Zero chance of Boris calling a general election this year or even next year unless the Tories regain a big lead in the polls. Otherwise, even if he won it would be with a significantly reduced majority.
Note too after 10 years of their party in power no PM has called a general election before the full 5 year term of their government is up. See 1964, 1992, 1997 and 2010 (not all of them were defeated, Major won a shock re election in 1992)
Tree of those four cases were followed by defeats, and 1992 was a close-run thing.
Boris isn't that used to losing. Does he bravely go down with the ship, flame out or run away? He won't be able to run the meme + photo opportunity campaign of 2019.
“ Clausewitz describes the "culminating point" as when an attacking force hits strong resistance, runs out of energy, and can no longer continue. Russia is running out of manpower, asking Syria to send troops. Sanctions are working. Russia may culminate in 10-14 days if we press.”
So what happens then ?
Who knows?
But who knows what happens if we withdraw all help from Ukraine, and Russia rolls over them and gets a nice, compliant pro-Russian government in Kiev?
In my mind it's quite simple: it is right versus wrong, good versus evil. The evil is easy to identify: Putin and his cronies. They are the ones who have invaded another country; they are the ones who are killing innocent civilians. They are the ones threatening smaller democracies with invasion. They are the ones who are threatening the world with chemical weapons, or nuclear oblivion.
Those on the side of evil talk about how it is our fault, how we caused this mess, rather than concentrate their ire on the evil.
We have to be on the side of good. And that means supporting Ukraine.
Which we are doing.
The time to think about the causes of this is after the mess is over - and I think many of their arguments are bogus anyway, purposeful distractions away from evil.
The final clause is the sort of thing we should avoid writing. I don't know people who are 'purposefully' distracting away from evil, at least not on here. I don't frequent other political or social media sites.
The reason why the causes are pertinent is that they are also so relevant to both the present and the future.
We were powerless to stop Putin because we are powerless to stop Putin and we will be powerless to stop Putin. We are so frit of him, of the nuclear threat, that we're not prepared to stand up and defend Ukraine with the only language Putin will pay attention to: military force.
Biden is a wet blanket. His ghastly withdrawal from Afghanistan, aided and abetted by Johnson, greenlit Putin's invasion of Ukraine and has shown Putin that NATO is not going to stand up and defend them.
And, yes, Putin and his invasion are utterly evil.
I utterly disagree. In other places, the 'we caused tis by x, y and z' are being used as distractions away from the Russian's folly. Whenever anyone criticises Russia, the voices cry that it is 'our' fault.
"Russians are doing these things." "Remember that we guaranteed we would not expand NATO eastwards, and Ukraine is filled with Nazis. Besides, we 'poked' them into it."
It is classic maskirovka, performed by either knowing or unknowing fools.
The Russian government is not the victims in this. They are the aggressor, the bully. The victims are the Ukrainian people and, to a lesser extent, the Russian people.
If we see what is happening as akin to rape, then these people are saying that Ukraine should not have been wearing such a short skirt.
Twitter is full of such comments.
Twitter is part of the poison that has got us to the place of Russia invading Ukraine. .
I read your posts on here with interest (Chris, again, take note). I've seen Greta Thurnberg blamed on here for starting the Ukraine war but now Twitter is responsible for it? It's an interesting thesis but I'm not on twitter so I wouldn't know.
I think if we believe in democracy it's really important that we continue to debate in as friendly a way as possible, even when profoundly disagreeing with someone's perspective or suggestion. I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. That's a shame because this is a decent site and the only one I frequent. When someone is rude to me I tend to disappear as I have better things to do than be insulted by someone from the comfort of their chair whom I've never met.
So keep playing the ball, folks. Not the man or woman.
". I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. "
You weren't here in 2016. Or 2017. Or 2014. Or 2019. Or 2020. In fact, it's pretty much always been like this...
I'd argue PB is a rather decorous place compared to the Internet in general, especially as politics is being discussed. It's also more informative than most places.
There are more women than ever before, but still by no means enough.
It's not exactly a welcoming place for women tbh.
There's far too much male aggression and downright rudeness, a failure to debate issues and always a tendency to attack the person.
This place is like being on a rugby field of 30 men. And not in a pleasant fantasy way
I shall be off for a bit. The personal rudeness is tiresome and I have a life outside that feels a lot more wholesome.
Odd that you were challenged specifically on your IP address, and have dodged providing any sort of response?
By Robert?
Has anyone else ever been "challenged specifically on [their] IP address"?
Robert seems to check them quite often. I remember being 'checked' when I was claiming to be posting from Sioux Falls. Which I was.
The point is that someone has been challenged, and hasn't responded in any of the normal ways that a regular poster would (which might include some righteous indignation at being checked and assertions of being simply at home/at work as usual), but instead responded by dodging the issue with some bluster and then swiftly disappearing. Hardly reassuring.
What gets me with Heathener is that her posts are so repetitive and tiresome and then she wonders why people in the surrounding conversation sometimes seem a little irritated.
Speaking as a bloke, @Heathener does make a good point about the 'maleness' of PB at times.
Indeed, it's not so much 'maleness', more 'puerile-teenage-boy-ness'. As an example, the inane 'willy-warmer' conversation the other night made me cringe tbh.
It would be good to have more women posting on here but we don't make it very encouraging at times.
It's normally better in the mornings, while Sean is still hungover.
“ Clausewitz describes the "culminating point" as when an attacking force hits strong resistance, runs out of energy, and can no longer continue. Russia is running out of manpower, asking Syria to send troops. Sanctions are working. Russia may culminate in 10-14 days if we press.”
So what happens then ?
Who knows?
But who knows what happens if we withdraw all help from Ukraine, and Russia rolls over them and gets a nice, compliant pro-Russian government in Kiev?
In my mind it's quite simple: it is right versus wrong, good versus evil. The evil is easy to identify: Putin and his cronies. They are the ones who have invaded another country; they are the ones who are killing innocent civilians. They are the ones threatening smaller democracies with invasion. They are the ones who are threatening the world with chemical weapons, or nuclear oblivion.
Those on the side of evil talk about how it is our fault, how we caused this mess, rather than concentrate their ire on the evil.
We have to be on the side of good. And that means supporting Ukraine.
Which we are doing.
The time to think about the causes of this is after the mess is over - and I think many of their arguments are bogus anyway, purposeful distractions away from evil.
The final clause is the sort of thing we should avoid writing. I don't know people who are 'purposefully' distracting away from evil, at least not on here. I don't frequent other political or social media sites.
The reason why the causes are pertinent is that they are also so relevant to both the present and the future.
We were powerless to stop Putin because we are powerless to stop Putin and we will be powerless to stop Putin. We are so frit of him, of the nuclear threat, that we're not prepared to stand up and defend Ukraine with the only language Putin will pay attention to: military force.
Biden is a wet blanket. His ghastly withdrawal from Afghanistan, aided and abetted by Johnson, greenlit Putin's invasion of Ukraine and has shown Putin that NATO is not going to stand up and defend them.
And, yes, Putin and his invasion are utterly evil.
I utterly disagree. In other places, the 'we caused tis by x, y and z' are being used as distractions away from the Russian's folly. Whenever anyone criticises Russia, the voices cry that it is 'our' fault.
"Russians are doing these things." "Remember that we guaranteed we would not expand NATO eastwards, and Ukraine is filled with Nazis. Besides, we 'poked' them into it."
It is classic maskirovka, performed by either knowing or unknowing fools.
The Russian government is not the victims in this. They are the aggressor, the bully. The victims are the Ukrainian people and, to a lesser extent, the Russian people.
If we see what is happening as akin to rape, then these people are saying that Ukraine should not have been wearing such a short skirt.
Twitter is full of such comments.
Twitter is part of the poison that has got us to the place of Russia invading Ukraine. .
I read your posts on here with interest (Chris, again, take note). I've seen Greta Thurnberg blamed on here for starting the Ukraine war but now Twitter is responsible for it? It's an interesting thesis but I'm not on twitter so I wouldn't know.
I think if we believe in democracy it's really important that we continue to debate in as friendly a way as possible, even when profoundly disagreeing with someone's perspective or suggestion. I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. That's a shame because this is a decent site and the only one I frequent. When someone is rude to me I tend to disappear as I have better things to do than be insulted by someone from the comfort of their chair whom I've never met.
So keep playing the ball, folks. Not the man or woman.
". I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. "
You weren't here in 2016. Or 2017. Or 2014. Or 2019. Or 2020. In fact, it's pretty much always been like this...
I'd argue PB is a rather decorous place compared to the Internet in general, especially as politics is being discussed. It's also more informative than most places.
There are more women than ever before, but still by no means enough.
It's not exactly a welcoming place for women tbh.
There's far too much male aggression and downright rudeness, a failure to debate issues and always a tendency to attack the person.
This place is like being on a rugby field of 30 men. And not in a pleasant fantasy way
I shall be off for a bit. The personal rudeness is tiresome and I have a life outside that feels a lot more wholesome.
Odd that you were challenged specifically on your IP address, and have dodged providing any sort of response?
By Robert?
Has anyone else ever been "challenged specifically on [their] IP address"?
Robert seems to check them quite often. I remember being 'checked' when I was claiming to be posting from Sioux Falls. Which I was.
The point is that someone has been challenged, and hasn't responded in any of the normal ways that a regular poster would (which might include some righteous indignation at being checked and assertions of being simply at home/at work as usual), but instead responded by dodging the issue with some bluster and then swiftly disappearing. Hardly reassuring.
Robert has no reason to risk his credibility by making up false information about the IP address, so either there's an innocent explanation or mistake, or there isn't.
What gets me with Heathener is that her posts are so repetitive and tiresome and then she wonders why people in the surrounding conversation sometimes seem a little irritated.
I actually have a Python script that runs once a week (and which I occasionally manually run). Most of the time it comes back with no hits, but since the Ukraine invasion, it has chirped on a couple of occasions.
Do pythons chirp? If so, do they do it to a script?
Zero chance of Boris calling a general election this year or even next year unless the Tories regain a big lead in the polls. Otherwise, even if he won it would be with a significantly reduced majority.
Note too after 10 years of their party in power no PM has called a general election before the full 5 year term of their government is up. See 1964, 1992, 1997 and 2010 (not all of them were defeated, Major won a shock re election in 1992)
Tree of those four cases were followed by defeats, and 1992 was a close-run thing.
Boris isn't that used to losing. Does he bravely go down with the ship, flame out or run away? He won't be able to run the meme + photo opportunity campaign of 2019.
They were followed by defeats which all the polls showed were going to be defeats, had the PM called a general election early ie Home in 1963, Brown in 2009 or Major in 1996 then they would still have been defeated but lost a year in power.
Like Brown in 2010 though Boris at the moment is likely to get a hung parliament at least but no point risking the current 80 seat majority for that until his full term is up
'The reality is that we are ignoring Zelensky's pleas for a No Fly Zone and we're letting an entire country get pulverised.'
No serious commentator is suggesting a NFZ. The reason is obvious, and has been stated on this forum clearly and frequently.
NFZ is simply fluffy words to mean the West bombing Russia, which is a major escalation that gives Putin cover for his own escalation.
Far, far better to keep shoveling all those Stinger ground-to-air missiles over into Ukraine. Get enough of them in theatre, and you end up with a no-fly zone by default.
I am not an expert on war but in regard to the 30 or so cruise missiles that hit near the Polish border are there defence systems that can intercept them and are there any deployed in Ukraine ?
It was reported last week that a missile defence system has been set up close to the Polish border, using the US Patriot system. Presumably it’s going to be used to stop stray missiles heading for Poland, rather than to take out Russian missiles in Ukraine.
It’s interesting how, with the exception of the attack on this base at the weekend, Russia has been quite sparing with the long-range missiles. My suspicion is that they have only a few hundred of them.
Kh55/101 uses a Ukrainian made engine... apparently 575 Kh55 were transferred to Russia in the big transfer of weapons and equipment from Ukraine to Russia in 1999.
'The reality is that we are ignoring Zelensky's pleas for a No Fly Zone and we're letting an entire country get pulverised.'
No serious commentator is suggesting a NFZ. The reason is obvious, and has been stated on this forum clearly and frequently.
NFZ is simply fluffy words to mean the West bombing Russia, which is a major escalation that gives Putin cover for his own escalation.
Far, far better to keep shoveling all those Stinger ground-to-air missiles over into Ukraine. Get enough of them in theatre, and you end up with a no-fly zone by default.
I am not an expert on war but in regard to the 30 or so cruise missiles that hit near the Polish border are there defence systems that can intercept them and are there any deployed in Ukraine ?
It was reported last week that a missile defence system has been set up close to the Polish border, using the US Patriot system. Presumably it’s going to be used to stop stray missiles heading for Poland, rather than to take out Russian missiles in Ukraine.
It’s interesting how, with the exception of the attack on this base at the weekend, Russia has been quite sparing with the long-range missiles. My suspicion is that they have only a few hundred of them.
It’s what it would look like if we or the French were acting unilaterally I think (the lack of cruise missiles I mean - we wouldn’t now resort to gravity bombs). We’ve all got so used to watching US led Ops with unlimited munitions that we’ve missed that these things are costly and stocks need managing.
Oh indeed. There’s also the suspicion, that there’s a disconnect between the equipment Moscow thinks they have, and what they actually have on the ground.
This especially goes for the big, expensive stuff such as aircraft and cruise missiles, most of which appeared to be destined for a lifetime of parade ground service, rather than actually being used in anger. Maybe they look functional from the outside, but the contractor decided to buy himself a dacha in Sochi rather than fit out the inside.
I'm afraid I really do think a lot of the back-slapping about how well we are doing is delusional borne of a need not to feel as powerless about what Putin is doing as we are.
The fact is, we stood by and let him invade and pulverise an entire nation. Slowly and inexorably that is what he is doing. Biden and NATO refused to pitch in because they were too scared of Putin's nuclear threats. Perhaps justifiably, but we've let him get away with it.
We all want this to be another Afghanistan. I fear we are deluding ourselves.
When you say "we", I don't think you're including yourself.
So perhaps you should be a little more precise in your language and say "you".
It would be a little more honest, no?
'We' meaning the west, not pb.com per se.
I think we in the west have been trying to convince ourselves that we're doing as much as we possibly can (we aren't), that we're united (we aren't) and that there's nothing further we can do without risking nuclear war (not true).
The reality is that we are ignoring Zelensky's pleas for a No Fly Zone and we're letting an entire country get pulverised.
You started here with some views on Covid cases and hospitalisations in Israel which turned out not to be - how to put this - entirely accurate. Then moved on to a story about BA pilots, which turned out to be... ah yes... not entirely accurate.
And now you're onto "oh yes, I'm on your side, one of *you*, and I know it's hard to accept, but it would be better for all of us if the Ukrainians just accepted the inevitable and laid down their arms... after all, what chance do they stand?"
It is a little tricky to take you seriously, and for that I apologise.
At least she’s a better class of Russian provocateur. PB should feel flattered
The faux reasonableness is very, very well done though.
I think, and I do mean this, you should take a look at yourself if you are 'really' going down that route because it's a very, very, dark place to go.
If you start to think that anyone with whom you disagree displays the signs of being something other than sincere, a phantasm, a spectre, who is merely 'faux' reasonable then you are disappearing into a rabbit hole void the end result of which is a dystopian nightmare of narcissistic individualism.
I don't agree with everything you post but I don't stoop to question your sincerity.
It's a strange phenomenon on PB, noted also by @Dura_Ace and @YBarddCwsc yesterday. Normally very thoughtful, enquiring minds have fallen into line over a preferred stance on Russia/Ukraine. Any deviation from that stance is met with disproportionate hostility.
Perhaps it stems from a sense of frustration at our powerlessness. Change your profile picture to the Ukrainian flag and shout down those who don't agree with the chosen line on Ukraine (Russia doing dreadfully, imminent collapse of their war effort, dissent maybe even revolution at home, etc).
It really is quite strange.
It's OK to have a dissenting opinion.
But it's also a little suspicious when you have a dissenting opinion, have a record of spreading falsehoods (about BA pilots and vaccines, for example), and have an IP address that's listed in the blacklists.
Absolutely and it's your site so them's the rules. Perhaps it is a mark of the sophistication of spammers that @Heathener's posts seem to me to be genuine and I could point to other posters who are equally contentious for many on PB, not to say equally provocative.
P Johnson and d-d were laughably obvious, but Heathener less so.
I thought she was stupid, but harmless. Guess she's gone now.
I'm surprised people bought the "she" line. Had "her" pegged as a late middle-aged man, probably an academic, did alright in the Soviet era, never really adjusted to the new kleptocracy - but was a patriotic Great Russian doing their bit in the war...
I think the Lebedev thing is awful but I'm even more concerned by the way Boris Johnson shares with Putin the attempt to alter the reality of truth. It's not just lying, it's attempting entirely to re-write a narrative, a zeitgeist, into something that is utterly at variance with the actual truth. Putin does it all the time but so does Johnson. Cummings was another shit who was up to it.
Some of you may dislike the comparison of Putin with Johnson but this is deeply disturbing. I genuinely fear for our democracy because a lot of people get taken in by it.
I think, post war, we will need to face up to the weaknesses of our own political system. The shameless lies from various politicians has absolutely created a fog of misinformation. The process of calling out Trump, Johnson, Farage, Le Pen, Salmond and many others needs to be carried through, and those who have served Putin, in whatever capacity, need to be removed from the political process entirely and where appropriate to face criminal trial.
I don't think that's much to do with the political system. Western institutions are quite adequate, if we make use of them. It's how people engage - or don't - that counts.
No, I don't agree Nigel, and I think you just about nail the problem yourself. People don't engage.
Sorry to go all LibDem on this, but the voting system is fundamentally flawed. If we could just address that it would be a big step forward. I'm not holding my breath though.
As for the rogues gallery - Trump, Johnson, Farage, Le Pen, Salmond etc - there's a decent chance of them getting their dues, I should say, once the full extent of their Russian links are exposed.
I remain hopeful.
I agree 100% about the voting system; it is fundamentally flawed. But that is a second order problem (though FPTP does much to make individuals think their vote worthless). It can only change if the electorate demand it by the way they vote - and when those who want to see it get involved in politics rather than grumbling from the sidelines.
Regarding the rogues, f we had a criminal justice system which was properly funded, rather than almost bankrupt, the rogues might not be quite so much of a problem.
I'm afraid I really do think a lot of the back-slapping about how well we are doing is delusional borne of a need not to feel as powerless about what Putin is doing as we are.
The fact is, we stood by and let him invade and pulverise an entire nation. Slowly and inexorably that is what he is doing. Biden and NATO refused to pitch in because they were too scared of Putin's nuclear threats. Perhaps justifiably, but we've let him get away with it.
We all want this to be another Afghanistan. I fear we are deluding ourselves.
When you say "we", I don't think you're including yourself.
So perhaps you should be a little more precise in your language and say "you".
It would be a little more honest, no?
'We' meaning the west, not pb.com per se.
I think we in the west have been trying to convince ourselves that we're doing as much as we possibly can (we aren't), that we're united (we aren't) and that there's nothing further we can do without risking nuclear war (not true).
The reality is that we are ignoring Zelensky's pleas for a No Fly Zone and we're letting an entire country get pulverised.
You started here with some views on Covid cases and hospitalisations in Israel which turned out not to be - how to put this - entirely accurate. Then moved on to a story about BA pilots, which turned out to be... ah yes... not entirely accurate.
And now you're onto "oh yes, I'm on your side, one of *you*, and I know it's hard to accept, but it would be better for all of us if the Ukrainians just accepted the inevitable and laid down their arms... after all, what chance do they stand?"
It is a little tricky to take you seriously, and for that I apologise.
At least she’s a better class of Russian provocateur. PB should feel flattered
The faux reasonableness is very, very well done though.
I think, and I do mean this, you should take a look at yourself if you are 'really' going down that route because it's a very, very, dark place to go.
If you start to think that anyone with whom you disagree displays the signs of being something other than sincere, a phantasm, a spectre, who is merely 'faux' reasonable then you are disappearing into a rabbit hole void the end result of which is a dystopian nightmare of narcissistic individualism.
I don't agree with everything you post but I don't stoop to question your sincerity.
It's a strange phenomenon on PB, noted also by @Dura_Ace and @YBarddCwsc yesterday. Normally very thoughtful, enquiring minds have fallen into line over a preferred stance on Russia/Ukraine. Any deviation from that stance is met with disproportionate hostility.
Perhaps it stems from a sense of frustration at our powerlessness. Change your profile picture to the Ukrainian flag and shout down those who don't agree with the chosen line on Ukraine (Russia doing dreadfully, imminent collapse of their war effort, dissent maybe even revolution at home, etc).
It really is quite strange.
It's OK to have a dissenting opinion.
But it's also a little suspicious when you have a dissenting opinion, have a record of spreading falsehoods (about BA pilots and vaccines, for example), and have an IP address that's listed in the blacklists.
Absolutely and it's your site so them's the rules. Perhaps it is a mark of the sophistication of spammers that @Heathener's posts seem to me to be genuine and I could point to other posters who are equally contentious for many on PB, not to say equally provocative.
P Johnson and d-d were laughably obvious, but Heathener less so.
I thought she was stupid, but harmless. Guess she's gone now.
Thing is, we are, ahem, all grown up able to think for ourselves types on here. If they are super crass like @PJohnson was with lots of "mate"s and very bad at the spamming thing then fair enough - they clog up the site and take up bandwidth.
But from what I have read of @Heathener's posts (until recently one a day in the morning saying that's it I'm off) they have an opinion. I hadn't recalled the BA pilots or vaccines ones but even if it is the most egregious perceived rubbish then what harm does it do to respond to the points raised.
What's the difference between engaging with someone who genuinely believes, for example and I'm not saying this is her position, that Putin is entirely justified in his current actions, and engaging with a bot who says the same thing. It is the issue that is of interest. Somewhere there is someone who supports Putin - there are reports that say much of the Russian population, for example - so why not ignore the IP address and just discuss the issue.
“ Clausewitz describes the "culminating point" as when an attacking force hits strong resistance, runs out of energy, and can no longer continue. Russia is running out of manpower, asking Syria to send troops. Sanctions are working. Russia may culminate in 10-14 days if we press.”
So what happens then ?
Who knows?
But who knows what happens if we withdraw all help from Ukraine, and Russia rolls over them and gets a nice, compliant pro-Russian government in Kiev?
In my mind it's quite simple: it is right versus wrong, good versus evil. The evil is easy to identify: Putin and his cronies. They are the ones who have invaded another country; they are the ones who are killing innocent civilians. They are the ones threatening smaller democracies with invasion. They are the ones who are threatening the world with chemical weapons, or nuclear oblivion.
Those on the side of evil talk about how it is our fault, how we caused this mess, rather than concentrate their ire on the evil.
We have to be on the side of good. And that means supporting Ukraine.
Which we are doing.
The time to think about the causes of this is after the mess is over - and I think many of their arguments are bogus anyway, purposeful distractions away from evil.
The final clause is the sort of thing we should avoid writing. I don't know people who are 'purposefully' distracting away from evil, at least not on here. I don't frequent other political or social media sites.
The reason why the causes are pertinent is that they are also so relevant to both the present and the future.
We were powerless to stop Putin because we are powerless to stop Putin and we will be powerless to stop Putin. We are so frit of him, of the nuclear threat, that we're not prepared to stand up and defend Ukraine with the only language Putin will pay attention to: military force.
Biden is a wet blanket. His ghastly withdrawal from Afghanistan, aided and abetted by Johnson, greenlit Putin's invasion of Ukraine and has shown Putin that NATO is not going to stand up and defend them.
And, yes, Putin and his invasion are utterly evil.
I utterly disagree. In other places, the 'we caused tis by x, y and z' are being used as distractions away from the Russian's folly. Whenever anyone criticises Russia, the voices cry that it is 'our' fault.
"Russians are doing these things." "Remember that we guaranteed we would not expand NATO eastwards, and Ukraine is filled with Nazis. Besides, we 'poked' them into it."
It is classic maskirovka, performed by either knowing or unknowing fools.
The Russian government is not the victims in this. They are the aggressor, the bully. The victims are the Ukrainian people and, to a lesser extent, the Russian people.
If we see what is happening as akin to rape, then these people are saying that Ukraine should not have been wearing such a short skirt.
Twitter is full of such comments.
Twitter is part of the poison that has got us to the place of Russia invading Ukraine. .
I read your posts on here with interest (Chris, again, take note). I've seen Greta Thurnberg blamed on here for starting the Ukraine war but now Twitter is responsible for it? It's an interesting thesis but I'm not on twitter so I wouldn't know.
I think if we believe in democracy it's really important that we continue to debate in as friendly a way as possible, even when profoundly disagreeing with someone's perspective or suggestion. I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. That's a shame because this is a decent site and the only one I frequent. When someone is rude to me I tend to disappear as I have better things to do than be insulted by someone from the comfort of their chair whom I've never met.
So keep playing the ball, folks. Not the man or woman.
". I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. "
You weren't here in 2016. Or 2017. Or 2014. Or 2019. Or 2020. In fact, it's pretty much always been like this...
I'd argue PB is a rather decorous place compared to the Internet in general, especially as politics is being discussed. It's also more informative than most places.
There are more women than ever before, but still by no means enough.
It's not exactly a welcoming place for women tbh.
There's far too much male aggression and downright rudeness, a failure to debate issues and always a tendency to attack the person.
This place is like being on a rugby field of 30 men. And not in a pleasant fantasy way
I shall be off for a bit. The personal rudeness is tiresome and I have a life outside that feels a lot more wholesome.
Odd that you were challenged specifically on your IP address, and have dodged providing any sort of response?
By Robert?
