* Posts by Matt Bryant

9690 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2007

RAF graduates first class of new groundbased 'pilots'

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: spl23

".....Are you sure you've got that the right way around? Speaking as a PPL with a lot of rotary experience, I find it hard to believe you would give slots flying helos to the worst pilots....." Again, "worst pilot" from a fighter selection process does not mean the one with the worst spatial awareness or reflexes, it's more a matter of the overall package plus attitude. Some people can be exceptional pilots yet not be natural fighter pilots, and other good pilots suffer more quickly from information overload (a modern fighter pilot has not only his onboard systems fighting for his attention, he also has to co-ordinate and manouvere with at least a wingman plus probably other friendly fighters, local ground- and air-control such as AWACS, his own defense systems such as lase detectors, radar detectors, jammers and flares, his own detection systems, and then his weapon systems as well, all the while still doing the actual manual task of flying the aircraft). Helo pilots more often fly single aircraft missions on shorter flights, and usually don't carry as complex systems.

But, if you want an historic example of whirlybods screwing up where fast movers didn't, when the USMC first ordered the Harrier they decided chopper pilots should fly it because they had experience of hovering and landing. They turned out to have the worst accident record of any group of Harrier pilots (more than twice as bad as the Indian Navy pilots, for example!), a record that was much improved when the USMC switched fast jet pilots to flying the type.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Tony Green Re: Funny how suicide-bombers are always labelled "cowards"...

The predominant target of suicide bombers are civilians, in the case of Jihadis usually other Muslims. The predominant target of the drone pilots is the Jihadis with the intent of stoping them slaughtering other Muslims. If that is "fucked up" then I would have to suggest it is you with the problem, but then I would blame that on your parents for your poor upbringing and lack of education.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Boffin

Re: elderlybloke Re: "...required for safe and effective weapons delivery." - RAF

"Early in WW2 the RAF was very civilised and did not bomb Civilians as it was consided by the Planners to be important to behave as Gentlemen....." Well, yes and no. There was a general order not to bomb German territory but that was more due to the worry of massive reprisals from the Luftwaffe. In the pre-war years the RAF had been quite happy to bomb civilians in the Empire, but Goebels had done such a good job on the propaganda front the British government were convinced Hitler could flatten all the cities in the UK with ease, and the government were worried that the popular will to resist would crumble. This was partly the result of the mantra that "the bomber will always get through" so over-used by the RAF to allow them to build up their own bomber force between the Wars. In the event, Fighter Command's advanced warning and control system ensured the German bombers did not always get through, and the Blitz showed the plucky common Brit's resolve turned out to be quite substantial.

"....Things changed quite a bit after the Hun did the Blitz on Britain...." Erm, not quite. The Jerrys had already dropped a number of bombs on British cities, particularly in individual night raids, but it was the (possibly accidental) dumping of bombs by a Luftwaffe crew over London that Churchill seized on to mount a deliberate retaliatory raid on Berlin. So in the case of the RAF vs the Luftwaffe, it was actually the British that made the first PLANNED mass Bombing raid on the German capital. Hitler's reaction - pushing Goering into mass daylight raids on London - ensured their defeat in the Battle of Britain. Attacking British cities was always in Goering's plan (as it had been in Spain, Poland and Holland before, but Yugoslavia came AFTER the start of the Blitz), but it was supposed to come after he had eliminated Fighter Command, and he shifted attention to London too early. Of course, once the cycle of nightly raids had been started by both sides, Britain's superior strategic bomber force and the course of the War ensured that the Germans suffered far heavier bombing than we took from them.

".....The Americans don't bomb Civilians ,they just do Colateral Damage instead." Actually they do, and in wartime it is quite legal as you are striking at the support and manufacturing system of your enemy. In essence, Mrs Jihadi giving food and shelter to Mr Jihadi and Son in his compound is a legitimate target as long as he is the primary target. The Americans would prefer not to kill Mrs Jihadi, but then her death does send a message. The Americans would also rather catch Mr Jihadi alive for interrogation, but they'll settle for dropping a bomb on him if there is no realistic chance of a successful capture mission.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Stop

Re: Alan Firminger Re: Matt Bryant and others

Whilst you seem to have a vague knowledge of the matter you're mainly talking male genetalia.

