Pyxis

Japan's navy is twice as big as the Royal Navy. They have the 2nd most powerful navy in the world after the US. They have also started to build up their amphibious assault capability, despite what their constitution says. Self defence ships to not look like this: They are building three of them and they are officially called destroyers, but are obviously helicopter assault carriers. Their air force isn't bad either.. They have F-15s, F-16s/F-2s and want to buy the F-22 if the Americans will let them, which beats the socks off any other fighter out there. If they can't get it, they'll probably be going for the Eurofighter or F-35. Germany's force projection is really poor.. They have a big army, but it can't go anywhere, unless they have plans to invade France again. Russia's military is a joke and the welfare of their conscripts is even worse: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/13/russian-soldiers-sold-for-sex/

or saw 10 char

2046 Hmm, very confused about the storyline and what was going on.. I need to watch this again in order to fully understand it. Its about a guy in 1966 writing a book about 2046 to express his experiences of love and sex during his stay at room 2046 in a hotel... *scratches his head* People go to 2046 in order to relive past memories and nobody ever comes back, but he did. In his book, there is a train in the future that travels there. I think he was trying to relive/recapture the love that he lost in the past by having flings and relationships with other women while staying at this hotel... In the end, I think he abandoned whatever he was trying to get from those experiences and thus left 2046 to live a life with no future or direction due to some sort of realisation that I can't yet comprehend. 9.5/10

Conscription is a bad idea and it is pointless. Our military exists to defend our country, not to babysit young offenders. Some countries might still have conscription, but they are all either 3rd world countries or have totally useless armies that can't project force outside of their own borders. Map of countries with conscription: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Conscription_map_of_the_world.svg The finest armed forces really stand out, like the US, Japan and India. Anyway, Danny, you do complain a hell of a lot about the groups of people you despise! It's fine to think that you are better than these groups, but it is like you are bragging about it and taking pleasure in complaining about them, like a snob. I don't think many people would disagree that chavs and benefit cheats are scum, but I think people are going to act adversely to what you say sometimes because of the inherent snobbery and self righteousness of it all. It is easy to complain about things, but it is a lot harder to think of workable solutions to society's problems without making a mess of it all. Opposition parties have an easy time complaining about this and promising that, without having the actual responsibility that the ruling party has. All politicians are scum and I wouldn't have faith in any of them. Politicians are like gold diggers and only care about votes and their own careers. Prisoners definitely get treated too well these days. When I worked for Gameplay, we did a lot of business with prisons. The funny thing was that they weren't allowed any console that could go online, so were limited mainly to playing on the GameCube due to the staffs' ignorance about connectivity! haha, there was still reason to feel sorry for them.. It's probably changed now and I can't see why they wouldn't be allowed to have Xbox 360s.

To be fair, all that talk of record investment goes hand in hand with our huge public spending deficit. The amount that we have to spend each year servicing our national debt is set to hit £63 billion a year... That is more than we are spending on education and transport. That is 63 billion pounds of our tax money vanishing into thin air every year! This level of debt will have the same effect on us that it had on all of those African countries that went tits up because of their debt repayments. They couldn't invest in their economies because they had to spend all of their money servicing debt and this made their economies worse and worse every year, meaning that the amount of tax revenue decreased year on year, increasing the need to borrow even more. A lot of government spending (like on the NHS) is wasteful and a substantial investment of money doesn't necessarily equate to a substantial increase in performance due to inefficiencies and resources being wasted.

Sounds like an attempt to boost ratings by manipulating peoples' emotions.

Grave of the Fireflies I've owned this film for almost 2 years, but I've never brought myself to watch it until a few days ago. I kind of like Japanese doom and gloom films (Tokyo Sonata and a Homeless Student were great), so this one was quite enjoyable. 9/10

Blu-ray players are way too expensive at the moment and so are the discs. If I am making a mass purchase on Yes Asia for TV series and films (I usually spend around £80 each time), I can get several films for the price of a single Blu-ray disc, so it's just not worth it at the moment. I would love to get a few nature and travel documentaries in HD though. I made my DVD player region free, but I'm not sure how easy that is to do with a Blu-ray player. Region free players are really expensive and there is no way that I am dishing out £400 for one.

I'd rather watch plain and simple American TV series like Chuck or Star Trek, where each episode has its own beginning and end. You don't have to be concerned about the final outcome of the story. 3 seasons of Battlestar Galactica put me off cliffhangers and drawn out stories for life.

Himalaya with Michael Palin - Episode 1 Quite crazy indeed! This episode saw Michael visiting Pakistan. He went to a village where everybody seemed to be either making guns or test firing them in the street. It is amazing how he got to visit this region, but some of the cut scenes from this episode showed a lot of security accidentally getting into view of the camera.. I doubt that hiding them from view was a good idea when it could have given viewers the impression that Pakistan was a safe place to visit.

The year is almost over! I went to see blur at Hyde Park. I've only ever gone to see Ray Davies and blur, unless Journey to the West at the 02 counts (last December).

*waits for the first drunk person to contribute to the topic*

I don't drink, but I am not that interesting to talk to either.

This story is a bit like Spaced. I hope you get over it soon and that it wont hinder future relationships. Respect and trustworthiness are the foundations of true love.

OMG, Kirby has finally been released, it's a miracle!

I watched the bits with the giraffe and the homeless person, but missed whatever you guys were watching. I found the show really boring, so I switched over to Red Dwarf instead. I don't like Derren brown because he doesn't seem to have much respect for people. In his previous series, he was stealing goods from shops with fake money. Posing as a homeless man to take advantage of peoples' good will was also taking it too far.

That's a shame, I'll probably skip a dedicated PMP now and choose the Nokia N900 for my new phone.

What's the point? I am a big fan of Engadget, but this site seems a bit useless. I don't want people knowing everything I own. Lowest Ranked

Ouch, I watched it for the first 7 and a half minutes, but then it just became too painful to watch.

That worked, thanks!

It is a great book, but it is mainly there to convince you that Communism is bad, just like Animal Farm. EDIT: Well, it is actually a brilliant book and you will have a lot of fun reading it. If you enjoy it, I would recommend Animal Farm because it is so short and has a similar theme.

Tokyo Sonata: 2046: The Prelude of Lotus Lantern (46 episodes): Gao Xing: One Night in Supermarket: Total: Around £67

I'm quite new to web design and I am just getting to grips with everything at the moment, but I've got a slight problem with my latest updates div on this web page (my first attempt at designing something!) that I have created: When I go to type in <h3>Latest Updates</h3>: HTML: CSS: Am I being stupid? I don't know whether what I've done is what you'd normally do because I have never done this before. How do I fix it and should I need to fix it in the first place? I am basically doing an imaginary update to this site here: http://www.fighter-planes.com/ I should have really used Lorum Ipsum on the main text, but it is not as if I have a web server at the moment. Any help would be appreciated.

Exactly, desire can be a very good thing. We shouldn't shy away from being upset or unhappy for periods if it leads to us improving ourselves for the better. If we are unhappy with our jobs, we will improve. If we just tell ourselves to be happy and care free, nothing will change and we will go nowhere. Direction is very important, so if I came across a fork in the road, I'd think long and hard about it.