Has anyone else ever been "challenged specifically on [their] IP address"?
Robert seems to check them quite often. I remember being 'checked' when I was claiming to be posting from Sioux Falls. Which I was.
The point is that someone has been challenged, and hasn't responded in any of the normal ways that a regular poster would (which might include some righteous indignation at being checked and assertions of being simply at home/at work as usual), but instead responded by dodging the issue with some bluster and then swiftly disappearing. Hardly reassuring.
Robert has no reason to risk his credibility by making up false information about the IP address, so either there's an innocent explanation or mistake, or there isn't.
What gets me with Heathener is that her posts are so repetitive and tiresome and then she wonders why people in the surrounding conversation sometimes seem a little irritated.
I actually have a Python script that runs once a week (and which I occasionally manually run). Most of the time it comes back with no hits, but since the Ukraine invasion, it has chirped on a couple of occasions.
Do pythons chirp? If so, do they do it to a script?
Depends on the sound file you ask it to play if a scenario is hit...
I think the Lebedev thing is awful but I'm even more concerned by the way Boris Johnson shares with Putin the attempt to alter the reality of truth. It's not just lying, it's attempting entirely to re-write a narrative, a zeitgeist, into something that is utterly at variance with the actual truth. Putin does it all the time but so does Johnson. Cummings was another shit who was up to it.
Some of you may dislike the comparison of Putin with Johnson but this is deeply disturbing. I genuinely fear for our democracy because a lot of people get taken in by it.
Both are post-truth politicians. But in Putin's case, he has perhaps run in to the limits of what is possible. You can't fake an invasion of another country with tens of thousands of conscripts dying, hyperinflation, banks closing down, Shops closing, etc. There comes a point where you no longer control the agenda and a form of reality intervenes.
Putin should have stuck with the old tactics of plausible deniability and fake institutions that fooled people and useful idiots could get behind. It could have run on and on for decades, generations even.
Putin could probably have bled Ukraine dry if he'd funded opposition groups, bribed politicians, and continued to arm the separatists. Maybe a few Russian troops could have grabbed 20 miles here or there...
Instead he went for invasion. And succeeded in uniting the decadent West.
According to Bellingcat, the people in the FSB who were supposed to be bribing Ukrainian politicians have been stealing the money for themselves...
“ Clausewitz describes the "culminating point" as when an attacking force hits strong resistance, runs out of energy, and can no longer continue. Russia is running out of manpower, asking Syria to send troops. Sanctions are working. Russia may culminate in 10-14 days if we press.”
So what happens then ?
Who knows?
But who knows what happens if we withdraw all help from Ukraine, and Russia rolls over them and gets a nice, compliant pro-Russian government in Kiev?
In my mind it's quite simple: it is right versus wrong, good versus evil. The evil is easy to identify: Putin and his cronies. They are the ones who have invaded another country; they are the ones who are killing innocent civilians. They are the ones threatening smaller democracies with invasion. They are the ones who are threatening the world with chemical weapons, or nuclear oblivion.
Those on the side of evil talk about how it is our fault, how we caused this mess, rather than concentrate their ire on the evil.
We have to be on the side of good. And that means supporting Ukraine.
Which we are doing.
The time to think about the causes of this is after the mess is over - and I think many of their arguments are bogus anyway, purposeful distractions away from evil.
The final clause is the sort of thing we should avoid writing. I don't know people who are 'purposefully' distracting away from evil, at least not on here. I don't frequent other political or social media sites.
The reason why the causes are pertinent is that they are also so relevant to both the present and the future.
We were powerless to stop Putin because we are powerless to stop Putin and we will be powerless to stop Putin. We are so frit of him, of the nuclear threat, that we're not prepared to stand up and defend Ukraine with the only language Putin will pay attention to: military force.
Biden is a wet blanket. His ghastly withdrawal from Afghanistan, aided and abetted by Johnson, greenlit Putin's invasion of Ukraine and has shown Putin that NATO is not going to stand up and defend them.
And, yes, Putin and his invasion are utterly evil.
I utterly disagree. In other places, the 'we caused tis by x, y and z' are being used as distractions away from the Russian's folly. Whenever anyone criticises Russia, the voices cry that it is 'our' fault.
"Russians are doing these things." "Remember that we guaranteed we would not expand NATO eastwards, and Ukraine is filled with Nazis. Besides, we 'poked' them into it."
It is classic maskirovka, performed by either knowing or unknowing fools.
The Russian government is not the victims in this. They are the aggressor, the bully. The victims are the Ukrainian people and, to a lesser extent, the Russian people.
If we see what is happening as akin to rape, then these people are saying that Ukraine should not have been wearing such a short skirt.
Twitter is full of such comments.
Twitter is part of the poison that has got us to the place of Russia invading Ukraine. .
I read your posts on here with interest (Chris, again, take note). I've seen Greta Thurnberg blamed on here for starting the Ukraine war but now Twitter is responsible for it? It's an interesting thesis but I'm not on twitter so I wouldn't know.
I think if we believe in democracy it's really important that we continue to debate in as friendly a way as possible, even when profoundly disagreeing with someone's perspective or suggestion. I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. That's a shame because this is a decent site and the only one I frequent. When someone is rude to me I tend to disappear as I have better things to do than be insulted by someone from the comfort of their chair whom I've never met.
So keep playing the ball, folks. Not the man or woman.
". I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. "
You weren't here in 2016. Or 2017. Or 2014. Or 2019. Or 2020. In fact, it's pretty much always been like this...
I'd argue PB is a rather decorous place compared to the Internet in general, especially as politics is being discussed. It's also more informative than most places.
There are more women than ever before, but still by no means enough.
It's not exactly a welcoming place for women tbh.
There's far too much male aggression and downright rudeness, a failure to debate issues and always a tendency to attack the person.
This place is like being on a rugby field of 30 men. And not in a pleasant fantasy way
I shall be off for a bit. The personal rudeness is tiresome and I have a life outside that feels a lot more wholesome.
There's nothing stopping women from posting as many comments as they like on here. The fact is women are always less interested in obsessive political commentary than men. On the VoteUK forum it's about 95% male even though every effort has been made to encourage more women to join and post comments.
I'm afraid I really do think a lot of the back-slapping about how well we are doing is delusional borne of a need not to feel as powerless about what Putin is doing as we are.
The fact is, we stood by and let him invade and pulverise an entire nation. Slowly and inexorably that is what he is doing. Biden and NATO refused to pitch in because they were too scared of Putin's nuclear threats. Perhaps justifiably, but we've let him get away with it.
We all want this to be another Afghanistan. I fear we are deluding ourselves.
When you say "we", I don't think you're including yourself.
So perhaps you should be a little more precise in your language and say "you".
It would be a little more honest, no?
'We' meaning the west, not pb.com per se.
I think we in the west have been trying to convince ourselves that we're doing as much as we possibly can (we aren't), that we're united (we aren't) and that there's nothing further we can do without risking nuclear war (not true).
The reality is that we are ignoring Zelensky's pleas for a No Fly Zone and we're letting an entire country get pulverised.
You started here with some views on Covid cases and hospitalisations in Israel which turned out not to be - how to put this - entirely accurate. Then moved on to a story about BA pilots, which turned out to be... ah yes... not entirely accurate.
And now you're onto "oh yes, I'm on your side, one of *you*, and I know it's hard to accept, but it would be better for all of us if the Ukrainians just accepted the inevitable and laid down their arms... after all, what chance do they stand?"
It is a little tricky to take you seriously, and for that I apologise.
At least she’s a better class of Russian provocateur. PB should feel flattered
The faux reasonableness is very, very well done though.
I think, and I do mean this, you should take a look at yourself if you are 'really' going down that route because it's a very, very, dark place to go.
If you start to think that anyone with whom you disagree displays the signs of being something other than sincere, a phantasm, a spectre, who is merely 'faux' reasonable then you are disappearing into a rabbit hole void the end result of which is a dystopian nightmare of narcissistic individualism.
I don't agree with everything you post but I don't stoop to question your sincerity.
It's a strange phenomenon on PB, noted also by @Dura_Ace and @YBarddCwsc yesterday. Normally very thoughtful, enquiring minds have fallen into line over a preferred stance on Russia/Ukraine. Any deviation from that stance is met with disproportionate hostility.
Perhaps it stems from a sense of frustration at our powerlessness. Change your profile picture to the Ukrainian flag and shout down those who don't agree with the chosen line on Ukraine (Russia doing dreadfully, imminent collapse of their war effort, dissent maybe even revolution at home, etc).
It really is quite strange.
It's OK to have a dissenting opinion.
But it's also a little suspicious when you have a dissenting opinion, have a record of spreading falsehoods (about BA pilots and vaccines, for example), and have an IP address that's listed in the blacklists.
Absolutely and it's your site so them's the rules. Perhaps it is a mark of the sophistication of spammers that @Heathener's posts seem to me to be genuine and I could point to other posters who are equally contentious for many on PB, not to say equally provocative.
P Johnson and d-d were laughably obvious, but Heathener less so.
I thought she was stupid, but harmless. Guess she's gone now.
I'm surprised people bought the "she" line. Had "her" pegged as a late middle-aged man, probably an academic, did alright in the Soviet era, never really adjusted to the new kleptocracy - but was a patriotic Great Russian doing their bit in the war...
I’m just relieved that Heathener only did three years in intelligence - not sure we need intelligence officers who looked at the Russian build up on the border and said “it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s a penguin”….
IanB2. Actually I did provide the explanation. I have to protect someone who is close inside Westminster. If I reveal my hand they could be in trouble. You seem to have really got it in for me ever since I didn't tow your left-of-centre line when I thought we should stand up to Putin.
MM. That's just such an obnoxious thing to post. Incredibly rude and typical of what Topping referred to. Some people have become so myopic and angry that they instantaneously jump on anyone who deviates from their kosher line. It's really quite disturbing, I should I say that you are. And why on earth would I know about London Bridge? I find the idea of predicating the death of the Queen really distasteful.
The idea that I'm a Putin apologist is an absolute sick joke. I loathe the man and think we should be standing up to him militarily, unlike the wimps on the right here who don't have the balls they seem to think with.
Regarding Israel data I've not got the slightest idea what this refers to. I've been right about covid, stating to much derision for example that I could see cases rising above 100,000 (they're currently around 225,000 a day by the way). We are still in a covid pandemic, it is still globally serious and I think Johnson's government are being incredibly slack about it - mainly driven by right wing headbangers who are intent on freedom at all costs.
You know, it's okay to disagree with someone about one thing and park it, move on and still see the good in other things they write. Try it.
“ Clausewitz describes the "culminating point" as when an attacking force hits strong resistance, runs out of energy, and can no longer continue. Russia is running out of manpower, asking Syria to send troops. Sanctions are working. Russia may culminate in 10-14 days if we press.”
So what happens then ?
Who knows?
But who knows what happens if we withdraw all help from Ukraine, and Russia rolls over them and gets a nice, compliant pro-Russian government in Kiev?
In my mind it's quite simple: it is right versus wrong, good versus evil. The evil is easy to identify: Putin and his cronies. They are the ones who have invaded another country; they are the ones who are killing innocent civilians. They are the ones threatening smaller democracies with invasion. They are the ones who are threatening the world with chemical weapons, or nuclear oblivion.
Those on the side of evil talk about how it is our fault, how we caused this mess, rather than concentrate their ire on the evil.
We have to be on the side of good. And that means supporting Ukraine.
Which we are doing.
The time to think about the causes of this is after the mess is over - and I think many of their arguments are bogus anyway, purposeful distractions away from evil.
The final clause is the sort of thing we should avoid writing. I don't know people who are 'purposefully' distracting away from evil, at least not on here. I don't frequent other political or social media sites.
The reason why the causes are pertinent is that they are also so relevant to both the present and the future.
We were powerless to stop Putin because we are powerless to stop Putin and we will be powerless to stop Putin. We are so frit of him, of the nuclear threat, that we're not prepared to stand up and defend Ukraine with the only language Putin will pay attention to: military force.
Biden is a wet blanket. His ghastly withdrawal from Afghanistan, aided and abetted by Johnson, greenlit Putin's invasion of Ukraine and has shown Putin that NATO is not going to stand up and defend them.
And, yes, Putin and his invasion are utterly evil.
I utterly disagree. In other places, the 'we caused tis by x, y and z' are being used as distractions away from the Russian's folly. Whenever anyone criticises Russia, the voices cry that it is 'our' fault.
"Russians are doing these things." "Remember that we guaranteed we would not expand NATO eastwards, and Ukraine is filled with Nazis. Besides, we 'poked' them into it."
It is classic maskirovka, performed by either knowing or unknowing fools.
The Russian government is not the victims in this. They are the aggressor, the bully. The victims are the Ukrainian people and, to a lesser extent, the Russian people.
If we see what is happening as akin to rape, then these people are saying that Ukraine should not have been wearing such a short skirt.
Twitter is full of such comments.
Twitter is part of the poison that has got us to the place of Russia invading Ukraine. .
I read your posts on here with interest (Chris, again, take note). I've seen Greta Thurnberg blamed on here for starting the Ukraine war but now Twitter is responsible for it? It's an interesting thesis but I'm not on twitter so I wouldn't know.
I think if we believe in democracy it's really important that we continue to debate in as friendly a way as possible, even when profoundly disagreeing with someone's perspective or suggestion. I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. That's a shame because this is a decent site and the only one I frequent. When someone is rude to me I tend to disappear as I have better things to do than be insulted by someone from the comfort of their chair whom I've never met.
So keep playing the ball, folks. Not the man or woman.
". I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. "
You weren't here in 2016. Or 2017. Or 2014. Or 2019. Or 2020. In fact, it's pretty much always been like this...
I'd argue PB is a rather decorous place compared to the Internet in general, especially as politics is being discussed. It's also more informative than most places.
There are more women than ever before, but still by no means enough.
It's not exactly a welcoming place for women tbh.
There's far too much male aggression and downright rudeness, a failure to debate issues and always a tendency to attack the person.
This place is like being on a rugby field of 30 men. And not in a pleasant fantasy way
I shall be off for a bit. The personal rudeness is tiresome and I have a life outside that feels a lot more wholesome.
Odd that you were challenged specifically on your IP address, and have dodged providing any sort of response?
By Robert?
Has anyone else ever been "challenged specifically on [their] IP address"?
Robert seems to check them quite often. I remember being 'checked' when I was claiming to be posting from Sioux Falls. Which I was.
The point is that someone has been challenged, and hasn't responded in any of the normal ways that a regular poster would (which might include some righteous indignation at being checked and assertions of being simply at home/at work as usual), but instead responded by dodging the issue with some bluster and then swiftly disappearing. Hardly reassuring.
Robert has no reason to risk his credibility by making up false information about the IP address, so either there's an innocent explanation or mistake, or there isn't.
What gets me with Heathener is that her posts are so repetitive and tiresome and then she wonders why people in the surrounding conversation sometimes seem a little irritated.
I actually have a Python script that runs once a week (and which I occasionally manually run). Most of the time it comes back with no hits, but since the Ukraine invasion, it has chirped on a couple of occasions.
Do pythons chirp? If so, do they do it to a script?
I had them down as having a long squawk. Beautiful plumage.....
I think the Lebedev thing is awful but I'm even more concerned by the way Boris Johnson shares with Putin the attempt to alter the reality of truth. It's not just lying, it's attempting entirely to re-write a narrative, a zeitgeist, into something that is utterly at variance with the actual truth. Putin does it all the time but so does Johnson. Cummings was another shit who was up to it.
Some of you may dislike the comparison of Putin with Johnson but this is deeply disturbing. I genuinely fear for our democracy because a lot of people get taken in by it.
I think, post war, we will need to face up to the weaknesses of our own political system. The shameless lies from various politicians has absolutely created a fog of misinformation. The process of calling out Trump, Johnson, Farage, Le Pen, Salmond and many others needs to be carried through, and those who have served Putin, in whatever capacity, need to be removed from the political process entirely and where appropriate to face criminal trial.
While I appreciate your comment, I'm not banning people just for being Putin puppets.
What about banning people who post articles that PB deems Russian propaganda?
Here's another one. Again, gives a perspective that many won't like on here, not fitting the PB Russian military disaster narrative as it doesn't.
I'm afraid I really do think a lot of the back-slapping about how well we are doing is delusional borne of a need not to feel as powerless about what Putin is doing as we are.
The fact is, we stood by and let him invade and pulverise an entire nation. Slowly and inexorably that is what he is doing. Biden and NATO refused to pitch in because they were too scared of Putin's nuclear threats. Perhaps justifiably, but we've let him get away with it.
We all want this to be another Afghanistan. I fear we are deluding ourselves.
When you say "we", I don't think you're including yourself.
So perhaps you should be a little more precise in your language and say "you".
It would be a little more honest, no?
'We' meaning the west, not pb.com per se.
I think we in the west have been trying to convince ourselves that we're doing as much as we possibly can (we aren't), that we're united (we aren't) and that there's nothing further we can do without risking nuclear war (not true).
The reality is that we are ignoring Zelensky's pleas for a No Fly Zone and we're letting an entire country get pulverised.
You started here with some views on Covid cases and hospitalisations in Israel which turned out not to be - how to put this - entirely accurate. Then moved on to a story about BA pilots, which turned out to be... ah yes... not entirely accurate.
And now you're onto "oh yes, I'm on your side, one of *you*, and I know it's hard to accept, but it would be better for all of us if the Ukrainians just accepted the inevitable and laid down their arms... after all, what chance do they stand?"
It is a little tricky to take you seriously, and for that I apologise.
At least she’s a better class of Russian provocateur. PB should feel flattered
The faux reasonableness is very, very well done though.
I think, and I do mean this, you should take a look at yourself if you are 'really' going down that route because it's a very, very, dark place to go.
If you start to think that anyone with whom you disagree displays the signs of being something other than sincere, a phantasm, a spectre, who is merely 'faux' reasonable then you are disappearing into a rabbit hole void the end result of which is a dystopian nightmare of narcissistic individualism.
I don't agree with everything you post but I don't stoop to question your sincerity.
It's a strange phenomenon on PB, noted also by @Dura_Ace and @YBarddCwsc yesterday. Normally very thoughtful, enquiring minds have fallen into line over a preferred stance on Russia/Ukraine. Any deviation from that stance is met with disproportionate hostility.
Perhaps it stems from a sense of frustration at our powerlessness. Change your profile picture to the Ukrainian flag and shout down those who don't agree with the chosen line on Ukraine (Russia doing dreadfully, imminent collapse of their war effort, dissent maybe even revolution at home, etc).
It really is quite strange.
It's OK to have a dissenting opinion.
But it's also a little suspicious when you have a dissenting opinion, have a record of spreading falsehoods (about BA pilots and vaccines, for example), and have an IP address that's listed in the blacklists.
Absolutely and it's your site so them's the rules. Perhaps it is a mark of the sophistication of spammers that @Heathener's posts seem to me to be genuine and I could point to other posters who are equally contentious for many on PB, not to say equally provocative.
P Johnson and d-d were laughably obvious, but Heathener less so.
I thought she was stupid, but harmless. Guess she's gone now.
Thing is, we are, ahem, all grown up able to think for ourselves types on here. If they are super crass like @PJohnson was with lots of "mate"s and very bad at the spamming thing then fair enough - they clog up the site and take up bandwidth.
But from what I have read of @Heathener's posts (until recently one a day in the morning saying that's it I'm off) they have an opinion. I hadn't recalled the BA pilots or vaccines ones but even if it is the most egregious perceived rubbish then what harm does it do to respond to the points raised.
What's the difference between engaging with someone who genuinely believes, for example and I'm not saying this is her position, that Putin is entirely justified in his current actions, and engaging with a bot who says the same thing. It is the issue that is of interest. Somewhere there is someone who supports Putin - there are reports that say much of the Russian population, for example - so why not ignore the IP address and just discuss the issue.
You can't win with her because if you do address the issue - and several do - you get It's all getting argumentative here, and a flounce.
Russia flattening the Antonov works today looks more like economic vandalism ahead of a forced-by-reality ceasefire, than it does any great military targeting.
One of the problems the west has in air campaigns is literally running out of targets. You can see it in Kosovo and Libya in particular. The western solution is to step back and try to find some more military targets, and run more patrols looking for targets of opportunity. The Russian solution might be to strike any vaguely relevant target. Also, Russia not having a well deceloped target list may be part of the answer to why we haven’t seen so much of its airforce. Just a theory.
Massive and indiscriminate destruction has been Russian military strategy since WWII.
I think the Lebedev thing is awful but I'm even more concerned by the way Boris Johnson shares with Putin the attempt to alter the reality of truth. It's not just lying, it's attempting entirely to re-write a narrative, a zeitgeist, into something that is utterly at variance with the actual truth. Putin does it all the time but so does Johnson. Cummings was another shit who was up to it.
Some of you may dislike the comparison of Putin with Johnson but this is deeply disturbing. I genuinely fear for our democracy because a lot of people get taken in by it.
Both are post-truth politicians. But in Putin's case, he has perhaps run in to the limits of what is possible. You can't fake an invasion of another country with tens of thousands of conscripts dying, hyperinflation, banks closing down, Shops closing, etc. There comes a point where you no longer control the agenda and a form of reality intervenes.
Putin should have stuck with the old tactics of plausible deniability and fake institutions that fooled people and useful idiots could get behind. It could have run on and on for decades, generations even.
Putin could probably have bled Ukraine dry if he'd funded opposition groups, bribed politicians, and continued to arm the separatists. Maybe a few Russian troops could have grabbed 20 miles here or there...
Instead he went for invasion. And succeeded in uniting the decadent West.
According to Bellingcat, the people in the FSB who were supposed to be bribing Ukrainian politicians have been stealing the money for themselves...
‘Twas every thus in intelligence Ops. See half the German agents in WW2. Always a risk trusting someone with money to pass on to a third party you’ll never see or meet.
p.s. And yes I did work in intelligence but as I made clear, it was an awfully long time ago. I am beyond rusty and long ago moved on from it. But it did at least give me the insight that we always overestimate the capabilities of Russian hardware (a running joke I called it) and that 200,000 troops was not sufficient to guarantee a successful invasion. Right on both counts, as it turned out.
I'm afraid I really do think a lot of the back-slapping about how well we are doing is delusional borne of a need not to feel as powerless about what Putin is doing as we are.
The fact is, we stood by and let him invade and pulverise an entire nation. Slowly and inexorably that is what he is doing. Biden and NATO refused to pitch in because they were too scared of Putin's nuclear threats. Perhaps justifiably, but we've let him get away with it.
We all want this to be another Afghanistan. I fear we are deluding ourselves.
When you say "we", I don't think you're including yourself.
So perhaps you should be a little more precise in your language and say "you".
It would be a little more honest, no?
'We' meaning the west, not pb.com per se.
I think we in the west have been trying to convince ourselves that we're doing as much as we possibly can (we aren't), that we're united (we aren't) and that there's nothing further we can do without risking nuclear war (not true).
The reality is that we are ignoring Zelensky's pleas for a No Fly Zone and we're letting an entire country get pulverised.
You started here with some views on Covid cases and hospitalisations in Israel which turned out not to be - how to put this - entirely accurate. Then moved on to a story about BA pilots, which turned out to be... ah yes... not entirely accurate.
And now you're onto "oh yes, I'm on your side, one of *you*, and I know it's hard to accept, but it would be better for all of us if the Ukrainians just accepted the inevitable and laid down their arms... after all, what chance do they stand?"
It is a little tricky to take you seriously, and for that I apologise.
At least she’s a better class of Russian provocateur. PB should feel flattered
The faux reasonableness is very, very well done though.
I think, and I do mean this, you should take a look at yourself if you are 'really' going down that route because it's a very, very, dark place to go.
If you start to think that anyone with whom you disagree displays the signs of being something other than sincere, a phantasm, a spectre, who is merely 'faux' reasonable then you are disappearing into a rabbit hole void the end result of which is a dystopian nightmare of narcissistic individualism.
I don't agree with everything you post but I don't stoop to question your sincerity.
It's a strange phenomenon on PB, noted also by @Dura_Ace and @YBarddCwsc yesterday. Normally very thoughtful, enquiring minds have fallen into line over a preferred stance on Russia/Ukraine. Any deviation from that stance is met with disproportionate hostility.
Perhaps it stems from a sense of frustration at our powerlessness. Change your profile picture to the Ukrainian flag and shout down those who don't agree with the chosen line on Ukraine (Russia doing dreadfully, imminent collapse of their war effort, dissent maybe even revolution at home, etc).
It really is quite strange.
It's OK to have a dissenting opinion.
But it's also a little suspicious when you have a dissenting opinion, have a record of spreading falsehoods (about BA pilots and vaccines, for example), and have an IP address that's listed in the blacklists.
Absolutely and it's your site so them's the rules. Perhaps it is a mark of the sophistication of spammers that @Heathener's posts seem to me to be genuine and I could point to other posters who are equally contentious for many on PB, not to say equally provocative.
P Johnson and d-d were laughably obvious, but Heathener less so.
I thought she was stupid, but harmless. Guess she's gone now.
I'm surprised people bought the "she" line. Had "her" pegged as a late middle-aged man, probably an academic, did alright in the Soviet era, never really adjusted to the new kleptocracy - but was a patriotic Great Russian doing their bit in the war...
Interesting you say that. Here is some analysis which says that many Russians sympathise with Putin. So let's imagine our friend @Heathener is one of these. Why does that make him/her a troll. It is putting forward a POV which we should discuss, no?
Day 1 of working in a Windows environment (after 18 months in Chrome OS). Stuff like the way fonts display, menu systems etc all annoying me. Will get used to it, but all looks *wrong*.
