threegee

Yes, there is a major difference. The soldier has signed up and subjected himself to military discipline. He has to do what he's ordered to do and put his life at certain risk. The flip-side of that contract is that the state agrees to do the best by him and his dependents. The 7am and "still drunk from the previous night" sounds a bit contrived, but taking that as a given there is criminal injuries compensation, also other state benefits available. Maybe the fact that someone can drive without third party insurance needs looking at, and a little imagination exercised at using modern technology to prevent this. But at the end of the day the state can only go so far in ensuring everyone's safety. There are always going to be murders and murderers, and no amount of rules, regulations, or retribution is going to dissuade some tiny percentage of the population from deliberate or reckless acts of endangerment.

And... in the case of the ECB... Chinese computer says no! And BTW... if we hear any more criticism of our human rights record from any of your citizens you'll be velie velie solie! Well... this thread should be enough to get BCOUK blocked by the great firewall of China - if it isn't already!

Samsung is only playing tit-for-tat. I don't think they've succeeded in stopping any Apple products being marketed, whereas Apple have stopped Samsung devices selling on the most ludicrous "look and feel" grounds. Apple has even gone to the extent of doctoring photos produced to European courts to make the Samsung tablet look more like theirs than it actually is. Samsung has also got to contend with obvious bias against far eastern products in western (and particularly in US) courts. So... this is the only way they can respond given the bent system. I guess the inclusion of Apple in this is only to give the illusion of balance. Granted the whole anachronistic patent thing is a nonsense and profoundly anti-consumer and anti-competitive. This particularly applies to software patents, which are a thinly disguised joke! A thorough overhaul is required, but this is surely not going to happen whilst American and European companies hold the upper hand.

Well... just for a few short hours someone thought they should. Or maybe they thought they needed to cover their back for the next decade or two of pain and unpopularity? But then, colleagues pointed out what a political blunder it always is to concede a referendum that could give an answer you don't want. All in "the cradle of democracy" too! "ideological flights of fancy" or simply raw power politics and "nation building" of the 1930's kind? If it's an ideology it's one Adolf H. would be now comfortable with: lebensraum without all the mess and inconvenience of physical blitzkrieg! Sarkozy the new Pétain; the LDs the new fifth columnists; a dozing British public... "if only we'd known what was really going on at the time!". Behind the 21st century cloak simply "a little bit of history repeating"?

Wow defo one that deserves hearty congratulations! If you are reading this in decades to come Autumn, please understand that it was not us who stole all the money you are working so hard to repay!

It's the one when you always promised the government were going to start giving you back a bit of all that tax you paid! And, when you get there, they've gone and spent it all! But you probably didn't want reminding about any of that. Sorry! Anyway, have a good day and don't count the calories!

He's 71, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Farlowe and she 66 going on 67, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggie_Bell His website: http://www.simplyws.co.uk/chrisfarlowe/cfmain.html

I may be wrong on this but I think I remember being told that the road bridge was actually started (or intended to start) pre-war, and then abandoned due to the war effort. So if the 1961 date is correct - which I'm sure it must be - then it was an extraordinarily long time in the making, and the history goes back a fair bit more than 50 years. Construction would have been restarted in the Harold Macmillan, "You've never had it so good" era of post war, post rationing, post disastrous Labour government, prosperity. Even then the popular take was that we'd drawn the short straw once again, and were only getting a few long-overdue crumbs from the national table.

Gearing got us into this global mess, but it seems gearing will get us out of it! Too close fiscal union caused the euro's problems, but we are told the solution is ever-closer fiscal union! Computer says no! Has anyone asked the Greek people if they are prepared to suffer ten years of austerity in order to end up in the same debt position that Italy is in right at this moment? And that's assuming that there are no unforseens and that everything runs smoothly! At the moment the politicos can't even see ten weeks ahead let alone ten years! 50% is a default, but a default that's no good to anyone except a few banks which deserve to take a big hit! If you are going to default then the only sensible way is to default completely, and rapidly restart your economy in a state that gives it hope for the future. In the Greek case this must be outside the euro-zone - even a two-tone euro won't hack it in the Greek case. Silvio said a while back that he wouldn't seek re-election, and that he didn't want to be president either. Exactly what he's doing at the moment is anyone's guess, except maybe making a "dignified" exit on his own timescale. Anyway, he must be the only one that can't see that this isn't going to be possible. No one sane is going to get trampled in the rush to take his place either. What happens in Italy's case? Well not what needs to happen, but what has always happened: the official economy stumbles on - now funded by whoever - whilst the huge black economy maintains people's living standards. One day it may be different, but don't hold your breath!

