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Remember Starmer can be next PM even if CON wins most seats – politicalbetting.com

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  • Is this a (rather funny) piss take?

    Or horrifyingly real?

    Laurence Fox ✝️ 🚚🚛🚚🚛🚚🚛
    @LozzaFox
    After many months of secrecy and guilt, today we are able to celebrate our new shared beginning together here on Twatter. Thank you for making me the man I today. I look forward spending the rest of my life with you ⁦@JuliaHB1

    https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1502298419817287689
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    IshmaelZ said:

    geoffw said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    geoffw said:

     

    TimT said:

    Applicant said:

    Andy_JS said:
    "Ally" is an interesting choice of words here...
    I believe it is an issue of translation from the Russian. In Russian, ally means lackey ...
    I learned from Alexander Gerschenkron that there's no word in Russian for 'opportunity'. So the clandestine Russian translation of Paul Samuelson's Economics textbook had to invent an expression for 'opportunity cost', a basic concept in economics. They came up with "the cost of foregone possibilities" which Gershenkron found somewhat poetic.

    возмо́жность seems a pretty good fit, and "the cost of foregone possibilities" is much better than opportunity cost anyway
    That's how Google translate gives it, along with possibility. But I would take a native Russian speaker's word over a nuance-free machine translation.

    I checked with more than one dictionary, translated both ways, and looked at context...
    Of course, we all know from Ronald Reagan that part of the problem with France is that they have no word for entrepreneur.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,983
    MaxPB said:

    Some people saying that the sanctions on Abramovic's steel company Evraz may not hold because there isn't any proof that the military grade steel made in their US arm was sent to Russia and the US would never allow a shared supplier with Russia so it seems unlikely that Evraz would risk losing a huge client for their highest margin product.

    I do wonder if the government has made a misstep here to get a big headline that Abramovic was personally responsible for arming Russia. Evraz is actually a UK company and from what I've been reading today from hastily written research is that their Russian operation largely consists of bulk steel for construction and the fun stuff is all done outside of Russia because the management don't trust the Russian arm of the business to deliver for big clients like the US military.

    We may not have seen the end of this one at least, the government will have to prove a direct supply link of military grade steel from Evraz to Russia and there's a lot of doubt that there is any evidence of it simply because they didn't do it.

    Much appreciated.

    A researched post.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    TimS said:

    BigRich said:

    TimS said:

    biggles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    biggles said:

    I’m always looking for positives in life, and there does seem to be a fighting chance of a sequel to the Death of Stalin.

    Jasper Carrot as Putin?

    This is bloody rivetting as to where Russia is on that film and Stalin in general

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/14/in-russia-nobodys-laughing-at-armando-iannucci-death-of-stalin

    "In June, Russia’s Levada Centre polled the country’s citizens on who they believed to be “the greatest person of all nations and all eras”, and Stalin came in first place. Putin came second, and the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin third.

    According to Levada’s Denis Volkov, Stalin’s popularity rose sharply in spring 2014, around the time of the annexation of Crimea, when nationalist rhetoric from the Kremlin increased. Since then, the polls have found more than twice the number of Russians assess Stalin positively than those who view him negatively.

    “This is not a coincidence. The [Crimea] events were taken by the population as a sign of the restoration of the country’s greatness – the same greatness which many people feel was created during Stalin’s rule and lost after the collapse of the Soviet Union,” Volkov wrote in a column for the newspaper RBC."

    Extraordinary and frightening
    Christ.
    One reason why Putin probably needs to stay in power and visibly cock up for a bit longer before any putsch. Otherwise you could get the difficult situation of him being couped by some generals and then people coming out on the streets in protest, Erdogan coup-style. Worst case scenario for everyone then.
    isn't that sort of what happened for Julia Creaser?
    Caesar was assassinated though. I was thinking the Erdogan route: still alive, calls the people to the streets, the military stays loyal and the coup is defeated. If Putin were assassinated and we then had a reaction, Julius Caesar style, I could see that being pretty bad too. We could end up with president Lavrov.
    AIUI, Lavrov is not in the inner circle, but rather a useful idiot. The Ukrainian Foreign Minister dissed him big time yesterday in Turkey.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 43,500

    biggles said:

    BigRich said:

    The Ukrainians are claiming another Su-34 has been shot down in the Chernihiv region.

    image

    as the Su-34 only entered service in 2014 I would have thought it would be quite good, but they do seem to have lost quite a few now.
    It seems to be the inexplicable low flying in a high threat environment for manpads. Viewed with a western eye it’s bonkers. But it would seem to be a lack of stand off munitions, good countermeasures, and training.
    A lot of Russia's weapons are warmed over variants of Cold War stuff. The T-90 is a face lift to the T-72. The Su-34 is how much of an advance on the Su-27?
    As far as I'm aware it had a long gestation due to the problems Russia faced in the 1990s - it first flew in 1987. But it has had many upgrades, and appears to have performed well in Syria.

    Yet they are being shot down over Ukraine.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,983

    Is this a (rather funny) piss take?

    Or horrifyingly real?

    Laurence Fox ✝️ 🚚🚛🚚🚛🚚🚛
    @LozzaFox
    After many months of secrecy and guilt, today we are able to celebrate our new shared beginning together here on Twatter. Thank you for making me the man I today. I look forward spending the rest of my life with you ⁦@JuliaHB1

    https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1502298419817287689

    A wonderfully suited couple
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,302
    @KevinRothrock
    Maria Butina now advocating Russia’s withdrawal from the United Nations, apparently hopeful that Moscow could take China with it.


    https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1502348323004497920
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,148

    biggles said:

    BigRich said:

    The Ukrainians are claiming another Su-34 has been shot down in the Chernihiv region.

    image

    as the Su-34 only entered service in 2014 I would have thought it would be quite good, but they do seem to have lost quite a few now.
    It seems to be the inexplicable low flying in a high threat environment for manpads. Viewed with a western eye it’s bonkers. But it would seem to be a lack of stand off munitions, good countermeasures, and training.
    A lot of Russia's weapons are warmed over variants of Cold War stuff. The T-90 is a face lift to the T-72. The Su-34 is how much of an advance on the Su-27?
    As far as I'm aware it had a long gestation due to the problems Russia faced in the 1990s - it first flew in 1987. But it has had many upgrades, and appears to have performed well in Syria.

    Yet they are being shot down over Ukraine.
    In Syria, they are facing very little opposition.
  • Can we sanction Deutsche Bank?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    TimT said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    geoffw said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    geoffw said:

     

    TimT said:

    Applicant said:

    Andy_JS said:
    "Ally" is an interesting choice of words here...
    I believe it is an issue of translation from the Russian. In Russian, ally means lackey ...
    I learned from Alexander Gerschenkron that there's no word in Russian for 'opportunity'. So the clandestine Russian translation of Paul Samuelson's Economics textbook had to invent an expression for 'opportunity cost', a basic concept in economics. They came up with "the cost of foregone possibilities" which Gershenkron found somewhat poetic.

    возмо́жность seems a pretty good fit, and "the cost of foregone possibilities" is much better than opportunity cost anyway
    That's how Google translate gives it, along with possibility. But I would take a native Russian speaker's word over a nuance-free machine translation.

    I checked with more than one dictionary, translated both ways, and looked at context...
    Of course, we all know from Ronald Reagan that part of the problem with France is that they have no word for entrepreneur.
    But they don't! An entrepreneur is a small time contractor, an electrician say, pretty much the precise opposite of an entrepreneur

    In the Russian case, I suspect the problem was that they didn't have a ready made phrase "opportunity cost" as opposed to the word on its own. It is an opaque phrase in English whose meaning I never understood till I read an explanation by Richard Dawkins. "Foregone opportunity cost" is much better.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,064

    @KevinRothrock
    Maria Butina now advocating Russia’s withdrawal from the United Nations, apparently hopeful that Moscow could take China with it.


    https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1502348323004497920

    That seems like a completely mad idea, giving up their permanent UNSC seat over this. Surely the generals have to step in and take Putin into a windowless room and have him shot if he tries that.
  • JACK_WJACK_W Posts: 682
    IanB2 said:

    A very strong field in this year’s breeders’ competition, won by a fine set of Dalmations.

    I spotted the winners a mile off ..
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,148

    Can we sanction Deutsche Bank?

    It depends how much you like the idea of a full on, diplomatic and political row with Germany.

    It was quite noticeable, how after BREXIT, the investigations into DB stopped in London.

    If they were restarted, it would be a moment. And not in a good way for Anglo-German relations.
  • LennonLennon Posts: 1,782
    MaxPB said:

    Lennon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Some people saying that the sanctions on Abramovic's steel company Evraz may not hold because there isn't any proof that the military grade steel made in their US arm was sent to Russia and the US would never allow a shared supplier with Russia so it seems unlikely that Evraz would risk losing a huge client for their highest margin product.

    I do wonder if the government has made a misstep here to get a big headline that Abramovic was personally responsible for arming Russia. Evraz is actually a UK company and from what I've been reading today from hastily written research is that their Russian operation largely consists of bulk steel for construction and the fun stuff is all done outside of Russia because the management don't trust the Russian arm of the business to deliver for big clients like the US military.

    We may not have seen the end of this one at least, the government will have to prove a direct supply link of military grade steel from Evraz to Russia and there's a lot of doubt that there is any evidence of it simply because they didn't do it.

    Was it Evraz that was the formal cause of the sanction then? I had assumed without looking that it was related to his acquisition of Sibneft and subsequent transfer to Gazprom
    The personal sanctions are related to the source of his wealth being essentially gifted an oil company by Putin AIUI, but Evraz, on the face of it, looks to be a legitimate company that's now sanctioned because it's part owner has been sanctioned.
    That makes more sense. In the same way I suppose that you could argue Chelsea is a legitimate company (no laughing at the back) which has been sanctioned as its owner has been...
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    JACK_W said:

    IanB2 said:

    A very strong field in this year’s breeders’ competition, won by a fine set of Dalmations.

    I spotted the winners a mile off ..
    What could be cruella than withholding this insight from the eager punters of PB?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,159
    Rich Russians are exploiting a loophole known as the “Serbian backdoor” to flee to Europe and circumnavigate an EU-wide ban on flights to and from Russia.

    Air Serbia, which is mostly state-owned, has doubled the number of direct flights from Moscow to Belgrade to 15 a week to meet rapidly rising demand after the EU banned Russian planes and airlines from its airspace, after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia responded by closing its airspace to EU and UK planes.

    Serbia is not a member of the EU and has refused to impose sanctions against Russia, but its planes are free to cross EU airspace. This has made the Balkan country “the only European air corridor left open to Russia”, according to travel analytics company ForwardKeys.
  • Can we sanction Deutsche Bank?

