Jesus - 1 week ago I had no idea what SWIFT was and now I have to work out sub -webs of it to see what is targeted and functional of it and what is not - i am sure PB will help! Beginning to feel like Peter Mannion at that staff away day retreat he had to go to
Daring to raise my head above the trench in this vicious continental definition war but hands up if you agree with me that there are 7 continents - Africa , Asia , Europe , N and C America , S.America , Oceania and Antarctica . The game Risk has it right and FIFA ,Eurasia people and Aussies are Asians people have it wrong imho. The world needs 7 continents ,any less and well its inadequate
Nope. Asia/Europe is a non-starter, it would never have got off the ground if the Greeks had not had first mover advantage.
Nor of course would dividing up the Americas just because there's a thin bit in the middle. And you can't say yebbut different plates, that's like Frank Drebbin killing his 1000th drug dealer by reversing over him and then him turning out to be a drug dealer afterwards.
If you want a lucky seven you can have Eurasia, Africa, Australia, North America, South America, Antarctica, Greenland.
Anders Åslund @anders_aslund Today, Ukraine's railway workers blew up all connections with the Russian railways. That is important to block future military supplies.
Anders Åslund @anders_aslund Today, Ukraine's railway workers blew up all connections with the Russian railways. That is important to block future military supplies.
Musing on what is an old poll but an interesting election which is for the Northern Ireland Assembly on May 5th. SF maintains a narrow lead over the DUP with Alliance polling strongly in third and UU in fourth.
The possibility must therefore exist of Michelle O'Neill becoming First Minister - the Executive (before its suspension) had a balance of 4 DUP, 3 SF and one each from UU, SDLP and Alliance.
It may be we could be looking at 4 SF and 2 from DUP, UU and Alliance as the polling suggests.
As a complete aside, received through the letter box of Stodge Towers a powerful anti-Labour leaflet (one or two inaccuracies in all honesty) from "community campaigner" Mehmood Mirza.
Now for those who don't follow Newham politics (and why would you?), Mirza was once a staunch ally of current Newham Mayor and Council leader Roksana Fiaz who has been selected for another term as Mayor. Mirza has turned on her because she has turned on Momentum and the Corbynites and embraced the centrist path to world domination as described by SKS (apparently).
Mirza, who is very active against the Council, seems likely to stand against Fiaz as "Newham Socialist Labour" candidate (apparently Gorgeous George was also approached). Whether said NSL will put up candidates against Labour in the Council election remains the seen but two Labour Councillors have resigned the Labour Whip and the Chairs of both East Ham and West Ham CLPs have quit the party over the "coronation" of Fiaz.
The DUP have withdrawn from the Stormont Executive though to stop leakage to TUV and will not return unless and until the UK government invokes Article 16
It would be great for all of Ireland, the rest of then Uk and probably for the EU as well is Ulster Unionists voted for the UUP in large enough numbers for them to have more votes and seats than the DUP and TUV.
Anders Åslund @anders_aslund Today, Ukraine's railway workers blew up all connections with the Russian railways. That is important to block future military supplies.
Could have just sprinkled some leaves on the line
We regret the cancellation of this service, C4 on the line. And No buffet car.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us...
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
Hope they pay you well for that equivocation
If you never make predictions then you can never make a bad prediction was some advice I was given early in my working life.
I have to work pretty hard to not giving people the answer 'Yes and No' to a lot of questions. Problem is people like simple yes or no answers and often there's more to it than they'd like.
The baffling failure of Russian air power and ability to defend it's own supply lines make no sense. Mavbe he really did expect Ukraine to just roll over?
I'm inclined to think that "somebody* on the Russian side is a little complacent, or over-confident.
It must require a large number of assumptions about risk to line up 90 helicopters parked nose to tail on a road 20-25 miles inside Belarus.
RAF Basingbourn (still an MOD site) is just down the road from me. It was home to B17 aircraft of the USAAF.
Nearby there is a stately home, Wimpole Hall, which coincidentally had a wide two-mile long avenue stretching between it and the base. So the air force used it as distributed parking for their aircraft - and there are photos of these massive bombers arrayed along it.
Whenever I walk the avenue, I think of what it must have been like with all those bombers there.
Do you have a link to a photograph of that? Fascinating.
The link I gave had a diagram of the dispersal points and a wartime aerial view of them, sans aircraft. I've seen a piccie of the avenue heaving with bombers, but annoyingly I cannot immediately find it online. It may have been in a book. Sorry.
[deleted redundant content - I'd meant something else but the pics are much the same]
Nope, don't think I've read that. It's blooming annoying as I definitely saw it in a book or leaflet, and wished I'd scanned it in. I'm then fairly certain I came across the same piccie online, but cannot find it now.
It may have been a local history book from the library.
Annoying when that happens! That publisher/magazine likes to have then and now comparisons and is generally excellent for helping one visualise what things actually looked like at the time.
I live right by the old RAF Bourn (note, not Bassingbourn - I wonder if there was ever confusion with having two airfields similarly named so close). It was quite a large place for a satellite airfield, and I think had much heavier maintenance facilities than most airfields.
On the other side of the road to the airfield are a series of old wooden huts in a field - presumably old accommodation, slowly falling down. I'd love to know the history of the buildings, and am wondering if they are unusual and should be preserved? If I'm right and they are Second World War that is...
Anyone recognise what they are? Or are they just old pig sheds?
British Concrete Federation prefabs, but obviously like Nissen huts could be used for lots of things. IANAE but this looks to me like a dispersed residential site - all buildings the same pattern so far as I can see in plan view, no specialist use, single ?water tower, etc. Spread out the risk of air attack, Cookhouse elsewhere on airfield, etc.
Wow, thanks. I've read that third link several times before, but it never quite sunk in.
Are they unusual survivors?
No idea, not least because they must have been common - literally built like Nissen huts. They would have to be some unusual variant. But the prefab museum people should know. Also worth a look woiuld be the Enbglish Heritage register and the Defence of the Realm website [edit: forget that DotR Project, it's anti-invasion, so not relevant).
Thanks. I might drop them a line; they're quite fascinating structures, clearly visible in the field on a couple of my regular running routes. It seems a shame that they're derelict, especially given their local history as shown on one of your links.
And this too (from the superb NLS website maps section). Amazing how many huts there were even in (apparently) 1959. Your huts are a mere remnant.
The DUP have withdrawn from the Stormont Executive though to stop leakage to TUV and will not return unless and until the UK government invokes Article 16
That doesn't stop the Executive from existing, does it?
The Executive currently represents 81 of the 90 Assembly members - without the DUP, the cross-community votes couldn't happen but routine business could. Whether the UU or Alliance could take the Deputy First Minister role if the DUP refused to serve, I don't know.
I suspect and hope your understanding of the functions of the NI Assembly is superior to mine.
In practical terms though without the largest Unionist party it has broken down as has the GFA until the Irish Sea border is removed.
At the time of the GFA it was the UUP the largest Unionist party, now the DUP is largest party and with the TUV makes up well over half of Unionists
I expect you are going to find as this war plays out there will be a large move by HMG to resolve the NI protocol and come together much more with the EU over lots of areas
This will have changed the dial on UK- EU relationships and for the better
It won't, Starmer might, Johnson won't.
NATO unity is separate
I am not talking about NATO but trust you to misunderstanding the post
You are deluded if you think Johnson will align closer to the EU was the point, the ERG would go mad.
Starmer might if he won the next general election, not the Tories
I am not the deluded one here
The position HY describes isn't necessarily morally right, but he's probably politically right.
This Government flip flops about on some issues, but is deeply dogmatic and inflexible on others. The insistence on picking fights over Northern Ireland, even when there are far more important priorities to attend to now and we could agree to see how the mechanisms work and revisit them in a year or two, is one example. Another is immigration and asylum. They are presently heel digging over visa free travel for the poor bloody Ukrainian refugees, and will likely continue to do so even as Poland in particular is swamped with potentially millions of arrivals. It's going to take a concerted campaign of humiliation from the entire Western alliance to get the UK to budge on this, in all likelihood.
