"Musk has stated that his first plan is to open-source the algorithm that ranks tweets in the content feed, in order to increase transparency. He has stated intention to remove the spam bots, and to authenticate all real humans"
- Admissions - down, all regions, all age groups - MV beds - down a bit - In Hospital - down - Deaths - down, bit more mixed regional, but trending down, more in the older age groups, of course.
Maybe we should be talking more about hepatitis now than Covid-19.
It is both sad and embarrassing. It is to be our new role in the world. Grabbing onto others shirt tails. My hope is that when Johnson goes this really yucky chauvinism goes with him and we become the classy and thoughtful country we once were
Not as sad and embarrassing as Macron sitting at the end of that long table being lectured by Putin, as if he is going to take any notice of Marcon request, while by own admissions French intelligence services were totally out of the loop about what Russia's plans really were.
Read the article posted by Richard Nabavi. If accurate you're going to have a miserable few years
"Musk has stated that his first plan is to open-source the algorithm that ranks tweets in the content feed, in order to increase transparency. He has stated intention to remove the spam bots, and to authenticate all real humans"
If Musk can get rid of the bots it'll be one of the best things that's ever happened on the internet.
The Musk mandate.
Even the bots have given up on Nige, he's had zero growth for 18 months.
I just bet he has.
I cannot quite imagine the thought process behind thinking whinging about your twitter follower numbers is a good move. He could have made the same point without looking so thirsty for followers himself.
It’s been nearly three months since Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, called for Chris Sununu’s head, boasting he was trying to help find someone to primary New Hampshire’s three-term Republican governor.
He isn’t having much luck.
In state after state, Trump has turned the GOP primaries into a referendum on the party’s loyalty to him, endorsing primary challengers against incumbents who refuse to bend the knee, and driving dissenters into early retirement.
But Sununu, who mocked Trump and referred to him as “fucking crazy” at the roast-style Gridiron Club dinner this month, so far appears to be beyond Trump’s reach, a thorn in the former president’s side that he’s been unable to remove.
“You can talk up a storm, and there certainly are people in New Hampshire who are frustrated with Chris Sununu,” said Mike Dennehy, a former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party and former Republican National committeeman from the state. “But the fact of the matter is the guy’s at about 60 percent approval, he’s one of the most popular governors in the country and people in New Hampshire do like him.”
Even for Trump, Dennehy said, getting rid of Sununu is “an almost impossible endeavor to fulfill.”
The latest Saint Anselm College poll put Sununu’s public approval rating at 62 percent, up 9 percentage points from January. He is widely expected to cruise to a fourth term in November.
One longtime GOP activist in New Hampshire described Lewandowski’s hunt for a primary challenger to Sununu as “a lot of thunder, no lightning.”
“He might convince some drunk to do it, but no, he isn’t going to get anybody serious to run against him,” the activist said. “If Trump came out and hand-picked a candidate and endorsed him, it wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans.”
Julian Acciard, a Marine Corps veteran and businessperson in New Hampshire, told POLITICO on Monday that he has spoken in recent weeks with Lewandowski and Fred Doucette, a New Hampshire state lawmaker who was a Trump campaign co-chair in the state. Acciard is switching from running for Congress to running for governor.
“It honestly started out as a joke,” Acciard said.
SSI - And it's STILL a joke!
Encouraging at least one is not beholden to him them. But would he bend the knee like everyone else when Trump gets the nomination?
Depends by what you mean? If you mean endorsing 45 in the general election, sort of doubt it.
BUT politics DOES make strange bedfellows - just ask Liz Cheney!
I'd like him to be poorly, but how many of these 'videos of person x shaking etc' actually turn out to be something meaningful?
Other than members of the US Senate committee have pretty much admitted they have been given information to say so, and its not a one off video, there are loads of them, plus the long table, the total isolation etc etc etc. There certainly seems to be a decent weight of evidence all is not well.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Western arms shipments to Ukraine mean Nato is "in essence engaged in war with Russia" and there is "considerable" risk of the conflict going nuclear
This is now a settled theme from Russia,.
Tbh I'm amazed they haven't said this from the outset, and it's part of the reason why I think we've being really disingenuous about the No Fly Zone. We have drawn our own line by saying that it's fine to supply tons of military equipment, intelligence and, even, special 'advisors' (SAS) to Ukraine but it's not fine to install a NFZ. 95% of people on here have gone along with this, often vociferously. They've told themselves that the one will help Ukraine but won't escalate it but the other would lead to WWIII and Armageddon.
But it's cant and hypocrisy basically, isn't it? If we're going to support Ukraine, bloody well support Ukraine. We should have backed Zelensky's request and stood up to Putin.
Just my opinion. Don't flame me.
Not going to flame you, but consider this: all but the most psychopathic criminals retain a demented sense of justice, a point quite neatly illustrated by monty python's piranha brothers who nail someone's head to the floor "because he had transgressed the unwritten code." Putin's unwritten code includes no nfz.
Or of course, he is bluffing and we only think it does. But don't fall into the narrative of Stand up to the bully, give Ivan a bloody nose and he will always cave in to true British grit. That is a school story and there's no nukes in schools.
It's amazing how many people think this is fucking Michael Bay film and that Russia will back down if, in some as yet to be defined manner, Ukraine wins.
There is going to have to be a deal sooner or later and the pressure should be on Ukraine and Russia to make it sooner.
What 'pressure to do a deal' can we put on a Russia that is doing, and saying, what it is?
And what makes you think they'll stick with the deal for a microsecond longer than it takes to get what they want?
Again, even nutters have a sense of justice. You adhere to the unwritten code, you don't get your head nailed to the coffee table. Russia's sabre rattling is consistently if...then, else..., not, we are going to nuke you just for shits n giggles and because we can
But OK you think a deal can't be done, so whats your alternative? Give Ivan a dam' good thrashing because then he'll back down, like bullies always do?
The government and people of Russia believe, with 100% confidence, that they will come out of the other end of a nuclear exchange in far better shape than NATO. This is a recurrent theme on Russian TV.
It's a vast and sparsely populated country with shit infrastructure and people who are used to roughing it anyway.
Oh I'm sure that Putin, his cronies and oligarchs with their luxurious palaces and yachts are completely used to roughing it (!)
I don't think they want to spend the rest of their lives living underground.