    It depends how much you like the idea of a full on, diplomatic and political row with Germany.

    It was quite noticeable, how after BREXIT, the investigations into DB stopped in London.

    If they were restarted, it would be a moment. And not in a good way for Anglo-German relations.
    Why? We could offer them all kinds of replacement banking services in London.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468

    @KevinRothrock
    Maria Butina now advocating Russia’s withdrawal from the United Nations, apparently hopeful that Moscow could take China with it.


    https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1502348323004497920

    Be a bit like the UK leaving the EU - perhaps it will make the UN and UNSC functional again if both Russia and China left.

    BTW, IIRC the only way that the UN mandate for Korea was possible was because the UN seat at that time was held by Taiwan, and the Russian flounced out of the meeting, thereby rendering unused their veto power.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,159
    edited March 2022
    A lovely Jack Russell, popular with the crowd; the breed only recognised by the Kennel Club since 2016
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,064
    Lennon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Lennon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Some people saying that the sanctions on Abramovic's steel company Evraz may not hold because there isn't any proof that the military grade steel made in their US arm was sent to Russia and the US would never allow a shared supplier with Russia so it seems unlikely that Evraz would risk losing a huge client for their highest margin product.

    I do wonder if the government has made a misstep here to get a big headline that Abramovic was personally responsible for arming Russia. Evraz is actually a UK company and from what I've been reading today from hastily written research is that their Russian operation largely consists of bulk steel for construction and the fun stuff is all done outside of Russia because the management don't trust the Russian arm of the business to deliver for big clients like the US military.

    We may not have seen the end of this one at least, the government will have to prove a direct supply link of military grade steel from Evraz to Russia and there's a lot of doubt that there is any evidence of it simply because they didn't do it.

    Was it Evraz that was the formal cause of the sanction then? I had assumed without looking that it was related to his acquisition of Sibneft and subsequent transfer to Gazprom
    The personal sanctions are related to the source of his wealth being essentially gifted an oil company by Putin AIUI, but Evraz, on the face of it, looks to be a legitimate company that's now sanctioned because it's part owner has been sanctioned.
    That makes more sense. In the same way I suppose that you could argue Chelsea is a legitimate company (no laughing at the back) which has been sanctioned as its owner has been...
    Chelsea is a wholly owned asset which is now frozen, it hasn't been sanctioned. There is no choice but to freeze his assets like Chelsea because the potential for money laundering is huge (and tbh, Man City and Newcastle fans should be looking pretty nervous right now as the government may have a general crackdown after this). Evraz is only partially owned by Abramovic and the reasons for it being sanctioned rather than his holding in it being frozen or forcing him to sell is because the government has said Abramovic oversaw the delivery of military grade steel from Evraz to Russia, yet on the face of it that seems highly unlikely has the military grade steel is all made in the US and has a single exclusive buyer (the US government) who will have lots of protections set up to prevent sharing of supply chains with Russia.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,769
    Roger said:

    Is this a (rather funny) piss take?

    Or horrifyingly real?

    Laurence Fox ✝️ 🚚🚛🚚🚛🚚🚛
    @LozzaFox
    After many months of secrecy and guilt, today we are able to celebrate our new shared beginning together here on Twatter. Thank you for making me the man I today. I look forward spending the rest of my life with you ⁦@JuliaHB1

    https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1502298419817287689

    A wonderfully suited couple
    Typical advertising executive, always thinking about the quality of the packaging rather than the awfulness of the content.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,032

    The greatest immediate concern for Chelsea is that the crisis triggers an insolvency event, which runs the risk of a nine-point deduction under Premier League rules, increasing the urgency for a sale to go through.

    9 points is not going to be nearly enough for United the way they are playing.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,148
    TimT said:

    @KevinRothrock
    Maria Butina now advocating Russia’s withdrawal from the United Nations, apparently hopeful that Moscow could take China with it.


    https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1502348323004497920

    Be a bit like the UK leaving the EU - perhaps it will make the UN and UNSC functional again if both Russia and China left.

    BTW, IIRC the only way that the UN mandate for Korea was possible was because the UN seat at that time was held by Taiwan, and the Russian flounced out of the meeting, thereby rendering unused their veto power.
    The idea - which has been floated by Chinese politicians in the past, is to turn the UN into a Westerners only talking shop, on the Security Council.

    With the universality gone, then persuade the non-aligned countries to drop out.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,769

    Can we sanction Deutsche Bank?

    Surely we should rather be encouraging all Russian oligarchs to deposit the totality of their wealth in it?

    Thereby guaranteeing it would mysteriously disappear and bankrupt the lot...
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,148

    Can we sanction Deutsche Bank?

    It depends how much you like the idea of a full on, diplomatic and political row with Germany.

    It was quite noticeable, how after BREXIT, the investigations into DB stopped in London.

    If they were restarted, it would be a moment. And not in a good way for Anglo-German relations.
    Why? We could offer them all kinds of replacement banking services in London.
    Ha.

    My personal belief is that when Douche Bank finally gets done over, it will do for German politics what the Italian bribery scandal did for Italian politics.

    Barely leave *anyone* standing....
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    IshmaelZ said:

    TimT said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    geoffw said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    geoffw said:

     

    TimT said:

    Applicant said:

    Andy_JS said:
    "Ally" is an interesting choice of words here...
    I believe it is an issue of translation from the Russian. In Russian, ally means lackey ...
    I learned from Alexander Gerschenkron that there's no word in Russian for 'opportunity'. So the clandestine Russian translation of Paul Samuelson's Economics textbook had to invent an expression for 'opportunity cost', a basic concept in economics. They came up with "the cost of foregone possibilities" which Gershenkron found somewhat poetic.

    возмо́жность seems a pretty good fit, and "the cost of foregone possibilities" is much better than opportunity cost anyway
    That's how Google translate gives it, along with possibility. But I would take a native Russian speaker's word over a nuance-free machine translation.

    I checked with more than one dictionary, translated both ways, and looked at context...
    Of course, we all know from Ronald Reagan that part of the problem with France is that they have no word for entrepreneur.
    But they don't! An entrepreneur is a small time contractor, an electrician say, pretty much the precise opposite of an entrepreneur

    In the Russian case, I suspect the problem was that they didn't have a ready made phrase "opportunity cost" as opposed to the word on its own. It is an opaque phrase in English whose meaning I never understood till I read an explanation by Richard Dawkins. "Foregone opportunity cost" is much better.
    I think "foregone profit from next best option cost" is more descriptive. Although I do admit, even at business school I don't think I ever received a clear verbal description of the concept.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,165
    Roger said:

    Is this a (rather funny) piss take?

    Or horrifyingly real?

    Laurence Fox ✝️ 🚚🚛🚚🚛🚚🚛
    @LozzaFox
    After many months of secrecy and guilt, today we are able to celebrate our new shared beginning together here on Twatter. Thank you for making me the man I today. I look forward spending the rest of my life with you ⁦@JuliaHB1

    https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1502298419817287689

    A wonderfully suited couple
    I thought Lozza was taken?


  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,159
    And a very nice little Norwich Terrier, not to be confused with the Norfolk Terrier
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,148
    ydoethur said:

    Can we sanction Deutsche Bank?

    Surely we should rather be encouraging all Russian oligarchs to deposit the totality of their wealth in it?

    Thereby guaranteeing it would mysteriously disappear and bankrupt the lot...
    The BCCI thing could only work once, surely?
  • Can we sanction Deutsche Bank?

    It depends how much you like the idea of a full on, diplomatic and political row with Germany.

    It was quite noticeable, how after BREXIT, the investigations into DB stopped in London.

    If they were restarted, it would be a moment. And not in a good way for Anglo-German relations.
    Why? We could offer them all kinds of replacement banking services in London.
    Ha.

    My personal belief is that when Douche Bank finally gets done over, it will do for German politics what the Italian bribery scandal did for Italian politics.

    Barely leave *anyone* standing....
    Doesn't that need to happen exactly now?
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,955
    IanB2 said:

    And a very nice little Norwich Terrier, not to be confused with the Norfolk Terrier

    Are you aware that the rest of us can see these posts?
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    edited March 2022
    IshmaelZ said:

    TimT said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    geoffw said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    geoffw said:

     

    TimT said:

    Applicant said:

    Andy_JS said:
    "Ally" is an interesting choice of words here...
    I believe it is an issue of translation from the Russian. In Russian, ally means lackey ...
    I learned from Alexander Gerschenkron that there's no word in Russian for 'opportunity'. So the clandestine Russian translation of Paul Samuelson's Economics textbook had to invent an expression for 'opportunity cost', a basic concept in economics. They came up with "the cost of foregone possibilities" which Gershenkron found somewhat poetic.

    возмо́жность seems a pretty good fit, and "the cost of foregone possibilities" is much better than opportunity cost anyway
    That's how Google translate gives it, along with possibility. But I would take a native Russian speaker's word over a nuance-free machine translation.

    I checked with more than one dictionary, translated both ways, and looked at context...
    Of course, we all know from Ronald Reagan that part of the problem with France is that they have no word for entrepreneur.
    But they don't! An entrepreneur is a small time contractor, an electrician say, pretty much the precise opposite of an entrepreneur

    In the Russian case, I suspect the problem was that they didn't have a ready made phrase "opportunity cost" as opposed to the word on its own. It is an opaque phrase in English whose meaning I never understood till I read an explanation by Richard Dawkins. "Foregone opportunity cost" is much better.

    Entrepreneur is a French word probably coined by the economist Jean-Baptiste Say from the word entreprendre, which is usually translated as "undertaker" or "adventurer."1 Say studied Smith's book and, while agreeing on all points, found that the omission of enterprising businessmen was a serious flaw.

    Say's View on Entrepreneurship
    Jean-Baptiste Say pointed out in his own writings that it was entrepreneurs who sought out inefficient uses of resources and capital and moved them into more productive, higher yield areas. Simply put, entrepreneurs seek opportunities for profit and, by doing so, create new markets and fresh opportunities. By constantly disrupting the balance of competition, entrepreneurs prevent monopolies from forming and create a wide diversity of products that keep consumers consuming and producers producing.


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Say

    i.e. it is a French neologism coined by a Frenchman from an existing French word. Is that French enough for you?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,769
    Eabhal said:

    IanB2 said:

    And a very nice little Norwich Terrier, not to be confused with the Norfolk Terrier

    Are you aware that the rest of us can see these posts?
    Isn't that the whole point of dogging?
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 8,360
    tlg86 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Some people saying that the sanctions on Abramovic's steel company Evraz may not hold because there isn't any proof that the military grade steel made in their US arm was sent to Russia and the US would never allow a shared supplier with Russia so it seems unlikely that Evraz would risk losing a huge client for their highest margin product.