".....Those men were heroes like no other....." Relax, stop flexing the class chip on your shoulder and realise no-one is denying that the "common" aircrew, especially the bomber crews, were heroic.

".....Most combat crew had no more qualification than Matriculation, got at sixteen....." You are thinking of general aircrew like gunners when what we are discussing is pilots. Especially single-seater pilots, who had to be their own WOP, navigator and pilot, whereas the bomber had a man for each job. Big difference in role and requirement.

"..... None of the normal degree courses added a desirable skill....." Correct, but it was more to do with showing the intellectual capability of the applicant. As a pilot trainee, before you got to do flight training you had to do ground training which included a lot of technical work on theory of flight, aeronautics and mechanics - you washed out if you did not pass that stage. That has not changed, indeed the increase in complexity of systems means the role has become even more technical and therefore the requirement for a certain level of intellectual capability even more pronounced.

"....And for any bomber station ground crew was comparable in numbers to to aircrew...." Sorry, but that is just wrong. For a start, a Squadron Leader would typically have responsibility for 300 people all in, whether a fighter or bomber unit, but that does not include the other support staff on the base such as flight control, RAF Regiment and AA crews, and does not consider the supply chain sitting off-base that kept the spares, POL, new airframes and replacement aircrew rolling in. Even then, his actual aircrew would be closer to 80-100 men even on a four-engined bomber unit (and only 24 on a single-seat fighter unit), not even half of the 300 under his direct command.

".....Fighters required a bit more work to keep them up." That statement is simply illogical. Please explain how a four-engine bomber with more complex radio, radar and navigation systems could require less maintenance than a single-engined fighter? Even if we compare the typical RAF fighter unit with a full complement of 20 Spitfires, that's only twenty Merlins to service, whereas a Lancaster unti with a complement of twelve Lancasters had 48 Merlins! Then consider that the Spit only requires oxygen for one and fuel for a short flight, whereas each Lanc needs oxygen for seven for a much longer flight, plus much, much, much more fuel, all of which needs to be provisioned, stored and delivered. And that's even before we get round to looking at the supply, storage and fitting of the bombload carried by the Lancasters! Sorry, simply does not add up.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Stop

Re: Make of it what you will

"..... The top scoring UK fighter pilot was in fact a Sergeat pilot......" The highest scoring Commonwealth pilot of WW2 was South African Squadron Leader Marmaduke Thomas St. John "Pat" Pattle DFC & Bar, not a sergeant. The highest scoring British RAF pilot was Johnnie Johnson, who was promoted from Reserve Sergeant to Pilot Officer upon completing his training and before he started flying (in 1939 all new RAFVR pilots were Sergeant Pilots). I'm guessing you're actually getting confused over Eric Lock, the RAF's highest scorer in the Battle of Britain, who (like Johnson) joined as an RAFVR Sergeant Pilot and was also promoted to Pilot Officer before seeing combat, but is still listed as a Sergeant Pilot in many websites. Sorry, guess you'll just have to rethink all those class-war myths.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Mostly_Harmless Re: Make of it what you will

"Gongs for bravery shouldn't apply IMHO....." True, they share none of the physical risks. But gongs are not just awarded for bravery, they are often also awarded for exemplary service or leadership or achieving a very difficult battle task.

In general, the argument for RAF officer pilots is the hammer versus the spear argument. The Army (and Navy) operate in such a way that a large percentage of their men of all ranks face action together. In a battleship you will have men of all ranks facing equal dangers together, just as in an Army deployed to a battlefield there are risks for soldiers be they privates right up to generals (though probably less for generals). Both present a broad hammer. The RAF is very much like a pyramid - even in the days of WW2, over 300 men may have supported, serviced and supplied each aircraft that may have a crew of just one that actually goes up and takes all the risks. That is a very sharp spearpoint. Since it has always been a very technical role it has always required a more educated person in the cockpit (and traditionally that meant a uni grad, which also historically meant the upper class), and since it is a role in high popularity the RAF has been able to pick and choose only the highest level of applicant. Attracting and retaining uni grads of the right calibre means paying them a suitable starter wage, which means they have to be on the officer scale. Whilst it has been shown in times of war that the criteria can be lowered with excellent results, that sergeants can do the task of following officers into battle (they rarely led), peacetime meant a reduction in the size of the spearpoint so again the RAF could be choosier.

