"Every coughing fit punctuated campaign event Clinton choreographs will see Trump fill three stadiums with rabid supporters. By November Hillary will be a quivering mass of regret."
You might be right, but it'll never matter because no matter what he does to Hillary's reputation, the damage he's done to his own reputation amongst a majority of voters (females, latinos, muslims etc.) is worse than anything he can do to Hillary.
It doesn't matter how corrupt Hillary looks, an extremely corrupt and damaged Hillary is still always going to look far better to the majority of people (based on the simple math of demographics) than an authoritarian Trump that wants to lock up/deport/simply doesn't understand them and their families.
Trump is a one trick pony that has relied on stirring up the angry white males of the Republican Party to get his nomination. The problem is they're a minority in today's America and there's no real path he has left open to redeem himself with the demographics he requires to win. He'll never get the 1% of muslims on side, the 17% hispanics, and a massive proportion of the 50% of females because he relied on relentlessly attacking these groups to get his nomination, the problem is, these groups are a majority in the overall battle even if they were a minority in the Republic nomination battle.
Even if he tries to reach out and make amends to these communities he'll lose the people he stirred up with anger against these communities because they'll be disappointed to find he lied to them. He's created himself a losing proposition for the ultimate race - he played the short game and in doing so fucked himself for the long game. This is probably why he's gone bankrupt so many times - he's incapable of long term planning and can only ever win short term battles at the expense of losing the long term war.
I don't think it has, and the summary's 2003 date is rather fucking arbitrary. What about DVD Jon's case in 2002? What about the clipper chip fiasco in the mid 1990s?
This is a battle that's been going on very publicly since the dawn of digital cryptography.
"Instead of multiple crafts tailor-made for specific purposes, they chose to make one that will do everything, yet poorly. No other fighter jet in history had this as a constraint."
At least they designed for it from the outset, there are countless aircraft out there that have ended up in this role despite never being designed for it. The Eurofighter was designed as an air superiority fighter, then we ran out of money for our harriers and realised we needed to drop bombs on people in pickups with DSHKs mounted on the back so it was fudged on retroactively. The same has been true for many aircraft - the F-14 was never intended to drop bombs, yet the F-14B was rerolled for exactly this purpose - the same has happened to varying degree with things like the F-15, F-16, F-18 and so on. I'd wager recognition of the fact that fighter programs inevitably seem to end up adapting into multi-role and designing for that from the outset is quite a pragmatic and smart move given that pretty much no single role aircraft has ever stayed a single role aircraft. Even the C-130 has gone from being a cargo plane to having artillery stuck out the side, to being an air refuelling tanker, to being a reconnaissance aircraft, to launching fucking hellfires off it's wings.
I agree that the F-35 will never replace the A-10, but I disagree that it was ever intended to. It was never intended to, the problem is that the USAF didn't want to keep funding the airforce because they have a hardon for things like the F-35. They didn't want to be pouring money into a plane that only benefits the marines and the army, they figured those services should pay for that plane themselves if they want to keep it. The F-35 replacing the A-10 was simply the USAF playing politics, not a specific design goal of the project, nor one it ever tried to cater to. No one commissioning or working on the F-35 project has asked or been briefed to make it fulfil the role of the A-10 other than where the A-10 itself was used outside it's intended CAS role.
"Beyond that, it was designed for stealth, speed, and more automated systems (along with the bulky vertical take-off design) rather than maneuverability for air to air combat or sustained presence for ground troop support. Stealth is a complete joke -- designers themselves admit any modern radar system will pick up the plane just fine -- just perhaps a slight delay before they notice the small bird flying at Mach 2. All the head's up displays and sensors won't help in a dogfight or in sustaining ground troop support when you have to fly very, very fast (which leads to poor steering) just to stay in the air because of your frame with small wings and crappy aerodynamics due to the stealth paneling."
Nonsense about the stealth, it's still got a massive edge over aircraft like Russia's PAK-FA and China's J-20, the radar profile of the F-35 is roughly 3 orders of magnitude lower than both these aircraft. That means it's going to be drastically more easy for an F-35 to detect a target than for a target to detect the F-35 from any current projected potential opposition. The J-20 only does a little better in terms of stealth head on, but still not as good as the F-35, and none are as good as the F-22 - there's a 4 order of magnitude difference in radar cross-section with that aircraft.
As for dogfighting, if you think the F-35 is meant to be a dogfighter then you should even be commenting as you don't understand it's purpose even. The F-35 is a strike fighter, not an air superiority fighter. If the US ends up in a situation where it needs dogfighting because it's up against super advanced opponents which no airforce in the world has in active service yet or in the near future then the F-35s will be sent in with F-22 fighter cover. This obsession with the F-35's dog fighting capability completely misses the point, the F-35 has a job and that's to get in and precision strike ground targets like air defence positions. It can do that incredibly well precisely because it does have good stealth, and because i
Fighter aircraft have always seen criticism until they've had chance to prove themselves, and the F-35 is no different.
Your criticisms of the F-35 are the exact same criticisms that were made of the harrier jump jet - people said it was too hard to fly, it's range was dire, it was overly complex and VTOL/STOVL were a waste, and that it wasn't fast enough, but it has gone on to be one of the most succesful fighter aircraft of all time proving itself both in carrier launched air-to-air combat downing sometimes equally modern (at the time) aircraft such as the Super Etendard, through to being one of the best CAS platforms available to troops on the ground in places like Iraq and Afghanistan bar perhaps the A-10.
I see little reason to believe the F-35 will be any different to any other fighter project in history where nearly all of which equally saw the same criticisms of can't do this, can't do that, over budget, behind schedule at some time or another.
I'm not defending poor project management, nor would I dream of defending the way the defence industry rips off the tax payer by failing to properly plan and budget and expeting the tax payer to pick up the bill, but in terms of capability aircraft seem to have a habit of nearly always proving their critics completely wrong when they end up being tested in real actual warfare. All aircraft have their quirks, mistakes, and design features, and they're always dealt with by a combination of upgrades and the skill of pilots in playing off the strengths of the aircraft against the weaknesses. When pressure comes into play to get these things into real actual combat pragmatism quickly takes over from profiteering and these vehicles end up being made to work just fine.
As I say I'm not arguing that the way the project has been handled is acceptable, but I think it'd be a mistake to claim this will be useless because as I say, it's something many millions of people have done before you about just about every fighter project ever, only to fairly consistently have been proven wrong. Before the F-35 it was the F-22 and the Osprey, and both these aircraft are actually now pretty fucking good.
I think the thing to remember that's often lost in all this, is that everyone else has these problems too. So the F-35 is over budget, expensive, and imperfect - sure, but so is Russia's PAK-FA, in fact, that project is all but cancelled at this point with Russia having dropped it's order to a mere 12 aircraft. So whilst the F-35 has it's problems, so does everyone else, and when it comes to the reality of combat you don't have a crippled F-35 project facing off against a perfect PAK-FA project, you have a crippled F-35 project facing off against and even more crippled PAK-FA project for example. The net result is that they'll all do their job less well than originally sold, but that's okay, because everyone's playing on the same crippled playing field so being slightly less crippled still leaves you with the advantage - it's an industry where "good enough" for whatever reason has always had to do (don't ask me why, and again, I'm not defending it!).
"Are you still incapable of understanting that the process of transfer from elbow to surface to hand to mucose membrane must necessarily be less effcetive at germ transfer than the last two steps alone?"
Neither of which are as effective as simply eliminating much contact with areas of high likelihood of germ transfer in the first place, which was my original point that you've so succesfully diverged from simply because you can't accept that this is an obvious fact.