    I do wonder if the government has made a misstep here to get a big headline that Abramovic was personally responsible for arming Russia. Evraz is actually a UK company and from what I've been reading today from hastily written research is that their Russian operation largely consists of bulk steel for construction and the fun stuff is all done outside of Russia because the management don't trust the Russian arm of the business to deliver for big clients like the US military.

    We may not have seen the end of this one at least, the government will have to prove a direct supply link of military grade steel from Evraz to Russia and there's a lot of doubt that there is any evidence of it simply because they didn't do it.

    Does it matter? Labour were demanding sanctions against Abramavoic without any specific charges against him other than being Russian and having met Putin. They got their way and, with a bit of luck, Chelsea is going to be the collateral damage.
    Can't we just nationalise Chelsea FC and sell it to the fans?

    If it has the effect of discouraging friends of dictators from purchasing premier league clubs, that's a price I'm willing to pay.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,159
    The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has been presenting the Kremlin’s allegations that Ukraine and the US had a plot to spread biological weapons with migratory birds, bats and insects.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,769
    IanB2 said:

    The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has been presenting the Kremlin’s allegations that Ukraine and the US had a plot to spread biological weapons with migratory birds, bats and insects.

    The whole idea is for the birds.

    The Kremlin are bats.

    And they have the morals of insects.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,159
    edited March 2022
    The best of the 306 entered Staffies getting the onceover from the judges. Popular with many in the crowd; with other dog owners, not so much.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,657
    edited March 2022
    IanB2 said:

    Rich Russians are exploiting a loophole known as the “Serbian backdoor” to flee to Europe and circumnavigate an EU-wide ban on flights to and from Russia.

    Air Serbia, which is mostly state-owned, has doubled the number of direct flights from Moscow to Belgrade to 15 a week to meet rapidly rising demand after the EU banned Russian planes and airlines from its airspace, after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia responded by closing its airspace to EU and UK planes.

    Serbia is not a member of the EU and has refused to impose sanctions against Russia, but its planes are free to cross EU airspace. This has made the Balkan country “the only European air corridor left open to Russia”, according to travel analytics company ForwardKeys.

    His planes will not be flying much longer now they cannot get parts

    Correction

    Air Serbia planes are likely to be sanctioned
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Eabhal said:

    IanB2 said:

    And a very nice little Norwich Terrier, not to be confused with the Norfolk Terrier

    Are you aware that the rest of us can see these posts?
    Quite. Sorry to be negative, but they all output roughly equivalent amounts of dogshit, varying their act by killing the odd baby in the most dogtastic manner - see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-60649825 and I am pretty sure there's a solid majority on the site who feel they already know all they want to know about the crucial Norfolk/Norwich terrier distinction.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,302
    @BarakRavid
    New: Israeli Prime Minister Bennett told Ukraine President Zelensky he should take Putin's proposal to end war, a senior Ukrainian official said. "Bennett wants us to surrender but we have no intention of doing this", he said.


    https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1502332443902291971
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,865
    IanB2 said:

    Rich Russians are exploiting a loophole known as the “Serbian backdoor” to flee to Europe and circumnavigate an EU-wide ban on flights to and from Russia.

    Air Serbia, which is mostly state-owned, has doubled the number of direct flights from Moscow to Belgrade to 15 a week to meet rapidly rising demand after the EU banned Russian planes and airlines from its airspace, after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia responded by closing its airspace to EU and UK planes.

    Serbia is not a member of the EU and has refused to impose sanctions against Russia, but its planes are free to cross EU airspace. This has made the Balkan country “the only European air corridor left open to Russia”, according to travel analytics company ForwardKeys.

    This is also why those travelling from Calais on tiny boats are often Iranian. Flights from Tehran to Belgrade were coming full and returning with more than half of the passengers missing. Thence an illegal crossing into Schengen, and on to Calais.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,865
    carnforth said:

    IanB2 said:

    Rich Russians are exploiting a loophole known as the “Serbian backdoor” to flee to Europe and circumnavigate an EU-wide ban on flights to and from Russia.

    Air Serbia, which is mostly state-owned, has doubled the number of direct flights from Moscow to Belgrade to 15 a week to meet rapidly rising demand after the EU banned Russian planes and airlines from its airspace, after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia responded by closing its airspace to EU and UK planes.

    Serbia is not a member of the EU and has refused to impose sanctions against Russia, but its planes are free to cross EU airspace. This has made the Balkan country “the only European air corridor left open to Russia”, according to travel analytics company ForwardKeys.

    This is also why those travelling from Calais on tiny boats are often Iranian. Flights from Tehran to Belgrade were coming full and returning with more than half of the passengers missing. Thence an illegal crossing into Schengen, and on to Calais.
    Unlike other migrants, they can afford to pay for the boats, so no hanging onto the underside of lorries for them.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,148
    IanB2 said:

    The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has been presenting the Kremlin’s allegations that Ukraine and the US had a plot to spread biological weapons with migratory birds, bats and insects.

    So they are stealing ideas from the worst bond film ever made?

    Laren from the master


    Bison : The road not taken. But why? Why do they still call me a warlord? And mad? All I want to do is to create the perfect genetic soldier! Not for power, not for evil, but for good. Carlos Blanka will be the first of many - they shall march out of my laboratory and sweep away every adversary, every creed, every nation, until the very planet is in the loving grip of the Pax Bisonica. And then peace will reign, and the world, and all humanity, shall bow to me in humble gratitude...


    image
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,159
    A nice Cairn Terrier who has travelled to Birmingham from Poland for the show.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,645
    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has been presenting the Kremlin’s allegations that Ukraine and the US had a plot to spread biological weapons with migratory birds, bats and insects.

    The whole idea is for the birds.

    The Kremlin are bats.

    And they have the morals of insects.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/us-looks-to-keep-ukrainian-biological-research-facilities-from-russian-control

    I still have an open mind about this, as the honesty of the Ukrainians today about the existence of the US bug factory sits uneasily with UK and US calling the Russian claims utter nonsense. What the Ukrainians have said is there was an American Bug Factory but it DEFINITELY NOT making war bugs, hence the Russian claims of Biden manufacturing biological weapons in Ukraine is utter rubbish.

    I have it in my mind I’ll never know truth on this one

    Correct me where I am wrong though if I have this bit of recent US politics wrong, I certainly have impression these days it’s the Democrat high command who in US politics carry most belligerence towards Russia, they wear it like a proud badge, even Bernie Sanders hates Russia, in a way the Republican leaders have a more pragmatic and moderate approach to Russia relations? So Vice President Biden for all those years in a Russian hating Obama White House, that was a bit lost and shambolic on foreign policy - we wouldn’t be shocked they liked the idea of peeling Ukraine away from Moscow, so not surprised if there’s a few things Biden wouldn’t like us to know at this moment? 🤔
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 3,069
    BigRich said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    Nigelb said:

    Is this a war or a James Bond film where some mad lunatic who wants total world domination has to be stopped from blowing up a nuclear power station?

    The SPECTRE of Bond hangs heavy over Putin's actions....
    His SMERSH and grab raid failed, which is perhaps a small quantum of solace.
    Will the skyfall on his head?
    No but the thunderball will get him unless he gives him the goldfinger...
    Sounds like The World is Not Enough
    Certainly not from Russia with Love no siree!
    Octopussy

    I cant make a pun out of it, but if we are just using James Bond films, I think its one of the better names :)
    Also has rare footage of a young Putin:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeUPRcFjZPM
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    edited March 2022
    IanB2 said:

    The best of the 306 entered Staffies getting the onceover from the judges. Popular with many in the crowd; with other dog owners, not so much.

    They are admittedly stand out revolting, but it's only a matter of degree...
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,159
    edited March 2022
    Now time for the judges’ terrier shortlist - he’s chosen the bedlington, the smooth fox terrier and the wire (my favourite), the Irish, the Kerry blue, the Lakeland, the Scottish, the parson russell, and the Skye.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,869

    @BarakRavid
    New: Israeli Prime Minister Bennett told Ukraine President Zelensky he should take Putin's proposal to end war, a senior Ukrainian official said. "Bennett wants us to surrender but we have no intention of doing this", he said.


    https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1502332443902291971

    They shouldn't surrender, but they should (they may already have, I am not up to date today) offer counter proposals.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,393
    IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    The best of the 306 entered Staffies getting the onceover from the judges. Popular with many in the crowd; with other dog owners, not so much.

    They are admittedly stand out revolting, but it's only a matter of degree...
    Do you have a fluffy white cat? I have to ask.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,869

    IanB2 said:

    The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has been presenting the Kremlin’s allegations that Ukraine and the US had a plot to spread biological weapons with migratory birds, bats and insects.

    So they are stealing ideas from the worst bond film ever made?

    Laren from the master


    Bison : The road not taken. But why? Why do they still call me a warlord? And mad? All I want to do is to create the perfect genetic soldier! Not for power, not for evil, but for good. Carlos Blanka will be the first of many - they shall march out of my laboratory and sweep away every adversary, every creed, every nation, until the very planet is in the loving grip of the Pax Bisonica. And then peace will reign, and the world, and all humanity, shall bow to me in humble gratitude...


    image
    I don't remember that from the latest turd.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,148
    CatMan said:

    BigRich said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    Nigelb said:

    Is this a war or a James Bond film where some mad lunatic who wants total world domination has to be stopped from blowing up a nuclear power station?

    The SPECTRE of Bond hangs heavy over Putin's actions....
    His SMERSH and grab raid failed, which is perhaps a small quantum of solace.
    Will the skyfall on his head?
    No but the thunderball will get him unless he gives him the goldfinger...
    Sounds like The World is Not Enough
    Certainly not from Russia with Love no siree!
    Octopussy

    I cant make a pun out of it, but if we are just using James Bond films, I think its one of the better names :)
    Also has rare footage of a young Putin:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeUPRcFjZPM
    That's a proper plan - 10-1 advantage etc etc.

    Also, he really, really has some energy going there...
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    IanB2 said:

    Now time for the judges’ terrier shortlist - he’s chosen the bedlington, the smooth fox terrier and the wire (my favourite), the Irish, the Kerry blue, the Lakeland, the parson russell, and the Skye.

    Three-and-a-half-month-old Jaden Joseph Mack was fatally injured in the living room of a house in Ystrad Mynach, south Wales, shortly after midnight.

    He was taken to the Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr where he was pronounced dead.