Russia may be sparsely populated but much of the population is concentrated in a small number of areas. Nearly 10% of the population lives in Moscow, and another 14% lives in the next fourteen cities. It would not take many warheads to destroy those population centres.
I think this is a case where standing up to a bully is actually a lot safer than giving way to him.
If we would do it. Would we? Does Vlad think we would? Do his people?
Moscow was abandoned and burned to the ground in 1812, Leningrad had a 900 day siege, Stalingrad happened at Stalingrad. Having its cities pulverised to fuck and coming back from it, is just part of the myth.
Somehow, I don't think that either Russia's leaders or masses have a huge desire to commit national suicide.
Well, fuck it, look at the actual evidence, why not? You might as well say that nobody has ever gone to war because, yes, I know what it says in the history books, but would people really commit themselves to years of large scale slaughter and misery for no clear gain, time after time? There is a whole heap of commentators out there, and any number of clips of state TV on twitter, saying quite explicitly that Russia thinks it can win an all out nuclear war. Now if the Russians are saying that and the Western commentators are saying believe them, I don't see what weight is to be attached to your "somehow" gut feeling on the subject.
Russia had very little choice but to fight an enemy in 1941 that was bent on enslaving or exterminating the population. In such a situation, they had little choice but to endure hell.
Now, they do have a choice.
I see your problem: you have had enough of experts.
"Russia’s information infrastructure is hugely different from the West. The Russian masses, especially outside the cities, are not all on the internet; they rely on state-controlled television for news. That pre-existing monopoly has been massively reinforced since the invasion of Ukraine, with all alternative news sources blocked for the overwhelming majority of Russians. This has been compounded by many of the younger, social media-savvy generation leaving the country.
What is left is a population depressingly similar to its grandparents, who crowded Red Square to cheer the Leader of All Progressive Humanity whenever Stalin appeared atop Lenin’s tomb to receive the adulation of his helots. True, many applauded out of fear, but many also from conviction: even today, Stalin remains revered by millions of Russians. The mythology of the Great Patriotic War combines all the central elements of the Russian political identity: love of a strong leader, a near-masochist willingness to endure the unendurable for the sake of the motherland, and imperial greatness resulting in domination over other nations.
Since coming to power, Vladimir Putin has aspired to tick all those boxes. His propaganda machine, now unchallenged by any alternative voice, has reduced his compatriots to a state of moronic credulity. By carefully feeding the paranoia that is a principal component of the Russian character, Putin has secured his people’s support for an adventure that can only have catastrophic consequences for them."
I mean, LOL, Iain Martin, sure, but he *sounds* as if he knows what he is talking about, he is saying exactly what Russian TV and all the Western commentators on Russian TV are saying, and your intuition as to how you might feel if you were Russian is a bit off the point.
If Russians really do have such commitment to the cause that they'll choose national self-immolation in order to put Zelensky in his place, would we not be seeing some sign of it, by now? Where are the throngs of people of fighting age joining up, and the deeds of insane bravery on the battlefield? That was what we saw in 1941-45.
There's only one side in this war that's shown real fighting spirit, and it's not the Russian side.
You think if there were 'deeds of insane bravery' on the Russian side, they'd be reported in our media? Even with PB's general tenor on this conflict, that's an interesting view. Do you not think that such acts were reported in WW2 because they were on our side? Do you not think we didn't hear great 'deeds of insane bravery' on the part of the Germans for the same reason?
The internet is open enough that people like you and MISTY would be posting them everywhere on here.
I bloody wouldn't; it's not worth the hassle of even suggesting that Russians are capable of human emotions around here.
It is both sad and embarrassing. It is to be our new role in the world. Grabbing onto others shirt tails. My hope is that when Johnson goes this really yucky chauvinism goes with him and we become the classy and thoughtful country we once were
Not as sad and embarrassing as Macron sitting at the end of that long table being lectured by Putin, as if he is going to take any notice of Marcon request, while by own admissions French intelligence services were totally out of the loop about what Russia's plans really were.
Read the article posted by Richard Nabavi. If accurate you're going to have a miserable few years
Do you think there will come a time soon where we don’t have daily government updates? I’m not sure what purpose they serve beyond hampering the mental health recovery of the nation.
Do you think there will come a time soon where we don’t have daily government updates? I’m not sure what purpose they serve beyond hampering the mental health recovery of the nation.
Weekly stats are more than enough IMO. In fact, for the public I am not sure that is even required.
Do you think there will come a time soon where we don’t have daily government updates? I’m not sure what purpose they serve beyond hampering the mental health recovery of the nation.
Weekly stats are more than enough IMO. In fact, for the public I am not sure that is even required.
Indeed. Bin them. They are a daily reminder of a horrible time. Let’s move on.
Do you think there will come a time soon where we don’t have daily government updates? I’m not sure what purpose they serve beyond hampering the mental health recovery of the nation.
Weekly stats are more than enough IMO. In fact, for the public I am not sure that is even required.
When facts upset people, educate the people. The facts will remain.
Russia could target British diplomats returning to Kyiv if it continues to "provoke" Ukraine into striking targets in Russia, the Kremlin has warned.
“We would like to emphasise that London’s actions to provoke the Kyiv regime into taking such steps will immediately trigger our response should they decide to do it,” Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
“As we have warned, Russia’s armed forces are ready to carry out strikes with high-precision, long-range weapons on the centres of decision-making in Kyiv.
“The presence of advisers from one Western country who are stationed at the centres of decision-making in Kyiv will not necessarily be a problem if Russia decided to respond.”
That really does sound pathetic, just do it already if you are going to do it. I don't see that shelling Kyiv and hitting a British diplomat is any worse than shelling Kyiv is anyway. Encouraging in that it makes one think perhaps the nuclear threats are equally half arsed.
Charles Grant is an excellent commentator on European affairs, the CER as a whole is excellent in fact. This piece really highlights how Brexit has strengthened France's role in global affairs, so I guess it hasn't been all bad. 😉
Yep, strengthened France, weakened Britain. It was a good patriotic endeavour, not!
"There are occasional hints from Paris that at least some of the EU trade agreements currently blocked by France – the list includes Mexico, Chile, Australia and New Zealand – may be allowed to proceed after June’s parliamentary elections."
