Britbillsfan

Also in preseason you do not get to wear down the opposing D line (a vital part of a power running game) because not only do you sub your own better players, the D-line also gets to have fresh reserves playing.

Yep, and there a lot of countries that have sod all with which to help, in real terms, whether or not there is any political will to do so from their leaders. I agree 94 countries/organisations is a pretty good number of states sending help.

Jesus comes to a village and confronts a crowd about to stone to death a young woman for suspected adultery. In an attempt to save the woman and prevent a horrific act he steps up and says "Let he without sin cast the first stone" At which point a little old lady at the back hurls a rock, hitting the poor victim, leading to a fusilade of missiles. Jesus then confronts the old lady: "Sometimes you really p%$$ me off, mother!"

94 countries is possibly a little short, since some members of organisations involved (eg: NATO / EU) will send and coordinate their aid via those organisations rather than doing so independently.

Nah, the ratio is five times for journos. Mind you he looks to have a long and fruitful career as a politician if he keeps up his output.

Anyone with a gun, what about those defending their property?

It does not matter. You Americans all pronounce everything wrong, so you should not worry about one more incorrect utterance.

Apart from Bosnia Herzegovina?

Only significant contribution to World Sports...???? Well the French were behind the modern Olympics movement and the (other football) World Cup, the two largest sporting events in the world, so that would count a little way as being contributions to world sport. (BTW - it is fine to hate / dislike / despise the French if you want, but they have had some influence in world sports. (Did not stop Paris not getting the Olympics though )

Well there are more, some reported here in the UK press, others are almost certainly unreported. The Shias, especially, should not be too hot about suicide bombers since they are the current main target for these swine. Besides when was th elasttime you went to a mosque to hear a sermon? We hear about the pro-terrorist scum because their views are so shocking and evil and hence 'newsworthy'. Condemnation is less worthy of news coverage because it is judged to be expected of responsible individuals. There is a sense of denial in the Islamic community, IMO, brought about by total disbelief in whatever the 'West' says (ie: If the west says there are islamic terrorists blowing up innocents then it CAN'T be true).

With run blocking results tend to improve as the game progresses as the O-linemen wear down the D-line. With pre-season you don't see this due to the mass of substitutions as the coaches of both lines like to see how their reserves look. Without seeing them all play a full game it is hard to make any real conclusions at this point. Can not say there is no problem, but it is not something that realy can be shown as a major problem at this stage of pre-season.

With an experienced crappy QB this team managed to reach the heights of 9-7. A second year QB could not do much worse - of those wins and losses how many of each could you look as being heavily influenced by Bledsoe's skill sets?

I have seen at least one prominent Iraqi cleric say this recently, of course being a Shia the Sunni AQ-type terrorists would consider him to be a legitimate target.

Richard Reid, the aircraft 'shoe bomber', was also of part West Indies extraction.

It certainly appears that the Yard blew this big time, and the reports coming out of the enquiry are indicative of a whole slew of mistakes on their part. I will be waiting to see what the report says when it is completed before I make any personal conclusions at his tragic little episode. As far as the Met lying a lot of the 'facts' earlier reported were not sourced from the police but from other eye witnesses interviewed by the media. Eye witness accounts can vary enormously at the same incident describing the same thing and you need a whole load to accurately try to build up a picture of what really happened at an incident, and even then corroborating info is needed as well. The initial police reports were not as free with 'facts' as the press has reported, they confirmed the shooting, how often the victim was shot, why he was followed, and a few other tidbits, most of which appear still to be accurate. As for racial profiling. This death is nothing to do with that. It appears to do with a breakdown in comms and a series of very unfortunate mistakes and miscommunications (starting with that the guy came out of the building in question (where arrests were made later, BTW) and the police failed to realise, at that moment, that there was more than one residence in that portion of the property. The police officers who fired the shots undoubtedly thought that the guy was a real threat and took the action they did despite knowing they might be rushing to their own death. Racial profiling is not even an issue over here regarding this incident. What people are questioning is the so-called shoot to kill policy regarding terrorists. Of course if you do have a suicide bomber and do not shoot to kill and he blows up a whole crowd of people when the officer did not fire then the criticism will go the other way. No win situation. It is such a wonderful world that these terrorists are creating for us all.

I wondered if this was to be another thread giving stick to the Black Eyed Peas singer when I opened it. That is one ugly mutt. (The one the thread refers to, obviously).

Were big when I was a kid. Got totally ripped off by their manager (alledgedly) who now lives in a big house and they, um, don't (although they soon could be living in The Big House). Was unaware they were still peddling their pre-teen twoddle (their fans were scarey, even way back then), can not be the original line up though. Two of them (lead singer and guitarist) are currently under investigation for supplying cocaine. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4606775.stm

So who will watch to check ????? This sort of thing is not unknown with hetero couples either (ie: getting 'married' for tax breaks).