    Police investigating the tragedy said they believe the injuries were caused by two dogs - a Staffordshire bull terrier and a Jack Russell. The dogs have since been destroyed.

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/83779/The-innocent-baby-boy-mauled-to-death-by-his-family-s-dogs

    Doggiedom, dontchaluvit
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    IanB2 said:

    Rich Russians are exploiting a loophole known as the “Serbian backdoor” to flee to Europe and circumnavigate an EU-wide ban on flights to and from Russia.

    Air Serbia, which is mostly state-owned, has doubled the number of direct flights from Moscow to Belgrade to 15 a week to meet rapidly rising demand after the EU banned Russian planes and airlines from its airspace, after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia responded by closing its airspace to EU and UK planes.

    Serbia is not a member of the EU and has refused to impose sanctions against Russia, but its planes are free to cross EU airspace. This has made the Balkan country “the only European air corridor left open to Russia”, according to travel analytics company ForwardKeys.

    Not serious about joining the EU either, with that attitude.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,937
    Carnyx said:

    MattW said:

    Phil said:

    Chameleon said:

    https://twitter.com/JackDetsch/status/1502325395961651201
    "NEW: Ukraine's fixed-wing aircraft fleet remains 80 percent intact 15 days after Russian invasion: senior U.S. defense official.
    Ukraine only flying 56 fighter jets 5-10 hours per day given Russian surface-to-air missile coverage over the country."

    I'm honestly lost for words. How were the Russian first strikes this rubbish?

    Edit: I wonder if, now the jet deal is very definitely off in the eyes of the public, a few repainted jets may be secretly replenishing their force?

    Those jets are perfectly capable of taking off from straight bits of road in the arse end of no-where. Even if Ukraine didn’t fully believe US/UK warnings of an imminent invasion, it seems plausible that they might have spread their functional jets all over Ukraine, hiding one or two, plus fuel & other supplies in shed & farm buildings.
    I think that was the norm in Warsaw Pact E. Europe, was it not?

    Disperse them under motorway bridges, and the like?

    Also what the Finns do, I think.
    BAC and the Raff tried it back in the 70s:

    https://theaviationgeekclub.com/vintage-footage-shows-jaguar-attack-aircraft-undertaking-motorway-trials/

    The potential problem with that is what happens to the military convoys wanting to go along the same roads? Need to have your Redcaps and Loggies very well organised.
    And hope no princesses die in road accidents...
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,769
    kle4 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Rich Russians are exploiting a loophole known as the “Serbian backdoor” to flee to Europe and circumnavigate an EU-wide ban on flights to and from Russia.

    Air Serbia, which is mostly state-owned, has doubled the number of direct flights from Moscow to Belgrade to 15 a week to meet rapidly rising demand after the EU banned Russian planes and airlines from its airspace, after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia responded by closing its airspace to EU and UK planes.

    Serbia is not a member of the EU and has refused to impose sanctions against Russia, but its planes are free to cross EU airspace. This has made the Balkan country “the only European air corridor left open to Russia”, according to travel analytics company ForwardKeys.

    Not serious about joining the EU either, with that attitude.
    They also Serb who only stand and wait.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,159
    And the 2022 Terrier group winner is……the Irish Terrier!
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    The best of the 306 entered Staffies getting the onceover from the judges. Popular with many in the crowd; with other dog owners, not so much.

    They are admittedly stand out revolting, but it's only a matter of degree...
    Do you have a fluffy white cat? I have to ask.
    I have livestock on Dartmoor. Comes to the same thing.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,148
    edited March 2022

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has been presenting the Kremlin’s allegations that Ukraine and the US had a plot to spread biological weapons with migratory birds, bats and insects.

    The whole idea is for the birds.

    The Kremlin are bats.

    And they have the morals of insects.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/us-looks-to-keep-ukrainian-biological-research-facilities-from-russian-control

    I still have an open mind about this, as the honesty of the Ukrainians today about the existence of the US bug factory sits uneasily with UK and US calling the Russian claims utter nonsense. What the Ukrainians have said is there was an American Bug Factory but it DEFINITELY NOT making war bugs, hence the Russian claims of Biden manufacturing biological weapons in Ukraine is utter rubbish.

    I have it in my mind I’ll never know truth on this one

    Correct me where I am wrong though if I have this bit of recent US politics wrong, I certainly have impression these days it’s the Democrat high command who in US politics carry most belligerence towards Russia, they wear it like a proud badge, even Bernie Sanders hates Russia, in a way the Republican leaders have a more pragmatic and moderate approach to Russia relations? So Vice President Biden for all those years in a Russian hating Obama White House, that was a bit lost and shambolic on foreign policy - we wouldn’t be shocked they liked the idea of peeling Ukraine away from Moscow, so not surprised if there’s a few things Biden wouldn’t like us to know at this moment? 🤔
    Every country on the planet has biotech labs. Russia is the place where they comprehensively and deliberately broke the Biological Weapons treaty over a period of decades. Right from the moment the treat was signed, in fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_biological_weapons_program#The_Cold_War

    A favourite was the account of the American scientist, who when helping clean up an abandoned lab on an island in the Aral Sea, found metric *tons* of anthrax spores....

    Obama repeatedly reached out to Russia. Putin kept doing his war! war! shit.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,937
    Cost of the War to Russia

    I was sceptical about the $20bn a day cost to Russia.

    But given all the economic stuff now, and loss of kit, loss of lifetime GDP of 10k of dead military and partial loss for xxxxx k of wounded military, and perhaps reparations, I can see that we are ticking closer to the $20bn a day cost.

    This is the best, though limited, analysis I have seen:https://www.consultancy.eu/news/7433/research-ukraine-war-costs-russian-military-20-billion-per-day


  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,393
    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    The best of the 306 entered Staffies getting the onceover from the judges. Popular with many in the crowd; with other dog owners, not so much.

    They are admittedly stand out revolting, but it's only a matter of degree...
    Do you have a fluffy white cat? I have to ask.
    I have livestock on Dartmoor. Comes to the same thing.
    Ah. Our last walk around Hardy's cottage near Dorchester, we had to deal with a dog-worried loose sheep that had run straight through a wire fence, and chivvy it to where it could be safely put away in a field.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,937
    Chameleon said:

    Scathing attack from Zelenskyy's office on Israel.

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/senior-ukrainian-official-bennett-pushed-zelensky-to-surrender-to-putin-report/

    Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Tuesday pushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept an offer from Russian President Vladimir Putin, which would require Kyiv to make significant concessions in order to end Moscow’s invasion. “If I were you, I would think about the lives of my people and take the offer,” Bennett told Zelensky during a phone call on Tuesday, according to a senior Ukrainian official who spoke to Walla and Haaretz on condition of anonymity. Zelensky did not take well to the proposal, responding with a brief “I hear you.”

    “Bennett has proposed that we surrender,” the senior Ukrainian official tells the Hebrew news sites. “We have no intention of doing so. We know that Putin’s proposal is just the beginning.” The report says that Israel has also asked that Ukraine cease its requests for Israeli military or defense assistance, as this could hinder Jerusalem’s efforts to mediate and maintain neutrality

    Thus far, Zelensky has been unimpressed with Bennett’s mediation efforts, saying the Israeli premier has sufficed with being a “mailbox” that passes along messages between Russia to Ukraine without coming up with any proposals of his own, the senior official says.

    “We do not need a mailbox. We have enough of these,” the senior Ukrainian official says. “President Zelensky’s office does not believe this is the way to mediate. If Bennett wants to be neutral and mediate, we would like to see him appoint someone who will deal with the matter day and night to try and reach a compromise.” Zelensky is under the impression that Bennett has taken up the role of mediator as part of his effort to avoid picking sides in a war because of the risk of damaging Israel’s ties with Russia, the official claims. This has led to significant frustration and even personal offense on the part of Zelensky with the Israeli government, according to the senior official.

    Naftali Bennett is giving me problems.

    I keep reading it as Natalie Bennett...
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,393
    edited March 2022
    Farooq said:

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has been presenting the Kremlin’s allegations that Ukraine and the US had a plot to spread biological weapons with migratory birds, bats and insects.

    The whole idea is for the birds.

    The Kremlin are bats.

    And they have the morals of insects.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/us-looks-to-keep-ukrainian-biological-research-facilities-from-russian-control

    I still have an open mind about this, as the honesty of the Ukrainians today about the existence of the US bug factory sits uneasily with UK and US calling the Russian claims utter nonsense. What the Ukrainians have said is there was an American Bug Factory but it DEFINITELY NOT making war bugs, hence the Russian claims of Biden manufacturing biological weapons in Ukraine is utter rubbish.

    I have it in my mind I’ll never know truth on this one

    Correct me where I am wrong though if I have this bit of recent US politics wrong, I certainly have impression these days it’s the Democrat high command who in US politics carry most belligerence towards Russia, they wear it like a proud badge, even Bernie Sanders hates Russia, in a way the Republican leaders have a more pragmatic and moderate approach to Russia relations? So Vice President Biden for all those years in a Russian hating Obama White House, that was a bit lost and shambolic on foreign policy - we wouldn’t be shocked they liked the idea of peeling Ukraine away from Moscow, so not surprised if there’s a few things Biden wouldn’t like us to know at this moment? 🤔
    Every country on the planet has biotech labs. Russia is the place where they comprehensively and deliberately broke the Biological Weapons treaty over a period of decades. Right from the moment the treat was signed, in fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_biological_weapons_program#The_Cold_War

    A favourite was the account of the American scientist, who when helping clean up an abandoned lab on an island in the Aral Sea, found metric *tons* of anthrax spores....

    Obama repeatedly reached out to Russia. Putin kept doing his war! war! shit.
    Every country? I'd love to know what weaponised pathogens the Vatican is cooking up.
    []
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,679
    IanB2 said:

    Now time for the judges’ terrier shortlist - he’s chosen the bedlington, the smooth fox terrier and the wire (my favourite), the Irish, the Kerry blue, the Lakeland, the Scottish, the parson russell, and the Skye.

    This is real stamina from you. Hats off.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    Farooq said:

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has been presenting the Kremlin’s allegations that Ukraine and the US had a plot to spread biological weapons with migratory birds, bats and insects.

    The whole idea is for the birds.

    The Kremlin are bats.

    And they have the morals of insects.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/us-looks-to-keep-ukrainian-biological-research-facilities-from-russian-control

    I still have an open mind about this, as the honesty of the Ukrainians today about the existence of the US bug factory sits uneasily with UK and US calling the Russian claims utter nonsense. What the Ukrainians have said is there was an American Bug Factory but it DEFINITELY NOT making war bugs, hence the Russian claims of Biden manufacturing biological weapons in Ukraine is utter rubbish.

