel's worker who was riding in front on him commented after the match that he suddently felt someone blowing load in his neck and he watched back to check Zabel and he saw the pony chasing him and he was like tottaly shocked.

Great work Keg ,as usuall. Got a question ,or a request ,could you make a rainbow?

However ,while the practical effects of terrorism (or muslim terrorism specificly) are well known ,none of it has yet resulted in positive political actions even for the terrorist organizations themselfs.Palestinian suicide bombers hurt the Palestinian's more politicly than the Israeli effectivly ,And while Al-Quida can keep the pressure high it suffer's losses to and it's political goals as far as known are far from completion. It looks like the West will never back down for terrorism ,it was a pitty to see that S Korean being beheaded yesterday as he had begged for S Korea to not send additional forces ,but it looks like the West has found itself an weapon that it wants to anilihate. And i can understand that.The West and America in special can easily maintain it power supperiority in the Middle East on the conventional level ,the got all the tech and material so the American's have almost nothing to fear from conventional warfare ,deffinatly not in the Med East.But the terrorist organizations like Al-Quaida are clearly out on destabilizing the U.S it's position in the Middle east and this with a form of warfare that inflicts way more casualties on US troops than conventional warfare. America has strategic partners in the Med east like Saudi Arabia who supply oil to the west ,an oil supply that must be secured.Al-Quaida wants to fight the U.S as it has an to important powerfull position in the middle east and they want to chase the u.S out that Middle East. And Not the west no'r the terrorists will give in ,the West knows all to well the importance of West security over oil in Saudi arabia and Iraq and won't give up that ,and the terorists are preppared to die for they cause so they sure will never give up. So the only thing that can result from this is: continues escalation of the conflict between "west" and terrorists. ,just like we actually witnessed up to now ,In Iraq or in Israel. Noone is going to give up ,and the violence will only start more violence as for evvery terrorist the West kill's it create's 2 new ones.

Well if you wanna gamble on sprinters i can only nut promote 1 nmae: Pettachi ! The tour in it's whole will probably be won by Lance Armstrong ,and Green is usually a fight between Zabel, Mcewen and o'Grady. The mountain jersey? i wouldn't know ,there are no outspoken favourite climbers this year. As usual ,Italy will probbably get the record in number of stage won followed by Spain.

In addition "suicide bombers" have been a part of convential warfare longer than this terrorism than exists now. Imperial Japan had fighter pilot's and torpedo pilot's that for honor and country were preparred to suicide kill an enemy. (kamikazi) In the Vietnam war ,When the Vietcong assaulted enemy bases certain men were armed with a lot of bombs around their waist and in the heat of the battle they were suppose to run inside the defenses and destroy key points in it like a gun tower or command bunker. But even then terrorism means something that inflicts terror on people ,"clean" conventional warfare can easily do the same.

I to see terrorism "mostly" as another form of vertical warfare. And i can understand that this terrorism wich mostly target's Western country's need guerilla type of warfare in action's to be effeciant as in pure conventional warfare it would be withought a chance against the supperior technoligy weapons of the west.(i don't see Palestinian's defeat 1 Merkhava tank with their conventional weaponry) But there are other ways of "terrorism": 1 of those is hurting the west severely economicly.It seems that the Iraqi insurgents already discovered the importance of blowing up oil pipe line's all over the country ,and that Al-Quaida is more and more also concentrating on hurting the western oil supply from the med east.Take the hostage crisis in Dhobar as an ex. ,if more and more terrorist attacks happens on the Western nationals working on oil rigs in Saudi Arabia then more of these people will leave and the il company's in Saudi Arabia will fall short of skilled personel to man the rigs. This is Very dangerous for the west ,if the trend of terrorists targeting oil production or transportation facility's or their labourers then it will lead to enery crisis in the West eventually. And there is another new form of terrorism wich i find most evil of all. Last year a Palestinian man put himself to fire right before a French govermental building in Paris and ran around on fire screaming before an audiance of thousands of people ,picture's of this were made and send all over the world.While some might say well here no innocent people are killed by the suicide "terrorist" ,the effect's on people's mentallity might be a lot bigger. Take into account that Mahatma Ghandi could get India free by a peacefull though grimm protest in wich they in many the let themselfs be beaten severly by Brittish order troops while not using violence themselfs ,these action's eventually brought so much resentment in brittian that India became free. What would happen if thousands of such people would scatter to western capitals over the world and would put themselfs to fire near public places in these capitals ,it would shock the local poppulation and probably bring a lot of resentment on the conflict that produced such a grimm dead ,as surely a person that sets himself on fire withought hurting others just for the sake of his people's situation bring's forward such a powerfull message.