"And again you failed to answer the question. Do you wash your elbows during the day? If not, then congratulations, by your own reckoning you are narcissistic."
Obviously not, because I don't need to, because I'm not dipping them in areas of high likelihood of contamination, which again, was exactly the point, that you seem to have so succesfully diverg... oh never mind. You're clearly just too dumb to get it.
"It depends on a region and a type of a helicopter. A VIP helicopter transfer in some places in Europe may cost more than 1500 or even much more than 9000. Medical helicopters' flights are also very expensive, as a patient or an insurance company pay not only for the flying time and the fuel, but also for the service as a whole, i.e. that doctors and pilots are on shift 24/7 ready to deploy. Even if they are not flying on a certain day, they should be paid for being on duty. "
But that's not what we're talking about is it? You're conflating the profit the VIP transfer company makes, and the cost of medical equipment and staff with the running cost of a helicopter which doesn't really stray outside the costs I quoted.
The amount of profit a company makes, or the amount of money a medical team gets paid is really completely tangential to the cost of running a helicopter. It's like saying a drone being used by a CEO who gets paid $100,000 a day has a running cost of $100,010 a day. That's obviously nonsense - the drones running cost is still just $10.
Fact is, contrary to your claim that only the state can afford to operate helicopters, most middle class people could afford to operate helicopters. They just choose not to because they have other priorities.
So yes, drones are definitely much cheaper to own and operate, but helicopters have always been fairly affordable if that's what you want to prioritise in life so aren't simply things that are only operable by the state. In fact, I'd wager there's far more privately owned helicopters in existence than state owned.
"When was the last time you picked up somwthing in your elbows and put it in your mouth?"
Are you really still incapable of understanding the simple concept of elbows going places hands go and hence transferring germs onto people's hands? I understand you probably think you're the only person in the world, but let me try again step by step to see if you can figure it out yet:
1) Person places elbow on non-sterile place, gets germs on elbow
2) Person rests elbow on escalator where others put their hands
3) Person walks to dining area, places elbows against chair and table where people also place hands
4) People who touch areas infected by elbow eat or otherwise touch their mouths and transfer infection into mouth
I can only assume you're repeated inability to grasp the fact that elbows aren't a solution because they still result in transfer to other people is a product of your narcissistic selfishness where you believe you're the only human being that matters.
"Maybe this too. Until now flying was the domain of a State. The flight of a helicopter costs 9000 per hour. Only a State can afford it on a regular basis."
Um, are you suggesting $9,000 per hour? If so that's completely false, that's not even remotely near the cost, in fact, it's out by an order of magnitude. Try closer to $500 per flight hour, including fuel and maintenance costs, scaling up to maybe $1500 for helicopters that are more expensive to run. Even that low end is probably an overestimate in practice.
"Secondly, my mechanical door closer isn't proposed, it's a common device fitted to very many doors in commercial settings. I'm honestly surprised you seem to not know about them."
I know all about them, I know that they slow a door opening enough to prevent you simply walking through them as if they're not even there as you described, I know people opening them with their feet have a tendency to still kick them open (most only slow down door closing to stop them slamming, not door opening) with a high force, I also know that they're prone to breaking.
"I'm not, but if you think having germs on your elbow is as bad as having them on your hands, then, frankly you're an idiot. Example: after scrubbing up, doctors turn off the taps with an elbow frequently not their hands because having germs there is much less bad."
Oh I see, because when the flu virus is on your elbow it's like "Ah I'm on an elbow, therefore I will not attack when I'm deposited somewhere someone may place their hands!". Are you actually fucking serious? It doesn't matter where germs end up on the human body, if that area is likely to come into contact with a place where hands will touch then the effect is exactly the same.
Surgeons use their elbows to operate taps because the taps are regularly cleaned and sterilised and their hands are covered in shit. Due to the fact they're sterilised there are no germs to get on their fucking elbows, that's kind of the whole point. They're not using their hands at all precisely because they don't want to transfer germs. They're not turning the taps on with bloodied hands, and then leaving them covered in blood only to turn them off with their elbows and get blood or whatever else all over their elbows because according to you elbows are magical germ repellent devices.
You really really haven't stepped out into reality ever have you? Jesus fucking christ, germs going easy on people because they're on elbows rather than hands is an actual thing you believe? What the actual fuck is wrong with you?
Don't you think any product that relies on a description of fluid dynamics for someone to understand how to use it properly isn't in itself evidence of a colossal design failure? It's not like these things have instructions on them about speed or duration of insertion or removal of hands - it just says insert hands, remove hands. If they're reliant on very precise speeds in and out that no one can possibly know or measure then it doesn't get more stupid than that.
So Mr High and Mighty, with the world of idiocy these poor things have to live in, if you consider that an entire building of software engineers and analysts with degree in mathematics (some of whom had phds) can't get them to work, have you stopped to consider you're perhaps the person displaying idiocy in believing a product that doesn't work based on it's own instructions of insert, and remove works without getting supposedly very precise measurements of speed and timing right?
And no, your No True Dyson fallacy doesn't come into play here, because yes, it's an official Dyson. Thankfully though none of it really much matters because no one has to (or every really does) use it anymore because like just about everywhere else these things have been installed there are also now paper towels which are far more efficient, and as per TFA, don't splatter germs everywhere. It's a shame they're not particularly environmentally friendly but until someone designs something that actually works, rather than merely pretends to work, I guess it's what we're stuck with.
People far smarter than you (or I) can't get these things to work right, but even if you were right that ability to get these things to work coupled equates to intellectual capacity, then you've still got the fundamental problem of the fact that it's not fit for purpose - anyone has to be able to use these things and so whatever your arbitrary definition of idiocy, my definition of an idiot is someone who defends a product that must be useable by everyone, but can't be used right by almost anyone, no matter where they sit on the scale of actual intellectual capacity, and I suspect most people would agree with that definition.
You may believe yourself a genius for cracking the secret code of making these things work, but you'll still always be an idiot if you believe that something that should be simple but isn't and yet must be useable by anyone (even people with learning disabilities) is a good product.
I'm merely pointing out that the problem with your argument is that people who do not wash their hands are somehow separate to others that have dirty habits, when in reality unhygienic people are generally unhygienic - the guy not washing his hands after using the toilet is likely the same guy who fucked some woman in a one night stand the night before and hasn't showered since, who is also the guy who picks his nose and sneezes and coughs all over his hands.
The odds are the people you're talking about are one and the same. Dirty people are dirty - they rarely have one bad habit like not washing their hands after the toilet and then proceed to be the epitome of cleanliness in the entire rest of their walks of life making them overall less likely to spread germs than the rest of the general population. Likely the guy who didn't wash his hands after holding his dick also didn't wash them after picking his nose, or sneezing as you mention.
I don't think I'm the one being challenged here, either by physics, or by English reading comprehension.
I'll give you a hint, because you're clearly struggling - when you place wet hands into the airblade, the air wall acts as a barrier for the water. The idea is that when you pull your hands up, this barrier forces the water to not slide up with your hands, forcing it off the ends of your fingers.
The problem is, that they're not designed for putting your hands in any way other than downwards, and that means that to get your hands into a position where you lift them up so the airblade can keep the water sliding down, you first have to put your hands in from the top such that the airblade keeps the water sliding up your wrist because the water can't magically pass the airblade on the downwards motion, then suddenly be prevented doing so only on the upwards motion.
