This is the obvious (only) route for him, the only escape from total failure. Escalate it insanely. He's maybe going to threaten us with nukes, directly, or drop on one Kyiv to make a point
Surely the generals will intervene before the nukes start dropping?
Putin should maybe watch that tea
If they cannot beat Ukraine then they sure as heck are not going to beat NATO.
This is the obvious (only) route for him, the only escape from total failure. Escalate it insanely. He's maybe going to threaten us with nukes, directly, or drop on one Kyiv to make a point
For a man who sees sanctions and statements as unconscionable and akin to war he has a bit of a blind spot.
Their amphibious assault on Odessa also keeps getting postponed because the weather conditions aren't right.
Is that the reason, they have not done the amphibious assault yet? Maybe I don't know, I had heard on hear talk of a mutiny of the men on-board which I was very sceptical of,
But, I do think it might be that the problems with logistics and air cover, in the areas that the Russians are now operating in, would be made worse if they expanded with a now front, and therefore would, better for the Russians to consolidate other areas first.
also, how sure are we that there was meant to be an amphibious assault, the threat of the assault must be pining some of the Ukrainian army down in that area, when there are desperately needed elsewhere. I think the US did this in Gulf War 1.
but Not clamming to be a strategic genus so who know?
Russia is certainly looking a bit North Korea at the moment. The latest picture of Putin with air hostesses cements this image in my mind (not sure if it is real or current, but anyway) Putin and Lavrov have gone from respectable statesmen to Kim Jong-un like figures in the course of a couple of weeks. They used to come across as smart, but now they just seem like mad provocateurs. The descent has been spectacular and unexpected. Even the taliban are distancing themselves, which says a lot. Maybe there was something in Wallace's 'gone full tonto' comment. It isn't looking that stupid now.
I don't mean to piss on your chips but Putin's been like this for a while. Like that time he brought a dog into a meeting with Merkel beacuse he knew she is a cynophobe. That's low-grade trolling right there and it was like 6 years ago. Putin's been a weird little shit for a long time. So if he was ever a "respected statesman" it wasn't recently.
I think it’s more that up until the invasion, a lot of folk refrained from noticing.
The man has been a lying dictator who murders his opponents for a long time; it’s more that someone has said no to him and the characteristic murderous response hasn’t stopped them saying no. And the rest of the world has dropped the diplomatic euphemisms when dealing with him.
🤡Russian Foreign Ministry: #Russia will not forget London's cooperation with the "nationalists" in #Ukraine and the "#Kyiv regime," as well as the supply of weapons that are used against the #Russian military.
I have been saying this for three days. Russia cannot win this war. It's like the Brits in the American Revolution. Regular forces can take a city, pacify it with a vast number of troops, but the moment they move on, the populace retakes the city. You can respond with brutality, but that just increases the share of the population actively supporting the enemy. The difference is that the ill fated war didn't affect Britain's domestic economy which was about to have the Industrial Revolution. Russia, on the other hand, is being economically strangled, and the noose is tightening.
Putin is going to lose this war, whether he pulls the plug in three weeks or three years. The cost will have been too great for a defeat, and Putin will not be able to pass the buck. When he does admit defeat, he will be replaced in power by a Russian elite that will be desperate for rapprochement with the West. That means a Russia much better for the world, perhaps even a liberalizing one.
The only way he gets out of this is if the West accepts a compromise peace to rescue him, thus rewarding his aggression and war crimes.
This could be how it pans out but the downside is the suffering involved in the meantime. What if a settlement could be reached in which what Putin gets is palpably less than he wanted or expected and also less than it has cost him, ie a net negative outcome for him. Would this not be worth considering?
Putin is now utterly in control of the media in Russia, and they have been told that this operation has limited aims - particularly to do with denazification. It might be possible for him to declare 'operation over' and proclaim success, the troops in Kharikiv and elsewhere having got rid of all the Nazis.
Many in Russia would not know any different. And then he can screech about the ongoing sanctions against a country that got rid of evil Nazis and withdrew.
Has he arrested the media for spreading the fake news he insists on them spreading yet?
As I'm thinking forthcoming elections, let's not forget Australia which looks likely to go to the polls on 21st May.
In 2019, as we all know, Scott Morrison won an unlikely re-election victory for the Liberal-National Coalition against the polls and the odds winning 77 seats out of 151 in the House of Representatives.
The Australian Labor Party (ALP) won 68 seats with 6 seats going to Independents and minor parties. On the two-party vote, the Coalition beat ALP 51.5-48.5.
With the caveat of that shock result (think UK in 1992 as a parallel), it's wise to be cautious about current Australian polling but the latest polls look ominous for the Coalition. Roy Morgan has the ALP up by 13 while the latest YouGov has a 10 point ALP lead in the Two-Party Preferred Vote.
Morrison's lead as preferred PM (perhaps a more reliable guide) has diminished to just two points over ALP leader Anthony Albanese.
The key is what is happening in the individual states - in New South Wales, the Coalition won the Two-Party vote 52-48 but are now behind 41-59 which is a huge 11% swing to the ALP. In Queensland, the swing to ALP is about 10% but it's much lower in Victoria and it's about 9% in South and Western Australia.
Now, there's still time for Morrison and the Liberal-National Coalition to pull this round and as we know polls often underestimate the LNP numbers - we may get another clue in the South Australia State election two weeks today.
In 2018, the LNP won 25 seats in the 47 seat House of Assembly ending a 16-year period of ALP rule. The ALP ended with 19 seats with 3 going to Independents. The Two-Party preferred showed the LNP ahead of the ALP by 52-48 but the latest Newspoll from late last month has the ALP ahead 53-47 so a 5% swing to the ALP compared with a 3% swing on the primary vote but that would be enough to return the ALP to power.
Aussie polls to look ominous for incumbents, if a bit all over the place, momentum one way without as yet any fight back.
Less than 250 seats would be quite a bad result for the Tories, I am still assuming 250 seats is the Tory floor.
Well, now - we have the small matter of 165 seats in 1997, 166 in 2001, 197 in 1945 and 198 in 2005.
In terms of vote shares, the Conservatives won 36% in 1945, 32.4% in 2005, 31.7% in 2001 and 30.7% in 1997.
The "floor" would seem to be above 30% in vote terms but what that gets you in seats depends on the other parties - the seat distribution on 35-30-25 would be very different to 45-30-15 for example.
Not covered at my school (women won WW2 was the main message) and I don’t recall coming across it since.
Covering World War Two in anything but the most superficial way would be far beyond the average school curriculum. You could spend 50 years studying it in depth and still only have learned about half of it in detail with a general knowledge of the rest.
NEXTA@nexta_tv·2m🤡Russian Foreign Ministry: #Russia will not forget London's cooperation with the "nationalists" in #Ukraine and the "#Kyiv regime," as well as the supply of weapons that are used against the #Russian military.
When I was at University there was a little club of neo-Stalinists who did the various StopTheWar things. They were quite violent. Interestingly, they were protected by some academics - after they assaulted one guy in the student union, they demanded that CCTV *was'nt* turned over to the police.
Any way, I was sitting in the student union when one of the clowns spotted me. He knew that my family has some Polish ancestry, so loudly started making a "joke" about Katyn
I went eh?
He repeated it, louder
I went eh, again - pointing to the speakers - as usual background music was being played.
He repeated himself.
At the next table, it turned out, was a chunk of the Polish club. Who did hear.
A final comic item. A demand arrived for the CCTV to prove who had attacked the neo-Stalinist and his chums.
Russia is certainly looking a bit North Korea at the moment. The latest picture of Putin with air hostesses cements this image in my mind (not sure if it is real or current, but anyway) Putin and Lavrov have gone from respectable statesmen to Kim Jong-un like figures in the course of a couple of weeks. They used to come across as smart, but now they just seem like mad provocateurs. The descent has been spectacular and unexpected. Even the taliban are distancing themselves, which says a lot. Maybe there was something in Wallace's 'gone full tonto' comment. It isn't looking that stupid now.
I don't mean to piss on your chips but Putin's been like this for a while. Like that time he brought a dog into a meeting with Merkel beacuse he knew she is a cynophobe. That's low-grade trolling right there and it was like 6 years ago. Putin's been a weird little shit for a long time. So if he was ever a "respected statesman" it wasn't recently.
Remember that. Yes, very telling. World's biggest gangster plus this ridiculous "Mother Russia" delusion. What a terrible mix. Also the notion after so long in power that he IS the nation when actually there's a total disconnect between what's good for him and what's good for the people he presides over. I'm not a fan. In fact I struggle to see any positives with him at all.
