Ten percent of all the photos ever taken were taken in the last 12 months please log in to view this image
Security chiefs block release of report on 1983 Soviet nuclear scare US has released several documents relating to Able Archer crisis but Cabinet Office has released just the title page of joint intelligence committee report please log in to view this image Ronald Reagan said the nuclear crisis was ‘really scary’. Photograph: Marcy Nighswander/Associated Press Security chiefs are trying to block the release of documents that would shed fresh light on how Britain and the US came close to provoking a Soviet nuclear attack. They are insisting that a report, The Detection of Soviet Preparations for War Against Nato, must remain secret. The report was drawn up by the joint intelligence committee (JIC) after a Nato military exercise codenamed Able Archer 83. The US has released a number of documents relating to the crisis, specifically about Oleg Gordievsky, the KGB officer who defected to Britain. He played a key role in warning Washington about the effect of president Ronald Reagan’s dangerous rhetoric on Moscow, and the Kremlin’s equally dangerous paranoia. The dispute over the JIC document comes at a time when Nato is resuming “transition to nuclear strike” exercises. A heavily censored witness statement by Dominic Wilson, director of operational policy at the Ministry of Defence and previously a senior official in the National Security Secretariat, says the JIC report must remain firmly closed. Last month, Oliver Letwin, the Cabinet Office minister, told the Labour MP Paul Flynn: “It would not be appropriate to release this [the JIC report] on grounds of national security.” One of those calling for the release of the report is Michael Herman, former head of GCHQ’s Soviet division. He said last year: “A weakness in the UK was that the [intelligence] assessors didn’t know the extent of US confrontation/provocation in Reagan’s first administration. The Russians were quite right to be frightened. But how big was the crisis? Until all the evidence is declassified how do we judge?” Jones argues that while it was the British – mainly through Gordievsky – who discovered the dangers of the Nato war game, it has been the US that has released much more information about what its National Security Agency described as “the most dangerous Soviet-American confrontation since the Cuban missile crisis”. Roger Smethurst, head of the Cabinet Office knowledge and management unit, told Jones: “Other states and UK government departments are entitled to make their own judgments as to what of the information they hold on a subject it is appropriate to make public.” http://www.theguardian.com/politics...erm=141997&subid=12028308&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2
Been mentioned on here before (by me) about Able Archer. Very, very scary We never did get the full truth of the shooting down of a Korean 747 by the Soviets over Pacific Russia that year. The US were playing spying games with AWACS planes, flying in and out of Soviet airspace to test their defences when an off-course airliner just wandered in. Tragic, tragic accident, but neither side would admit to their faults.
Nowhere in the Humpty Dumpty Nursery Rhyme does it say that Humpty Dumpty is an egg. please log in to view this image
I have never thought of Humpty as an egg. Other than in the movie Piss In Boots. / yes autocorrect changed it to piss. No. I'm not going to fix it.
he's always been shown as an egg in the nursery rhyme books.. i dunno why certainly there is no mention of an egg in the rhyme
Amazing Reward For Bus Driver Who Stopped To Give Homeless Man £5 please log in to view this image By Kate Solomon | Yahoo News – 7 hours ago please log in to view this image When Faris Khalifa got the bus on a rainy day in Liverpool last week, he didn’t expect the bus driver to stop the bus, call him over and ask him to hop off to give an elderly homeless some money. “The entire encounter left me emotionally speechless,” Khalifa wrote on Facebook, adding that the more he thought about the encounter, the more he wanted to reward the driver for his kindness. “He made my and many other people’s day.” Describing himself as “the closest thing Liverpool has to Oprah”, Khalifa called around local businesses asking if they’d donate something to give to the driver. “The response I got back from local businesses was jaw dropping. Everyone I spoke to, without hesitation donated some of the coolest things ever,” he said, including a cheese basket, bottles of rum and bourbon, a burrito and a meal for two at a local restaurant. please log in to view this image All Faris had to do was find the driver, who he knew only as Stephen. After speaking to bus company Arriva’s customer service, the Liverpool office helped track him down using the driver’s first name, route number and the time of day. “So I get in touch with Ste and arrange to meet him under the pretence of giving him a thank you card (wish I had a hidden camera crew),” Faris explains. “He shows up and before I even say anything, he asks me if I’m going to town, hands me his old army sleeping bag and asks me to give it to someone who needs when I get there. “This was the second time he nearly made me cry. This ex-army, married father of one is the embodiment of what this city is. Pure love for all who need it.” All images courtesy of Faris Khalifa on Facebook
The oldest condoms ever found date back to the 1640s (they were found in a cesspit at Dudley Castle), and were. made from animal and fish intestines.
An old mate of mine, who supports the BS, but doesn't like Scousers (stereotypes) was in the pub last night. He went to Liverpool yesterday to do some Christmas shopping. He said he couldn't believe how pleasant, helpful and friendly everyone he met was. He's changed his mind completely. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? He was on the scum's books as a young lad as well
. In 1923, jockey Frank Hayes won a race at Belmont Park in New York despite being dead — he suffered a heart attack mid-race, but his body stayed in the saddle until his horse crossed the line for a 20–1 outsider victory.