We have these at work, I use them daily, exactly as you describe, and they're shit and fail hard. You may wish to try them yourself one day to experience the massive fail in the design. This is why, as I said, your hands should move in sideways under the airblade and then be pulled up.
So before doing a really bad job of trolling and subsequently making a fool of yourself in future, you should probably show that you understand the product yourself, because you clearly don't understand it, or the physics involved, nor are even capable of basic reading. In fact, you just failed spectacularly at basically everything involved.
I would literally love to watch you walk up to a door and keep going, watching you smack your knee on it and fumble awkwardly as it fails to open fast enough with your proposed mechanical door closer would be incredibly amusing.
"Well, that's greatly preferable. One doesn't tend to touch nearly so many things with elbows and especially not food."
As said, it's not your elbow that's the problem, it's the fact you often place your elbow where hands go, stop missing the point to try and hide from the fact you didn't think your argument through.
"Or you know taking the door already there and just changing the way round it opens..."
So what you're saying is there are simpler options, but even simpler ones should be ignored because then you fall victim to your own argument of not coming up with the most simple solution? Yeah okay then, that's not hypocritical or anything.
You really haven't been out into the real world much if you believe most of what you just said.
I can't tell if you're being intentionally argumentative, or if you've just never left your mothers basement. Automatic opening devices are cheap and commonplace. They typically open the door at a reasonable enough pace so as not to be too fast, nor too slow.
Now, if you've ever witnessed anyone opening a door with their foot, quite common in shopping areas where people's hands are full of shopping, or office areas where folks are carrying their briefcase in one hand and lunch in the other, you'll have seen that quite frequently people attempting this completely misjudge the force needed to open with their foot when compared to the more natural and common opening with their arm and end up sending the door flying open. That's before you ignore the fact that some people are just too old, or simply have some disability preventing them doing the old one foot, kick the door open then shuffle through as it closes on you act.
Whilst using an elbow will reduce germ transfer compared to hands, you're simply moving the problem to your elbow, and if you lean on a desk, or an escalator arm, or a chair arm, or any such thing, then you're still going to be transferring things like the flu to a place other people put their hands.
Of course you're not wrong with the point you were so obnoxiously trying to get at, yes, there are simpler options, like, not using a door at all for example and just putting a barrier up in front of the doorway that you have to go around so that no one can see in, though this in itself results in the risk of things like foul odours flooding out which in somewhere like a restaurant might be rather undesirable, potentially requiring an air extractor.
But it's okay, stick to doing PHP in your mom's basement where you haven't witnessed the practicality of real life and can argue about things for the sake of it if it makes you feel better.
Because what could possibly go wrong with people kicking doors open all the time, it's not like anyone could ever be on the other side and get a door to the face is it? Or were you suggesting that pushing a door open with your hand somehow makes you immune to germs as opposed to pulling one with a handle?
"Interesting. What do you think will spread more germs that are likely to affect you? The one guy who touched his pee-pee, or the common man who just rubbed his finger across his nose? Maybe the person who sneezed into a handkerchief for the 100th time that day, the one that he keeps soaking wet in his pocket."
Does it really matter? The underlying point is that someone who has not washed their hands could be spreading germs from all of those things, their dick being just one example of such a thing. You've completely missed the point - the problem isn't that they've touched their dick, the problem is that they have not washed their hands. Unless you're suggesting for some undefined reason that people who do not wash their hands are somehow less prone to retrieiving germs from somewhere else then you seem to be making a complete non-point.
Given how scratty such people are I'd be inclined to disbelieve they wash any much part of their body on a particularly regular basis if they can't even be bothered to wash their hands.
And by what magical procedure does the airblade magically ignore water going downwards?
By putting your hands in from the top and pushing them down as the instructions say, you inevitably just have some of the water pushed up your arm as they move down through the air blade by the air wall. The design is not magical enough to ignore water whilst you're pushing your hands down, whilst not ignoring it whilst pulling them back up.
There's no benefit therefore to something that just outright blows air downwards with an equally decent amount of power that you shove your hands under.
I've always found them shit anyway. The airblade doesn't make sense, as it seems to blow horizontally, creating an air wall that basically pushes any water on your hand either side of the air wall, and as you move up and down, moves the water up and down.
To me, what would've always made more sense would've been to:
a) Have the air aim downwards to push the water down off your hands
b) Move your hands into position from the side, rather than above
Moving hands in from above just pushes the water up your arm, moving your hands in from the side and blowing down would push it off your hand.
So yes, right now all they really are is germ cannons that don't actually dry your hands particularly effectively - in fact, I find a good classic powerful (some are shit and too weak) hand dryer to be much better because at least they blast downwards, which because we live in a world with gravity, is kind of more fucking useful than creating a wall that just pushes water up your arm.
But one of the biggest sanitation problems for germ transfer in toilets is door handles. Rather than buying an expensive airblade, maybe places should invest in doors that open automatically with sensors because right now everyone washes their hands and dries them with an expensive no-touch hand dryer like the dyson, and then proceeds to put their hand on the door handle to exit the washrooms only to pick up all the germs that that one scratty bastard who doesn't wash his hands after handling his dick left there.
"If they're independent, why are they a "dependency"? I am against this halfway-house status."
That's fine, but they are not, nor has any British government ever been, nor is there any real public support for it, so whilst you're entitled to your opinion, it is I'm afraid, unfortunately, entirely irrelevant. Furthermore, you've not really explained how it improves anything, so it's not really clear you're against it for any reason other than simply being a contrarian right now.
They're not independent any more than Scotland is independent, but they do have the right to self-govern on various localised issues, just like Scotland does, just like Wales does, and just like Northern Island does. Scotland voted to stay with Britain, but with a promise of more autonomy because the alternative would lead to potential economic chaos.
"The Argentinian case for ownership is a very weak one, and all its credibility derives from the idea that crown dependencies are little more than colonies, and that decolonisation is a justifiable goal. An independent Falkland Islands state would completely torpedo that claim."
The Argentinian claim doesn't have any credibility from it's colonial justification, that's just a word it thrusts about without truly understanding it, because when Argentina claims it wants to take the islands and push the people off them then that's actual colonialism, therefore, no one takes Argentina's colonialism claim seriously because it's so very obviously hypocritical. Largely, the talk of colonialism is aimed entirely at their home (or at least) South American audience who have a long standing grudge against colonialism, not because it has any actual merit.
"Also, calling Argentina an "aggressive neighbour" is unfair. Yes, it was an Argentinian government that started the war, but it was a military dictatorship at the time"
My comment on them being aggressive has little to do with the past, and everything to do with the fact that they've been harassing Falkland's ships, aircraft, and companies. That's hostility. If Argentina wants the Falklands it should start being nice to them, start building great economic ties, and start making the Falkland islanders want to be independent, or part of Argentina, until it does that it has no legitimate claim. The current actions are the result of the people Argentinians have voted into power, therefore, they are not victims, they are perpetrators for being part of the widespread Argentinian support for treating Falkland islanders with hostility, purely to distract from the fact they've royally fucked up their own country for about the millionth time.
"I'm pretty certain an independent F.I. would be perfectly happy to service visiting ships from the UK, among other countries, as part of the market economy. If they cannot compete with ports on the South American mainland, then this would imply that they are uneconomic, and that we're overpaying, thus the arrangement cannot be mutually beneficial."
What you're assuming is that Argentina wouldn't just take the islands by force again and prevent that, or even just settle a bunch of Argentinians on the island and use non-military violence (police, mobs) to push out the current inhabitants. If what you're proposing is that the Falklands still get British military protection through some kind of deal but not be a crown dependency then sure, that could work, but it's not really clear how in all practical terms that's any different from the status quo.