    I have it in my mind I’ll never know truth on this one

    Correct me where I am wrong though if I have this bit of recent US politics wrong, I certainly have impression these days it’s the Democrat high command who in US politics carry most belligerence towards Russia, they wear it like a proud badge, even Bernie Sanders hates Russia, in a way the Republican leaders have a more pragmatic and moderate approach to Russia relations? So Vice President Biden for all those years in a Russian hating Obama White House, that was a bit lost and shambolic on foreign policy - we wouldn’t be shocked they liked the idea of peeling Ukraine away from Moscow, so not surprised if there’s a few things Biden wouldn’t like us to know at this moment? 🤔
    Every country on the planet has biotech labs. Russia is the place where they comprehensively and deliberately broke the Biological Weapons treaty over a period of decades. Right from the moment the treat was signed, in fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_biological_weapons_program#The_Cold_War

    A favourite was the account of the American scientist, who when helping clean up an abandoned lab on an island in the Aral Sea, found metric *tons* of anthrax spores....

    Obama repeatedly reached out to Russia. Putin kept doing his war! war! shit.
    Every country? I'd love to know what weaponised pathogens the Vatican is cooking up.
    Lot could be hidden in shipments of communion wine.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,159
    Freedland: ..the chief value in making a comparison between this moment and the agony of September 2001 is to ensure we don’t make the same mistakes all over again.

    The battle now is against Putin and Putinism, not Russia or Russians. Severing links with institutions tied to the Kremlin makes sense; banning a course on the novels of Dostoevsky is dumb. Most Russians are themselves victims of Putinism.

    A new generation is seeing that in order to stand up to a murderous dictator who opposes everything they believe in – from minority rights to free expression – sometimes only force will do. In other words, this latest paradigm shift is already undoing the impact of the last one.

    This invasion has provoked a reaction that its architect did not predict: a western resolve that not only must Putin be stopped in Ukraine, Putinism must be defeated. It is a determination fiercer than any since 2001. This battle matters more than that one – which is why it must not re-enact its follies and must not repeat its mistakes
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 63,137
    "Around 60 per cent of haddock and cod, the most popular choices in Britain, originates from Russia, which controls nearly 45 percent of the global whitefish supply."

    Mail

    Can this be true? 60%?

    Who knew?
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,080

    MaxPB said:

    We need to start rationing fuel.

    The current price shock will already be forcing that.
    I saw Rory Stewart earlier advocating free public transport and 50mph nationwide speed limit to reduce fuel use.
    China locking down the entire country should slow the rising fuel price.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,159
    Now judging begins of the Hound group..
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,769
    Farooq said:

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has been presenting the Kremlin’s allegations that Ukraine and the US had a plot to spread biological weapons with migratory birds, bats and insects.

    The whole idea is for the birds.

    The Kremlin are bats.

    And they have the morals of insects.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/us-looks-to-keep-ukrainian-biological-research-facilities-from-russian-control

    I still have an open mind about this, as the honesty of the Ukrainians today about the existence of the US bug factory sits uneasily with UK and US calling the Russian claims utter nonsense. What the Ukrainians have said is there was an American Bug Factory but it DEFINITELY NOT making war bugs, hence the Russian claims of Biden manufacturing biological weapons in Ukraine is utter rubbish.

    I have it in my mind I’ll never know truth on this one

    Correct me where I am wrong though if I have this bit of recent US politics wrong, I certainly have impression these days it’s the Democrat high command who in US politics carry most belligerence towards Russia, they wear it like a proud badge, even Bernie Sanders hates Russia, in a way the Republican leaders have a more pragmatic and moderate approach to Russia relations? So Vice President Biden for all those years in a Russian hating Obama White House, that was a bit lost and shambolic on foreign policy - we wouldn’t be shocked they liked the idea of peeling Ukraine away from Moscow, so not surprised if there’s a few things Biden wouldn’t like us to know at this moment? 🤔
    Every country on the planet has biotech labs. Russia is the place where they comprehensively and deliberately broke the Biological Weapons treaty over a period of decades. Right from the moment the treat was signed, in fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_biological_weapons_program#The_Cold_War

    A favourite was the account of the American scientist, who when helping clean up an abandoned lab on an island in the Aral Sea, found metric *tons* of anthrax spores....

    Obama repeatedly reached out to Russia. Putin kept doing his war! war! shit.
    Every country? I'd love to know what weaponised pathogens the Vatican is cooking up.
    Technically the Vatican isn't a country, it's defined as a 'city state.'

    I think it unlikely Andorra is manufacturing biological weapons though.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    ydoethur said:

    kle4 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Rich Russians are exploiting a loophole known as the “Serbian backdoor” to flee to Europe and circumnavigate an EU-wide ban on flights to and from Russia.

    Air Serbia, which is mostly state-owned, has doubled the number of direct flights from Moscow to Belgrade to 15 a week to meet rapidly rising demand after the EU banned Russian planes and airlines from its airspace, after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia responded by closing its airspace to EU and UK planes.

    Serbia is not a member of the EU and has refused to impose sanctions against Russia, but its planes are free to cross EU airspace. This has made the Balkan country “the only European air corridor left open to Russia”, according to travel analytics company ForwardKeys.

    Not serious about joining the EU either, with that attitude.
    They also Serb who only stand and wait.
    Had to look that one up.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 63,137
    MattW said:

    Chameleon said:

    Scathing attack from Zelenskyy's office on Israel.

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/senior-ukrainian-official-bennett-pushed-zelensky-to-surrender-to-putin-report/

    Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Tuesday pushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept an offer from Russian President Vladimir Putin, which would require Kyiv to make significant concessions in order to end Moscow’s invasion. “If I were you, I would think about the lives of my people and take the offer,” Bennett told Zelensky during a phone call on Tuesday, according to a senior Ukrainian official who spoke to Walla and Haaretz on condition of anonymity. Zelensky did not take well to the proposal, responding with a brief “I hear you.”

    “Bennett has proposed that we surrender,” the senior Ukrainian official tells the Hebrew news sites. “We have no intention of doing so. We know that Putin’s proposal is just the beginning.” The report says that Israel has also asked that Ukraine cease its requests for Israeli military or defense assistance, as this could hinder Jerusalem’s efforts to mediate and maintain neutrality

    Thus far, Zelensky has been unimpressed with Bennett’s mediation efforts, saying the Israeli premier has sufficed with being a “mailbox” that passes along messages between Russia to Ukraine without coming up with any proposals of his own, the senior official says.

    “We do not need a mailbox. We have enough of these,” the senior Ukrainian official says. “President Zelensky’s office does not believe this is the way to mediate. If Bennett wants to be neutral and mediate, we would like to see him appoint someone who will deal with the matter day and night to try and reach a compromise.” Zelensky is under the impression that Bennett has taken up the role of mediator as part of his effort to avoid picking sides in a war because of the risk of damaging Israel’s ties with Russia, the official claims. This has led to significant frustration and even personal offense on the part of Zelensky with the Israeli government, according to the senior official.

    Naftali Bennett is giving me problems.

    I keep reading it as Natalie Bennett...
    Baroness Bennett to you.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,148
    Farooq said:

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has been presenting the Kremlin’s allegations that Ukraine and the US had a plot to spread biological weapons with migratory birds, bats and insects.

    The whole idea is for the birds.

    The Kremlin are bats.

    And they have the morals of insects.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/us-looks-to-keep-ukrainian-biological-research-facilities-from-russian-control

    I still have an open mind about this, as the honesty of the Ukrainians today about the existence of the US bug factory sits uneasily with UK and US calling the Russian claims utter nonsense. What the Ukrainians have said is there was an American Bug Factory but it DEFINITELY NOT making war bugs, hence the Russian claims of Biden manufacturing biological weapons in Ukraine is utter rubbish.

    I have it in my mind I’ll never know truth on this one

    Correct me where I am wrong though if I have this bit of recent US politics wrong, I certainly have impression these days it’s the Democrat high command who in US politics carry most belligerence towards Russia, they wear it like a proud badge, even Bernie Sanders hates Russia, in a way the Republican leaders have a more pragmatic and moderate approach to Russia relations? So Vice President Biden for all those years in a Russian hating Obama White House, that was a bit lost and shambolic on foreign policy - we wouldn’t be shocked they liked the idea of peeling Ukraine away from Moscow, so not surprised if there’s a few things Biden wouldn’t like us to know at this moment? 🤔
    Every country on the planet has biotech labs. Russia is the place where they comprehensively and deliberately broke the Biological Weapons treaty over a period of decades. Right from the moment the treat was signed, in fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_biological_weapons_program#The_Cold_War

    A favourite was the account of the American scientist, who when helping clean up an abandoned lab on an island in the Aral Sea, found metric *tons* of anthrax spores....

    Obama repeatedly reached out to Russia. Putin kept doing his war! war! shit.
    Every country? I'd love to know what weaponised pathogens the Vatican is cooking up.
    Biotech isn't "pathogens"

    The Vatican has some tame researchers in biotech, associated with the Vatican Observatory, IIRC. The reason is to keep the church up to date with the whole ethics/religious perspective on biotechnology.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,159
    kinabalu said:

    IanB2 said:

    Now time for the judges’ terrier shortlist - he’s chosen the bedlington, the smooth fox terrier and the wire (my favourite), the Irish, the Kerry blue, the Lakeland, the Scottish, the parson russell, and the Skye.

    This is real stamina from you. Hats off.
    During last year’s lockdown, so many PB’ers pined for the cancelled Crufts that this year it feels like duty to post regular reports…
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,148
    ydoethur said:

    Farooq said:

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has been presenting the Kremlin’s allegations that Ukraine and the US had a plot to spread biological weapons with migratory birds, bats and insects.

    The whole idea is for the birds.

    The Kremlin are bats.

    And they have the morals of insects.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/us-looks-to-keep-ukrainian-biological-research-facilities-from-russian-control

    I still have an open mind about this, as the honesty of the Ukrainians today about the existence of the US bug factory sits uneasily with UK and US calling the Russian claims utter nonsense. What the Ukrainians have said is there was an American Bug Factory but it DEFINITELY NOT making war bugs, hence the Russian claims of Biden manufacturing biological weapons in Ukraine is utter rubbish.

