Ade

Careful there... Under your current Commander in Chief's rules of enguagement you're gonna make the US out to a be: "a regime that has built such terrible weapons and has used them to kill thousands; a brutal regime with a history of both reckless ambition and reckless miscalculation." (from Bush's Statement On Iraq Measure Nov. 8, 2002) Someone might decide to nuke DC before things get out of hand.

Go for it DFA... But strap a plank to your ass first, you might never see daylight again otherwise.

Looks like they just made a great start on your astoundingly simple plan: 'Many dead' in Baghdad blast Worked real well in Vietnam didn't it? Really got the local people on your side. I thought it was Operation Iraqi Freedom, not Operation Iraqi Genocide. And what about the Geneva Convention Donald seems suddenly so fond of?

That's the trouble with this war... The quality of quotes has just gone right down. "The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we had war-gamed against," says Lieutenant General William Wallace One senior administration official put it this way: "'Shock and Awe' is Air Force bull---!" "Our force package is very light," said a retired senior general Philly.com

I'm confused "Al Jazeera is an (Arab jihad) psych-ops tool" and Voice of America isn't? How about Fox News? Seems to me like the only difference is your point of view. I particularly liked "It’s Time US Realized Wars Are Not Video Games" in the Arab News. Why does CNN cover the war like it was covering a football game?

That stuff Polish climbers eat... doesn't really narrow it down that much. I mean all you've really ruled out there is other climbers (probably) Could be Halva. The CIS climbers used to be very keen on smoked pig fat; like a really big bit of bacon rind at least an inch thick. All I can say is it just shows how anything can taste good if your hungry.

You should think of it in terms of $50m for a whole evening's worth of marginally higher quality reality TV. $50m divided by 250m viewers; the whole thing cost you less than a quarter. Of course the producers of Survivor are probably gonna get killed by the ratings, the first casualty of war is... oh I forget but whoever it was probably would have got eliminated in the next immunity challenge anyways.

Custom Boot in Ballard.

I used to run around Boston, which is completely flat, and then run up and down the fire escape in one of the big hotels (the ground floor fire escape doors are exit only but you can usually get in on the 2nd or 3rd). This is hard work and very boring - ideal training for alpine climbing.

It's actually pretty passable if you use 5 minute rice and not pudding rice which reduces the cooking time to something reasonable. Another option is pasta with milk and sugar, same advantages also quicker cooking time (favoured by some Poles I met once). I'm a big fan of custard powder too. Make up and then add more sugar and pasta for added carbs.

People will probably try and kick your ass over it. It really scratches up the rock.

From memory the article I found pretty much said the same thing, it could be considered "aid" and is of debatable worth for most forms of climbing.

"Performance-enhancing drugs and climbing" AAJ 2001, p163-167, this has a bunch of references at the end. There was also an article in either R&I or Climbing about a year back on Creatine, but I can't find the issue. The picture is Vinny Jones, Actor (Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) and Soccer player (Wimbldon, defenser)

I have Eberle's book and "Nutrition for Serious Athletes" by Dan Benardot. Both of which I thought were pretty good and easy to read without being too simple. Interestingly neither are very big on nutrition suppliments, it's mostly about what to eat or in a lot of cases what not to eat.

Fowler is actually sponsoered by TNF, or he certainly was a few years back, although he does have a full time job, wife kids, yadda yadda yadda. Pierre Beghin was another climber with a "real" job/life, there's quite a few of them but as you point out their incentive to run around shouting about it is somewhat less.

Shame... My subscription seems to have lapsed. It wouldn't be so bad if on top of recycling the same magazine material they weren't also getting lots of material from books etc. The "Climbing Reprint Service".

Yeah, the insulation makes life better but if it gets cold enough the tube will always freeze. I've never had much luck blowing the water out of the tube, it always seems to work it's way back in and freeze up.

Are there any pictures or footage of slide in action?

Yep. Most excellent troll. Your ability to talk shite far surpasses mine. Well done.

As you don't seem to be bothered to read half of what's written here we're done. Suggest you carry on, you can get one of your Avatars to talk back to you.

You got me there. Of course, James Bond has always been played by an American.... Actually, expatriate POMs, the lot of them George Lazenby was an Aussie (who also now lives in the US).

Good Ray. Excellent. These are the similar to the numbers I used (they're from the internet so I try and get at least two corroborating sources). You're missing some countries to some up with the 40+million Allied troops. France, 5m for instance I think, and the 40m doesn't include Germany and Japan (they weren't fighting for the Allies). As I must have said at least four times the Allies were over a dozen countries, including the UK and the USA. It's not about the USA winning the war and the UK couldn't have defeated the Axis without the Allies. If you want to make it about numbers I think you'll find the USSR comes out ahead on troops committed, casualties and finacial loss all told. And of course overall possession as they made it to Berlin on their own whereas the advance from the West (I'll say it again) was a team effort. But that would be like a football game... not a global conflict.

