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The outcast in Anchorage: A senate storm brews in Alaska – politicalbetting.com

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  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,553
    Yokes said:

    Going to leave you with this one.

    Reports are that the Russians are forming up a serious amount of field artillery including multiple rocket launch systems east of Kiev.

    Just hoping their hardware isn't as good as they think it is.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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.
  • Mr. 1000, if good progress is being made, then great, though this is the first time I've heard that.
  • tlg86 said:

    Good to see that Everton and Man City have the right idea regarding Ukraine.

    What did they do?

    I'm watching the rugby.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,521
    edited February 2022

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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?
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175

    tlg86 said:

    Good to see that Everton and Man City have the right idea regarding Ukraine.

    What did they do?

    I'm watching the rugby.
    Only caught the end of it, but I think the players were wearing t-shirts with the Ukraine flag on and there was a big Ukraine flag in the crowd.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,454

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Good to see that Everton and Man City have the right idea regarding Ukraine.

    What did they do?

    I'm watching the rugby.
    Only caught the end of it, but I think the players were wearing t-shirts with the Ukraine flag on and there was a big Ukraine flag in the crowd.
    Where does one obtain a giant flag at short notice, or placard materials? This has bothered me for years.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134
    kle4 said:

    Farooq said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Farooq said:

    ping said:

    ping said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    I was mocking @Luckyguy1983

    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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.
  • .
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Good to see that Everton and Man City have the right idea regarding Ukraine.

    What did they do?

    I'm watching the rugby.
    Only caught the end of it, but I think the players were wearing t-shirts with the Ukraine flag on and there was a big Ukraine flag in the crowd.
    Cheers, and good job Everton/City.
  • kle4 said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Good to see that Everton and Man City have the right idea regarding Ukraine.

    What did they do?

    I'm watching the rugby.
    Only caught the end of it, but I think the players were wearing t-shirts with the Ukraine flag on and there was a big Ukraine flag in the crowd.
    Where does one obtain a giant flag at short notice, or placard materials? This has bothered me for years.
    Through being in SWIFT?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134

    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?
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,419

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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?
  • Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,376
    edited February 2022

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,454

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,454
    Taz said:

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • DumbosaurusDumbosaurus Posts: 795
    edited February 2022

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    kinabalu said:

    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.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,376

    Not good from England today. Not impressed with this. 😠

    they are rubbish
    Yet only trail 6-3
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,084

    kle4 said:

    kle4 said:

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,419

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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.
  • solarflaresolarflare Posts: 3,705
    edited February 2022
    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.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,454
    darkage said:

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,839

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,783
    kle4 said:

    kle4 said:

    I've never seen anyone get so mad about the definition of continent before. I cannot say I anticipated that.

    It's bit like cartographers getting the rage over Peters Projection vs. Mercator Projection.

    I was not prepared for the fisticuffs that ensued.
    The former just makes me think just how far north we are.
    I enjoy playing around with 'The True Size Of...' website from time to time just get an idea of how big or small countries are.

    https://thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTcwODc1NTk.NTU0MTczMA*MzE0MTczOTM(Mzk0Mjc4Mw~!GB*MA.MTgwMDAwMDA)Mw
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,401
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Good to see that Everton and Man City have the right idea regarding Ukraine.

    What did they do?

    I'm watching the rugby.
    Only caught the end of it, but I think the players were wearing t-shirts with the Ukraine flag on and there was a big Ukraine flag in the crowd.
    More than that.
    The Everton players came out draped in Ukrainian flags.
    Zinchenko and Mykolenko had a hug and a chat.
  • Come on Everton!

    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.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,133
    edited February 2022

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,454
    pigeon said:

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,376

    Not good from England today. Not impressed with this. 😠

    they are rubbish
    Yet only trail 6-3

    Taz said:

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,553

    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?
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,454

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,084
    pigeon said:

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.