For what it's worth, British crown dependencies (in cooperation with British and French depedencies) throughout the Atlantic allowing British military presence has been one of the single most succesful policies in limiting the ability of Central/South American drug cartels and their associated violence spreading drastically through the Caribbean and over to the Atlantic. British military presence in these places isn't just about penis waving, or colonialism, it serves a genuine purpose and has had an incredibly strong stabilising effe
"No, I didn't say that they should be evicted, just that they wouldn't be the only ones in British territory that had been evicted. British citizens are forcibly evicted all the time for public infrastructure and private development, so there's no reason that this particular group of people should be exempt."
You mean apart from the fact that they're independently governed? The people you refer to who have been kicked out have made no such moves to be independently governed, and are in fact simply being kicked out by the representatives they elected.
What you're talking about is overruling elected representatives from higher up, by people who haven't been elected by the people making the decision. That's a very different thing.
You can't conflate two completely different issues with such simplification and expect to come out with a rational argument because things just are not that simple.
"That is the choice I would give them -- UK or independence."
Why? The status quo is mutually beneficial. They get protected from an aggressive neighbour, and we get a useful refuelling point on the way to our Antarctic research areas and a place where we can trade and our companies can do business (i.e. our oil companies). You seem to be arguing that we should break something that benefits both sides just because you want to rebel against the status quo regardless of how meaningful or useful that rebellion is. That isn't a sensible reason, especially when your rebellion means people lose their homes and their entire lives get ruined, and the British tax payer ends up out of pocket because journeys to the South Atlantic become far more costly. I'm also sure you wouldn't be so for such a policy if your house and relationships were the ones at risk.
You seem to be advocating defacto dictatorship and removal of enfranchisement for these people which is, well, disturbing. Your argument can be pursued all the way back to saying "We might as well get rid of parliament, and just reinstate primacy of the monarch as decision maker". If you take away local rule from dependencies why not take it away from councils also and rule direct from Westminster? If you're taking it away from them, why not take it away from Westminster and go straight to the Queen? You seem to be advocating something for one set of people, that I'm sure you would never advocate for yourself. Tell your local council it should become independent or accept direct rule from Westminster - yeah okay then, that's going to end well isn't it?
Maybe if you were right - either they're British or they're not, then you'd have a point, but despite your attempt to simplify the issue down to binary dumb-think that's just not the reality we live in. The fact is that self-governing dependencies are an actual thing whether you choose to try and write off the whole issue by pretending otherwise or not.
As for the rest of your post, it was just a mess of confusion of various completely irrelevant issues so I'm not even going to waste my time other than to point out that you too are demonstrating blatant hypocrisy by supporting the Palestinian cause whilst suggesting Falkland islanders should face summary eviction, removal, and destruction of their homes. What the fuck do you think that sounds an awful lot like exactly? You don't think there's hypocrisy in the view, because you also apparently share and argue the exact same hypocritical view, so no shit, well done, you've shown that like most hypocrites you don't recognise your own hypocrisy either.
"The term 'Offshore' for banking is a very British institution referring to their Crown dependencies on smaller islands, be it on the Channel Islands or in the Caribbean."
Making it a British problem is the Corbyn line, but it's pure populism and incredibly hypocritical. Britain has recieved flack for hundreds of years for it's imperialism, if we were to start dictating what crown dependencies do, effectively disenfranchising them by removing their previously granted right to independently govern themselves. The idea of someone like Corbyn who proclaims the ability of the Palestinians to self-govern as one of his most foremost beliefs in things that should happen dictating that we should remove that exact same right from crown dependencies (and, as an aside, to force the Falkland Islanders to be governed against their will by Argentina) is one of the most profoundly hypocritical stances in modern politics.
It's not the 1800s, we can't simply take away the rights of these dependencies to self-govern. This doesn't mean there aren't things we can do, but imperialism needs to die and so Britain treating these dependencies like it does any other tax haven nation that isn't a crown dependency is the exact right thing to do. The fact they're crown dependencies should be neither here nor there, we should treat them and their people with the respect that we treat any independent nation.
But outside of the argument about what's morally right, there's also the more pragmatic point that it'd be wholly self-defeating anyway. We do like the fact they choose to be crown dependencies because it's mutually beneficial for trade, for military ties, for geopolitical support and so on. If we attempt to rule them with an iron fist from Westminster they'll simply choose to go for full independence and continue doing what they do regardless of what we think. I seem to remember there being a rather large country in the West that was also ruled from London once and wasn't too happy about it and decided to go for independence, I seem to recall there was a lot of bloodshed too, I think they call that country America or something and relations weren't too good for quite some decades afterwards. I think some kind of White House even got burnt down or something about 35 years later.
So long story short, we treat the independence of crown dependencies with respect for good reason. If we start to play with that then it causes all sorts of shit and is simply a form of oppression. That's why any deal to fix tax havens has to be universal, and cannot simply be something that is applied unilaterally to crown dependencies, because if it is we're inherently telling those dependencies that they must give up a major source of their income to other tax havens that aren't crown dependencies meaning we don't solve the problem, and we make the lives of the citizens of those dependencies a whole lot worse to the benefit of citizens of other tax havens that can't be dealt with as dependencies.
In other words, what's the fucking point? It's dumb-think politics, it's hypocritical, and it's populism, pure and simple. I'm not defending tax havens, nor those who use them, but I do think the people who live in those countries, many of whom are in fact incredibly poor, deserve the right to retain the degree of political independence they haven chosen, that is not something that should be revoked from them regardless of what their financial sector is doing. Hit the financial sector, not the people.
Then the Azores which you previously claimed are the most Western part of Europe are not, because they're not part of the Eurasian continental plate and sit on the mid-Atlantic ridge. Furthermore, as the Eurasian plate is as it's namesake implies, shared with Asia, one would have to bundle much of Asia into Europe too, which obviously doesn't make anymore sense than bundling Europe into Asia.
Which really highlights the problem, "European" is not any one thing, depending on context it can be anything from countries that are part of European nation's sovereign territory, it could mean the EU political union, it could mean Europe the rather arbitrarily defined boundary entity that includes countries but not some of their furthest dependencies, mostly. It could be Europe's share of the Eurasian plate, which is then tricky, or it could simply be the continental shelf. Even the Europe as a set of boundaries thing can change, some argue Scandinavia is not Europe and is in itself a separate entity, whilst others claim it's just part of Europe. The Council of Europe encompasses nations from Iceland to Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Israel - another completely arbitrary political definition. Even Australia is now in on the Eurovision song contest because it's perceived to be culturally European, but not owned by any European state anymore, nor situated anywhere near it.
Long story short, stop trying to define Europe, you wont win, because it's an argument that's been going on for hundreds of years and you're not about to be the person who suddenly wins that argument. Europe is not defined by continental plates, Eurasia is. Any definition is incredibly arbitrary.
And here I was thinking you were a bunch of puffin, pony and whale eating savages!
Joking aside, wife was there earlier this year. She was amused to see you have Taco Bell, though she did tell the guy at the hotel she'd "have a bit of the nice looking beef" only to be told that it was in fact horse. We're obviously more cultured than that because we treat our ponies better, rather than eating them we use them for cruel sports, and send them in to riots and stuff where they have bricks and petrol bombs thrown at them which is obviously a vast improvement for their welfare, or something.
Slashdot Mirror
"Every coughing fit punctuated campaign event Clinton choreographs will see Trump fill three stadiums with rabid supporters. By November Hillary will be a quivering mass of regret."