    I have it in my mind I’ll never know truth on this one

    Correct me where I am wrong though if I have this bit of recent US politics wrong, I certainly have impression these days it’s the Democrat high command who in US politics carry most belligerence towards Russia, they wear it like a proud badge, even Bernie Sanders hates Russia, in a way the Republican leaders have a more pragmatic and moderate approach to Russia relations? So Vice President Biden for all those years in a Russian hating Obama White House, that was a bit lost and shambolic on foreign policy - we wouldn’t be shocked they liked the idea of peeling Ukraine away from Moscow, so not surprised if there’s a few things Biden wouldn’t like us to know at this moment? 🤔
    Every country on the planet has biotech labs. Russia is the place where they comprehensively and deliberately broke the Biological Weapons treaty over a period of decades. Right from the moment the treat was signed, in fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_biological_weapons_program#The_Cold_War

    A favourite was the account of the American scientist, who when helping clean up an abandoned lab on an island in the Aral Sea, found metric *tons* of anthrax spores....

    Obama repeatedly reached out to Russia. Putin kept doing his war! war! shit.
    Every country? I'd love to know what weaponised pathogens the Vatican is cooking up.
    Technically the Vatican isn't a country, it's defined as a 'city state.'

    I think it unlikely Andorra is manufacturing biological weapons though.
    I'l bet there is a biotech lab in Andorra. And in the fridge will be a least one bug that could be considered harmful.
  • I've been walking my Mum's dog every day for the last few weeks. Mum's had a knee operation and hasn't been able to get out at all, so I've been taking her out for over an hour and a half every lunchtime

    There's an old railway line, that's been changed to a footpath, round one side of the town that makes up about an hour of the walk. There she can be off the lead the whole way.

    Today as we were walking down there, she had her head deep in a bush following some smell when a pheasant emerged with a huge squawk (do they squawk?) and full wings out from the other side of the bush.

    I don't think she's ever met a pheasant before, and didn't seem immediately keen. Crouched down, she fled backwards - as fast as I've ever seen her move forwards - about fifteen foot away.

    With all the storms a load of trees and branches have fallen down; they've been cleared but the path is still littered with leaves and twigs like it's Autumn. She stopped her reverse as she tripped over the pile of foliage she'd built up behind her.

    She tried to recover with a bold leap and bark into the air towards the space recently vacated by the pheasant.

    It's only rarely that I regret not filming everything.

    Putinly sincere apologies to those who don't like canine tales.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,774
    TimT said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    geoffw said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    geoffw said:

     

    TimT said:

    Applicant said:

    Andy_JS said:
    "Ally" is an interesting choice of words here...
    I believe it is an issue of translation from the Russian. In Russian, ally means lackey ...
    I learned from Alexander Gerschenkron that there's no word in Russian for 'opportunity'. So the clandestine Russian translation of Paul Samuelson's Economics textbook had to invent an expression for 'opportunity cost', a basic concept in economics. They came up with "the cost of foregone possibilities" which Gershenkron found somewhat poetic.

    возмо́жность seems a pretty good fit, and "the cost of foregone possibilities" is much better than opportunity cost anyway
    That's how Google translate gives it, along with possibility. But I would take a native Russian speaker's word over a nuance-free machine translation.

    I checked with more than one dictionary, translated both ways, and looked at context...
    Of course, we all know from Ronald Reagan that part of the problem with France is that they have no word for entrepreneur.
    Bush Dubya

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,769

    ydoethur said:

    Farooq said:

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has been presenting the Kremlin’s allegations that Ukraine and the US had a plot to spread biological weapons with migratory birds, bats and insects.

    The whole idea is for the birds.

    The Kremlin are bats.

    And they have the morals of insects.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/us-looks-to-keep-ukrainian-biological-research-facilities-from-russian-control

    I still have an open mind about this, as the honesty of the Ukrainians today about the existence of the US bug factory sits uneasily with UK and US calling the Russian claims utter nonsense. What the Ukrainians have said is there was an American Bug Factory but it DEFINITELY NOT making war bugs, hence the Russian claims of Biden manufacturing biological weapons in Ukraine is utter rubbish.

    I have it in my mind I’ll never know truth on this one

    Correct me where I am wrong though if I have this bit of recent US politics wrong, I certainly have impression these days it’s the Democrat high command who in US politics carry most belligerence towards Russia, they wear it like a proud badge, even Bernie Sanders hates Russia, in a way the Republican leaders have a more pragmatic and moderate approach to Russia relations? So Vice President Biden for all those years in a Russian hating Obama White House, that was a bit lost and shambolic on foreign policy - we wouldn’t be shocked they liked the idea of peeling Ukraine away from Moscow, so not surprised if there’s a few things Biden wouldn’t like us to know at this moment? 🤔
    Every country on the planet has biotech labs. Russia is the place where they comprehensively and deliberately broke the Biological Weapons treaty over a period of decades. Right from the moment the treat was signed, in fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_biological_weapons_program#The_Cold_War

    A favourite was the account of the American scientist, who when helping clean up an abandoned lab on an island in the Aral Sea, found metric *tons* of anthrax spores....

    Obama repeatedly reached out to Russia. Putin kept doing his war! war! shit.
    Every country? I'd love to know what weaponised pathogens the Vatican is cooking up.
    Technically the Vatican isn't a country, it's defined as a 'city state.'

    I think it unlikely Andorra is manufacturing biological weapons though.
    I'l bet there is a biotech lab in Andorra. And in the fridge will be a least one bug that could be considered harmful.
    Really? I didn't realise Johnson had visited it recently.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,937
    Carnyx said:

    MattW said:

    Phil said:

    Chameleon said:

    https://twitter.com/JackDetsch/status/1502325395961651201
    "NEW: Ukraine's fixed-wing aircraft fleet remains 80 percent intact 15 days after Russian invasion: senior U.S. defense official.
    Ukraine only flying 56 fighter jets 5-10 hours per day given Russian surface-to-air missile coverage over the country."

    I'm honestly lost for words. How were the Russian first strikes this rubbish?

    Edit: I wonder if, now the jet deal is very definitely off in the eyes of the public, a few repainted jets may be secretly replenishing their force?

    Those jets are perfectly capable of taking off from straight bits of road in the arse end of no-where. Even if Ukraine didn’t fully believe US/UK warnings of an imminent invasion, it seems plausible that they might have spread their functional jets all over Ukraine, hiding one or two, plus fuel & other supplies in shed & farm buildings.
    I think that was the norm in Warsaw Pact E. Europe, was it not?

    Disperse them under motorway bridges, and the like?

    Also what the Finns do, I think.
    BAC and the Raff tried it back in the 70s:

    https://theaviationgeekclub.com/vintage-footage-shows-jaguar-attack-aircraft-undertaking-motorway-trials/

    The potential problem with that is what happens to the military convoys wanting to go along the same roads? Need to have your Redcaps and Loggies very well organised.
    I see that the takeoff distance of a Mig-29 is just over 250m. With afterburners, so won't do the road surface much good.

    About 700m otherwise. And 750m to land.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    ydoethur said:

    Farooq said:

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has been presenting the Kremlin’s allegations that Ukraine and the US had a plot to spread biological weapons with migratory birds, bats and insects.

    The whole idea is for the birds.

    The Kremlin are bats.

    And they have the morals of insects.
    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/us-looks-to-keep-ukrainian-biological-research-facilities-from-russian-control

    I still have an open mind about this, as the honesty of the Ukrainians today about the existence of the US bug factory sits uneasily with UK and US calling the Russian claims utter nonsense. What the Ukrainians have said is there was an American Bug Factory but it DEFINITELY NOT making war bugs, hence the Russian claims of Biden manufacturing biological weapons in Ukraine is utter rubbish.

    I have it in my mind I’ll never know truth on this one

    Correct me where I am wrong though if I have this bit of recent US politics wrong, I certainly have impression these days it’s the Democrat high command who in US politics carry most belligerence towards Russia, they wear it like a proud badge, even Bernie Sanders hates Russia, in a way the Republican leaders have a more pragmatic and moderate approach to Russia relations? So Vice President Biden for all those years in a Russian hating Obama White House, that was a bit lost and shambolic on foreign policy - we wouldn’t be shocked they liked the idea of peeling Ukraine away from Moscow, so not surprised if there’s a few things Biden wouldn’t like us to know at this moment? 🤔
    Every country on the planet has biotech labs. Russia is the place where they comprehensively and deliberately broke the Biological Weapons treaty over a period of decades. Right from the moment the treat was signed, in fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_biological_weapons_program#The_Cold_War

    A favourite was the account of the American scientist, who when helping clean up an abandoned lab on an island in the Aral Sea, found metric *tons* of anthrax spores....

    Obama repeatedly reached out to Russia. Putin kept doing his war! war! shit.
    Every country? I'd love to know what weaponised pathogens the Vatican is cooking up.
    Technically the Vatican isn't a country, it's defined as a 'city state.'

    I think it unlikely Andorra is manufacturing biological weapons though.
    They do share a head of state with France, so they could have some shared sites.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,159
    That Irish Wolf Hound is a monster…
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,778
    We need proof of life.

    One of my students recently said she now looks the Pygmy King from Dark Souls 3. I had to google it but they are right.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,769

    I've been walking my Mum's dog every day for the last few weeks. Mum's had a knee operation and hasn't been able to get out at all, so I've been taking her out for over an hour and a half every lunchtime

    There's an old railway line, that's been changed to a footpath, round one side of the town that makes up about an hour of the walk. There she can be off the lead the whole way.

    Today as we were walking down there, she had her head deep in a bush following some smell when a pheasant emerged with a huge squawk (do they squawk?) and full wings out from the other side of the bush.

    I don't think she's ever met a pheasant before, and didn't seem immediately keen. Crouched down, she fled backwards - as fast as I've ever seen her move forwards - about fifteen foot away.

    With all the storms a load of trees and branches have fallen down; they've been cleared but the path is still littered with leaves and twigs like it's Autumn. She stopped her reverse as she tripped over the pile of foliage she'd built up behind her.

    She tried to recover with a bold leap and bark into the air towards the space recently vacated by the pheasant.

    It's only rarely that I regret not filming everything.

    Putinly sincere apologies to those who don't like canine tales.

    Can we just clarify that the 'she' you refer to throughout, notwithstanding the second sentence, is a canine and not your mother?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Farooq said:

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has been presenting the Kremlin’s allegations that Ukraine and the US had a plot to spread biological weapons with migratory birds, bats and insects.

    The whole idea is for the birds.

    The Kremlin are bats.

    And they have the morals of insects.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/us-looks-to-keep-ukrainian-biological-research-facilities-from-russian-control

    I still have an open mind about this, as the honesty of the Ukrainians today about the existence of the US bug factory sits uneasily with UK and US calling the Russian claims utter nonsense. What the Ukrainians have said is there was an American Bug Factory but it DEFINITELY NOT making war bugs, hence the Russian claims of Biden manufacturing biological weapons in Ukraine is utter rubbish.