Congress plans to make computer crime law much, much worse

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Local Dupe Re Local Dupe Saturday 6 April 20:17 GMT

SCHWING, SCHWING, SCHWING! It's OK, stop stressing and ranting, everyone reading the thread already knows you lost the argument.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Re:Local Dupe Matt Bryant "<Yawn> Melodrama, hyperbole"

".... I was referring to the fear of governments, their legislators, administrators and military....." These are civil offences and civil punishments.

"....Were Hiroshima and Nagasaki deterrents to continuing the war another week?...." Besides the idiocy of comparing the civil offence of defacing or DDoSing a website to the wartime dropping of the atomic bombs, the bombs did force the Japanese to abandon their determination to resist further, so your point is also wrong as well as stupid.

"....Did you think you were the Gustav Gun of The Register, pal?...." Nope. Guns don't tend to point out the blinkered silliness of people like you.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re:Local Dupe Re: Matt Bryant "<Yawn> Melodrama, hyperbole"

"....,but the raison d'etre of all these laws remains the same. Fear." Well, duh! Of course the idea of a sentence is to install fear in those criminals too stupid to otherwise be deterred. If there was nothing to fear from punishment then there would be no deterrent value. That covers everything from speeding fines through to murder, including e-crimes committed by dumb skiddies and career e-crims. Your problem is you cannot see beyond the (minority) politics you associate with the actions of your skiddy buddies to realise those actions are still illegal and will be punished.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Local Dupe Re: Local Dupe Local Dupe "My Bad"

"..... If Congress enacts these stringent penalties, we will have new tech versions of the Sedition and Espionage Acts....." <Yawn> Melodrama, hyperbole, but still no sense at all. I know the Anonyputzs all like to think they're a combination of Rat from The Core and Batman, that they are somehow "great players in The Game", but the truth is they are minor annoyances and petty criminals, nothing more.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Local Dupe Re: Local Dupe "My Bad"

"....powder blue Triumph Spitfire....." SCHWING! Whilst your guessing games are mildly amusing, I have to point out they are just more of your usual diversions. I find it very hard to believe a reflexive hater of The Man like yourself hasn't got something to bleat about Congress's plans to smack skiddies harder, or is it just that you're still waiting for your herder to tell you what to think?

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Happy

Re: Local Dupe Re: "the sportscar for the fun down country roads or on track days.

"......A 1960 Austin Healy Mark I....". No thanks. An out-dated chassis at its time of release. The version with the 3-litre engine was a brute, a "real man's car", but you spent most of your time trying to stop it diving into the nearest ditch.

".....Not a speck of dust or spot of oil....." That's because the BMC engine had dribbled all the oil onto your drive overnight!

"....Everything of Matt's is just as perfect as his comments...." Everything of Matt's is not as perfect as Matt's comments, but thanks for the vote of approval for the comments. Oh, were you trying to be sarcastic? Hmmm, another area you need to work on. However, I would suggest you focus on your history and technology before brushing up on sarcasm as the massive gaps in the former are really more pressing problems.

".....One day Matt is going to fail the whole wide world....." Now what have I told you about that Napoleon complex of yours? Not everyone thinks they have the right to rule the World like you do.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Happy

Re: Local Dupe Re: @Matt Bryant "Money Equals Happiness"

"The correct answer, Matt, is "Rosamund Pike equals Happiness."....." Hmmm, I'm willing to put that hypothesis to the test. :D

"......That Jaguar F-TYPE V8 S....." Sorry, that otherwise very handsome tourer has an auto box, and I'm too much of a purist to touch it with a bargepole. Besides, I've got to the age where I want to do my long-distance touring in comfort, hence the SUV, and keep the sportscar for the fun down country roads or on track days.

