Is Magna Carta overrated?

Magna Carta - Latin for Great Charter - was agreed at Runnymede in 1215 and sealed by King John after powerful barons had rebelled and captured London.

Held up as the embodiment of freedom and equality, it is revered in the US and credited with justifying the resistance to the rule of George III and influencing the Declaration of Independence.

In his inaugural address in 1941, President Franklin D Roosevelt said: "The democratic aspiration is no mere recent phase in human history... It was written in Magna Carta."

But Magna Carta's status isn't agreed upon by everyone.   Link to the BBC
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UK forces' Operational Awards honour battlefield bravery

The mottled green and brown of army fatigues are a great leveller. Line up three rows of soldiers dressed identically, and it's impossible to tell which one helped save an Afghan boy who had his leg blown off or which one narrowly escaped a bullet in the brain. Link to the BBC.
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Wonders Of The Universe

I know it's nothing to do with military or wargaming stuff, but I thought I post today about the fabulous pictures that the Royal Observatory has chosen as the winning entries in its' astronomy photography competition. Link
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Transit of Venus across the sun.

Mosquito Engine Run

Yesterday the DH Mosquito at Ardmore had her Rolls-Royce Merlin engines fired up for the first time.

Borderlands 2

Great excitement here at the Vulture household ! Borderlands 2 arrived in the post and younger Vulture is flapping up and down with excitement as the game loads up :)
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M1A1 Tank Removes Trees In Australia

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Crowd Gets Surprised During Tank Show

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HMS Ark Royal sold for scrap by Ministry of Defence

Aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is being sold for £3m for scrap metal by the Ministry of Defence to help tackle a multi-billion pound defence deficit. Link
Comment:  I just want to share with you that nothing feels good about this....  :(
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War and Peace Show

This is a good little video all about The War And Peace show.  Link
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"For the past 30 years the War and Peace show in Kent, England, has served as an exhibition of military vehicles and a forum for the re-enactment of armed conflicts witnessed in the 20th century. Join RT as we team up with a Russian delegation on the road from Moscow, period vehicles in tow, to meet other enthusiasts who share the same history and use it to turn former enemies into new allies."
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Time-Lapse of Tank Loading Into C-1

Company Of Heroes - Map Pack

Enthusiasts of the PC version of Company of Heroes game should download this huge 1.4 Gig map pack which contains over 207 working maps. Link
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'The Victory Show' - Cosby

Yesterday the family and drove across to Cosby in Leicestershire to go 'The Victory Show'. This is an event that is almost exclusively 1940s focussed and has a large reenactment/living history element to it. What a fabulous day out it proved to be. Lots and lots of armour and vehicles to wander around, a tank ride on an Aboot SPG, a 25 minute battle involving 100 guys a side with lots of explosions and smoke, and a Dakota, Hurricane and a couple of Mustangs flying around. Awesome ! 
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2012 - The Victory Show - Cosby
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Amendment to the EC Roadworthiness Package for Historic Vehicles

If you have a moment, please sign up this petition: Link
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The European Commission is proposing to outlaw the use of any modifications and non-original components to historic vehicles by introducing the following legislation; Periodic roadworthiness tests for motor vehicles and their trailers and repealing Directive 2009/40/EC".
 Many elements of this legislation make good sense, however the legislation in its current format would immediately render thousands of historic vehicles illegal because of ‘common sense enhancements’. Surely this would jeopardize jobs in this valuable industry and the multi million pound supply chain, and in many cases actually rendering safety enhancements illegal as they were not fitted by vehicles designers, possibly causing fatalities.
 The request is that Parliament consider the implications of banning modifications to historic vehicles, and suggest that the EU policy should be changed to closer reflect the sensible use of modifications in keeping with the vehicles historic design and nature ?
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Humour - Tech Support

Dear Technical Support,
18 months ago, I upgraded to Girlfriend 1.0 from Drinking Mates 4.2, which I had used for years without any trouble. However, there are apparently conflicts between these two products and the only solution was to try and run Girlfriend 1.0 with the sound turned off. To make matters worse, Girlfriend 1.0 is incompatible with several other applications, such as Lads Night Out 3.1, Football 4.5, and Playboy 6.9. Successive versions of Girlfriend proved no better. I tried a shareware program, Slapper 2.1, but it had many bugs and left a virus in my system, forcing me to shut down completely for several weeks. Eventually, I tried to run Girlfriend 1.2 and Girlfriend 1.0 at the same time, only to discover that when these two systems detected each other they caused severe damage to my hardware. I eventually upgraded to Fiancé 1.0, only to discover that this product soon had to be upgraded further to Wife 1.0. While Wife 1.0 tends to use up all my available resources, it does come bundled with FreeSexPlus and Cleanhouse2008. Shortly after this upgrade, however, I found that Wife 1.0 could be very unstable and costly to run. Any mistakes I made were automatically stored in Wife 1.0's memory and could not be deleted. They then resurfaced months later when I had forgotten about them. Wife 1.0 also has an automatic Diary, Explorer and E-mail filter, and can, without warning, launch TurboStrop and Multi-Whinge. These latter products have no Help files, and I have to try to guess what the problem is. Additional problems are that Wife 1.0 needs updating regularly, requiring ShoeShop Browser for new attachments and Hairstyle Express which needs to be reinstalled every other week. Also, when Wife 1.0 attaches itself to my Saab 93 Convertible hard drive, it often crashes. Wife 1.0 also comes with an irritating pop-up called MotherInLaw, which can't be turned off. Recently I've been tempted to install Mistress 2008, but there could be problems. A friend of mine has alerted me to the fact that if Wife 1.0 detects Mistress 2008, it tends to delete all of your Money before uninstalling itself.
Help requested please
Regards

Dear Troubled User:
This is a very common problem that men complain about. Many people upgrade from a Girlfriend application to Wife 1.0, thinking that it is just a Utilities and Entertainment program. Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and is designed by its Creator to run everything. It is also impossible to delete Wife 1.0 and to return to Girlfriend 1.2. It is impossible to uninstall, or purge the program files from the system once installed. You are right that you cannot go back to Girlfriend 1.2 because Wife 1.0 is designed not to allow this. Look in your Wife 1.0 manual under 'Warnings-Alimony/Child Support.' I recommend that you keep Wife 1.0 and work on improving the situation. I suggest installing the background application 'Yes Dear' to alleviate software augmentation. The best course of action is to enter the command C: \ APOLOGIZE. Because ultimately you will have to give the APOLOGIZE command before the system will return to normal anyway. Wife 1.0 is a great program, but it tends to be very high maintenance. Overuse of its support programs will cause the system to launch the program Nag Nag 9.5. Once this happens, the only way to improve the performance of Wife 1.0 is to purchase additional software.. I recommend Flowers 2.1 and Diamonds 5.0. WARNING!!! DO NOT, under any circumstances, install Secretary With Short Skirt 3.3. This application is not supported by Wife 1.0 and will cause irreversible damage to the operating system.
Best of luck,
Tech Support

Netherlands at War 1940

On the Battlefront web site they have quite an interesting article about the Netherlands at war which is worth a read. Link
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