The government issued an apology several years ago.

And yes, he did something wrong according to the law at the time, regardless of whether the law has since changed or societies feelings toward such a law has changed - are we to go through every single conviction back to the dawn of time to pardon and apologise to every single person in the same situation every time a law changes?

Alan Turing isn't special, he's just famous. And he gets an apology and a pardon because of it.

Radar coverage isn't magic, and it isn't all encompassing...

I should note about why my points about observers differ between posts - initially the UN declined to send observers, and my original view was based on that, but checking just now shows that in fact they relented and requested observers to be sent by member countries at the last minute.

You can hold your own opinion, I'm not trying to convince people one way or another, just call out the bullshit.

Oh, and why are people repeating the "not under scrutiny by international observers"? Observers from 21 countries were there, including the US, and irregularities were lower than that in South Sudan, which the US accepted as a fair vote.

Several of your other points are just as debatable, and serve only to put a particular spin on things - of course it was hastily organised, and the fact that the vote went wildly one way doesn't actually surprise me knowing the demographic of the people there and the history of the region. Doesn't mean it is implausible however.

Again with the bullshit - the vote was to either join Russia, or be restored to the 1992 Crimean Constitution as part of the Ukraine, the latter being essentially the status quo minus all the power grabs the Ukraine carried out in the region since 1992. Ukraine hasn't exactly been a shining beacon of good toward Crimea in the past 20 years either, but that's somehow being forgotten.

And independent monitors were invited, they declined because to do so would legitimise the vote in defiance of US and UK stances.

Interesting how the west are vehemently against this vote, but enforced the same vote for self determination in South Sudan, East Timor, Montenegro and other countries in the recent past...

You can link to that all you want, the problem is that that's both historical fact and not going to change. The peninsula is what it is, what happened 50 years ago doesn't change what is happening today.

Bringing it up is like bringing up the depopulation of any American country, north or south, by the European colonists and later the naturalised governments.

Its stored on OneDrive.

You do realise Crimea has been autonomous within the Ukraine precisely because it is more ethnically Russian than Ukrainian, and that in the post-USSR history of the region the Ukranian government has gone back on agreements with the region whenever they display behaviour that is too pro-Russian (for example, Crimea appointing a pro-Russian local leader, which had the result of Crimea having their privileges to do so revoked).

Theres a fuck load of history surrounding the region which is being glossed over by the international media - that doesn't mean I support what Putin is doing, but it annoys me no end when all you see are details which definitely slant it one way in the publics eyes.

Everything you "own" is protected by a government enforced monopoly over that item - why are the laws which protect your stuff better than the laws which protect other peoples stuff?

Problem with sat based transmissions is that they require decent weather, otherwise you are out of luck.

The problem is that over large tracts of water, transmission range is a huge issue - turning back aircraft traveling toward the US over the Atlantic or Pacific oceans on 9/11 was very problematic because they were out of radio range and the long range communication system had no guarantees on ability.

The maintenance data stream is also incredibly restricted by bandwidth, so a continuous audio stream at a fidelity which can cover voices in the cock pit *and* instrument activation noises (something people talking about CVR use often miss), you are talking about a data stream that often isn't viable.

Except Apples drivers for Windows are really bad, not fully featured and they regularly deprecate versions of Windows on their kit for no reasons - for instance Windows 8 on 2006 Quad Core Mac Pros with 16GB ram, or indeed any 64bit install of Windows on that hardware will cause Bootcamp to say "nope", despite it working perfectly well.

The Rafale and the Eurofighter are the same age (they actually date from the same initial development program, from which the Eurofighter countries left because they didn't want a carrier capable variant), it just looks like the Eurofighter is newer because it spent longer in development hell.

No they aren't actually, the F-35A and C have no compromises caused by having to accomodate the B variant, as its the B variant which compromises for its own capability (it has smaller weapons bays, a lower fuel capacity, shorter range etc etc).