Will also have to see how the real battery life of my Surface Pro 8 holds up. As a device it is a fabulous bit of kit. Lightweight, ultraportable, powerful. 3:2 touchscreen was a must (having become completely won over by that form factor on my Acer Chriomebook) and its just a nice piece of kit.
Just unsure if the battery is as all-day as claimed - early bits of work have got spells where it barely drops and others where it does quite a bit. Will spend a lot of time docked so perhaps less of an issue, and I have a big powerbank in my laptop bag anyway.
A lot of faffage already with Windows, and to be fair W11 is better all round even than W10 from what I can see. But still not a sleek operation the way Chrome OS and Mac OS are.
I think the Lebedev thing is awful but I'm even more concerned by the way Boris Johnson shares with Putin the attempt to alter the reality of truth. It's not just lying, it's attempting entirely to re-write a narrative, a zeitgeist, into something that is utterly at variance with the actual truth. Putin does it all the time but so does Johnson. Cummings was another shit who was up to it.
Some of you may dislike the comparison of Putin with Johnson but this is deeply disturbing. I genuinely fear for our democracy because a lot of people get taken in by it.
I think, post war, we will need to face up to the weaknesses of our own political system. The shameless lies from various politicians has absolutely created a fog of misinformation. The process of calling out Trump, Johnson, Farage, Le Pen, Salmond and many others needs to be carried through, and those who have served Putin, in whatever capacity, need to be removed from the political process entirely and where appropriate to face criminal trial.
While I appreciate your comment, I'm not banning people just for being Putin puppets.
What about banning people who post articles that PB deems Russian propaganda?
Here's another one. Again, gives a perspective that many won't like on here, not fitting the PB Russian military disaster narrative as it doesn't.
I'm afraid I really do think a lot of the back-slapping about how well we are doing is delusional borne of a need not to feel as powerless about what Putin is doing as we are.
The fact is, we stood by and let him invade and pulverise an entire nation. Slowly and inexorably that is what he is doing. Biden and NATO refused to pitch in because they were too scared of Putin's nuclear threats. Perhaps justifiably, but we've let him get away with it.
We all want this to be another Afghanistan. I fear we are deluding ourselves.
When you say "we", I don't think you're including yourself.
So perhaps you should be a little more precise in your language and say "you".
It would be a little more honest, no?
'We' meaning the west, not pb.com per se.
I think we in the west have been trying to convince ourselves that we're doing as much as we possibly can (we aren't), that we're united (we aren't) and that there's nothing further we can do without risking nuclear war (not true).
The reality is that we are ignoring Zelensky's pleas for a No Fly Zone and we're letting an entire country get pulverised.
You started here with some views on Covid cases and hospitalisations in Israel which turned out not to be - how to put this - entirely accurate. Then moved on to a story about BA pilots, which turned out to be... ah yes... not entirely accurate.
And now you're onto "oh yes, I'm on your side, one of *you*, and I know it's hard to accept, but it would be better for all of us if the Ukrainians just accepted the inevitable and laid down their arms... after all, what chance do they stand?"
It is a little tricky to take you seriously, and for that I apologise.
At least she’s a better class of Russian provocateur. PB should feel flattered
The faux reasonableness is very, very well done though.
I think, and I do mean this, you should take a look at yourself if you are 'really' going down that route because it's a very, very, dark place to go.
If you start to think that anyone with whom you disagree displays the signs of being something other than sincere, a phantasm, a spectre, who is merely 'faux' reasonable then you are disappearing into a rabbit hole void the end result of which is a dystopian nightmare of narcissistic individualism.
I don't agree with everything you post but I don't stoop to question your sincerity.
It's a strange phenomenon on PB, noted also by @Dura_Ace and @YBarddCwsc yesterday. Normally very thoughtful, enquiring minds have fallen into line over a preferred stance on Russia/Ukraine. Any deviation from that stance is met with disproportionate hostility.
Perhaps it stems from a sense of frustration at our powerlessness. Change your profile picture to the Ukrainian flag and shout down those who don't agree with the chosen line on Ukraine (Russia doing dreadfully, imminent collapse of their war effort, dissent maybe even revolution at home, etc).
It really is quite strange.
It's OK to have a dissenting opinion.
But it's also a little suspicious when you have a dissenting opinion, have a record of spreading falsehoods (about BA pilots and vaccines, for example), and have an IP address that's listed in the blacklists.
Absolutely and it's your site so them's the rules. Perhaps it is a mark of the sophistication of spammers that @Heathener's posts seem to me to be genuine and I could point to other posters who are equally contentious for many on PB, not to say equally provocative.
P Johnson and d-d were laughably obvious, but Heathener less so.
I thought she was stupid, but harmless. Guess she's gone now.
I'm surprised people bought the "she" line. Had "her" pegged as a late middle-aged man, probably an academic, did alright in the Soviet era, never really adjusted to the new kleptocracy - but was a patriotic Great Russian doing their bit in the war...
Interesting you say that. Here is some analysis which says that many Russians sympathise with Putin. So let's imagine our friend @Heathener is one of these. Why does that make him/her a troll. It is putting forward a POV which we should discuss, no?
This is MM at his mendacious worst, borne of the idea that anyone who disagrees with him and offers alternative perspectives on the world must be a 'red under the bed'.
IanB2. Actually I did provide the explanation. I have to protect someone who is close inside Westminster. If I reveal my hand they could be in trouble. You seem to have really got it in for me ever since I didn't tow your left-of-centre line when I thought we should stand up to Putin.
MM. That's just such an obnoxious thing to post. Incredibly rude and typical of what Topping referred to. Some people have become so myopic and angry that they instantaneously jump on anyone who deviates from their kosher line. It's really quite disturbing, I should I say that you are. And why on earth would I know about London Bridge? I find the idea of predicating the death of the Queen really distasteful.
The idea that I'm a Putin apologist is an absolute sick joke. I loathe the man and think we should be standing up to him militarily, unlike the wimps on the right here who don't have the balls they seem to think with.
Regarding Israel data I've not got the slightest idea what this refers to. I've been right about covid, stating to much derision for example that I could see cases rising above 100,000 (they're currently around 225,000 a day by the way). We are still in a covid pandemic, it is still globally serious and I think Johnson's government are being incredibly slack about it - mainly driven by right wing headbangers who are intent on freedom at all costs.
You know, it's okay to disagree with someone about one thing and park it, move on and still see the good in other things they write. Try it.
We will be in a Covid pandemic forever, it is not going away and will be here ever winter particularly like winter flu.
Just now the vaccinations have drastically reduced the hospitalisation rate from it, the government has taken the decision to live with it rather than destroy the hospitality, entertainment and travel industries in particular with further restrictions
I'm afraid I really do think a lot of the back-slapping about how well we are doing is delusional borne of a need not to feel as powerless about what Putin is doing as we are.
The fact is, we stood by and let him invade and pulverise an entire nation. Slowly and inexorably that is what he is doing. Biden and NATO refused to pitch in because they were too scared of Putin's nuclear threats. Perhaps justifiably, but we've let him get away with it.
We all want this to be another Afghanistan. I fear we are deluding ourselves.
When you say "we", I don't think you're including yourself.
So perhaps you should be a little more precise in your language and say "you".
It would be a little more honest, no?
'We' meaning the west, not pb.com per se.
I think we in the west have been trying to convince ourselves that we're doing as much as we possibly can (we aren't), that we're united (we aren't) and that there's nothing further we can do without risking nuclear war (not true).
The reality is that we are ignoring Zelensky's pleas for a No Fly Zone and we're letting an entire country get pulverised.
You started here with some views on Covid cases and hospitalisations in Israel which turned out not to be - how to put this - entirely accurate. Then moved on to a story about BA pilots, which turned out to be... ah yes... not entirely accurate.
And now you're onto "oh yes, I'm on your side, one of *you*, and I know it's hard to accept, but it would be better for all of us if the Ukrainians just accepted the inevitable and laid down their arms... after all, what chance do they stand?"
It is a little tricky to take you seriously, and for that I apologise.
At least she’s a better class of Russian provocateur. PB should feel flattered
The faux reasonableness is very, very well done though.
I think, and I do mean this, you should take a look at yourself if you are 'really' going down that route because it's a very, very, dark place to go.
If you start to think that anyone with whom you disagree displays the signs of being something other than sincere, a phantasm, a spectre, who is merely 'faux' reasonable then you are disappearing into a rabbit hole void the end result of which is a dystopian nightmare of narcissistic individualism.
I don't agree with everything you post but I don't stoop to question your sincerity.
It's a strange phenomenon on PB, noted also by @Dura_Ace and @YBarddCwsc yesterday. Normally very thoughtful, enquiring minds have fallen into line over a preferred stance on Russia/Ukraine. Any deviation from that stance is met with disproportionate hostility.
Perhaps it stems from a sense of frustration at our powerlessness. Change your profile picture to the Ukrainian flag and shout down those who don't agree with the chosen line on Ukraine (Russia doing dreadfully, imminent collapse of their war effort, dissent maybe even revolution at home, etc).
It really is quite strange.
It's OK to have a dissenting opinion.
But it's also a little suspicious when you have a dissenting opinion, have a record of spreading falsehoods (about BA pilots and vaccines, for example), and have an IP address that's listed in the blacklists.
Absolutely and it's your site so them's the rules. Perhaps it is a mark of the sophistication of spammers that @Heathener's posts seem to me to be genuine and I could point to other posters who are equally contentious for many on PB, not to say equally provocative.
P Johnson and d-d were laughably obvious, but Heathener less so.
I thought she was stupid, but harmless. Guess she's gone now.
Thing is, we are, ahem, all grown up able to think for ourselves types on here. If they are super crass like @PJohnson was with lots of "mate"s and very bad at the spamming thing then fair enough - they clog up the site and take up bandwidth.
But from what I have read of @Heathener's posts (until recently one a day in the morning saying that's it I'm off) they have an opinion. I hadn't recalled the BA pilots or vaccines ones but even if it is the most egregious perceived rubbish then what harm does it do to respond to the points raised.
What's the difference between engaging with someone who genuinely believes, for example and I'm not saying this is her position, that Putin is entirely justified in his current actions, and engaging with a bot who says the same thing. It is the issue that is of interest. Somewhere there is someone who supports Putin - there are reports that say much of the Russian population, for example - so why not ignore the IP address and just discuss the issue.
You can't win with her because if you do address the issue - and several do - you get It's all getting argumentative here, and a flounce.
I'm afraid I really do think a lot of the back-slapping about how well we are doing is delusional borne of a need not to feel as powerless about what Putin is doing as we are.
The fact is, we stood by and let him invade and pulverise an entire nation. Slowly and inexorably that is what he is doing. Biden and NATO refused to pitch in because they were too scared of Putin's nuclear threats. Perhaps justifiably, but we've let him get away with it.
We all want this to be another Afghanistan. I fear we are deluding ourselves.
When you say "we", I don't think you're including yourself.
So perhaps you should be a little more precise in your language and say "you".
It would be a little more honest, no?
'We' meaning the west, not pb.com per se.
I think we in the west have been trying to convince ourselves that we're doing as much as we possibly can (we aren't), that we're united (we aren't) and that there's nothing further we can do without risking nuclear war (not true).
The reality is that we are ignoring Zelensky's pleas for a No Fly Zone and we're letting an entire country get pulverised.
You started here with some views on Covid cases and hospitalisations in Israel which turned out not to be - how to put this - entirely accurate. Then moved on to a story about BA pilots, which turned out to be... ah yes... not entirely accurate.
And now you're onto "oh yes, I'm on your side, one of *you*, and I know it's hard to accept, but it would be better for all of us if the Ukrainians just accepted the inevitable and laid down their arms... after all, what chance do they stand?"
It is a little tricky to take you seriously, and for that I apologise.
At least she’s a better class of Russian provocateur. PB should feel flattered
The faux reasonableness is very, very well done though.
I think, and I do mean this, you should take a look at yourself if you are 'really' going down that route because it's a very, very, dark place to go.
If you start to think that anyone with whom you disagree displays the signs of being something other than sincere, a phantasm, a spectre, who is merely 'faux' reasonable then you are disappearing into a rabbit hole void the end result of which is a dystopian nightmare of narcissistic individualism.
I don't agree with everything you post but I don't stoop to question your sincerity.
It's a strange phenomenon on PB, noted also by @Dura_Ace and @YBarddCwsc yesterday. Normally very thoughtful, enquiring minds have fallen into line over a preferred stance on Russia/Ukraine. Any deviation from that stance is met with disproportionate hostility.
Perhaps it stems from a sense of frustration at our powerlessness. Change your profile picture to the Ukrainian flag and shout down those who don't agree with the chosen line on Ukraine (Russia doing dreadfully, imminent collapse of their war effort, dissent maybe even revolution at home, etc).
It really is quite strange.
It's OK to have a dissenting opinion.
But it's also a little suspicious when you have a dissenting opinion, have a record of spreading falsehoods (about BA pilots and vaccines, for example), and have an IP address that's listed in the blacklists.
Absolutely and it's your site so them's the rules. Perhaps it is a mark of the sophistication of spammers that @Heathener's posts seem to me to be genuine and I could point to other posters who are equally contentious for many on PB, not to say equally provocative.
P Johnson and d-d were laughably obvious, but Heathener less so.
I thought she was stupid, but harmless. Guess she's gone now.
I'm surprised people bought the "she" line. Had "her" pegged as a late middle-aged man, probably an academic, did alright in the Soviet era, never really adjusted to the new kleptocracy - but was a patriotic Great Russian doing their bit in the war...
Interesting you say that. Here is some analysis which says that many Russians sympathise with Putin. So let's imagine our friend @Heathener is one of these. Why does that make him/her a troll. It is putting forward a POV which we should discuss, no?
This is MM at his mendacious worst, borne of the idea that anyone who disagrees with him and offers alternative perspectives on the world must be a 'red under the bed'.
McCarthyism hits pb.com
Yes apologies I see from your posts your view on Putin.
I’m confused. Why would a Green not want to increase sustainable, local food production and reduce food miles? Honest question - I can’t imagine the objection.
F1: intriguing. Verstappen now favourite for the first race win, but Hamilton remains favourite for the title.
Punters abandon their beliefs reluctantly. Mercedes and Hamilton were massive favourites for both titles pre-testing, which, given the considerably more level financial playing field, and the new regulations meaning new car designs from the ground up, didn't seem logical. Mercedes probably have a decent chance of turning things around, but as of now I'd make Verstappen favourite.
IanB2. Actually I did provide the explanation. I have to protect someone who is close inside Westminster. If I reveal my hand they could be in trouble. You seem to have really got it in for me ever since I didn't tow your left-of-centre line when I thought we should stand up to Putin.
MM. That's just such an obnoxious thing to post. Incredibly rude and typical of what Topping referred to. Some people have become so myopic and angry that they instantaneously jump on anyone who deviates from their kosher line. It's really quite disturbing, I should I say that you are. And why on earth would I know about London Bridge? I find the idea of predicating the death of the Queen really distasteful.
The idea that I'm a Putin apologist is an absolute sick joke. I loathe the man and think we should be standing up to him militarily, unlike the wimps on the right here who don't have the balls they seem to think with.
Regarding Israel data I've not got the slightest idea what this refers to. I've been right about covid, stating to much derision for example that I could see cases rising above 100,000 (they're currently around 225,000 a day by the way). We are still in a covid pandemic, it is still globally serious and I think Johnson's government are being incredibly slack about it - mainly driven by right wing headbangers who are intent on freedom at all costs.
You know, it's okay to disagree with someone about one thing and park it, move on and still see the good in other things they write. Try it.
You keep on saying you are off and try to police opinions or reactions you do not like
Maybe you need to understand you are not the arbiter of opinion on here and if you do not like it then you know what to do
IanB2. Actually I did provide the explanation. I have to protect someone who is close inside Westminster. If I reveal my hand they could be in trouble. You seem to have really got it in for me ever since I didn't tow your left-of-centre line when I thought we should stand up to Putin.
MM. That's just such an obnoxious thing to post. Incredibly rude and typical of what Topping referred to. Some people have become so myopic and angry that they instantaneously jump on anyone who deviates from their kosher line. It's really quite disturbing, I should I say that you are. And why on earth would I know about London Bridge? I find the idea of predicating the death of the Queen really distasteful.
The idea that I'm a Putin apologist is an absolute sick joke. I loathe the man and think we should be standing up to him militarily, unlike the wimps on the right here who don't have the balls they seem to think with.
Regarding Israel data I've not got the slightest idea what this refers to. I've been right about covid, stating to much derision for example that I could see cases rising above 100,000 (they're currently around 225,000 a day by the way). We are still in a covid pandemic, it is still globally serious and I think Johnson's government are being incredibly slack about it - mainly driven by right wing headbangers who are intent on freedom at all costs.
You know, it's okay to disagree with someone about one thing and park it, move on and still see the good in other things they write. Try it.
The mystery for me is how you square your muscular pro-NFZ stance and the regular beatings you administer to those without masks, with your professed belief in Buddhism with its emphasis on non-violence?
“ Clausewitz describes the "culminating point" as when an attacking force hits strong resistance, runs out of energy, and can no longer continue. Russia is running out of manpower, asking Syria to send troops. Sanctions are working. Russia may culminate in 10-14 days if we press.”
So what happens then ?
Who knows?
But who knows what happens if we withdraw all help from Ukraine, and Russia rolls over them and gets a nice, compliant pro-Russian government in Kiev?
In my mind it's quite simple: it is right versus wrong, good versus evil. The evil is easy to identify: Putin and his cronies. They are the ones who have invaded another country; they are the ones who are killing innocent civilians. They are the ones threatening smaller democracies with invasion. They are the ones who are threatening the world with chemical weapons, or nuclear oblivion.
Those on the side of evil talk about how it is our fault, how we caused this mess, rather than concentrate their ire on the evil.
We have to be on the side of good. And that means supporting Ukraine.
Which we are doing.
The time to think about the causes of this is after the mess is over - and I think many of their arguments are bogus anyway, purposeful distractions away from evil.
The final clause is the sort of thing we should avoid writing. I don't know people who are 'purposefully' distracting away from evil, at least not on here. I don't frequent other political or social media sites.
The reason why the causes are pertinent is that they are also so relevant to both the present and the future.
We were powerless to stop Putin because we are powerless to stop Putin and we will be powerless to stop Putin. We are so frit of him, of the nuclear threat, that we're not prepared to stand up and defend Ukraine with the only language Putin will pay attention to: military force.
Biden is a wet blanket. His ghastly withdrawal from Afghanistan, aided and abetted by Johnson, greenlit Putin's invasion of Ukraine and has shown Putin that NATO is not going to stand up and defend them.
And, yes, Putin and his invasion are utterly evil.
I utterly disagree. In other places, the 'we caused tis by x, y and z' are being used as distractions away from the Russian's folly. Whenever anyone criticises Russia, the voices cry that it is 'our' fault.
"Russians are doing these things." "Remember that we guaranteed we would not expand NATO eastwards, and Ukraine is filled with Nazis. Besides, we 'poked' them into it."
It is classic maskirovka, performed by either knowing or unknowing fools.
The Russian government is not the victims in this. They are the aggressor, the bully. The victims are the Ukrainian people and, to a lesser extent, the Russian people.
If we see what is happening as akin to rape, then these people are saying that Ukraine should not have been wearing such a short skirt.
Twitter is full of such comments.
Twitter is part of the poison that has got us to the place of Russia invading Ukraine. .
I read your posts on here with interest (Chris, again, take note). I've seen Greta Thurnberg blamed on here for starting the Ukraine war but now Twitter is responsible for it? It's an interesting thesis but I'm not on twitter so I wouldn't know.
I think if we believe in democracy it's really important that we continue to debate in as friendly a way as possible, even when profoundly disagreeing with someone's perspective or suggestion. I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. That's a shame because this is a decent site and the only one I frequent. When someone is rude to me I tend to disappear as I have better things to do than be insulted by someone from the comfort of their chair whom I've never met.
So keep playing the ball, folks. Not the man or woman.
". I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. "
You weren't here in 2016. Or 2017. Or 2014. Or 2019. Or 2020. In fact, it's pretty much always been like this...
I'd argue PB is a rather decorous place compared to the Internet in general, especially as politics is being discussed. It's also more informative than most places.
There are more women than ever before, but still by no means enough.
It's not exactly a welcoming place for women tbh.
There's far too much male aggression and downright rudeness, a failure to debate issues and always a tendency to attack the person.
This place is like being on a rugby field of 30 men. And not in a pleasant fantasy way
I shall be off for a bit. The personal rudeness is tiresome and I have a life outside that feels a lot more wholesome.
There's nothing stopping women from posting as many comments as they like on here. The fact is women are always less interested in obsessive political commentary than men. On the VoteUK forum it's about 95% male even though every effort has been made to encourage more women to join and post comments.
No the pile-ons and aggression from, and I'll say it, gammons, is really really off-putting. That's to put it mildly.
The offensive attacks on me this morning just for daring to suggest we in the west are not winning this in Ukraine is really extraordinary. I'm far more with Zelensky than anyone on this site it would seem. Cowards most of you are.
And I've still no idea what the BA pilot thing is about and as no one has been able to explain I'll just presume it's the kind of faux news MM refers to.
“ Clausewitz describes the "culminating point" as when an attacking force hits strong resistance, runs out of energy, and can no longer continue. Russia is running out of manpower, asking Syria to send troops. Sanctions are working. Russia may culminate in 10-14 days if we press.”
So what happens then ?
Who knows?
But who knows what happens if we withdraw all help from Ukraine, and Russia rolls over them and gets a nice, compliant pro-Russian government in Kiev?
In my mind it's quite simple: it is right versus wrong, good versus evil. The evil is easy to identify: Putin and his cronies. They are the ones who have invaded another country; they are the ones who are killing innocent civilians. They are the ones threatening smaller democracies with invasion. They are the ones who are threatening the world with chemical weapons, or nuclear oblivion.
Those on the side of evil talk about how it is our fault, how we caused this mess, rather than concentrate their ire on the evil.
We have to be on the side of good. And that means supporting Ukraine.
Which we are doing.
The time to think about the causes of this is after the mess is over - and I think many of their arguments are bogus anyway, purposeful distractions away from evil.
The final clause is the sort of thing we should avoid writing. I don't know people who are 'purposefully' distracting away from evil, at least not on here. I don't frequent other political or social media sites.
The reason why the causes are pertinent is that they are also so relevant to both the present and the future.
We were powerless to stop Putin because we are powerless to stop Putin and we will be powerless to stop Putin. We are so frit of him, of the nuclear threat, that we're not prepared to stand up and defend Ukraine with the only language Putin will pay attention to: military force.
Biden is a wet blanket. His ghastly withdrawal from Afghanistan, aided and abetted by Johnson, greenlit Putin's invasion of Ukraine and has shown Putin that NATO is not going to stand up and defend them.
And, yes, Putin and his invasion are utterly evil.
I utterly disagree. In other places, the 'we caused tis by x, y and z' are being used as distractions away from the Russian's folly. Whenever anyone criticises Russia, the voices cry that it is 'our' fault.
"Russians are doing these things." "Remember that we guaranteed we would not expand NATO eastwards, and Ukraine is filled with Nazis. Besides, we 'poked' them into it."
It is classic maskirovka, performed by either knowing or unknowing fools.
The Russian government is not the victims in this. They are the aggressor, the bully. The victims are the Ukrainian people and, to a lesser extent, the Russian people.
If we see what is happening as akin to rape, then these people are saying that Ukraine should not have been wearing such a short skirt.
Twitter is full of such comments.
Twitter is part of the poison that has got us to the place of Russia invading Ukraine. .
I read your posts on here with interest (Chris, again, take note). I've seen Greta Thurnberg blamed on here for starting the Ukraine war but now Twitter is responsible for it? It's an interesting thesis but I'm not on twitter so I wouldn't know.
I think if we believe in democracy it's really important that we continue to debate in as friendly a way as possible, even when profoundly disagreeing with someone's perspective or suggestion. I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. That's a shame because this is a decent site and the only one I frequent. When someone is rude to me I tend to disappear as I have better things to do than be insulted by someone from the comfort of their chair whom I've never met.
So keep playing the ball, folks. Not the man or woman.
". I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. "
You weren't here in 2016. Or 2017. Or 2014. Or 2019. Or 2020. In fact, it's pretty much always been like this...
I'd argue PB is a rather decorous place compared to the Internet in general, especially as politics is being discussed. It's also more informative than most places.
There are more women than ever before, but still by no means enough.
It's not exactly a welcoming place for women tbh.
There's far too much male aggression and downright rudeness, a failure to debate issues and always a tendency to attack the person.
This place is like being on a rugby field of 30 men. And not in a pleasant fantasy way
I shall be off for a bit. The personal rudeness is tiresome and I have a life outside that feels a lot more wholesome.
There's nothing stopping women from posting as many comments as they like on here. The fact is women are always less interested in obsessive political commentary than men. On the VoteUK forum it's about 95% male even though every effort has been made to encourage more women to join and post comments.
I was once told by a business owner, apparently in all seriousness, that "we don't have a ramp here because we never get any people in wheelchairs visit us."
My point is, if you make it uncomfortable or unwelcoming for particular demographics, don't be surprised if you don't get many attending/posting.
'The reality is that we are ignoring Zelensky's pleas for a No Fly Zone and we're letting an entire country get pulverised.'
No serious commentator is suggesting a NFZ. The reason is obvious, and has been stated on this forum clearly and frequently.
NFZ is simply fluffy words to mean the West bombing Russia, which is a major escalation that gives Putin cover for his own escalation.
Far, far better to keep shoveling all those Stinger ground-to-air missiles over into Ukraine. Get enough of them in theatre, and you end up with a no-fly zone by default.