".....Your 2006 VW Beetle is still sporty....." WTF? No model of the Beetle has ever been sporty! Maybe in California they consider it sporty but then they have many a strange idea out there.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Happiness or Vengeance? What's your cup of tea?

Local Dupe, if you bothered to look, you might realise the Norweigean economy is flush with oil money, hence the happiness. Try to make some extrapolation between that and their prison population and sentencing is just whimsical. And as for adding to the time Swarz would have served, the advice is don't do the crime if you can't do the time, and Swarz proved he couldn't even wait to find out the lesser time, so grumbling about possible added years is pretty pointless.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: James Missing A Clue Re: @LarsG

"....The prison lobby pushes hard to make sure that they keep getting more and more new 'clients'..." Yeah, cos every time some gormless sheeple like you hacks a computer or deals drugs or holds up a store or does something else illegal and equally stupid, there was a prison company guy telling you what to do and putting the drugs/keyboard/gun into your hands, right? Were you home-schooled by drug-addled hippies or what? Seriously, you must be a troll as I find it very hard to believe anyone could be as dumb as you.

Production-ready ZFS offers cosmic-scale storage for Linux

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Kebabfart Re: XFS not safe

Kebbie, every one of your crusading posts just makes the whole idea sound even more silly. You can't just say to the people that have between them happily and successfully run millions of systems over the years on solutions other than ZFS that they were "all wrong and ZFS is the only right answer". They will just laugh at you.

"....There are lot of children sitting in a ring...." Hmmm, good thing I use arrays to store my data and not groups of children then!

".... ZFS can detect faulty power supplies ...." <Yawn> Most servers and arrays I know of can do this for themselves already by seperate PSU monitoring software. In fact, since many of them link into remote support solutions, they do it BETTER than ZFS in that they will get a replacement PSU out to site whilst the ZFS admin is still working through the logs looking for the ZFS warning on the PSU. Fail!

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Kebbie Re: But ...

"....If ZFS on Linux is a bit unstable, it might be....." So doesn't that suggest it actually isn't production ready as claimed?

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Gordon Gordon Tom Maddox Gordon Phil Gordon Gordon AC Destroyed All .....

"Matt, you have exposed yourself as an opinionated ignoramus beyond whom it is to even aspire to mediocrity...." Gee, some people have such a hard time dealing with criticism or a contradictory viewpoint. You're just sad, I pity you for your inability to see beyond your own blinkered Sunshine.

".....Facebook runs CentOS on their servers, not supported RHEL.....Google runs their own "unsupported" version of Linux....." Please do pretend Faecesbook or Google are the same business models as the average business, just for laughs. Both are extreme examples where they employ a lot of technical people to design and manage their web services because their business IS the web service, whereas for most companies the web service they run is INCIDENTAL to their business. Sorry, do you want me to use shorter words than incidental? You also fail to show that Faecesbook or Google uses ZFS, so your chosen examples are the extraordinary examples where they design and implement a unique solution, but STILL did not choose to use ZFS! Gosh, if ZFS was so essential as you claim, surely they'd be using it? ROFLMAO @ you as you merely prove my point! You are a master of FAIL!

/SP&L

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Facepalm

"They might trust the boring, BAU bits of their business to COTS packages - and so they should. But not the family jewels....." Especially the family jewels as that is the part of the business they will want ot risk least. Seriously, you go try convincing a business to try something new without the safety-net of at least tested and supported by a major vendor. I can remember the days when companies did all their programming in C++/CGI, and then this thing called Java popped up and even with Sun's support they still went all cautious and said they wanted to see it in action first!

".....You are hilarious." You are merely inexperienced.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Happy

Re: Gordon Re: Gordon Tom Maddox Gordon Phil Gordon Gordon AC Destroyed All .....

