No it isn’t. They have their own flags. Here’s a brilliant website I just found with a section called “Flags of Extremism”.

Those South Korean tankers cost about $230m each, which is roughly ten times the cost of the equivalent civilian vessel from what I can find online.

That’s the bit that I don’t get - that a smaller force needs better equipment. We only have a tiny armed service because the kit we buy is so bloody expensive! A case in point, the Typhoon. It’s a lovely jet, brilliantly capable and (stealth excepted) probably the match of any fighter in operation.

True enough. He’s got an eye across the border to Tunisia, where they had a proper free and fair presidential election last year resulting in a secularist party gaining power. He can’t stop the march of progress and he knows that, but similarly he won’t want to relinquish power any quicker than necessary.

More than kinship - the prototypes were the last two Comets off the production line. It was no worse an idea than the RC-135 that the USAF uses really, but I guess the engines buried in the wings make it look extra ancient.

Don’t go there. The UK is fantastic about adding cost without adding equivalent capability. There’s an option for the UK to get a really good deal on some new Apaches by buying them direct from Boeing - $30m a pop, which is fantastic considering the capability.

I always wondered whether Mrs. Columbo was a dismembered corpse buried under Columbo’s back yard. The only murder he’d never solve...

For all the sexism allegations flying around, I think it’s important to remember that she really isn’t that good at being a CEO - if the stories about why and how Victoria was fired are true then it shows she has a spectacular tin ear to her community, when the community is the only asset her company has.

Google Maps says 1hr 25 minutes. Evidently they’re not driving a McLaren F1. And I mean the 90s supercar - I doubt the current F1car would get much past Chertsey.

Northamptonshire is to F1 what North Carolina is to NASCAR - 7 of the ten teams are within an hour of the circuit, and some of them are literally just over the fence.

It’s not completely unknown for manufacturer engines to be used under a different name. This guy supplied several teams in 1987:

Interestingly, I believe that the only place that ever legislated to legalize slavery was the Republic of Texas, since it has been made illegal there by Mexico previously.

You can play it whatever way you like. Ignore them, kill them, subjugate them, convert them to Christianity, respect them, trade with them, integrate them into your colonies. It’s all there.

No love for DeSoto?

You have to give some kudos to NASCAR for the moves they’ve made this week; surprisingly progressive given the stereotypical image of a NASCAR fan.

Sun Tsu has it that you should never fight a battle you aren’t sure of winning.

This wasn’t really a race thing - Kanye was just wrong for a headline slot. You know who played immediately before him? Pharell. And he completely killed it.

Doesn’t surprise me - it looks like pretty much every jump resulted in a wreck. You’d think they’d have worked on the weight balance a little to stop the thing hitting the ground like a lawn dart.

I’m glad I was so young when Dukes of Hazzard was on the TV that I didn’t know what racism was. Here’s half an hour of flying cars.

I thought the stock reply was “you’ll have to catch it first!”