I have been saying this for three days. Russia cannot win this war. It's like the Brits in the American Revolution. Regular forces can take a city, pacify it with a vast number of troops, but the moment they move on, the populace retakes the city. You can respond with brutality, but that just increases the share of the population actively supporting the enemy. The difference is that the ill fated war didn't affect Britain's domestic economy which was about to have the Industrial Revolution. Russia, on the other hand, is being economically strangled, and the noose is tightening.
Putin is going to lose this war, whether he pulls the plug in three weeks or three years. The cost will have been too great for a defeat, and Putin will not be able to pass the buck. When he does admit defeat, he will be replaced in power by a Russian elite that will be desperate for rapprochement with the West. That means a Russia much better for the world, perhaps even a liberalizing one.
The only way he gets out of this is if the West accepts a compromise peace to rescue him, thus rewarding his aggression and war crimes.
This could be how it pans out but the downside is the suffering involved in the meantime. What if a settlement could be reached in which what Putin gets is palpably less than he wanted or expected and also less than it has cost him, ie a net negative outcome for him. Would this not be worth considering?
Putin is now utterly in control of the media in Russia, and they have been told that this operation has limited aims - particularly to do with denazification. It might be possible for him to declare 'operation over' and proclaim success, the troops in Kharikiv and elsewhere having got rid of all the Nazis.
Many in Russia would not know any different. And then he can screech about the ongoing sanctions against a country that got rid of evil Nazis and withdrew.
"Ukraine is now free of dropbears, garkains, and hoopsnakes. Mission accomplished, we're bring our boys home."
Less than 250 seats would be quite a bad result for the Tories, I am still assuming 250 seats is the Tory floor.
Well, now - we have the small matter of 165 seats in 1997, 166 in 2001, 197 in 1945 and 198 in 2005.
In terms of vote shares, the Conservatives won 36% in 1945, 32.4% in 2005, 31.7% in 2001 and 30.7% in 1997.
The "floor" would seem to be above 30% in vote terms but what that gets you in seats depends on the other parties - the seat distribution on 35-30-25 would be very different to 45-30-15 for example.
Yes, it shows how much Cameron still had to do for 2010.
Russia is certainly looking a bit North Korea at the moment. The latest picture of Putin with air hostesses cements this image in my mind (not sure if it is real or current, but anyway) Putin and Lavrov have gone from respectable statesmen to Kim Jong-un like figures in the course of a couple of weeks. They used to come across as smart, but now they just seem like mad provocateurs. The descent has been spectacular and unexpected. Even the taliban are distancing themselves, which says a lot. Maybe there was something in Wallace's 'gone full tonto' comment. It isn't looking that stupid now.
I don't mean to piss on your chips but Putin's been like this for a while. Like that time he brought a dog into a meeting with Merkel beacuse he knew she is a cynophobe. That's low-grade trolling right there and it was like 6 years ago. Putin's been a weird little shit for a long time. So if he was ever a "respected statesman" it wasn't recently.
This isn't correct. I detest him and his regime as much as you do, but I can see that he is extremely smart, as is Lavrov. They have constantly humiliated the brightest and the best from the 'free world', and it has been quite entertaining to watch. Most recently Liz Truss, in case anyone has forgotten that particular episode. It does look now as if the whole show has fallen apart, and that some kind of madness has engulfed the whole place. It isn't anything to celebrate, it is all a bit worrying when you consider how many nuclear weapons they have.
Russia is certainly looking a bit North Korea at the moment. The latest picture of Putin with air hostesses cements this image in my mind (not sure if it is real or current, but anyway) Putin and Lavrov have gone from respectable statesmen to Kim Jong-un like figures in the course of a couple of weeks. They used to come across as smart, but now they just seem like mad provocateurs. The descent has been spectacular and unexpected. Even the taliban are distancing themselves, which says a lot. Maybe there was something in Wallace's 'gone full tonto' comment. It isn't looking that stupid now.
I don't mean to piss on your chips but Putin's been like this for a while. Like that time he brought a dog into a meeting with Merkel beacuse he knew she is a cynophobe. That's low-grade trolling right there and it was like 6 years ago. Putin's been a weird little shit for a long time. So if he was ever a "respected statesman" it wasn't recently.
I think it’s more that up until the invasion, a lot of folk refrained from noticing.
The man has been a lying dictator who murders his opponents for a long time; it’s more that someone has said no to him and the characteristic murderous response hasn’t stopped them saying no. And the rest of the world has dropped the diplomatic euphemisms when dealing with him.
The first time I can think of that he openly tried to assassinate a political rival and a Ukrainian looking to pivot the country towards the EU was Viktor Yuschenko in 2003, the year he also first tried (unsuccessfully) to rig elections to get Yanukovych elected.
Obviously, he has got rather more aggressive since then, possibly because all his other attempts to control and weaken Ukraine have failed.
This one is going to be even more destructive, but so far it doesn't look much more successful.
It’s no shame to admit that, though it is an important piece of the history of Hitler and Stalin dismembering Poland.
If Putin had his way it would be more forgotten.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre#Those_adopting_pre-1990_views ..In 2021, however, the Russian Ministry of Culture downgraded the memorial complex at Katyn on its Register of Sites of Cultural Heritage from a place of federal to one of only regional importance.[136] Such decisions, says the preface to the site, are made in consultation with the regional authorities, i.e. the Smolensk Region administration. More important, the Ministry altered the descriptive text to say, once more, that the "Polish officers were shot by the Hitlerites in 1941"…
Not covered at my school (women won WW2 was the main message) and I don’t recall coming across it since.
Covering World War Two in anything but the most superficial way would be far beyond the average school curriculum. You could spend 50 years studying it in depth and still only have learned about half of it in detail with a general knowledge of the rest.
I know, and I’m being a bit harsh, but a few years later a friend who studied history at uni ranted to me for about five minutes about how appalling our history lessons at school were.
This is presumably self justification, rather than a somewhat redundant threat ?
Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin said that if Ukraine “continues to behave in the same way,” that will “bring into question the future of its statehood,” during a meeting broadcast on TV. https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1500126784574140422
Not covered at my school (women won WW2 was the main message) and I don’t recall coming across it since.
Covering World War Two in anything but the most superficial way would be far beyond the average school curriculum. You could spend 50 years studying it in depth and still only have learned about half of it in detail with a general knowledge of the rest.
I know, and I’m being a bit harsh, but a few years later a friend who studied history at uni ranted to me for about five minutes about how appalling our history lessons at school were.
However, murdering most of the leadership generation of a country's armed forces is perhaps a good lesson.
After all, it wasn't the only place Stalin did that. Or others since.
Russia is certainly looking a bit North Korea at the moment. The latest picture of Putin with air hostesses cements this image in my mind (not sure if it is real or current, but anyway) Putin and Lavrov have gone from respectable statesmen to Kim Jong-un like figures in the course of a couple of weeks. They used to come across as smart, but now they just seem like mad provocateurs. The descent has been spectacular and unexpected. Even the taliban are distancing themselves, which says a lot. Maybe there was something in Wallace's 'gone full tonto' comment. It isn't looking that stupid now.
I don't mean to piss on your chips but Putin's been like this for a while. Like that time he brought a dog into a meeting with Merkel beacuse he knew she is a cynophobe. That's low-grade trolling right there and it was like 6 years ago. Putin's been a weird little shit for a long time. So if he was ever a "respected statesman" it wasn't recently.
This isn't correct. I detest him and his regime as much as you do, but I can see that he is extremely smart, as is Lavrov. They have constantly humiliated the brightest and the best from the 'free world', and it has been quite entertaining to watch. Most recently Liz Truss, in case anyone has forgotten that particular episode. It does look now as if the whole show has fallen apart, and that some kind of madness has engulfed the whole place. It isn't anything to celebrate, it is all a bit worrying when you consider how many nuclear weapons they have.
His career was as a spy. Should it be much surprise that he has excelled (in his sinister way) during his cold war but failed to make the right decisions in a hot war?
Not covered at my school (women won WW2 was the main message) and I don’t recall coming across it since.
Covering World War Two in anything but the most superficial way would be far beyond the average school curriculum. You could spend 50 years studying it in depth and still only have learned about half of it in detail with a general knowledge of the rest.
That's part of the fun of reading history. You can spend years studying something, and then come across something that makes you realise how little you actually know, and which transforms your outlook.