"No, Matt. That's what you keep telling yourself because you don't know how to do anything that hasn't been done for you and pre-packaged for bottle feeding." LOL! Look at the market, take a hard look (if you can from that alternate reality) at the FTSE 1000 companies I mentioned, and then tell me how many of them are using "pre-packaged for bottle feeding" commercial tech like mainframes, proprietary UNIX servers, Windows, CISCO/Procurve/Juniper networking gear, Balckberry BES - even Apple hardware! - and all with commercial, off-the-shelf software like Oracle or SAP. Yes, that's right - all 1000!

They trust their business to using "pre-packaged for bottle feeding" tech because it is easier to quantify the risks involved with implementing business systems with such gear, compared to the wet-finger-in-the-air, it-may-work-most-of-the-time tech you pretend to have implemented. And that is why I am confident in saying there is no chance you work for any company of size, not even an SMB, because no matter how smart you think you are they would laugh you out the door for suggesting they take onboard the massive risk of your toy solution.

Face it, you have been exposed as an astroturfing troll, and with every post you simply add to the evidence against you. But please do continue as the comedy value is exquisite!

/SP&L

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Happy

Re: Gordon Re: Tom Maddox Gordon Phil Gordon Gordon AC Destroyed All Braincells.....

ROFLMAO @ Gordon The Plastic Gardener!

"....there are almost certainly more people at RH that have heard of me than him...." Yeah, they probably all heard of you in the legal department when they took out the restraining order! And if they haven't then your frenzied and shrieking posts are probably getting widely passed around RH for their comedy value.

".....ever ported RHEL to a different architecture?...." Nope, been too busy being paid for actually WORKING with it in a REAL ENVIRONMENT. Don't tell me, next you'll claim you are secretly Linux Torvalds in disguise, right? Whatever, claim what you like, it only makes me laugh more, but I note you still can't back up your story by posting the tech details on your claimed "100TB production installation" of ZFS. Do you think anyone is likely to believe your bullshine when you can't back up your claims when challenged? This is my surprised face, honest.

"....what is the value and usefulness of an engineer that is only capable of regurgitating the very limited homework that the vendor has done for them?...." It's called implementing tried and tested technology. I've done plenty of cutting edge stuff with such tech, but - if you actually had some real industry experience - you would know that companies shy away from bleeding edge tech because of the risks involved. But what am I suggesting - you claim to have implemented a production environment riddled with SPOFs and using pre-production software, and all without a support contract! You are the God Of Tech, right? Yeah, right! You are a lying astroturfer and you got busted, now go back to troll school and learn how to do it better.

/SP&L - Enjoy!

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Tom Maddox Gordon Phil Gordon Gordon AC Destroyed All Braincells.....

"....(and on multiple sites, I note via a quick Google search)...." Sorry, not me. Unless someone is ripping off the Matt Bryant nom de plume, I'd have to suggest the other Matt Bryants posting are simply real-life Matt Bryants p*ssed off with Sun. It's quite a common name (not the reason I chose it, but if you're not in on the joke then you're not in, TBH). Maybe the NFL kicker Matt Bryant also had a bad time with Sun, because when I Yahoogle for Matt Bryant and Sun that's all I get.

"....but it has always amused me when you've flung yourself into threads about Sun with a venomous rage...." Really? Wow, what amazingly broken ESP you have! I usual post out of boredom with the continual Sunshine posted, rarely first in any thread unless the author has been doing some marketing whitewash (like Ashley Vance and his old Sunshine cheerleader articles). No venomous rage, more a tired determination to expose the Sunshiners that won't shut up for the frauds they are - they made their own beds with their stupid statements, I just show them where they're going to end up lying.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Destroyed All Braincells Re: Destroyed All Braincells, Maximum Damage Control

"Why should I indulge you?...." Ah, but that's just it - you can't!