You might be right, but it'll never matter because no matter what he does to Hillary's reputation, the damage he's done to his own reputation amongst a majority of voters (females, latinos, muslims etc.) is worse than anything he can do to Hillary.
It doesn't matter how corrupt Hillary looks, an extremely corrupt and damaged Hillary is still always going to look far better to the majority of people (based on the simple math of demographics) than an authoritarian Trump that wants to lock up/deport/simply doesn't understand them and their families.
Trump is a one trick pony that has relied on stirring up the angry white males of the Republican Party to get his nomination. The problem is they're a minority in today's America and there's no real path he has left open to redeem himself with the demographics he requires to win. He'll never get the 1% of muslims on side, the 17% hispanics, and a massive proportion of the 50% of females because he relied on relentlessly attacking these groups to get his nomination, the problem is, these groups are a majority in the overall battle even if they were a minority in the Republic nomination battle.
Even if he tries to reach out and make amends to these communities he'll lose the people he stirred up with anger against these communities because they'll be disappointed to find he lied to them. He's created himself a losing proposition for the ultimate race - he played the short game and in doing so fucked himself for the long game. This is probably why he's gone bankrupt so many times - he's incapable of long term planning and can only ever win short term battles at the expense of losing the long term war.
"So you're saying it's only illegal if you or I do it, but if you're high enough in the government it suddenly becomes legal?"
Do you want the theoretically correct answer, or the actually correct answer to that :) ?
I don't think it has, and the summary's 2003 date is rather fucking arbitrary. What about DVD Jon's case in 2002? What about the clipper chip fiasco in the mid 1990s?
This is a battle that's been going on very publicly since the dawn of digital cryptography.
"Instead of multiple crafts tailor-made for specific purposes, they chose to make one that will do everything, yet poorly. No other fighter jet in history had this as a constraint."
At least they designed for it from the outset, there are countless aircraft out there that have ended up in this role despite never being designed for it. The Eurofighter was designed as an air superiority fighter, then we ran out of money for our harriers and realised we needed to drop bombs on people in pickups with DSHKs mounted on the back so it was fudged on retroactively. The same has been true for many aircraft - the F-14 was never intended to drop bombs, yet the F-14B was rerolled for exactly this purpose - the same has happened to varying degree with things like the F-15, F-16, F-18 and so on. I'd wager recognition of the fact that fighter programs inevitably seem to end up adapting into multi-role and designing for that from the outset is quite a pragmatic and smart move given that pretty much no single role aircraft has ever stayed a single role aircraft. Even the C-130 has gone from being a cargo plane to having artillery stuck out the side, to being an air refuelling tanker, to being a reconnaissance aircraft, to launching fucking hellfires off it's wings.
I agree that the F-35 will never replace the A-10, but I disagree that it was ever intended to. It was never intended to, the problem is that the USAF didn't want to keep funding the airforce because they have a hardon for things like the F-35. They didn't want to be pouring money into a plane that only benefits the marines and the army, they figured those services should pay for that plane themselves if they want to keep it. The F-35 replacing the A-10 was simply the USAF playing politics, not a specific design goal of the project, nor one it ever tried to cater to. No one commissioning or working on the F-35 project has asked or been briefed to make it fulfil the role of the A-10 other than where the A-10 itself was used outside it's intended CAS role.
"Beyond that, it was designed for stealth, speed, and more automated systems (along with the bulky vertical take-off design) rather than maneuverability for air to air combat or sustained presence for ground troop support. Stealth is a complete joke -- designers themselves admit any modern radar system will pick up the plane just fine -- just perhaps a slight delay before they notice the small bird flying at Mach 2. All the head's up displays and sensors won't help in a dogfight or in sustaining ground troop support when you have to fly very, very fast (which leads to poor steering) just to stay in the air because of your frame with small wings and crappy aerodynamics due to the stealth paneling."
Nonsense about the stealth, it's still got a massive edge over aircraft like Russia's PAK-FA and China's J-20, the radar profile of the F-35 is roughly 3 orders of magnitude lower than both these aircraft. That means it's going to be drastically more easy for an F-35 to detect a target than for a target to detect the F-35 from any current projected potential opposition. The J-20 only does a little better in terms of stealth head on, but still not as good as the F-35, and none are as good as the F-22 - there's a 4 order of magnitude difference in radar cross-section with that aircraft.
As for dogfighting, if you think the F-35 is meant to be a dogfighter then you should even be commenting as you don't understand it's purpose even. The F-35 is a strike fighter, not an air superiority fighter. If the US ends up in a situation where it needs dogfighting because it's up against super advanced opponents which no airforce in the world has in active service yet or in the near future then the F-35s will be sent in with F-22 fighter cover. This obsession with the F-35's dog fighting capability completely misses the point, the F-35 has a job and that's to get in and precision strike ground targets like air defence positions. It can do that incredibly well precisely because it does have good stealth, and because i
Fighter aircraft have always seen criticism until they've had chance to prove themselves, and the F-35 is no different.
Your criticisms of the F-35 are the exact same criticisms that were made of the harrier jump jet - people said it was too hard to fly, it's range was dire, it was overly complex and VTOL/STOVL were a waste, and that it wasn't fast enough, but it has gone on to be one of the most succesful fighter aircraft of all time proving itself both in carrier launched air-to-air combat downing sometimes equally modern (at the time) aircraft such as the Super Etendard, through to being one of the best CAS platforms available to troops on the ground in places like Iraq and Afghanistan bar perhaps the A-10.
I see little reason to believe the F-35 will be any different to any other fighter project in history where nearly all of which equally saw the same criticisms of can't do this, can't do that, over budget, behind schedule at some time or another.
I'm not defending poor project management, nor would I dream of defending the way the defence industry rips off the tax payer by failing to properly plan and budget and expeting the tax payer to pick up the bill, but in terms of capability aircraft seem to have a habit of nearly always proving their critics completely wrong when they end up being tested in real actual warfare. All aircraft have their quirks, mistakes, and design features, and they're always dealt with by a combination of upgrades and the skill of pilots in playing off the strengths of the aircraft against the weaknesses. When pressure comes into play to get these things into real actual combat pragmatism quickly takes over from profiteering and these vehicles end up being made to work just fine.
As I say I'm not arguing that the way the project has been handled is acceptable, but I think it'd be a mistake to claim this will be useless because as I say, it's something many millions of people have done before you about just about every fighter project ever, only to fairly consistently have been proven wrong. Before the F-35 it was the F-22 and the Osprey, and both these aircraft are actually now pretty fucking good.
I think the thing to remember that's often lost in all this, is that everyone else has these problems too. So the F-35 is over budget, expensive, and imperfect - sure, but so is Russia's PAK-FA, in fact, that project is all but cancelled at this point with Russia having dropped it's order to a mere 12 aircraft. So whilst the F-35 has it's problems, so does everyone else, and when it comes to the reality of combat you don't have a crippled F-35 project facing off against a perfect PAK-FA project, you have a crippled F-35 project facing off against and even more crippled PAK-FA project for example. The net result is that they'll all do their job less well than originally sold, but that's okay, because everyone's playing on the same crippled playing field so being slightly less crippled still leaves you with the advantage - it's an industry where "good enough" for whatever reason has always had to do (don't ask me why, and again, I'm not defending it!).
"Are you still incapable of understanting that the process of transfer from elbow to surface to hand to mucose membrane must necessarily be less effcetive at germ transfer than the last two steps alone?"