I can say with some confidence that I know more about the Roman Empire than 98% of the population - meaning that I know very little in reality.
I have been saying this for three days. Russia cannot win this war. It's like the Brits in the American Revolution. Regular forces can take a city, pacify it with a vast number of troops, but the moment they move on, the populace retakes the city. You can respond with brutality, but that just increases the share of the population actively supporting the enemy. The difference is that the ill fated war didn't affect Britain's domestic economy which was about to have the Industrial Revolution. Russia, on the other hand, is being economically strangled, and the noose is tightening.
Putin is going to lose this war, whether he pulls the plug in three weeks or three years. The cost will have been too great for a defeat, and Putin will not be able to pass the buck. When he does admit defeat, he will be replaced in power by a Russian elite that will be desperate for rapprochement with the West. That means a Russia much better for the world, perhaps even a liberalizing one.
The only way he gets out of this is if the West accepts a compromise peace to rescue him, thus rewarding his aggression and war crimes.
This could be how it pans out but the downside is the suffering involved in the meantime. What if a settlement could be reached in which what Putin gets is palpably less than he wanted or expected and also less than it has cost him, ie a net negative outcome for him. Would this not be worth considering?
Putin is now utterly in control of the media in Russia, and they have been told that this operation has limited aims - particularly to do with denazification. It might be possible for him to declare 'operation over' and proclaim success, the troops in Kharikiv and elsewhere having got rid of all the Nazis.
Many in Russia would not know any different. And then he can screech about the ongoing sanctions against a country that got rid of evil Nazis and withdrew.
Nice idea but surely too many in Russia know the truth. Putin won't accept any deal that would lead to his downfall at home and Ukraine won't accept any deal that wouldn't. This is where I think we are at the moment.
Just an incredible amount of planes shot down today. At least 4 videoed, plus several helicopters.
"I'm pretty sure the reason we're seeing so many 'advanced' Russian aircraft being shot down - they should be relatively immune to MANPADS - is because they're having to fly low to deploy dumb ordnance as they're already running low on precision guided munitions..."
The US claims of Ukrainian air superiority make a lot more sense now.
There's a very interesting thread somewhere (have we mentioned it) that the capture of intact Russian SAM missile systems has given some access to / knowledge of the Russian IFF system for the Ukranians, which they can then play around with. Hence Russians havign difficulty being sure about who is who.
From the RUSI article: "suggests a more significant conclusion: that the VKS lacks the institutional capacity to plan, brief and fly complex air operations at scale."
Probably clutching at straws but perhaps this really will be the invasion that reveals Putin's military is just not up to what ever they have been telling him for years.
Surely heads will be rolling soon at lack of progress?
NEXTA@nexta_tv·2m🤡Russian Foreign Ministry: #Russia will not forget London's cooperation with the "nationalists" in #Ukraine and the "#Kyiv regime," as well as the supply of weapons that are used against the #Russian military.
Russia is certainly looking a bit North Korea at the moment. The latest picture of Putin with air hostesses cements this image in my mind (not sure if it is real or current, but anyway) Putin and Lavrov have gone from respectable statesmen to Kim Jong-un like figures in the course of a couple of weeks. They used to come across as smart, but now they just seem like mad provocateurs. The descent has been spectacular and unexpected. Even the taliban are distancing themselves, which says a lot. Maybe there was something in Wallace's 'gone full tonto' comment. It isn't looking that stupid now.
I don't mean to piss on your chips but Putin's been like this for a while. Like that time he brought a dog into a meeting with Merkel beacuse he knew she is a cynophobe. That's low-grade trolling right there and it was like 6 years ago. Putin's been a weird little shit for a long time. So if he was ever a "respected statesman" it wasn't recently.
I think it’s more that up until the invasion, a lot of folk refrained from noticing.
The man has been a lying dictator who murders his opponents for a long time; it’s more that someone has said no to him and the characteristic murderous response hasn’t stopped them saying no. And the rest of the world has dropped the diplomatic euphemisms when dealing with him.
The first time I can think of that he openly tried to assassinate a political rival and a Ukrainian looking to pivot the country towards the EU was Viktor Yuschenko in 2003, the year he also first tried (unsuccessfully) to rig elections to get Yanukovych elected.
Obviously, he has got rather more aggressive since then, possibly because all his other attempts to control and weaken Ukraine have failed.
This one is going to be even more destructive, but so far it doesn't look much more successful.
Not covered at my school (women won WW2 was the main message) and I don’t recall coming across it since.
Covering World War Two in anything but the most superficial way would be far beyond the average school curriculum. You could spend 50 years studying it in depth and still only have learned about half of it in detail with a general knowledge of the rest.
I know, and I’m being a bit harsh, but a few years later a friend who studied history at uni ranted to me for about five minutes about how appalling our history lessons at school were.
Tudors and Nazis is not quite right but an awful lot of GCSE history is taken up by foreigners, and the rest is apparently randomly chosen and unrelated periods. Michael Gove might have had a point in lamenting the demise of the old-fashioned chronological stroll from the stone age on.
Instead GCSE history has become a diluted foreshadowing of A-level and degree history which is fine but the same logic would have you teaching 12-year-olds about quantum mechanics and gene-editing.
Not covered at my school (women won WW2 was the main message) and I don’t recall coming across it since.
Covering World War Two in anything but the most superficial way would be far beyond the average school curriculum. You could spend 50 years studying it in depth and still only have learned about half of it in detail with a general knowledge of the rest.
That's part of the fun of reading history. You can spend years studying something, and then come across something that makes you realise how little you actually know, and which transforms your outlook.
I can say with some confidence that I know more about the Roman Empire than 98% of the population - meaning that I know very little in reality.
Not covered at my school (women won WW2 was the main message) and I don’t recall coming across it since.
Covering World War Two in anything but the most superficial way would be far beyond the average school curriculum. You could spend 50 years studying it in depth and still only have learned about half of it in detail with a general knowledge of the rest.
That's part of the fun of reading history. You can spend years studying something, and then come across something that makes you realise how little you actually know, and which transforms your outlook.
I can say with some confidence that I know more about the Roman Empire than 98% of the population - meaning that I know very little in reality.
Not covered at my school (women won WW2 was the main message) and I don’t recall coming across it since.
Covering World War Two in anything but the most superficial way would be far beyond the average school curriculum. You could spend 50 years studying it in depth and still only have learned about half of it in detail with a general knowledge of the rest.
I know, and I’m being a bit harsh, but a few years later a friend who studied history at uni ranted to me for about five minutes about how appalling our history lessons at school were.
Well, a lot of them are. But when you get to postgrad level, you'll find quite a lot of stuff at undergrad was rubbish as well.
It is very difficult to teach history well, partly because it's such a vast subject and partly because as a discipline it demands the mastery of a large quantity of complex material and willingness to consider a wide variety of viewpoints in their philosophical and frequently linguistic context. It can't really be done in (usually less than) an hour a week frequently by non-specialists.
What you have to do instead is make compromises on both content and approach. Your teachers clearly went for a feminist interpretation based on the industrial economy of wartime Britain. As did the first school I taught in, which was an all girls grammar. At the school where I was Head of History, I devised a curriculum largely around the war in the Far East because 40% of our students were from that area but for political reasons knew fuck all about it. At my current school, the interest of the Head of History is particularly in racial matters so I've just finished redoing the unit on the Holocaust - doubly important because Holocaust denial is unfortunately a bit of a problem among too many parents.
Now, if I had five hours a week and every member of staff with an MA or a doctorate, I could cover the lot, in detail, with units on the historiography to boot. But I haven't, and I will never get them.
And finally, even if I could, I wouldn't, because that would screw the students in our shockingly badly written GCSE and A-level system where you are not allowed to teach about historiography or anything at vaguely degree level standard. We've only just got an exemption from Zahawi's utterly ridiculous ban on teaching Marxism for the Politics unit on Socialism.
So everything makes it really, really hard and frankly currently unpleasant to teach history, in schools. There is a reason it is a dying subject.
That's separate from the Covid bullshit by those lying drunks at the DfE and House of Commons who have increased my workload 40% without more pay while awarding themselves fecking massive pay rises for 'the extra work they do' (which would frankly even if it had been done have been better left undone) which is simultaneously driving me out of the profession and to far more strong drink than is healthy. But it is bloody annoying.
Not covered at my school (women won WW2 was the main message) and I don’t recall coming across it since.
Covering World War Two in anything but the most superficial way would be far beyond the average school curriculum. You could spend 50 years studying it in depth and still only have learned about half of it in detail with a general knowledge of the rest.