Seeing as you seem determined to suffer ZFS, I suggest you do something more useful than looking for cartoons in Google. I would suggest you read something like this (http://constantin.glez.de/blog/2010/04/ten-ways-easily-improve-oracle-solaris-zfs-filesystem-performance). As the writer says, "One of the most frequently asked questions around ZFS is: "How can I improve ZFS performance?"." I LOL'd when I saw suggestions 1 and 2 - "Add enough RAM" and "Add more RAM"! I would suggest you read it and hopefully avoid to big a disappointment with ZFS.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Destroyed All Braincells, Maximum Damage Control

Yeah, that does kinda sum up the desperation being shown by you and your fellow Sunshiners. Am I surprised that it happens so often to you that you have a convenient link to the cartoon handy? Not really. As I said, still waiting for you to post anything technical, if only for comedy value.....

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Destroyed All Braincells Re: Michael Wojcik A more important ZFS feature

I ask you to post something technical and you post the Sunshiner brochure? That's like posting the Ford Mondeo brochure that says they make the best saloon, better than BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar, Honda, etc., etc. Seriously, if all you read is Sunshiner marketing pieces and FUD, is it any surprise you don't have a clue?

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Michael Wojcik A more important ZFS feature

"When that "mythical" bit-rot blows away a good chunk of your encrypted filesystem....." That's just it - thirty-odd years of waiting and no mythical bit-rot, and that's working with some of the biggest database instances in Europe (ironically, most of them being Oracle!). Guess I am either extremely and unbelievably lucky and beating the odds you Sunshiners insist must be right, or you're just talking male genetalia. I'm going with the latter and your posts consistently add weight to my argument.

Now, unless you actually have something technical to add to the thread, best you leave it to the grown ups.

HP's 'historic' Project Moonshot servers aim at hyperscale future

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Meh

Re: AC Re: With 2 disks...

".....HP are already running part of their web site on this technology....." Well, two thumbs up for eating their own dog food, but as someone that regularly suffers the hp public websites I'd have to say their web designers produce what comes out of the other end of the dog.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Captain Server Pants

"....Why the odd rack size?...." Agreed, very good question. Why not just make it 5U tall and put a little more airpsace in the chassis, you'd still get just as many in a standard 42U rack? Or is it a weight/heat thing, like the blades, where if you put too many in a standard 42U rack you go beyond the weight limit (according to hp, four fully-stacked C7000 blade chassis are too much weight in a standard 42U rack)?

And why a 500GB SATA drive, surely you would want an SSD to lower power consumption?

"....If you compare this machine to an Oracle T5-4 it's pretty clear HP is out to lunch....." Well, if you think that they are both aimed at the same target - weiner thread webservers - and that the hp option will run bogstandard x64 apps that the Ts can't, then suddenly it makes more sense.

"....What about HP-UX?" Webserver market - not much call for an enterprise UNIX at the low end when Linux does it cheaper.

I wonder if they'll make a blade that slots into the C7000 chassis so they can be mixed with Xeons and Itaniums and also take advantage of Flex Fabric.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Destroyed All Braincells Re: This can become good.

"....Itanium must have been airbrushed out of the future." Don't be silly, that would be like using a Ferrari as a milk float. These are aimed at small workloads like hosted webservers and the like, not enterprise big iron. Please do try and learn the difference.

Kissinger and tell: WikiLeaks scrapes 1.7m US diplomatic reports from the '70s

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Happy

Re: Money

Maybe the Ecuadoreans have got so p*ssed off they've started charging him rent.

Animal Liberation drone surveillance plan draws fire

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: I really get annoyed with radical animal-rights people

".....6 hours after moving them???...." Gee, I'm guessing you're a townie, as you seem to know SFA about farming. There happens to be quite a bit to do even on a small-holding (even more with the added red-tape and paperwork insisted on by townie civil servants). My neighbour used to be working 5am and rarely finished before 7pm, and that was with two teenage sons to help him in the hours before and after school. And yes, animals were often left unattended in fields for most of the day. I love the countryside but I would not consider being a famer as it is just far too much hard work. If you don't believe me then I would recommend you take a holiday and volunteer on a farm for a fortnight, it would seriously remove the political blinkers.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Seems like a good idea...