It doesn't require a Damascene conversion on the matter to think that there are political benefits from not being tied into a system that functions like this.
Let's see what the deals look like. Will the EU-Australia deal screw over EU farmers to the same extent that ours were by our deal? Somehow I doubt it.
How exactly were our farmers "screwed over"?
We agreed to allow tariff-free access to Australian beef produced using low welfare methods that would be illegal if practiced by British farmers. Since the ,low-welfare systems are cheaper, it allows Australian exporters who currently are subject to tariffs to undercut British farmers.
Consequently, the Department of International Trade predicts a negative impact on the British farming sector, but argues that benefits in other sector produce a small overall gain for British GDP.
Do you think there will come a time soon where we don’t have daily government updates? I’m not sure what purpose they serve beyond hampering the mental health recovery of the nation.
Weekly stats are more than enough IMO. In fact, for the public I am not sure that is even required.
When facts upset people, educate the people. The facts will remain.
It not that it upsets people, it is more not sure what use they are now. Everybody is going to get COVID, get all your jabs etc.
I think better use of government PR would be to focus on a) mopping up the remaining oldies who haven't had boosters / 4th jab, and b) public education of what to do if you are vulnerable and you get COVID. I still can't believe there hasn't been a proper push on oximeters.
I wonder whether that is aimed at any particular group
The clues are in the write-up...
Under the new rules, Children will not face penalties but adults who facilitate their marriage could face up to seven years in jail and a fine. This would include adults who took children abroad to carry out the marriage.
Do you think there will come a time soon where we don’t have daily government updates? I’m not sure what purpose they serve beyond hampering the mental health recovery of the nation.
Weekly stats are more than enough IMO. In fact, for the public I am not sure that is even required.
When facts upset people, educate the people. The facts will remain.
It not that it upsets people, it is more not sure what use they are now. Everybody is going to get COVID, get all your jabs etc.
I think better use of government PR would be to focus on a) mopping up the remaining oldies who haven't had boosters / 4th jab, and b) public education of what to do if you are vulnerable and you get COVID. I still can't believe there hasn't been a proper push on oximeters.
The dashboard and the data collection cost very little in the scheme of things. Data is valuable.
EDIT: It would be even more valuable to expand the remit beyond COVID. Imagine all health data open sourced to this level of granularity.
Charles Grant is an excellent commentator on European affairs, the CER as a whole is excellent in fact. This piece really highlights how Brexit has strengthened France's role in global affairs, so I guess it hasn't been all bad. 😉
Yep, strengthened France, weakened Britain. It was a good patriotic endeavour, not!
"There are occasional hints from Paris that at least some of the EU trade agreements currently blocked by France – the list includes Mexico, Chile, Australia and New Zealand – may be allowed to proceed after June’s parliamentary elections."
It doesn't require a Damascene conversion on the matter to think that there are political benefits from not being tied into a system that functions like this.
Let's see what the deals look like. Will the EU-Australia deal screw over EU farmers to the same extent that ours were by our deal? Somehow I doubt it.
How exactly were our farmers "screwed over"?
We agreed to allow tariff-free access to Australian beef produced using low welfare methods that would be illegal if practiced by British farmers. Since the ,low-welfare systems are cheaper, it allows Australian exporters who currently are subject to tariffs to undercut British farmers.
Consequently, the Department of International Trade predicts a negative impact on the British farming sector, but argues that benefits in other sector produce a small overall gain for British GDP.
Isn't that also true of some EU countries?
(Albeit I accept that Australia scores lower on the Animal Protection Index than every EU country.)
Do you think there will come a time soon where we don’t have daily government updates? I’m not sure what purpose they serve beyond hampering the mental health recovery of the nation.
Weekly stats are more than enough IMO. In fact, for the public I am not sure that is even required.
When facts upset people, educate the people. The facts will remain.
It not that it upsets people, it is more not sure what use they are now. Everybody is going to get COVID, get all your jabs etc.
I think better use of government PR would be to focus on a) mopping up the remaining oldies who haven't had boosters / 4th jab, and b) public education of what to do if you are vulnerable and you get COVID. I still can't believe there hasn't been a proper push on oximeters.
The dashboard and the data collection cost very little in the scheme of things. Data is valuable.
EDIT: It would be even more valuable to expand the remit beyond COVID. Imagine all health data open sourced to this level of granularity.
I heard rumblings that Patrick Vallance wants to see exactly this, after a lot of soul searching has been going on about the absolute state of the data collection methods across the public services, meaning it is an absolute pain in arse (if at all possible) to do various analysis.
Although I remember years ago Francis Maude saying something similar and that the census would go, and would use public sector data instead.
I do believe Corbyn would have been a better PM than Johnson yes, that's a sincerely held view. Johnson is a 0, Corbyn a 0.1
Ukraine would have been screwed right now had Corbyn been in charge.
I get the sentiment but this is to overestimate the role of the British PM in the conflict.
Disagree. The PM has to authorise weapons being sent and SAS being deployed. Now Boris clearly couldn't organise a decent piss up in #10, so isn't organising the specifics, but he is the one that has to sign it off and those early discisive decisions in Jan / Feb (when nobody else was sending stuff) has saved Ukraine.
So what you're saying is the actions of the UK under PM Boris Johnson have saved Ukraine - ie without them Russia would have won or be winning this war.
I find this fanciful. Bet Ben Wallace doesn't claim that when he's in serious mode with his people.
Yes and Zelenskyy has pretty much said the same too. The UK have been a major ally for Ukraine.
Biden was initially hesitant to send much weaponry to Ukraine. Without the leadership of both Zelenskyy's Ukraine and the UKG, Russia would likely have won the war early on.
"Child marriage is currently legal in 44 states (only Delaware, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island have set the minimum age at 18 and eliminated all exceptions), and 20 U.S. states do not require any minimum age for marriage, with a parental or judicial waiver. Nearly 300,00 children were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018. The vast majority were girls wed to adult men, many much older."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Western arms shipments to Ukraine mean Nato is "in essence engaged in war with Russia" and there is "considerable" risk of the conflict going nuclear
This is now a settled theme from Russia,.