That's part of the fun of reading history. You can spend years studying something, and then come across something that makes you realise how little you actually know, and which transforms your outlook.
I can say with some confidence that I know more about the Roman Empire than 98% of the population - meaning that I know very little in reality.
I said at the PB event on Wednesday evening I thought Labour to win most seats was a sensible bet at this time - currently Smarkets have the Conservatives at 1.74 and Labour at 2.5. Obviously, IF the Conservatives dump Johnson or they get a bounce from other events, it's a trade from which you can cash out.
If you add the Conservative and LD seat numbers it's a mirror image of 2010 (or pretty close). The key here is Starmer would not need the support of the SNP if he could get the support of the LDs as they would have 324 and with SF absent, they would have a small but clear Parliamentary majority.
For the Conservatives, it wouldn't be as bad as 1997 or 2001 but it would still be roughly a third of the seats gone.
Less than 250 seats would be quite a bad result for the Tories, I am still assuming 250 seats is the Tory floor.
If 250 seats were the Tory floor, then a Labour majority would be impossible without a significant change in Scotland. Con 250, SNP 50, LD 10, PC 3, Lucas in Brighton and NI 18 leaves only 318 for Labour. And LD 10 is pessimistic, to say the least.
The Russian Ministry of defence has just blocked there own Twitter account, why twitter is now band in Russia (I think) so this was just an oppertuaty to spared disinformation in the west. why do this?!?!?!
Not covered at my school (women won WW2 was the main message) and I don’t recall coming across it since.
Covering World War Two in anything but the most superficial way would be far beyond the average school curriculum. You could spend 50 years studying it in depth and still only have learned about half of it in detail with a general knowledge of the rest.
I know, and I’m being a bit harsh, but a few years later a friend who studied history at uni ranted to me for about five minutes about how appalling our history lessons at school were.
However, murdering most of the leadership generation of a country's armed forces is perhaps a good lesson.
After all, it wasn't the only place Stalin did that. Or others since.
Trotsky and Tukhachevsky of course would point it he did it to his own country...
The Russian Ministry of defence has just blocked there own Twitter account, why twitter is now band in Russia (I think) so this was just an oppertuaty to spared disinformation in the west. why do this?!?!?!
Seems a long time ago since posters on here were suggesting that the UFOs that could evade US surveillance systems were secret Russian technology.
The Corridor Crew (who are VFX artists) debunked basically all those videos. Not as VFX or fakery, but fairly simple tricks of the eye / camera. Sorry Leon.
I thought it was fairly well known that The Corridor Crew were just a super-intelligent shade of the colour blue.
Not covered at my school (women won WW2 was the main message) and I don’t recall coming across it since.
Covering World War Two in anything but the most superficial way would be far beyond the average school curriculum. You could spend 50 years studying it in depth and still only have learned about half of it in detail with a general knowledge of the rest.
That's part of the fun of reading history. You can spend years studying something, and then come across something that makes you realise how little you actually know, and which transforms your outlook.
I can say with some confidence that I know more about the Roman Empire than 98% of the population - meaning that I know very little in reality.
So really, what did they ever do for us?
Give a lot of historians work?
History is constantly being reinterpreted and re-evaluated, or how could we keep historians occupied? We could not possibly allow people with minds like theirs to wander about with time on their hands...
Gold stars to those who identify the author and the book.
I said at the PB event on Wednesday evening I thought Labour to win most seats was a sensible bet at this time - currently Smarkets have the Conservatives at 1.74 and Labour at 2.5. Obviously, IF the Conservatives dump Johnson or they get a bounce from other events, it's a trade from which you can cash out.
If you add the Conservative and LD seat numbers it's a mirror image of 2010 (or pretty close). The key here is Starmer would not need the support of the SNP if he could get the support of the LDs as they would have 324 and with SF absent, they would have a small but clear Parliamentary majority.
For the Conservatives, it wouldn't be as bad as 1997 or 2001 but it would still be roughly a third of the seats gone.
Less than 250 seats would be quite a bad result for the Tories, I am still assuming 250 seats is the Tory floor.
If 250 seats were the Tory floor, then a Labour majority would be impossible without a significant change Scotland. Con 250, SNP 50, LD 10, PC 3, Lucas in Brighton and NI 18 leaves only 318 for Labour. And LD 10 is pessimistic, to say the least.
Maybe not floor TBH although possibly most likely result if Johnson fights the next election and factoring in a lot of residual Johnson support in areas like the West Midlands (I am assuming 100 gains is the best case scenario for Labour) although I'm quite cautious about the next election. The jury is out on the Lib Dems although they had quite a strong gain in Somerset, in Yeovil constituency from the Tories the other night.
Russia is certainly looking a bit North Korea at the moment. The latest picture of Putin with air hostesses cements this image in my mind (not sure if it is real or current, but anyway) Putin and Lavrov have gone from respectable statesmen to Kim Jong-un like figures in the course of a couple of weeks. They used to come across as smart, but now they just seem like mad provocateurs. The descent has been spectacular and unexpected. Even the taliban are distancing themselves, which says a lot. Maybe there was something in Wallace's 'gone full tonto' comment. It isn't looking that stupid now.
I don't mean to piss on your chips but Putin's been like this for a while. Like that time he brought a dog into a meeting with Merkel beacuse he knew she is a cynophobe. That's low-grade trolling right there and it was like 6 years ago. Putin's been a weird little shit for a long time. So if he was ever a "respected statesman" it wasn't recently.
This isn't correct. I detest him and his regime as much as you do, but I can see that he is extremely smart, as is Lavrov. They have constantly humiliated the brightest and the best from the 'free world', and it has been quite entertaining to watch. Most recently Liz Truss, in case anyone has forgotten that particular episode. It does look now as if the whole show has fallen apart, and that some kind of madness has engulfed the whole place. It isn't anything to celebrate, it is all a bit worrying when you consider how many nuclear weapons they have.
I didn't say he was stupid, I was only saying that he hasn't really fitted the description of "respected statesman" for a while, if ever. Perhaps we mean different things by "respected" though.
The gangster thing carries a certain dark kudos. It shouldn't but it does.
Not covered at my school (women won WW2 was the main message) and I don’t recall coming across it since.
Covering World War Two in anything but the most superficial way would be far beyond the average school curriculum. You could spend 50 years studying it in depth and still only have learned about half of it in detail with a general knowledge of the rest.
That's part of the fun of reading history. You can spend years studying something, and then come across something that makes you realise how little you actually know, and which transforms your outlook.
I can say with some confidence that I know more about the Roman Empire than 98% of the population - meaning that I know very little in reality.
So really, what did they ever do for us?
Give a lot of historians work?
History is constantly being reinterpreted and re-evaluated, or how could we keep historians occupied? We could not possibly allow people with minds like theirs to wander about with time on their hands...
Gold stars to those who identify the author and the book.
Churchill: 'A History of the English Speaking Peoples'?
Not covered at my school (women won WW2 was the main message) and I don’t recall coming across it since.
Covering World War Two in anything but the most superficial way would be far beyond the average school curriculum. You could spend 50 years studying it in depth and still only have learned about half of it in detail with a general knowledge of the rest.
I know, and I’m being a bit harsh, but a few years later a friend who studied history at uni ranted to me for about five minutes about how appalling our history lessons at school were.
Well, a lot of them are. But when you get to postgrad level, you'll find quite a lot of stuff at undergrad was rubbish as well.
It is very difficult to teach history well, partly because it's such a vast subject and partly because as a discipline it demands the mastery of a large quantity of complex material and willingness to consider a wide variety of viewpoints in their philosophical and frequently linguistic context. It can't really be done in (usually less than) an hour a week frequently by non-specialists.
What you have to do instead is make compromises on both content and approach. Your teachers clearly went for a feminist interpretation based on the industrial economy of wartime Britain. As did the first school I taught in, which was an all girls grammar. At the school where I was Head of History, I devised a curriculum largely around the war in the Far East because 40% of our students were from that area but for political reasons knew fuck all about it. At my current school, the interest of the Head of History is particularly in racial matters so I've just finished redoing the unit on the Holocaust - doubly important because Holocaust denial is unfortunately a bit of a problem among too many parents.
Now, if I had five hours a week and every member of staff with an MA or a doctorate, I could cover the lot, in detail, with units on the historiography to boot. But I haven't, and I will never get them.
