N. Knight comments

While clearly (to any rational adult) Trump is a deranged narcissistic rapist lunatic, it is common practise around the world for ruling party members form many countries to meet with opposition leaders in other countries, especially in the year before a general election.

In this case these two odious populist lunatics meeting is particularly bile inducing.

Just got a flashback of Joss Ackland in Lethal Weapon 2

The next US President will not allow Japan to do this.

Trump will indeed stop this or pull it back. And he would be right to do so.

That's very communist.

The owners of a company are not allowed to sell it?

Sounds like China or Russia.

You guys are saying & hoping that Trump will enforce a policy of state control?

but the origin of Iranian extremism is yet again a US instigated coup to remove a democratic socialist, Mossadegh, who wanted to end the exploitation of his nations oil . Replacing him with a murderous, foreign investment friendly Shah.

The Shah was there all along, he was not a replacement.

The coups origins were instigated by Britain and became a partnership project between Churchill & Eisenhower.

To suggest Mosaddegh was an advocate of democracy is a bit of a stretch. And he was already a dictator when he was overthrown.

The overthrow could never have happened if it wasn't for a large proportion of Iranians supporting Britian, plus many of Mosaddegh's own people turning against him as they could see that he had become a nutcase dictator.

If you think that Iran would not have gone down the same path even sooner without the coup, then I think you're mistaken.

You're correct though that the Shah who reclaimed his power was most definitely "murderous, foreign investment friendly".

What about the people that WORK there, any of THEM been asked?

Why should they be asked,? They don't own the company.

If I want to sell my house I not planning on getting permission from my gardeners and house staff.

...and his blind worshippers would praise him for it.

Good. Screw Putin. Screw Russia.

@JJE: Trump will shoot this down - watch.

Trump will go in whatever direction pays him money. He would authorise the sale to the Chinese or the Russians if it was financially beneficial to him.

Well yes, there are cases like that but being confrontational when stopped will not help. It is always best to remain polite with the police

Very true. It's called being pragmatic.

I think one of the legs has fallen off that table and the other three are looking a bit wobbly

Big man hug with some of my pals. Bahamian handshake with others. Slight now with some business acquaintances. European kisses on both cheeks for some female friends.

A peace treaty with that insane Russian maniac would not be worth the paper it is written on.

Boom! Japanese GP & all the pressure that comes with it, and Yuki is in the points, stuffs every other car in his class and one car that is better (albeit with a substandard driver).

Yuki's talent definitely deserves a better drive.

Get real, please.

He's an excellent driver. He's making Riccardo look like a smiley grandma on a Sunday outing so far this season. It's not his fault he's driving a sh*tbox. The temper tantrums are not new for any driver on the grid. Shows he has some fire in his belly. Good lad.

Kimmel is for the most part correct.

The USA is an utter dump compared with Japan.

In our part of Hyogo we have to use lockable bins to stop the crows and wild boar getting to the wet trash.

They must have a great sense of smell because garden waste bags we put out (not in bins), never get touched.

Didn't back then (so voted no) but certainly did shortly after. Having to "ditch the gash" in the ocean when I was a young seaman just days out of my teens was immediately repugnant to me. Made a bit of a stink about it to the RN higher ups, but not sure they listened to me. I'm sure that was stopped a long time ago. Things are improving despite the mad conspiracy climate deniers not caring about trashing the planet.

It’s ludicrous that some people think the US is a Christian nation and

Its Christian fundamentalist nowadays. Not much difference from the Taliban. And they all think that orange bag of excrement is their Messiah come back to save them.

What a charlatan. A bunko artist and a snake oil salesman. So obvious to see.

However the toothless rednecks, the religious zealots, criminals, despots and the clinically insane worship him en masse.

Just hoping and praying that the Woolwich Scum will collapse like a cheap tent as usual. 10 points seperate the top 5

Come on. If you knock a support out from under an arch bridge like that it will collapse.

Yes

That bridge was made in the 1970s, when container ships were smaller. But with the huge size of that container ship at that speed, even bridges made today may not withstand that head-on collision

Correct. I wonder if it would have been able to handle the impact of the 70's container ship either.

People who think a bridge should somehow not collapse when one of its pillars have been taken out are only proving that they aren’t intelligent enough to grasp what they don’t know.

Yea. I don't think anyone here is suggesting that.

As the size of the ships greatly increased the safety of the bridge should also have been increased.

Yes. Quite right.

I don't think any bridge is designed to receive a skyscraper traveling at speed toward one of its supports.

True. But mitigating defenses are often in place and other bridge designs would not result in totally catastrophic failure.

It was a 150,000 ton ship that hit the bridge. When that bridge was built a really really big container ship was maybe 40,000-50,000 tons.

True. But a 40,000 GRT vessel would likely have taken it out too. However steerage & using anchors to arrest way would likely be more effective under the same circumstances.

And they aren't going to build islands out over such a wide waterway

Correct as you have written this, but you don't understand the concept.

Keep assuming your country's bridges are better.

Silly comment. US Citizen (as well as UK). Bridges are better both in US and around the world. This particular bridge design is totally catastrophic from one single point of failure as you could see from the videos. Other bridges are designed not to be totally catastophic.

...increasingly poor training and pay of the people who command them.

Not correct. Training, standards & regulations are constantly evolving and improving. Pay is generally not an issue.

There is no excuse for a ship hitting a bridge.

In itself this statement is true in an ideal world. Taken in relation to your comment about poor standards of people who command these ships, I'm not sure what anyone onboard could have done in that moment with a VL vessel underway & making way, losing its powerplant and with that weight and momentum.

There must be frantic hand wringing at some of the P&I clubs .

The port should have used tugs to take the container ships beyond the bridge.

Shipmate, I'm not sure they have enough tugs to run all the VL marine traffic going in an out of the port of Baltimore. It's at least 2 miles to the nearest terminals and maybe 4 to 5 miles to others.

For each VL vessel 4 or 5 tugs would be tied up for 3 or 4 hours. There's a lots of big ships in and out of there.

I was shocked that a ship, even this size, could take out a bridge-supporting pillar.

The bridge went down like a house of cards. Horrible and very shocking. Mad that on such a fragile structure (totally catastrophic with only one point of failure) there were no grounding islands either sides of the main supporting pillars. I would have thought this would be just common sense with this type of construction.

And 95% of Japanese people disagree with you.

Source?

“Marriage” carries with it a set of male-female vocabulary

No it doesn't

Rules against smoking are an affront to personal freedom, what a person does is no ones business but their own, government regulations dictating what a person can or cannot do is totalitarianism, and people have been conditioned into blindly accepting mandates from authoritarians.

I don't buy this freedom/privacy argument for one minute. We live in a society. Smokers and their elevated related medical conditions are an unfair burden on the medical system (i.e. everyone)

So no, it's not an affront to their personal freedom and it's not their own business.

Their life style choice is an affront to others waiting in line for medical treatment plus an affront to the medical system, and therefore becomes the business of everyone who pays into that system.

All because smokers are inflicting unnecessary harm on themselves and constantly whining that they are all being persecuted.

Good!