The Home Office is institutionally racist. Discuss.
Daring to raise my head above the trench in this vicious continental definition war but hands up if you agree with me that there are 7 continents - Africa , Asia , Europe , N and C America , S.America , Oceania and Antarctica . The game Risk has it right and FIFA ,Eurasia people and Aussies are Asians people have it wrong imho. The world needs 7 continents ,any less and well its inadequate
Nope. Asia/Europe is a non-starter, it would never have got off the ground if the Greeks had not had first mover advantage.
Nor of course would dividing up the Americas just because there's a thin bit in the middle. And you can't say yebbut different plates, that's like Frank Drebbin killing his 1000th drug dealer by reversing over him and then him turning out to be a drug dealer afterwards.
If you want a lucky seven you can have Eurasia, Africa, Australia, North America, South America, Antarctica, Greenland.
As you can walk from Ushuaia to Utqiagvik, N/S America is not acceptable.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us...
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
Hope they pay you well for that equivocation
If you never make predictions then you can never make a bad prediction was some advice I was given early in my working life.
I have to work pretty hard to not giving people the answer 'Yes and No' to a lot of questions. Problem is people like simple yes or no answers and often there's more to it than they'd like.
I can relate.
had to go on a court training course for witnesses for my job and the barrister said the number of people who comply with a cross examination barrister's demand that they only answer a question yes or no is amazing. Answer it in however many words you want to was his advice.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Er, who said anything about continental drift before you did?
Nobody explicitly, I deduced the relationship between it and Mr Tyndall's logic fail, because I am clever like that. I may be wrong of course, but it seems the likeliest explanation of his delusion that plate tectonics, and the definition of "continent," have anything to say about each other.
If you have a better one, please share it with the class.
Not at all; simply that the Isles of Britain and Ireland are on the continental shelf - ergo prima facie part of the continent of Eurasia (and Africa too).
The argument ex cod Latin, always a killer. Why does being on the x shelf imply x?
I do understand these things are hard to a Flat Earther like yourself. Or maybe you are one of the Hollow Earthers?
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Er, who said anything about continental drift before you did?
Nobody explicitly, I deduced the relationship between it and Mr Tyndall's logic fail, because I am clever like that. I may be wrong of course, but it seems the likeliest explanation of his delusion that plate tectonics, and the definition of "continent," have anything to say about each other.
If you have a better one, please share it with the class.
Not at all; simply that the Isles of Britain and Ireland are on the continental shelf - ergo prima facie part of the continent of Eurasia (and Africa too).
That is a deliberate reimagining of the disagreement. Eurasia was never mentioned. Hy argued that Russia threatened the UK to a greater degree than China does because we share a Continent. We don't share a Continent. We are not part of Continental Europe, and unless Russia plans to invade every other country on the way here, before getting a Eurostar ticket, it would have to invade by sea, just as China would. Therefore one that threatens us more is therefore the one with the bigger and better equipped Navy - being 'European' is neither here nor there. This daft argument about continental shelves is totally irrelevant. And the fact that we aren't on the continent has nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit ffs.
Jesus - 1 week ago I had no idea what SWIFT was and now I have to work out sub -webs of it to see what is targeted and functional of it and what is not - i am sure PB will help! Beginning to feel like Peter Mannion at that staff away day retreat he had to go to
From what I'm hearing it's not the big bazooka people might hope. Not my area of expertise but the clearing system might be more important.
Also is it clear whether or not whether Erdogan has closed the Bosphorus?
Jesus - 1 week ago I had no idea what SWIFT was and now I have to work out sub -webs of it to see what is targeted and functional of it and what is not - i am sure PB will help! Beginning to feel like Peter Mannion at that staff away day retreat he had to go to
From what I'm hearing it's not the big bazooka people might hope. Not my area of expertise but the clearing system might be more important.
Also is it clear whether or not whether Erdogan has closed the Bosphorus?
Are we sure we want him to get a taste for wielding that as a weapon?
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Given the amount of time I have been around on here, the fact I use my own name and am known to plenty of posters outside of PB as well I am not sure I have to provide any proof about the fact that I am a professional geologist. Continental drift is a well established and accepted scientific theory. Not least because we can actually see it happening, measure it happening today and have vast amounts of evidence about it having happened in the past. I will henceforth regard you as a flat earther and treat you with the appropriate scorn.
Mind you I was scornful of you before so nothing changes much really.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Er, who said anything about continental drift before you did?
Nobody explicitly, I deduced the relationship between it and Mr Tyndall's logic fail, because I am clever like that. I may be wrong of course, but it seems the likeliest explanation of his delusion that plate tectonics, and the definition of "continent," have anything to say about each other.
If you have a better one, please share it with the class.
Not at all; simply that the Isles of Britain and Ireland are on the continental shelf - ergo prima facie part of the continent of Eurasia (and Africa too).
That is a deliberate reimagining of the disagreement. Eurasia was never mentioned. Hy argued that Russia threatened the UK to a greater degree than China does because we share a Continent. We don't share a Continent. We are not part of Continental Europe, and unless Russia plans to invade every other country on the way here, before getting a Eurostar ticket, it would have to invade by sea, just as China would. Therefore one that threatens us more is therefore the one with the bigger and better equipped Navy - being 'European' is neither here nor there. This daft argument about continental shelves is totally irrelevant. And the fact that we aren't on the continent has nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit ffs.
So were we part of continental Europe 9000 years ago?
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
We are not on the Continent.
This is basic geography.
In which you are wrong. We are part of the European continent by any normal definition.
These people just make up their own facts to suit them. They end up looking like complete idiots, posting tripe like that.
Not a very successful attempt at mockery then, or a very successful post full stop. Geographically, we are separated from the Continent of Europe by the sea. Geologically, we may be connected by a shelf, but unless the Russians are going to develop gills, it's utterly irrelevant to the discussion.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The mid-Atlantic plate runs right through Iceland, meaning the north-western side of the island is on the North American continent, with the south-eastern side on Europe.
We're talking landmass, not plates! Otherwise India isn't part of Asia!
Correct
this is a fallacy which irritates the fuck out of me. You have continents (big bits) and islands (small bits) so you have the continent which we are not part of because we are an island. But if you say so there's a bunch of hebephrenic dweebs who make out like you have said something almost as terrible as saying that a person with a cock and balls might be a laydee but that's not where the smart money is, because they think that plate tectonics = continental drift, when it really, really doesn't.
Also, Spain and Portugal are deffo in Africa on this theory.
Never do meth, kids. Not even once.
I've never seen anyone get so mad about the definition of continent before. I cannot say I anticipated that.
I'll tiptoe in on a 'common parlance' rather than 'geological' platform - we are part of the continent of Europe but not of continental Europe.
Daring to raise my head above the trench in this vicious continental definition war but hands up if you agree with me that there are 7 continents - Africa , Asia , Europe , N and C America , S.America , Oceania and Antarctica . The game Risk has it right and FIFA ,Eurasia people and Aussies are Asians people have it wrong imho. The world needs 7 continents ,any less and well its inadequate
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Given the amount of time I have been around on here, the fact I use my own name and am known to plenty of posters outside of PB as well I am not sure I have to provide any proof about the fact that I am a professional geologist. Continental drift is a well established and accepted scientific theory. Not least because we can actually see it happening, measure it happening today and have vast amounts of evidence about it having happened in the past. I will henceforth regard you as a flat earther and treat you with the appropriate scorn.
Mind you I was scornful of you before so nothing changes much really.