I am not an expert on war but in regard to the 30 or so cruise missiles that hit near the Polish border are there defence systems that can intercept them and are there any deployed in Ukraine ?
It was reported last week that a missile defence system has been set up close to the Polish border, using the US Patriot system. Presumably it’s going to be used to stop stray missiles heading for Poland, rather than to take out Russian missiles in Ukraine.
It’s interesting how, with the exception of the attack on this base at the weekend, Russia has been quite sparing with the long-range missiles. My suspicion is that they have only a few hundred of them.
Kh55/101 uses a Ukrainian made engine... apparently 575 Kh55 were transferred to Russia in the big transfer of weapons and equipment from Ukraine to Russia in 1999.
I do wonder what it actually takes to service these, but think it’s unlikely to be a simple as checking oil levels once a year, saying a prayer that a 40-year-old jet engine will light its fire on command, and that the navigation and avionics will all wake up and find the correct target.
“ Clausewitz describes the "culminating point" as when an attacking force hits strong resistance, runs out of energy, and can no longer continue. Russia is running out of manpower, asking Syria to send troops. Sanctions are working. Russia may culminate in 10-14 days if we press.”
So what happens then ?
Who knows?
But who knows what happens if we withdraw all help from Ukraine, and Russia rolls over them and gets a nice, compliant pro-Russian government in Kiev?
In my mind it's quite simple: it is right versus wrong, good versus evil. The evil is easy to identify: Putin and his cronies. They are the ones who have invaded another country; they are the ones who are killing innocent civilians. They are the ones threatening smaller democracies with invasion. They are the ones who are threatening the world with chemical weapons, or nuclear oblivion.
Those on the side of evil talk about how it is our fault, how we caused this mess, rather than concentrate their ire on the evil.
We have to be on the side of good. And that means supporting Ukraine.
Which we are doing.
The time to think about the causes of this is after the mess is over - and I think many of their arguments are bogus anyway, purposeful distractions away from evil.
The final clause is the sort of thing we should avoid writing. I don't know people who are 'purposefully' distracting away from evil, at least not on here. I don't frequent other political or social media sites.
The reason why the causes are pertinent is that they are also so relevant to both the present and the future.
We were powerless to stop Putin because we are powerless to stop Putin and we will be powerless to stop Putin. We are so frit of him, of the nuclear threat, that we're not prepared to stand up and defend Ukraine with the only language Putin will pay attention to: military force.
Biden is a wet blanket. His ghastly withdrawal from Afghanistan, aided and abetted by Johnson, greenlit Putin's invasion of Ukraine and has shown Putin that NATO is not going to stand up and defend them.
And, yes, Putin and his invasion are utterly evil.
I utterly disagree. In other places, the 'we caused tis by x, y and z' are being used as distractions away from the Russian's folly. Whenever anyone criticises Russia, the voices cry that it is 'our' fault.
"Russians are doing these things." "Remember that we guaranteed we would not expand NATO eastwards, and Ukraine is filled with Nazis. Besides, we 'poked' them into it."
It is classic maskirovka, performed by either knowing or unknowing fools.
The Russian government is not the victims in this. They are the aggressor, the bully. The victims are the Ukrainian people and, to a lesser extent, the Russian people.
If we see what is happening as akin to rape, then these people are saying that Ukraine should not have been wearing such a short skirt.
Twitter is full of such comments.
Twitter is part of the poison that has got us to the place of Russia invading Ukraine. .
I read your posts on here with interest (Chris, again, take note). I've seen Greta Thurnberg blamed on here for starting the Ukraine war but now Twitter is responsible for it? It's an interesting thesis but I'm not on twitter so I wouldn't know.
I think if we believe in democracy it's really important that we continue to debate in as friendly a way as possible, even when profoundly disagreeing with someone's perspective or suggestion. I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. That's a shame because this is a decent site and the only one I frequent. When someone is rude to me I tend to disappear as I have better things to do than be insulted by someone from the comfort of their chair whom I've never met.
So keep playing the ball, folks. Not the man or woman.
". I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. "
You weren't here in 2016. Or 2017. Or 2014. Or 2019. Or 2020. In fact, it's pretty much always been like this...
I'd argue PB is a rather decorous place compared to the Internet in general, especially as politics is being discussed. It's also more informative than most places.
There are more women than ever before, but still by no means enough.
It's not exactly a welcoming place for women tbh.
There's far too much male aggression and downright rudeness, a failure to debate issues and always a tendency to attack the person.
This place is like being on a rugby field of 30 men. And not in a pleasant fantasy way
I shall be off for a bit. The personal rudeness is tiresome and I have a life outside that feels a lot more wholesome.
There's nothing stopping women from posting as many comments as they like on here. The fact is women are always less interested in obsessive political commentary than men. On the VoteUK forum it's about 95% male even though every effort has been made to encourage more women to join and post comments.
No the pile-ons and aggression from, and I'll say it, gammons, is really really off-putting. That's to put it mildly.
The offensive attacks on me this morning just for daring to suggest we in the west are not winning this in Ukraine is really extraordinary. I'm far more with Zelensky than anyone on this site it would seem. Cowards most of you are.
And I've still no idea what the BA pilot thing is about and as no one has been able to explain I'll just presume it's the kind of faux news MM refers to.
The West are not directly involved in the war in Ukraine, it is not in NATO. We have supplied equipment and imposed sanctions on Russia etc but there are no western troops fighting the Russians on the ground in Ukraine as there were in Afghanistan and Iraq and no western jets enforcing a no fly zone over the country and undertaking bombing raids as there were in Kosovo, Libya and Syria.
IanB2. Actually I did provide the explanation. I have to protect someone who is close inside Westminster. If I reveal my hand they could be in trouble. You seem to have really got it in for me ever since I didn't tow your left-of-centre line when I thought we should stand up to Putin.
MM. That's just such an obnoxious thing to post. Incredibly rude and typical of what Topping referred to. Some people have become so myopic and angry that they instantaneously jump on anyone who deviates from their kosher line. It's really quite disturbing, I should I say that you are. And why on earth would I know about London Bridge? I find the idea of predicating the death of the Queen really distasteful.
The idea that I'm a Putin apologist is an absolute sick joke. I loathe the man and think we should be standing up to him militarily, unlike the wimps on the right here who don't have the balls they seem to think with.
Regarding Israel data I've not got the slightest idea what this refers to. I've been right about covid, stating to much derision for example that I could see cases rising above 100,000 (they're currently around 225,000 a day by the way). We are still in a covid pandemic, it is still globally serious and I think Johnson's government are being incredibly slack about it - mainly driven by right wing headbangers who are intent on freedom at all costs.
You know, it's okay to disagree with someone about one thing and park it, move on and still see the good in other things they write. Try it.
The mystery for me is how you square your muscular pro-NFZ stance and the regular beatings you administer to those without masks, with your professed belief in Buddhism with its emphasis on non-violence?
More detail on this please.
This is actually a good question, finally. And a very fair one.
It's one I wrestle with.
However, if you look at Buddhist nations you will find there is sometimes a need to take up arms and fight. Even Buddhist monks get involved when the need is great. It's a rather Orientalist (Edward Said) stance to presume that Buddhists absolutely or never take up arms in defence.
I believe we should be stepping up support for Ukraine, because I believe we are standing by cowardly, and letting Ukrainians get pulverised. The back-slapping that we're doing all we can that has accompanied is deluded.
A video the other say said that Russia had launched only 100 missiles in the first ?day? of the war - when they are most effective at hitting concentrated defenders. In comparison, the US launched 350 in the first day of the Iraq War twenty years ago.
(Apols if I've misremembered / misunderstood those figures.)
If that's right, you do have to ask why: and lack of missiles might well be a factor.
I was reading up on the Gulf War to compare it to Putin's War in Ukraine. The difference is stark, and I wonder how capable the Russian air force is, because even if they didn't intend to start off with an air war, I can't see why they would hold back or be so ineffective now. The more with see of the Russian military in action the worse it looks.
IanB2. Actually I did provide the explanation. I have to protect someone who is close inside Westminster. If I reveal my hand they could be in trouble. You seem to have really got it in for me ever since I didn't tow your left-of-centre line when I thought we should stand up to Putin.
MM. That's just such an obnoxious thing to post. Incredibly rude and typical of what Topping referred to. Some people have become so myopic and angry that they instantaneously jump on anyone who deviates from their kosher line. It's really quite disturbing, I should I say that you are. And why on earth would I know about London Bridge? I find the idea of predicating the death of the Queen really distasteful.
The idea that I'm a Putin apologist is an absolute sick joke. I loathe the man and think we should be standing up to him militarily, unlike the wimps on the right here who don't have the balls they seem to think with.
Regarding Israel data I've not got the slightest idea what this refers to. I've been right about covid, stating to much derision for example that I could see cases rising above 100,000 (they're currently around 225,000 a day by the way). We are still in a covid pandemic, it is still globally serious and I think Johnson's government are being incredibly slack about it - mainly driven by right wing headbangers who are intent on freedom at all costs.
You know, it's okay to disagree with someone about one thing and park it, move on and still see the good in other things they write. Try it.
You keep on saying you are off and try to police opinions or reactions you do not like
Maybe you need to understand you are not the arbiter of opinion on here and if you do not like it then you know what to do
For the first time in years I bought a Sunday Times to see just what it had on the Lebedev connection. It was damning. If there were not a war on Boris would be out pronto just on the evidence of that one edition.
He will certainly have to go before the next election. Never mind the text, some of the pictures were lethal. Labour and the LibDems would only have to keep reprinting them in leaflet after leaflet to torpedo the Tory campaign below the water line. The Tories simply cannot go into battle with him as leader. This is not the USA, and he is not Trump. The voters won't back him blind, whatever success he may have in the war or esewhere.
So if he's toast, when does he actually pop out of the toaster?
His MPs clearly think 'not now - the war you know.' They can maybe get away with that a bit but it's not a great look. Then there's the locals. 'Wait for them' is another excuse for inaction. What then? 'Takes a while to change a leader, and he was a winner'. Not sure that will suffice for very long.
Regrdless of the odds, I would say some time this year seems most likely by a long way, but he could get lucky with the war if that drags on. So maybe Mike is right, and at the odds 2023 looks decent enough value for the momnet.
The other dilemma for Conservative MPs is that the longer he is left in place, the more he taints the whole party. After all, some of this was known ages ago- enough for people to ask some pretty probing questions. But they all (even Boris-sceptics like Hunt) backed him for PM.
On topic, surely Boris will go in Autumn 2023 if and only if he is confident of winning well. After all, that's why Maggie and Blair went for elections after four years and Major and Brown didn't.
Given the wider economic forecasts, that seems brave... Does "these economic problems, which started somewhere else" ever work?
John Major won in '92 despite the vicious 1990-1 recession. And that one was caused by domestic policy mistakes - in particular joining the ERM - rather than international factors like the price of energy. The Opposition needs a convincing story about how they will improve the economy, which Starmer doesn't have - just more tax, spend and regulation of exactly the kind that will throttle growth.
It MAY be enough if the Conservatives mess thinkgs up badly enough, but at the moment, I'm not sure.
Starmer may well find that boring old competence and simply not being the other guy is sufficient.
Starmer is certainly boring, but I'm not convinced he's at all competent. I think he made the wrong call at just about every stage during the pandemic, for example, when he actually bothered to offer any opposition to the government at all, which was rarely. Also his Brexit policy at the 2019 election was a dismal failure. And he ran on a Corbynite manifesto in 2019 and again on a Corbynite programme in 2020 before now posing laughably in front of the Union Jack at every opportunity.
It MAY be enough if Boris messes up badly enough, but if the Conservatives recover significantly, I don't see him winning and he may not even come close.
For all your analysis of Johnson's genius and Starmer's ineptitude you have forgotten one thing. The economy.
Please show my analysis of Johnson's genius? Neither of them are exactly Margaret Thatcher. And I did actually mention Starmer on the economy in another post, saying I think his programme will make things much worse.
(I think the Economist's verdict on Boris was very shrewd - he has flashes of genius, e.g. breaking the Brexit logjam or the vaccination programme but also too-frequent disasters. And if we move towards more settled times, he'd be the wrong leader. But I'm not convinced by any of the alternatives on the Conservative benches yet, and I don't think that Starmer is competent).
We need to get away from the idea that just because somebody is boring, they're also competent. Gordon Brown should have blown that one to pieces.
I think Johnson has good instincts, but is lazy and arrogant.
He was spot on with vaccines, broadly right about Ukraine, and got the UK out of the Brexit logjam.
But he has no money, and that has led him - like others before - to make poor choices of friends. He doesn't think the rules apply to him. And he's not very process oriented.
I suspect he will lead the Conservatives to defeat (albeit a narrow one) in 2024. But he's probably the best person for the PM role right now.
Not seeking to put BJ up with the greats, but Lloyd George and Churchill were both frequently criticised for their choice of friends, some of whom were decidedly rackety. I think partly it will have been due to money but, also, dare I say it, that they (and BoJo) just enjoy the company of these kinds of people. Find them stimulating, original, edgy, etc. And have a contempt for the tedious, conventional types that they are seeking to supplant.
I’m confused. Why would a Green not want to increase sustainable, local food production and reduce food miles? Honest question - I can’t imagine the objection.
It’s because Scotland’s “Nature Emergency” (sic) requires re-wilding and not food production.
F1: intriguing. Verstappen now favourite for the first race win, but Hamilton remains favourite for the title.
Punters abandon their beliefs reluctantly. Mercedes and Hamilton were massive favourites for both titles pre-testing, which, given the considerably more level financial playing field, and the new regulations meaning new car designs from the ground up, didn't seem logical. Mercedes probably have a decent chance of turning things around, but as of now I'd make Verstappen favourite.
Testing did leave things more up in the air that I expected, with Mercedes not showing their performance and unable to run at high speeds.
Can’t bring myself to bet on MV though, I have a hunch that he is going to get ganged up on by some of the other drivers over his aggression, and might not finish the first few races.
“ Clausewitz describes the "culminating point" as when an attacking force hits strong resistance, runs out of energy, and can no longer continue. Russia is running out of manpower, asking Syria to send troops. Sanctions are working. Russia may culminate in 10-14 days if we press.”
So what happens then ?
Who knows?
But who knows what happens if we withdraw all help from Ukraine, and Russia rolls over them and gets a nice, compliant pro-Russian government in Kiev?
In my mind it's quite simple: it is right versus wrong, good versus evil. The evil is easy to identify: Putin and his cronies. They are the ones who have invaded another country; they are the ones who are killing innocent civilians. They are the ones threatening smaller democracies with invasion. They are the ones who are threatening the world with chemical weapons, or nuclear oblivion.
Those on the side of evil talk about how it is our fault, how we caused this mess, rather than concentrate their ire on the evil.
We have to be on the side of good. And that means supporting Ukraine.
Which we are doing.
The time to think about the causes of this is after the mess is over - and I think many of their arguments are bogus anyway, purposeful distractions away from evil.
The final clause is the sort of thing we should avoid writing. I don't know people who are 'purposefully' distracting away from evil, at least not on here. I don't frequent other political or social media sites.
The reason why the causes are pertinent is that they are also so relevant to both the present and the future.
We were powerless to stop Putin because we are powerless to stop Putin and we will be powerless to stop Putin. We are so frit of him, of the nuclear threat, that we're not prepared to stand up and defend Ukraine with the only language Putin will pay attention to: military force.
Biden is a wet blanket. His ghastly withdrawal from Afghanistan, aided and abetted by Johnson, greenlit Putin's invasion of Ukraine and has shown Putin that NATO is not going to stand up and defend them.
And, yes, Putin and his invasion are utterly evil.
I utterly disagree. In other places, the 'we caused tis by x, y and z' are being used as distractions away from the Russian's folly. Whenever anyone criticises Russia, the voices cry that it is 'our' fault.
"Russians are doing these things." "Remember that we guaranteed we would not expand NATO eastwards, and Ukraine is filled with Nazis. Besides, we 'poked' them into it."
It is classic maskirovka, performed by either knowing or unknowing fools.
The Russian government is not the victims in this. They are the aggressor, the bully. The victims are the Ukrainian people and, to a lesser extent, the Russian people.
If we see what is happening as akin to rape, then these people are saying that Ukraine should not have been wearing such a short skirt.
Twitter is full of such comments.
Twitter is part of the poison that has got us to the place of Russia invading Ukraine. .
I read your posts on here with interest (Chris, again, take note). I've seen Greta Thurnberg blamed on here for starting the Ukraine war but now Twitter is responsible for it? It's an interesting thesis but I'm not on twitter so I wouldn't know.
I think if we believe in democracy it's really important that we continue to debate in as friendly a way as possible, even when profoundly disagreeing with someone's perspective or suggestion. I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. That's a shame because this is a decent site and the only one I frequent. When someone is rude to me I tend to disappear as I have better things to do than be insulted by someone from the comfort of their chair whom I've never met.
So keep playing the ball, folks. Not the man or woman.
". I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. "
You weren't here in 2016. Or 2017. Or 2014. Or 2019. Or 2020. In fact, it's pretty much always been like this...
I'd argue PB is a rather decorous place compared to the Internet in general, especially as politics is being discussed. It's also more informative than most places.
There are more women than ever before, but still by no means enough.
It's not exactly a welcoming place for women tbh.
There's far too much male aggression and downright rudeness, a failure to debate issues and always a tendency to attack the person.
This place is like being on a rugby field of 30 men. And not in a pleasant fantasy way
I shall be off for a bit. The personal rudeness is tiresome and I have a life outside that feels a lot more wholesome.
There's nothing stopping women from posting as many comments as they like on here. The fact is women are always less interested in obsessive political commentary than men. On the VoteUK forum it's about 95% male even though every effort has been made to encourage more women to join and post comments.
I was once told by a business owner, apparently in all seriousness, that "we don't have a ramp here because we never get any people in wheelchairs visit us."
My point is, if you make it uncomfortable or unwelcoming for particular demographics, don't be surprised if you don't get many attending/posting.
The willie-warmer thread was indeed...well, embarrassing.
“ Clausewitz describes the "culminating point" as when an attacking force hits strong resistance, runs out of energy, and can no longer continue. Russia is running out of manpower, asking Syria to send troops. Sanctions are working. Russia may culminate in 10-14 days if we press.”
So what happens then ?
Who knows?
But who knows what happens if we withdraw all help from Ukraine, and Russia rolls over them and gets a nice, compliant pro-Russian government in Kiev?
In my mind it's quite simple: it is right versus wrong, good versus evil. The evil is easy to identify: Putin and his cronies. They are the ones who have invaded another country; they are the ones who are killing innocent civilians. They are the ones threatening smaller democracies with invasion. They are the ones who are threatening the world with chemical weapons, or nuclear oblivion.
Those on the side of evil talk about how it is our fault, how we caused this mess, rather than concentrate their ire on the evil.
We have to be on the side of good. And that means supporting Ukraine.
Which we are doing.
The time to think about the causes of this is after the mess is over - and I think many of their arguments are bogus anyway, purposeful distractions away from evil.
The final clause is the sort of thing we should avoid writing. I don't know people who are 'purposefully' distracting away from evil, at least not on here. I don't frequent other political or social media sites.
The reason why the causes are pertinent is that they are also so relevant to both the present and the future.
We were powerless to stop Putin because we are powerless to stop Putin and we will be powerless to stop Putin. We are so frit of him, of the nuclear threat, that we're not prepared to stand up and defend Ukraine with the only language Putin will pay attention to: military force.
Biden is a wet blanket. His ghastly withdrawal from Afghanistan, aided and abetted by Johnson, greenlit Putin's invasion of Ukraine and has shown Putin that NATO is not going to stand up and defend them.
And, yes, Putin and his invasion are utterly evil.
I utterly disagree. In other places, the 'we caused tis by x, y and z' are being used as distractions away from the Russian's folly. Whenever anyone criticises Russia, the voices cry that it is 'our' fault.
"Russians are doing these things." "Remember that we guaranteed we would not expand NATO eastwards, and Ukraine is filled with Nazis. Besides, we 'poked' them into it."
It is classic maskirovka, performed by either knowing or unknowing fools.
The Russian government is not the victims in this. They are the aggressor, the bully. The victims are the Ukrainian people and, to a lesser extent, the Russian people.
If we see what is happening as akin to rape, then these people are saying that Ukraine should not have been wearing such a short skirt.
Twitter is full of such comments.
Twitter is part of the poison that has got us to the place of Russia invading Ukraine. .
I read your posts on here with interest (Chris, again, take note). I've seen Greta Thurnberg blamed on here for starting the Ukraine war but now Twitter is responsible for it? It's an interesting thesis but I'm not on twitter so I wouldn't know.
I think if we believe in democracy it's really important that we continue to debate in as friendly a way as possible, even when profoundly disagreeing with someone's perspective or suggestion. I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. That's a shame because this is a decent site and the only one I frequent. When someone is rude to me I tend to disappear as I have better things to do than be insulted by someone from the comfort of their chair whom I've never met.
So keep playing the ball, folks. Not the man or woman.
". I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. "
You weren't here in 2016. Or 2017. Or 2014. Or 2019. Or 2020. In fact, it's pretty much always been like this...
I'd argue PB is a rather decorous place compared to the Internet in general, especially as politics is being discussed. It's also more informative than most places.
There are more women than ever before, but still by no means enough.
It's not exactly a welcoming place for women tbh.
There's far too much male aggression and downright rudeness, a failure to debate issues and always a tendency to attack the person.
This place is like being on a rugby field of 30 men. And not in a pleasant fantasy way
I shall be off for a bit. The personal rudeness is tiresome and I have a life outside that feels a lot more wholesome.
There's nothing stopping women from posting as many comments as they like on here. The fact is women are always less interested in obsessive political commentary than men. On the VoteUK forum it's about 95% male even though every effort has been made to encourage more women to join and post comments.
I was once told by a business owner, apparently in all seriousness, that "we don't have a ramp here because we never get any people in wheelchairs visit us."
My point is, if you make it uncomfortable or unwelcoming for particular demographics, don't be surprised if you don't get many attending/posting.
Yep. I've stuck around this morning to defend myself and especially against the accusation of 'flounce'.
But, truly, why would any woman want to hang around on here when there is so much testosterone-fuelled aggression aimed at anyone who takes an alternate perspective?
It's not just me. Pile-ons occur against others. And without wishing to shoot my sex in the foot, some of us just don't enjoy that very much thanks.
F1: intriguing. Verstappen now favourite for the first race win, but Hamilton remains favourite for the title.
Punters abandon their beliefs reluctantly. Mercedes and Hamilton were massive favourites for both titles pre-testing, which, given the considerably more level financial playing field, and the new regulations meaning new car designs from the ground up, didn't seem logical. Mercedes probably have a decent chance of turning things around, but as of now I'd make Verstappen favourite.
Testing did leave things more up in the air that I expected, with Mercedes not showing their performance and unable to run at high speeds.
Can’t bring myself to bet on MV though, I have a hunch that he is going to get ganged up on by some of the other drivers over his aggression, and might not finish the first few races.
“ Clausewitz describes the "culminating point" as when an attacking force hits strong resistance, runs out of energy, and can no longer continue. Russia is running out of manpower, asking Syria to send troops. Sanctions are working. Russia may culminate in 10-14 days if we press.”
So what happens then ?
Who knows?
But who knows what happens if we withdraw all help from Ukraine, and Russia rolls over them and gets a nice, compliant pro-Russian government in Kiev?
In my mind it's quite simple: it is right versus wrong, good versus evil. The evil is easy to identify: Putin and his cronies. They are the ones who have invaded another country; they are the ones who are killing innocent civilians. They are the ones threatening smaller democracies with invasion. They are the ones who are threatening the world with chemical weapons, or nuclear oblivion.
Those on the side of evil talk about how it is our fault, how we caused this mess, rather than concentrate their ire on the evil.
We have to be on the side of good. And that means supporting Ukraine.
Which we are doing.
The time to think about the causes of this is after the mess is over - and I think many of their arguments are bogus anyway, purposeful distractions away from evil.
The final clause is the sort of thing we should avoid writing. I don't know people who are 'purposefully' distracting away from evil, at least not on here. I don't frequent other political or social media sites.
The reason why the causes are pertinent is that they are also so relevant to both the present and the future.
We were powerless to stop Putin because we are powerless to stop Putin and we will be powerless to stop Putin. We are so frit of him, of the nuclear threat, that we're not prepared to stand up and defend Ukraine with the only language Putin will pay attention to: military force.
Biden is a wet blanket. His ghastly withdrawal from Afghanistan, aided and abetted by Johnson, greenlit Putin's invasion of Ukraine and has shown Putin that NATO is not going to stand up and defend them.
And, yes, Putin and his invasion are utterly evil.
I utterly disagree. In other places, the 'we caused tis by x, y and z' are being used as distractions away from the Russian's folly. Whenever anyone criticises Russia, the voices cry that it is 'our' fault.
"Russians are doing these things." "Remember that we guaranteed we would not expand NATO eastwards, and Ukraine is filled with Nazis. Besides, we 'poked' them into it."
It is classic maskirovka, performed by either knowing or unknowing fools.
The Russian government is not the victims in this. They are the aggressor, the bully. The victims are the Ukrainian people and, to a lesser extent, the Russian people.
If we see what is happening as akin to rape, then these people are saying that Ukraine should not have been wearing such a short skirt.
Twitter is full of such comments.
Twitter is part of the poison that has got us to the place of Russia invading Ukraine. .
I read your posts on here with interest (Chris, again, take note). I've seen Greta Thurnberg blamed on here for starting the Ukraine war but now Twitter is responsible for it? It's an interesting thesis but I'm not on twitter so I wouldn't know.
