Best Of

@Malmesbury - So, if they wanted to, the Ukrainians could be in a position where, if Donald Trump tells them on January 21st that he is cutting off all US assistance, unless they do an immediate deal with the Russians, then the Ukrainians could already be in a position to have a nuclear bomb ready on the 23rd.

The thing is, then what?

Depends how much prep work they’ve done.

And a level of ruthlessness - how many people are you ok expending in your plutonium processing? The Russians are said to have used German prisoners of war…

The next step would be a test. Middle of the Black Sea. I’d go for just after sunset. Put the Funeral March of Seigfreid on the Bluetooth speaker, open a bottle of good red, press some buttons.

A Plan B could be some dirty bombs, dropped on air bases to make a big chunk of the Russian Air Force radioactive.

I vote for Plan C, where everyone is nice and gets along and no-one dies.

I know it's a lot to hope for. Even as someone who is intrinsically quite fond of 'hope'.

First

RFK in charge of Health? This really is popcorn time. At least this time a danger only to Americans.

Not if they lower food standards and then try to impose them on us ...

Kennedy has campaigned on raising US food standards. There’s all sorts of crap in American food that is banned in Europe.

Yes, you’ve said that. You keep studiously ignoring all the batshit crazy stuff he’s also said.

Flashback to when RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine activism led to a measles outbreak in Samoa that resulted in the death of 83 people, mostly children.
https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1857166708810666496

That doesn't matter in the eyes of some on here, for *REASONS*. It should be ignored. He has been anointed by Trump, and is therefore one of the Good Guys.

"Legal migration to some of the world’s richest countries reached an all-time high in 2023, sparking a voter backlash against governments despite the trend boosting growth and job creation.
Roughly 6.5mn people moved to the 38 countries that make up the membership of the OECD through permanent migration routes last year. That was an almost 10 per cent increase on the previous record of 6mn who moved in 2022, a report by the Paris-based organisation showed.

The greatest surge was in the UK, which for the first time became the biggest recipient of migrants after the US, with net immigration of 750,000 driven by recruitment to the care sector."

https://www.ft.com/content/c5f2ff4d-252d-45d6-ab25-44ee6bfabb96

Where exactly is this boost to economic growth occurring?

If you import a prime age worker you may increase economic growth.

But you may well NOT increase per capita growth.

We need to be much more concerned about the difference.

Indeed recruit migrants or else we will need to pay carers more than minimum wage is not a solution.

And the idea only migrants are carers is an utter fallacy too. About 80% of care workers were born in this country so suppressing their wages too.

For me there should not be any exemptions in industries to the minimum income threshold for visas.

Skilled worker visas have a threshold of £38,700 per annum. If care homes want to recruit a migrant at that rate then fantastic.

They'll probably fill all vacancies without needing to go that high though, if they aim the jobs somewhere between minimum wage and that rate.

Elon Musk meets with Iran’s ambassador to the UN to defuse tensions between the US and Iran: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2024/11/14/elon-musk-reportedly-met-with-irans-un-ambassador/

The problem with this is, in what capacity was he talking? Was he talking as a representative of the US government, in the interests of US citizens? Was he talking as the world's richest man, or in the interests of Tesla and SpaceX shareholders? Those interests might often be divergent.

And as someone says on Twix: what about the Logan Act?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Act

Time for a prosecution under the Logan Act.

Edit - oh you’ve edited your post, making my post redundant, you rotter.

First

RFK in charge of Health? This really is popcorn time. At least this time a danger only to Americans.

Not if they lower food standards and then try to impose them on us ...

Kennedy has campaigned on raising US food standards. There’s all sorts of crap in American food that is banned in Europe.

Yes, you’ve said that. You keep studiously ignoring all the batshit crazy stuff he’s also said.

Flashback to when RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine activism led to a measles outbreak in Samoa that resulted in the death of 83 people, mostly children.
https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1857166708810666496

Mr. Kamski, cheers for the info on the German election date. Any thoughts on how it might pan out? Will the trend of incumbents getting a kicking continue?

Definitely, I'd say. Nailed on CDU/CSU biggest parliamentary group, and (already unpopular) CDU leader Merz as chancellor. There will probably be a choice of SPD or Greens as junior coalition partners.

FDP and Left probably out of parliament, and BSW in.

Getting the FDP out of government will at least allow government borrowing to increase.

https://dawum.de/Bundestag/

has current opinion poll averages, what that would mean in terms of seats, and theoretically possible coalitions - though note it includes anything mathematically possible whereas other parties have ruled out working with the AfD so you can forget those options.

Of course it's possible there could be big changes before the election, though I don't really see it, the government is just too unpopular. Though the AfD and/or BSW could improve on their current polling. What happens in Ukraine between now and then is a potential unknown.

The SPD seem to have decided to stick with the unpopular Scholz as chancellor candidate, which I'm interpreting as meaning that they've already decided that the election is lost and want Scholz to carry the can.