That's all well and good, but we are still not present on the European continent with Russia. And if we accepted your argument that geologically speaking we are, it still invalidates Hyufd's argument, because by that token, we also share one with China. Unless you're going on geology at one end and switching over to geography at the other.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Given the amount of time I have been around on here, the fact I use my own name and am known to plenty of posters outside of PB as well I am not sure I have to provide any proof about the fact that I am a professional geologist. Continental drift is a well established and accepted scientific theory. Not least because we can actually see it happening, measure it happening today and have vast amounts of evidence about it having happened in the past. I will henceforth regard you as a flat earther and treat you with the appropriate scorn.
Mind you I was scornful of you before so nothing changes much really.
LOL
Plate tectonics is not about continents, and not about drift.
I am myself a (professional, published, reasonably well respected) ancient historian. I would regard it as plumbing the utter depths of self regarding wankerdom to post "You are arguing ancient history with an ancient historian? You are truly deluded" rather than address any argument on its merits. But you do you.
For I think the third time: Spain: Europe or Africa?
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
You've posted a lot sensible posts on the site here Gallowgate, but this isn't one of them.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
Ukraine are not a member of NATO. We are not going to risk direct conflict or world war three for them. If it was a NATO country then that is different.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
You've posted a lot sensible posts on the site here Gallowgate, but this isn't one of them.
I honestly disagree. With that attitude Russia could roll over half of Europe and we wouldn't do anything because it might "risk direct conflict with Russia". Where is the line?
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
Ukraine are not a member of NATO. We are not going to risk direct conflict or world war three with them. If it was a NATO country then that is different.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Given the amount of time I have been around on here, the fact I use my own name and am known to plenty of posters outside of PB as well I am not sure I have to provide any proof about the fact that I am a professional geologist. Continental drift is a well established and accepted scientific theory. Not least because we can actually see it happening, measure it happening today and have vast amounts of evidence about it having happened in the past. I will henceforth regard you as a flat earther and treat you with the appropriate scorn.
Mind you I was scornful of you before so nothing changes much really.
Not to defend Ishmael but I think when he says Continental Drift he refers to the original theory which certainly isn’t well established/accepted. Sure, the continents are drifting, but because of plate tectonics not centrifugal force as originally Wegner proposed
Daring to raise my head above the trench in this vicious continental definition war but hands up if you agree with me that there are 7 continents - Africa , Asia , Europe , N and C America , S.America , Oceania and Antarctica . The game Risk has it right and FIFA ,Eurasia people and Aussies are Asians people have it wrong imho. The world needs 7 continents ,any less and well its inadequate
Oceania sounds mythical?
Or a triple album by Yes.
I miss the 70s, but in some ways we have moved on.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
We don't have the resources for a proxy war with Russia, public opinion is not there, and we prefer a policy of 'de escalation' even though it has been a disaster to date.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us...
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
Hope they pay you well for that equivocation
If you never make predictions then you can never make a bad prediction was some advice I was given early in my working life.
I have to work pretty hard to not giving people the answer 'Yes and No' to a lot of questions. Problem is people like simple yes or no answers and often there's more to it than they'd like.
I can relate.
had to go on a court training course for witnesses for my job and the barrister said the number of people who comply with a cross examination barrister's demand that they only answer a question yes or no is amazing. Answer it in however many words you want to was his advice.
+1
You should also never give the barrister the satisfaction of addressing your answers to him or her.
Turn to the Judge with your shoulder facing the barrister. Answers go through the Judge. And what's particularly enjoyable is if you add 'your honour' or whichever title is appropriate to the level of court whilst speaking to the Judge. Guaranteed to rile a barrister.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Er, who said anything about continental drift before you did?
Nobody explicitly, I deduced the relationship between it and Mr Tyndall's logic fail, because I am clever like that. I may be wrong of course, but it seems the likeliest explanation of his delusion that plate tectonics, and the definition of "continent," have anything to say about each other.
If you have a better one, please share it with the class.
Not at all; simply that the Isles of Britain and Ireland are on the continental shelf - ergo prima facie part of the continent of Eurasia (and Africa too).
That is a deliberate reimagining of the disagreement. Eurasia was never mentioned. Hy argued that Russia threatened the UK to a greater degree than China does because we share a Continent. We don't share a Continent. We are not part of Continental Europe, and unless Russia plans to invade every other country on the way here, before getting a Eurostar ticket, it would have to invade by sea, just as China would. Therefore one that threatens us more is therefore the one with the bigger and better equipped Navy - being 'European' is neither here nor there. This daft argument about continental shelves is totally irrelevant. And the fact that we aren't on the continent has nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit ffs.
So were we part of continental Europe 9000 years ago?
I don't know, but I also don't see the relevance. The subject of geology is fascinating, and I don't know as much about it as I would like to. However, for the purposes of this discussion, as I said, we are an island (group of islands). And Russia has no inherent advantage that I can see, by virtue of its location on the continent of Europe, in invading us.
To be honest if Russia/Putin is crazy enough (as seems to be the case for the latter anyway), he'll interpret massive financial sanctions and open transfer of weaponry to Ukraine as hostile acts anyway. I'm not entirely convinced that we can do everything short of engage Russia in battle without the potential for it escalating anyway.
That doesn't mean we don't do it, but let's not kid ourselves here.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Given the amount of time I have been around on here, the fact I use my own name and am known to plenty of posters outside of PB as well I am not sure I have to provide any proof about the fact that I am a professional geologist. Continental drift is a well established and accepted scientific theory. Not least because we can actually see it happening, measure it happening today and have vast amounts of evidence about it having happened in the past. I will henceforth regard you as a flat earther and treat you with the appropriate scorn.
Mind you I was scornful of you before so nothing changes much really.
Not to defend Ishmael but I think when he says Continental Drift he refers to the original theory which certainly isn’t well established/accepted. Sure, the continents are drifting, but because of plate tectonics not centrifugal force as originally Wegner proposed
And it isn't continents drifting, it's plates. Continents are purely temporary constructs.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
We don't have the resources for a proxy war with Russia, public opinion is not there, and we prefer a policy of 'de escalation' even though it has been a disaster to date.
NATO does though - that's what I mean by "we".
We shouldn't seek out conflict with Russia, obviously, but I honestly am starting to doubt the value of NATO. I can see the same arguments being made if a NATO baltic state was attacked, regardless of NATO membership, and there ends NATO, especially if Trump is president.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
Russia is struggling to execute its battle plan in Ukraine. Its conventional forces are strong, but clearly flawed and not nearly so strong as to be able to match NATO. If we end up at war with Russia, Russia will lose and lose badly.
Taking on a paranoid, unstable dictatorship with a taste for the indiscriminate use of extreme violence is the ideal condition for promoting a massive nuclear conflagration. If Russia is going to lose - which means both the destruction of Putin's imperial delusions, and his own personal downfall and death - then there's almost nothing left to restrain him from such a response. We are then left entirely reliant on the Russian generals to overthrow Putin quickly, and/or the nuclear command and control system being robust enough to prevent a suicidal nutcase from launching a strike. I think we'd all rather it didn't come to that.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Given the amount of time I have been around on here, the fact I use my own name and am known to plenty of posters outside of PB as well I am not sure I have to provide any proof about the fact that I am a professional geologist. Continental drift is a well established and accepted scientific theory. Not least because we can actually see it happening, measure it happening today and have vast amounts of evidence about it having happened in the past. I will henceforth regard you as a flat earther and treat you with the appropriate scorn.
Mind you I was scornful of you before so nothing changes much really.
Not to defend Ishmael but I think when he says Continental Drift he refers to the original theory which certainly isn’t well established/accepted. Sure, the continents are drifting, but because of plate tectonics not centrifugal force as originally Wegner proposed
In which case he is making an utterly pointless distinction. The effect is the same. Plates move relative to one another. They are subducted beneath one another or form mountain chains depending one whether they are formed of continental or oceanic crust. We are part of the Eurasian plate which is formed from a series of older plates. Northwest Scotland was part of the North American plate and Western Newfoundland was part of the Eurasian plate before the opening of the Atlantic. This is all basic accepted stuff. What ever delusions Ishmael is suffering from have no place in proper science.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
You've posted a lot sensible posts on the site here Gallowgate, but this isn't one of them.