And finally, even if I could, I wouldn't, because that would screw the students in our shockingly badly written GCSE and A-level system where you are not allowed to teach about historiography or anything at vaguely degree level standard. We've only just got an exemption from Zahawi's utterly ridiculous ban on teaching Marxism for the Politics unit on Socialism.
So everything makes it really, really hard and frankly currently unpleasant to teach history, in schools. There is a reason it is a dying subject.
That's separate from the Covid bullshit by those lying drunks at the DfE and House of Commons who have increased my workload 40% without more pay while awarding themselves fecking massive pay rises for 'the extra work they do' (which would frankly even if it had been done have been better left undone) which is simultaneously driving me out of the profession and to far more strong drink than is healthy. But it is bloody annoying.
There's a "ban on teaching Marxism"? WTAF? How can you understand anything since about 1880 without knowing about Marxism?
That's what we pointed out to them.
The ban was on teaching 'political opinions.' We were ordered to confine ourselves to facts. Marxism is a political opinion...
The real reason Zahawi got worked up and tightened the ban was that teacher getting a load of children to write to Boris Johnson telling him what a c*** he is for having a party in lockdown. And I actually do have a little sympathy with that being called out. as it was a bloody fool task by a bloody fool teacher pushing left wing opinions at the wrong moment and in the wrong way.
At the same time, what happened was a gross over reaction which betrayed both a lack of confidence in their intellectual position and a total lack of understanding of pedagogy or scholarship. Not surprising, given these people are thickos with inferior degrees from poor unis that give them out for sucking the right Cocks. But still annoying.
(And also, whatever that teacher's opinions, the ban doesn't work because it is a fact that Johnson is a lying c*** who attended illegal parties in lockdown. Which he has effectively admitted, but survived because - another fact - the PCP are cowardly amoral and stupid scum.)
Not covered at my school (women won WW2 was the main message) and I don’t recall coming across it since.
Covering World War Two in anything but the most superficial way would be far beyond the average school curriculum. You could spend 50 years studying it in depth and still only have learned about half of it in detail with a general knowledge of the rest.
I know, and I’m being a bit harsh, but a few years later a friend who studied history at uni ranted to me for about five minutes about how appalling our history lessons at school were.
Well, a lot of them are. But when you get to postgrad level, you'll find quite a lot of stuff at undergrad was rubbish as well.
It is very difficult to teach history well, partly because it's such a vast subject and partly because as a discipline it demands the mastery of a large quantity of complex material and willingness to consider a wide variety of viewpoints in their philosophical and frequently linguistic context. It can't really be done in (usually less than) an hour a week frequently by non-specialists.
What you have to do instead is make compromises on both content and approach. Your teachers clearly went for a feminist interpretation based on the industrial economy of wartime Britain. As did the first school I taught in, which was an all girls grammar. At the school where I was Head of History, I devised a curriculum largely around the war in the Far East because 40% of our students were from that area but for political reasons knew fuck all about it. At my current school, the interest of the Head of History is particularly in racial matters so I've just finished redoing the unit on the Holocaust - doubly important because Holocaust denial is unfortunately a bit of a problem among too many parents.
Now, if I had five hours a week and every member of staff with an MA or a doctorate, I could cover the lot, in detail, with units on the historiography to boot. But I haven't, and I will never get them.
And finally, even if I could, I wouldn't, because that would screw the students in our shockingly badly written GCSE and A-level system where you are not allowed to teach about historiography or anything at vaguely degree level standard. We've only just got an exemption from Zahawi's utterly ridiculous ban on teaching Marxism for the Politics unit on Socialism.
So everything makes it really, really hard and frankly currently unpleasant to teach history, in schools. There is a reason it is a dying subject.
That's separate from the Covid bullshit by those lying drunks at the DfE and House of Commons who have increased my workload 40% without more pay while awarding themselves fecking massive pay rises for 'the extra work they do' (which would frankly even if it had been done have been better left undone) which is simultaneously driving me out of the profession and to far more strong drink than is healthy. But it is bloody annoying.
Yeah, it’s a really difficult thing to get right. Women in the war is interesting, but it didn’t strike me as one of the more significant aspects of history.
But I shouldn’t complain. Our teacher was very good and I got an A*.
Here is something for the twits saying "why aren't we doing as much to sanction Russia as the EU?"
Russia's foreign ministry has released a statement taking direct aim at the British government for its support of Ukraine.
Maria Zakharova, the foreign ministry spokesperson, says Russia won't forget the UK's cooperation with Kyiv, or with what she calls the "ultra-nationalist forces of Ukraine", according Russian media.
"The sanctions hysteria in which London plays one of the leading, if not the main, roles, leaves us no choice but to take proportionately tough retaliatory measures," she said, adding that British interests in Russia would be "undermined" by Moscow's response.
The official narrative in Russia is that the threat to civilians in Ukraine comes not from Russian forces, but from "Ukrainian nationalists".
The UK government has provided weapons and financial aid to Ukraine amid the invasion.
Another 30 vehicles caught in depo near Kharkiv. Looks like the counter offensive is going well.
What are the Ukrainians doing with all this captured kit? Some of it may be usable, but some may not - e.g. SAM missile batteries is little good without missiles. If it is usable and retrievable, do you take it to a depot somewhere safe, where it may later get recaptured, or do you destroy/disable-in-place?
I'd *guess* you take things you cannot use immediately, but may be of use, west for servicing, training and equipping. Anything else shove off the road (or use as road blocks) and disable in a way that they might be usable after the war - say, destroying a part of the transmission that won't be easy to replace during the war. That way, if the Russians retake the area, it can't just be reused.
Not covered at my school (women won WW2 was the main message) and I don’t recall coming across it since.
Covering World War Two in anything but the most superficial way would be far beyond the average school curriculum. You could spend 50 years studying it in depth and still only have learned about half of it in detail with a general knowledge of the rest.
I know, and I’m being a bit harsh, but a few years later a friend who studied history at uni ranted to me for about five minutes about how appalling our history lessons at school were.
Well, a lot of them are. But when you get to postgrad level, you'll find quite a lot of stuff at undergrad was rubbish as well.
It is very difficult to teach history well, partly because it's such a vast subject and partly because as a discipline it demands the mastery of a large quantity of complex material and willingness to consider a wide variety of viewpoints in their philosophical and frequently linguistic context. It can't really be done in (usually less than) an hour a week frequently by non-specialists.
What you have to do instead is make compromises on both content and approach. Your teachers clearly went for a feminist interpretation based on the industrial economy of wartime Britain. As did the first school I taught in, which was an all girls grammar. At the school where I was Head of History, I devised a curriculum largely around the war in the Far East because 40% of our students were from that area but for political reasons knew fuck all about it. At my current school, the interest of the Head of History is particularly in racial matters so I've just finished redoing the unit on the Holocaust - doubly important because Holocaust denial is unfortunately a bit of a problem among too many parents.
Now, if I had five hours a week and every member of staff with an MA or a doctorate, I could cover the lot, in detail, with units on the historiography to boot. But I haven't, and I will never get them.
And finally, even if I could, I wouldn't, because that would screw the students in our shockingly badly written GCSE and A-level system where you are not allowed to teach about historiography or anything at vaguely degree level standard. We've only just got an exemption from Zahawi's utterly ridiculous ban on teaching Marxism for the Politics unit on Socialism.
So everything makes it really, really hard and frankly currently unpleasant to teach history, in schools. There is a reason it is a dying subject.
That's separate from the Covid bullshit by those lying drunks at the DfE and House of Commons who have increased my workload 40% without more pay while awarding themselves fecking massive pay rises for 'the extra work they do' (which would frankly even if it had been done have been better left undone) which is simultaneously driving me out of the profession and to far more strong drink than is healthy. But it is bloody annoying.
There's a "ban on teaching Marxism"? WTAF? How can you understand anything since about 1880 without knowing about Marxism?
That's what we pointed out to them.
The ban was on teaching 'political opinions.' We were ordered to confine ourselves to facts. Marxism is a political opinion...
The real reason Zahawi got worked up and tightened the ban was that teacher getting a load of children to write to Boris Johnson telling him what a c*** he is for having a party in lockdown. And I actually do have a little sympathy with that being called out. as it was a bloody fool task by a bloody fool teacher pushing left wing opinions at the wrong moment and in the wrong way.
At the same time, what happened was a gross over reaction which betrayed both a lack of confidence in their intellectual position and a total lack of understanding of pedagogy or scholarship. Not surprising, given these people are thickos with inferior degrees from poor unis that give them out for sucking the right Cocks. But still annoying.