".....they subvert quarantine restrictions....." In 2001 there was a farm near Highhampton in Devon that had three suspected cases of foot-and-mouth. The three animals had been segregated and were in a barn with a sign on the door saying "quarantined", but some do-gooders still trespassed onto the farm, broke into the barn and "checked on" the animals, then went and cheerfully "checked on" not just the rest of the farm's stock but also the neighbouring three farms, spreading the infection and leading to ALL the livestock on all four farms being slaughtered. Their excuse was the barn had no windows and it was "cruel" to keep the animals in the barn.....

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Hmm...

"......A skilled farmer knows where he can place poisoned food so that a fox will find it....." Exactly the same place an otter or badger will find it, or a domestic cat or dog. I too grew up in the countryside and lost pets to and saw wild animals killed by poison, so you can stop that claptrap, thanks.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: I really get annoyed with radical animal-rights people

".....the animal rights people look more like a 'ban all animal use for human benefit'....." The whole Animal Liberation trip has nothing to do with animal rights and all to do with continuing outdated class-war beliefs. For them, farmers = landowners = The Rich, regardless of whether the farmer is a smallholder. Nothing exposes this sham more than how these "Animal Rights" proponents often happily wear leather clothes and shoes but then complain about (rich) people wearing fur or farms that have the very livestock their leather comes from.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: SteveB299 Re: Daily Mail

".....If you care about our global life support system (ie. the environment) then you must be some kind of atheist leftist....." You may be right. After all, Adolf Hitler was a veggie, loved doing watercolours of countrysides, and was very fond of animals, especially his dogs, and was continually in conflict with the Catholic church. And the Nazi Party was a Socialist one, just like the original Italian Fascists (Mussolini was originally a member of the PSI, the Italian Socialist Party). Oh, sorry, was that not the example of caring lefties you were thinking of?

Gov report: Actually, evil City traders DIDN'T cause the banking crash

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Mike Bell Re: Fractional Reserve Bollocks

Sorry, but your being deliberately obtuse. The bank makes the purchase of the property when a mortgage is taken out, so "real" money does get taken off the bank's books. And without that mortgage system only the rich would be able to buy houses, and just imagine how much the Lefties would scream then.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: dolt in pyjamas Re: Well duh!

If the Tories read that post they'd probably be breathing a sigh of relief as they now know they're not facing an intelligent opposition.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Stop

Re: Tom 38

"It wasn't the mortgages that banks themselves loaned out that was the problem...." Actually it was. The realisation that those mortgages were valueless as they would never be repayed that led to the subprime collapse when traders stopped buying the mortgage bundles. If the mortgages had still be good investments then the trading would have continued.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Go

Re: Alan Brown

".....My pick is that a lot of taxpayers will decide to sod off to greener pastures, which will result in even higher rates for those who don't......" This is one taxpayer that has been contributing tax and NI from his teens who will be happily waving goodbye to these shores and taking my savings with me. The Lefties can shriek and whine about my being greedy or whatever, thankfully the sound of their teeth gnashing won't reach to the beach.

All the shrieking and finger-pointing about what caused the crash aside, whether it was "ordinary people" being given mortgages they can't afford or "greedy bankers" making to many risky swaps, the solutions being punted around all revolve around making it harder for "ordinary people" to get cheap and easy credit. Businesses will suffer too, to a degree, but the banks will still lend money to the ones actually keeping their heads above water as the governments need them to keep giving loans to businesses. So, what have the Lefties achieved with their reflexive attacking of their favourite bogeymen? That's right - more "ordinary people" paying up to "capitalist" landlords because they can't get a mortgage. And who are the biggest landlords? That's right - those "greedy bankers" that stuffed their bonuses into bricks-and-mortar investments. How ironic!

Half a MEELLION passwords reset after Scribd security snafu

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Pirate

Probably not the skiddies.

"Scribd, which claims to be the world's largest online library....." Also accused of being one of the World's biggest open copyright infringers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribd#Criticism), so I don't think it was the usual freetards skiddies, more likely pro crooks looking for subscription details. Anyone with an account would be wise to change their password regardless, and probably keep an eye on purchases on the card they used to subscribe.

