DB

There is a bit of a problem here, but it has very little to do with anything the three sides in this argument are saying is the cause. https://gothamist.com/news/why-are-shootings-and-murders-rise-nyc You have the Mayor arguing with the court system, the court system arguing with the police commissioner. These people are all supposed to be working together to keep crime under control, instead they're more interested in grandstanding and blame shifting. Meanwhile, nobody is talking about how NYC has fewer murders than London any more (it doesn't).

You guys have your own opinions and as usual those are sufficiently entrenched that discussing with you about this issue isn't really worth anyone's time, because it just immediately turns into an argument full of personal attacks. If your debating position starts from a basis of multiple inconsistent and demonstrably illogical foundations taken from conspiracy theory peddlers, and ramps up immediately to personal attacks on experts who are not in line with your position, then you're also not worth the time to rebut. I'm generally not in this thread to do that - most of my posts recently have simply been progress reports and opinions on some of the posts made by people who still have open minds and are who are capable of discussing things dispassionately. In this case, my mistake. I should have realised that commenting on a fallacious rebuttal to a meme that works as a joke by using exaggeration would trigger the usual suspect.

I don't pray, but I wish him well.

The point that the cartoon is really making is that the ship was sinking, not what people may have, or may not have said. They were told the ship was sinking, and it did.

I read that transcript as suggesting more cooperation in other areas, rather than dissing the UK presence in the Pacific The only reason that a US Secretary of Defense would have for discouraging a UK presence in that region would be if he felt we'd be stealing military sales from the US as a result. Which obviously we hope ad expect to do.

time for a progress update. I question whether prosecution of this case is in any way in the national interest. the way that the prosecution seems to be combing "the books" to find out all the possible things they think they can charge him with smacks of a pathetic attempt to save face. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57965260

Aha, yes. Very good.

Whilst this is true in a "real" war, hitting any building on that site was plenty for the Iranians. If they hit one set of buildings or another, or even if they scattered things about, it was a demonstration of (some) capability and increased the reputational and actual cost of dealing with them militarily. Also, we don't actually know which buildings they intended to hit. I doubt that they'd tell us that they missed.

There was the big rubber band attached to the back of a Land Rover for throwing smoke grenades. Someone posted a picture, I think. The main problem is how to control the firing pin release such that the operator has time to set himself up for the throw. Pulling the pin as part of the throw seems complex, pulling it before he's set up to throw seems like an invitation to a disaster. As for accuracy, just how accurately d0 people throw grenades over maximum distances in reality anyway?

From that 2019 list, the Type 23s which would have been in normal rotations were all pulled in so that they could get their Sea Ceptor upgrades as soon as possible, so availability went down. This was critical because all the Sea Wolf missiles were getting a bit old, and you only have to look at the last firings of Sea Dart to see how well that works. The Type 45 main power plant is the WR-21, which has turned out to be far from optimal. The intentions were good, but the intercooler design is troublesome. The fuel burn was supposed to be 30% better compared to existing marine GTs, which presumably use the LM2500. With the development of the MT30, it's dead and buried.

With a full crew and air wing on board, much more than half of that will be wages.

The idea was to take a proven underlying design and tailor it. I suggest that vibration and noise issues have very little to do with the equipment fit, they're fundamental to the vehicle and engine combination. As has been noted, it's quite likely that the ASCOD2 platform was selected due to the "Anybody but BAE" mindset in place at the time.

Agreeing with Bojan here - average age of death is just another misleading statistic. If you made it through the infant mortality phase, you would live substantially longer. Nowadays, of course, you don't die of toothache or a burst appendix, or being gored by your dinner, so perhaps some of it balances out.

One wonders what state secrets were involved here. Not that a jury trial would have found a different verdict. As a juror one wouldn't want to foolishly degrade your social credit score.

If only my eye muscles made a significant contribution to my fitness. The eyerolling I'm having to do should really burn more calories.