Same sh1t, different century....

[phylo_roadking]

Well, the answer to THAT is simple

Noone insisted he send killers to London to kill dissidents on our patch, did he? Did he really expect the Metroploitan Police to NOT find out who? Or be prepared to NOT say it loud? If guilty of anything, he's certainly guilty of rank stupidity!

And the other aspect - the Chinese and toys - WE are forced in the UK and the US and the EU to make our consumer goods to a particular set of safety codes and regulations....yet the Chinese can churn out unsafe stuff marked with the correct safety standard marks...and AGAIN not expect anyone to react? It's THEIR problem they did this stuff, AND in several cases manufactured it in slave-run factories in a nation where slavery is supposed to be illegal if non-existent. They can take it thick as much as they like - but they committed crimes packaging this stuff with the correct standard codes. You or I would be hung out to dry by the nadgers if we produced unsafe toys - they want to export, they HAVE to produce to the standard of the target market.

What's next - substandard brakepads for cars? THAT has happened before too....!

[Reb]

Gosh - maybe we should make our own stuff!

Nothing to go to war over! But watch out - with morons in charge everywhere they'll deliver a war - and fairly soon!

cheers
Reb

[phylo_roadking]

Gosh - maybe we should make our own stuff!

Right answer, but wrong reason - we should be prepared to PAY for home-produced stuff!

[Reb]

Sorry Phylo - can't afford to pay. The govt that outsourced our jobs and devalued our currency has seen to that.

cheers
Reb

[phylo_roadking]

Then - reduce your kids' expectations accordingly. Instead of a Wii and the latest fighting game, give them each a stick and teach them how much fun they can have doing it FOR REAL.....

[Reb]

My kids may go hungry but I'll never deny them access to toy soldiers! +

I'm in trouble now with herself because I want to teach the grandson to make a multi-barrel rubber band gun!

cheers
Reb

[phylo_roadking]

Careful now - that first rung on the ladder of tactical escalation is always the hardest to back down from!

[phylo_roadking]

India v. Pakistan? Too hard, too many nukes, the US wouldn't be happy, what do you gain that's worth the risk? Don't see it happening

Well, its already happened several times without nukes, and it's been ready to happen again in the Kashmir Valley for twenty years now. Is it mere coincidence that Pakistan let off their test nuke underground at one end of the valley? cheeky bu**ers

As for Bangladesh - the Indians would of course make the classic mistake of invading during the "Natural Catastrophe" season...it only seems to make up eleven months of the year!

[phylo_roadking]

The Russian military has successfully tested what it described as the world's most powerful non-nuclear air-delivered bomb, Russia's state television reported Tuesday.

It was the latest show of Russia's military muscle amid chilly relations with the United States.

Channel One television said the new weapon, nicknamed the "dad of all bombs" is four times more powerful than the U.S. "mother of all bombs."

"The tests have shown that the new air-delivered ordnance is comparable to a nuclear weapon in its efficiency and capability," said Col.-Gen. Alexander Rukshin, a deputy chief of the Russian military's General Staff, said in televised remarks.

Unlike a nuclear weapon, the bomb doesn't hurt the environment, he added.

The statement reflected the Kremlin's efforts to restore Russia's global clout and rebuild the nation's military might while the ties with Washington have been strained over U.S. criticism of Russia's backsliding on democracy, Moscow's vociferous protests of U.S. missile defense plans, and rifts over global crises.

The U.S. Massive Ordnance Air Blast, nicknamed the Mother Of All Bombs, is a large-yield satellite-guided, air-delivered bomb described as the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in history.

Channel One said that while the Russian bomb contains 7.8 tons of high explosives compared to more than 8 tons of explosives in the U.S. bomb, it's four times more powerful because it uses a new, highly efficient type of explosives that the report didn't identify.

While the U.S. bomb is equivalent to 11 tons of TNT, the Russian one is equivalent to 44 tons of regular explosives. The Russian weapon's blast radius is 990 feet, twice as big as that of the U.S. design, the report said.

Like its U.S. predecessor, first tested in 2003, the Russian bomb is a "thermobaric" weapon that explodes in an intense fireball combined with a devastating blast. It explodes in a terrifying nuclear bomb-like mushroom cloud and wreaks destruction through a massive shock wave created by the air burst and high temperature.

Thermobaric weapons work on the same principle that causes blasts in grain elevators and other dusty places — clouds of fine particles are highly explosive. Such explosions produce shock waves that can be directed and amplified in enclosed spaces such as buildings, caves or tunnels.

Channel One said that the temperature in the epicenter of the Russian bomb's explosion is twice as high as that of the U.S. bomb.