Based on facts & history, perhaps? It is easier to be a terrorist sympathiser in the UK or US because the French have been more active against radiccal Islamists trying to infiltrate their Muslim community for far longe than either the US and UK and as a result they have a better handle on their situation. The French intelligence services were trying to get the UK and US to be much more stringent in their approach to these deluded and evil freaks for years before 9/11. Now just because Chirac is a pr**k and the French were not going after Saddam because of WMDs/alleged links with AQ/realpolitik/oil/wanting to make arms sales to Saddam/whatever does not make their intelligence agencies incompetant when it comes to cracking down on extremists. The French were the colonial power in much of the Arab world and kept their claws there longer than any other western power so their agencies have a better understanding of and contacts in the Arab world than we do (not to mention a very large Arab Islamic population and strict (& effective) policies to make that population conform to French society).

Yeah, if anyone could light a fire under his arse it would be Krumrie.

Uh, Dublin was marvelously safe. Apart from one nasty attack in the early 70s it was pretty much irrelevant to the campaigns of terror in the north. The only British troops in Eire proper were either guards at the embassey or recruiting officers (more Southern Irish (Catholic and Protestant) serve in the British Army than there have ever been total members of the PIRA). Parts of Belfast were pretty nasty, as were some of the border areas with Eire (Ireland), but far better than Beirut was (after all there was a civil war there and a huge death toll). As to the religion thing. I believe it has a lot more for parts of a community to hold and nurse a grudge that festers into violence rather than anything intrinsicly to do with religious beliefs. The PIRA were certainly not driven by deep Catholic faith, mainly by bigotry, a potent brew.

A lot of segregation historically. If you want to kill a Cathiolic / Protestant just go into their area and shoot someone at random (usually taxi drivers as they are the only ones about late at night when the rats come out to play). True, Belfast has some very nice areas. Many US cities have a murder rate greater than that in the whole of Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and I would not expect entire US cities to be ugly wastelands.

The British Army (not been the Royal Army for quite a while) should not be called an occupation force when the vast majority of the population actively supports it being there and where they are deployed is actually part of their own country. Ironically the initial deployment was to protect the Catholics (who actually cheered them when they arrived) from the Protestant bigots and help them to get their rights. (Similar to troops being used in the Deep South to allow blacks to get their rights and help protect them in the early 60s). Unfortunately the IRA was able to stoke up trouble and Bloody Sunday was the rather inevitable result and it all went pear-shaped from their on in.

But yeah, let's compare the IRA to Islamic terrorists...your British friend can go fug himself. 388189[/snapback] Um, considering the Arab terrorists about whom you speak will point to similar incidents in their history whereby the infidel powers (take your pick, but high on the list are the US and UK) have installed regimes that have slaughtered their people, removed their rights, taken their land, stolen their resources then to compare the PIRA to Islamic Terrorists is EXACTLY right. They both use historical injustice to justify criminality and murder, and in the Islamic terrorists case most of the bad history is very recent, not in the mid 18th century or earlier. The history of the UK / Ireland is one of mutual suspicion and hatred. It also has a lot to do with the fact that Ireland was constantly used as a base for the enemies of England (most notably the French and Spanish) to attack her, just as was the case with Scotland. Unsurprisingly the English kings did not appreciate this and there was a lot of mutual blood-letting. The large majority of people of the six counties of Ulster that remain as part of the UK consider themselves to be British. To ignore what they democratically want is wrong. And until a majority in the six counties actually WANT to be part of Ireland rather than the UK who has any right to say different. It is not their fault that they and their recent ancestors happen to have been born there. The reason the province was set up the way it was is due to the enormous sacrifice of the Ulstermen to the allied cause during the Great War and the fact if this was not done the Ulstermen would have gone their own way, still seperate from the rest of Ireland. The slaughter this is quite likely to have caused would be nothing to the civil war following home rule and the pathetic criminals of the PIRA have caused. The Troubles in the counties occurred when the majority of pro-British protestants deliberately messed with the rights of the Catholic minority and a civil rights movement was born, which the PIRA jumped on for their own nefarious goals (these were and are not democratic freedom fighters, but Marxist bigots who wanted to overthrow the Irish government and reunite Ireland under their own rule, not the rule of their people. It is why the IRA AND Sein Fein was totally banned in Eire, whilst the latter was allowed to exist in the UK). Early incompetance of the British military (they were initially cheered by the Catholics when they were sent in) allowed the culture of hate to really take root in the nationalist community. Learning to be a police / peacekeeping force is something that is very hard for an army to do (which is ONE of the reasons why the US military (especially) is not looked on as wonderful liberators in Iraq by a great many Iraqis, the learning curve is a gradual one and the conditions there are worse than those of Ulster but can be boiled down to 25% of the population don't want the coalition there, just like 25% of NI did not want the British there). The history of Ireland is a dreadful stain on the history of my country, but the PIRA have little to do with history, they are racketeers, racists and Marxists who romanticise the history of Ireland and demonise the British for their evil purposes. Just like the Islamic scum of today roomanticise their own history and demonise the infidels to justify their own brand of evil.