I honestly disagree. With that attitude Russia could roll over half of Europe and we wouldn't do anything because it might "risk direct conflict with Russia". Where is the line?
NATO membership is as arbitrary as can be.
No, NATO membership has very clearly defined rules and limits ; an attack on one is an attack on all. So far the West's critical interests have not been endangered, and a madman is conceiving exactly that if action moves directly between NATO and Russia. There's no conceivable sense in NATO risking everything to defend an area which is not part of it.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
Russia is struggling to execute its battle plan in Ukraine. Its conventional forces are strong, but clearly flawed and not nearly so strong as to be able to match NATO. If we end up at war with Russia, Russia will lose and lose badly.
Taking on a paranoid, unstable dictatorship with a taste for the indiscriminate use of extreme violence is the ideal condition for promoting a massive nuclear conflagration. If Russia is going to lose - which means both the destruction of Putin's imperial delusions, and his own personal downfall and death - then there's almost nothing left to restrain him from such a response. We are then left entirely reliant on the Russian generals to overthrow Putin quickly, and/or the nuclear command and control system being robust enough to prevent a suicidal nutcase from launching a strike. I think we'd all rather it didn't come to that.
All very good points. But meanwhile Ukrainians die.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
Ukraine are not a member of NATO. We are not going to risk direct conflict or world war three with them. If it was a NATO country then that is different.
It's not different on a moral level.
You feel so strongly fly out there and join the battle. Zelezny has asked people to go and help. I suspect you won’t you’ll just keep carping.
We have no treaty obligation and we are providing arms and assistance as well as pressuring Russia economically.
To be honest if Russia/Putin is crazy enough (as seems to be the case for the latter anyway), he'll interpret massive financial sanctions and open transfer of weaponry to Ukraine as hostile acts anyway. I'm not entirely convinced that we can do everything short of engage Russia in battle without the potential for it escalating anyway.
That doesn't mean we don't do it, but let's not kid ourselves here.
This is what I was thinking. Can we be confident he won't try to strike us if he thinks our weapons are making the difference between winning and losing?
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
You've posted a lot sensible posts on the site here Gallowgate, but this isn't one of them.
I honestly disagree. With that attitude Russia could roll over half of Europe and we wouldn't do anything because it might "risk direct conflict with Russia". Where is the line?
NATO membership is as arbitrary as can be.
No, NATO membership has very clearly defined rules and limits ; an attack on one is an attack on all. So far the West's critical interests have not been endangered, and a madman is threatening exactly that if action moves directly between NATO. There's no rational sense in NATO risking everything to defend an area which is not part of it.
Do you honestly think the British public would be more willing to defend Latvia with British blood than Ukraine? It's entirely arbitrary.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
Russia is struggling to execute its battle plan in Ukraine. Its conventional forces are strong, but clearly flawed and not nearly so strong as to be able to match NATO. If we end up at war with Russia, Russia will lose and lose badly.
If, and it remains a big if, Putin’s war is not going well then I feel more vindicated about my erroneous argument that he wouldn’t invade.
I argued that Russian military might was exaggerated and that he wouldn’t be that stupid: forgetting until ‘that’ broadcast that he has gone doolally.
Russian military might has been vastly overrated for decades. It was something of a running joke back in the day when I briefly worked in the field.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
You've posted a lot sensible posts on the site here Gallowgate, but this isn't one of them.
I honestly disagree. With that attitude Russia could roll over half of Europe and we wouldn't do anything because it might "risk direct conflict with Russia". Where is the line?
NATO membership is as arbitrary as can be.
No, NATO membership has very clearly defined rules and limits ; an attack on one is an attack on all. So far the West's critical interests have not been endangered, and a madman is threatening exactly that if action moves directly between NATO. There's no rational sense in NATO risking everything to defend an area which is not part of it.
Do you honestly think the British public would be more willing to defend Latvia with British blood than Ukraine? It's entirely arbitrary.
But it's a line in the sand, though, and how international alliances work.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Given the amount of time I have been around on here, the fact I use my own name and am known to plenty of posters outside of PB as well I am not sure I have to provide any proof about the fact that I am a professional geologist. Continental drift is a well established and accepted scientific theory. Not least because we can actually see it happening, measure it happening today and have vast amounts of evidence about it having happened in the past. I will henceforth regard you as a flat earther and treat you with the appropriate scorn.
Mind you I was scornful of you before so nothing changes much really.
Not to defend Ishmael but I think when he says Continental Drift he refers to the original theory which certainly isn’t well established/accepted. Sure, the continents are drifting, but because of plate tectonics not centrifugal force as originally Wegner proposed
In which case he is making an utterly pointless distinction. The effect is the same. Plates move relative to one another. They are subducted beneath one another or form mountain chains depending one whether they are formed of continental or oceanic crust. We are part of the Eurasian plate which is formed from a series of older plates. Northwest Scotland was part of the North American plate and Western Newfoundland was part of the Eurasian plate before the opening of the Atlantic. This is all basic accepted stuff. What ever delusions Ishmael is suffering from have no place in proper science.
Certainly, what you're saying is what is taught at O Level. I don't think it's contentious.
Putin has done more for European unity in one week than Europe has managed in the last 10 years. However Ukraine plays out, that is hugely significant. It is a chance for a reset - among the EU 27 and between the UK and the EU. We are all learning some important lessons right now and, crucially, seem to be learning from them pretty quickly.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Given the amount of time I have been around on here, the fact I use my own name and am known to plenty of posters outside of PB as well I am not sure I have to provide any proof about the fact that I am a professional geologist. Continental drift is a well established and accepted scientific theory. Not least because we can actually see it happening, measure it happening today and have vast amounts of evidence about it having happened in the past. I will henceforth regard you as a flat earther and treat you with the appropriate scorn.
Mind you I was scornful of you before so nothing changes much really.
Not to defend Ishmael but I think when he says Continental Drift he refers to the original theory which certainly isn’t well established/accepted. Sure, the continents are drifting, but because of plate tectonics not centrifugal force as originally Wegner proposed
In which case he is making an utterly pointless distinction. The effect is the same. Plates move relative to one another. They are subducted beneath one another or form mountain chains depending one whether they are formed of continental or oceanic crust. We are part of the Eurasian plate which is formed from a series of older plates. Northwest Scotland was part of the North American plate and Western Newfoundland was part of the Eurasian plate before the opening of the Atlantic. This is all basic accepted stuff. What ever delusions Ishmael is suffering from have no place in proper science.
Yes, I know all that. it is all correct. Nobody disputes it. This argument is all just over your head, isn't it?
4th and final time before gin o'clock: SPAIN; EUROPE OR AFRICA?
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Given the amount of time I have been around on here, the fact I use my own name and am known to plenty of posters outside of PB as well I am not sure I have to provide any proof about the fact that I am a professional geologist. Continental drift is a well established and accepted scientific theory. Not least because we can actually see it happening, measure it happening today and have vast amounts of evidence about it having happened in the past. I will henceforth regard you as a flat earther and treat you with the appropriate scorn.
Mind you I was scornful of you before so nothing changes much really.
Not to defend Ishmael but I think when he says Continental Drift he refers to the original theory which certainly isn’t well established/accepted. Sure, the continents are drifting, but because of plate tectonics not centrifugal force as originally Wegner proposed
In which case he is making an utterly pointless distinction. The effect is the same. Plates move relative to one another. They are subducted beneath one another or form mountain chains depending one whether they are formed of continental or oceanic crust. We are part of the Eurasian plate which is formed from a series of older plates. Northwest Scotland was part of the North American plate and Western Newfoundland was part of the Eurasian plate before the opening of the Atlantic. This is all basic accepted stuff. What ever delusions Ishmael is suffering from have no place in proper science.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
You've posted a lot sensible posts on the site here Gallowgate, but this isn't one of them.