(And also, whatever that teacher's opinions, the ban doesn't work because it is a fact that Johnson is a lying c*** who attended illegal parties in lockdown. Which he has effectively admitted, but survived because - another fact - the PCP are cowardly amoral and stupid scum.)
Teachers doing inconvenient things? Why is this web server being dos'd? Ah, because Miss Jenkins' entire class is spidering the site for their homework.
Another 30 vehicles caught in depo near Kharkiv. Looks like the counter offensive is going well.
What are the Ukrainians doing with all this captured kit? Some of it may be usable, but some may not - e.g. SAM missile batteries is little good without missiles. If it is usable and retrievable, do you take it to a depot somewhere safe, where it may later get recaptured, or do you destroy/disable-in-place?
I'd *guess* you take things you cannot use immediately, but may be of use, west for servicing, training and equipping. Anything else shove off the road (or use as road blocks) and disable in a way that they might be usable after the war - say, destroying a part of the transmission that won't be easy to replace during the war. That way, if the Russians retake the area, it can't just be reused.
Just a WAG...
There isn't going to be a barn in Ukraine without a piece of Russian hardware.
Yes, almost certainly. In WWII the Red Army routinely carried logs on their vehicles, to be used if they got stuck in mud. Their tanks had mounts on the back specifically for holding logs.
Yes, almost certainly. In WWII the Red Army routinely carried logs on their vehicles, to be used if they got stuck in mud. Their tanks had mounts on the back specifically for holding logs.
Seems they've had to re-learn that lesson.
And if it does freeze harder than Putin's skull tonight, useful fuel.
Not covered at my school (women won WW2 was the main message) and I don’t recall coming across it since.
Covering World War Two in anything but the most superficial way would be far beyond the average school curriculum. You could spend 50 years studying it in depth and still only have learned about half of it in detail with a general knowledge of the rest.
I know, and I’m being a bit harsh, but a few years later a friend who studied history at uni ranted to me for about five minutes about how appalling our history lessons at school were.
Well, a lot of them are. But when you get to postgrad level, you'll find quite a lot of stuff at undergrad was rubbish as well.
It is very difficult to teach history well, partly because it's such a vast subject and partly because as a discipline it demands the mastery of a large quantity of complex material and willingness to consider a wide variety of viewpoints in their philosophical and frequently linguistic context. It can't really be done in (usually less than) an hour a week frequently by non-specialists.
What you have to do instead is make compromises on both content and approach. Your teachers clearly went for a feminist interpretation based on the industrial economy of wartime Britain. As did the first school I taught in, which was an all girls grammar. At the school where I was Head of History, I devised a curriculum largely around the war in the Far East because 40% of our students were from that area but for political reasons knew fuck all about it. At my current school, the interest of the Head of History is particularly in racial matters so I've just finished redoing the unit on the Holocaust - doubly important because Holocaust denial is unfortunately a bit of a problem among too many parents.
Now, if I had five hours a week and every member of staff with an MA or a doctorate, I could cover the lot, in detail, with units on the historiography to boot. But I haven't, and I will never get them.
And finally, even if I could, I wouldn't, because that would screw the students in our shockingly badly written GCSE and A-level system where you are not allowed to teach about historiography or anything at vaguely degree level standard. We've only just got an exemption from Zahawi's utterly ridiculous ban on teaching Marxism for the Politics unit on Socialism.
So everything makes it really, really hard and frankly currently unpleasant to teach history, in schools. There is a reason it is a dying subject.
That's separate from the Covid bullshit by those lying drunks at the DfE and House of Commons who have increased my workload 40% without more pay while awarding themselves fecking massive pay rises for 'the extra work they do' (which would frankly even if it had been done have been better left undone) which is simultaneously driving me out of the profession and to far more strong drink than is healthy. But it is bloody annoying.
There's a "ban on teaching Marxism"? WTAF? How can you understand anything since about 1880 without knowing about Marxism?
That's what we pointed out to them.
The ban was on teaching 'political opinions.' We were ordered to confine ourselves to facts. Marxism is a political opinion...
The real reason Zahawi got worked up and tightened the ban was that teacher getting a load of children to write to Boris Johnson telling him what a c*** he is for having a party in lockdown. And I actually do have a little sympathy with that being called out. as it was a bloody fool task by a bloody fool teacher pushing left wing opinions at the wrong moment and in the wrong way.
At the same time, what happened was a gross over reaction which betrayed both a lack of confidence in their intellectual position and a total lack of understanding of pedagogy or scholarship. Not surprising, given these people are thickos with inferior degrees from poor unis that give them out for sucking the right Cocks. But still annoying.
(And also, whatever that teacher's opinions, the ban doesn't work because it is a fact that Johnson is a lying c*** who attended illegal parties in lockdown. Which he has effectively admitted, but survived because - another fact - the PCP are cowardly amoral and stupid scum.)
A ban on teaching "political opinions"?
"So what was Hitler's motivation for attacking the Soviet Union?" Can't tell you.
"And the rebellion of the Scottish nobles against Mary, that was because..." Not allowed to say. Political.
"Are we going to learn about the Corn Laws, sir?" Who told you about that? We shouldn't even be talking about this..
Yep.
And people wonder why I am so utterly fucking pissed off.
This is the level of stupidity, ignorance and incompetence I have been dealing with on a daily basis for ten years.
Edit - I might add, it's not all political opinions. Only those incompatible with the British Values wankfest Gove dreamed up in one of his spaced out moments.
But Marxism was ruled out, as was anarchism.
conservatism and British patriotism were oddly unaffected...
This despite 'tolerance' being one of the five pieces of idiocy that make them up.
The speed with which Russia has been cut off from the world economy has been as stunning as the slowness with which Russian forces have advanced in Ukraine. But can Putin offset the de facto blockade by dealing with China? That would be harder than many imagine 1/
The speed with which Russia has been cut off from the world economy has been as stunning as the slowness with which Russian forces have advanced in Ukraine. But can Putin offset the de facto blockade by dealing with China? That would be harder than many imagine 1/
This is presumably self justification, rather than a somewhat redundant threat ?
Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin said that if Ukraine “continues to behave in the same way,” that will “bring into question the future of its statehood,” during a meeting broadcast on TV. https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1500126784574140422
Presumably "continues to behave in the same way" translates as: "making my forces look effin' useless".
It doesn't look like the world's most menacing military, either way
If I was going to guess, Russian soldiers where getting scared and local commander was worried they would not 'go forward' or would abandon there vehicles if they did. Decided to tell his men that if we cover them with logs then the enemy cant heart us. it a big 'Placebo' but placebos work if they help persuade there men to advance, at least in the short term.
Another 30 vehicles caught in depo near Kharkiv. Looks like the counter offensive is going well.
What are the Ukrainians doing with all this captured kit? Some of it may be usable, but some may not - e.g. SAM missile batteries is little good without missiles. If it is usable and retrievable, do you take it to a depot somewhere safe, where it may later get recaptured, or do you destroy/disable-in-place?
I'd *guess* you take things you cannot use immediately, but may be of use, west for servicing, training and equipping. Anything else shove off the road (or use as road blocks) and disable in a way that they might be usable after the war - say, destroying a part of the transmission that won't be easy to replace during the war. That way, if the Russians retake the area, it can't just be reused.
Just a WAG...
A late friend of mine was a US army captain in an armoured regiment. In his later years he worked at a US base in California whose job was to acquire and assess foreign equipment. Everything from typewriters to ballistic missiles. His speciality unsurprisingly was armour - both tanks and APCs as well as other soft skinned vehicles. They would get a vehicle and strip it down to the nuts and bolts looking at every aspect of its construction, its strengths and its weaknesses. Then they would put it back together and spend weeks using it on the ranges again looking at every aspect of its handling, lines of sight, reliability and any other quirks and unique features.
A fascinating job and I can imagine he would have been drooling about some of the kit now becoming available in Ukraine.
Lots of the old RPGs in Ukraine, too. Logs would provide some sort of protection.
As an aside, the ablative heat shield for China's first ICBM warheads was made of oak, I believe.
The FSW recon satellites used oak impregnated with phenolic resin - it's been used a few times in other space programs. The process turns the wood into a form of composite material.
"So what was Hitler's motivation for attacking the Soviet Union?" Can't tell you.
"And the rebellion of the Scottish nobles against Mary, that was because..." Not allowed to say. Political.
"Are we going to learn about the Corn Laws, sir?" Who told you about that? We shouldn't even be talking about this..