What is really boils down to is that you've just run out of insults, so you're just recycling the same one. I thought you'd at least start on the Queen. You keep promising and I'm so waiting to hear what you don't know about the Royal Family. I'm hoping less than you don't know about the 20th Century. Smaller subject so I'm optimistic. I'm not thanking you for something that took place over thirty years before you were born, where did you read that? Same place you learnt how it really "went down"? Hollywood? The Wizard of Oz? Geez and there you go again. Did you read that CNN article? Obviously not. Too many numbers and big words? The US didn't fund the Iraqi War, it got paid for it, mainly by the Gulf States: "The U.S. Department of Defense has estimated the cost of the Gulf War at $61 billion; however, other sources say that number could be as high as $71 billion. The operation was financed by more than $53 billion pledged by countries around the world, most of which came from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States ($36 billion) and Germany and Japan ($16 billion). " It's not British (capital 'B') history it's World history. Can anyone recommend a big picture book of 20th Century World History for Ray?

You're recycling the same old insults and still not getting your history right. This is troubling... You weren't supposed to take it literally. The point is there were more than a dozen nations fighting the Axis powers. They collectively defeated the Axis, the US peak mobilization was 12.5m out of a total of well over 40m Allied troops, so it's not like nobody else turned up to help the US win. But as it happens... There were Polish airmen fighting in the Battle of Britain (the battle for air superiority that was part of the buildup to operation Sealion). One in eight pilots were Polish as many Polish airmen escaped the fall of Poland, and accounted for nearly 20% of the Luftwaffe's total losses. Where we the Russians? Fighting off 120 German divisions on the Russian Front from June 22nd onwards. In case you'd forgotten it's possible to be fighting the same war on the same side without all being in the same place. Supplies from the UK to the Russians were sent by convoy protected by the Royal Navy. You know it's called strategy, you help your allies who help you, in this case by keeping lots of enemy units enguaged so they can't be elsewhere. By the way, you might like to read up on the North Africa Campaign, it's not like the whole British armed forces were just sitting on an island waiting for you to turn up. Unfortunately... wrong again. They did. FDR and the US did not recognise the DeGaulle and the French National Committee until July 1942, DeGaulle himself was not recognised as the French Head of State by the US until August 1944. Churchill also had reservations about the DeGaulle but managed to make up his mind by mid 1940. Wrong again... he has a US passport. And he's arrogant? Last time I saw him he didn't waive his right to be personally thanked for th defeat of Germany in WW2. Thanks for passing on WW1 by the way, super nice of you. Your insults aren't improving. Desert Storm, I'm so glad you brought that up. Bit snide of you though. Again the allied force consisted of 34 different nations, you seem to have managed to forget the other 32. Like a lot of other countries we sent troops, the 1st Armoured Division and supporting units. Sure the US sent more but as you may have noticed when you look at a map (hint: the US is the really large country near the top left the UK is the really small island somewhere in the middle) the US is quite a bit bigger. Most nations lost soldiers during the battle to free Kuwait. Oddly enough Britain lost 24, nine of whom seem to have been killed by US fire. Bit over zealous if you ask me, pretty lucky we didn't send any more troops for you to shoot. Still you've got Canadians instead now. But we all know friendly fire is a fact of warfare, if you weren't being such a complete idiot I wouldn't have mentioned it, best forgotten if you ask me. I know you're going to think I made this up so here's the link Colonialism is a completely separate issue, I'd be happy to discuss it with you. I'm not fan of colonialism or imperialist expansionism, so don't expect me to defend it, although I might add some more historical insight. Perhaps you'd like to consider it in the context of invading a foreign country to "liberate" it when it just so happens to have a lot of say... oil. No, the country in question is not Iraq, try again. By the way Britain as a capital 'B'. Seems like you need some help picking a good history book too. I would try to get one written from more than one country's perspective, unless you're interested in history prior to the invention of sea travel. Of the history of some chronically isolationist country, but let's not go there. It'll give you a more global perspective which seems to be lacking. No way am I going back to the UK. I LIKE it here, lots of mountains and most of the people are pretty friendly too (boy I could sure use that hug). And let's be honest you're not really saying "if you don't like it go home" you're really saying "I don't like what you have to say, don't say it where I have to listen", which is a bit different. Besides, seems like you need a bit of help. Maybe if there's no more software to write I'll teach history instead, no shortage of jobs I bet.

Like the original statement I tried to add some historical background too this is another really gross oversimplification. Did your mother send you to school with some sort of note "Ray can't do history today, he has a cold", every day, for ten years? Whatever happened to the Allies defeating the Axis? The "Allies" that's the USA and... oh yeah, some other guys. Now who might they be? Whatever happened to the Free French, whom the US Government didn't even recognise as the true French authority until 41, prefering to consider the Vichy Government as ligitimate. Whatever happened to the 8,000,000 Russians who died fighting the Nazis, count them eight million, I guess they're communists so their views and lives don't count. Or the half million Poles (I can't think of a reason you might discount them, you'll have to help me out). Whatever happened to all the other Nations that fought the Japanese? Or were they just spoilers who barged in on your war and weren't really helping out? No one ever said that the US wasn't vital to the war or that the Marshall Plan (look it up) didn't ensure the long term stability of Europe. Nobody ever said it wasn't a great thing that American chose to enter the war. This really is a waste of time isn't it? To put it in terms you might understand Ray. "You sound just like some fifteen year old prick on a football team who announces afterwards that "he" won the match. Like none of his team mates counted." Is that better? Was that easier to understand? Glad to see you're not asking for any personal thanks. Really big of you to let me off the hook on that one. Do I get a pass on WW1 too? Do yourself a really big favour and buy a history book, and a dictionary for those big words, and read them. Then maybe you'll realise that your version of the "plain truth" is a bit more complex than you care to make out. Which was the only point I was trying to make in the first place.