I think if we believe in democracy it's really important that we continue to debate in as friendly a way as possible, even when profoundly disagreeing with someone's perspective or suggestion. I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. That's a shame because this is a decent site and the only one I frequent. When someone is rude to me I tend to disappear as I have better things to do than be insulted by someone from the comfort of their chair whom I've never met.
So keep playing the ball, folks. Not the man or woman.
". I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. "
You weren't here in 2016. Or 2017. Or 2014. Or 2019. Or 2020. In fact, it's pretty much always been like this...
I'd argue PB is a rather decorous place compared to the Internet in general, especially as politics is being discussed. It's also more informative than most places.
There are more women than ever before, but still by no means enough.
It's not exactly a welcoming place for women tbh.
There's far too much male aggression and downright rudeness, a failure to debate issues and always a tendency to attack the person.
This place is like being on a rugby field of 30 men. And not in a pleasant fantasy way
I shall be off for a bit. The personal rudeness is tiresome and I have a life outside that feels a lot more wholesome.
There's nothing stopping women from posting as many comments as they like on here. The fact is women are always less interested in obsessive political commentary than men. On the VoteUK forum it's about 95% male even though every effort has been made to encourage more women to join and post comments.
No the pile-ons and aggression from, and I'll say it, gammons, is really really off-putting.
Cowards most of you are.
It is tedious when posters descend to personal abuse, but as Mrs T observed
I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.
“ Clausewitz describes the "culminating point" as when an attacking force hits strong resistance, runs out of energy, and can no longer continue. Russia is running out of manpower, asking Syria to send troops. Sanctions are working. Russia may culminate in 10-14 days if we press.”
So what happens then ?
Who knows?
But who knows what happens if we withdraw all help from Ukraine, and Russia rolls over them and gets a nice, compliant pro-Russian government in Kiev?
In my mind it's quite simple: it is right versus wrong, good versus evil. The evil is easy to identify: Putin and his cronies. They are the ones who have invaded another country; they are the ones who are killing innocent civilians. They are the ones threatening smaller democracies with invasion. They are the ones who are threatening the world with chemical weapons, or nuclear oblivion.
Those on the side of evil talk about how it is our fault, how we caused this mess, rather than concentrate their ire on the evil.
We have to be on the side of good. And that means supporting Ukraine.
Which we are doing.
The time to think about the causes of this is after the mess is over - and I think many of their arguments are bogus anyway, purposeful distractions away from evil.
The final clause is the sort of thing we should avoid writing. I don't know people who are 'purposefully' distracting away from evil, at least not on here. I don't frequent other political or social media sites.
The reason why the causes are pertinent is that they are also so relevant to both the present and the future.
We were powerless to stop Putin because we are powerless to stop Putin and we will be powerless to stop Putin. We are so frit of him, of the nuclear threat, that we're not prepared to stand up and defend Ukraine with the only language Putin will pay attention to: military force.
Biden is a wet blanket. His ghastly withdrawal from Afghanistan, aided and abetted by Johnson, greenlit Putin's invasion of Ukraine and has shown Putin that NATO is not going to stand up and defend them.
And, yes, Putin and his invasion are utterly evil.
I utterly disagree. In other places, the 'we caused tis by x, y and z' are being used as distractions away from the Russian's folly. Whenever anyone criticises Russia, the voices cry that it is 'our' fault.
"Russians are doing these things." "Remember that we guaranteed we would not expand NATO eastwards, and Ukraine is filled with Nazis. Besides, we 'poked' them into it."
It is classic maskirovka, performed by either knowing or unknowing fools.
The Russian government is not the victims in this. They are the aggressor, the bully. The victims are the Ukrainian people and, to a lesser extent, the Russian people.
If we see what is happening as akin to rape, then these people are saying that Ukraine should not have been wearing such a short skirt.
Twitter is full of such comments.
Twitter is part of the poison that has got us to the place of Russia invading Ukraine. .
I read your posts on here with interest (Chris, again, take note). I've seen Greta Thurnberg blamed on here for starting the Ukraine war but now Twitter is responsible for it? It's an interesting thesis but I'm not on twitter so I wouldn't know.
I think if we believe in democracy it's really important that we continue to debate in as friendly a way as possible, even when profoundly disagreeing with someone's perspective or suggestion. I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. That's a shame because this is a decent site and the only one I frequent. When someone is rude to me I tend to disappear as I have better things to do than be insulted by someone from the comfort of their chair whom I've never met.
So keep playing the ball, folks. Not the man or woman.
". I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. "
You weren't here in 2016. Or 2017. Or 2014. Or 2019. Or 2020. In fact, it's pretty much always been like this...
I'd argue PB is a rather decorous place compared to the Internet in general, especially as politics is being discussed. It's also more informative than most places.
There are more women than ever before, but still by no means enough.
It's not exactly a welcoming place for women tbh.
There's far too much male aggression and downright rudeness, a failure to debate issues and always a tendency to attack the person.
This place is like being on a rugby field of 30 men. And not in a pleasant fantasy way
I shall be off for a bit. The personal rudeness is tiresome and I have a life outside that feels a lot more wholesome.
There's nothing stopping women from posting as many comments as they like on here. The fact is women are always less interested in obsessive political commentary than men. On the VoteUK forum it's about 95% male even though every effort has been made to encourage more women to join and post comments.
I was once told by a business owner, apparently in all seriousness, that "we don't have a ramp here because we never get any people in wheelchairs visit us."
My point is, if you make it uncomfortable or unwelcoming for particular demographics, don't be surprised if you don't get many attending/posting.
Yep. I've stuck around this morning to defend myself and especially against the accusation of 'flounce'.
But, truly, why would any woman want to hang around on here when there is so much testosterone-fuelled aggression aimed at anyone who takes an alternate perspective?
It's not just me. Pile-ons occur against others. And without wishing to shoot my sex in the foot, some of us just don't enjoy that very much thanks.
Hm - have you seen mumsnet? I'm not sure aggression against someone who takes an alternative stance is a uniquely male trait.
A video the other say said that Russia had launched only 100 missiles in the first ?day? of the war - when they are most effective at hitting concentrated defenders. In comparison, the US launched 350 in the first day of the Iraq War twenty years ago.
(Apols if I've misremembered / misunderstood those figures.)
If that's right, you do have to ask why: and lack of missiles might well be a factor.
I was reading up on the Gulf War to compare it to Putin's War in Ukraine. The difference is stark, and I wonder how capable the Russian air force is, because even if they didn't intend to start off with an air war, I can't see why they would hold back or be so ineffective now. The more with see of the Russian military in action the worse it looks.
The other thing is that the Americans/allied forces put in sustained campaign to knockout the air defences. They started hitting other ground targets at the first, but the majority of missions were against air defences, until they'd taken out a considerable portion. Then moved more and more effort into the other targets.
The Russians simply haven't done that - they seem to have flown occasional sorties against missile sites and radars, but nothing over whelming.
I’m confused. Why would a Green not want to increase sustainable, local food production and reduce food miles? Honest question - I can’t imagine the objection.
It’s because Scotland’s “Nature Emergency” (sic) requires re-wilding and not food production.
Hardly any overlap between the farmers and the greens I imagine.
I’m confused. Why would a Green not want to increase sustainable, local food production and reduce food miles? Honest question - I can’t imagine the objection.
It’s because Scotland’s “Nature Emergency” (sic) requires re-wilding and not food production.
It's a bit more complicated. Much of Britain, especially Scotland, has low-productivity subsidised farming, which is knackering the environment. Most of our so-called National Parks are green deserts - overrun with sheep - which do not deserve the term and certainly wouldn't be considered National Parks in the US, for example.
I have very little time for the crackpots in the Scottish Greens but they are right on this,(if that's what they are actually saying, and it's not just a culture war against landowners.)
@dwnews Germany has decided in principle to purchase the US fighter jet F-35 built by Lockheed Martin to replace its ageing Tornado fleet, according to reports.
“ Clausewitz describes the "culminating point" as when an attacking force hits strong resistance, runs out of energy, and can no longer continue. Russia is running out of manpower, asking Syria to send troops. Sanctions are working. Russia may culminate in 10-14 days if we press.”
So what happens then ?
Who knows?
But who knows what happens if we withdraw all help from Ukraine, and Russia rolls over them and gets a nice, compliant pro-Russian government in Kiev?
In my mind it's quite simple: it is right versus wrong, good versus evil. The evil is easy to identify: Putin and his cronies. They are the ones who have invaded another country; they are the ones who are killing innocent civilians. They are the ones threatening smaller democracies with invasion. They are the ones who are threatening the world with chemical weapons, or nuclear oblivion.
Those on the side of evil talk about how it is our fault, how we caused this mess, rather than concentrate their ire on the evil.
We have to be on the side of good. And that means supporting Ukraine.
Which we are doing.
The time to think about the causes of this is after the mess is over - and I think many of their arguments are bogus anyway, purposeful distractions away from evil.
The final clause is the sort of thing we should avoid writing. I don't know people who are 'purposefully' distracting away from evil, at least not on here. I don't frequent other political or social media sites.
The reason why the causes are pertinent is that they are also so relevant to both the present and the future.
We were powerless to stop Putin because we are powerless to stop Putin and we will be powerless to stop Putin. We are so frit of him, of the nuclear threat, that we're not prepared to stand up and defend Ukraine with the only language Putin will pay attention to: military force.
Biden is a wet blanket. His ghastly withdrawal from Afghanistan, aided and abetted by Johnson, greenlit Putin's invasion of Ukraine and has shown Putin that NATO is not going to stand up and defend them.
And, yes, Putin and his invasion are utterly evil.
I utterly disagree. In other places, the 'we caused tis by x, y and z' are being used as distractions away from the Russian's folly. Whenever anyone criticises Russia, the voices cry that it is 'our' fault.
"Russians are doing these things." "Remember that we guaranteed we would not expand NATO eastwards, and Ukraine is filled with Nazis. Besides, we 'poked' them into it."
It is classic maskirovka, performed by either knowing or unknowing fools.
The Russian government is not the victims in this. They are the aggressor, the bully. The victims are the Ukrainian people and, to a lesser extent, the Russian people.
If we see what is happening as akin to rape, then these people are saying that Ukraine should not have been wearing such a short skirt.
Twitter is full of such comments.
Twitter is part of the poison that has got us to the place of Russia invading Ukraine. .
I read your posts on here with interest (Chris, again, take note). I've seen Greta Thurnberg blamed on here for starting the Ukraine war but now Twitter is responsible for it? It's an interesting thesis but I'm not on twitter so I wouldn't know.
I think if we believe in democracy it's really important that we continue to debate in as friendly a way as possible, even when profoundly disagreeing with someone's perspective or suggestion. I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. That's a shame because this is a decent site and the only one I frequent. When someone is rude to me I tend to disappear as I have better things to do than be insulted by someone from the comfort of their chair whom I've never met.
So keep playing the ball, folks. Not the man or woman.
". I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. "
You weren't here in 2016. Or 2017. Or 2014. Or 2019. Or 2020. In fact, it's pretty much always been like this...
I'd argue PB is a rather decorous place compared to the Internet in general, especially as politics is being discussed. It's also more informative than most places.
There are more women than ever before, but still by no means enough.
It's not exactly a welcoming place for women tbh.
There's far too much male aggression and downright rudeness, a failure to debate issues and always a tendency to attack the person.
This place is like being on a rugby field of 30 men. And not in a pleasant fantasy way
I shall be off for a bit. The personal rudeness is tiresome and I have a life outside that feels a lot more wholesome.
There's nothing stopping women from posting as many comments as they like on here. The fact is women are always less interested in obsessive political commentary than men. On the VoteUK forum it's about 95% male even though every effort has been made to encourage more women to join and post comments.
No the pile-ons and aggression from, and I'll say it, gammons, is really really off-putting.
Cowards most of you are.
It is tedious when posters descend to personal abuse, but as Mrs T observed
I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.
Thank you.
And I feel that's a good note on which I shall head out, without it being deemed a flounce
But I doubt I shall frequent here much to be honest. Some may cheer but you will end up left with an echo chamber of mostly white retired men: a demographic that is hardly representative of more than a fraction of the country or world.
“ Clausewitz describes the "culminating point" as when an attacking force hits strong resistance, runs out of energy, and can no longer continue. Russia is running out of manpower, asking Syria to send troops. Sanctions are working. Russia may culminate in 10-14 days if we press.”
So what happens then ?
Who knows?
But who knows what happens if we withdraw all help from Ukraine, and Russia rolls over them and gets a nice, compliant pro-Russian government in Kiev?
In my mind it's quite simple: it is right versus wrong, good versus evil. The evil is easy to identify: Putin and his cronies. They are the ones who have invaded another country; they are the ones who are killing innocent civilians. They are the ones threatening smaller democracies with invasion. They are the ones who are threatening the world with chemical weapons, or nuclear oblivion.
Those on the side of evil talk about how it is our fault, how we caused this mess, rather than concentrate their ire on the evil.
We have to be on the side of good. And that means supporting Ukraine.
Which we are doing.
The time to think about the causes of this is after the mess is over - and I think many of their arguments are bogus anyway, purposeful distractions away from evil.
The final clause is the sort of thing we should avoid writing. I don't know people who are 'purposefully' distracting away from evil, at least not on here. I don't frequent other political or social media sites.
The reason why the causes are pertinent is that they are also so relevant to both the present and the future.
We were powerless to stop Putin because we are powerless to stop Putin and we will be powerless to stop Putin. We are so frit of him, of the nuclear threat, that we're not prepared to stand up and defend Ukraine with the only language Putin will pay attention to: military force.
Biden is a wet blanket. His ghastly withdrawal from Afghanistan, aided and abetted by Johnson, greenlit Putin's invasion of Ukraine and has shown Putin that NATO is not going to stand up and defend them.
And, yes, Putin and his invasion are utterly evil.
I utterly disagree. In other places, the 'we caused tis by x, y and z' are being used as distractions away from the Russian's folly. Whenever anyone criticises Russia, the voices cry that it is 'our' fault.
"Russians are doing these things." "Remember that we guaranteed we would not expand NATO eastwards, and Ukraine is filled with Nazis. Besides, we 'poked' them into it."
It is classic maskirovka, performed by either knowing or unknowing fools.
The Russian government is not the victims in this. They are the aggressor, the bully. The victims are the Ukrainian people and, to a lesser extent, the Russian people.
If we see what is happening as akin to rape, then these people are saying that Ukraine should not have been wearing such a short skirt.
Twitter is full of such comments.
Twitter is part of the poison that has got us to the place of Russia invading Ukraine. .
I read your posts on here with interest (Chris, again, take note). I've seen Greta Thurnberg blamed on here for starting the Ukraine war but now Twitter is responsible for it? It's an interesting thesis but I'm not on twitter so I wouldn't know.
I think if we believe in democracy it's really important that we continue to debate in as friendly a way as possible, even when profoundly disagreeing with someone's perspective or suggestion. I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. That's a shame because this is a decent site and the only one I frequent. When someone is rude to me I tend to disappear as I have better things to do than be insulted by someone from the comfort of their chair whom I've never met.
So keep playing the ball, folks. Not the man or woman.
". I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. "
You weren't here in 2016. Or 2017. Or 2014. Or 2019. Or 2020. In fact, it's pretty much always been like this...
I'd argue PB is a rather decorous place compared to the Internet in general, especially as politics is being discussed. It's also more informative than most places.
There are more women than ever before, but still by no means enough.
It's not exactly a welcoming place for women tbh.
There's far too much male aggression and downright rudeness, a failure to debate issues and always a tendency to attack the person.
This place is like being on a rugby field of 30 men. And not in a pleasant fantasy way
I shall be off for a bit. The personal rudeness is tiresome and I have a life outside that feels a lot more wholesome.
There's nothing stopping women from posting as many comments as they like on here. The fact is women are always less interested in obsessive political commentary than men. On the VoteUK forum it's about 95% male even though every effort has been made to encourage more women to join and post comments.
I was once told by a business owner, apparently in all seriousness, that "we don't have a ramp here because we never get any people in wheelchairs visit us."
My point is, if you make it uncomfortable or unwelcoming for particular demographics, don't be surprised if you don't get many attending/posting.
Yep. I've stuck around this morning to defend myself and especially against the accusation of 'flounce'.
But, truly, why would any woman want to hang around on here when there is so much testosterone-fuelled aggression aimed at anyone who takes an alternate perspective?
It's not just me. Pile-ons occur against others. And without wishing to shoot my sex in the foot, some of us just don't enjoy that very much thanks.
Testosterone has zilch to do with it. I don't as a matter of fact think you are a troll, I just think you talk ludicrous nonsense. It wasn't initially obvious that you are a woman, and I thought you talked ludicrous nonsense from the get go. In fact what sounds really testosterony is your dramatic declarations that you are going to make the ultimate sacrifice in taking the war to putin.
For the first time in years I bought a Sunday Times to see just what it had on the Lebedev connection. It was damning. If there were not a war on Boris would be out pronto just on the evidence of that one edition.
He will certainly have to go before the next election. Never mind the text, some of the pictures were lethal. Labour and the LibDems would only have to keep reprinting them in leaflet after leaflet to torpedo the Tory campaign below the water line. The Tories simply cannot go into battle with him as leader. This is not the USA, and he is not Trump. The voters won't back him blind, whatever success he may have in the war or esewhere.
So if he's toast, when does he actually pop out of the toaster?
His MPs clearly think 'not now - the war you know.' They can maybe get away with that a bit but it's not a great look. Then there's the locals. 'Wait for them' is another excuse for inaction. What then? 'Takes a while to change a leader, and he was a winner'. Not sure that will suffice for very long.
Regrdless of the odds, I would say some time this year seems most likely by a long way, but he could get lucky with the war if that drags on. So maybe Mike is right, and at the odds 2023 looks decent enough value for the momnet.
The people that matter in this, Tory MPs, members and even voters don't seem to care.
Virtually none of the Tory posters on here who weren't already critics of the PM when he was first elected will engage with issues of standards, whether about lying, finances, cronyism or security risks.
The responses are a mix of "all politicians are thieving nasty liars regardless", "what about Corbyn", "other things are more important", or "if he helps bring a blue win then anything goes".
He is staying on until he loses an election or it is blatantly clear he will lose the next one.
Agreed. I think it will be up to the electorate to kick him out, and we must.
The Corbyn thing is ironic.
It's true Jeremy kept some bad company, and showed some shocking judgement but he didn't actually *do* a great deal to benefit the Russians. Putting one of them in the House of Lords wants some topping.
Wants some Topping going off on one of his dyspeptic rants for sure.
A video the other say said that Russia had launched only 100 missiles in the first ?day? of the war - when they are most effective at hitting concentrated defenders. In comparison, the US launched 350 in the first day of the Iraq War twenty years ago.
(Apols if I've misremembered / misunderstood those figures.)
If that's right, you do have to ask why: and lack of missiles might well be a factor.
I was reading up on the Gulf War to compare it to Putin's War in Ukraine. The difference is stark, and I wonder how capable the Russian air force is, because even if they didn't intend to start off with an air war, I can't see why they would hold back or be so ineffective now. The more with see of the Russian military in action the worse it looks.
Yes, it's been interesting albeit rather frightening and depressing to compare the different approaches of different militaries. What Ukraine really shows is how used we've got to the American-Brit-French approach to conflict: completely dominated by the air: cruise missiles, aerial precision bombing, drone strikes. The bare minimum on the ground, and only then once the war has been militarily won.
Only in Iraq was there actually a ground offensive. In Serbia/Kosovo, the original Afghan campaign, Libya, Syria and Iraq vs ISIS, Western forces stayed in the air throughout and worked with local militias and rebels on the ground.
That approach to warfare is only possible if you have huge amounts of money to prosecute it. It's much safer for the combatants, in theory safer for civilians but we know that's often not the case in reality, but extremely expensive.
I’m confused. Why would a Green not want to increase sustainable, local food production and reduce food miles? Honest question - I can’t imagine the objection.
It’s because Scotland’s “Nature Emergency” (sic) requires re-wilding and not food production.
Hardly any overlap between the farmers and the greens I imagine.
Greens loathe livestock. They are doing everything they can to reduce grazing on dartmoor.
“ Clausewitz describes the "culminating point" as when an attacking force hits strong resistance, runs out of energy, and can no longer continue. Russia is running out of manpower, asking Syria to send troops. Sanctions are working. Russia may culminate in 10-14 days if we press.”
So what happens then ?
Who knows?
But who knows what happens if we withdraw all help from Ukraine, and Russia rolls over them and gets a nice, compliant pro-Russian government in Kiev?
In my mind it's quite simple: it is right versus wrong, good versus evil. The evil is easy to identify: Putin and his cronies. They are the ones who have invaded another country; they are the ones who are killing innocent civilians. They are the ones threatening smaller democracies with invasion. They are the ones who are threatening the world with chemical weapons, or nuclear oblivion.
Those on the side of evil talk about how it is our fault, how we caused this mess, rather than concentrate their ire on the evil.
We have to be on the side of good. And that means supporting Ukraine.
Which we are doing.
The time to think about the causes of this is after the mess is over - and I think many of their arguments are bogus anyway, purposeful distractions away from evil.
The final clause is the sort of thing we should avoid writing. I don't know people who are 'purposefully' distracting away from evil, at least not on here. I don't frequent other political or social media sites.
The reason why the causes are pertinent is that they are also so relevant to both the present and the future.
We were powerless to stop Putin because we are powerless to stop Putin and we will be powerless to stop Putin. We are so frit of him, of the nuclear threat, that we're not prepared to stand up and defend Ukraine with the only language Putin will pay attention to: military force.
Biden is a wet blanket. His ghastly withdrawal from Afghanistan, aided and abetted by Johnson, greenlit Putin's invasion of Ukraine and has shown Putin that NATO is not going to stand up and defend them.
And, yes, Putin and his invasion are utterly evil.
I utterly disagree. In other places, the 'we caused tis by x, y and z' are being used as distractions away from the Russian's folly. Whenever anyone criticises Russia, the voices cry that it is 'our' fault.
"Russians are doing these things." "Remember that we guaranteed we would not expand NATO eastwards, and Ukraine is filled with Nazis. Besides, we 'poked' them into it."
It is classic maskirovka, performed by either knowing or unknowing fools.
The Russian government is not the victims in this. They are the aggressor, the bully. The victims are the Ukrainian people and, to a lesser extent, the Russian people.
If we see what is happening as akin to rape, then these people are saying that Ukraine should not have been wearing such a short skirt.
Twitter is full of such comments.
Twitter is part of the poison that has got us to the place of Russia invading Ukraine. .
I read your posts on here with interest (Chris, again, take note). I've seen Greta Thurnberg blamed on here for starting the Ukraine war but now Twitter is responsible for it? It's an interesting thesis but I'm not on twitter so I wouldn't know.
I think if we believe in democracy it's really important that we continue to debate in as friendly a way as possible, even when profoundly disagreeing with someone's perspective or suggestion. I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. That's a shame because this is a decent site and the only one I frequent. When someone is rude to me I tend to disappear as I have better things to do than be insulted by someone from the comfort of their chair whom I've never met.
So keep playing the ball, folks. Not the man or woman.
". I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. "
You weren't here in 2016. Or 2017. Or 2014. Or 2019. Or 2020. In fact, it's pretty much always been like this...
I'd argue PB is a rather decorous place compared to the Internet in general, especially as politics is being discussed. It's also more informative than most places.
There are more women than ever before, but still by no means enough.
It's not exactly a welcoming place for women tbh.
There's far too much male aggression and downright rudeness, a failure to debate issues and always a tendency to attack the person.
This place is like being on a rugby field of 30 men. And not in a pleasant fantasy way
I shall be off for a bit. The personal rudeness is tiresome and I have a life outside that feels a lot more wholesome.
There's nothing stopping women from posting as many comments as they like on here. The fact is women are always less interested in obsessive political commentary than men. On the VoteUK forum it's about 95% male even though every effort has been made to encourage more women to join and post comments.
I was once told by a business owner, apparently in all seriousness, that "we don't have a ramp here because we never get any people in wheelchairs visit us."
My point is, if you make it uncomfortable or unwelcoming for particular demographics, don't be surprised if you don't get many attending/posting.
The willie-warmer thread was indeed...well, embarrassing.
Cringeworthy. All those posting should have been banned for 2 days for gross crassness imho.
He is staying on until he loses an election or it is blatantly clear he will lose the next one.
That's generally how political careers work.
I disagree. Any other PM in my lifetime would have resigned by now out of a mix of shame and/or being forced to by their colleagues. For multiple separate transgressions.
'The reality is that we are ignoring Zelensky's pleas for a No Fly Zone and we're letting an entire country get pulverised.'
No serious commentator is suggesting a NFZ. The reason is obvious, and has been stated on this forum clearly and frequently.
NFZ is simply fluffy words to mean the West bombing Russia, which is a major escalation that gives Putin cover for his own escalation.
Far, far better to keep shoveling all those Stinger ground-to-air missiles over into Ukraine. Get enough of them in theatre, and you end up with a no-fly zone by default.
I am not an expert on war but in regard to the 30 or so cruise missiles that hit near the Polish border are there defence systems that can intercept them and are there any deployed in Ukraine ?
It was reported last week that a missile defence system has been set up close to the Polish border, using the US Patriot system. Presumably it’s going to be used to stop stray missiles heading for Poland, rather than to take out Russian missiles in Ukraine.
It’s interesting how, with the exception of the attack on this base at the weekend, Russia has been quite sparing with the long-range missiles. My suspicion is that they have only a few hundred of them.
Kh55/101 uses a Ukrainian made engine... apparently 575 Kh55 were transferred to Russia in the big transfer of weapons and equipment from Ukraine to Russia in 1999.
