pmccarthy

Louis Strange wrote about responsibility after WW1: Many of the things I learnt will apply in the next war, for in some few thousand respects the science of navigating the air is as immutable as that of navigating the sea. As pilot of a machine you are responsible for that machine all the time, and it is always your fault if you crash it in a forced landing occasioned by any failure, structural or otherwise, of the machine or its engine. It is your fault if in thick weather you hit the top of any hill that has its correct height shown on your map, for the worst offence you can commit is to lose your way across country. Therefore until altimeters are more reliable, always give them a good margin on the right side, and never fly above clouds without two of them on your machine, in addition to making sure that you know the exact height above sea level of the aerodrome from which you take off. In war it is entirely your own fault if you run out of petrol when coming home against a head wind after a four or five hours’ reconnaissance, or if you fail to come down on the right spot after a couple of hours cloud flying. It is your own fault if enemy aircraft spot you first, and it is likewise your own fault if after spotting a hostile machine you get shot up by another formation streaking down from out of the sun just when you have your opposite number nicely sighted. It is, furthermore, your fault if you allow your Squadron to drift too far down wind in a dogfight and leave its machines with no margin of petrol for emergencies when they have to fight their way home again. It is your fault if you have nowhere to make a landing when the engine fails just after you have taken off; in the event of a forced landing your machine is a glider that should take you down safely on any possible landing place. It is your fault—well, it is a golden rule to assume that whatever goes wrong, is your fault. You may save yourself a lot of trouble if you act accordingly.

Check that the lock is primed and the load is in place. Hence the order “lock and load”.

No, I just realised how you were thinking!

Eighteen

I forget that I brought a list.

Six.

Katherine Hepburn?

I was going to have a try but I couldn’t face it.

Its a 1976 Dolomite. Next time I will try a Porsche!

We skidded around on clay pans when I was young. It was an excellent way to learn how to manage skids and spin outs.

I am rebuilding a Triumph car at the moment, will never get my money back. I just enjoy the challenge.

The Israelis are doing a great job. I hope they see it through.

I owe my existence to at least three factors: the availability of transportation as an alternative to execution an inherited ability to survive without potatoes a random ability to avoid exploding shells for several years

Yes. that looks good!

I was watching European rally crashes on YouTube. Most entertaining, particularly when those young people run out onto the track and tip them up again. Why don’t we have car rallies like that in Australia, I would go and watch. Or perhaps we do, but I have not heard of them.

I'm not sure about the English and Welsh laws valuing life. Up to the late 18th century people were still being executed for small thefts, there was a long list of capital crimes. Transportation was the alternative when available.

Depends whether you want to win and survive. The allies would not have won WW2 without destroying much of the industrial capacity of Germany, with tremendous civilian collateral damage. Ditto Japan and the atomic bombs. It is Putin's policy too, he knows what he thinks has to be done in Ukraine. The Israelis know it too, they are certainly no worse than these examples. Placing a high value on human life is a recent, possibly Western, construct. It is part of the Christian faith, but Christians have always been at the forefront of execution, torture and mass slaughter. We in Australia have the great luxury of having destroyed a majority of the previous inhabitants a long time ago, without subsequent wars on our soil. Most countries have more recent experience of war, famine and death.

I think the Israelis have about got it right.

Don't you hate it when you see used conundrums lying around in the grass?

For much of history human life has had little value. Enemies were killed in the most painful and prolonged ways. This was true for a thousand years in Constantinople, in Tudor England, in Spain during the Inquisition, and at other times and places too numerous to mention. In times of war, the policy was often for the victors to kill men, women and children, or sell them into slavery, then destroy the cities and sow salt into their fields. Pogroms in recent times, and genocides, show us that many societies have not valued human life outside their own tribe. Why do you think that our view is right and the weight of human history is wrong? If Stalin or Hitler had prevailed against the West, what would we believe today? What will our children believe in future, if our way of life falls to the Middle Eastern radicals or to Putin's schemes?

Not a single death has ever been prevented. Only postponed.

In various threads here we have vigorous discussion about car safety systems, rules of warfare and so on. Most are based on the modern idea that human lives are valuable and must be protected at great monetary and social cost. Any analysis of history before recent decades shows this was not true. Wars wasted millions of lives. Cars without complex safety systems caused more deaths. Miners died underground. People lived in cheap uninsulated houses. The current cosseted generations expect their lives to be cotton wool protected. It is nonsense. Life was better when I could drive a VW beetle, have a few beers at a pub on Sunday before driving home, enjoy cracker night, afford an asbestos house. All the expense and constraint of the modern world do not stop people dying - there is only one way out of this world.

Grape, gripe, rape, ripe, let’s call the whole thing off.

Carbide followed by a match will do it too.

When we had dead mice in the tank, the change in taste was so slow that we didn’t notice. It was only when visitors complained that we realised.