    God it would be marvellous if he is sent packing.
  • Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,348

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,454
    @Taz yes I am sure you'd be first person on a plane to fight for Latvia if the Russians ever invaded.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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?
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,084
    Sean_F said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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 taught at O Level
    Erm ... ;)

  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,454

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,084

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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."
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,454
    Heathener said:

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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?
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,376
    Heathener said:

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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 guys an idiot.
  • Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,454
    tlg86 said:

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
    See the post by Heathener below.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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. ;-)
  • IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175

    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.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496

    kle4 said:

    kle4 said:

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.

  • TazTaz Posts: 14,376

    @Taz yes I am sure you'd be first person on a plane to fight for Latvia if the Russians ever invaded.

    What are you burbling on about you halfwit. You feel so strongly about Ukraine go and fight. Zelezny has asked foreign fighters to go.

    To defend Latvia, in the unlikely event we ever have to, we have the assembled armed forces of NATO.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,521
    edited February 2022

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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. ;-)
    About half past 2 on a Tuesday I believe :)
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,454
    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.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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?
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175

    tlg86 said:

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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!
  • Sean_F said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134
    edited February 2022

    IanB2 said:

    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.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    darkage said:

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,572
    The continental plates argument has got stupid very rapidly, so I'll just put my own oar in and say Richard is correct. ;)
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,454
    Taz said:

    @Taz yes I am sure you'd be first person on a plane to fight for Latvia if the Russians ever invaded.

    What are you burbling on about you halfwit. You feel so strongly about Ukraine go and fight. Zelezny has asked foreign fighters to go.

    To defend Latvia, in the unlikely event we ever have to, we have the assembled armed forces of NATO.
    You literally have zero critical thinking capacity.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,454
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 4,931

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,572
    Heathener said:

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,918

    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
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,454
    HYUFD said:

    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
    I understand how NATO works thank you.
  • Andy_JS said:

    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.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175
    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,918

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175
    NEW THREAD
  • IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    Oh we are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
    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."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition
    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?
    Nether. It is part of the Iberian plate which is now part of the Eurasian plate.

    Or in your terminology about half way to the edge of the world.
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673

    tlg86 said:

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
    We should be giving them air coverage and shooting down Russian planes if needed.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,376
    Heathener said:

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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 guys an idiot.

    tlg86 said:

    Taz said:

    @Taz yes I am sure you'd be first person on a plane to fight for Latvia if the Russians ever invaded.

    What are you burbling on about you halfwit. You feel so strongly about Ukraine go and fight. Zelezny has asked foreign fighters to go.

    To defend Latvia, in the unlikely event we ever have to, we have the assembled armed forces of NATO.
    You literally have zero critical thinking capacity.
    Which is still genius level compared to you.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134
    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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 think the nuclear 'mutually assured destruction' aspect has something to do with it. Playing chicken with this is incredibly risky. With rational actors the worst can never happen - since such weapons cannot be used - therefore they are a deterrent only in the hands of a nutcase. Like Putin might be.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134
    tlg86 said:

    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.
    He could want it and try to help it come to pass without it being a masterplan or a big factor in the outcome.

    In fact I think that this - as above - is a fair and accurate way to put it viz Putin and Brexit.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368

    pigeon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Heathener said:

    Chelsea could go bust

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

    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.
    So what you're saying is, it is less bad to be killed by a Dictator controlling enough nuclear radiation to destroy the World tens of times over than it is an uncontrolled release of a deadly contagious virus?

    It's a theory.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134

    Heathener said:

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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?
    I don't agree with your take on this crisis - I'm less inclined to escalate it - but I do think you're right in how you're looking at NATO. It's neither a red herring nor gospel but it's closer to the first than the second. If a country is attacked, whether the US will defend it militarily depends on the perceived risk/reward calculus of their leadership at the time. If it passes that test, NATO or no NATO, it will be defended by them. If it doesn't, NATO or no NATO, it won't.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083

    Have had a flash alert on the work mobile.

    Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.

    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.
    For the public, yes, but national agreements between governments are a bit more cold blooded.
This discussion has been closed.