And 50 years ago today the first undersea cable between Britain and the US went live and tripled the amount of phone calls that were possible between the two countries! In the first year of operations the two armoured cables carried over 300,000 phone calls at a cost of about 3 quid a minute How times have changed 8)

Now when calling the UK from Germany it costs me 1.9 cents (€ cents) a minute. When I call the US, it costs me 1 cent a minute ??

Matt

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Mind you, the Americans are trying to make up for lost time, blue on blue seems to be on the up.

Matt

I have to ask and risk ridicule. What's "blue on blue" ?

Ok.. good. I'm glad I asked.

The friendly-fire incidents during the first Gulf War did get my attention. A lot of anti-American sentiment was stirred up over that; most of it coming FROM military despising Americans. Not that I like to give credit to wet-noodle, worthless, propaganda mongers like Phil Donahue.. but he did a particularly critical show about it. It was pathetically staged, complete with a mutilated soldier who had survived a friendly-fire helicopter attack on an APC. The show could have easily been about how FEW such attacks there were; considering the conditions and "state" of the fast-moving fronts. However.. unrealistic military haters like Donahue threw common sense and meaningful data aside.. to make themselves feel good.

I'm not a WWII historian, but my brother is. I've never heard that there was an abnormally high rate of USAF on RAF, accidental shoot-downs. My brother had though.. and  he agreed with your statement. Not only were there more Americans doing the killing.. he added that they were doing it with more efficient killing machines.. under more numerous and different conditions.. more often.. and at longer ranges and for longer periods of time. Unfortunately.. when you try to send that many pilots out.. maybe some training has to be compromised... Including maybe, aircraft recognition ? Or maybe the training in that regard was lacking to begin with ?  I don't know. You've got me curious now (my brother too).

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I can't comment on the training but it was not confined to pilots (or Americans for that matter). Rightly or wrongly, American troops have the reputation among their allies for being trigger-happy. In the heat of battle ground troops & Navy personnel in WWII often fired on aircraft from their own side & their allies. This is the reason for the "D-Day" stripes being painted on all Allied aircraft for the Normandy invasion in June 1944. This was an attempt to avoid the mistakes during the Sicily invasion (Operation Husky) when many of the invasion force were shot down by their own side. The same stripes were used by British aircraft operating in Korea in 1950 - 53. Interesting article on the subject here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_fire

Unfortunately things don't seem to have improved very much. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1517327,00.html

PS. The first British fighter pilot killed during WWII was flying a Hurricane from North Weald. He was sadly shot down by a RAF colleague flying a Spitfire. Tragically this was the first aircraft shot down by a Spitfire. The "air raid" was a false alarm. Such is the stupidity of war. http://www.removablemedia.com/northweald/battleof1.htm

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We had that in the UK between 1946 - 60. It was called National Service & by 1951 around 50% of the Army’s strength consisted of National Servicemen. Before compulsory service was stopped 395 National Servicemen were killed on active service in places like Korea & Malaya. Many conscripts considered their service as the best years of their lives and gained new friendships, new skills and the experience of foreign travel. Others saw it as a dreadful experience to be reluctantly endured at best. You might ask our Fozzer what he thought about it. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, National Service was stopped the year I was due to go. I would have gone willingly but the fact that I no longer had to changed my whole life & future. I'm not sure that I would feel the same way about it now.

Some people feel that it should be re-introduced to give young people a sense of discipline, respect & loyalty, thus solving the social problems we're faced with at a stroke. I think you will find that this view is not shared by the armed services themselves, the people who would be saddled with these conscripts. They would much prefer to run a professional organisation with willing volunteers. This obviously becomes more difficult when the politicians commit the forces to more than their capabilities. We seem to be reaching this stage right now & our armed forces are stretched to the limit in operational areas throughout the world. Quite obviously, the prospect of being sent to a war zone with the real risk of being killed or injured doesn't help with recruitment & the situation is becoming quite serious. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1849461,00.html

I don't think compulsory National Service would work in the UK now as the situation is very different from that in 1914 & 1939 and even the 1950s when I was growing up. When I was a boy Britain was a world power with the remnants of a great Empire. In the multicultural society we live in now a large percentage of the population bears no allegiance to the country at all & would find some way of avoiding the call up. It would also quite likely contravene their Human Rights.

I shall now go & put my tin hat on.

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As I get older & arguably wiser I'm not convinced that patriotism is such a good thing. I was fiercely patriotic once. I now believe it's the cause of a lot of trouble in this world.

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I disagree, it is not patriotism that causes trouble in the world.  It is the lack of willingness to agree to live peacefully.  As long as you have despots in the world, as long as your have megalomaniacal leaders bent on acting out their desires in the world, as long as you have sponsors of terrorism in the world, as long as you have dishonest brokers on the international scene in the world, there will be war.  It has been like that since the beginning of time.  Patriotism plays no part in this.

We all wish we can discuss our differences and come to agreements that will be *honestly* implemented, we can avoid wars.  If there are cheats, thieves, and bullies in our societies that must be reigned in by law enforecement, how can anyone expect things to be different on a much greater, international scale?

Perfect analogy is fans of a sports team.  They are "patriotic" towards that team.  They want their team to win.  There's nothing wrong with that.  But what happens to the minority who go on rampages for their team, such as those hooligans?  Are they hooligans because they are sports fans?  Or are they hooligans because they lack character in the first place?

Or read Mr. Mugabes comments today on protesters being beaten so badly they're in hospital courtesy of the Zimbabwe police... and he says it is justified because they're being unpatriotic

This is quite terrifying. Organised patriotism by past masters of the craft. Watch & be warned. http://youtube.com/watch?v=eHZGjmH-nNE&mode=related&search=

PS. This is rare & interesting archive footage. Please take no notice of the ignorant comments attached to it.

jingoism

n

1: an appeal intended to arouse patriotic emotions [syn: flag waving]
2: fanatical patriotism [syn: chauvinism, superpatriotism, ultranationalism]

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Patriotism (being proud of your country) is fine up to a point & providing it's not taken too far. Unfortunately it can easily get out of hand. That vid is an extreme example of how the enthusiasm of young people can be taken advantage of by unscrupulous people for their own ends. It's usually far more subtle than that.

If only all arguments could be settled at something like the Olympics instead of all this fighting & conflict.

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That's how I define patriotism.  When one's behavior evolves into jingosim, then that can lead to destructive behavior.

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Jingoism = flag waving. My country is a past master at that. It's where the term originated after all & we've had plenty of practice. We're also hated all over the world for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingoism

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That is precisely my point. Some people can't see the difference.

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8)