Tbh I'm amazed they haven't said this from the outset, and it's part of the reason why I think we've being really disingenuous about the No Fly Zone. We have drawn our own line by saying that it's fine to supply tons of military equipment, intelligence and, even, special 'advisors' (SAS) to Ukraine but it's not fine to install a NFZ. 95% of people on here have gone along with this, often vociferously. They've told themselves that the one will help Ukraine but won't escalate it but the other would lead to WWIII and Armageddon.
But it's cant and hypocrisy basically, isn't it? If we're going to support Ukraine, bloody well support Ukraine. We should have backed Zelensky's request and stood up to Putin.
Just my opinion. Don't flame me.
Not going to flame you, but consider this: all but the most psychopathic criminals retain a demented sense of justice, a point quite neatly illustrated by monty python's piranha brothers who nail someone's head to the floor "because he had transgressed the unwritten code." Putin's unwritten code includes no nfz.
Or of course, he is bluffing and we only think it does. But don't fall into the narrative of Stand up to the bully, give Ivan a bloody nose and he will always cave in to true British grit. That is a school story and there's no nukes in schools.
It's amazing how many people think this is fucking Michael Bay film and that Russia will back down if, in some as yet to be defined manner, Ukraine wins.
There is going to have to be a deal sooner or later and the pressure should be on Ukraine and Russia to make it sooner.
What 'pressure to do a deal' can we put on a Russia that is doing, and saying, what it is?
And what makes you think they'll stick with the deal for a microsecond longer than it takes to get what they want?
Again, even nutters have a sense of justice. You adhere to the unwritten code, you don't get your head nailed to the coffee table. Russia's sabre rattling is consistently if...then, else..., not, we are going to nuke you just for shits n giggles and because we can
But OK you think a deal can't be done, so whats your alternative? Give Ivan a dam' good thrashing because then he'll back down, like bullies always do?
The government and people of Russia believe, with 100% confidence, that they will come out of the other end of a nuclear exchange in far better shape than NATO. This is a recurrent theme on Russian TV.
It's a vast and sparsely populated country with shit infrastructure and people who are used to roughing it anyway.
Oh I'm sure that Putin, his cronies and oligarchs with their luxurious palaces and yachts are completely used to roughing it (!)
I don't think they want to spend the rest of their lives living underground.
Russia may be sparsely populated but much of the population is concentrated in a small number of areas. Nearly 10% of the population lives in Moscow, and another 14% lives in the next fourteen cities. It would not take many warheads to destroy those population centres.
I think this is a case where standing up to a bully is actually a lot safer than giving way to him.
If we would do it. Would we? Does Vlad think we would? Do his people?
Moscow was abandoned and burned to the ground in 1812, Leningrad had a 900 day siege, Stalingrad happened at Stalingrad. Having its cities pulverised to fuck and coming back from it, is just part of the myth.
Somehow, I don't think that either Russia's leaders or masses have a huge desire to commit national suicide.
Well, fuck it, look at the actual evidence, why not? You might as well say that nobody has ever gone to war because, yes, I know what it says in the history books, but would people really commit themselves to years of large scale slaughter and misery for no clear gain, time after time? There is a whole heap of commentators out there, and any number of clips of state TV on twitter, saying quite explicitly that Russia thinks it can win an all out nuclear war. Now if the Russians are saying that and the Western commentators are saying believe them, I don't see what weight is to be attached to your "somehow" gut feeling on the subject.
Russia had very little choice but to fight an enemy in 1941 that was bent on enslaving or exterminating the population. In such a situation, they had little choice but to endure hell.
Now, they do have a choice.
I see your problem: you have had enough of experts.
"Russia’s information infrastructure is hugely different from the West. The Russian masses, especially outside the cities, are not all on the internet; they rely on state-controlled television for news. That pre-existing monopoly has been massively reinforced since the invasion of Ukraine, with all alternative news sources blocked for the overwhelming majority of Russians. This has been compounded by many of the younger, social media-savvy generation leaving the country.
What is left is a population depressingly similar to its grandparents, who crowded Red Square to cheer the Leader of All Progressive Humanity whenever Stalin appeared atop Lenin’s tomb to receive the adulation of his helots. True, many applauded out of fear, but many also from conviction: even today, Stalin remains revered by millions of Russians. The mythology of the Great Patriotic War combines all the central elements of the Russian political identity: love of a strong leader, a near-masochist willingness to endure the unendurable for the sake of the motherland, and imperial greatness resulting in domination over other nations.
Since coming to power, Vladimir Putin has aspired to tick all those boxes. His propaganda machine, now unchallenged by any alternative voice, has reduced his compatriots to a state of moronic credulity. By carefully feeding the paranoia that is a principal component of the Russian character, Putin has secured his people’s support for an adventure that can only have catastrophic consequences for them."
I mean, LOL, Iain Martin, sure, but he *sounds* as if he knows what he is talking about, he is saying exactly what Russian TV and all the Western commentators on Russian TV are saying, and your intuition as to how you might feel if you were Russian is a bit off the point.
If Russians really do have such commitment to the cause that they'll choose national self-immolation in order to put Zelensky in his place, would we not be seeing some sign of it, by now? Where are the throngs of people of fighting age joining up, and the deeds of insane bravery on the battlefield? That was what we saw in 1941-45.
There's only one side in this war that's shown real fighting spirit, and it's not the Russian side.
You think if there were 'deeds of insane bravery' on the Russian side, they'd be reported in our media? Even with PB's general tenor on this conflict, that's an interesting view. Do you not think that such acts were reported in WW2 because they were on our side? Do you not think we didn't hear great 'deeds of insane bravery' on the part of the Germans for the same reason?
That’s BS. There’s plenty of Russian propaganda on (eg) Twitter.
A lot of it is Chechens filming themselves doing stuff which is unmilitary, let alone unheroic.
I see Germany have finally agreed to send the kit the Ukrainians want.
Good, All of it? including the heavy stuff? and what's the time line, at one point the Germans were saying 6-18 months for the Armed Personal Crease, become they needed to do work on them first.
Well, a lot of the German kit simply doesn't work, so it's more incompetence than conspiracy.
How has one of the most advanced high tech manufacturing countries in the world got kit that doesn't work?
Mainly inherited from the GDR. Which is the stuff they donated.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Western arms shipments to Ukraine mean Nato is "in essence engaged in war with Russia" and there is "considerable" risk of the conflict going nuclear
This is now a settled theme from Russia,.
