PELHAM

There is a part of the nuclear program to attack, not including personnel and infrastructure. The fact that it is hardened is actually helpful. I would not take Roger's report too literally as he is a prof of peace studies not a military thinker. He simply lists what he thinks is every possible target but actually 50% of it is not really militarily or politically feasible for Israel. PS don't use annoying spaces between every line - it makes it hard to read and I don't read Tom Clancy.

I said they will not attack the reactor that means anything to do with it - Proff Paul knows what they will go after but does not explicitly say it, and I will not either, I suspect for the same reasons. His is a far more balanced analysis than yours.

We could also launch a 1st strike and send half the names above to bore them to death. lol @Walker - nice long post, it illustrates: a) You don't understand nuclear technology (it's not the reactor they would be targeting) b) Don't read Tom Clancy just before doing any strategic thinking. I particularly like the radioactive oil sketch - that's a classic!

Despite making positive sounding noises to the international community and at his Nobel Prize speech (what did he do for that again? :D) Obama hasn't actually changed anything RE the application of the Geneva Convention and Al Queda / Taliban 'enemy combatants'. They are still not given the legal status of POW. The Conventions, and even the Additional Protocols, do not provide clear guidance for countries engaged in conflicts with terrorist groups. The legal arguments on that one continue. If you read the Geneva conventions it continually defines that for it to apply you must 'carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.' As Terrorists generally don't do that, they place themselves outside the conditions required for the Conventions to apply. What is odd is they are not then given the status of a civilian criminal. As the terrorists themselves do not apply any international standards of human rights to their prisoners or victims, well, I don't personally care what happens to them. It's the people caught in the middle that we should worry about - e.g. suspects with no evidence against them who may have not done anything wrong at all.

I think he was playing PR the other night :D

Originally Posted by walker View Post As to the myth that 1%ers pay more tax than the 99%, it is just that, a myth. It's not a myth in the UK either.....

All that was debated before on the Libya Head Cam thread - look it up - you might enjoy my analysis and learn enough to get your facts straight.

@ryfle - sure the west has handed money and guns to all sorts. The reason I posted that was some here were saying that Iran has no argument with Israel - well if there is no argument why the guns and money? If Iran is causing trouble there needs to be some sort of resistance to that. Iran may be of minimal military threat to the US but it occupies a strategic position geographically and is a threat to world peace and the world economy. The US has signed military cooperation treaties with many neighbouring nations and has to honour them. So we are where we are - the scale of military threat is only a partial argument of a much larger problem. @baff1 It's a well documented fact that Iran and North Korea got most of their nuclear tech from Pakistan. The man behind it all was Abdul Q Khan, employed at URENCO in the Netherlands where he worked on Uranium enrichment and acquired other knowledge and blueprints which he later distributed to many different nations. Europe let the nuclear secrets walk out of the front door by employing a foreign national in a highly sensitive industry.

@[GR] Operative - RE Antarctic red line Image border artifact from overlapping pictures? Or some other image artifact or calibration mark. It does not look like a natural feature e.g. meteorite trail, aircraft contrail or satellite trail and it's almost certainly not a surface feature. Noticed the dark blue line, same width that runs parallel from the top? I would say you are correct, something to do with the equipment or Google's editing of the image.

Here you go then: That entire area of the Gobi is covered in roadways in various geometric patterns. Look further south between the towns of Santanghuxiang and NaoMaohuxiang you will see an extensive area of it. If you zoom in fully between the roadways you will see groups of dots arranged in a grid. Those are the straw bail plantings. It looks odd because of the lower resolution images compared to more populated areas. Straw Bail dune stabilisation [/img] Picture further south and west - diagonal road grids: [/img] The giant project is well known among scientists in the fields of desert reclamation and sand dune stabilisation. You will not find much apart from a few old photos because China is sensitive to well deserved claims of environmental destruction. It's possibly a better solution than Kuwait who simply pour oil on the dunes to stop them moving!

@DWARDEN you have misread the post (the grid in the picture is not the grid shown on google earth - of course its far too small!) Wait a mo = I will have to get some screen shots of the straw bales I will upload them this evening - not got time at the moment. If you zoom out from that location and go south to the town of Santanghuxiang and then west you will see vast areas with similar markings. The road patterns there are diagonal or zig-zag. If you zoom in between the road ways you will see dots arranged in grid patterns. Those are straw bales or patches of grass planting to stabilise dunes.

Can anyone reccommend some good SP missions for OA? Sometimes there isn't much happening on multiplayer and many of the SP missions I have tried are not very good.