This takes us back to the attempted ban on teaching about homosexuality. But the point was then that informing pupils about something is not the same as urging them to do it. It doesn't seem that difficult. It should be fine, indeed encouraged, for teachers to get pupils to take an interest in political affairs, but they should indicate different possible views. Would it have mattered if the teacher had said something like: "Some people feel that the PM shouldn't have been at parties during lockdown, others think it's all right because they were people relaxing during hard work. Write a letter to Mr Johnson to tell him what you think."
"So what was Hitler's motivation for attacking the Soviet Union?" Can't tell you.
"And the rebellion of the Scottish nobles against Mary, that was because..." Not allowed to say. Political.
"Are we going to learn about the Corn Laws, sir?" Who told you about that? We shouldn't even be talking about this..
This takes us back to the attempted ban on teaching about homosexuality. But the point was then that informing pupils about something is not the same as urging them to do it. It doesn't seem that difficult. It should be fine, indeed encouraged, for teachers to get pupils to take an interest in political affairs, but they should indicate different possible views. Would it have mattered if the teacher had said something like: "Some people feel that the PM shouldn't have been at parties during lockdown, others think it's all right because they were people relaxing during hard work. Write a letter to Mr Johnson to tell him what you think."
We couldn't possibly have said that bit about 'hard work.' For two reasons:
1) It would have been wrong as hard work is what @Foxy was doing and
2) It's an unfortunate double entendre where Johnson is concerned.
"So what was Hitler's motivation for attacking the Soviet Union?" Can't tell you.
"And the rebellion of the Scottish nobles against Mary, that was because..." Not allowed to say. Political.
"Are we going to learn about the Corn Laws, sir?" Who told you about that? We shouldn't even be talking about this..
This takes us back to the attempted ban on teaching about homosexuality. But the point was then that informing pupils about something is not the same as urging them to do it. It doesn't seem that difficult. It should be fine, indeed encouraged, for teachers to get pupils to take an interest in political affairs, but they should indicate different possible views. Would it have mattered if the teacher had said something like: "Some people feel that the PM shouldn't have been at parties during lockdown, others think it's all right because they were people relaxing during hard work. Write a letter to Mr Johnson to tell him what you think."
We couldn't possibly have said that bit about 'hard work.' For two reasons:
1) It would have been wrong as hard work is what @Foxy was doing and
2) It's an unfortunate double entendre where Johnson is concerned.
That's got me wondering about 'Johnson is standing up for Ukraine' now 😬
"So what was Hitler's motivation for attacking the Soviet Union?" Can't tell you.
"And the rebellion of the Scottish nobles against Mary, that was because..." Not allowed to say. Political.
"Are we going to learn about the Corn Laws, sir?" Who told you about that? We shouldn't even be talking about this..
This takes us back to the attempted ban on teaching about homosexuality. But the point was then that informing pupils about something is not the same as urging them to do it. It doesn't seem that difficult. It should be fine, indeed encouraged, for teachers to get pupils to take an interest in political affairs, but they should indicate different possible views. Would it have mattered if the teacher had said something like: "Some people feel that the PM shouldn't have been at parties during lockdown, others think it's all right because they were people relaxing during hard work. Write a letter to Mr Johnson to tell him what you think."
We couldn't possibly have said that bit about 'hard work.' For two reasons:
1) It would have been wrong as hard work is what @Foxy was doing and
2) It's an unfortunate double entendre where Johnson is concerned.
That's got me wondering about 'Johnson is standing up for Ukraine' now 😬
I can imagine if Elina Svitolina or Anastasia Lenna walked into the room he would rise to the occasion.
The speed with which Russia has been cut off from the world economy has been as stunning as the slowness with which Russian forces have advanced in Ukraine. But can Putin offset the de facto blockade by dealing with China? That would be harder than many imagine 1/
At risk of triggering the ERG, Krugman's first point is that Russia and China are too far apart to trade easily.
Its a bit disingenuous by Krugman. The most important trading asset for the Russians is their hydrocarbons. And most of that is in the East of the country nearest to China. Of course as mentioned yesterday by RCS and others, the issue there is pipeline capacity so it is certainly not a simple solution but the idea that the great distance from Western Russia to Eastern China is a big barrier is pretty poor thinking.
The speed with which Russia has been cut off from the world economy has been as stunning as the slowness with which Russian forces have advanced in Ukraine. But can Putin offset the de facto blockade by dealing with China? That would be harder than many imagine 1/
At risk of triggering the ERG, Krugman's first point is that Russia and China are too far apart to trade easily.
In a Zoom world, developed economy services like legal advice, creative work, consulting etc can be done at long distances relatively easily. Shipping natural gas down pipelines is a bit harder.
I find this very sad. The crew on the helicopter stood absolutely no chance. Yes, they shouldn't be there, but you probably just saw two or three people die.
Yet... yet I want their side to lose.
Russian soldiers are also victims of the war. Doubly so as they are not even fighting for a just cause.
Indeed. This monumental blunder by Putin is horrible for the average Russian, and will be fatal for many
My fear is that the humiliation of Russia, which is becoming profound and intense, will be of such magnitude Putin will launch nukes just because. Anything but this excruciating disgrace
One would hope that one of his Generals will think 'hmmm... global war... certain death... or take out the mad man and hopefully wear his crown... save humanity... become billionaire...'
It doesn't look like the world's most menacing military, either way
If I was going to guess, Russian soldiers where getting scared and local commander was worried they would not 'go forward' or would abandon there vehicles if they did. Decided to tell his men that if we cover them with logs then the enemy cant heart us. it a big 'Placebo' but placebos work if they help persuade there men to advance, at least in the short term.
Isn't it just a way to store firewood? There's a cold snap coming.
The speed with which Russia has been cut off from the world economy has been as stunning as the slowness with which Russian forces have advanced in Ukraine. But can Putin offset the de facto blockade by dealing with China? That would be harder than many imagine 1/
At risk of triggering the ERG, Krugman's first point is that Russia and China are too far apart to trade easily.
Its a bit disingenuous by Krugman. The most important trading asset for the Russians is their hydrocarbons. And most of that is in the East of the country nearest to China. Of course as mentioned yesterday by RCS and others, the issue there is pipeline capacity so it is certainly not a simple solution but the idea that the great distance from Western Russia to Eastern China is a big barrier is pretty poor thinking.
You know the industry better than me, but my understanding is that most of the marginal hydrocarbons were actually in the NORTH (east and west), which is a long way from China.
Turns out when you don't bribe people directly (because you can't) they find a way to get the money another way (at vastly greater cost).
The quote "There are ofc purely Russian projects with no Western investors/contractors. They just don't work and remain on paper" makes me wonder about their military high-tech projects. That tweet says it is the case for oil and gas. We know it is the case for space and rockets. It seems possible that military equipment suffers from the same malaise.
Have a lot of the very good, cutting-edge pieces of military kit they have be very few in number, and high on the bathtub curve?
If you want to take an entirely cynical - but probably fairly accurate - view of the Russian economy, it is that it was saved by Western oil & gas kit, that enabled it to refresh old fields at a time when prices were rising.
If you take the kit (and the skilled operators) away, Russia's oil and gas production will go in just one direction.
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But, I do think it might be that the problems with logistics and air cover, in the areas that the Russians are now operating in, would be made worse if they expanded with a now front, and therefore would, better for the Russians to consolidate other areas first.
also, how sure are we that there was meant to be an amphibious assault, the threat of the assault must be pining some of the Ukrainian army down in that area, when there are desperately needed elsewhere. I think the US did this in Gulf War 1.
but Not clamming to be a strategic genus so who know?
The man has been a lying dictator who murders his opponents for a long time; it’s more that someone has said no to him and the characteristic murderous response hasn’t stopped them saying no.
And the rest of the world has dropped the diplomatic euphemisms when dealing with him.
I think the total number of active Eurofighters is around 100, plus a dozen F-35s. And that's it for fast jets.
Someone may have a better number, but I am not sure how many more planes we could send to Poland, the Baltics etc if needed.
Go fuck yourself with bells on, Russian warship and uglier version of Dobby the House Elf.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2022_Australian_federal_election
But HYUFD keeps telling us the polls spectacularly wrong last time, but preferred PM got it right. That’s tightening up a bit as well.
🐎 my NAP could only manage 2nd Stodge, the others 4th and worst. How are your dobbins doing?