Tbh I'm amazed they haven't said this from the outset, and it's part of the reason why I think we've being really disingenuous about the No Fly Zone. We have drawn our own line by saying that it's fine to supply tons of military equipment, intelligence and, even, special 'advisors' (SAS) to Ukraine but it's not fine to install a NFZ. 95% of people on here have gone along with this, often vociferously. They've told themselves that the one will help Ukraine but won't escalate it but the other would lead to WWIII and Armageddon.
But it's cant and hypocrisy basically, isn't it? If we're going to support Ukraine, bloody well support Ukraine. We should have backed Zelensky's request and stood up to Putin.
Just my opinion. Don't flame me.
Not going to flame you, but consider this: all but the most psychopathic criminals retain a demented sense of justice, a point quite neatly illustrated by monty python's piranha brothers who nail someone's head to the floor "because he had transgressed the unwritten code." Putin's unwritten code includes no nfz.
Or of course, he is bluffing and we only think it does. But don't fall into the narrative of Stand up to the bully, give Ivan a bloody nose and he will always cave in to true British grit. That is a school story and there's no nukes in schools.
It's amazing how many people think this is fucking Michael Bay film and that Russia will back down if, in some as yet to be defined manner, Ukraine wins.
There is going to have to be a deal sooner or later and the pressure should be on Ukraine and Russia to make it sooner.
What 'pressure to do a deal' can we put on a Russia that is doing, and saying, what it is?
And what makes you think they'll stick with the deal for a microsecond longer than it takes to get what they want?
Again, even nutters have a sense of justice. You adhere to the unwritten code, you don't get your head nailed to the coffee table. Russia's sabre rattling is consistently if...then, else..., not, we are going to nuke you just for shits n giggles and because we can
But OK you think a deal can't be done, so whats your alternative? Give Ivan a dam' good thrashing because then he'll back down, like bullies always do?
The government and people of Russia believe, with 100% confidence, that they will come out of the other end of a nuclear exchange in far better shape than NATO. This is a recurrent theme on Russian TV.
It's a vast and sparsely populated country with shit infrastructure and people who are used to roughing it anyway.
Oh I'm sure that Putin, his cronies and oligarchs with their luxurious palaces and yachts are completely used to roughing it (!)
I don't think they want to spend the rest of their lives living underground.
Russia may be sparsely populated but much of the population is concentrated in a small number of areas. Nearly 10% of the population lives in Moscow, and another 14% lives in the next fourteen cities. It would not take many warheads to destroy those population centres.
I think this is a case where standing up to a bully is actually a lot safer than giving way to him.
If we would do it. Would we? Does Vlad think we would? Do his people?
Moscow was abandoned and burned to the ground in 1812, Leningrad had a 900 day siege, Stalingrad happened at Stalingrad. Having its cities pulverised to fuck and coming back from it, is just part of the myth.
Somehow, I don't think that either Russia's leaders or masses have a huge desire to commit national suicide.
Well, fuck it, look at the actual evidence, why not? You might as well say that nobody has ever gone to war because, yes, I know what it says in the history books, but would people really commit themselves to years of large scale slaughter and misery for no clear gain, time after time? There is a whole heap of commentators out there, and any number of clips of state TV on twitter, saying quite explicitly that Russia thinks it can win an all out nuclear war. Now if the Russians are saying that and the Western commentators are saying believe them, I don't see what weight is to be attached to your "somehow" gut feeling on the subject.
Russia had very little choice but to fight an enemy in 1941 that was bent on enslaving or exterminating the population. In such a situation, they had little choice but to endure hell.
Now, they do have a choice.
I see your problem: you have had enough of experts.
"Russia’s information infrastructure is hugely different from the West. The Russian masses, especially outside the cities, are not all on the internet; they rely on state-controlled television for news. That pre-existing monopoly has been massively reinforced since the invasion of Ukraine, with all alternative news sources blocked for the overwhelming majority of Russians. This has been compounded by many of the younger, social media-savvy generation leaving the country.
What is left is a population depressingly similar to its grandparents, who crowded Red Square to cheer the Leader of All Progressive Humanity whenever Stalin appeared atop Lenin’s tomb to receive the adulation of his helots. True, many applauded out of fear, but many also from conviction: even today, Stalin remains revered by millions of Russians. The mythology of the Great Patriotic War combines all the central elements of the Russian political identity: love of a strong leader, a near-masochist willingness to endure the unendurable for the sake of the motherland, and imperial greatness resulting in domination over other nations.
Since coming to power, Vladimir Putin has aspired to tick all those boxes. His propaganda machine, now unchallenged by any alternative voice, has reduced his compatriots to a state of moronic credulity. By carefully feeding the paranoia that is a principal component of the Russian character, Putin has secured his people’s support for an adventure that can only have catastrophic consequences for them."
I mean, LOL, Iain Martin, sure, but he *sounds* as if he knows what he is talking about, he is saying exactly what Russian TV and all the Western commentators on Russian TV are saying, and your intuition as to how you might feel if you were Russian is a bit off the point.
If Russians really do have such commitment to the cause that they'll choose national self-immolation in order to put Zelensky in his place, would we not be seeing some sign of it, by now? Where are the throngs of people of fighting age joining up, and the deeds of insane bravery on the battlefield? That was what we saw in 1941-45.
There's only one side in this war that's shown real fighting spirit, and it's not the Russian side.
You think if there were 'deeds of insane bravery' on the Russian side, they'd be reported in our media? Even with PB's general tenor on this conflict, that's an interesting view. Do you not think that such acts were reported in WW2 because they were on our side? Do you not think we didn't hear great 'deeds of insane bravery' on the part of the Germans for the same reason?
That’s BS. There’s plenty of Russian propaganda on (eg) Twitter.
A lot of it is Chechens filming themselves doing stuff which is unmilitary, let alone unheroic.
In what system of logic is it a rebuttal of "There are no Russians doing X on our media" to say "there are in fact non-Russians doing something completely other than X on media which are open to all and administered from the USA"?
"Child marriage is currently legal in 44 states (only Delaware, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island have set the minimum age at 18 and eliminated all exceptions), and 20 U.S. states do not require any minimum age for marriage, with a parental or judicial waiver. Nearly 300,00 children were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018. The vast majority were girls wed to adult men, many much older."