I do wonder what it actually takes to service these, but think it’s unlikely to be a simple as checking oil levels once a year, saying a prayer that a 40-year-old jet engine will light its fire on command, and that the navigation and avionics will all wake up and find the correct target.
not long after the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a documentary about submarines. In the UK segment, some work was being done on the reactor of a British submarine. Serious men discussed the situation (seriously) before commanding a robotic tool to move around the area of the reactor, an inch at a time. The submarine was entirely covered in an (empty) building. All very high tech.
In Russia, meanwhile, a couple of guys were de-fueling a submarine. They used a chain hoist to line up a big metal tube over the reactor and hoisted some fuel assemblies out. By hand.
I suspect the Kh55 maintenance works a bit like the stories of Long Lance maintenance in the Japanese Navy - the least valuable conscript gets a spanner and everyone else watches from a distance.
Johnson's political recovery is no surprise. The war is a great opportunity for him to pretend he's a serious Prime Minister rather than a morally vacant charlatan and although most won't be fooled there will be some who are - enough to shift those polls.
Zero chance of Boris calling a general election this year or even next year unless the Tories regain a big lead in the polls. Otherwise, even if he won it would be with a significantly reduced majority.
Note too after 10 years of their party in power no PM has called a general election before the full 5 year term of their government is up. See 1964, 1992, 1997 and 2010 (not all of them were defeated, Major won a shock re election in 1992)
Tree of those four cases were followed by defeats, and 1992 was a close-run thing.
Boris isn't that used to losing. Does he bravely go down with the ship, flame out or run away? He won't be able to run the meme + photo opportunity campaign of 2019.
How safe is our current PM's seat? I understand that it could be lost on quite a small swing. The ultimate humiliation would be, I suggest, the Tories holding on bit Uxbridge (etc) being a Labour gain! I have sometimes wondered whether we will see him seek to return to Henley.
On the general Pb topic; one feature is the rallying round when someone is sick, or otherwise in personal difficulty.
And finally, I'd agree about more female posters. Ms Cyclefree's are most valuable.
I’m confused. Why would a Green not want to increase sustainable, local food production and reduce food miles? Honest question - I can’t imagine the objection.
It’s because Scotland’s “Nature Emergency” (sic) requires re-wilding and not food production.
Hardly any overlap between the farmers and the greens I imagine.
Interestingly that's not the case here in Dorset. Our local eco group has a good number of farmers attending it's monthly meetings (at least it did pre-covid, the meetings start again this month). some of those farmers were arguing the farming case tbf but generally they were pro-farming and pro- the green movement.
I’m confused. Why would a Green not want to increase sustainable, local food production and reduce food miles? Honest question - I can’t imagine the objection.
Fertilisers and big diesel tractors. Starvation is much greener.
“ Clausewitz describes the "culminating point" as when an attacking force hits strong resistance, runs out of energy, and can no longer continue. Russia is running out of manpower, asking Syria to send troops. Sanctions are working. Russia may culminate in 10-14 days if we press.”
So what happens then ?
Who knows?
But who knows what happens if we withdraw all help from Ukraine, and Russia rolls over them and gets a nice, compliant pro-Russian government in Kiev?
In my mind it's quite simple: it is right versus wrong, good versus evil. The evil is easy to identify: Putin and his cronies. They are the ones who have invaded another country; they are the ones who are killing innocent civilians. They are the ones threatening smaller democracies with invasion. They are the ones who are threatening the world with chemical weapons, or nuclear oblivion.
Those on the side of evil talk about how it is our fault, how we caused this mess, rather than concentrate their ire on the evil.
We have to be on the side of good. And that means supporting Ukraine.
Which we are doing.
The time to think about the causes of this is after the mess is over - and I think many of their arguments are bogus anyway, purposeful distractions away from evil.
The final clause is the sort of thing we should avoid writing. I don't know people who are 'purposefully' distracting away from evil, at least not on here. I don't frequent other political or social media sites.
The reason why the causes are pertinent is that they are also so relevant to both the present and the future.
We were powerless to stop Putin because we are powerless to stop Putin and we will be powerless to stop Putin. We are so frit of him, of the nuclear threat, that we're not prepared to stand up and defend Ukraine with the only language Putin will pay attention to: military force.
Biden is a wet blanket. His ghastly withdrawal from Afghanistan, aided and abetted by Johnson, greenlit Putin's invasion of Ukraine and has shown Putin that NATO is not going to stand up and defend them.
And, yes, Putin and his invasion are utterly evil.
I utterly disagree. In other places, the 'we caused tis by x, y and z' are being used as distractions away from the Russian's folly. Whenever anyone criticises Russia, the voices cry that it is 'our' fault.
"Russians are doing these things." "Remember that we guaranteed we would not expand NATO eastwards, and Ukraine is filled with Nazis. Besides, we 'poked' them into it."
It is classic maskirovka, performed by either knowing or unknowing fools.
The Russian government is not the victims in this. They are the aggressor, the bully. The victims are the Ukrainian people and, to a lesser extent, the Russian people.
If we see what is happening as akin to rape, then these people are saying that Ukraine should not have been wearing such a short skirt.
Twitter is full of such comments.
Twitter is part of the poison that has got us to the place of Russia invading Ukraine. .
I read your posts on here with interest (Chris, again, take note). I've seen Greta Thurnberg blamed on here for starting the Ukraine war but now Twitter is responsible for it? It's an interesting thesis but I'm not on twitter so I wouldn't know.
I think if we believe in democracy it's really important that we continue to debate in as friendly a way as possible, even when profoundly disagreeing with someone's perspective or suggestion. I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. That's a shame because this is a decent site and the only one I frequent. When someone is rude to me I tend to disappear as I have better things to do than be insulted by someone from the comfort of their chair whom I've never met.
So keep playing the ball, folks. Not the man or woman.
". I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. "
You weren't here in 2016. Or 2017. Or 2014. Or 2019. Or 2020. In fact, it's pretty much always been like this...
I'd argue PB is a rather decorous place compared to the Internet in general, especially as politics is being discussed. It's also more informative than most places.
There are more women than ever before, but still by no means enough.
It's not exactly a welcoming place for women tbh.
There's far too much male aggression and downright rudeness, a failure to debate issues and always a tendency to attack the person.
This place is like being on a rugby field of 30 men. And not in a pleasant fantasy way
I shall be off for a bit. The personal rudeness is tiresome and I have a life outside that feels a lot more wholesome.
There's nothing stopping women from posting as many comments as they like on here. The fact is women are always less interested in obsessive political commentary than men. On the VoteUK forum it's about 95% male even though every effort has been made to encourage more women to join and post comments.
No the pile-ons and aggression from, and I'll say it, gammons, is really really off-putting.
Cowards most of you are.
It is tedious when posters descend to personal abuse, but as Mrs T observed
I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.
Thank you.
And I feel that's a good note on which I shall head out, without it being deemed a flounce
But I doubt I shall frequent here much to be honest. Some may cheer but you will end up left with an echo chamber of mostly white retired men: a demographic that is hardly representative of more than a fraction of the country or world.
For the first time in years I bought a Sunday Times to see just what it had on the Lebedev connection. It was damning. If there were not a war on Boris would be out pronto just on the evidence of that one edition.
He will certainly have to go before the next election. Never mind the text, some of the pictures were lethal. Labour and the LibDems would only have to keep reprinting them in leaflet after leaflet to torpedo the Tory campaign below the water line. The Tories simply cannot go into battle with him as leader. This is not the USA, and he is not Trump. The voters won't back him blind, whatever success he may have in the war or esewhere.
So if he's toast, when does he actually pop out of the toaster?
His MPs clearly think 'not now - the war you know.' They can maybe get away with that a bit but it's not a great look. Then there's the locals. 'Wait for them' is another excuse for inaction. What then? 'Takes a while to change a leader, and he was a winner'. Not sure that will suffice for very long.
Regrdless of the odds, I would say some time this year seems most likely by a long way, but he could get lucky with the war if that drags on. So maybe Mike is right, and at the odds 2023 looks decent enough value for the momnet.
The people that matter in this, Tory MPs, members and even voters don't seem to care.
Virtually none of the Tory posters on here who weren't already critics of the PM when he was first elected will engage with issues of standards, whether about lying, finances, cronyism or security risks.
The responses are a mix of "all politicians are thieving nasty liars regardless", "what about Corbyn", "other things are more important", or "if he helps bring a blue win then anything goes".
He is staying on until he loses an election or it is blatantly clear he will lose the next one.
Couldn’t agree more. The silence is deafening. It’s fine that Russian money and bot farms helped to deliver Brexit, it’s no problem that Russian money has financed the Tory Party and it’s client media for decades. The end justifies the means.
The aims of the right chime with those of Putin, in as much as they both get hard for a strong, nationalist agenda, a return of Empire, of power, of prestige perceived to have been lost. Not collaboration with a weak, Woke, green EU. Fellow travellers on the anti-climate change bandwagon, for whom the profit available from digging up and burning fossil fuels is more important than the long-term health of the planet.
The right can’t face up to this yet. Perhaps with time they will do.
It’s only people on the left whoever mention the Empire…
But if the left suggests that the Empire might not have been an alloyed good, it always gets the right flocking. Just the BE of course, other empires were nasty, foreign muck.
Mr. B, agree Verstappen is likely favourite for the drivers' title, but when it comes to the constructors I think Ferrari might be worth considering. Two very good drivers who are evenly matched, whereas Perez will be sacrificed whenever necessary to support Verstappen.
“ Clausewitz describes the "culminating point" as when an attacking force hits strong resistance, runs out of energy, and can no longer continue. Russia is running out of manpower, asking Syria to send troops. Sanctions are working. Russia may culminate in 10-14 days if we press.”
So what happens then ?
Who knows?
But who knows what happens if we withdraw all help from Ukraine, and Russia rolls over them and gets a nice, compliant pro-Russian government in Kiev?
In my mind it's quite simple: it is right versus wrong, good versus evil. The evil is easy to identify: Putin and his cronies. They are the ones who have invaded another country; they are the ones who are killing innocent civilians. They are the ones threatening smaller democracies with invasion. They are the ones who are threatening the world with chemical weapons, or nuclear oblivion.
Those on the side of evil talk about how it is our fault, how we caused this mess, rather than concentrate their ire on the evil.
We have to be on the side of good. And that means supporting Ukraine.
Which we are doing.
The time to think about the causes of this is after the mess is over - and I think many of their arguments are bogus anyway, purposeful distractions away from evil.
The final clause is the sort of thing we should avoid writing. I don't know people who are 'purposefully' distracting away from evil, at least not on here. I don't frequent other political or social media sites.
The reason why the causes are pertinent is that they are also so relevant to both the present and the future.
We were powerless to stop Putin because we are powerless to stop Putin and we will be powerless to stop Putin. We are so frit of him, of the nuclear threat, that we're not prepared to stand up and defend Ukraine with the only language Putin will pay attention to: military force.
Biden is a wet blanket. His ghastly withdrawal from Afghanistan, aided and abetted by Johnson, greenlit Putin's invasion of Ukraine and has shown Putin that NATO is not going to stand up and defend them.
And, yes, Putin and his invasion are utterly evil.
I utterly disagree. In other places, the 'we caused tis by x, y and z' are being used as distractions away from the Russian's folly. Whenever anyone criticises Russia, the voices cry that it is 'our' fault.
"Russians are doing these things." "Remember that we guaranteed we would not expand NATO eastwards, and Ukraine is filled with Nazis. Besides, we 'poked' them into it."
It is classic maskirovka, performed by either knowing or unknowing fools.
The Russian government is not the victims in this. They are the aggressor, the bully. The victims are the Ukrainian people and, to a lesser extent, the Russian people.
If we see what is happening as akin to rape, then these people are saying that Ukraine should not have been wearing such a short skirt.
Twitter is full of such comments.
Twitter is part of the poison that has got us to the place of Russia invading Ukraine. .
I read your posts on here with interest (Chris, again, take note). I've seen Greta Thurnberg blamed on here for starting the Ukraine war but now Twitter is responsible for it? It's an interesting thesis but I'm not on twitter so I wouldn't know.
I think if we believe in democracy it's really important that we continue to debate in as friendly a way as possible, even when profoundly disagreeing with someone's perspective or suggestion. I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. That's a shame because this is a decent site and the only one I frequent. When someone is rude to me I tend to disappear as I have better things to do than be insulted by someone from the comfort of their chair whom I've never met.
So keep playing the ball, folks. Not the man or woman.
". I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. "
You weren't here in 2016. Or 2017. Or 2014. Or 2019. Or 2020. In fact, it's pretty much always been like this...
I'd argue PB is a rather decorous place compared to the Internet in general, especially as politics is being discussed. It's also more informative than most places.
There are more women than ever before, but still by no means enough.
It's not exactly a welcoming place for women tbh.
There's far too much male aggression and downright rudeness, a failure to debate issues and always a tendency to attack the person.
This place is like being on a rugby field of 30 men. And not in a pleasant fantasy way
I shall be off for a bit. The personal rudeness is tiresome and I have a life outside that feels a lot more wholesome.
There's nothing stopping women from posting as many comments as they like on here. The fact is women are always less interested in obsessive political commentary than men. On the VoteUK forum it's about 95% male even though every effort has been made to encourage more women to join and post comments.
No the pile-ons and aggression from, and I'll say it, gammons, is really really off-putting. That's to put it mildly.
The offensive attacks on me this morning just for daring to suggest we in the west are not winning this in Ukraine is really extraordinary. I'm far more with Zelensky than anyone on this site it would seem. Cowards most of you are.
And I've still no idea what the BA pilot thing is about and as no one has been able to explain I'll just presume it's the kind of faux news MM refers to.
If you are trolling from a dodgy spam IP, I’d have you down as a Ukrainian troll myself, and don’t understand why others are pegging you as Russian. You have one point to make over and over which appears aimed at escalating the war through a NATO NFZ or other intervention, which suits the Ukrainian agenda precisely. We know the Ukranians have been better at the cyber war than the Russians, which fits with Topping’s observation.
Completely off topic, but I wanted to write something somewhere to express my emotions, but my nan died yesterday. As an adult this is the first death of a loved one I've really experienced, my last experience of death for someone I was close to was of a classmate at school who died when we were 10.
Its such a cliché to say, but at least she's not suffering anymore. She'd had a fall towards the end of lockdown that triggered a steep downfall in her health and dementia so she wasn't herself anymore and the NHS made her go into a care home, but still its very emotional now that she's gone.
I'm very fortunate to have had my grandparents so long into my adulthood, my wife lost all of hers many years ago, mainly when she was a teenager. It was nice yesterday to be looking back at photos of Nanna at our wedding, and with our children whom I'm glad she got to meet and get to know and love.
My one regret is that the combination of the virus and restrictions meant we lost the chance to see her in the last few years of her life. Our last full chance to see her as herself was in January 2020 - after that she wouldn't have any visitors until she was vaccinated. I saw her again once in December 2020 socially distanced from outside dropping off Christmas presents, coincidentally on the day she got the call to get her vaccine. Then there was lockdown again and my parents at least saw her regularly as her support bubble but we didn't get to see her again until lockdown was lifted by which time she'd had the fall and she was bedbound and a very pale shadow of herself from months earlier. She then got taken to a care home who refused to allow visitors and who STILL don't allow visitors - my parents and her husband could visit but not us. The home was still saying they'd start allowing visitors soon but still haven't yet and now its too late.
Lots of happy memories of a life well loved. I'm very grateful she got to know her great-grandkids who seem to be processing this OK hopefully. Rest in peace Nanna.
I'm afraid I really do think a lot of the back-slapping about how well we are doing is delusional borne of a need not to feel as powerless about what Putin is doing as we are.
The fact is, we stood by and let him invade and pulverise an entire nation. Slowly and inexorably that is what he is doing. Biden and NATO refused to pitch in because they were too scared of Putin's nuclear threats. Perhaps justifiably, but we've let him get away with it.
We all want this to be another Afghanistan. I fear we are deluding ourselves.
When you say "we", I don't think you're including yourself.
So perhaps you should be a little more precise in your language and say "you".
It would be a little more honest, no?
'We' meaning the west, not pb.com per se.
I think we in the west have been trying to convince ourselves that we're doing as much as we possibly can (we aren't), that we're united (we aren't) and that there's nothing further we can do without risking nuclear war (not true).
The reality is that we are ignoring Zelensky's pleas for a No Fly Zone and we're letting an entire country get pulverised.
You started here with some views on Covid cases and hospitalisations in Israel which turned out not to be - how to put this - entirely accurate. Then moved on to a story about BA pilots, which turned out to be... ah yes... not entirely accurate.
And now you're onto "oh yes, I'm on your side, one of *you*, and I know it's hard to accept, but it would be better for all of us if the Ukrainians just accepted the inevitable and laid down their arms... after all, what chance do they stand?"
It is a little tricky to take you seriously, and for that I apologise.
At least she’s a better class of Russian provocateur. PB should feel flattered
The faux reasonableness is very, very well done though.
I think, and I do mean this, you should take a look at yourself if you are 'really' going down that route because it's a very, very, dark place to go.
If you start to think that anyone with whom you disagree displays the signs of being something other than sincere, a phantasm, a spectre, who is merely 'faux' reasonable then you are disappearing into a rabbit hole void the end result of which is a dystopian nightmare of narcissistic individualism.
I don't agree with everything you post but I don't stoop to question your sincerity.
It's a strange phenomenon on PB, noted also by @Dura_Ace and @YBarddCwsc yesterday. Normally very thoughtful, enquiring minds have fallen into line over a preferred stance on Russia/Ukraine. Any deviation from that stance is met with disproportionate hostility.
Perhaps it stems from a sense of frustration at our powerlessness. Change your profile picture to the Ukrainian flag and shout down those who don't agree with the chosen line on Ukraine (Russia doing dreadfully, imminent collapse of their war effort, dissent maybe even revolution at home, etc).
It really is quite strange.
It's OK to have a dissenting opinion.
But it's also a little suspicious when you have a dissenting opinion, have a record of spreading falsehoods (about BA pilots and vaccines, for example), and have an IP address that's listed in the blacklists.
Absolutely and it's your site so them's the rules. Perhaps it is a mark of the sophistication of spammers that @Heathener's posts seem to me to be genuine and I could point to other posters who are equally contentious for many on PB, not to say equally provocative.
P Johnson and d-d were laughably obvious, but Heathener less so.
I thought she was stupid, but harmless. Guess she's gone now.
Thing is, we are, ahem, all grown up able to think for ourselves types on here. If they are super crass like @PJohnson was with lots of "mate"s and very bad at the spamming thing then fair enough - they clog up the site and take up bandwidth.
But from what I have read of @Heathener's posts (until recently one a day in the morning saying that's it I'm off) they have an opinion. I hadn't recalled the BA pilots or vaccines ones but even if it is the most egregious perceived rubbish then what harm does it do to respond to the points raised.
What's the difference between engaging with someone who genuinely believes, for example and I'm not saying this is her position, that Putin is entirely justified in his current actions, and engaging with a bot who says the same thing. It is the issue that is of interest. Somewhere there is someone who supports Putin - there are reports that say much of the Russian population, for example - so why not ignore the IP address and just discuss the issue.
When @Heathener arrived it was a blaze of glory about autumn lockdowns and the vaccines failing, which was challenged in a robust way, as it was shite. She/he/it objected to the unwelcoming atmosphere (which kind of indicates that they hadn't been a lurker).
Up to now I've regarded them as a deluded, rude, lesbian, who talked shit. Now perhaps she/he/it has been outed as something else entirely.
'The reality is that we are ignoring Zelensky's pleas for a No Fly Zone and we're letting an entire country get pulverised.'
No serious commentator is suggesting a NFZ. The reason is obvious, and has been stated on this forum clearly and frequently.
NFZ is simply fluffy words to mean the West bombing Russia, which is a major escalation that gives Putin cover for his own escalation.
Far, far better to keep shoveling all those Stinger ground-to-air missiles over into Ukraine. Get enough of them in theatre, and you end up with a no-fly zone by default.
I am not an expert on war but in regard to the 30 or so cruise missiles that hit near the Polish border are there defence systems that can intercept them and are there any deployed in Ukraine ?
It was reported last week that a missile defence system has been set up close to the Polish border, using the US Patriot system. Presumably it’s going to be used to stop stray missiles heading for Poland, rather than to take out Russian missiles in Ukraine.
It’s interesting how, with the exception of the attack on this base at the weekend, Russia has been quite sparing with the long-range missiles. My suspicion is that they have only a few hundred of them.
Kh55/101 uses a Ukrainian made engine... apparently 575 Kh55 were transferred to Russia in the big transfer of weapons and equipment from Ukraine to Russia in 1999.
I do wonder what it actually takes to service these, but think it’s unlikely to be a simple as checking oil levels once a year, saying a prayer that a 40-year-old jet engine will light its fire on command, and that the navigation and avionics will all wake up and find the correct target.
Of course not. You also have to hit it with a crow bar.
Amid fears that Russia might default, the finance ministry said it has enough funds to meet its obligations. It said that it would be making payments in rubles in case sanctions prevent it from doing so in foreign currencies.
“ Clausewitz describes the "culminating point" as when an attacking force hits strong resistance, runs out of energy, and can no longer continue. Russia is running out of manpower, asking Syria to send troops. Sanctions are working. Russia may culminate in 10-14 days if we press.”
So what happens then ?
Who knows?
But who knows what happens if we withdraw all help from Ukraine, and Russia rolls over them and gets a nice, compliant pro-Russian government in Kiev?
In my mind it's quite simple: it is right versus wrong, good versus evil. The evil is easy to identify: Putin and his cronies. They are the ones who have invaded another country; they are the ones who are killing innocent civilians. They are the ones threatening smaller democracies with invasion. They are the ones who are threatening the world with chemical weapons, or nuclear oblivion.
Those on the side of evil talk about how it is our fault, how we caused this mess, rather than concentrate their ire on the evil.
We have to be on the side of good. And that means supporting Ukraine.
Which we are doing.
The time to think about the causes of this is after the mess is over - and I think many of their arguments are bogus anyway, purposeful distractions away from evil.
The final clause is the sort of thing we should avoid writing. I don't know people who are 'purposefully' distracting away from evil, at least not on here. I don't frequent other political or social media sites.
The reason why the causes are pertinent is that they are also so relevant to both the present and the future.
We were powerless to stop Putin because we are powerless to stop Putin and we will be powerless to stop Putin. We are so frit of him, of the nuclear threat, that we're not prepared to stand up and defend Ukraine with the only language Putin will pay attention to: military force.
Biden is a wet blanket. His ghastly withdrawal from Afghanistan, aided and abetted by Johnson, greenlit Putin's invasion of Ukraine and has shown Putin that NATO is not going to stand up and defend them.
And, yes, Putin and his invasion are utterly evil.
I utterly disagree. In other places, the 'we caused tis by x, y and z' are being used as distractions away from the Russian's folly. Whenever anyone criticises Russia, the voices cry that it is 'our' fault.
"Russians are doing these things." "Remember that we guaranteed we would not expand NATO eastwards, and Ukraine is filled with Nazis. Besides, we 'poked' them into it."
It is classic maskirovka, performed by either knowing or unknowing fools.
The Russian government is not the victims in this. They are the aggressor, the bully. The victims are the Ukrainian people and, to a lesser extent, the Russian people.
If we see what is happening as akin to rape, then these people are saying that Ukraine should not have been wearing such a short skirt.
Twitter is full of such comments.
Twitter is part of the poison that has got us to the place of Russia invading Ukraine. .
I read your posts on here with interest (Chris, again, take note). I've seen Greta Thurnberg blamed on here for starting the Ukraine war but now Twitter is responsible for it? It's an interesting thesis but I'm not on twitter so I wouldn't know.
I think if we believe in democracy it's really important that we continue to debate in as friendly a way as possible, even when profoundly disagreeing with someone's perspective or suggestion. I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. That's a shame because this is a decent site and the only one I frequent. When someone is rude to me I tend to disappear as I have better things to do than be insulted by someone from the comfort of their chair whom I've never met.
So keep playing the ball, folks. Not the man or woman.
". I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. "
You weren't here in 2016. Or 2017. Or 2014. Or 2019. Or 2020. In fact, it's pretty much always been like this...
I'd argue PB is a rather decorous place compared to the Internet in general, especially as politics is being discussed. It's also more informative than most places.
There are more women than ever before, but still by no means enough.
It's not exactly a welcoming place for women tbh.
There's far too much male aggression and downright rudeness, a failure to debate issues and always a tendency to attack the person.
This place is like being on a rugby field of 30 men. And not in a pleasant fantasy way
I shall be off for a bit. The personal rudeness is tiresome and I have a life outside that feels a lot more wholesome.
There's nothing stopping women from posting as many comments as they like on here. The fact is women are always less interested in obsessive political commentary than men. On the VoteUK forum it's about 95% male even though every effort has been made to encourage more women to join and post comments.
No the pile-ons and aggression from, and I'll say it, gammons, is really really off-putting. That's to put it mildly.
The offensive attacks on me this morning just for daring to suggest we in the west are not winning this in Ukraine is really extraordinary. I'm far more with Zelensky than anyone on this site it would seem. Cowards most of you are.
And I've still no idea what the BA pilot thing is about and as no one has been able to explain I'll just presume it's the kind of faux news MM refers to.
If you are trolling from a dodgy spam IP, I’d have you down as a Ukrainian troll myself, and don’t understand why others are pegging you as Russian. You have one point to make over and over which appears aimed at escalating the war through a NATO NFZ or other intervention, which suits the Ukrainian agenda precisely. We know the Ukranians have been better at the cyber war than the Russians, which fits with Topping’s observation.