Wikileaker Manning peace gong petition backed by thousands

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Happy

Re: PT Re: @ObSolutions

Aw, did some get upset by the simple truth? Does it hurt you to realise you are not going to "save the World" or whatever you have convinced yourself you can do? It's always fun to see you lot thrashing around, whining and bleating, rather than facing facts.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: ObSolutions, Inc

"Your point being... ?" Doh! It seems even that simple maths was a bit too much for The Faithful.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Devil

Soooo, let's have fun with maths!

OK, we'll be generous and round the actual 36,000 people Worldwide that voted for Manning to 40,000. After all, it makes the maths easier to follow, and it really needs to be easy for The Faithful to follow and realise how much of a minority they are. So, just to help them out, we'll do more rounding and take a figure of 8bn for the World population, which means 0.0005% (that's 100 x 40,000 /8,000,000,000) of the World population actually hold the same feeble-minded, blinkered viewpoint. What the heck, let's be really generous and suggest only 2bn of the World's population is web-connected and could vote, we still come out with a pathetic total of 0.002%. Nowhere near the "99%" the morons normally claim, but then I suspect their maths skills are seriously lacking. Congratulations if you fall into that truly exclusive band of almost-inevitable Darwin nominees.

Swedish judge explains big obstacles to US Assange extradition

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: No I can't fix your computer Re: Are you insane?

"....Assange cannot be extradited from the UK to the US because he is an Australian citizen and the (two active) extradition treaties prevent commonwealth citizens being extradited from the UK to the US...." Unless the Oz government waives their right to intervene, which they have already indicated they would be highly likely to do seeing as they have no love for the criminal A$$nut either.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Wow - just learned something new..

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the Swedish laws regarding journalistic leaks/whistkeblowers would apply if only Wikileaks had registered as a journalistic body in Sweden before the event. Apparently, Assange's legal advisers realised this after the event and scrambled to get Assange registered, hence his placement with Leftie Swedish rag Aftonbladet in a desperate attempt to gain him journalistic cover, which then led to his meeting the two groupies in question.

Federal lawyers, MIT threatened following Aaron Swartz' death

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: AC Re: Intractable Potsherd They make... @AC

".....your opinion that is most in line with those of the ignorant masses of America?" So we're back to the usual Leftie line "the people are too ignorant to think for themselves therefore we will remove their right to think for themselves and do the thinking for them". And you wonder why your opinions are firmly in the minority? LOL!

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: James Missing a Clue Re: James Micallef Two wrongs don't make a right

".... There are many such events reported in the press, and private organisations such as ACLU do their best to keep track of what these events....." Great! So now you back up your wild claims with some ACLU stats, right? Yeah, like I really think that will happen.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Intractable Potsherd Re: They make... @AC

"....anyone that fought for the end of the Soviet Union from within...." Your comparison is stupidly wrong seeing as we live in a democracy - you vote for the people that make the laws and the majority view prevails - whereas the Soviet Union was a dictatorship where the minority imposed laws on the majority against their wishes. The majority could not influence the laws by voting in new law-makers, therefore the law-makers had little regard for the opinion of the majority. In a democracy like the US, politicians know they have to pander to the majority or risk not being elected or re-elected. Sucks if you're in a tiny minority of gormless sheeple like you are. Fail!

Matt Bryant Silver badge
Stop

Re: James Micallef Re: Two wrongs don't make a right

"....The stats on police use of force, on the other hand, are either non-existant or a state secret. Police there routinely use SWAT teams to break into suspects' houses in the middle of the night, for trivial cases such as MJ possession. They routinely shoot pet dogs with no provocation and quite often also break into the wrong house. No-one is ever seriously disciplined if anything goes wrong....." So, first you claim there are no publicly available stats on such events, but then you claim they happen routinely. Of course, when you get asked to prove your hyperventilating whimsy, you'll just say "I can't, because The Man keeps it a secret....!" You are a posterboy for blind faith. We need a combined Fail-Stop-WTF-ROFLAMO icon for the nonsense you post.

Matt Bryant Silver badge
FAIL

Re: typo... again

Wow, a sheep that thinks it's a horse!