From equalitynow website.
That's crazy! I assumed it wsa a case of it not being explicitly disallowed by only a bare handful actually happened at worst.
Seems the sort of thing it'd be easy to get a bipartisan campaign behind.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Western arms shipments to Ukraine mean Nato is "in essence engaged in war with Russia" and there is "considerable" risk of the conflict going nuclear
This is now a settled theme from Russia,.
Tbh I'm amazed they haven't said this from the outset, and it's part of the reason why I think we've being really disingenuous about the No Fly Zone. We have drawn our own line by saying that it's fine to supply tons of military equipment, intelligence and, even, special 'advisors' (SAS) to Ukraine but it's not fine to install a NFZ. 95% of people on here have gone along with this, often vociferously. They've told themselves that the one will help Ukraine but won't escalate it but the other would lead to WWIII and Armageddon.
But it's cant and hypocrisy basically, isn't it? If we're going to support Ukraine, bloody well support Ukraine. We should have backed Zelensky's request and stood up to Putin.
Just my opinion. Don't flame me.
Not going to flame you, but consider this: all but the most psychopathic criminals retain a demented sense of justice, a point quite neatly illustrated by monty python's piranha brothers who nail someone's head to the floor "because he had transgressed the unwritten code." Putin's unwritten code includes no nfz.
Or of course, he is bluffing and we only think it does. But don't fall into the narrative of Stand up to the bully, give Ivan a bloody nose and he will always cave in to true British grit. That is a school story and there's no nukes in schools.
It's amazing how many people think this is fucking Michael Bay film and that Russia will back down if, in some as yet to be defined manner, Ukraine wins.
There is going to have to be a deal sooner or later and the pressure should be on Ukraine and Russia to make it sooner.
What 'pressure to do a deal' can we put on a Russia that is doing, and saying, what it is?
And what makes you think they'll stick with the deal for a microsecond longer than it takes to get what they want?
Again, even nutters have a sense of justice. You adhere to the unwritten code, you don't get your head nailed to the coffee table. Russia's sabre rattling is consistently if...then, else..., not, we are going to nuke you just for shits n giggles and because we can
But OK you think a deal can't be done, so whats your alternative? Give Ivan a dam' good thrashing because then he'll back down, like bullies always do?
The government and people of Russia believe, with 100% confidence, that they will come out of the other end of a nuclear exchange in far better shape than NATO. This is a recurrent theme on Russian TV.
It's a vast and sparsely populated country with shit infrastructure and people who are used to roughing it anyway.
Oh I'm sure that Putin, his cronies and oligarchs with their luxurious palaces and yachts are completely used to roughing it (!)
I don't think they want to spend the rest of their lives living underground.
Russia may be sparsely populated but much of the population is concentrated in a small number of areas. Nearly 10% of the population lives in Moscow, and another 14% lives in the next fourteen cities. It would not take many warheads to destroy those population centres.
I think this is a case where standing up to a bully is actually a lot safer than giving way to him.
If we would do it. Would we? Does Vlad think we would? Do his people?
Moscow was abandoned and burned to the ground in 1812, Leningrad had a 900 day siege, Stalingrad happened at Stalingrad. Having its cities pulverised to fuck and coming back from it, is just part of the myth.
Somehow, I don't think that either Russia's leaders or masses have a huge desire to commit national suicide.
Well, fuck it, look at the actual evidence, why not? You might as well say that nobody has ever gone to war because, yes, I know what it says in the history books, but would people really commit themselves to years of large scale slaughter and misery for no clear gain, time after time? There is a whole heap of commentators out there, and any number of clips of state TV on twitter, saying quite explicitly that Russia thinks it can win an all out nuclear war. Now if the Russians are saying that and the Western commentators are saying believe them, I don't see what weight is to be attached to your "somehow" gut feeling on the subject.
Russia had very little choice but to fight an enemy in 1941 that was bent on enslaving or exterminating the population. In such a situation, they had little choice but to endure hell.
Now, they do have a choice.
I see your problem: you have had enough of experts.
"Russia’s information infrastructure is hugely different from the West. The Russian masses, especially outside the cities, are not all on the internet; they rely on state-controlled television for news. That pre-existing monopoly has been massively reinforced since the invasion of Ukraine, with all alternative news sources blocked for the overwhelming majority of Russians. This has been compounded by many of the younger, social media-savvy generation leaving the country.
What is left is a population depressingly similar to its grandparents, who crowded Red Square to cheer the Leader of All Progressive Humanity whenever Stalin appeared atop Lenin’s tomb to receive the adulation of his helots. True, many applauded out of fear, but many also from conviction: even today, Stalin remains revered by millions of Russians. The mythology of the Great Patriotic War combines all the central elements of the Russian political identity: love of a strong leader, a near-masochist willingness to endure the unendurable for the sake of the motherland, and imperial greatness resulting in domination over other nations.
Since coming to power, Vladimir Putin has aspired to tick all those boxes. His propaganda machine, now unchallenged by any alternative voice, has reduced his compatriots to a state of moronic credulity. By carefully feeding the paranoia that is a principal component of the Russian character, Putin has secured his people’s support for an adventure that can only have catastrophic consequences for them."
I mean, LOL, Iain Martin, sure, but he *sounds* as if he knows what he is talking about, he is saying exactly what Russian TV and all the Western commentators on Russian TV are saying, and your intuition as to how you might feel if you were Russian is a bit off the point.
If Russians really do have such commitment to the cause that they'll choose national self-immolation in order to put Zelensky in his place, would we not be seeing some sign of it, by now? Where are the throngs of people of fighting age joining up, and the deeds of insane bravery on the battlefield? That was what we saw in 1941-45.
There's only one side in this war that's shown real fighting spirit, and it's not the Russian side.
You think if there were 'deeds of insane bravery' on the Russian side, they'd be reported in our media? Even with PB's general tenor on this conflict, that's an interesting view. Do you not think that such acts were reported in WW2 because they were on our side? Do you not think we didn't hear great 'deeds of insane bravery' on the part of the Germans for the same reason?
The internet is open enough that people like you and MISTY would be posting them everywhere on here.
This is a duff point because I am not seeing tiktoks of acts of insane bravery by Ukrainian soldiers either, more videos of things being blown up at a distance.