Iran supplies political support and weapons to Hamas, an organization committed to the destruction of Israel by Jihad According to Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority, "Hamas is funded by Iran. It claims it is financed by donations, but the donations are nothing like what it receives from Iran. Iran also supplies the terrorist organization Hezbollah with substantial amounts of financial, training, weapons, explosives, political, diplomatic, and organizational aid while persuading Hezbollah to take an action against Israel. Hezbollah's 1985 manifesto listed its four main goals as "Israel's final departure from Lebanon as a prelude to its final obliteration" According to reports released in February 2010, Hezbollah received $400 million dollars from Iran. $400 million is a lot of money. If you were to count $1 dollar a second it would take you around 12.5 years to finish! Iran has also sponsored terrorism and destabilisation in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Lebanon. So trying to say they are not a threat to world peace is nonsense. Many in the Arab world see Iran as the biggest threat to the region. You will notice yesterday the Arab League suspended Iran's biggest ally - Syria.

We are seeing some of this at the moment, it's been done many times before and unfortunately there are always some who fall for it.

It's a large weapons and radar test area, possibly with some old underground nuclear tests as well. The 1st one is widely believed to be something to do with probability of kill by a Semi-Random Pattern release, probably to do with multiple warhead release from ICBMs. They have close-ups of various structures on this quack website: http://www.thelivingmoon.com/45jack_files/03files/China_Odd_Things_Afoot.html The 2nd picture is a desert stabilisation project to stop windblown sand and drifting dunes covering the weapons test areas, roads, railways and small towns. They place bales of straw in a grid pattern on the windward side of the dunes and it decreases the wind speed over the sand. If you zoom in between the grid of roadways, you can see dots arranges in grid patterns which are the bales of straw. The long axis of the grid is parallel with the dunes. If you look to the east you will see diagonal roadways with similar dots between them. It's actually been very successful - China has stopped the Gobi from expanding and is actually reclaiming land. They are going further and trying to make the desert green again: Farmers plant grass to stabilise sand dunes. A pattern of dried stalks has been planted to control the desert from expanding Nothing mysterious and a few minutes of research tell you exactly what it is. Me thinks Walker might already know this and was maybe trying to have some fun with our imaginations? Beware the Walker Troll lol.

The tax was actually called the community charge and the local council would charge a fixed tax per adult resident, hence a poll tax, there was a reduction for poor people. This charged each person for the services provided in their community. Many thought it was unfair as the rich would pay the same amount as anyone else to have their bin emptied irrespective of the price of their house. It was not scrapped as baff1 suggests through mass protests although it's unpopularity was a factor. There were many problems with collection - the main one being the determination of the amunt of people living in the house and the problem of tennents only living in a property for part of the year and then moving before the bill arrived. So the system had to be changed. The large amount of non-payers who abused the legal system (the law had to be changed to make the system more enforceable) ended up forcing the VAT rate up to 17.5%. So the militant council estate mob got to skip their tax bill for 1-2 years while everyone else had to pay as usual and a bit extra to make up for them. It was renamed and changed slightly to the 'council tax' with a different collection system and the population was still taxed per person but at a rate tied to the value of the property the person lived in. So not a great victory for rage as we still have essentially the same thing, you just pay a bit more than the next guy if you have a slightly bigger house. E.g. myself and my wife pay roughly 4x the amount of a family of 4 living in a council house who use 10x the amount of local services we do. This is called fair and every time I wheel my bin to the kerb (it's usually only 25% full) I wonder why I have to pay for things I don't use and will never use.

OMG Troll The Democracy Index is an index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit that claims to measure the state of democracy in 167 countries, of which 166 are sovereign states and 165 are UN member states. The Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index is based on 60 indicators grouped in five different categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation and political culture. The Index was first produced in 2006, with updates produced in 2008 and 2010. >The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is part of the Economist Group. It is a research and advisory company providing country, industry and management analysis worldwide and incorporates the former Business International Corporation, a U.S. company acquired by the parent organization in 1986. >The Economist Group is an associate and not a subsidiary of Pearson PLC. The Financial Times Limited, which is a Pearson subsidiary, owns 50% of the share capital of The Economist Group but does not have a controlling interest. The bulk of the remaining shares are held by individual shareholders including the Cadbury, Rothschild, Schroder and other family interests as well as a number of staff and former staff shareholders. The Economist Group operates as a separate and independent business. >Business International Corporation (BI) was a publishing and advisory firm dedicated to assisting American companies in operating abroad. In 1986, Business International was acquired by The Economist Group in London, and eventually merged with The Economist Intelligence Unit. BI has been known to be used as a CIA front company. -The company has been identified as cover organization for the Central Intelligence Agency, e.g. see Lobster Magazine, issue 14 in 1987. According to a lengthy article in the New York Times in 1977, the co-founder of the company told the newspaper that "Eldridge Haynes [the other founder] had provided cover for four CIA employees in various countries between 1955 and 1960" ^^ So thats it? x4 jobs 50+ years ago - just as I said.

I visit France regularly and something I have always wanted to do is find the field where that happened. I have looked it up on google earth and the hedge row positions have not changed and you can still see marks in the ground where they dug the positions for the artillery. I would like to visit the a few of the cemeteries to show respect as well. Will have to sneak it past the wife lol - my morbid curiosity with history etc always gets the thumbs down!