    I have it in my mind I’ll never know truth on this one

    Correct me where I am wrong though if I have this bit of recent US politics wrong, I certainly have impression these days it’s the Democrat high command who in US politics carry most belligerence towards Russia, they wear it like a proud badge, even Bernie Sanders hates Russia, in a way the Republican leaders have a more pragmatic and moderate approach to Russia relations? So Vice President Biden for all those years in a Russian hating Obama White House, that was a bit lost and shambolic on foreign policy - we wouldn’t be shocked they liked the idea of peeling Ukraine away from Moscow, so not surprised if there’s a few things Biden wouldn’t like us to know at this moment? 🤔
    Every country on the planet has biotech labs. Russia is the place where they comprehensively and deliberately broke the Biological Weapons treaty over a period of decades. Right from the moment the treat was signed, in fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_biological_weapons_program#The_Cold_War

    A favourite was the account of the American scientist, who when helping clean up an abandoned lab on an island in the Aral Sea, found metric *tons* of anthrax spores....

    Obama repeatedly reached out to Russia. Putin kept doing his war! war! shit.
    Every country? I'd love to know what weaponised pathogens the Vatican is cooking up.
    Biotech isn't "pathogens"

    The Vatican has some tame researchers in biotech, associated with the Vatican Observatory, IIRC. The reason is to keep the church up to date with the whole ethics/religious perspective on biotechnology.
    Also has a rather serious astronomical obsevatory operation, which has always puzzled me. Want to be the first to know about the Second Coming, presumably
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,937

    MattW said:

    Chameleon said:

    Scathing attack from Zelenskyy's office on Israel.

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/senior-ukrainian-official-bennett-pushed-zelensky-to-surrender-to-putin-report/

    Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Tuesday pushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept an offer from Russian President Vladimir Putin, which would require Kyiv to make significant concessions in order to end Moscow’s invasion. “If I were you, I would think about the lives of my people and take the offer,” Bennett told Zelensky during a phone call on Tuesday, according to a senior Ukrainian official who spoke to Walla and Haaretz on condition of anonymity. Zelensky did not take well to the proposal, responding with a brief “I hear you.”

    “Bennett has proposed that we surrender,” the senior Ukrainian official tells the Hebrew news sites. “We have no intention of doing so. We know that Putin’s proposal is just the beginning.” The report says that Israel has also asked that Ukraine cease its requests for Israeli military or defense assistance, as this could hinder Jerusalem’s efforts to mediate and maintain neutrality

    Thus far, Zelensky has been unimpressed with Bennett’s mediation efforts, saying the Israeli premier has sufficed with being a “mailbox” that passes along messages between Russia to Ukraine without coming up with any proposals of his own, the senior official says.

    “We do not need a mailbox. We have enough of these,” the senior Ukrainian official says. “President Zelensky’s office does not believe this is the way to mediate. If Bennett wants to be neutral and mediate, we would like to see him appoint someone who will deal with the matter day and night to try and reach a compromise.” Zelensky is under the impression that Bennett has taken up the role of mediator as part of his effort to avoid picking sides in a war because of the risk of damaging Israel’s ties with Russia, the official claims. This has led to significant frustration and even personal offense on the part of Zelensky with the Israeli government, according to the senior official.

    Naftali Bennett is giving me problems.

    I keep reading it as Natalie Bennett...
    Baroness Bennett to you.
    Natalie to me.

    She used to a co-member of the team for the Britblog roundup, when such still existed.

    :smile:
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has been presenting the Kremlin’s allegations that Ukraine and the US had a plot to spread biological weapons with migratory birds, bats and insects.

    The whole idea is for the birds.

    The Kremlin are bats.

    And they have the morals of insects.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/us-looks-to-keep-ukrainian-biological-research-facilities-from-russian-control

    I still have an open mind about this, as the honesty of the Ukrainians today about the existence of the US bug factory sits uneasily with UK and US calling the Russian claims utter nonsense. What the Ukrainians have said is there was an American Bug Factory but it DEFINITELY NOT making war bugs, hence the Russian claims of Biden manufacturing biological weapons in Ukraine is utter rubbish.

    I have it in my mind I’ll never know truth on this one

    Correct me where I am wrong though if I have this bit of recent US politics wrong, I certainly have impression these days it’s the Democrat high command who in US politics carry most belligerence towards Russia, they wear it like a proud badge, even Bernie Sanders hates Russia, in a way the Republican leaders have a more pragmatic and moderate approach to Russia relations? So Vice President Biden for all those years in a Russian hating Obama White House, that was a bit lost and shambolic on foreign policy - we wouldn’t be shocked they liked the idea of peeling Ukraine away from Moscow, so not surprised if there’s a few things Biden wouldn’t like us to know at this moment? 🤔
    Every country on the planet has biotech labs. Russia is the place where they comprehensively and deliberately broke the Biological Weapons treaty over a period of decades. Right from the moment the treat was signed, in fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_biological_weapons_program#The_Cold_War

    A favourite was the account of the American scientist, who when helping clean up an abandoned lab on an island in the Aral Sea, found metric *tons* of anthrax spores....

    Obama repeatedly reached out to Russia. Putin kept doing his war! war! shit.
    Someone wrote a review about the definitive book on the Soviet's clandestine BW programme: https://www.nature.com/articles/489364a
  • ydoethur said:

    I've been walking my Mum's dog every day for the last few weeks. Mum's had a knee operation and hasn't been able to get out at all, so I've been taking her out for over an hour and a half every lunchtime

    There's an old railway line, that's been changed to a footpath, round one side of the town that makes up about an hour of the walk. There she can be off the lead the whole way.

    Today as we were walking down there, she had her head deep in a bush following some smell when a pheasant emerged with a huge squawk (do they squawk?) and full wings out from the other side of the bush.

    I don't think she's ever met a pheasant before, and didn't seem immediately keen. Crouched down, she fled backwards - as fast as I've ever seen her move forwards - about fifteen foot away.

    With all the storms a load of trees and branches have fallen down; they've been cleared but the path is still littered with leaves and twigs like it's Autumn. She stopped her reverse as she tripped over the pile of foliage she'd built up behind her.

    She tried to recover with a bold leap and bark into the air towards the space recently vacated by the pheasant.

    It's only rarely that I regret not filming everything.

    Putinly sincere apologies to those who don't like canine tales.

    Can we just clarify that the 'she' you refer to throughout, notwithstanding the second sentence, is a canine and not your mother?
    I noticed that and thought it'd be funnier not to make it clear!

    Yes; my mum's labrador.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,769

    ydoethur said:

    I've been walking my Mum's dog every day for the last few weeks. Mum's had a knee operation and hasn't been able to get out at all, so I've been taking her out for over an hour and a half every lunchtime

    There's an old railway line, that's been changed to a footpath, round one side of the town that makes up about an hour of the walk. There she can be off the lead the whole way.

    Today as we were walking down there, she had her head deep in a bush following some smell when a pheasant emerged with a huge squawk (do they squawk?) and full wings out from the other side of the bush.

    I don't think she's ever met a pheasant before, and didn't seem immediately keen. Crouched down, she fled backwards - as fast as I've ever seen her move forwards - about fifteen foot away.

    With all the storms a load of trees and branches have fallen down; they've been cleared but the path is still littered with leaves and twigs like it's Autumn. She stopped her reverse as she tripped over the pile of foliage she'd built up behind her.

    She tried to recover with a bold leap and bark into the air towards the space recently vacated by the pheasant.

    It's only rarely that I regret not filming everything.

    Putinly sincere apologies to those who don't like canine tales.

    Can we just clarify that the 'she' you refer to throughout, notwithstanding the second sentence, is a canine and not your mother?
    I noticed that and thought it'd be funnier not to make it clear!

    Yes; my mum's labrador.
    That makes a more convincing if somewhat less arresting mental image...
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,080

    Cookie said:

    The greatest immediate concern for Chelsea is that the crisis triggers an insolvency event, which runs the risk of a nine-point deduction under Premier League rules, increasing the urgency for a sale to go through.

    Well that doesn't sound a tragedy. They're not in any danger of winning the league, nor of relegation, even with a nine point penalty. They'll finish slightly further down the table and start again next year afresh.
    Out of Europe would be devastating for Chelses
    I'm with Brian Clough on this. Europe's a sideshow.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,165
    Farooq said:

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has been presenting the Kremlin’s allegations that Ukraine and the US had a plot to spread biological weapons with migratory birds, bats and insects.

    The whole idea is for the birds.

    The Kremlin are bats.

    And they have the morals of insects.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/us-looks-to-keep-ukrainian-biological-research-facilities-from-russian-control

    I still have an open mind about this, as the honesty of the Ukrainians today about the existence of the US bug factory sits uneasily with UK and US calling the Russian claims utter nonsense. What the Ukrainians have said is there was an American Bug Factory but it DEFINITELY NOT making war bugs, hence the Russian claims of Biden manufacturing biological weapons in Ukraine is utter rubbish.

    I have it in my mind I’ll never know truth on this one

    Correct me where I am wrong though if I have this bit of recent US politics wrong, I certainly have impression these days it’s the Democrat high command who in US politics carry most belligerence towards Russia, they wear it like a proud badge, even Bernie Sanders hates Russia, in a way the Republican leaders have a more pragmatic and moderate approach to Russia relations? So Vice President Biden for all those years in a Russian hating Obama White House, that was a bit lost and shambolic on foreign policy - we wouldn’t be shocked they liked the idea of peeling Ukraine away from Moscow, so not surprised if there’s a few things Biden wouldn’t like us to know at this moment? 🤔
    Every country on the planet has biotech labs. Russia is the place where they comprehensively and deliberately broke the Biological Weapons treaty over a period of decades. Right from the moment the treat was signed, in fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_biological_weapons_program#The_Cold_War

    A favourite was the account of the American scientist, who when helping clean up an abandoned lab on an island in the Aral Sea, found metric *tons* of anthrax spores....

    Obama repeatedly reached out to Russia. Putin kept doing his war! war! shit.
    Every country? I'd love to know what weaponised pathogens the Vatican is cooking up.
    That opium of the people can be deadly stuff.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,148
    IshmaelZ said:

    Farooq said:

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has been presenting the Kremlin’s allegations that Ukraine and the US had a plot to spread biological weapons with migratory birds, bats and insects.

    The whole idea is for the birds.

    The Kremlin are bats.

    And they have the morals of insects.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/us-looks-to-keep-ukrainian-biological-research-facilities-from-russian-control

    I still have an open mind about this, as the honesty of the Ukrainians today about the existence of the US bug factory sits uneasily with UK and US calling the Russian claims utter nonsense. What the Ukrainians have said is there was an American Bug Factory but it DEFINITELY NOT making war bugs, hence the Russian claims of Biden manufacturing biological weapons in Ukraine is utter rubbish.