There are there if you look for them (and the continued fight by the guys in Mariupol gives an idea). But most are of well disciplined military competence, something notably absent from the other side.
"Child marriage is currently legal in 44 states (only Delaware, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island have set the minimum age at 18 and eliminated all exceptions), and 20 U.S. states do not require any minimum age for marriage, with a parental or judicial waiver. Nearly 300,00 children were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018. The vast majority were girls wed to adult men, many much older."
From equalitynow website.
IIRC, in most states you need a judicial waiver (which is vanishingly rare) below 15/16.
Massachusetts - on the other hand - allows 12 with just parental consent.
"Musk has stated that his first plan is to open-source the algorithm that ranks tweets in the content feed, in order to increase transparency. He has stated intention to remove the spam bots, and to authenticate all real humans"
Groovier people than me: is £55 really what it costs these days to see Nick Mason at Plymouth Pavilions? It is a long time since I went to a concert not a festival.
Hmm, I can think of a simpler explanation for the hatred.
BBC
Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia's Security Council, accused the US and other Western nations of trying to instil hatred towards Russia in Ukraine
"Musk has stated that his first plan is to open-source the algorithm that ranks tweets in the content feed, in order to increase transparency. He has stated intention to remove the spam bots, and to authenticate all real humans"
If Musk can get rid of the bots it'll be one of the best things that's ever happened on the internet.
The Musk mandate.
Even the bots have given up on Nige, he's had zero growth for 18 months.
I just bet he has.
You would think someone who failed to get elected to parliament however many times despite a national profile would understand the concept of a plateau.
Will artificial intelligence be able to be used in the future to determine whether a computer account is being operated by a real human being or by artificial intelligence?
Hmm, I can think of a simpler explanation for the hatred.
BBC
Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia's Security Council, accused the US and other Western nations of trying to instil hatred towards Russia in Ukraine
The levels of projection in Russian elite are incredible. Whatever they say NATO/US/West/Ukr are doing or represent is always exactly what they are as far as I can see. e.g. Ukr is full of Nazis.
Will artificial intelligence be able to be used in the future to determine whether a computer account is being operated by a real human being or by artificial intelligence?
If Elon chucks you off twitter as a bot and you take him up on it, you are being subjected to a turing test if you think about it
The trouble with AIs is you can train one with yottabytes of data to distinguish the two and at the same time train its twin on the same data to output human looking stuff.
Russia could target British diplomats returning to Kyiv if it continues to "provoke" Ukraine into striking targets in Russia, the Kremlin has warned.
“We would like to emphasise that London’s actions to provoke the Kyiv regime into taking such steps will immediately trigger our response should they decide to do it,” Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
“As we have warned, Russia’s armed forces are ready to carry out strikes with high-precision, long-range weapons on the centres of decision-making in Kyiv.
“The presence of advisers from one Western country who are stationed at the centres of decision-making in Kyiv will not necessarily be a problem if Russia decided to respond.”
That really does sound pathetic, just do it already if you are going to do it. I don't see that shelling Kyiv and hitting a British diplomat is any worse than shelling Kyiv is anyway. Encouraging in that it makes one think perhaps the nuclear threats are equally half arsed.
As if they’re that accurate anyway. The long range stuff is pretty indiscriminate.
Will artificial intelligence be able to be used in the future to determine whether a computer account is being operated by a real human being or by artificial intelligence?
Definitely not. Both should they choose could appear plodding and artificial. (I know it's unimaginable on PB, well apart from me )
Groovier people than me: is £55 really what it costs these days to see Nick Mason at Plymouth Pavilions? It is a long time since I went to a concert not a festival.
Yes, and it is a great show, one of the best concerts that I have been to in recent years. Early Floyd and a great band that he has put together.
"Child marriage is currently legal in 44 states (only Delaware, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island have set the minimum age at 18 and eliminated all exceptions), and 20 U.S. states do not require any minimum age for marriage, with a parental or judicial waiver. Nearly 300,00 children were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018. The vast majority were girls wed to adult men, many much older."
From equalitynow website.
That's crazy! I assumed it wsa a case of it not being explicitly disallowed by only a bare handful actually happened at worst.
Seems the sort of thing it'd be easy to get a bipartisan campaign behind.
I think that it is mostly Christian Fundamentalist and breakaway Mormon sects that do child marriage in USA, so a heavily Republican demographic.
Disgusting, not shocking. I’m not massively surprised by it.
It's actually a contradiction anyway in that you can't be an attacked country if you're already part of Russia.
I will say though that it's really important that we get to hear all views at the moment. I'm very uncomfortable with bans on broadcasters - RT for example.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Western arms shipments to Ukraine mean Nato is "in essence engaged in war with Russia" and there is "considerable" risk of the conflict going nuclear
This is now a settled theme from Russia,.
Tbh I'm amazed they haven't said this from the outset, and it's part of the reason why I think we've being really disingenuous about the No Fly Zone. We have drawn our own line by saying that it's fine to supply tons of military equipment, intelligence and, even, special 'advisors' (SAS) to Ukraine but it's not fine to install a NFZ. 95% of people on here have gone along with this, often vociferously. They've told themselves that the one will help Ukraine but won't escalate it but the other would lead to WWIII and Armageddon.
But it's cant and hypocrisy basically, isn't it? If we're going to support Ukraine, bloody well support Ukraine. We should have backed Zelensky's request and stood up to Putin.
Just my opinion. Don't flame me.
Not going to flame you, but consider this: all but the most psychopathic criminals retain a demented sense of justice, a point quite neatly illustrated by monty python's piranha brothers who nail someone's head to the floor "because he had transgressed the unwritten code." Putin's unwritten code includes no nfz.
Or of course, he is bluffing and we only think it does. But don't fall into the narrative of Stand up to the bully, give Ivan a bloody nose and he will always cave in to true British grit. That is a school story and there's no nukes in schools.
It's amazing how many people think this is fucking Michael Bay film and that Russia will back down if, in some as yet to be defined manner, Ukraine wins.
There is going to have to be a deal sooner or later and the pressure should be on Ukraine and Russia to make it sooner.
What 'pressure to do a deal' can we put on a Russia that is doing, and saying, what it is?
And what makes you think they'll stick with the deal for a microsecond longer than it takes to get what they want?
