"Anyone stupid enough to just dismantle nukes instead of selling them is a moron".

Thanks, that's the best laugh I've had this year! So, to whom do you suggest selling the British nuclear deterrent:

1. The USA (which sold it to us years ago, doesn't accept trade-ins, and has masses of more up-to-date equipment of its own);

2. The potential enemies against whom the deterrent has been directed;

3. Or nations that currently don't have nuclear weapons (thus breaking the NNP treaty and making the world a far more dangerous place)?

Or perhaps you would prefer they be sold directly to a terrorist group?

"Scotland has only been invaded by, erm, one country, many times as it happens, in the last 1000 years".

Nice try, and I agree with the spirit of your post. But have you forgotten Norway?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

Although the Scots gave back as good as they got:

http://www.scotsman.com/lifest...

"The real question is what are Scotland going to do about their currency post-independence?"

Why not use the dollar, like everyone else?

"My other half is from Inverness. ALL, repeat ALL of her family will leave by the end of the year is there is a Yes vote in September".

Great, that means there will be lots of cheap houses for sale in that beautiful, tranquil (except near Lossiemouth) part of the world. Where are those estate agent pages?

"Nukes are, well, the nuclear option, so they are of little use except in extreme circumstances..."

Very true. To clarify matters, we might ask ourselves: against which nations are the UK's thermonuclear weapons potentially useful today? (I hope no one is going to suggest that they frighten ISIS, for example).

Russia? If so, why? Russia's interests do not clash with the UK's anywhere on earth - quite the contrary, it is in our best interests to live in peace with the Russians. Whereas we lived in fear (rightly or wrongly) of the USSR invading Western Europe, Mr Putin has shown supernatural restraint in not even invading Ukraine after 750,000 of its citizens fled to Russia for safety. As for Georgia, he was "in and out quickly", as the saying goes.

China? Likewise, only if possible even more so. The Chinese are quite extraordinarily pacific (especially compared to other superpowers that shall be nameless), and what's more they are very nearly on the far side of the world.

India or Pakistan? I don't see it. They're not quite so peaceable, but they have no quarrel with us, and we should make sure that remains the case.

Israel? Not really - they would probably get in a first strike, and they have far more missiles and warheads.

And as for France, that's just childish. We should be content just to go on annoying them.

Sod it, I meant "Newcastle-upon-Tyne or Barrow-in-Furness". Too early in the morning... er. afternoon.

Apologies to citizens of those two noble towns.

Most likely Newcastle-on-Tyne or Barrow-on-Furness. The main reason for siting the base in Scotland was presumably to get it as far away from London as possible.

Futile, though. Either the Russians decide to take out Britain, or not. (They might as well, since they have plenty of missiles). Half a dozen big warheads should render the entire country uninhabitable - why would they take out the Holy Loch and not finish the job?

Given the US administration's evident enthusiasm for starting WW3, the UK would be well advised to throw away - not drop - its nuclear weapons as quickly as possible. In a war they would make not the slightest difference to either side, but they would probably get us all fried.

"Sorry, the corporate card has no bearing on scientific topics. Save it for politics".

You don't sound stupid, so you must be cynical. It goes without saying that no scientific results can possibly be trusted without a clear understanding of ALL corporate influence and funding behind them. Witness, to take just one example of hundreds, the current advocacy of statins by panels of scientists most of whom have received huge sums of money from the corporations that manufacture statins.

"Do you really think the scientific community, which overwhelmingly supports GE crops (don't even try to deny this), does not pause to consider such things?"

You do make your astroturfing obvious, don't you? 8-)

1. In science, it doesn't matter in the least if anyone "overwhelmingly" supports any conclusion. All that counts is whether that conclusion is true. Copernicus and Galileo were right; tens of thousands of "experts" were wrong. Semmelweiss was right; the vast majority of the "medical profession" who had him fired, drove him mad, and had him confined in a lunatic asylum were wrong.

2. We have no way of knowing what the "scientific community" (whatever that may be) considers. All we know is what published papers say - always remembering that, when a corporation funds a study, any paper that does not suit that corporation's goals is most unlikely to be published.

No, actually: not in the least bit like any of those. Like grafting in genes from entirely different species, without the slightest idea (or any way of finding out) what the effects will be in the long term.

But that doesn't matter, does it? To those whose only reality is profit, there is no future beyond the current quarter.

In stark contrast to Western nations, China is largely ruled by qualified engineers and technicians. They presumably understand the insanity of radically undermining the technology that feeds most of the world's human beings: agriculture. Any experimentation with agriculture should be done with extreme caution, and as far as possible contained so it is reversible.

Less important, but also worth considering: do we really want a world where one or two vast bloated Western corporations literally own the food that keeps everyone alive? I don't think so.

And that's without even considering the multiple proven and documented cases of specific harm caused by GM "food".

Very wise. I agree that it's best to use cable whenever you can - faster, more secure, more reliable. Wireless is trendy but relatively insecure; and, in houses like mine, radically unreliable. One stone wall stops it cold, so there are very few working geometric configurations.

I also use powerline networking to complement the Ethernet cables. It's faster and more secure than wireless, and far more reliable. And it's available from every power point in the house.

If only there was a way to scare birds away from an area...

Oh, wait! Airports have been doing it for decades!!

He was probably given two choices:

Option a: Receive $125000 today, go home, spend it.

Option b: Press charges, spend a fortune on lawyers for several years while they keep appealing (all on the taxpayer's dollar), maybe win, maybe receive some money.

But surely the reason is to keep the data out of the hands of the US courts?

No, no, no! You've got it all wrong! When private individuals do such things, they are terrorists, saboteurs, or thieves. But when governments do them, it's perfectly in order - they are only doing what all governments do.

"Il est défendu de tuer; tout meurtrier est puni, à moins qu’il n’ait tué en grande compagnie, et au son des trompettes".
("It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers to the sound of trumpets").

- Voltaire