In a somewhat dark irony, it's a mile from the Soldatenfriedhof where the majority of Germans who died on UK soil in the world wars are buried.
https://cannockchase.org.uk/proud-to-protect/heritage-and-history/katyn-memorial/
In terms of vote shares, the Conservatives won 36% in 1945, 32.4% in 2005, 31.7% in 2001 and 30.7% in 1997.
The "floor" would seem to be above 30% in vote terms but what that gets you in seats depends on the other parties - the seat distribution on 35-30-25 would be very different to 45-30-15 for example.
I mean when the commie Poles screwed up they also went for supression.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1962_Szczecin_military_parade#Aftermath
Any way, I was sitting in the student union when one of the clowns spotted me. He knew that my family has some Polish ancestry, so loudly started making a "joke" about Katyn
I went eh?
He repeated it, louder
I went eh, again - pointing to the speakers - as usual background music was being played.
He repeated himself.
At the next table, it turned out, was a chunk of the Polish club. Who did hear.
A final comic item. A demand arrived for the CCTV to prove who had attacked the neo-Stalinist and his chums.
Obviously, he has got rather more aggressive since then, possibly because all his other attempts to control and weaken Ukraine have failed.
This one is going to be even more destructive, but so far it doesn't look much more successful.
If Putin had his way it would be more forgotten.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre#Those_adopting_pre-1990_views
..In 2021, however, the Russian Ministry of Culture downgraded the memorial complex at Katyn on its Register of Sites of Cultural Heritage from a place of federal to one of only regional importance.[136] Such decisions, says the preface to the site, are made in consultation with the regional authorities, i.e. the Smolensk Region administration. More important, the Ministry altered the descriptive text to say, once more, that the "Polish officers were shot by the Hitlerites in 1941"…
Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin said that if Ukraine “continues to behave in the same way,” that will “bring into question the future of its statehood,” during a meeting broadcast on TV.
https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1500126784574140422
After all, it wasn't the only place Stalin did that. Or others since.
I can say with some confidence that I know more about the Roman Empire than 98% of the population - meaning that I know very little in reality.
Probably clutching at straws but perhaps this really will be the invasion that reveals Putin's military is just not up to what ever they have been telling him for years.
Surely heads will be rolling soon at lack of progress?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings
Instead GCSE history has become a diluted foreshadowing of A-level and degree history which is fine but the same logic would have you teaching 12-year-olds about quantum mechanics and gene-editing.
It is very difficult to teach history well, partly because it's such a vast subject and partly because as a discipline it demands the mastery of a large quantity of complex material and willingness to consider a wide variety of viewpoints in their philosophical and frequently linguistic context. It can't really be done in (usually less than) an hour a week frequently by non-specialists.
What you have to do instead is make compromises on both content and approach. Your teachers clearly went for a feminist interpretation based on the industrial economy of wartime Britain. As did the first school I taught in, which was an all girls grammar. At the school where I was Head of History, I devised a curriculum largely around the war in the Far East because 40% of our students were from that area but for political reasons knew fuck all about it. At my current school, the interest of the Head of History is particularly in racial matters so I've just finished redoing the unit on the Holocaust - doubly important because Holocaust denial is unfortunately a bit of a problem among too many parents.
Now, if I had five hours a week and every member of staff with an MA or a doctorate, I could cover the lot, in detail, with units on the historiography to boot. But I haven't, and I will never get them.
And finally, even if I could, I wouldn't, because that would screw the students in our shockingly badly written GCSE and A-level system where you are not allowed to teach about historiography or anything at vaguely degree level standard. We've only just got an exemption from Zahawi's utterly ridiculous ban on teaching Marxism for the Politics unit on Socialism.
So everything makes it really, really hard and frankly currently unpleasant to teach history, in schools. There is a reason it is a dying subject.
That's separate from the Covid bullshit by those lying drunks at the DfE and House of Commons who have increased my workload 40% without more pay while awarding themselves fecking massive pay rises for 'the extra work they do' (which would frankly even if it had been done have been better left undone) which is simultaneously driving me out of the profession and to far more strong drink than is healthy. But it is bloody annoying.
The seizures relate to five close associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-seizes-oligarchs-yachts-villas/
The Russian Ministry of defence has just blocked there own Twitter account, why twitter is now band in Russia (I think) so this was just an oppertuaty to spared disinformation in the west. why do this?!?!?!
Gold stars to those who identify the author and the book.
Find that hard to believe, but that is the rumour
https://twitter.com/wwidav/status/1500149395387518980?s=20&t=f_M4BeyVtFB9paYP-PRbUA
It doesn't look like the world's most menacing military, either way
The ban was on teaching 'political opinions.' We were ordered to confine ourselves to facts. Marxism is a political opinion...
The real reason Zahawi got worked up and tightened the ban was that teacher getting a load of children to write to Boris Johnson telling him what a c*** he is for having a party in lockdown. And I actually do have a little sympathy with that being called out. as it was a bloody fool task by a bloody fool teacher pushing left wing opinions at the wrong moment and in the wrong way.
At the same time, what happened was a gross over reaction which betrayed both a lack of confidence in their intellectual position and a total lack of understanding of pedagogy or scholarship. Not surprising, given these people are thickos with inferior degrees from poor unis that give them out for sucking the right Cocks. But still annoying.
(And also, whatever that teacher's opinions, the ban doesn't work because it is a fact that Johnson is a lying c*** who attended illegal parties in lockdown. Which he has effectively admitted, but survived because - another fact - the PCP are cowardly amoral and stupid scum.)
https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1500149980576862210
Another 30 vehicles caught in depo near Kharkiv. Looks like the counter offensive is going well.
But doesn't NLAW have a pop-up mode, to blow up above the target (generally the weakest area for armour on a tank)?
But I shouldn’t complain. Our teacher was very good and I got an A*.
There is a long history of this stuff - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_vehicle_armour
Maria Zakharova, the foreign ministry spokesperson, says Russia won't forget the UK's cooperation with Kyiv, or with what she calls the "ultra-nationalist forces of Ukraine", according Russian media.
"The sanctions hysteria in which London plays one of the leading, if not the main, roles, leaves us no choice but to take proportionately tough retaliatory measures," she said, adding that British interests in Russia would be "undermined" by Moscow's response.
The official narrative in Russia is that the threat to civilians in Ukraine comes not from Russian forces, but from "Ukrainian nationalists".
The UK government has provided weapons and financial aid to Ukraine amid the invasion.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-60532634
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/mar/05/brittney-griner-reportedly-detained-russia
https://twitter.com/avimayer/status/1500150119173443584
I'd *guess* you take things you cannot use immediately, but may be of use, west for servicing, training and equipping. Anything else shove off the road (or use as road blocks) and disable in a way that they might be usable after the war - say, destroying a part of the transmission that won't be easy to replace during the war. That way, if the Russians retake the area, it can't just be reused.
Just a WAG...
Kamala Harris thinks Americans have an average IQ of 3.
https://twitter.com/OldRowOfficial/status/1500130349468332037?s=20&t=f_M4BeyVtFB9paYP-PRbUA
Er, she's not right, is she?
Nobody believes it's above 2.5.
Seems they've had to re-learn that lesson.
And people wonder why I am so utterly fucking pissed off.
This is the level of stupidity, ignorance and incompetence I have been dealing with on a daily basis for ten years.
Edit - I might add, it's not all political opinions. Only those incompatible with the British Values wankfest Gove dreamed up in one of his spaced out moments.
But Marxism was ruled out, as was anarchism.
conservatism and British patriotism were oddly unaffected...
This despite 'tolerance' being one of the five pieces of idiocy that make them up.
The speed with which Russia has been cut off from the world economy has been as stunning as the slowness with which Russian forces have advanced in Ukraine. But can Putin offset the de facto blockade by dealing with China? That would be harder than many imagine 1/
https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1500080867091353601?s=21
As an aside, the ablative heat shield for China's first ICBM warheads was made of oak, I believe.
A fascinating job and I can imagine he would have been drooling about some of the kit now becoming available in Ukraine.
No good, long-term options but I have been able to call down six cases of wine currently stored in the Wine Society cellar, for delivery on Monday.
So assuming Armageddon doesn't take place until Tuesday at the earliest, at least our last few days or weeks will be accompanied by some nice wines. 👍
1) It would have been wrong as hard work is what @Foxy was doing and
2) It's an unfortunate double entendre where Johnson is concerned.
This is without question the most costly day for the Russian Air Force since the war began.
https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK
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Do Ukr even need a no fly zone? Seems to be going badly for Putin.
If you take the kit (and the skilled operators) away, Russia's oil and gas production will go in just one direction.