I honestly disagree. With that attitude Russia could roll over half of Europe and we wouldn't do anything because it might "risk direct conflict with Russia". Where is the line?
NATO membership is as arbitrary as can be.
No, NATO membership has very clearly defined rules and limits ; an attack on one is an attack on all. So far the West's critical interests have not been endangered, and a madman is threatening exactly that if action moves directly between NATO. There's no rational sense in NATO risking everything to defend an area which is not part of it.
Do you honestly think the British public would be more willing to defend Latvia with British blood than Ukraine? It's entirely arbitrary.
But it's a line in the sand, though, and how international alliances work.
There is nothing stopping NATO countries from interfering in Ukraine - that has nothing to do with NATO itself.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
You've posted a lot sensible posts on the site here Gallowgate, but this isn't one of them.
I honestly disagree. With that attitude Russia could roll over half of Europe and we wouldn't do anything because it might "risk direct conflict with Russia". Where is the line?
NATO membership is as arbitrary as can be.
No, NATO membership has very clearly defined rules and limits ; an attack on one is an attack on all. So far the West's critical interests have not been endangered, and a madman is threatening exactly that if action moves directly between NATO. There's no rational sense in NATO risking everything to defend an area which is not part of it.
Do you honestly think the British public would be more willing to defend Latvia with British blood than Ukraine? It's entirely arbitrary.
But it's a line in the sand, though, and how international alliances work.
There is nothing stopping NATO countries from interfering in Ukraine - that has nothing to do with NATO itself.
Apart from an all out nuclear war and the destruction of the western world you mean.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
You've posted a lot sensible posts on the site here Gallowgate, but this isn't one of them.
I honestly disagree. With that attitude Russia could roll over half of Europe and we wouldn't do anything because it might "risk direct conflict with Russia". Where is the line?
NATO membership is as arbitrary as can be.
No, NATO membership has very clearly defined rules and limits ; an attack on one is an attack on all. So far the West's critical interests have not been endangered, and a madman is threatening exactly that if action moves directly between NATO. There's no rational sense in NATO risking everything to defend an area which is not part of it.
Do you honestly think the British public would be more willing to defend Latvia with British blood than Ukraine? It's entirely arbitrary.
I certainly would, but then I understand what being in NATO means.
As @solarflare has just said, our response to the Ukraine situation could upset Vlad. But I think we should do as much as we can short of troops on the ground.
I heard Jen Psaki making it clear that America will not be fighting Russia. That's fine, but I think I'd quite like our leaders to say "...but we are going to cause as much pain to Russia as possible, whatever the consequences."
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
You've posted a lot sensible posts on the site here Gallowgate, but this isn't one of them.
I honestly disagree. With that attitude Russia could roll over half of Europe and we wouldn't do anything because it might "risk direct conflict with Russia". Where is the line?
NATO membership is as arbitrary as can be.
No, NATO membership has very clearly defined rules and limits ; an attack on one is an attack on all. So far the West's critical interests have not been endangered, and a madman is threatening exactly that if action moves directly between NATO. There's no rational sense in NATO risking everything to defend an area which is not part of it.
Do you honestly think the British public would be more willing to defend Latvia with British blood than Ukraine? It's entirely arbitrary.
But it's a line in the sand, though, and how international alliances work.
There is nothing stopping NATO countries from interfering in Ukraine - that has nothing to do with NATO itself.
Apart from an all out nuclear war and the destruction of the western world you mean.
The same would apply if Russia invaded Latvia. Or would you be making the same arguments to justify not meeting the defensive obligation in that scenario?
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
You've posted a lot sensible posts on the site here Gallowgate, but this isn't one of them.
I honestly disagree. With that attitude Russia could roll over half of Europe and we wouldn't do anything because it might "risk direct conflict with Russia". Where is the line?
NATO membership is as arbitrary as can be.
No, NATO membership has very clearly defined rules and limits ; an attack on one is an attack on all. So far the West's critical interests have not been endangered, and a madman is threatening exactly that if action moves directly between NATO. There's no rational sense in NATO risking everything to defend an area which is not part of it.
Do you honestly think the British public would be more willing to defend Latvia with British blood than Ukraine? It's entirely arbitrary.
But it's a line in the sand, though, and how international alliances work.
There is nothing stopping NATO countries from interfering in Ukraine - that has nothing to do with NATO itself.
Apart from an all out nuclear war and the destruction of the western world you mean.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Er, who said anything about continental drift before you did?
Nobody explicitly, I deduced the relationship between it and Mr Tyndall's logic fail, because I am clever like that. I may be wrong of course, but it seems the likeliest explanation of his delusion that plate tectonics, and the definition of "continent," have anything to say about each other.
If you have a better one, please share it with the class.
Not at all; simply that the Isles of Britain and Ireland are on the continental shelf - ergo prima facie part of the continent of Eurasia (and Africa too).
That is a deliberate reimagining of the disagreement. Eurasia was never mentioned. Hy argued that Russia threatened the UK to a greater degree than China does because we share a Continent. We don't share a Continent. We are not part of Continental Europe, and unless Russia plans to invade every other country on the way here, before getting a Eurostar ticket, it would have to invade by sea, just as China would. Therefore one that threatens us more is therefore the one with the bigger and better equipped Navy - being 'European' is neither here nor there. This daft argument about continental shelves is totally irrelevant. And the fact that we aren't on the continent has nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit ffs.
So were we part of continental Europe 9000 years ago?
I don't know, but I also don't see the relevance. The subject of geology is fascinating, and I don't know as much about it as I would like to. However, for the purposes of this discussion, as I said, we are an island (group of islands). And Russia has no inherent advantage that I can see, by virtue of its location on the continent of Europe, in invading us.
The relevance is that we only became a island around 6,500BC. So I am wondering if to your mind we keep starting and stopping being part of the continent every time the land bridge comes and goes? Is an island in the middle of a fjord in Norway part of the continent? I ask because some of those fjords are notably deeper than the English Channel.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
You've posted a lot sensible posts on the site here Gallowgate, but this isn't one of them.
I honestly disagree. With that attitude Russia could roll over half of Europe and we wouldn't do anything because it might "risk direct conflict with Russia". Where is the line?
NATO membership is as arbitrary as can be.
No, NATO membership has very clearly defined rules and limits ; an attack on one is an attack on all. So far the West's critical interests have not been endangered, and a madman is threatening exactly that if action moves directly between NATO. There's no rational sense in NATO risking everything to defend an area which is not part of it.
Do you honestly think the British public would be more willing to defend Latvia with British blood than Ukraine? It's entirely arbitrary.
I certainly would, but then I understand what being in NATO means.
As @solarflare has just said, our response to the Ukraine situation could upset Vlad. But I think we should do as much as we can short of troops on the ground.
I heard Jen Psaki making it clear that America will not be fighting Russia. That's fine, but I think I'd quite like our leaders to say "...but we are going to cause as much pain to Russia as possible, whatever the consequences."
I'm not necessarily arguing we should have "troops on the ground" but we certainly shouldn't be absolute cowards.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
You've posted a lot sensible posts on the site here Gallowgate, but this isn't one of them.
I honestly disagree. With that attitude Russia could roll over half of Europe and we wouldn't do anything because it might "risk direct conflict with Russia". Where is the line?
NATO membership is as arbitrary as can be.
No, NATO membership has very clearly defined rules and limits ; an attack on one is an attack on all. So far the West's critical interests have not been endangered, and a madman is threatening exactly that if action moves directly between NATO. There's no rational sense in NATO risking everything to defend an area which is not part of it.
Do you honestly think the British public would be more willing to defend Latvia with British blood than Ukraine? It's entirely arbitrary.
But it's a line in the sand, though, and how international alliances work.
There is nothing stopping NATO countries from interfering in Ukraine - that has nothing to do with NATO itself.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Er, who said anything about continental drift before you did?
