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Sunday’s French election is getting very tight – politicalbetting.com
Sunday’s French election is getting very tight – politicalbetting.com
One of the things about the French presidential election system is that polling can have a big impact on what actually happens. On Sunday12 contenders for the presidency are whittled down to the final two in the second round two Sundays later.
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Bulgaria has 11 MiG-29s and 8 Su-25s.
Biden getting the planes delivered to Ukraine after all? Actually looks way more complex.
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1511062310869159944
Could be years.
(And they’ve been negotiating this deal for a long time.)
Poland is a far more likely candidate for such a swap as it already flys F16s.
Why did they call it The Tolkien Professorship when The Fellowship of the Ring was right there
https://mobile.twitter.com/LauraAmalasunta/status/1510608802990669833
https://firstlightfusion.com/media/fusion
Proof of concept for what is possibly the most quickly achievable way of building a commercial fusion plant to generate electricity.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us-approves-potential-sale-f-16-aircraft-bulgaria-2022-04-04/
Borodyna in Ukraine looks like being worse than Bucha.
We are living in extremely dark times. I see no cause for optimism at all in this world
https://twitter.com/mrsorokaa/status/1511019538325942282?s=20&t=uv8gsGy73Tlu7aa7wBvgTw
It's good that so many different approaches to fusion are being seriously looked at, as knowledge gained from one informs the others, and it is more likely that one may eventually work, or lead to another approach that does.
Then there are the (ahem) less credible approaches, like Pons/Fleischmann's cold fusion, or sonofusion.
Edit: it looks as though progress had been made in my favourite area, aneutronic fusion. Although they're still four orders of magnitude away from net-positive energy...
The great thing about aneutronic fusion is that in theory, it uses no radioactive materials, produces virtually no radioactive waste, and requires no heat cycle to generate power.
https://hb11.energy/2022/03/29/world-first-hb11-energy-demonstrates-nuclear-fusion-using-a-laser/
EastEnders' Dot Cotton: a real character with Shakespearean depths
The late June Brown's most famous creation became a cultural icon - and that's a testament to superb writing and acting
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2022/04/05/eastenders-dot-cotton-real-character-shakespearean-depths/ (£££)
https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1511210948991848449
The old ‘in thirty years’ meme really meant ‘we have no idea’.
Next decade reflects the fact they have a roadmap. And credible cost per MW estimates.
Le Pen is now in a far more comfortable 2nd place.
Can you answer that equally good question
We all know what will happen, it will end up being bought by Fox or somebody and killed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2017_French_presidential_election#26_January_to_16_March_2017
She was ahead or level in every one of the last 19 polls prior to the first round vote.
This time she is well behind.
(For the avoidance of doubt this refers to Mike's second chart where all candidates are listed as this is the real world voting of the first round.)
Cost of living, energy. No it’s Channel 4 that needs dealing with.
This is why Labour’s lead is increasing. The Tories are not doing anything.
Is it? I do feel this is a show I've seen before.
I used to be completely against privatisation, now I don’t see what the problem is. I’m in favour of a smart state, flexible about moving things in and out of private/public ownership.
Generally - If there’s a market, genuine competition and space for innovation, it should be private.
Essential service &/or a natural monopoly? Public.
I’d bring water, energy and trains into public ownership - and privatise the BBC/Channel 4.
In my brief exchange I had with JJ this time yesterday I suggested that we can, to an extent, make our own reality. Or rather there are multiple realities. We can choose to live in a way that is happier and less stressed but it requires disengaging from a lot of modern particularly western life. At some points of my life I've lived in extremely remote locations, freed from the encumbrances of modern life. They were blissful times.
I think JJ inferred that this was escapism but I find no greater Reality than when I'm in contemplative meditation embedded in Mother Nature.
As I say, I accept that this is alternative but it works for me.
Have a nice day
The vast majority of people living 'off the grid' rely heavily on the society and processes created by the rest of us. That's fine if they acknowledge that dependence; all too often they ignore them and pretend they don't exist..
A lifestyle truly free of those dependencies is quite nasty, from a modern POV. And there's no way it can support anywhere near the number of people a 'modern' society can.
5 live business this morning was depressing not only on the war but the consequences of rocketing commodity prices and with no end in sight
I am at a point now that I do not know how any government can handle the onslaught of so many impossible problems, and to be fair my wife just will not listen to the news
Enjoy your day
I also found out this weekend my father has six months left.
Life’s crap.
The Russian attitude to Ukraine.
Something is seriously wrong in Russia.
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1511165207921504260
https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-4
Back in April last year, we wrote about the inevitability of the denazification of Ukraine. We don’t need nazi, Bandera Ukraine, the enemy of Russia, and the West’s tool for the destruction of Russia.
Today, the issue of denazification has moved into a practical plane. Denazification is necessary when a significant part of the people – most likely the majority – has been mastered and drawn into the Nazi regime in its politics. That is when the hypothesis “the people are good – the government is bad” does not work. Recognition of this fact is the basis of the policy of denazification, of all its measures, and the fact itself is its subject matter. Ukraine is in just such a situation.
https://uacrisis.org/en/justification-of-genocide-russia-has-openly-declared-its-desire-to-exterminate-ukrainians-as-a-nation
It might be quite funny to watch them spew out this rubbish without ever realising that they're projecting if the consequences for Ukraine weren't so appalling.