    I have it in my mind I’ll never know truth on this one

    Correct me where I am wrong though if I have this bit of recent US politics wrong, I certainly have impression these days it’s the Democrat high command who in US politics carry most belligerence towards Russia, they wear it like a proud badge, even Bernie Sanders hates Russia, in a way the Republican leaders have a more pragmatic and moderate approach to Russia relations? So Vice President Biden for all those years in a Russian hating Obama White House, that was a bit lost and shambolic on foreign policy - we wouldn’t be shocked they liked the idea of peeling Ukraine away from Moscow, so not surprised if there’s a few things Biden wouldn’t like us to know at this moment? 🤔
    Every country on the planet has biotech labs. Russia is the place where they comprehensively and deliberately broke the Biological Weapons treaty over a period of decades. Right from the moment the treat was signed, in fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_biological_weapons_program#The_Cold_War

    A favourite was the account of the American scientist, who when helping clean up an abandoned lab on an island in the Aral Sea, found metric *tons* of anthrax spores....

    Obama repeatedly reached out to Russia. Putin kept doing his war! war! shit.
    Every country? I'd love to know what weaponised pathogens the Vatican is cooking up.
    Biotech isn't "pathogens"

    The Vatican has some tame researchers in biotech, associated with the Vatican Observatory, IIRC. The reason is to keep the church up to date with the whole ethics/religious perspective on biotechnology.
    Also has a rather serious astronomical obsevatory operation, which has always puzzled me. Want to be the first to know about the Second Coming, presumably
    Running the world calendar used to be a Church thing. Gregorian Calendar (Pope Gregory XIII) etc... Hence the astronomy.

    It goes all the way back to Ancient Rome, when the Calendar was the job of the priests. A Pontifex Maximus (still a title of the Pope) by the name of Julius Caesar did the previous reformation of the calendar, before Gregory....
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    Cookie said:

    Cookie said:

    The greatest immediate concern for Chelsea is that the crisis triggers an insolvency event, which runs the risk of a nine-point deduction under Premier League rules, increasing the urgency for a sale to go through.

    Well that doesn't sound a tragedy. They're not in any danger of winning the league, nor of relegation, even with a nine point penalty. They'll finish slightly further down the table and start again next year afresh.
    Out of Europe would be devastating for Chelses
    I'm with Brian Clough on this. Europe's a sideshow.
    Is it financially, though?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,148
    Dura_Ace said:

    We need proof of life.

    One of my students recently said she now looks the Pygmy King from Dark Souls 3. I had to google it but they are right.
    That which is dead, can never die!
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,645

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has been presenting the Kremlin’s allegations that Ukraine and the US had a plot to spread biological weapons with migratory birds, bats and insects.

    The whole idea is for the birds.

    The Kremlin are bats.

    And they have the morals of insects.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/us-looks-to-keep-ukrainian-biological-research-facilities-from-russian-control

    I still have an open mind about this, as the honesty of the Ukrainians today about the existence of the US bug factory sits uneasily with UK and US calling the Russian claims utter nonsense. What the Ukrainians have said is there was an American Bug Factory but it DEFINITELY NOT making war bugs, hence the Russian claims of Biden manufacturing biological weapons in Ukraine is utter rubbish.

    I have it in my mind I’ll never know truth on this one

    Correct me where I am wrong though if I have this bit of recent US politics wrong, I certainly have impression these days it’s the Democrat high command who in US politics carry most belligerence towards Russia, they wear it like a proud badge, even Bernie Sanders hates Russia, in a way the Republican leaders have a more pragmatic and moderate approach to Russia relations? So Vice President Biden for all those years in a Russian hating Obama White House, that was a bit lost and shambolic on foreign policy - we wouldn’t be shocked they liked the idea of peeling Ukraine away from Moscow, so not surprised if there’s a few things Biden wouldn’t like us to know at this moment? 🤔
    Every country on the planet has biotech labs. Russia is the place where they comprehensively and deliberately broke the Biological Weapons treaty over a period of decades. Right from the moment the treat was signed, in fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_biological_weapons_program#The_Cold_War

    A favourite was the account of the American scientist, who when helping clean up an abandoned lab on an island in the Aral Sea, found metric *tons* of anthrax spores....

    Obama repeatedly reached out to Russia. Putin kept doing his war! war! shit.
    We will have to agree to disagree if you think Obama’s White House was clear headed and excellent on Foreign Policy. But I totally agree with you EVERYONE has deep state, so there must be times opponents point at our deep state activities, and our governments lie to deny it, just like the same when we point to theirs, like Salisbury atrocity. And by opponents of our government deep state, not necessary China or Moscow, but amnesty or green peace. I think I have an excellent example, the Labour Government breaking law on torture with the rendition, and then lying that they had been involved.

    Is it the more deep state you can do abroad the easier to deny at home it is you involved?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    God, what is Horner such a dickbag?

    Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said the Mercedes design complied with the rules a day after being quoted saying it was "illegal".

    Horner said it was an "extreme" rules interpretation, but: "It looks like it ticks all the [legality] boxes."

    He insisted his earlier quoted comments about the car "weren't made".


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/60713781
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    I've been walking my Mum's dog every day for the last few weeks. Mum's had a knee operation and hasn't been able to get out at all, so I've been taking her out for over an hour and a half every lunchtime

    There's an old railway line, that's been changed to a footpath, round one side of the town that makes up about an hour of the walk. There she can be off the lead the whole way.

    Today as we were walking down there, she had her head deep in a bush following some smell when a pheasant emerged with a huge squawk (do they squawk?) and full wings out from the other side of the bush.

    I don't think she's ever met a pheasant before, and didn't seem immediately keen. Crouched down, she fled backwards - as fast as I've ever seen her move forwards - about fifteen foot away.

    With all the storms a load of trees and branches have fallen down; they've been cleared but the path is still littered with leaves and twigs like it's Autumn. She stopped her reverse as she tripped over the pile of foliage she'd built up behind her.

    She tried to recover with a bold leap and bark into the air towards the space recently vacated by the pheasant.

    It's only rarely that I regret not filming everything.

    Putinly sincere apologies to those who don't like canine tales.

    Can we just clarify that the 'she' you refer to throughout, notwithstanding the second sentence, is a canine and not your mother?
    I noticed that and thought it'd be funnier not to make it clear!

    Yes; my mum's labrador.
    That makes a more convincing if somewhat less arresting mental image...
    Always delighted to hear appealing tales about readers' in-house dogshit production facilities. Keep em coming. It is what the site is all about.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,393

    IshmaelZ said:

    Farooq said:

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has been presenting the Kremlin’s allegations that Ukraine and the US had a plot to spread biological weapons with migratory birds, bats and insects.

    The whole idea is for the birds.

    The Kremlin are bats.

    And they have the morals of insects.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/us-looks-to-keep-ukrainian-biological-research-facilities-from-russian-control

    I still have an open mind about this, as the honesty of the Ukrainians today about the existence of the US bug factory sits uneasily with UK and US calling the Russian claims utter nonsense. What the Ukrainians have said is there was an American Bug Factory but it DEFINITELY NOT making war bugs, hence the Russian claims of Biden manufacturing biological weapons in Ukraine is utter rubbish.

    I have it in my mind I’ll never know truth on this one

    Correct me where I am wrong though if I have this bit of recent US politics wrong, I certainly have impression these days it’s the Democrat high command who in US politics carry most belligerence towards Russia, they wear it like a proud badge, even Bernie Sanders hates Russia, in a way the Republican leaders have a more pragmatic and moderate approach to Russia relations? So Vice President Biden for all those years in a Russian hating Obama White House, that was a bit lost and shambolic on foreign policy - we wouldn’t be shocked they liked the idea of peeling Ukraine away from Moscow, so not surprised if there’s a few things Biden wouldn’t like us to know at this moment? 🤔
    Every country on the planet has biotech labs. Russia is the place where they comprehensively and deliberately broke the Biological Weapons treaty over a period of decades. Right from the moment the treat was signed, in fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_biological_weapons_program#The_Cold_War

    A favourite was the account of the American scientist, who when helping clean up an abandoned lab on an island in the Aral Sea, found metric *tons* of anthrax spores....

    Obama repeatedly reached out to Russia. Putin kept doing his war! war! shit.
    Every country? I'd love to know what weaponised pathogens the Vatican is cooking up.
    Biotech isn't "pathogens"

    The Vatican has some tame researchers in biotech, associated with the Vatican Observatory, IIRC. The reason is to keep the church up to date with the whole ethics/religious perspective on biotechnology.
    Also has a rather serious astronomical obsevatory operation, which has always puzzled me. Want to be the first to know about the Second Coming, presumably
    Running the world calendar used to be a Church thing. Gregorian Calendar (Pope Gregory XIII) etc... Hence the astronomy.

    It goes all the way back to Ancient Rome, when the Calendar was the job of the priests. A Pontifex Maximus (still a title of the Pope) by the name of Julius Caesar did the previous reformation of the calendar, before Gregory....
    Definition of Easter, too. First Sunday following the full Moon that occurs on or just after the spring equinox. Though do they really need an observatory for that?
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,198

    TimT said:

    @KevinRothrock
    Maria Butina now advocating Russia’s withdrawal from the United Nations, apparently hopeful that Moscow could take China with it.


    https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1502348323004497920

    Be a bit like the UK leaving the EU - perhaps it will make the UN and UNSC functional again if both Russia and China left.

    BTW, IIRC the only way that the UN mandate for Korea was possible was because the UN seat at that time was held by Taiwan, and the Russian flounced out of the meeting, thereby rendering unused their veto power.
    The idea - which has been floated by Chinese politicians in the past, is to turn the UN into a Westerners only talking shop, on the Security Council.

    With the universality gone, then persuade the non-aligned countries to drop out.
    It would go back to what it came from - the allies against the Axis powers, aligned in outlook. Would effectively undo the utopian view we could unite the world after the horrors of a world war though.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,064
    kle4 said:

    God, what is Horner such a dickbag?

    Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said the Mercedes design complied with the rules a day after being quoted saying it was "illegal".

    Horner said it was an "extreme" rules interpretation, but: "It looks like it ticks all the [legality] boxes."

    He insisted his earlier quoted comments about the car "weren't made".


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/60713781

    Yeah his claims about Masi being forced out by Mercedes "bullying" were also a joke. He's more irritating than anyone else in F1, longing for the day when Adrian Newey retires/leaves and RBR can't produce rockets.
This discussion has been closed.