You think that if it gives you comfort.

The only country hell-bent on war is the United States because their power and influence in the world is waning and the sun is very rapidly setting on their empire, such that it is.

Really, because the only side known to absolutely have such anti-aircraft missiles are Ukraine, and they've used them to shoot down an airliner before.

As opposed to all the other unsubstantiated propaganda?

Let me Google that for you you idiot:

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

Put simply, we already know Ukraine has the equipment, and they've used it.

Errrrr, no. Russians don't do that nor are they going to provide any equipment that will incriminate them. People forget that for all westerners believe they are a bunch of irresponsible peasants these people play a heck of a lot of chess, which means they sit back, investigate, take stock and when they make their move you don't even knows it's happened. Russia is not some tinpot country in some backwater and that's what makes the current situation so dangerous.

Good luck with that ;-).

So, going against the established party line of the west when NO investigation has been conducted, let alone concluded, is a 'conspiracy'?

As far as I can see this is just about as credible as the assumption that this was done by Russian separatists.

The simple fact is that neither you nor anyone else knows that at all, and it hasn't been established that Russia has even given the separatists anti-aircraft missiles not to mention the training required. Moscow might provide subtle help, but not that kind of help. Ukraine, on the other hand does, and they've already shot down an airliner with them before. That's the only 'very basic logic error' here.

You're placing rather too much faith in FlightRadar24 I'm afraid, as all enthusiasts tend to do.

A backup policy isn't going to help you here. The machine still needs to be re-installed via whatever method you choose along with the associated downtime and disruption - and then you do your restores. No one with any experience at all does 'auto' updating. Updates are scheduled in if they are needed.

I love to hear people talk about money, and particularly their idea of a 'gold standard' and what 'problems' it caused, obviously without the faintest idea of what they're talking about. Mind you, you're among some exalted economists in that regard,s so don't feel too bad. I suggest you go and read some Adam Smith first of all.

Fiat money is simply a numbers game. We were given a warning in 2008 that that numbers game will not continue but that's obviously fallen on deaf ears. The irony is that the rich have got richer since then because they bought into hard assets - art, shares, property, land, gold, silver, rare artifacts (there's a reason they did that) - while those who had a regular salary and saved in dollars, euros or whatever have got continually squeezed and could afford less in real assets. It never ceases to amaze me how the ignorant get attached to their little fiat currency denominations.

Good luck with that, because they are increasingly unlikely to want your useless electronic numbers that you place so much value on. The ECB is going to create a whole lot more of them.

Ahhhh, yet another idiot who cannot separate gold from its meaningless fiat 'price'. If gold is money, how can it have a price?

That's the problem I have with watching movies online. As soon as online movie services feel they have reached a critical mass they'll be pulling all kinds of stunts to squeeze more money. Ever more draconian licensing (we all know it's coming), movies withdrawn without explanation and pricing based on pathetic attempts at trying to find your screen size. Disney thinks the latter revenue method is viable.

For those who want to take control of their infrastructure then Gentoo works very well, especially if you find yourself compiling software without a package management system.

So it's OK if they don't commit to supporting it? Fantastic.