OFCOM are still investigating it - wonder what the outcome will be?

Aha! That might explain the mysterious mass attack that wiped me out when I moved a zone to my location lol. This addon is so cool - I was stuck on the roof of the Villa in Zargabad with Militia swarming around us like Zulus. Spawned an Apache to rescue us lol.

This is a great model and I'm glad someone is working on it! The only thing that I didn't like last time I tried it was the strange custom HUD? The bright sunlight in OA affected it. Can we have a screen of the HUD to see what changes you have made?

@Baff1 Can you understand what you read? Your saying that the Economist Group is run by the CIA and the US State Department just because 1 of the founders of a company they acquired 25 years ago (BI) is rumoured to have provided jobs abroad as cover for 4 CIA operatives 50+ years ago? Tenuous link or what? You clearly are an idiot. PS Holding elections does not make a democracy if those elections are not free or fair, if the candidates require prior approval by a religious council or if the ballot boxes are stuffed. The election of Ahmadinejad in 2009 was deeply flawed: -In two Conservative provinces, Mazandaran and Yazd, a turnout of more than 100% was recorded. Yes more than 100% of people voted!? -There are no booths in the polling stations so voting is done in public, not in private. -Many voters are illiterate and officials help them fill in their ballot papers. -Candidates are not allowed to be present at polling stations during voting or counting. -No independent monitoring at all in Iran. -At a provincial level, there was no correlation between the increased turnout, and the swing to Ahmadinejad. This challenges the notion that his victory was due to the massive participation of a previously silent Conservative majority. -In a third of all provinces, the official results would require that Ahmadinejad took not only all former conservative voters, and all former centrist voters, and all new voters, but also took up to 44% of former Reformist voters, despite a decade of conflict between these two groups. -In 2005, as in 2001 and 1997, conservative candidates, and Ahmadinejad in particular, were markedly unpopular in rural areas. The claim that Ahmadinejad swept the board in more rural provinces in 2009 flies in the face of these trends. When the government then declares the election a "divine assessment" puts militia on the streets (Baslj) to shoot protesters and declares demonstrators are "people who wage war against God" it starts to look even more fishy. There is lots of online video showing the Basij firing into crowds and possibly one of the most shocking videos I have ever seen is the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan by a Baslj gunman. On November 16, 2009, supporters of the Iranian regime desecrated her grave and removed her gravestone. Later, on December 31, 2009, supporters of the Iranian Government defaced the portrait on her grave by shooting at it multiple times. The family were ordered to leave their home and neighbours have received suspicious calls warning them not to discuss her death with anyone and not to make any protest. We have seen this sort of democracy before - Sadam Hussein and Robert Mugabe - it's laughable.

That is not from the CIA - it's from the Economist and is an internationally accepted standard of measuring democracy. It would help if you actually read things before responding. Iran by any measure is not a democracy, it's an authoritarian regime and one of the worst.

And on democracy......... According to the Democracy Index 2010, the country in the Middle East with the highest Democracy Index score is Israel, with a score of 7.48, corresponding to the status of "flawed democracy"; the only one in the region. Iran is 9th from the bottom of the list with a score of 1.94 - Authoritarian Regime. The five category indices, which all are listed in the report, are then averaged to find the democracy index for a given country. Finally, the democracy index, rounded to one decimal, decides the classification of the country, as quoted: Full democracies—scores of 8 to 10. Flawed democracies—scores of 6 to 7.9. Hybrid regimes—scores of 4 to 5.9. Authoritarian regimes—scores below 4. As you can see Iran's score is poor even when compared with other Authoritarian Regimes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

Explain this then? During Ayatollah Khomeini's campaign to overthrow Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Israel, which had relatively warm relations with the Shah, became an issue. Khomeini declared Israel an "enemy of Islam" and 'The Little Satan' - the United States was called 'The Great Satan'. Debate still runs as to whether Khomeini called out: “Israel must be wiped off the map†indicating military action and destruction, or: “this regime occupying Jerusalem should vanish from the pages of time†indicating a hope or wish. On 7 February 2010, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the destruction of Israel was assured. According to the Teheran Times, Khamenei told Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, "Israel is going downhill toward decline and fall and God willing its obliteration is certain". Khamenei went on to call Israel "a symbol of atrocity, viciousness, and ugliness," and said the West’s "support for the Zionist regime is ineffective." Iran supplies political support and weapons to Hamas, an organization committed to the destruction of Israel by Jihad According to Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority, "Hamas is funded by Iran. It claims it is financed by donations, but the donations are nothing like what it receives from Iran. Iran has also supplied another enemy of Israel, the terrorist organization Hezbollah with substantial amounts of financial, training, weapons, explosives, political, diplomatic, and organizational aid while persuading Hezbollah to take an action against Israel. Hezbollah's 1985 manifesto listed its four main goals as "Israel's final departure from Lebanon as a prelude to its final obliteration" According to reports released in February 2010, Hezbollah received $400 million dollars from Iran. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Israel_relations