Religion is the complete opposite, it’s ‘here’s the rules, do as your told, don’t ask questions’.

No, that is your belief of religion; with only churches obsessed with medieval dogma as a reference point.

Lookup Shelby Spong:

“Atonement theology assumes that we were created in some kind of original perfection. We now know that life has emerged from a single cell that evolved into self-conscious complexity over billions of years. There was no original perfection. If there was no original perfection, then there could never have been a fall from perfection. If there was no fall, then there is no such thing as “original sin” and thus no need for the waters of baptism to wash our sins away. If there was no fall into sin, then there is also no need to be rescued. How can one be rescued from a fall that never happened? How can one be restored to a status of perfection that he or she never possessed? So most of our Christology today is bankrupt. Many popular titles that we have applied to Jesus, such as “savior,” “redeemer,” and “rescuer,” no longer make sense, because they assume”
? John Shelby Spong,

@saxonrider Do you believe Christians such as Shelby Spong are Christians or heretics?

@convert, ta, I had no idea, the other half looks after that contract.

Odd, in my house we each have a Netflix profile and can watch more than 2 things at once when needed. Do they have cheap reduced service contracts now?

Looks like a Third Reich Eagle on one of them – you’ve found Goring’s shoe horn…

If you get stuck just go and get some bar work in a rough part of town. You’ll learn how to deal with drunk idiots. Best training for a one-pip-wonder on his first Friday night as duty officer 😀

FWIW, last time I looked (10+ years now) semi-auto air rifles (that’s the 16J or 12 ftlb) were not available on the UK market. No specific legislation to prevent it, but manufacturers didn’t want them home-modified to full auto. Only SA available are .22lr I think.

I think you are correct, there are some self-loading/double action air-rifles on the market but as far as I know they are co2 powered and are all sub 4 ftlb. There are plenty of multi-shot PCP’s and gamo have a springer, but all require manual re-cocking after each shot.

You all know an airsoft bb gun is a gateway gun, skip that and get the lad shooting proper air-pistols properly 8)

steel 4.5mm bb’s or 6mm plastic airsoft bb’s is definitely the first bit to work out.

Some co2 pistols are available in either but as pointed out there are now some weird laws that cover air-soft. I think only if the power is less than 1 joule – which means it is an imitation firearm and not a real firearm – at which point the odd colours or air-soft membership comes into play… IANAL

Just remember if your lad is under 18 you need to make sure you know and follow the law correctly. The days of letting a 12 year old roam around with an air-weapon unsupervised are long gone. If you are in Scotland there are also additional license requirements as well.

There’s some good guidance here for air-weapons: https://basc.org.uk/firearms/airgun-guidance-and-fact-sheets/

…and my recommendation is to look at a Swiss Arms 1911 – the co2 and bb’s all get loaded into a magazine (buy an extra one) and the pistol works in a realistic fashion with blow-back etc. Great fun for knocking down cans and feeling like James Bond. I recommend safety specs with steel bb’s though, they can bounce around more than lead pellets.

If he wants to shoot proper targets then look for a pistol that fires pellets – a HW45 for a traditional spring powered gun or a Umarex Beretta 92FS for a Co2 powered gun that looks realistic but doesn’t quite work that way.

If you live anywhere near Berkhamstead there is a shop there with pistol & rifle ranges where you can hire Co2 bb pistols or even a PCP rifle. https://www.ronniesunshines.com/

I prefer this edit of it:

Install this on the imac to remote desktop to the surface.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-remote-desktop-8-0/id715768417?mt=12

My parents arrive later today…

…My wife has just finished watching Motherland (BBC iplayer) and is convinced her life matches – down to the husband always away ‘team building’ and the parents-in-law that do almost nothing except drink tea and say the wrong thing 😆

I’ve stocked up on Yorkshires finest.

‘Do you agree that representative democracy is the best way of making macro-level decisions’.

I’ve just found who would be up aganst the wall first 😆

It feels like it was put together by American sixth form students.

