Evil Inky

I'm planning on taking part, as long as it takes place in the evening, rather than while I'm at work...

But what happens if "none of the above" gets most votes? Re-run the election with none of the previous candidates allowed to stand ?

A little optimistic, perhaps, given their failure to control the violence in Iraq ?

Sounds like a good idea, as long as he pays for it himself. We could pelt it with rotten fruit, and then topple it Saddam-stylee when the [**Moderator Edit -defamatory content removed**] finally gets kicked out of office.

If I remember correctly, they wouldn't make him leader, so he went off and formed his own party, Vertias.

I don't know: Basso's a better climber than Ulrich, and the Tour is won and lost on the mountains. As I understand it, a telltale sign of doping is an athlete who suddenly increases in performance, then just as suddenly drops off again. Lance would have had to be doping for seven years on the trot ( and passing dozens of tests ) to achieve his consistent results. Body-building ? I believe there are well-founded doubts about American Football, too.

Has anybody else been following today's news about the Tour De France ? ( Quick summary: the Tour De France is due to start on Sunday: Jan Ulrich and Ivan Basso, the two leading contenders, now Armstrong has retired, have been caught up in a doping inquiry, and suspended from the race. )

See also this page. http://911research.wtc7.net/pentagon/evidence/witnesses/jetliner.html Contrary to what some people claim, there were dozens of witnesses who saw the Boeing hit the Pentagon.

So you're suggesting that Larry Silverstein is a criminal mastermind with the brains and resources to perform a controlled demolition of three large buildings situated in a densely populated area in full view of the media, but stupid enough to confess all to a reporter ? Perhaps it's a little more likely he actually said "They decided to pull OUT, then they watched the building collapse", meaning the firemen in the building were being withdrawn ?

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7508/1605/1600/renovated_section.jpg - smaller than that? Yes. A runway as wide as the Pentagon would be quite wide.

Someone else has already made the observation that a runway threshold is a smaller target than the Pentagon.

Apart from Up Helly Aa ?

too difficult to set up, the Pentagon is not that tall and a jetliner is not easy to handle even with auto controled devices. It could have missed it completely and that would have looked very bad for their situation. It wouldn't have looked as nearly as bad as getting caught firing a cruise missile at their own military headquarters. And if these people are so good at hoodwinking the public, why didn't they fake the discovery of WMD in Iraq, which would have been an order of magnitude easier than doing what you claim they did on the 11th of September ?

Ooh... don't get me started....

Again, I ask : if the US government wanted people to believe that a plane had flown into the Pentagon, why not just fly a plane into the Pentagon. Why make things harder for themselves by using a missile ? And as for the reluctance to release the crash footage ( they did eventually ), I would suggest that this is simply because the Pentagon is steeped in a culture of secrecy : it's their job to protect classified information, not pander to the ravings of conspiracy theorists.

Not to mention the fact that any one of these dozens of passengers ( or any one of the many guards required to look after them ) could potentially give the whole game away: what possible motive could there be for the risk of taking them off the plane and keeping them alive ? In a similiar vein, if the government wanted people to believe that terrorists had crashed a plane into the Pentagon, surely the obvious plan would be to actually crash a plane into the Pentagon, rather than mess around with a cruise missile, and a consequently complicated coverup ?

The problem with these conspiracy theories ( in my opinion, anyway ) is the suggestion that the same incompetents responsible for the Iraq quagmire and the woeful response to Hurricane Katrina somehow got away with the following: a) A controlled demolition of both World Trade Centre towers, and WTC 7, The shooting down of United 93 c) Hitting the Pentagon with a cruise missile d) Somehow making the plane ( plus all the passengers and crew ) which was supposed to have hit the Pentagon disappear. Put yourself in George Bush's shoes. Would you really risk masterminding a complex conspiracy involving hundreds of people, any one of which could blow the whistle at any time ? Would the benefits really be worth the risk ?

I read Day Of The Triffids, and another one of his whose title I can't remember, years ago. From what I can recall they were pretty good - the sort of thing I really should re-read when I get the time.

Given that Labour and the Tories are virtually indistinguishable, I'd be prepared to vote Conservative to minimise Labour's majority. As a die-hard lefty, that's a painful admission, but would Tony have been able to push through dangerous nonsense like the ID Cards Bill if we had a few more Tory MPs, and a few less New Labour ones ?

I must disagree in the strongest possible terms, sir! I'm a sad idiot who can't dance, and I can't stand the place.

Karate, running. I'm doing an adventure race down in Wales next month.

To be honest, I think he got off lightly - although he's been sentenced to eight months, he'll be out in much less than that, and I don't believe he's having to contribute anything towards the £3 million repair bill.

I saw it at the Garrison, and thought it was awful. It was originally going to be set in Australia, and they hadn't bothered to update some bits of the script: Shetland crofts don't have "shearers' quarters".

Good for him

No, that would be odd.