Arriving at the truth in seventeen easy steps: Euro for Greece 'was a mistake' -- Nicolas Sarkozy, October 2011 Euro for...

To be a Lib Dem these days requires a lot of practice standing on your head. It also helps a lot if you've got a good grip on what you are currently offering on your websites. Well.. apparently last week they removed the page that asked you to petition for a referendum on our EU membership (though they couldn't erase the snapshots taken by the way back machine) in good time for voting against a referendum in the commons debate. Unfortunately they've completely missed the fact that they've still got a copy of their flyer on the matter still available for download! Confused? You will be!

http://en.wikipedia....onal_Fetish_Day I suppose that this time we must assume that he did due diligence and that it's not a repressed desire to wear the colour Purple! Cheers Ronnie!

Adam Holloway for PM! http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kentonline/news/2011/october/25/mp_adam_holloway_quits_ministe.aspx One of the dumbest things Dave has done! He could easily have sidestepped this one. Also putting his constituents before his own career: http://www.stewartjackson.org.uk/ Maybe he learned something about popular democracy from his close brush in the expenses scandal! Anyway, this one is going to come back to haunt the Tories time and again. Shame on Miliband too; the fifteen or so Labour MPs who did the right thing by their constituents deserve a mention.

Italy could easily have avoided meltdown, but it's now past the point of no return. The difference between the way we went (including all the painful things which the dumb lefties are protesting about) and the Balls - too deep too soon, max-out the credit cards - stupidity! Failing to get on top of their debt means that the cost of servicing it has spiralled and there is now no chance of continuing to fund it into next year. Silvio doesn't actually give a damn here, as it's a poisoned pill for his rivals to have to swallow. Up until a few months back the Euro could have survived if they'd cut-loose Greece and made the necessary moves. Now, as we are agreed, it's just a matter of time. All of which highlights the historic differences between our nations: Germany consistently gets the detail right, but gets the really big issues very wrong (nuclear power being just one recent example). The UK muddles on, but on the really big matters we always manage to scrape it together in the end, though often it's "the nearest run thing you ever saw"! Which I suppose touches on the parallels being currently drawn between Sarko and Napoleon!

Nope, we are not talking some debt-laden Western nation here; we are talking the one with the mind boggling current account surplus (and the one we buy all our ultra cheap goods from). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15425390 There's nothing a government can do about imported inflation; it's plain silly to pretend we can and maintain impossible targets.

My operation scar goes further down than his!

iPad owners! http://tech.fortune....otato-computer/

http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-15383516 http://youtu.be/-EI75wPL0nU Even the best present-day cameras sure have a long way to go!

No chance; she'd need at least half an hour to fix her hair and makeup for the final photo op!

You apologise, and retire with $70M in the bank?

Well it's obviously raining, so quite probably yes. If only the Radio Constructor had been bigger I could have used it to keep the Hovis dry. Keith: it's a well-known fact that around 1960 it was always raining. People put this down to all the nuclear weapons testing going on. Secretly, I just knew that this theory was rubbish, and that it was due to man-made climate change - as a result of all the new Ford Prefects Elliotts was selling!

A "nut job" who has reportedly collected $70M on the strength of this! I'm predicting the world will end before Christmas - and so you should send me all that pay rather than drinking it away.

After big media's fawning BS about Steve Jobs calms down just some of the truth starts to emerge: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15400984

Hang on, King Abdullah is a nice old despot, and doesn't deserve to be on a list with mass murderers like Mugabe! Maybe his security lot have roughed-up the odd "trouble maker", but he is a reformer, and things are consistently moving in the right direction. Without him the religious nutters would call all the shots, and we'd have another Iran on our hands. There's also the argument that it is us who have taken this women drivers thing far too far! And where is Bashar al-Assad on this list? Should be at the very top I think!

Brilliant! I particularly like Bedlington, not just the dog! The sort of thing I could have come up with myself - though maybe I did!