I’m under Social Libralism, and yet I’d be happy to put most of you up aganst the wall if push came to shove 😆

I had a Pro Elite when I was hunting. Amazing accuracy for a springer, was heavy though..

Yes, but I bet you didn’t chip your nail polish on the under-lever 😉

Conn Iggulden

I was thinking I’d never read any books by this author, but a quick scan of my book shelf proves me wrong. I have a couple of Emperor series books, I did like them, I will buy more…

…after I have actually read the Bernard Cornwell books that I keep buying when on sale, but never getting around to read!

Coke and hookers surely?

Nope…

AA TX200’s and ProSports are probably some of the best sping powered guns there are – I own a .177 Mk2 TX200 🙂

The HW97 is probably the only other springer I would settle for.

Having said that when it came to bunny-bashing I would bag one bunny with the TX200 and the rest would go to ground. Once I got a silenced pre-charged with bipod and 10 round mag I could get 5 or 6 before the rest knew anything was up.

I miss hunting, it must be 10 or 11 years since I last went.

OP’s local estate…

Become a binman – they only work once a week 😆

I just finihed the Fifth Season trilogy by N.K.Jemisin. It took a little bit of effort to get into the 2nd person style of writing that most of the chapters used but was ace.

Hamilton Dreaming Void series was also excellent and is set in the same universe as some of his other series (but not the Dawn Triloigy).

S.A. Corey is all good, I just need to read the next one.

Neal Asher’s stuff is also good.

The Long Earth series (Pratchett & Baxter) is worth reading. If you like the video games you have to read Ernest Clines books, simply amazing.

I like books 😀

If you think that borrowing money against a depreciating asset vs. one that has a track record of always increasing. I agree it would seem a bit mad; however since some people seem happy to perpetually pay £350+ a month on a car I suppose it makes sense to them – either that or the mortgage is paid off and they see no reason to move or add to the pension pot.

Useful for Britain – we’ll be able to fly our planes (when we have any) off their carriers – not so useful for France. Unless supply of aircraft is an issue, in which case I suppose it’s the other way round.

Or… more sensibly deployments will be coordinated so that at least one of the CdG, PoW or QE are availble to support operations. The RAF have been providing heavy lift for French operations for a while now.

the Rafale (the French maritime jet) is cats and traps only, there is no STOVL variant. There’s lots more to the operation of useful air power off a carrier than how many jets you’ve got and how sexy they are. There are pros and cons to every approach. I believe the Admiral Kuznetsov is quite compromised by its short deck, so despite being cat and trap equipped, the jets’ load has to be low to enable them to get off the deck!

The French carrier was plagued by teething problems, and in many ways has too many comprises: It is nuclear powered – but uses a smaller submarine reactor. It has catapults but they had to be chopped down to fit.

So the French have catapults and arrestor gear but can’t launch fully loaded aircraft or recover at the same time as launching. The Russians use ski-jumps instead of catapults and their aircraft have to launch with even less. The only way to get the capability the US supercarriers have is to build a super carrier. Even at 65,000 tons the QE is too small to be fitted with catapults and be as effective as the Ford. Compromises have to be found and given the RN’s past 30 year history of STOVL the chosen compromise seems sensible.

I’m interested to see if the proposed short rolling landing instead of vertical landing works out as expected. Being able to land with more unused stores and less stress on the airframe and deck would be a big win.

as Piers Morgan, Jeremy Clarkson, Michael Gove and Nicky Campbell are strapped into a fully fuelled Harrier…

Are you planning on fitting it with some of these?

Point of order – I believe that the Vanguard class subs are capable of launching cruise missiles through their torpedo tubes so technically could be of some use outside of nuclear warfare.

I would be amazed if the Defnce Chiefs allowed the bombers to be used for any strike role other than what they were intended for. For one thing nothing shouts “cooeee, I’m over here” than launching a bunch of TLAM’s.

If that kind of thinking breaks out in Whitehall we might as well not bother going through the expense of building the new Dreadnought class and just build another 7 Astute class subs – which day-to-day are far more useful.