Nobody explicitly, I deduced the relationship between it and Mr Tyndall's logic fail, because I am clever like that. I may be wrong of course, but it seems the likeliest explanation of his delusion that plate tectonics, and the definition of "continent," have anything to say about each other.
If you have a better one, please share it with the class.
Not at all; simply that the Isles of Britain and Ireland are on the continental shelf - ergo prima facie part of the continent of Eurasia (and Africa too).
That is a deliberate reimagining of the disagreement. Eurasia was never mentioned. Hy argued that Russia threatened the UK to a greater degree than China does because we share a Continent. We don't share a Continent. We are not part of Continental Europe, and unless Russia plans to invade every other country on the way here, before getting a Eurostar ticket, it would have to invade by sea, just as China would. Therefore one that threatens us more is therefore the one with the bigger and better equipped Navy - being 'European' is neither here nor there. This daft argument about continental shelves is totally irrelevant. And the fact that we aren't on the continent has nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit ffs.
So were we part of continental Europe 9000 years ago?
... waits for someone to point out that the Earth was only created 6026 years ago. ;-)
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Given the amount of time I have been around on here, the fact I use my own name and am known to plenty of posters outside of PB as well I am not sure I have to provide any proof about the fact that I am a professional geologist. Continental drift is a well established and accepted scientific theory. Not least because we can actually see it happening, measure it happening today and have vast amounts of evidence about it having happened in the past. I will henceforth regard you as a flat earther and treat you with the appropriate scorn.
Mind you I was scornful of you before so nothing changes much really.
Not to defend Ishmael but I think when he says Continental Drift he refers to the original theory which certainly isn’t well established/accepted. Sure, the continents are drifting, but because of plate tectonics not centrifugal force as originally Wegner proposed
And it isn't continents drifting, it's plates. Continents are purely temporary constructs.
In geology we make a distinction between oceanic and continental plates. They are different things and behave in different ways as they are made of rocks with radically different properties.
Putin has done more for European unity in one week than Europe has managed in the last 10 years. However Ukraine plays out, that is hugely significant. It is a chance for a reset - among the EU 27 and between the UK and the EU. We are all learning some important lessons right now and, crucially, seem to be learning from them pretty quickly.
This is why the whole "Brexit is what Putin wants" was always nonsense. There's never been any master plan from them.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us...
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
Hope they pay you well for that equivocation
If you never make predictions then you can never make a bad prediction was some advice I was given early in my working life.
I have to work pretty hard to not giving people the answer 'Yes and No' to a lot of questions. Problem is people like simple yes or no answers and often there's more to it than they'd like.
I can relate.
had to go on a court training course for witnesses for my job and the barrister said the number of people who comply with a cross examination barrister's demand that they only answer a question yes or no is amazing. Answer it in however many words you want to was his advice.
Sound advice of course when there is no Yes or No answer to a question. In court however, unlike politics, the system does generally work so as to require an actual answer to the actual question and allows infinite time for this to be done, as well as having a judge who can intervene to ensure it happens.
In politics it is the failure to address and answer the question, and the absence of a system to require it which is deeply damaging. Select committees ate better than the other bits, but without standing counsel are still less than optimal.
Politicians make (IMHO) the mistake of never saying yes or so, rather then using it strategically and occasionally as a way of dispatching the questioner and seeming honest.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Er, who said anything about continental drift before you did?
Nobody explicitly, I deduced the relationship between it and Mr Tyndall's logic fail, because I am clever like that. I may be wrong of course, but it seems the likeliest explanation of his delusion that plate tectonics, and the definition of "continent," have anything to say about each other.
If you have a better one, please share it with the class.
Not at all; simply that the Isles of Britain and Ireland are on the continental shelf - ergo prima facie part of the continent of Eurasia (and Africa too).
That is a deliberate reimagining of the disagreement. Eurasia was never mentioned. Hy argued that Russia threatened the UK to a greater degree than China does because we share a Continent. We don't share a Continent. We are not part of Continental Europe, and unless Russia plans to invade every other country on the way here, before getting a Eurostar ticket, it would have to invade by sea, just as China would. Therefore one that threatens us more is therefore the one with the bigger and better equipped Navy - being 'European' is neither here nor there. This daft argument about continental shelves is totally irrelevant. And the fact that we aren't on the continent has nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit ffs.
So were we part of continental Europe 9000 years ago?
... waits for someone to point out that the Earth was only created 6026 years ago. ;-)
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Er, who said anything about continental drift before you did?
Nobody explicitly, I deduced the relationship between it and Mr Tyndall's logic fail, because I am clever like that. I may be wrong of course, but it seems the likeliest explanation of his delusion that plate tectonics, and the definition of "continent," have anything to say about each other.
If you have a better one, please share it with the class.
Not at all; simply that the Isles of Britain and Ireland are on the continental shelf - ergo prima facie part of the continent of Eurasia (and Africa too).
That is a deliberate reimagining of the disagreement. Eurasia was never mentioned. Hy argued that Russia threatened the UK to a greater degree than China does because we share a Continent. We don't share a Continent. We are not part of Continental Europe, and unless Russia plans to invade every other country on the way here, before getting a Eurostar ticket, it would have to invade by sea, just as China would. Therefore one that threatens us more is therefore the one with the bigger and better equipped Navy - being 'European' is neither here nor there. This daft argument about continental shelves is totally irrelevant. And the fact that we aren't on the continent has nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit ffs.
So were we part of continental Europe 9000 years ago?
... waits for someone to point out that the Earth was only created 6026 years ago. ;-)
...and ask who tf "we" are in the context of this Q?
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
You've posted a lot sensible posts on the site here Gallowgate, but this isn't one of them.
I honestly disagree. With that attitude Russia could roll over half of Europe and we wouldn't do anything because it might "risk direct conflict with Russia". Where is the line?
NATO membership is as arbitrary as can be.
No, NATO membership has very clearly defined rules and limits ; an attack on one is an attack on all. So far the West's critical interests have not been endangered, and a madman is threatening exactly that if action moves directly between NATO. There's no rational sense in NATO risking everything to defend an area which is not part of it.
Do you honestly think the British public would be more willing to defend Latvia with British blood than Ukraine? It's entirely arbitrary.
I certainly would, but then I understand what being in NATO means.
As @solarflare has just said, our response to the Ukraine situation could upset Vlad. But I think we should do as much as we can short of troops on the ground.
I heard Jen Psaki making it clear that America will not be fighting Russia. That's fine, but I think I'd quite like our leaders to say "...but we are going to cause as much pain to Russia as possible, whatever the consequences."
I'm not necessarily arguing we should have "troops on the ground" but we certainly shouldn't be absolute cowards.
The cynic in me thinks the West are rather liking the idea of Russia getting bogged down in Ukraine for the next decade.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Er, who said anything about continental drift before you did?
Nobody explicitly, I deduced the relationship between it and Mr Tyndall's logic fail, because I am clever like that. I may be wrong of course, but it seems the likeliest explanation of his delusion that plate tectonics, and the definition of "continent," have anything to say about each other.
If you have a better one, please share it with the class.
Not at all; simply that the Isles of Britain and Ireland are on the continental shelf - ergo prima facie part of the continent of Eurasia (and Africa too).
That is a deliberate reimagining of the disagreement. Eurasia was never mentioned. Hy argued that Russia threatened the UK to a greater degree than China does because we share a Continent. We don't share a Continent. We are not part of Continental Europe, and unless Russia plans to invade every other country on the way here, before getting a Eurostar ticket, it would have to invade by sea, just as China would. Therefore one that threatens us more is therefore the one with the bigger and better equipped Navy - being 'European' is neither here nor there. This daft argument about continental shelves is totally irrelevant. And the fact that we aren't on the continent has nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit ffs.
So were we part of continental Europe 9000 years ago?
I don't know, but I also don't see the relevance. The subject of geology is fascinating, and I don't know as much about it as I would like to. However, for the purposes of this discussion, as I said, we are an island (group of islands). And Russia has no inherent advantage that I can see, by virtue of its location on the continent of Europe, in invading us.