Not commenting on Heathener directly, but it might be the opposite: whilst the Russians do not want an NFZ, they are aware that many in the west want one. Therefore have some trolls arguing for one, and others against, and they've helped us in arguing amongst ourselves.
Completely off topic, but I wanted to write something somewhere to express my emotions, but my nan died yesterday. As an adult this is the first death of a loved one I've really experienced, my last experience of death for someone I was close to was of a classmate at school who died when we were 10.
Its such a cliché to say, but at least she's not suffering anymore. She'd had a fall towards the end of lockdown that triggered a steep downfall in her health and dementia so she wasn't herself anymore and the NHS made her go into a care home, but still its very emotional now that she's gone.
I'm very fortunate to have had my grandparents so long into my adulthood, my wife lost all of hers many years ago, mainly when she was a teenager. It was nice yesterday to be looking back at photos of Nanna at our wedding, and with our children whom I'm glad she got to meet and get to know and love.
My one regret is that the combination of the virus and restrictions meant we lost the chance to see her in the last few years of her life. Our last full chance to see her as herself was in January 2020 - after that she wouldn't have any visitors until she was vaccinated. I saw her again once in December 2020 socially distanced from outside dropping off Christmas presents, coincidentally on the day she got the call to get her vaccine. Then there was lockdown again and my parents at least saw her regularly as her support bubble but we didn't get to see her again until lockdown was lifted by which time she'd had the fall and she was bedbound and a very pale shadow of herself from months earlier. She then got taken to a care home who refused to allow visitors and who STILL don't allow visitors - my parents and her husband could visit but not us. The home was still saying they'd start allowing visitors soon but still haven't yet and now its too late.
Lots of happy memories of a life well loved. I'm very grateful she got to know her great-grandkids who seem to be processing this OK hopefully. Rest in peace Nanna.
Thanks for sharing with us. Look after yourself. Lest we forget, you have highlighted the very worst aspect of Covid, not being able to see elderly family.
Completely off topic, but I wanted to write something somewhere to express my emotions, but my nan died yesterday. As an adult this is the first death of a loved one I've really experienced, my last experience of death for someone I was close to was of a classmate at school who died when we were 10.
Its such a cliché to say, but at least she's not suffering anymore. She'd had a fall towards the end of lockdown that triggered a steep downfall in her health and dementia so she wasn't herself anymore and the NHS made her go into a care home, but still its very emotional now that she's gone.
I'm very fortunate to have had my grandparents so long into my adulthood, my wife lost all of hers many years ago, mainly when she was a teenager. It was nice yesterday to be looking back at photos of Nanna at our wedding, and with our children whom I'm glad she got to meet and get to know and love.
My one regret is that the combination of the virus and restrictions meant we lost the chance to see her in the last few years of her life. Our last full chance to see her as herself was in January 2020 - after that she wouldn't have any visitors until she was vaccinated. I saw her again once in December 2020 socially distanced from outside dropping off Christmas presents, coincidentally on the day she got the call to get her vaccine. Then there was lockdown again and my parents at least saw her regularly as her support bubble but we didn't get to see her again until lockdown was lifted by which time she'd had the fall and she was bedbound and a very pale shadow of herself from months earlier. She then got taken to a care home who refused to allow visitors and who STILL don't allow visitors - my parents and her husband could visit but not us. The home was still saying they'd start allowing visitors soon but still haven't yet and now its too late.
Lots of happy memories of a life well loved. I'm very grateful she got to know her great-grandkids who seem to be processing this OK hopefully. Rest in peace Nanna.
So sorry to hear that, and a beautiful little post.
Tweet has video of him waving a huge Ukrainian flag from his "conquest"
Mateusz Sobieraj @MateuszSobiera3 Master French activist Pierre Afner entered the villa of the alleged daughter of Russian Federation head Katerina Tikhonova in Biarritz, changed the locks on the house and invited refugees from #Ukraine there #Ukraine #Russia #poland #BreakingNews #breaking #war #putin #StopPutin https://twitter.com/MateuszSobiera3/status/1503120886156644353
Completely off topic, but I wanted to write something somewhere to express my emotions, but my nan died yesterday. As an adult this is the first death of a loved one I've really experienced, my last experience of death for someone I was close to was of a classmate at school who died when we were 10.
Its such a cliché to say, but at least she's not suffering anymore. She'd had a fall towards the end of lockdown that triggered a steep downfall in her health and dementia so she wasn't herself anymore and the NHS made her go into a care home, but still its very emotional now that she's gone.
I'm very fortunate to have had my grandparents so long into my adulthood, my wife lost all of hers many years ago, mainly when she was a teenager. It was nice yesterday to be looking back at photos of Nanna at our wedding, and with our children whom I'm glad she got to meet and get to know and love.
My one regret is that the combination of the virus and restrictions meant we lost the chance to see her in the last few years of her life. Our last full chance to see her as herself was in January 2020 - after that she wouldn't have any visitors until she was vaccinated. I saw her again once in December 2020 socially distanced from outside dropping off Christmas presents, coincidentally on the day she got the call to get her vaccine. Then there was lockdown again and my parents at least saw her regularly as her support bubble but we didn't get to see her again until lockdown was lifted by which time she'd had the fall and she was bedbound and a very pale shadow of herself from months earlier. She then got taken to a care home who refused to allow visitors and who STILL don't allow visitors - my parents and her husband could visit but not us. The home was still saying they'd start allowing visitors soon but still haven't yet and now its too late.
Lots of happy memories of a life well loved. I'm very grateful she got to know her great-grandkids who seem to be processing this OK hopefully. Rest in peace Nanna.
IanB2. Actually I did provide the explanation. I have to protect someone who is close inside Westminster. If I reveal my hand they could be in trouble. You seem to have really got it in for me ever since I didn't tow your left-of-centre line when I thought we should stand up to Putin.
MM. That's just such an obnoxious thing to post. Incredibly rude and typical of what Topping referred to. Some people have become so myopic and angry that they instantaneously jump on anyone who deviates from their kosher line. It's really quite disturbing, I should I say that you are. And why on earth would I know about London Bridge? I find the idea of predicating the death of the Queen really distasteful.
The idea that I'm a Putin apologist is an absolute sick joke. I loathe the man and think we should be standing up to him militarily, unlike the wimps on the right here who don't have the balls they seem to think with.
Regarding Israel data I've not got the slightest idea what this refers to. I've been right about covid, stating to much derision for example that I could see cases rising above 100,000 (they're currently around 225,000 a day by the way). We are still in a covid pandemic, it is still globally serious and I think Johnson's government are being incredibly slack about it - mainly driven by right wing headbangers who are intent on freedom at all costs.
You know, it's okay to disagree with someone about one thing and park it, move on and still see the good in other things they write. Try it.
The mystery for me is how you square your muscular pro-NFZ stance and the regular beatings you administer to those without masks, with your professed belief in Buddhism with its emphasis on non-violence?
More detail on this please.
This is actually a good question, finally. And a very fair one.
It's one I wrestle with.
However, if you look at Buddhist nations you will find there is sometimes a need to take up arms and fight. Even Buddhist monks get involved when the need is great. It's a rather Orientalist (Edward Said) stance to presume that Buddhists absolutely or never take up arms in defence.
I believe we should be stepping up support for Ukraine, because I believe we are standing by cowardly, and letting Ukrainians get pulverised. The back-slapping that we're doing all we can that has accompanied is deluded.
I concur. It is a common misconception that Buddhists are pacifists and believe in non-violence. That is better rendered as harmlessness. Violence is a last resort and shouldn't be used out of anger or any other delusion*. But sometimes, and less often than commonly thought, it is the only option to prevent greater harm. If your building is being eaten away by bugs, then you get it de-infested. You kill millions of beings taking antibiotics. But you don't swat a fly simply because you find it annoying. It is the would you kill Hitler? argument, really. You move on. And accept the karma which will then ripen.
For the first time in years I bought a Sunday Times to see just what it had on the Lebedev connection. It was damning. If there were not a war on Boris would be out pronto just on the evidence of that one edition.
He will certainly have to go before the next election. Never mind the text, some of the pictures were lethal. Labour and the LibDems would only have to keep reprinting them in leaflet after leaflet to torpedo the Tory campaign below the water line. The Tories simply cannot go into battle with him as leader. This is not the USA, and he is not Trump. The voters won't back him blind, whatever success he may have in the war or esewhere.
So if he's toast, when does he actually pop out of the toaster?
His MPs clearly think 'not now - the war you know.' They can maybe get away with that a bit but it's not a great look. Then there's the locals. 'Wait for them' is another excuse for inaction. What then? 'Takes a while to change a leader, and he was a winner'. Not sure that will suffice for very long.
Regrdless of the odds, I would say some time this year seems most likely by a long way, but he could get lucky with the war if that drags on. So maybe Mike is right, and at the odds 2023 looks decent enough value for the momnet.
The other dilemma for Conservative MPs is that the longer he is left in place, the more he taints the whole party. After all, some of this was known ages ago- enough for people to ask some pretty probing questions. But they all (even Boris-sceptics like Hunt) backed him for PM.
On topic, surely Boris will go in Autumn 2023 if and only if he is confident of winning well. After all, that's why Maggie and Blair went for elections after four years and Major and Brown didn't.
Given the wider economic forecasts, that seems brave... Does "these economic problems, which started somewhere else" ever work?
John Major won in '92 despite the vicious 1990-1 recession. And that one was caused by domestic policy mistakes - in particular joining the ERM - rather than international factors like the price of energy. The Opposition needs a convincing story about how they will improve the economy, which Starmer doesn't have - just more tax, spend and regulation of exactly the kind that will throttle growth.
It MAY be enough if the Conservatives mess thinkgs up badly enough, but at the moment, I'm not sure.
Starmer may well find that boring old competence and simply not being the other guy is sufficient.
Starmer is certainly boring, but I'm not convinced he's at all competent. I think he made the wrong call at just about every stage during the pandemic, for example, when he actually bothered to offer any opposition to the government at all, which was rarely. Also his Brexit policy at the 2019 election was a dismal failure. And he ran on a Corbynite manifesto in 2019 and again on a Corbynite programme in 2020 before now posing laughably in front of the Union Jack at every opportunity.
It MAY be enough if Boris messes up badly enough, but if the Conservatives recover significantly, I don't see him winning and he may not even come close.
For all your analysis of Johnson's genius and Starmer's ineptitude you have forgotten one thing. The economy.
Please show my analysis of Johnson's genius? Neither of them are exactly Margaret Thatcher. And I did actually mention Starmer on the economy in another post, saying I think his programme will make things much worse.
(I think the Economist's verdict on Boris was very shrewd - he has flashes of genius, e.g. breaking the Brexit logjam or the vaccination programme but also too-frequent disasters. And if we move towards more settled times, he'd be the wrong leader. But I'm not convinced by any of the alternatives on the Conservative benches yet, and I don't think that Starmer is competent).
We need to get away from the idea that just because somebody is boring, they're also competent. Gordon Brown should have blown that one to pieces.
I think Johnson has good instincts, but is lazy and arrogant.
He was spot on with vaccines, broadly right about Ukraine, and got the UK out of the Brexit logjam.
But he has no money, and that has led him - like others before - to make poor choices of friends. He doesn't think the rules apply to him. And he's not very process oriented.
I suspect he will lead the Conservatives to defeat (albeit a narrow one) in 2024. But he's probably the best person for the PM role right now.
Not seeking to put BJ up with the greats, but Lloyd George and Churchill were both frequently criticised for their choice of friends, some of whom were decidedly rackety. I think partly it will have been due to money but, also, dare I say it, that they (and BoJo) just enjoy the company of these kinds of people. Find them stimulating, original, edgy, etc. And have a contempt for the tedious, conventional types that they are seeking to supplant.
Interesting, and possibly explains why I have achieved the height of mediocrity in my lifetime, as on quite a few occasions I have come across people (usually in business) who I have enjoyed the company of and have impressed me and then something happens or they say something that as far as I am concerned is unacceptable. It might just be the other people they associate with for whom they should know better. I drop them like a stone at that point in every case. I won't knowingly associate with corrupt people, even politely.
The other thing is that the Americans/allied forces put in sustained campaign to knockout the air defences. They started hitting other ground targets at the first, but the majority of missions were against air defences, until they'd taken out a considerable portion. Then moved more and more effort into the other targets.
The Russians simply haven't done that - they seem to have flown occasional sorties against missile sites and radars, but nothing over whelming.
It is incomprehensible.
For the first few days of the war I was going back and forth between "they really are as crap as it appears" and "this is the greatest military deception in history". I've settled on the first opinion now, the Russian military may be big and brutal, but it is a generation or more behind Western militaries. Now big and brutal might still be enough to destroy Ukraine, but whatever aura the Russian military once had is now gone.
Completely off topic, but I wanted to write something somewhere to express my emotions, but my nan died yesterday. As an adult this is the first death of a loved one I've really experienced, my last experience of death for someone I was close to was of a classmate at school who died when we were 10.
Its such a cliché to say, but at least she's not suffering anymore. She'd had a fall towards the end of lockdown that triggered a steep downfall in her health and dementia so she wasn't herself anymore and the NHS made her go into a care home, but still its very emotional now that she's gone.
I'm very fortunate to have had my grandparents so long into my adulthood, my wife lost all of hers many years ago, mainly when she was a teenager. It was nice yesterday to be looking back at photos of Nanna at our wedding, and with our children whom I'm glad she got to meet and get to know and love.
My one regret is that the combination of the virus and restrictions meant we lost the chance to see her in the last few years of her life. Our last full chance to see her as herself was in January 2020 - after that she wouldn't have any visitors until she was vaccinated. I saw her again once in December 2020 socially distanced from outside dropping off Christmas presents, coincidentally on the day she got the call to get her vaccine. Then there was lockdown again and my parents at least saw her regularly as her support bubble but we didn't get to see her again until lockdown was lifted by which time she'd had the fall and she was bedbound and a very pale shadow of herself from months earlier. She then got taken to a care home who refused to allow visitors and who STILL don't allow visitors - my parents and her husband could visit but not us. The home was still saying they'd start allowing visitors soon but still haven't yet and now its too late.
Lots of happy memories of a life well loved. I'm very grateful she got to know her great-grandkids who seem to be processing this OK hopefully. Rest in peace Nanna.
Similar experience re: my mum. Massive fail from the government IMO. Covering their arses by stripping the most basic of liberties from these poor folk. Care homes implicit in this - care more about their bloody indemnity insurers that the people they care for.
Mum is still alive but now has dementia and can't remember my name or my dad's. The final two years of her useful life has been taken from her.
I'm furious. I'll never forgive the government and those who argued for these measures. History won't look back on this kindly.
Johnson's political recovery is no surprise. The war is a great opportunity for him to pretend he's a serious Prime Minister rather than a morally vacant charlatan and although most won't be fooled there will be some who are - enough to shift those polls.
I think of more relevance is that anger over partygate rightly fades into the background in the context of what's currently going on in Ukraine. Getting rid of him depended on a) agreement that the behaviour was wrong (which bar, I think, was passed) and b) continuous focus and anger on the issue. For entirely external reasons, this has moved on. People can only be really angry about one thing at a time. It's very hard to be angry about whether someone went to a party they said they didn't and said no-one else should be doing when a crazed madman is bombing maternity hospitals and threatening nuclear armageddon. I was cheerfully cross about partygate - everyone was. I was seething about the keenness of government for lockdown and this gave me a useful way to blame someone for it. But trying to think about it now it feels curiously abstract - I can't summon any emotion about it at all. And making people feel things is crucial to making things happen. That's why politicians make speeches. That's why Churchill was successful and - say - IDS was not. I'm not saying this is right, I'm just explaining it (as I see it at least).
Xavier MacDuff @xvrmdf · 12h The rise in energy bills coming down the pipeline for UK households really is horrific. I'm not quite sure that people have gotten their heads around just how bad this is going to be.
That is 10% of household income that people won't be able to spend on other things.
There are going to be some huge cutbacks. Not great if you have a business selling discretionary goods and services to the UK consumer.
Amid fears that Russia might default, the finance ministry said it has enough funds to meet its obligations. It said that it would be making payments in rubles in case sanctions prevent it from doing so in foreign currencies.
I'm afraid I really do think a lot of the back-slapping about how well we are doing is delusional borne of a need not to feel as powerless about what Putin is doing as we are.
The fact is, we stood by and let him invade and pulverise an entire nation. Slowly and inexorably that is what he is doing. Biden and NATO refused to pitch in because they were too scared of Putin's nuclear threats. Perhaps justifiably, but we've let him get away with it.
We all want this to be another Afghanistan. I fear we are deluding ourselves.
When you say "we", I don't think you're including yourself.
So perhaps you should be a little more precise in your language and say "you".
It would be a little more honest, no?
'We' meaning the west, not pb.com per se.
I think we in the west have been trying to convince ourselves that we're doing as much as we possibly can (we aren't), that we're united (we aren't) and that there's nothing further we can do without risking nuclear war (not true).
The reality is that we are ignoring Zelensky's pleas for a No Fly Zone and we're letting an entire country get pulverised.
You started here with some views on Covid cases and hospitalisations in Israel which turned out not to be - how to put this - entirely accurate. Then moved on to a story about BA pilots, which turned out to be... ah yes... not entirely accurate.
And now you're onto "oh yes, I'm on your side, one of *you*, and I know it's hard to accept, but it would be better for all of us if the Ukrainians just accepted the inevitable and laid down their arms... after all, what chance do they stand?"
It is a little tricky to take you seriously, and for that I apologise.
At least she’s a better class of Russian provocateur. PB should feel flattered
The faux reasonableness is very, very well done though.
I think, and I do mean this, you should take a look at yourself if you are 'really' going down that route because it's a very, very, dark place to go.
If you start to think that anyone with whom you disagree displays the signs of being something other than sincere, a phantasm, a spectre, who is merely 'faux' reasonable then you are disappearing into a rabbit hole void the end result of which is a dystopian nightmare of narcissistic individualism.
I don't agree with everything you post but I don't stoop to question your sincerity.
It's a strange phenomenon on PB, noted also by @Dura_Ace and @YBarddCwsc yesterday. Normally very thoughtful, enquiring minds have fallen into line over a preferred stance on Russia/Ukraine. Any deviation from that stance is met with disproportionate hostility.
Perhaps it stems from a sense of frustration at our powerlessness. Change your profile picture to the Ukrainian flag and shout down those who don't agree with the chosen line on Ukraine (Russia doing dreadfully, imminent collapse of their war effort, dissent maybe even revolution at home, etc).
It really is quite strange.
It's OK to have a dissenting opinion.
But it's also a little suspicious when you have a dissenting opinion, have a record of spreading falsehoods (about BA pilots and vaccines, for example), and have an IP address that's listed in the blacklists.
Absolutely and it's your site so them's the rules. Perhaps it is a mark of the sophistication of spammers that @Heathener's posts seem to me to be genuine and I could point to other posters who are equally contentious for many on PB, not to say equally provocative.
P Johnson and d-d were laughably obvious, but Heathener less so.
I thought she was stupid, but harmless. Guess she's gone now.
Thing is, we are, ahem, all grown up able to think for ourselves types on here. If they are super crass like @PJohnson was with lots of "mate"s and very bad at the spamming thing then fair enough - they clog up the site and take up bandwidth.
But from what I have read of @Heathener's posts (until recently one a day in the morning saying that's it I'm off) they have an opinion. I hadn't recalled the BA pilots or vaccines ones but even if it is the most egregious perceived rubbish then what harm does it do to respond to the points raised.
What's the difference between engaging with someone who genuinely believes, for example and I'm not saying this is her position, that Putin is entirely justified in his current actions, and engaging with a bot who says the same thing. It is the issue that is of interest. Somewhere there is someone who supports Putin - there are reports that say much of the Russian population, for example - so why not ignore the IP address and just discuss the issue.
When @Heathener arrived it was a blaze of glory about autumn lockdowns and the vaccines failing, which was challenged in a robust way, as it was shite. She/he/it objected to the unwelcoming atmosphere (which kind of indicates that they hadn't been a lurker).
Up to now I've regarded them as a deluded, rude, lesbian, who talked shit. Now perhaps she/he/it has been outed as something else entirely.
Blimey. "deluded, rude, lesbian."
Where the fuck did you get that from. And this from a site that welcomes women.
For the first time in years I bought a Sunday Times to see just what it had on the Lebedev connection. It was damning. If there were not a war on Boris would be out pronto just on the evidence of that one edition.
He will certainly have to go before the next election. Never mind the text, some of the pictures were lethal. Labour and the LibDems would only have to keep reprinting them in leaflet after leaflet to torpedo the Tory campaign below the water line. The Tories simply cannot go into battle with him as leader. This is not the USA, and he is not Trump. The voters won't back him blind, whatever success he may have in the war or esewhere.
So if he's toast, when does he actually pop out of the toaster?
His MPs clearly think 'not now - the war you know.' They can maybe get away with that a bit but it's not a great look. Then there's the locals. 'Wait for them' is another excuse for inaction. What then? 'Takes a while to change a leader, and he was a winner'. Not sure that will suffice for very long.
Regrdless of the odds, I would say some time this year seems most likely by a long way, but he could get lucky with the war if that drags on. So maybe Mike is right, and at the odds 2023 looks decent enough value for the momnet.
The people that matter in this, Tory MPs, members and even voters don't seem to care.
Virtually none of the Tory posters on here who weren't already critics of the PM when he was first elected will engage with issues of standards, whether about lying, finances, cronyism or security risks.
The responses are a mix of "all politicians are thieving nasty liars regardless", "what about Corbyn", "other things are more important", or "if he helps bring a blue win then anything goes".
He is staying on until he loses an election or it is blatantly clear he will lose the next one.
Couldn’t agree more. The silence is deafening. It’s fine that Russian money and bot farms helped to deliver Brexit, it’s no problem that Russian money has financed the Tory Party and it’s client media for decades. The end justifies the means.
The aims of the right chime with those of Putin, in as much as they both get hard for a strong, nationalist agenda, a return of Empire, of power, of prestige perceived to have been lost. Not collaboration with a weak, Woke, green EU. Fellow travellers on the anti-climate change bandwagon, for whom the profit available from digging up and burning fossil fuels is more important than the long-term health of the planet.
The right can’t face up to this yet. Perhaps with time they will do.
It’s only people on the left whoever mention the Empire…
But if the left suggests that the Empire might not have been an alloyed good, it always gets the right flocking. Just the BE of course, other empires were nasty, foreign muck.
Isn’t the common defence that the British Empire (“which the Scots ran”) was “the least bad of the lot”, rather than “an unalloyed good”?
For the first time in years I bought a Sunday Times to see just what it had on the Lebedev connection. It was damning. If there were not a war on Boris would be out pronto just on the evidence of that one edition.
He will certainly have to go before the next election. Never mind the text, some of the pictures were lethal. Labour and the LibDems would only have to keep reprinting them in leaflet after leaflet to torpedo the Tory campaign below the water line. The Tories simply cannot go into battle with him as leader. This is not the USA, and he is not Trump. The voters won't back him blind, whatever success he may have in the war or esewhere.
So if he's toast, when does he actually pop out of the toaster?
His MPs clearly think 'not now - the war you know.' They can maybe get away with that a bit but it's not a great look. Then there's the locals. 'Wait for them' is another excuse for inaction. What then? 'Takes a while to change a leader, and he was a winner'. Not sure that will suffice for very long.
Regrdless of the odds, I would say some time this year seems most likely by a long way, but he could get lucky with the war if that drags on. So maybe Mike is right, and at the odds 2023 looks decent enough value for the momnet.
The people that matter in this, Tory MPs, members and even voters don't seem to care.
Virtually none of the Tory posters on here who weren't already critics of the PM when he was first elected will engage with issues of standards, whether about lying, finances, cronyism or security risks.
The responses are a mix of "all politicians are thieving nasty liars regardless", "what about Corbyn", "other things are more important", or "if he helps bring a blue win then anything goes".
He is staying on until he loses an election or it is blatantly clear he will lose the next one.
Couldn’t agree more. The silence is deafening. It’s fine that Russian money and bot farms helped to deliver Brexit, it’s no problem that Russian money has financed the Tory Party and it’s client media for decades. The end justifies the means.
The aims of the right chime with those of Putin, in as much as they both get hard for a strong, nationalist agenda, a return of Empire, of power, of prestige perceived to have been lost. Not collaboration with a weak, Woke, green EU. Fellow travellers on the anti-climate change bandwagon, for whom the profit available from digging up and burning fossil fuels is more important than the long-term health of the planet.
The right can’t face up to this yet. Perhaps with time they will do.
I enabled Corbyn and the hard left. Having grown disillusioned with Blairism and the endless triangulation I wanted some conviction politics. Voted for - and believed in - the wrong Milliband. Then having grown utterly disillusioned by Andy Burnham's campaign was persuaded by a good friend to look at Jeremy Corbyn who I knew literally nothing about.
Less than a year into his tenure I realised what a fool I had been and how dangerous he was. Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa. I then switched sides and joined the insurrection against him, received warmly and with good grace by my colleagues who hadn't gone mad as I had.
My point is that even having enabled Bad Things - like the Big Dog - these MPs can still redeem themselves. Forgiveness is a simple thing, you just need to be genuine in your repentance. Are any of them capable?
Not that anyone gives a **** about what’s said here, but morally somnolent Tory MPs would surely take encouragement from the aforementioned PB Tory loyalists sticking by their man. Multiply that moral apathy throughout the country and with one bound their man is free will be their calculation.
The other thing is that the Americans/allied forces put in sustained campaign to knockout the air defences. They started hitting other ground targets at the first, but the majority of missions were against air defences, until they'd taken out a considerable portion. Then moved more and more effort into the other targets.