The report showed the bomb dropped by parachute from a Tu-160 strategic bomber and exploding in a massive fireball. It featured the debris of apartment buildings and armored vehicles at a test range, as well as the scorched ground from a massive blast.

It didn't give the bomb's military name or say when it was tested.

Rukshin said the new bomb would allow the military to "protect the nation's security and confront international terrorism in any situation and any region."

"We have got a relatively cheap ordnance with a high strike power," Yuri Balyko, head of the Defense Ministry's institute in charge of weapons design, told Channel One.

Booming oil prices have allowed Russia to steadily increase military spending in recent years, and the Kremlin has taken a more assertive posture in global affairs.

Last month, President Vladimir Putin said he ordered the resumption of regular patrols of strategic bombers, which were suspended after the 1991 Soviet breakup.

" and confront international terrorism" - most countries raid flats at 6AM and arrest people, not demolish the entire city.

"the bomb doesn't hurt the environment" - just make a feckin' big hole in it....

[Piet Duits]

but it would be a clean hole. A big, clean hole. Everything surrounding the big clean hole will be dead of course, so nobody can polute this clean big hole.
Nuclear holes are clean too, in a way. The enviroment will be left alone for say 1000 years. Everything that comes in the way will be killed, either instantly, or for the next few generations.
Yes, I like those clean bombs.

[phylo_roadking]

"clean" because what was former IN the whole is being distributed 500 miles downwind...

[Piet Duits]

haha

And clean it is. It's just how you see it. Maybe we are just too negative about things

[phylo_roadking]

Maybe its just our cynical minds. Russia doesn't sign the conventional arms element of the disarmament treaty, then reveals a conventionalweapon that can rival a small nuclear weapon....hmmm

[5RANGLIAN]

The famous Russian method of defeating terrorism; give in or we'll mallet your entire country. Oh, and this is what we'll do it with.

[phylo_roadking]

Here we go! I wondered exactly how long it would take to appear!

Putin moves to extend political life
By Richard Galpin
BBC News, Moscow



Mr Putin has made it clear he wishes to remain active in politics
In the second surprise announcement in as many weeks, the Russian President Vladimir Putin has said it is "entirely realistic" that he will become prime minister after stepping down as president early next year.

Mr Putin is barred by the constitution from standing in presidential elections due to be held in March, having already served two consecutive terms as president.

The announcement came during a congress of the dominant political party United Russia, which is controlled by the Kremlin.

In his speech during the opening day of the congress, Mr Putin said there were two conditions which had to be met for him to shift from the presidency to becoming prime minister.

"First, United Russia must win the state Duma (parliament) elections on 2 December," he said.

"And second, a decent capable and modern person with whom I can work as a team should be elected as president."

The announcement was greeted with applause by party leaders and ordinary members who are all loyal to Mr Putin.

They know it is almost certain that these conditions will be met.

Constitutional change?

United Russia is expected to gain a large majority in the elections particularly after Mr Putin also announced on Friday that he would head the party's list of candidates for the parliamentary vote.

And analysts agree that whomever Mr Putin backs to succeed him as president is almost certain to be elected in March.

Mr Putin, who has concentrated much power in his hands since first becoming president more than seven years ago, has long made it clear he wants to remain at the centre of political life in Russia after officially leaving the Kremlin.

But until now he had kept quiet about how he intended to achieve this.

Becoming prime minister was one of many possible scenarios put forward by Kremlinologists in the absence of solid information.

This scenario includes changing the constitution to transfer the executive powers currently enjoyed by the president to the new prime minister.

It also assumes that whoever succeeds Mr Putin as president will be a loyal ally without a power-base of his or her own who would not represent any threat to Mr Putin in his new role.

The person who fits that description well is the man president Putin nominated as prime minister in another surprise move two weeks ago - Viktor Zubkov.

Mr Zubkov was plucked from obscurity from his previous job as head of a financial investigation agency.

But shortly after becoming prime minister, Mr Zubkov refused to rule out running for president in next year's election.

Opposition politicians have criticised President Putin's latest announcement that he will stand for parliament and may become prime minister as anti-democratic and unconstitutional.

"What Putin did today is a real step to creating in Russia, a one-party system," Grigory Yavlinksy, leader of the Yabloko party, told the BBC.

"It's a very dangerous step."

But with the Kremlin controlling much of the media and continuing to suppress opposition groups, it seems unlikely that many ordinary Russians will object to Mr Putin's apparent game-plan.

The president continues to ride a wave of popularity which he seems determined to exploit so he can remain in power for many more years.