The relevance is that we only became a island around 6,500BC. So I am wondering if to your mind we keep starting and stopping being part of the continent every time the land bridge comes and goes? Is an island in the middle of a fjord in Norway part of the continent? I ask because some of those fjords are notably deeper than the English Channel.
There you go... using rational arguments again! Tsk!
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Given the amount of time I have been around on here, the fact I use my own name and am known to plenty of posters outside of PB as well I am not sure I have to provide any proof about the fact that I am a professional geologist. Continental drift is a well established and accepted scientific theory. Not least because we can actually see it happening, measure it happening today and have vast amounts of evidence about it having happened in the past. I will henceforth regard you as a flat earther and treat you with the appropriate scorn.
Mind you I was scornful of you before so nothing changes much really.
Not to defend Ishmael but I think when he says Continental Drift he refers to the original theory which certainly isn’t well established/accepted. Sure, the continents are drifting, but because of plate tectonics not centrifugal force as originally Wegner proposed
In which case he is making an utterly pointless distinction. The effect is the same. Plates move relative to one another. They are subducted beneath one another or form mountain chains depending one whether they are formed of continental or oceanic crust. We are part of the Eurasian plate which is formed from a series of older plates. Northwest Scotland was part of the North American plate and Western Newfoundland was part of the Eurasian plate before the opening of the Atlantic. This is all basic accepted stuff. What ever delusions Ishmael is suffering from have no place in proper science.
Certainly, what you're saying is what is taught at O Level. I don't think it's contentious.
I am afraid Flat Earther Ishmael seems to disagree.
The head of MI6 has revealed he believes Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine will probably be “unwinnable” because the Russian president will never secure a wider political victory
He’s lost.
Even if he kills the current leadership and somehow manages to impose a degree of control he’s cemented an idea - an independent Ukraine, part of Europe, not Greater Russia. You can’t kill ideas. This one will outlast him, long after he’s an embarrassing footnote in Russian history.
Could be and let's hope so. Trouble is, his demise could take a while and he might do a great deal of damage before he goes. I watched a doc about the WW2 Eastern Front last week and one of the talking heads on there said after Stalingrad for Germany the war was lost and Hitler was toast. It was only a matter of time. And it was. Approx 26 months later he killed himself in his bunker. But many terrible things happened in those months.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
We don't have the resources for a proxy war with Russia, public opinion is not there, and we prefer a policy of 'de escalation' even though it has been a disaster to date.
NATO does though - that's what I mean by "we".
We shouldn't seek out conflict with Russia, obviously, but I honestly am starting to doubt the value of NATO. I can see the same arguments being made if a NATO baltic state was attacked, regardless of NATO membership, and there ends NATO, especially if Trump is president.
NATO is probably fucked, but membership does mean that Putin would think twice about invading a member state. With Ukraine, he was virtually invited in as he was repeatedly assured that the US would not resist any invasion. But you are correct that we will only know if NATO works if it is tested. That day may soon arrive.
The root of much reluctance to confront Russia is public lethargy towards war following the experience of the last 20 years. Maybe these events in Ukraine will be a wake up call.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
You've posted a lot sensible posts on the site here Gallowgate, but this isn't one of them.
I honestly disagree. With that attitude Russia could roll over half of Europe and we wouldn't do anything because it might "risk direct conflict with Russia". Where is the line?
NATO membership is as arbitrary as can be.
No, NATO membership has very clearly defined rules and limits ; an attack on one is an attack on all. So far the West's critical interests have not been endangered, and a madman is threatening exactly that if action moves directly between NATO. There's no rational sense in NATO risking everything to defend an area which is not part of it.
Do you honestly think the British public would be more willing to defend Latvia with British blood than Ukraine? It's entirely arbitrary.
I certainly would, but then I understand what being in NATO means.
As @solarflare has just said, our response to the Ukraine situation could upset Vlad. But I think we should do as much as we can short of troops on the ground.
I heard Jen Psaki making it clear that America will not be fighting Russia. That's fine, but I think I'd quite like our leaders to say "...but we are going to cause as much pain to Russia as possible, whatever the consequences."
I'm not necessarily arguing we should have "troops on the ground" but we certainly shouldn't be absolute cowards.
The cynic in me thinks the West are rather liking the idea of Russia getting bogged down in Ukraine for the next decade.
Makes sense from a tactical point of view.
I just have a problem with justifying doing nothing of substance with the "ah, but they are not a NATO country" line, and meanwhile Ukrainians die.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Given the amount of time I have been around on here, the fact I use my own name and am known to plenty of posters outside of PB as well I am not sure I have to provide any proof about the fact that I am a professional geologist. Continental drift is a well established and accepted scientific theory. Not least because we can actually see it happening, measure it happening today and have vast amounts of evidence about it having happened in the past. I will henceforth regard you as a flat earther and treat you with the appropriate scorn.
Mind you I was scornful of you before so nothing changes much really.
Not to defend Ishmael but I think when he says Continental Drift he refers to the original theory which certainly isn’t well established/accepted. Sure, the continents are drifting, but because of plate tectonics not centrifugal force as originally Wegner proposed
In which case he is making an utterly pointless distinction. The effect is the same. Plates move relative to one another. They are subducted beneath one another or form mountain chains depending one whether they are formed of continental or oceanic crust. We are part of the Eurasian plate which is formed from a series of older plates. Northwest Scotland was part of the North American plate and Western Newfoundland was part of the Eurasian plate before the opening of the Atlantic. This is all basic accepted stuff. What ever delusions Ishmael is suffering from have no place in proper science.
I don’t think that @IshmaelZ realises that the ancient history he studies only covers the last few seconds of geological time; the geological equivalent of a tweet.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
You've posted a lot sensible posts on the site here Gallowgate, but this isn't one of them.
I honestly disagree. With that attitude Russia could roll over half of Europe and we wouldn't do anything because it might "risk direct conflict with Russia". Where is the line?
NATO membership is as arbitrary as can be.
No, NATO membership has very clearly defined rules and limits ; an attack on one is an attack on all. So far the West's critical interests have not been endangered, and a madman is threatening exactly that if action moves directly between NATO. There's no rational sense in NATO risking everything to defend an area which is not part of it.
Do you honestly think the British public would be more willing to defend Latvia with British blood than Ukraine? It's entirely arbitrary.
But it's a line in the sand, though, and how international alliances work.
There is nothing stopping NATO countries from interfering in Ukraine - that has nothing to do with NATO itself.
Apart from an all out nuclear war and the destruction of the western world you mean.
That's what's been said every time Russia's done some shitbaggery since 2008.
So when do we stand up to the bully? Never, because there is a small possibility they might nuke us?
Are you ready for the consequences of that, comrade?
I guess you're not a journalist, and would happily live under Russia's authoritarian thumb? Because that is the end result of your choice.
At the end of the day, the same "nuclear catastrophe" and "all out war" arguments apply to an attack on a NATO state.
You can argue semantics but at the end of the day, it's the exact same calculation. It's the exact same risks.
The whole point of NATO is a deterrent, I get that, but as soon as the bluff is called is the will there? I doubt it.
The difference is all NATO states are committed to mutual self defence. So if Putin went beyond Ukraine and invaded a NATO state like Poland all NATO States would be obliged to send troops and tanks and planes to defend it. If not then NATO collapses and in theory Putin could invade and capture most of Europe.
However I doubt there would be any nuclear weapons involved unless Putin launched a nuclear weapon first
At the end of the day, the same "nuclear catastrophe" and "all out war" arguments apply to an attack on a NATO state.
You can argue semantics but at the end of the day, it's the exact same calculation. It's the exact same risks.
The whole point of NATO is a deterrent, I get that, but as soon as the bluff is called is the will there? I doubt it.