"Jonathan Leader Maynard
@jleadermaynard
Note that the common assertion that abuses against civilians are ‘inevitable’ in war is totally false. States have been found to directly target civilians in roughly 1/5 to 1/3 of all wars. Atrocities are appalling but not inevitable. https://mitpress.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.7551/mitpress/9780262014205.001.0001/upso-9780262014205-chapter-2 /11"
https://twitter.com/jleadermaynard/status/1510911900674048004
Even in war or a pandemic, there are plenty of heroic, uplifting stories that deserve attention.
This makes it quite difficult for new candidates to come forward within the system and candidates often seem to come from new parties or groupings which must have very little in the way of data for canvassing etc. Macron did this spectacularly the last time but I really don't see the likes of Le Pen or Melenchon doing much but causing a block to the new. Zemmour is the new candidate with the new party this time but his brand must surely do no more than damage Le Pen.
I am not a fan of Macron and he is absurdly hostile to the UK but I cannot see anyone that has any kind of a chance of beating him. I did get a bit of a laugh from a column in the Telegraph yesterday indicating that his great drive to relocate finance from London to Paris has so far resulted in the location of just over 7k jobs and Paris remained at 12 in the world as a financial centre whilst London was second to New York. It seemed to me typical of Macron, lots of bluster but very little practical result.
Whilst I agree that no government would do well in this tsunami of prices, what will do it for this government is unique to them.
Big Dog does boosterism. It's all he knows. Focus on the theoretical insert absurd overblown descriptors here future. Don't accept the miserable present - that doesn't exist or if it does is the fault of the person suffering it.
Which is why we had the budget which refused to accept there is a problem. The UC cut. The sneering. The endless "don't look at your bills worry about chicks with dicks" and "let's privatise Channel 4 to remove woke broadcasting from your screens".
Instead of trying to find a solution to the cost of living crisis or even accepting the facts on the ground, they will sneer and deflect and patronise and we will never have had it so good. So disconnected from people's lives realities that even the lady cock shock won't save them
That is the difference between this government and any other.
You saw much the same in the 70s, and we were all considerably poorer back then.
The extent of this crisis as laid out on 5 live this morning was utterly depressing and more so, as nobody on the programme has a scintilla of an idea on how to deal with it
What's more interesting/concerning, is the "it's all going really well" views of Russians. They really have no idea what's actually going on in Ukraine. Perhaps if they knew that (some of) their boys were getting their arses handed to them, then things might be different.
Perhaps a few years of Russia not playing international football etc. might make the people wonder what exactly is going on.
Evil is always with us. It has been recognised and is being combatted on this occasion
There are too many stories of Ukrainians with Russian relatives, who when they call them are faced with hostile indifference and denial, to think that it's just ignorance.
What do you think the culture department should do about the cost of living? Cut the TV license fee?
https://twitter.com/RuthDavidsonPC/status/1511226059370471424
I was quite uneasy about the rush to ban RT though, so have a unusually strong tendency towards press freedom.
It seems a waste of energy to privatise it but again, don't see a fundamental issue with it. The government takes on all the risk for an institution that doesn't have a fundamental role in our society - exactly the kind of thing we should try to avoid.
Ruth Davidson explains it well:
Channel 4 is publicly owned, not publicly funded. It doesn't cost the tax payer a penny. It also, by charter, commissions content but doesn't make/own its own. It's one of the reasons we have such a thriving indy sector in places like Glasgow. This is the opposite of levelling up
https://twitter.com/RuthDavidsonPC/status/1511226059370471424?t=lQWh36mFgjJx5t7OBxrpuQ&s=19
https://twitter.com/KevinASchofield/status/1511232996468310017
Macron 27.5%
Le Pen 22%
Melenchon 15.5%
Pecresse 10%
Zemmour 10%
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1511036597570969602?s=20&t=UfR2mbyTWodwepxRFBV-PQ
Feels weird to be more right wing than a Tory on this.
Hardly a decade of peace.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Financial_Centres_Index
If C4 had not been invented when it was it certainly wouldn't exist now where there are a multiplicity of offerings on various platforms but it does exist, it doesn't on the face of it do any harm, it adds a different voice and doesn't cost the public money.
I really cannot see the point in changing something not obviously broken. I think it is doubtful, as channels fade into irrelevance, that it would be capable of providing an additional income stream to a shareholder. It is better that all of its advertising revenue is fed back into programs. This will help it survive for a bit longer but I suspect in at least its current form its future is limited and that income stream will no longer be sufficient. Not exactly an enticing investment.
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMLQYNBY1/
I think putting them in internment camps was a preferred option.
Boris Johnson was poised to announce outsourcing of processing of asylum seekers to Rwanda last week but delayed after being told plans were not ready
Times told PM wants to announce trial in coming weeks but faces significant challenges
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/outsourcing-of-migrants-to-rwanda-edges-closer-79xjk6smt
Why is society's inability to define 'woman' relevant to the furore on conversion therapy legislation? Because once again ordinary, everyday words - 'talking therapies' - are being given new definitions, throwing linguistic obstacles in the way of anyone that spots an issue 1/
https://twitter.com/nmdacosta/status/1511211902843695106
Erm...
Does that mean we need a second NHS?
@HannaLiubakova · Apr 3
An enormous car parade of cars with mostly Russian flags in Berlin, #Germany, today. Reportedly, the parade in support of Russia gathered 5000 cars.
They can't complain about the media blackout in Germany. They have access to information and can see what Russians did in Bucha.
https://twitter.com/andersostlund/status/1511228584538615813
Chip off the old block, eh?
https://order-order.com/2022/04/04/rishi-goes-ape-for-crypto/
If you’re not already familiar the concept Guido doesn’t plan on explaining it here; keep an eye out for Guido’s own NFT coming soon…