A problem that is very present in the Belgian political landscape ,and i do not doubt other country's as well ,is that politic's is "aging" ,and there is few young blood with fresh idea's to take the scepter over. Ellectoraly ,people of my generation (20-30) have few influence in politics.In Belgium ,and many other European country's ,there is a far larger mass of people of the "after-war generation" than there are of any other generation.In most West European country's after WWII there was an large baby boom that graduatly in the 50's and 60's decreased again and stabilized later to an an average of birth's about equal to death's.Now however ,due to it's demographic volume this after-war generation is ellectorally very powerfull ,so much in fact that politic's is mostly geared to the disire's of that generation.Furthermore people of that generation are far more established in the political and economical life than younger people. In Belgium there is a sickening evolution of important Politician's sons or daughter's getting blitz carreer's in politic's most notably about always in the same party of their father.They are plentifull on the voter's list these politician's offspring ,10 to 20% of the local ellection's list if i might guess ,and their are few young politician's that are not offspring of established politician's ,i would guess that of politician's in the age range of 20-30 years 70 are offspring of other politician's .Furthermore it has proven that such offspring are in majority lightweight's ,and are often promoted in politics based on pure looks and poppularity rather than merrit.Yes having a few babes in politics is a nice change to ,but plz don't give them any important position's. If people of my generation must vote (we are forced to vote in Belgium) ,what must they look after for an alternative? Most of the young men in politics are at most ellectoral puppet's of the established politician's and they mostly represent the broad mass.

I voted far left (marxists) for the local ellections and christian Democrats for Europe.Personally i'm not a commie or true marxist ,i'm rather left than far left ,but in Belgium the Green party is Centre-left rather than left ,and ill rather vote far left than centre left.I voted Christian Democrats for E.U because they have some very able candidate's for Europe.

Just did my vote to ,had to show my Id though ,voting withought wouldn't work here easy i think. This is the first time that i voted Left on one sheet and right on another.

I'm never been in the millitary no'r do i read many books or information on this topic so i'm not a buff on this ,but i was wandering if speed was still of importance these days ,not only in recon but als in combat. In ofp i tend to like very fast combat vehicle's because at a certain range it can be hard to kill a fast moving ground target with certtain AT weapons like Rpg's ,the BTR80 for ex. must be one of the fastest APC's in RL ,in Ofp you can by driving at max speed on a fair distance around youre target avoid a lot of fire ,rpg's easily and even tank rounds ,and though it's easier with tows to kill a target that is moving at high speed around you its still not obviously easy ,in the meantime the BTR gunner can use it's firepower on the enemy.I don't know how that compare's to real life ,But i can immagine that speed can still be an advantage on the battlefield especially when dealing with infantry ,though i'm also wondering if the APC gunner would be able to opperate it's gun right at that speed.(I don't know if there's much use anyway these days for fast recon vehicle's ,though with the sattelite and air coverage i immagine pure recon vehicle's arn't used much anymore) Edit: There is also a BTR90 (duh will most say) ,well it has quite a nice arnament ,to quote a site: / The organic weapon set is located in the rotating turret and stabilised in two planes. It comprises the 30-mm 2A42 automatic gun, 7.62-mm PKT coaxial machine-gun, and 30-mm AG-17 grenade launcher. The launcher of an up-to-date anti-tank guided missile system is installed on the turret to engage heavy armoured tank-type targets. A detachable launching unit allows launching anti-tank missiles from the ground also. / It's has got upgraded armor and arnament ,very fast speed ,8 wheel drive and it's so sexy. Â

To late boy! you should have invested in real estate in tsjechia or poland ,near the German border ,before they came into the EU. Now much of the ground on that borders is being bought by Germans who wanna live in cheap Poland/Tsjechia where they get 20X more land for the same money.