The difference is all NATO states are committed to mutual self defence. So if Putin went beyond Ukraine and invaded a NATO state like Poland all NATO States would be obliged to send troops and tanks and planes to defend it. If not then NATO collapses and in theory Putin could invade and capture most of Europe.
However I doubt there would be any nuclear weapons involved unless Putin launched a nuclear weapon first
To be honest if Russia/Putin is crazy enough (as seems to be the case for the latter anyway), he'll interpret massive financial sanctions and open transfer of weaponry to Ukraine as hostile acts anyway. I'm not entirely convinced that we can do everything short of engage Russia in battle without the potential for it escalating anyway.
That doesn't mean we don't do it, but let's not kid ourselves here.
This is what I was thinking. Can we be confident he won't try to strike us if he thinks our weapons are making the difference between winning and losing?
He - probably - wouldn’t. He might threaten it and try and scare everyone off, but the chances of a Russian strike on NATO are still slim. For the simple fact that that way lies MAD and then no-one is going to care one jot about who has influence over Ukraine.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Why are we so meek about this? Russia has already risked direct conflict with NATO. They started this. So what if there's a risk of direct conflict with Russia? You have to stand up to bullies and not cower in the corner. The Ukrainians are not cowering.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
We don't have the resources for a proxy war with Russia, public opinion is not there, and we prefer a policy of 'de escalation' even though it has been a disaster to date.
NATO does though - that's what I mean by "we".
We shouldn't seek out conflict with Russia, obviously, but I honestly am starting to doubt the value of NATO. I can see the same arguments being made if a NATO baltic state was attacked, regardless of NATO membership, and there ends NATO, especially if Trump is president.
NATO is probably fucked, but membership does mean that Putin would think twice about invading a member state. With Ukraine, he was virtually invited in as he was repeatedly assured that the US would not resist any invasion. But you are correct that we will only know if NATO works if it is tested. That day may soon arrive.
The root of much reluctance to confront Russia is public lethargy towards war following the experience of the last 20 years. Maybe these events in Ukraine will be a wake up call.
I'm not sure the public has ever opposed defensive action. Falklands, Gulf War 1, etc. It's the "let's make life nicer for girls in Afghanistan" bollocks that people object to, mainly because it's completely pointless.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Given the amount of time I have been around on here, the fact I use my own name and am known to plenty of posters outside of PB as well I am not sure I have to provide any proof about the fact that I am a professional geologist. Continental drift is a well established and accepted scientific theory. Not least because we can actually see it happening, measure it happening today and have vast amounts of evidence about it having happened in the past. I will henceforth regard you as a flat earther and treat you with the appropriate scorn.
Mind you I was scornful of you before so nothing changes much really.
That's all well and good, but we are still not present on the European continent with Russia. And if we accepted your argument that geologically speaking we are, it still invalidates Hyufd's argument, because by that token, we also share one with China. Unless you're going on geology at one end and switching over to geography at the other.
We are part of the continent of Europe with Russia, that is undeniable.
We are not part of the continent of Asia with China
Comments
What you really want to use is one of these:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_plough#/media/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-279-0901-31,_Russland,_Einsatz_des_"Schienenwolf".jpg
Latvia has just joined. 🇱🇻
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1497535150791565312
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Also, how widespread the dispersal pads were. Some go well into my village; you can tell by the aged, cracked concrete.
I really hope some of this history doesn't disappear once they build on Bourn airfield.
Reports are that the Russians are forming up a serious amount of field artillery including multiple rocket launch systems east of Kiev.
Also is it clear whether or not whether Erdogan has closed the Bosphorus?
In the first half of last year, the EU was dragging its feet on Trusted Trader, and the UK rightly threatened to invoke Article 16.
Since then, the government's own report to the Northern Ireland Select Committee reports good progress.
We can't invoke Article 16 if the EU is holding up their side of the bargain. It is simply morally wrong to do so.
Mind you I was scornful of you before so nothing changes much really.
I'm watching the rugby.
Russia has just as much to loose re. nuclear exchange as we do, so MAD still stands.
Plate tectonics is not about continents, and not about drift.
I am myself a (professional, published, reasonably well respected) ancient historian. I would regard it as plumbing the utter depths of self regarding wankerdom to post "You are arguing ancient history with an ancient historian? You are truly deluded" rather than address any argument on its merits. But you do you.
For I think the third time: Spain: Europe or Africa?
NATO membership is as arbitrary as can be.
I miss the 70s, but in some ways we have moved on.
You should also never give the barrister the satisfaction of addressing your answers to him or her.
Turn to the Judge with your shoulder facing the barrister. Answers go through the Judge. And what's particularly enjoyable is if you add 'your honour' or whichever title is appropriate to the level of court whilst speaking to the Judge. Guaranteed to rile a barrister.
That doesn't mean we don't do it, but let's not kid ourselves here.
We shouldn't seek out conflict with Russia, obviously, but I honestly am starting to doubt the value of NATO. I can see the same arguments being made if a NATO baltic state was attacked, regardless of NATO membership, and there ends NATO, especially if Trump is president.
Taking on a paranoid, unstable dictatorship with a taste for the indiscriminate use of extreme violence is the ideal condition for promoting a massive nuclear conflagration. If Russia is going to lose - which means both the destruction of Putin's imperial delusions, and his own personal downfall and death - then there's almost nothing left to restrain him from such a response. We are then left entirely reliant on the Russian generals to overthrow Putin quickly, and/or the nuclear command and control system being robust enough to prevent a suicidal nutcase from launching a strike. I think we'd all rather it didn't come to that.
https://thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTcwODc1NTk.NTU0MTczMA*MzE0MTczOTM(Mzk0Mjc4Mw~!GB*MA.MTgwMDAwMDA)Mw
The Everton players came out draped in Ukrainian flags.
Zinchenko and Mykolenko had a hug and a chat.
Anyhoo, this match is the anti Kobayashi Maru.
No matter what happens and I win.
Man City win then Everton are deep in the relegation doo doo.
Everton win then it helps Liverpool in their title bid.
And a draw is pretty good as well.
We have no treaty obligation and we are providing arms and assistance as well as pressuring Russia economically.
I argued that Russian military might was exaggerated and that he wouldn’t be that stupid: forgetting until ‘that’ broadcast that he has gone doolally.
Russian military might has been vastly overrated for decades. It was something of a running joke back in the day when I briefly worked in the field.
God it would be marvellous if he is sent packing.
4th and final time before gin o'clock: SPAIN; EUROPE OR AFRICA?
As @solarflare has just said, our response to the Ukraine situation could upset Vlad. But I think we should do as much as we can short of troops on the ground.
I heard Jen Psaki making it clear that America will not be fighting Russia. That's fine, but I think I'd quite like our leaders to say "...but we are going to cause as much pain to Russia as possible, whatever the consequences."
In politics it is the failure to address and answer the question, and the absence of a system to require it which is deeply damaging. Select committees ate better than the other bits, but without standing counsel are still less than optimal.
Politicians make (IMHO) the mistake of never saying yes or so, rather then using it strategically and occasionally as a way of dispatching the questioner and seeming honest.
To defend Latvia, in the unlikely event we ever have to, we have the assembled armed forces of NATO.
You can argue semantics but at the end of the day, it's the exact same calculation. It's the exact same risks.
The whole point of NATO is a deterrent, I get that, but as soon as the bluff is called is the will there? I doubt it.
The root of much reluctance to confront Russia is public lethargy towards war following the experience of the last 20 years. Maybe these events in Ukraine will be a wake up call.
I just have a problem with justifying doing nothing of substance with the "ah, but they are not a NATO country" line, and meanwhile Ukrainians die.
So when do we stand up to the bully? Never, because there is a small possibility they might nuke us?
Are you ready for the consequences of that, comrade?
I guess you're not a journalist, and would happily live under Russia's authoritarian thumb? Because that is the end result of your choice.
However I doubt there would be any nuclear weapons involved unless Putin launched a nuclear weapon first
We are not part of the continent of Asia with China