The Russians simply haven't done that - they seem to have flown occasional sorties against missile sites and radars, but nothing over whelming.
It is incomprehensible.
For the first few days of the war I was going back and forth between "they really are as crap as it appears" and "this is the greatest military deception in history". I've settled on the first opinion now, the Russian military may be big and brutal, but it is a generation or more behind Western militaries. Now big and brutal might still be enough to destroy Ukraine, but whatever aura the Russian military once had is now gone.
It helps if you consider that, while Russia has a huge conscript army, and a huge pile of rust weapons....
The actual reality is a moderate sized European nation worth of military capability with a huge shed full of sometimes working stuff that Granddad owned.
I'm afraid I really do think a lot of the back-slapping about how well we are doing is delusional borne of a need not to feel as powerless about what Putin is doing as we are.
The fact is, we stood by and let him invade and pulverise an entire nation. Slowly and inexorably that is what he is doing. Biden and NATO refused to pitch in because they were too scared of Putin's nuclear threats. Perhaps justifiably, but we've let him get away with it.
We all want this to be another Afghanistan. I fear we are deluding ourselves.
When you say "we", I don't think you're including yourself.
So perhaps you should be a little more precise in your language and say "you".
It would be a little more honest, no?
'We' meaning the west, not pb.com per se.
I think we in the west have been trying to convince ourselves that we're doing as much as we possibly can (we aren't), that we're united (we aren't) and that there's nothing further we can do without risking nuclear war (not true).
The reality is that we are ignoring Zelensky's pleas for a No Fly Zone and we're letting an entire country get pulverised.
You started here with some views on Covid cases and hospitalisations in Israel which turned out not to be - how to put this - entirely accurate. Then moved on to a story about BA pilots, which turned out to be... ah yes... not entirely accurate.
And now you're onto "oh yes, I'm on your side, one of *you*, and I know it's hard to accept, but it would be better for all of us if the Ukrainians just accepted the inevitable and laid down their arms... after all, what chance do they stand?"
It is a little tricky to take you seriously, and for that I apologise.
At least she’s a better class of Russian provocateur. PB should feel flattered
The faux reasonableness is very, very well done though.
I think, and I do mean this, you should take a look at yourself if you are 'really' going down that route because it's a very, very, dark place to go.
If you start to think that anyone with whom you disagree displays the signs of being something other than sincere, a phantasm, a spectre, who is merely 'faux' reasonable then you are disappearing into a rabbit hole void the end result of which is a dystopian nightmare of narcissistic individualism.
I don't agree with everything you post but I don't stoop to question your sincerity.
It's a strange phenomenon on PB, noted also by @Dura_Ace and @YBarddCwsc yesterday. Normally very thoughtful, enquiring minds have fallen into line over a preferred stance on Russia/Ukraine. Any deviation from that stance is met with disproportionate hostility.
Perhaps it stems from a sense of frustration at our powerlessness. Change your profile picture to the Ukrainian flag and shout down those who don't agree with the chosen line on Ukraine (Russia doing dreadfully, imminent collapse of their war effort, dissent maybe even revolution at home, etc).
It really is quite strange.
It's OK to have a dissenting opinion.
But it's also a little suspicious when you have a dissenting opinion, have a record of spreading falsehoods (about BA pilots and vaccines, for example), and have an IP address that's listed in the blacklists.
Absolutely and it's your site so them's the rules. Perhaps it is a mark of the sophistication of spammers that @Heathener's posts seem to me to be genuine and I could point to other posters who are equally contentious for many on PB, not to say equally provocative.
P Johnson and d-d were laughably obvious, but Heathener less so.
I thought she was stupid, but harmless. Guess she's gone now.
Thing is, we are, ahem, all grown up able to think for ourselves types on here. If they are super crass like @PJohnson was with lots of "mate"s and very bad at the spamming thing then fair enough - they clog up the site and take up bandwidth.
But from what I have read of @Heathener's posts (until recently one a day in the morning saying that's it I'm off) they have an opinion. I hadn't recalled the BA pilots or vaccines ones but even if it is the most egregious perceived rubbish then what harm does it do to respond to the points raised.
What's the difference between engaging with someone who genuinely believes, for example and I'm not saying this is her position, that Putin is entirely justified in his current actions, and engaging with a bot who says the same thing. It is the issue that is of interest. Somewhere there is someone who supports Putin - there are reports that say much of the Russian population, for example - so why not ignore the IP address and just discuss the issue.
When @Heathener arrived it was a blaze of glory about autumn lockdowns and the vaccines failing, which was challenged in a robust way, as it was shite. She/he/it objected to the unwelcoming atmosphere (which kind of indicates that they hadn't been a lurker).
Up to now I've regarded them as a deluded, rude, lesbian, who talked shit. Now perhaps she/he/it has been outed as something else entirely.
Her best moment was in her previous incarnation when she told the site that when a passenger jet has to make an emergency landing it jettisons *every last drop* of fuel before doing so. She knew this from her mate who is a Lufthansa pilot, who couldn't bear ill informed numpties who thought they only threw out part of it.
In fact, you reduce your fuel to get the plane's gross weight below maximum landing weight: jettisoning more creates pollution and jettisoning all of it would simply turn the plane into the world's most dangerous glider.
Completely off topic, but I wanted to write something somewhere to express my emotions, but my nan died yesterday. As an adult this is the first death of a loved one I've really experienced, my last experience of death for someone I was close to was of a classmate at school who died when we were 10.
Its such a cliché to say, but at least she's not suffering anymore. She'd had a fall towards the end of lockdown that triggered a steep downfall in her health and dementia so she wasn't herself anymore and the NHS made her go into a care home, but still its very emotional now that she's gone.
I'm very fortunate to have had my grandparents so long into my adulthood, my wife lost all of hers many years ago, mainly when she was a teenager. It was nice yesterday to be looking back at photos of Nanna at our wedding, and with our children whom I'm glad she got to meet and get to know and love.
My one regret is that the combination of the virus and restrictions meant we lost the chance to see her in the last few years of her life. Our last full chance to see her as herself was in January 2020 - after that she wouldn't have any visitors until she was vaccinated. I saw her again once in December 2020 socially distanced from outside dropping off Christmas presents, coincidentally on the day she got the call to get her vaccine. Then there was lockdown again and my parents at least saw her regularly as her support bubble but we didn't get to see her again until lockdown was lifted by which time she'd had the fall and she was bedbound and a very pale shadow of herself from months earlier. She then got taken to a care home who refused to allow visitors and who STILL don't allow visitors - my parents and her husband could visit but not us. The home was still saying they'd start allowing visitors soon but still haven't yet and now its too late.
Lots of happy memories of a life well loved. I'm very grateful she got to know her great-grandkids who seem to be processing this OK hopefully. Rest in peace Nanna.
Thanks for sharing with us. Look after yourself. Lest we forget, you have highlighted the very worst aspect of Covid, not being able to see elderly family.
And still ongoing, for what it's worth - my mum has been ill and I headed down to see her this weekend. Unfortunately she had a fall just before I got in the car and had been taken to hospital by the time I arrived. The hospital still has a strict one named person per hospital stay visitor policy (which, really, given we don't know how long it will be for, had to be my dad) so I didn't get to see her at all. I understand wanting to protect vulnerable people, but nowadays with LFTs, I think the risks can be managed. I'd happily have worn whatever kind of mask deemed necessary for a visit.
Sorry for your loss Bart (seems wrong to address you as 'Bart' but you changed your name here for a reason, so I'll stick with that). It sounds like a good life, although I'm sorry you missed much of the good bits of her last few years. My grandparents, like your wife's, were all dead by the time I was 18 and I do feel that I missed out on knowing them as an adult, rather than just as a child.
Johnson's political recovery is no surprise. The war is a great opportunity for him to pretend he's a serious Prime Minister rather than a morally vacant charlatan and although most won't be fooled there will be some who are - enough to shift those polls.
I think of more relevance is that anger over partygate rightly fades into the background in the context of what's currently going on in Ukraine. Getting rid of him depended on a) agreement that the behaviour was wrong (which bar, I think, was passed) and b) continuous focus and anger on the issue. For entirely external reasons, this has moved on. People can only be really angry about one thing at a time. It's very hard to be angry about whether someone went to a party they said they didn't and said no-one else should be doing when a crazed madman is bombing maternity hospitals and threatening nuclear armageddon. I was cheerfully cross about partygate - everyone was. I was seething about the keenness of government for lockdown and this gave me a useful way to blame someone for it. But trying to think about it now it feels curiously abstract - I can't summon any emotion about it at all. And making people feel things is crucial to making things happen. That's why politicians make speeches. That's why Churchill was successful and - say - IDS was not. I'm not saying this is right, I'm just explaining it (as I see it at least).
That view will be shared widely. But the PM should not be expected to resign for making people feel angry but because it is dangerous for us to have a leader who has zero shame, a complete disregard for the truth, takes brazen security risks with contacts of enemy heads of state, and probably anyone else with a few quid they are willing to bung.
I'm afraid I really do think a lot of the back-slapping about how well we are doing is delusional borne of a need not to feel as powerless about what Putin is doing as we are.
The fact is, we stood by and let him invade and pulverise an entire nation. Slowly and inexorably that is what he is doing. Biden and NATO refused to pitch in because they were too scared of Putin's nuclear threats. Perhaps justifiably, but we've let him get away with it.
We all want this to be another Afghanistan. I fear we are deluding ourselves.
When you say "we", I don't think you're including yourself.
So perhaps you should be a little more precise in your language and say "you".
It would be a little more honest, no?
'We' meaning the west, not pb.com per se.
I think we in the west have been trying to convince ourselves that we're doing as much as we possibly can (we aren't), that we're united (we aren't) and that there's nothing further we can do without risking nuclear war (not true).
The reality is that we are ignoring Zelensky's pleas for a No Fly Zone and we're letting an entire country get pulverised.
You started here with some views on Covid cases and hospitalisations in Israel which turned out not to be - how to put this - entirely accurate. Then moved on to a story about BA pilots, which turned out to be... ah yes... not entirely accurate.
And now you're onto "oh yes, I'm on your side, one of *you*, and I know it's hard to accept, but it would be better for all of us if the Ukrainians just accepted the inevitable and laid down their arms... after all, what chance do they stand?"
It is a little tricky to take you seriously, and for that I apologise.
At least she’s a better class of Russian provocateur. PB should feel flattered
The faux reasonableness is very, very well done though.
I think, and I do mean this, you should take a look at yourself if you are 'really' going down that route because it's a very, very, dark place to go.
If you start to think that anyone with whom you disagree displays the signs of being something other than sincere, a phantasm, a spectre, who is merely 'faux' reasonable then you are disappearing into a rabbit hole void the end result of which is a dystopian nightmare of narcissistic individualism.
I don't agree with everything you post but I don't stoop to question your sincerity.
It's a strange phenomenon on PB, noted also by @Dura_Ace and @YBarddCwsc yesterday. Normally very thoughtful, enquiring minds have fallen into line over a preferred stance on Russia/Ukraine. Any deviation from that stance is met with disproportionate hostility.
Perhaps it stems from a sense of frustration at our powerlessness. Change your profile picture to the Ukrainian flag and shout down those who don't agree with the chosen line on Ukraine (Russia doing dreadfully, imminent collapse of their war effort, dissent maybe even revolution at home, etc).
It really is quite strange.
It's OK to have a dissenting opinion.
But it's also a little suspicious when you have a dissenting opinion, have a record of spreading falsehoods (about BA pilots and vaccines, for example), and have an IP address that's listed in the blacklists.
Absolutely and it's your site so them's the rules. Perhaps it is a mark of the sophistication of spammers that @Heathener's posts seem to me to be genuine and I could point to other posters who are equally contentious for many on PB, not to say equally provocative.
P Johnson and d-d were laughably obvious, but Heathener less so.
I thought she was stupid, but harmless. Guess she's gone now.
Thing is, we are, ahem, all grown up able to think for ourselves types on here. If they are super crass like @PJohnson was with lots of "mate"s and very bad at the spamming thing then fair enough - they clog up the site and take up bandwidth.
But from what I have read of @Heathener's posts (until recently one a day in the morning saying that's it I'm off) they have an opinion. I hadn't recalled the BA pilots or vaccines ones but even if it is the most egregious perceived rubbish then what harm does it do to respond to the points raised.
What's the difference between engaging with someone who genuinely believes, for example and I'm not saying this is her position, that Putin is entirely justified in his current actions, and engaging with a bot who says the same thing. It is the issue that is of interest. Somewhere there is someone who supports Putin - there are reports that say much of the Russian population, for example - so why not ignore the IP address and just discuss the issue.
When @Heathener arrived it was a blaze of glory about autumn lockdowns and the vaccines failing, which was challenged in a robust way, as it was shite. She/he/it objected to the unwelcoming atmosphere (which kind of indicates that they hadn't been a lurker).
Up to now I've regarded them as a deluded, rude, lesbian, who talked shit. Now perhaps she/he/it has been outed as something else entirely.
Blimey. "deluded, rude, lesbian."
Where the fuck did you get that from. And this from a site that welcomes women.
Rude - her story of yelling people not wearing a mask in shops, even to the point of threatening to hit them with a stick - at a time when masks are no longer a legal requitrement.
Deluded - she started on here banging on about new lockdowns, based it seems on people planning 'what if' sessions in government, you know, the kind a thing a sensible person would do. They were not evidence of imminent lockdowns. She is now claiming that the daily cases are what she predicted, when in fact they are totally down to a new variant that didnt exist when she made her predictions. Lesbian - happy to retract, but she doesn't seem to like the 'world of men'.
Comments
Boris isn't that used to losing. Does he bravely go down with the ship, flame out or run away? He won't be able to run the meme + photo opportunity campaign of 2019.
People have underestimated him from day one. I have not.
Like Brown in 2010 though Boris at the moment is likely to get a hung parliament at least but no point risking the current 80 seat majority for that until his full term is up
This especially goes for the big, expensive stuff such as aircraft and cruise missiles, most of which appeared to be destined for a lifetime of parade ground service, rather than actually being used in anger. Maybe they look functional from the outside, but the contractor decided to buy himself a dacha in Sochi rather than fit out the inside.
But that is a second order problem (though FPTP does much to make individuals think their vote worthless). It can only change if the electorate demand it by the way they vote - and when those who want to see it get involved in politics rather than grumbling from the sidelines.
Regarding the rogues, f we had a criminal justice system which was properly funded, rather than almost bankrupt, the rogues might not be quite so much of a problem.
But from what I have read of @Heathener's posts (until recently one a day in the morning saying that's it I'm off) they have an opinion. I hadn't recalled the BA pilots or vaccines ones but even if it is the most egregious perceived rubbish then what harm does it do to respond to the points raised.
What's the difference between engaging with someone who genuinely believes, for example and I'm not saying this is her position, that Putin is entirely justified in his current actions, and engaging with a bot who says the same thing. It is the issue that is of interest. Somewhere there is someone who supports Putin - there are reports that say much of the Russian population, for example - so why not ignore the IP address and just discuss the issue.
MM. That's just such an obnoxious thing to post. Incredibly rude and typical of what Topping referred to. Some people have become so myopic and angry that they instantaneously jump on anyone who deviates from their kosher line. It's really quite disturbing, I should I say that you are. And why on earth would I know about London Bridge? I find the idea of predicating the death of the Queen really distasteful.
The idea that I'm a Putin apologist is an absolute sick joke. I loathe the man and think we should be standing up to him militarily, unlike the wimps on the right here who don't have the balls they seem to think with.
Regarding Israel data I've not got the slightest idea what this refers to. I've been right about covid, stating to much derision for example that I could see cases rising above 100,000 (they're currently around 225,000 a day by the way). We are still in a covid pandemic, it is still globally serious and I think Johnson's government are being incredibly slack about it - mainly driven by right wing headbangers who are intent on freedom at all costs.
You know, it's okay to disagree with someone about one thing and park it, move on and still see the good in other things they write. Try it.
https://www.ft.com/content/503fb110-f91e-4bed-b6dc-0d09582dd007
Or google "Inside Putin's elite".
Will also have to see how the real battery life of my Surface Pro 8 holds up. As a device it is a fabulous bit of kit. Lightweight, ultraportable, powerful. 3:2 touchscreen was a must (having become completely won over by that form factor on my Acer Chriomebook) and its just a nice piece of kit.
Just unsure if the battery is as all-day as claimed - early bits of work have got spells where it barely drops and others where it does quite a bit. Will spend a lot of time docked so perhaps less of an issue, and I have a big powerbank in my laptop bag anyway.
A lot of faffage already with Windows, and to be fair W11 is better all round even than W10 from what I can see. But still not a sleek operation the way Chrome OS and Mac OS are.
This is MM at his mendacious worst, borne of the idea that anyone who disagrees with him and offers alternative perspectives on the world must be a 'red under the bed'.
McCarthyism hits pb.com
Just now the vaccinations have drastically reduced the hospitalisation rate from it, the government has taken the decision to live with it rather than destroy the hospitality, entertainment and travel industries in particular with further restrictions
Scottish farmers want to grow more food, but [Scottish, Green] govt minister says no due to “nature emergency”. Ideology trumps common sense. Insane
https://twitter.com/jamesdev15/status/1503282910425718788
Mercedes probably have a decent chance of turning things around, but as of now I'd make Verstappen favourite.
Maybe you need to understand you are not the arbiter of opinion on here and if you do not like it then you know what to do
More detail on this please.
The offensive attacks on me this morning just for daring to suggest we in the west are not winning this in Ukraine is really extraordinary. I'm far more with Zelensky than anyone on this site it would seem. Cowards most of you are.
And I've still no idea what the BA pilot thing is about and as no one has been able to explain I'll just presume it's the kind of faux news MM refers to.
My point is, if you make it uncomfortable or unwelcoming for particular demographics, don't be surprised if you don't get many attending/posting.
It's one I wrestle with.
However, if you look at Buddhist nations you will find there is sometimes a need to take up arms and fight. Even Buddhist monks get involved when the need is great. It's a rather Orientalist (Edward Said) stance to presume that Buddhists absolutely or never take up arms in defence.
I believe we should be stepping up support for Ukraine, because I believe we are standing by cowardly, and letting Ukrainians get pulverised. The back-slapping that we're doing all we can that has accompanied is deluded.
Can’t bring myself to bet on MV though, I have a hunch that he is going to get ganged up on by some of the other drivers over his aggression, and might not finish the first few races.
But, truly, why would any woman want to hang around on here when there is so much testosterone-fuelled aggression aimed at anyone who takes an alternate perspective?
It's not just me. Pile-ons occur against others. And without wishing to shoot my sex in the foot, some of us just don't enjoy that very much thanks.
I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.
The Russians simply haven't done that - they seem to have flown occasional sorties against missile sites and radars, but nothing over whelming.
I have very little time for the crackpots in the Scottish Greens but they are right on this,(if that's what they are actually saying, and it's not just a culture war against landowners.)
Germany has decided in principle to purchase the US fighter jet F-35 built by Lockheed Martin to replace its ageing Tornado fleet, according to reports.
https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1503264882778869762
And I feel that's a good note on which I shall head out, without it being deemed a flounce
But I doubt I shall frequent here much to be honest. Some may cheer but you will end up left with an echo chamber of mostly white retired men: a demographic that is hardly representative of more than a fraction of the country or world.
Ciao ciao.
Only in Iraq was there actually a ground offensive. In Serbia/Kosovo, the original Afghan campaign, Libya, Syria and Iraq vs ISIS, Western forces stayed in the air throughout and worked with local militias and rebels on the ground.
That approach to warfare is only possible if you have huge amounts of money to prosecute it. It's much safer for the combatants, in theory safer for civilians but we know that's often not the case in reality, but extremely expensive.
In Russia, meanwhile, a couple of guys were de-fueling a submarine. They used a chain hoist to line up a big metal tube over the reactor and hoisted some fuel assemblies out. By hand.
I suspect the Kh55 maintenance works a bit like the stories of Long Lance maintenance in the Japanese Navy - the least valuable conscript gets a spanner and everyone else watches from a distance.
The ultimate humiliation would be, I suggest, the Tories holding on bit Uxbridge (etc) being a Labour gain!
I have sometimes wondered whether we will see him seek to return to Henley.
On the general Pb topic; one feature is the rallying round when someone is sick, or otherwise in personal difficulty.
And finally, I'd agree about more female posters. Ms Cyclefree's are most valuable.
Its such a cliché to say, but at least she's not suffering anymore. She'd had a fall towards the end of lockdown that triggered a steep downfall in her health and dementia so she wasn't herself anymore and the NHS made her go into a care home, but still its very emotional now that she's gone.
I'm very fortunate to have had my grandparents so long into my adulthood, my wife lost all of hers many years ago, mainly when she was a teenager. It was nice yesterday to be looking back at photos of Nanna at our wedding, and with our children whom I'm glad she got to meet and get to know and love.
My one regret is that the combination of the virus and restrictions meant we lost the chance to see her in the last few years of her life. Our last full chance to see her as herself was in January 2020 - after that she wouldn't have any visitors until she was vaccinated. I saw her again once in December 2020 socially distanced from outside dropping off Christmas presents, coincidentally on the day she got the call to get her vaccine. Then there was lockdown again and my parents at least saw her regularly as her support bubble but we didn't get to see her again until lockdown was lifted by which time she'd had the fall and she was bedbound and a very pale shadow of herself from months earlier. She then got taken to a care home who refused to allow visitors and who STILL don't allow visitors - my parents and her husband could visit but not us. The home was still saying they'd start allowing visitors soon but still haven't yet and now its too late.
Lots of happy memories of a life well loved. I'm very grateful she got to know her great-grandkids who seem to be processing this OK hopefully. Rest in peace Nanna.
Up to now I've regarded them as a deluded, rude, lesbian, who talked shit. Now perhaps she/he/it has been outed as something else entirely.
NY Times blog
It's division they want.
Tweet has video of him waving a huge Ukrainian flag from his "conquest"
Mateusz Sobieraj
@MateuszSobiera3
Master French activist Pierre Afner entered the villa of the alleged daughter of Russian Federation head Katerina Tikhonova in Biarritz, changed the locks on the house and invited refugees from #Ukraine there
#Ukraine #Russia #poland #BreakingNews #breaking #war #putin #StopPutin
https://twitter.com/MateuszSobiera3/status/1503120886156644353
Condolences and best wishes to your family.
It is a common misconception that Buddhists are pacifists and believe in non-violence.
That is better rendered as harmlessness. Violence is a last resort and shouldn't be used out of anger or any other delusion*. But sometimes, and less often than commonly thought, it is the only option to prevent greater harm. If your building is being eaten away by bugs, then you get it de-infested. You kill millions of beings taking antibiotics. But you don't swat a fly simply because you find it annoying.
It is the would you kill Hitler? argument, really.
You move on. And accept the karma which will then ripen.
*Delusion here is a technical term.
For the first few days of the war I was going back and forth between "they really are as crap as it appears" and "this is the greatest military deception in history". I've settled on the first opinion now, the Russian military may be big and brutal, but it is a generation or more behind Western militaries. Now big and brutal might still be enough to destroy Ukraine, but whatever aura the Russian military once had is now gone.
Mum is still alive but now has dementia and can't remember my name or my dad's. The final two years of her useful life has been taken from her.
I'm furious. I'll never forgive the government and those who argued for these measures. History won't look back on this kindly.
Getting rid of him depended on a) agreement that the behaviour was wrong (which bar, I think, was passed) and b) continuous focus and anger on the issue. For entirely external reasons, this has moved on. People can only be really angry about one thing at a time. It's very hard to be angry about whether someone went to a party they said they didn't and said no-one else should be doing when a crazed madman is bombing maternity hospitals and threatening nuclear armageddon.
I was cheerfully cross about partygate - everyone was. I was seething about the keenness of government for lockdown and this gave me a useful way to blame someone for it. But trying to think about it now it feels curiously abstract - I can't summon any emotion about it at all. And making people feel things is crucial to making things happen. That's why politicians make speeches. That's why Churchill was successful and - say - IDS was not.
I'm not saying this is right, I'm just explaining it (as I see it at least).
Xavier MacDuff
@xvrmdf
·
12h
The rise in energy bills coming down the pipeline for UK households really is horrific. I'm not quite sure that people have gotten their heads around just how bad this is going to be.
That is 10% of household income that people won't be able to spend on other things.
There are going to be some huge cutbacks. Not great if you have a business selling discretionary goods and services to the UK consumer.
https://twitter.com/xvrmdf/status/1503117884595359744
Where the fuck did you get that from. And this from a site that welcomes women.
Look after yourself and your loved ones.
The actual reality is a moderate sized European nation worth of military capability with a huge shed full of sometimes working stuff that Granddad owned.
In fact, you reduce your fuel to get the plane's gross weight below maximum landing weight: jettisoning more creates pollution and jettisoning all of it would simply turn the plane into the world's most dangerous glider.
Draw your own conclusions.
Sorry for your loss Bart (seems wrong to address you as 'Bart' but you changed your name here for a reason, so I'll stick with that). It sounds like a good life, although I'm sorry you missed much of the good bits of her last few years. My grandparents, like your wife's, were all dead by the time I was 18 and I do feel that I missed out on knowing them as an adult, rather than just as a child.
Deluded - she started on here banging on about new lockdowns, based it seems on people planning 'what if' sessions in government, you know, the kind a thing a sensible person would do. They were not evidence of imminent lockdowns. She is now claiming that the daily cases are what she predicted, when in fact they are totally down to a new variant that didnt exist when she made her predictions.
Lesbian - happy to retract, but she doesn't seem to like the 'world of men'.