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Mr.d: Only the pompous will be offended, and they are fair targets anyway. Keep the fresh views coming. Remember that many more people read the thread than contribiute to it. I'm sure the silent majority appreciate some new viewpoints. I try to stir things up a bit myself from time to time, but get few responses. Perhaps I need to disguise my hook a little better.

YT2095: By the powers invested in me as a proud founder member of the crackpot club, I invite you to be an honorary member. A one-off payment of £10 will gain you a badge and tie, and lifetime membership.

Sorry, people, nice idea but it won't work. Several reasons, mostly money and control. Just remember the old (Scottish?) saying "who pays the piper calls the tune". Setting it up would be expensive, even if the personnel were volunteers. Whoever put in the most would expect the biggest say and heaviest veto. No major power with areas of special interest would contenance a truly independant armed force that could theoretically threaten those interests. In short, even if it could be financed it would be as impotent as the existing UN. Wish it were not so, nice idea, but it will never fly. It is one severely defunct duck (or parrot, for Python fans.)

A potentially interesting and thought provoking thread/poll, but the question and options not well thought out. I agree largely with Sayonara, unfortunately. But anyone not aware of and deeply concerned by general environmental issues, or in denial as to the potentially dire consequences of ignoring them, is firmly amongst the head-burying ostrich brigade. (Or is busy raking in the loot from short-term corporate greed, and letting their children pick up the future tab.)

Whichever side actually came out on top, I think Hezbullah scored a resounding points victory for their tactics. Special ops ground forces would involve a greater loss of military personnel rather than bombing the fuzzywuzzies from a few thousand feet, out of range of their spears. Losses of Western and Israeli forces' (let's call them coalition) military personnel seem to inflame western political opinion more than colateral civilian casualties.

My own experiments with cornflour gel show that is basically weak. Wheat flour is stronger, because of the gluten. Both would break up with continuous manipulation as in a stress ball They both need to slowly dried to achieve mechanical strength. Sugar helps, but the right proportion of humectant such as glycerine works best for me. To make firm gels from cornflour, one might investigate the recipes for fruit pastilles. Is not the gel used for electrophoresis based on corn starch? (I stand to be corrected).

Perhaps because, as thrashed out in other threads, The concensus opinion (not necessarilly mine) is that all moral values are relative. I had thought of a "joke" about Bascule's relative morals, but he might not see the funny side of it.

Long ago, as a teenager, a friend had a test-tube of strontium 90 in his bedroom. Great glow in the dark fun at parties. That might zap the cornflour!

If cooked in a properly sealed bag and not opened at all, it will keep a long time. Dont forget, it is a foodstuff, and will have foodstuff type shelf life

Of course it does. Just leave your custard out of the fridge and see.

You might also investigate "potty putty" made by acidifying milk curds. Has some interesting properties. Buy and carry home your own milk, though!

Not necessarily. Perspex, the plastic developed I believe during the war for aircraft windows used starch as a basic raw material. Starch is extremely versatile. The secret lies in the adjuncts and processing. At least one company makes plastic pellets suitable for moulding and extruding that use potato starch as a base. The plastic is biodegradeable, but only when buried, as in landfill sites, (by bacterial action) or prolonged exposure to water, but not in a normal domestic environment.

Starch on its own, yes, but with additional right proportions of two other common household ingredients, I have made firm rubbery mats that, as I said before, are stable after 3 years.

So that is 0/10 marks for the cryptozoologist then. What a shame. I can just imagine his reaction when informed of the find while eating his lunch "Oh my Lord, another crackpot, it can wait for a few days". His will be the official arse-covering version, yours confined to the dustbin of unscientific urban legend.

Cornflour/water. From my own try it and see experiments, cornflour and water will remain either as a semi-solid hard to stir when the water content is too low to lubricate the starch grains, or a "batter" mix with more water. It only solidifies (like custard or pancakes) when heated and the grains swell to absorb water. N.B. do not heat above 100C, or the solidly swollen grains will break down again. 80C is a useful practical temp, which also sterilises. It will take a high proportion of sugar too, which acts as a fungicide. If you freeze the finished product, It will break up a bit as the starch can hold less water at lower temperatures. PS I posted this before your post #10, so it appears irrelevant. Sorry.

So you want something as quick, easy and cheap as salt dough that has similar or better properties? Sounds like a holy grail wish list. Common or garden clay has some similar properties. Your reasons for not considering it are....?

Do you mean preseving it in its pliable state, or hard state? When playing with starch compounds, small amounts of glycerine result in a pliable rubbery material after the water content has evaporated, Some examples of which are still stable and mould-free after three years exposure to normal environment. Not sure how relatively big a part gluten and starch play in salt dough, having read that it is the salt that strengthens the gluten "strands". Perhaps the starch is merely bulk and filler, like the sand in a mortar mix.

Bit of a shame, really, because I can visualise it in all its glory (except gravity). dont respond in any relevant threads, because I am embarassingly devoid of the necessary maths. Half a century ago I had a strange waking dream where all the universe was filled with multi-coloured twisting and vibrating threads. Imagine my surprise at remembering this dream when I first heard of string theory, and fitting in extra dimensions to accomodate transitional energy states that were forbidden in our four dimensions. I must be a borderline crackpot.

Possibly because many people believe "you are what you eat". If there is any truth in that, and pigs are so intelligent, then give me a double helping of trotters and brawn to go. I am humble enough to admit I could always benefit from a touch more intelligence.

1veedo: An inch is a short thumb, a foot is the average length of that male appendage, and a yard is the distance from the tip of your nose to your outstretched finger tip. At least, those were the measurements of the (English?) King who first made a recorded stab at an enforceable standard in this country. Cant have been too bad if much of the world fell-in with it until Napoleon got a fit of pique. Dont forget rods, poles, perches, chains, leagues and fathoms: also the difference between land miles and nautical miles. Air speed for commercial aircraft is, I believe, still internationally measured in knots (1 nautical mile per hour, where a nautical mile is 2000yds). While we are at it, why still 24 hrs in a day and 12 months in a year (an invention, I believe of the Romans who wanted to fit in another god or two). A calendar month does not even fit in with the phases of the moon. 360 degrees in a circle still? There is another mediaeval anachronism. Those examples are just the tip of the iceberg. I prefer not to be shoehorned into a one-size-fits-all boring universal conformity, thanks very much.

The way the responses in this thread are going, it seems the only point of (dubious) moral principle under consideration is one of timing, and quibbling about a couple of weeks here and there. If so, then all correspondents seem to agree that abortion is morally right. So no good or bad, just pragmatic shades of grey, then. I don't know whether to be reassured or not.

It was, after all, a capitalist war. No point in being a capitalist and not profiting from a war, goes without saying, really. Look at all the stories of how US companies profited from Iraq, and still do. First from armaments, then from rebuilding what the armaments destroyed. It is a mad, mad world. Never mind about crackpot science, it's crackpot politics wherein lies the real danger.