Neither of which are as effective as simply eliminating much contact with areas of high likelihood of germ transfer in the first place, which was my original point that you've so succesfully diverged from simply because you can't accept that this is an obvious fact.
"And again you failed to answer the question. Do you wash your elbows during the day? If not, then congratulations, by your own reckoning you are narcissistic."
Obviously not, because I don't need to, because I'm not dipping them in areas of high likelihood of contamination, which again, was exactly the point, that you seem to have so succesfully diverg... oh never mind. You're clearly just too dumb to get it.
"It depends on a region and a type of a helicopter. A VIP helicopter transfer in some places in Europe may cost more than 1500 or even much more than 9000. Medical helicopters' flights are also very expensive, as a patient or an insurance company pay not only for the flying time and the fuel, but also for the service as a whole, i.e. that doctors and pilots are on shift 24/7 ready to deploy. Even if they are not flying on a certain day, they should be paid for being on duty. "
But that's not what we're talking about is it? You're conflating the profit the VIP transfer company makes, and the cost of medical equipment and staff with the running cost of a helicopter which doesn't really stray outside the costs I quoted.
The amount of profit a company makes, or the amount of money a medical team gets paid is really completely tangential to the cost of running a helicopter. It's like saying a drone being used by a CEO who gets paid $100,000 a day has a running cost of $100,010 a day. That's obviously nonsense - the drones running cost is still just $10.
Fact is, contrary to your claim that only the state can afford to operate helicopters, most middle class people could afford to operate helicopters. They just choose not to because they have other priorities.
So yes, drones are definitely much cheaper to own and operate, but helicopters have always been fairly affordable if that's what you want to prioritise in life so aren't simply things that are only operable by the state. In fact, I'd wager there's far more privately owned helicopters in existence than state owned.
"When was the last time you picked up somwthing in your elbows and put it in your mouth?"
Are you really still incapable of understanding the simple concept of elbows going places hands go and hence transferring germs onto people's hands? I understand you probably think you're the only person in the world, but let me try again step by step to see if you can figure it out yet:
1) Person places elbow on non-sterile place, gets germs on elbow
2) Person rests elbow on escalator where others put their hands
3) Person walks to dining area, places elbows against chair and table where people also place hands
4) People who touch areas infected by elbow eat or otherwise touch their mouths and transfer infection into mouth
I can only assume you're repeated inability to grasp the fact that elbows aren't a solution because they still result in transfer to other people is a product of your narcissistic selfishness where you believe you're the only human being that matters.
I'll give you a hint, you really don't.
"Maybe this too. Until now flying was the domain of a State. The flight of a helicopter costs 9000 per hour. Only a State can afford it on a regular basis."
Um, are you suggesting $9,000 per hour? If so that's completely false, that's not even remotely near the cost, in fact, it's out by an order of magnitude. Try closer to $500 per flight hour, including fuel and maintenance costs, scaling up to maybe $1500 for helicopters that are more expensive to run. Even that low end is probably an overestimate in practice.
"Secondly, my mechanical door closer isn't proposed, it's a common device fitted to very many doors in commercial settings. I'm honestly surprised you seem to not know about them."
I know all about them, I know that they slow a door opening enough to prevent you simply walking through them as if they're not even there as you described, I know people opening them with their feet have a tendency to still kick them open (most only slow down door closing to stop them slamming, not door opening) with a high force, I also know that they're prone to breaking.
"I'm not, but if you think having germs on your elbow is as bad as having them on your hands, then, frankly you're an idiot. Example: after scrubbing up, doctors turn off the taps with an elbow frequently not their hands because having germs there is much less bad."
Oh I see, because when the flu virus is on your elbow it's like "Ah I'm on an elbow, therefore I will not attack when I'm deposited somewhere someone may place their hands!". Are you actually fucking serious? It doesn't matter where germs end up on the human body, if that area is likely to come into contact with a place where hands will touch then the effect is exactly the same.
Surgeons use their elbows to operate taps because the taps are regularly cleaned and sterilised and their hands are covered in shit. Due to the fact they're sterilised there are no germs to get on their fucking elbows, that's kind of the whole point. They're not using their hands at all precisely because they don't want to transfer germs. They're not turning the taps on with bloodied hands, and then leaving them covered in blood only to turn them off with their elbows and get blood or whatever else all over their elbows because according to you elbows are magical germ repellent devices.
You really really haven't stepped out into reality ever have you? Jesus fucking christ, germs going easy on people because they're on elbows rather than hands is an actual thing you believe? What the actual fuck is wrong with you?
Don't you think any product that relies on a description of fluid dynamics for someone to understand how to use it properly isn't in itself evidence of a colossal design failure? It's not like these things have instructions on them about speed or duration of insertion or removal of hands - it just says insert hands, remove hands. If they're reliant on very precise speeds in and out that no one can possibly know or measure then it doesn't get more stupid than that.
So Mr High and Mighty, with the world of idiocy these poor things have to live in, if you consider that an entire building of software engineers and analysts with degree in mathematics (some of whom had phds) can't get them to work, have you stopped to consider you're perhaps the person displaying idiocy in believing a product that doesn't work based on it's own instructions of insert, and remove works without getting supposedly very precise measurements of speed and timing right?
And no, your No True Dyson fallacy doesn't come into play here, because yes, it's an official Dyson. Thankfully though none of it really much matters because no one has to (or every really does) use it anymore because like just about everywhere else these things have been installed there are also now paper towels which are far more efficient, and as per TFA, don't splatter germs everywhere. It's a shame they're not particularly environmentally friendly but until someone designs something that actually works, rather than merely pretends to work, I guess it's what we're stuck with.
People far smarter than you (or I) can't get these things to work right, but even if you were right that ability to get these things to work coupled equates to intellectual capacity, then you've still got the fundamental problem of the fact that it's not fit for purpose - anyone has to be able to use these things and so whatever your arbitrary definition of idiocy, my definition of an idiot is someone who defends a product that must be useable by everyone, but can't be used right by almost anyone, no matter where they sit on the scale of actual intellectual capacity, and I suspect most people would agree with that definition.
You may believe yourself a genius for cracking the secret code of making these things work, but you'll still always be an idiot if you believe that something that should be simple but isn't and yet must be useable by anyone (even people with learning disabilities) is a good product.
I'm merely pointing out that the problem with your argument is that people who do not wash their hands are somehow separate to others that have dirty habits, when in reality unhygienic people are generally unhygienic - the guy not washing his hands after using the toilet is likely the same guy who fucked some woman in a one night stand the night before and hasn't showered since, who is also the guy who picks his nose and sneezes and coughs all over his hands.
The odds are the people you're talking about are one and the same. Dirty people are dirty - they rarely have one bad habit like not washing their hands after the toilet and then proceed to be the epitome of cleanliness in the entire rest of their walks of life making them overall less likely to spread germs than the rest of the general population. Likely the guy who didn't wash his hands after holding his dick also didn't wash them after picking his nose, or sneezing as you mention.
"Physics is challenging to you, isn't it?"
I don't think I'm the one being challenged here, either by physics, or by English reading comprehension.
I'll give you a hint, because you're clearly struggling - when you place wet hands into the airblade, the air wall acts as a barrier for the water. The idea is that when you pull your hands up, this barrier forces the water to not slide up with your hands, forcing it off the ends of your fingers.
The problem is, that they're not designed for putting your hands in any way other than downwards, and that means that to get your hands into a position where you lift them up so the airblade can keep the water sliding down, you first have to put your hands in from the top such that the airblade keeps the water sliding up your wrist because the water can't magically pass the airblade on the downwards motion, then suddenly be prevented doing so only on the upwards motion.