Personally, I think the MOD should remove the nuclear bomber subs and their weaponry from the defence budget and fund them differently. They are political pieces – the kings on the chess board. If you actually have to use them, you have probably already lost.

Really can’t see our millennials going for that.

Well, in the danger of further thread drift it depends if they feel they have a choice or not. For those on Putins doorstep they might feel that the risk is valid, for those that feel sheilded by geography, NATO or just have no awareness that not all countries see things the same way, they won’t.

For all the talk of millenials, the youngsters who served in Iraq and Afgan handled themselves well – which is more than can be said for the poltical class that has (mostly) never worn uniform which sent them there.

I suspect that we are pretty much already pouring treasure into fighting the Russians, just not in this realm. I would be even less surpised if a few negative comments on this thread came from a MTB’er who’s usual trails are close to St Petersberg 😀

(remember, the entire personnel strength of the army, air force and navy combined has fallen to around 80,000),

It’s fallen, it’s not quite that bad – the regular army is supposed to be 80,000 + approx 30,000 reserves. The RAF is around 33,000 and the RN a little less, plus reserves for both. Tiny compared to what they were when the Cold War ended.

Good PSA, thanks!

A few observations from various books on Cold War and fast jets;

Generally speaking, it is safer for the jet to stop, and then land than land and then stop. Arrestor wires are not infailable – at times the 1970’s HMS Ark Royal was down to just one. The chances of a missed wire were high, accident rates in the 50’s and 60’s were horrendous. Read Phoenix Squadron

The F35B might not be a dog-fighter or the fastest jet with the longest range out there. You don’t have to win top trumps to be the best, technology plays a part as does crew training – it’s more that the sum of it’s parts. Read:

Sea Harrier Over The Falklands

&

Tornado F3, Britains Last Interceptor

Furthermore, read about the Israeli campaign against the Syrian air-defences and air-force in 1982. Despite being provided with decent Soviet air defences and aircraft the Syrians lost 86 aircraft, the Israelis none. Mole Cricket 19

The carriers and F35B should become a winning combination. The greater risk is the government not funding crew training or kit properly rather than the technology not performing.

have protected no claims, so realistically just the excess to pay.

I hate to break it to you that despite this, next years premium may well still rise due to the claim. It sucks.

When it happened to me I was lucky enough to get a partial plate. The police were able to find the lad who did it – he was driving a car he had bought the day before, but had no insurance.

Whoever gets there first and develops the technology to Helium 3 in industrial quantities holds the key to making a fortune in the latter half of the century and beyond.

I for one will welcome our new cheese-eating, nazi-killing overlords.

😀

There is some proper daft talk in this thread.

There are no Nazi’s on the moon, the aliens probably killed them all – and then warned NASA off.

Here this will help – and don’t reply with your jpg artefact evidence;

It’s usually Jira or Visual Studio Online/VSTS at work depending on the team. I use https://kanbanflow.com/pricing if I just need a simple board and want to get going quickly. It’s free for basic stuff or $5 per user per month for extra features – swimlanes, CFD’s, file imports/exports etc.

Provided they are not really old DRM protected ones this will do the job:

https://www.freac.org/

My instinctive response as a dad is exactly what robbo has said.

Anything like my daughter and it’s;

Anything Minecraft,
Radio controlled drones/helicopters,
Books on creepy crawlies & big cats,
Nerf,
Bop-it,
Chess set,
technic lego – to build wih me obviously 🙂

Shopkins and obvious girly tat is a no no.

I quite like military style jackets, what I dislike are the military or pseudo-military rank badges and unit flashes.

Maybe it’s just me…

Hodgynd is Donald Trump and I claim my £5.

Click the link, I dare you

😆

Isn’t there a phrase in the aviation world, something like “it’ll be easier to stuff wet spaghetti up a wildcat’s arse”.

If so I think it might apply here 😀

@Ton Have you tried a healing egg?

Ebay – healing crystal egg

Some folk swear by them 😉