For those who do not know who Dutroux is ,or what this trial is about: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3520819.stm There is still a lot of controversy on this case in Belgium.There are 2 major theory's ,one is that Marc Dutroux worked alone and was a lonely pedofiel ,the other theory saying that Marc utroux worked inside an network where he kidnapped Children for use on sexparty's.I'm rather inclined to believe the last thing than the first ,and i'm also almost sure that people with high connections in Politics were a part of this network. The Belgian justice system has yet again managed to put the Blunt of the investigation to death.At firrst the case was in the hands of J.M Connerotte ,a widely respected Investigating judge that who was also the man to find Dutroux and those kids anyway.However he was pulled of the case by the Justice system 2 years after the facts ,after he had went to the house of one of the victims parents and ate a spaghetti there. Connerotte was a firm believer that Dutroux was part of a Pedofile network ,however niw he had to stop that investigation.He was replaced by the most hated Langlois ,who said he clearly believed that Dutroux was not a part of a network and refused to investigate that trial. There is more ,multiple witnesses that claimed to have proof to Dutroux being a part of a network strangly dissapeard before they could make a report of their knowledge on the case.Some of them have been found back ,killed maffia style. Dutroux himself has even managed to "escape" at one point ,however that escape was rather due to a few highly incompetent policement who didn't even chain him to take him from prison to police station ,and even let Dutroux just take their gun out of their holster.It was mighty suspicious how easily Dutroux (enemy NO1 in Belgium) could escape ,it was also somewhat suspicious that the whole mobilized Belgian police force couln't find Dutroux back after hours of searching of territory and terrtory ,while eventually Dutroux was found and arrested by a Forrest-Guard!!! We Belgians are used to conspiracy thinking ,not really hard if you live in this country.

Why go trough the hassle of developing such a complicated and probably expensive weapon if their are much cheaper alternatives? Want me to give the future of warfare?IMO in here and 20-30 years our evolution in biogenetics will be that developed that creating a highly deadly and easy transferable virus able to kill out a whole ethnicity (even checking for certain gene's by the virus) will probably be as easy as programmers today write a simple proggy.Once the code is known and understood.... The world has seen countless bloody wars ,but in the end the biggest killer ever was the black plague

Is canada's dollar the same like the American dollar (linked?),or does the Canadian dollar stand stronger than the U.S one? The U.S dollar is very weak ATM ,and it makes imports very cheap for strong outside currency's like the Euro ,however also give those company's that sell their products in cheap valuta more concurating power ,and then you get things like import rights. Just checking out computer prices from hardware bought in the states by an european ,i'ts almost unbelievable how much those computer prices of US producers have plummeted ,partly due to overproduction ,but mostly due to a lagging US economy.It makes me wanna buy quality products from America.

EDIT: Macedonian.

Ok after by accident hearing the Serbian contester i'm so ready for hari kiri. Edit ,Macedonian ,wtf. The only positive thought that eurosong can give me is a certain old Father ted episode and an epic song called "my lovely horse". I'm out for a drink ,huzaah!

Björk was Swedish to right? That wasn't to bad.

Well arguably in the 70's Eurosong was better than it is now.Winners of that time are pretty well known and some song's were really good. (like Waterloo from Abba somewhere in the late 70's or 80's) In those times spread of media and music was far less than it is now ,so good artists were actually quite interrested to join the contest to promote their music abroad as it was less know out there.these times howaver with channels like Mtv just to name one music is so widespread and universal that Eurovision isn't that interresting anymore as medium for promotion ,definatly not for groups that already have succes over the globe ,usually it's all pretty unknown groups that compete now as Eurovision can be seen as promotion for them. From a financial point of view i doubt that Belgium really wants to organize it to ,just like france (or probably Irealnd neither ) But for country's in east Europe it can be good country promotion ,like the baltic country's or ukraine for ex can really benifit from hosting such an event.