We have these at work, I use them daily, exactly as you describe, and they're shit and fail hard. You may wish to try them yourself one day to experience the massive fail in the design. This is why, as I said, your hands should move in sideways under the airblade and then be pulled up.
So before doing a really bad job of trolling and subsequently making a fool of yourself in future, you should probably show that you understand the product yourself, because you clearly don't understand it, or the physics involved, nor are even capable of basic reading. In fact, you just failed spectacularly at basically everything involved.
I would literally love to watch you walk up to a door and keep going, watching you smack your knee on it and fumble awkwardly as it fails to open fast enough with your proposed mechanical door closer would be incredibly amusing.
"Well, that's greatly preferable. One doesn't tend to touch nearly so many things with elbows and especially not food."
As said, it's not your elbow that's the problem, it's the fact you often place your elbow where hands go, stop missing the point to try and hide from the fact you didn't think your argument through.
"Or you know taking the door already there and just changing the way round it opens..."
So what you're saying is there are simpler options, but even simpler ones should be ignored because then you fall victim to your own argument of not coming up with the most simple solution? Yeah okay then, that's not hypocritical or anything.
You really haven't been out into the real world much if you believe most of what you just said.
I can't tell if you're being intentionally argumentative, or if you've just never left your mothers basement. Automatic opening devices are cheap and commonplace. They typically open the door at a reasonable enough pace so as not to be too fast, nor too slow.
Now, if you've ever witnessed anyone opening a door with their foot, quite common in shopping areas where people's hands are full of shopping, or office areas where folks are carrying their briefcase in one hand and lunch in the other, you'll have seen that quite frequently people attempting this completely misjudge the force needed to open with their foot when compared to the more natural and common opening with their arm and end up sending the door flying open. That's before you ignore the fact that some people are just too old, or simply have some disability preventing them doing the old one foot, kick the door open then shuffle through as it closes on you act.
Whilst using an elbow will reduce germ transfer compared to hands, you're simply moving the problem to your elbow, and if you lean on a desk, or an escalator arm, or a chair arm, or any such thing, then you're still going to be transferring things like the flu to a place other people put their hands.
Of course you're not wrong with the point you were so obnoxiously trying to get at, yes, there are simpler options, like, not using a door at all for example and just putting a barrier up in front of the doorway that you have to go around so that no one can see in, though this in itself results in the risk of things like foul odours flooding out which in somewhere like a restaurant might be rather undesirable, potentially requiring an air extractor.
But it's okay, stick to doing PHP in your mom's basement where you haven't witnessed the practicality of real life and can argue about things for the sake of it if it makes you feel better.
Because what could possibly go wrong with people kicking doors open all the time, it's not like anyone could ever be on the other side and get a door to the face is it? Or were you suggesting that pushing a door open with your hand somehow makes you immune to germs as opposed to pulling one with a handle?
Do you work with PHP by any chance?
"Interesting. What do you think will spread more germs that are likely to affect you? The one guy who touched his pee-pee, or the common man who just rubbed his finger across his nose? Maybe the person who sneezed into a handkerchief for the 100th time that day, the one that he keeps soaking wet in his pocket."
Does it really matter? The underlying point is that someone who has not washed their hands could be spreading germs from all of those things, their dick being just one example of such a thing. You've completely missed the point - the problem isn't that they've touched their dick, the problem is that they have not washed their hands. Unless you're suggesting for some undefined reason that people who do not wash their hands are somehow less prone to retrieiving germs from somewhere else then you seem to be making a complete non-point.
Given how scratty such people are I'd be inclined to disbelieve they wash any much part of their body on a particularly regular basis if they can't even be bothered to wash their hands.
And by what magical procedure does the airblade magically ignore water going downwards?
By putting your hands in from the top and pushing them down as the instructions say, you inevitably just have some of the water pushed up your arm as they move down through the air blade by the air wall. The design is not magical enough to ignore water whilst you're pushing your hands down, whilst not ignoring it whilst pulling them back up.
There's no benefit therefore to something that just outright blows air downwards with an equally decent amount of power that you shove your hands under.
I've always found them shit anyway. The airblade doesn't make sense, as it seems to blow horizontally, creating an air wall that basically pushes any water on your hand either side of the air wall, and as you move up and down, moves the water up and down.
To me, what would've always made more sense would've been to:
a) Have the air aim downwards to push the water down off your hands
b) Move your hands into position from the side, rather than above
Moving hands in from above just pushes the water up your arm, moving your hands in from the side and blowing down would push it off your hand.
So yes, right now all they really are is germ cannons that don't actually dry your hands particularly effectively - in fact, I find a good classic powerful (some are shit and too weak) hand dryer to be much better because at least they blast downwards, which because we live in a world with gravity, is kind of more fucking useful than creating a wall that just pushes water up your arm.
But one of the biggest sanitation problems for germ transfer in toilets is door handles. Rather than buying an expensive airblade, maybe places should invest in doors that open automatically with sensors because right now everyone washes their hands and dries them with an expensive no-touch hand dryer like the dyson, and then proceeds to put their hand on the door handle to exit the washrooms only to pick up all the germs that that one scratty bastard who doesn't wash his hands after handling his dick left there.
"If they're independent, why are they a "dependency"? I am against this halfway-house status."
That's fine, but they are not, nor has any British government ever been, nor is there any real public support for it, so whilst you're entitled to your opinion, it is I'm afraid, unfortunately, entirely irrelevant. Furthermore, you've not really explained how it improves anything, so it's not really clear you're against it for any reason other than simply being a contrarian right now.
They're not independent any more than Scotland is independent, but they do have the right to self-govern on various localised issues, just like Scotland does, just like Wales does, and just like Northern Island does. Scotland voted to stay with Britain, but with a promise of more autonomy because the alternative would lead to potential economic chaos.
"The Argentinian case for ownership is a very weak one, and all its credibility derives from the idea that crown dependencies are little more than colonies, and that decolonisation is a justifiable goal. An independent Falkland Islands state would completely torpedo that claim."
The Argentinian claim doesn't have any credibility from it's colonial justification, that's just a word it thrusts about without truly understanding it, because when Argentina claims it wants to take the islands and push the people off them then that's actual colonialism, therefore, no one takes Argentina's colonialism claim seriously because it's so very obviously hypocritical. Largely, the talk of colonialism is aimed entirely at their home (or at least) South American audience who have a long standing grudge against colonialism, not because it has any actual merit.
"Also, calling Argentina an "aggressive neighbour" is unfair. Yes, it was an Argentinian government that started the war, but it was a military dictatorship at the time"
My comment on them being aggressive has little to do with the past, and everything to do with the fact that they've been harassing Falkland's ships, aircraft, and companies. That's hostility. If Argentina wants the Falklands it should start being nice to them, start building great economic ties, and start making the Falkland islanders want to be independent, or part of Argentina, until it does that it has no legitimate claim. The current actions are the result of the people Argentinians have voted into power, therefore, they are not victims, they are perpetrators for being part of the widespread Argentinian support for treating Falkland islanders with hostility, purely to distract from the fact they've royally fucked up their own country for about the millionth time.
"I'm pretty certain an independent F.I. would be perfectly happy to service visiting ships from the UK, among other countries, as part of the market economy. If they cannot compete with ports on the South American mainland, then this would imply that they are uneconomic, and that we're overpaying, thus the arrangement cannot be mutually beneficial."
What you're assuming is that Argentina wouldn't just take the islands by force again and prevent that, or even just settle a bunch of Argentinians on the island and use non-military violence (police, mobs) to push out the current inhabitants. If what you're proposing is that the Falklands still get British military protection through some kind of deal but not be a crown dependency then sure, that could work, but it's not really clear how in all practical terms that's any different from the status quo.
For what it's worth, British crown dependencies (in cooperation with British and French depedencies) throughout the Atlantic allowing British military presence has been one of the single most succesful policies in limiting the ability of Central/South American drug cartels and their associated violence spreading drastically through the Caribbean and over to the Atlantic. British military presence in these places isn't just about penis waving, or colonialism, it serves a genuine purpose and has had an incredibly strong stabilising effe
"No, I didn't say that they should be evicted, just that they wouldn't be the only ones in British territory that had been evicted. British citizens are forcibly evicted all the time for public infrastructure and private development, so there's no reason that this particular group of people should be exempt."
You mean apart from the fact that they're independently governed? The people you refer to who have been kicked out have made no such moves to be independently governed, and are in fact simply being kicked out by the representatives they elected.
What you're talking about is overruling elected representatives from higher up, by people who haven't been elected by the people making the decision. That's a very different thing.
You can't conflate two completely different issues with such simplification and expect to come out with a rational argument because things just are not that simple.
"That is the choice I would give them -- UK or independence."
Why? The status quo is mutually beneficial. They get protected from an aggressive neighbour, and we get a useful refuelling point on the way to our Antarctic research areas and a place where we can trade and our companies can do business (i.e. our oil companies). You seem to be arguing that we should break something that benefits both sides just because you want to rebel against the status quo regardless of how meaningful or useful that rebellion is. That isn't a sensible reason, especially when your rebellion means people lose their homes and their entire lives get ruined, and the British tax payer ends up out of pocket because journeys to the South Atlantic become far more costly. I'm also sure you wouldn't be so for such a policy if your house and relationships were the ones at risk.
You seem to be advocating defacto dictatorship and removal of enfranchisement for these people which is, well, disturbing. Your argument can be pursued all the way back to saying "We might as well get rid of parliament, and just reinstate primacy of the monarch as decision maker". If you take away local rule from dependencies why not take it away from councils also and rule direct from Westminster? If you're taking it away from them, why not take it away from Westminster and go straight to the Queen? You seem to be advocating something for one set of people, that I'm sure you would never advocate for yourself. Tell your local council it should become independent or accept direct rule from Westminster - yeah okay then, that's going to end well isn't it?
Maybe if you were right - either they're British or they're not, then you'd have a point, but despite your attempt to simplify the issue down to binary dumb-think that's just not the reality we live in. The fact is that self-governing dependencies are an actual thing whether you choose to try and write off the whole issue by pretending otherwise or not.
As for the rest of your post, it was just a mess of confusion of various completely irrelevant issues so I'm not even going to waste my time other than to point out that you too are demonstrating blatant hypocrisy by supporting the Palestinian cause whilst suggesting Falkland islanders should face summary eviction, removal, and destruction of their homes. What the fuck do you think that sounds an awful lot like exactly? You don't think there's hypocrisy in the view, because you also apparently share and argue the exact same hypocritical view, so no shit, well done, you've shown that like most hypocrites you don't recognise your own hypocrisy either.
"The term 'Offshore' for banking is a very British institution referring to their Crown dependencies on smaller islands, be it on the Channel Islands or in the Caribbean."
Making it a British problem is the Corbyn line, but it's pure populism and incredibly hypocritical. Britain has recieved flack for hundreds of years for it's imperialism, if we were to start dictating what crown dependencies do, effectively disenfranchising them by removing their previously granted right to independently govern themselves. The idea of someone like Corbyn who proclaims the ability of the Palestinians to self-govern as one of his most foremost beliefs in things that should happen dictating that we should remove that exact same right from crown dependencies (and, as an aside, to force the Falkland Islanders to be governed against their will by Argentina) is one of the most profoundly hypocritical stances in modern politics.
It's not the 1800s, we can't simply take away the rights of these dependencies to self-govern. This doesn't mean there aren't things we can do, but imperialism needs to die and so Britain treating these dependencies like it does any other tax haven nation that isn't a crown dependency is the exact right thing to do. The fact they're crown dependencies should be neither here nor there, we should treat them and their people with the respect that we treat any independent nation.
But outside of the argument about what's morally right, there's also the more pragmatic point that it'd be wholly self-defeating anyway. We do like the fact they choose to be crown dependencies because it's mutually beneficial for trade, for military ties, for geopolitical support and so on. If we attempt to rule them with an iron fist from Westminster they'll simply choose to go for full independence and continue doing what they do regardless of what we think. I seem to remember there being a rather large country in the West that was also ruled from London once and wasn't too happy about it and decided to go for independence, I seem to recall there was a lot of bloodshed too, I think they call that country America or something and relations weren't too good for quite some decades afterwards. I think some kind of White House even got burnt down or something about 35 years later.
So long story short, we treat the independence of crown dependencies with respect for good reason. If we start to play with that then it causes all sorts of shit and is simply a form of oppression. That's why any deal to fix tax havens has to be universal, and cannot simply be something that is applied unilaterally to crown dependencies, because if it is we're inherently telling those dependencies that they must give up a major source of their income to other tax havens that aren't crown dependencies meaning we don't solve the problem, and we make the lives of the citizens of those dependencies a whole lot worse to the benefit of citizens of other tax havens that can't be dealt with as dependencies.
In other words, what's the fucking point? It's dumb-think politics, it's hypocritical, and it's populism, pure and simple. I'm not defending tax havens, nor those who use them, but I do think the people who live in those countries, many of whom are in fact incredibly poor, deserve the right to retain the degree of political independence they haven chosen, that is not something that should be revoked from them regardless of what their financial sector is doing. Hit the financial sector, not the people.
Then the Azores which you previously claimed are the most Western part of Europe are not, because they're not part of the Eurasian continental plate and sit on the mid-Atlantic ridge. Furthermore, as the Eurasian plate is as it's namesake implies, shared with Asia, one would have to bundle much of Asia into Europe too, which obviously doesn't make anymore sense than bundling Europe into Asia.
Which really highlights the problem, "European" is not any one thing, depending on context it can be anything from countries that are part of European nation's sovereign territory, it could mean the EU political union, it could mean Europe the rather arbitrarily defined boundary entity that includes countries but not some of their furthest dependencies, mostly. It could be Europe's share of the Eurasian plate, which is then tricky, or it could simply be the continental shelf. Even the Europe as a set of boundaries thing can change, some argue Scandinavia is not Europe and is in itself a separate entity, whilst others claim it's just part of Europe. The Council of Europe encompasses nations from Iceland to Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Israel - another completely arbitrary political definition. Even Australia is now in on the Eurovision song contest because it's perceived to be culturally European, but not owned by any European state anymore, nor situated anywhere near it.
Long story short, stop trying to define Europe, you wont win, because it's an argument that's been going on for hundreds of years and you're not about to be the person who suddenly wins that argument. Europe is not defined by continental plates, Eurasia is. Any definition is incredibly arbitrary.
And here I was thinking you were a bunch of puffin, pony and whale eating savages!
Joking aside, wife was there earlier this year. She was amused to see you have Taco Bell, though she did tell the guy at the hotel she'd "have a bit of the nice looking beef" only to be told that it was in fact horse. We're obviously more cultured than that because we treat our ponies better, rather than eating them we use them for cruel sports, and send them in to riots and stuff where they have bricks and petrol bombs thrown at them which is obviously a vast improvement for their welfare, or something.