Again, even nutters have a sense of justice. You adhere to the unwritten code, you don't get your head nailed to the coffee table. Russia's sabre rattling is consistently if...then, else..., not, we are going to nuke you just for shits n giggles and because we can
But OK you think a deal can't be done, so whats your alternative? Give Ivan a dam' good thrashing because then he'll back down, like bullies always do?
The government and people of Russia believe, with 100% confidence, that they will come out of the other end of a nuclear exchange in far better shape than NATO. This is a recurrent theme on Russian TV.
It's a vast and sparsely populated country with shit infrastructure and people who are used to roughing it anyway.
Oh I'm sure that Putin, his cronies and oligarchs with their luxurious palaces and yachts are completely used to roughing it (!)
I don't think they want to spend the rest of their lives living underground.
Russia may be sparsely populated but much of the population is concentrated in a small number of areas. Nearly 10% of the population lives in Moscow, and another 14% lives in the next fourteen cities. It would not take many warheads to destroy those population centres.
I think this is a case where standing up to a bully is actually a lot safer than giving way to him.
If we would do it. Would we? Does Vlad think we would? Do his people?
Moscow was abandoned and burned to the ground in 1812, Leningrad had a 900 day siege, Stalingrad happened at Stalingrad. Having its cities pulverised to fuck and coming back from it, is just part of the myth.
Somehow, I don't think that either Russia's leaders or masses have a huge desire to commit national suicide.
Well, fuck it, look at the actual evidence, why not? You might as well say that nobody has ever gone to war because, yes, I know what it says in the history books, but would people really commit themselves to years of large scale slaughter and misery for no clear gain, time after time? There is a whole heap of commentators out there, and any number of clips of state TV on twitter, saying quite explicitly that Russia thinks it can win an all out nuclear war. Now if the Russians are saying that and the Western commentators are saying believe them, I don't see what weight is to be attached to your "somehow" gut feeling on the subject.
Russia had very little choice but to fight an enemy in 1941 that was bent on enslaving or exterminating the population. In such a situation, they had little choice but to endure hell.
Now, they do have a choice.
I see your problem: you have had enough of experts.
"Russia’s information infrastructure is hugely different from the West. The Russian masses, especially outside the cities, are not all on the internet; they rely on state-controlled television for news. That pre-existing monopoly has been massively reinforced since the invasion of Ukraine, with all alternative news sources blocked for the overwhelming majority of Russians. This has been compounded by many of the younger, social media-savvy generation leaving the country.
What is left is a population depressingly similar to its grandparents, who crowded Red Square to cheer the Leader of All Progressive Humanity whenever Stalin appeared atop Lenin’s tomb to receive the adulation of his helots. True, many applauded out of fear, but many also from conviction: even today, Stalin remains revered by millions of Russians. The mythology of the Great Patriotic War combines all the central elements of the Russian political identity: love of a strong leader, a near-masochist willingness to endure the unendurable for the sake of the motherland, and imperial greatness resulting in domination over other nations.
Since coming to power, Vladimir Putin has aspired to tick all those boxes. His propaganda machine, now unchallenged by any alternative voice, has reduced his compatriots to a state of moronic credulity. By carefully feeding the paranoia that is a principal component of the Russian character, Putin has secured his people’s support for an adventure that can only have catastrophic consequences for them."
I mean, LOL, Iain Martin, sure, but he *sounds* as if he knows what he is talking about, he is saying exactly what Russian TV and all the Western commentators on Russian TV are saying, and your intuition as to how you might feel if you were Russian is a bit off the point.
If Russians really do have such commitment to the cause that they'll choose national self-immolation in order to put Zelensky in his place, would we not be seeing some sign of it, by now? Where are the throngs of people of fighting age joining up, and the deeds of insane bravery on the battlefield? That was what we saw in 1941-45.
There's only one side in this war that's shown real fighting spirit, and it's not the Russian side.
You think if there were 'deeds of insane bravery' on the Russian side, they'd be reported in our media? Even with PB's general tenor on this conflict, that's an interesting view. Do you not think that such acts were reported in WW2 because they were on our side? Do you not think we didn't hear great 'deeds of insane bravery' on the part of the Germans for the same reason?
That’s BS. There’s plenty of Russian propaganda on (eg) Twitter.
A lot of it is Chechens filming themselves doing stuff which is unmilitary, let alone unheroic.
In what system of logic is it a rebuttal of "There are no Russians doing X on our media" to say "there are in fact non-Russians doing something completely other than X on media which are open to all and administered from the USA"?
You’re postulating a fine sorting process which doesn’t really exist.
Disgusting, not shocking. I’m not massively surprised by it.
It's actually a contradiction anyway in that you can't be an attacked country if you're already part of Russia.
I will say though that it's really important that we get to hear all views at the moment. I'm very uncomfortable with bans on broadcasters - RT for example.
I agree. If they were spending vast amounts of cash to materially distort UK media, then I could understand the case for taking some sort of action. But while their business is likely uneconomic (ie paid propaganda), its impact is minimal, and probably counterproductive to boot.
Russia could target British diplomats returning to Kyiv if it continues to "provoke" Ukraine into striking targets in Russia, the Kremlin has warned.
“We would like to emphasise that London’s actions to provoke the Kyiv regime into taking such steps will immediately trigger our response should they decide to do it,” Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
“As we have warned, Russia’s armed forces are ready to carry out strikes with high-precision, long-range weapons on the centres of decision-making in Kyiv.
“The presence of advisers from one Western country who are stationed at the centres of decision-making in Kyiv will not necessarily be a problem if Russia decided to respond.”
That really does sound pathetic, just do it already if you are going to do it. I don't see that shelling Kyiv and hitting a British diplomat is any worse than shelling Kyiv is anyway. Encouraging in that it makes one think perhaps the nuclear threats are equally half arsed.
As if they’re that accurate anyway. The long range stuff is pretty indiscriminate.
The Russians seem to have a different concept of reliability and accuracy in their weapons, than the rest of us might expect.
They must be almost out of all but the massive ICMBs now, and they probably only have a handful of those actually serviceable.
Groovier people than me: is £55 really what it costs these days to see Nick Mason at Plymouth Pavilions? It is a long time since I went to a concert not a festival.
Yes, and it is a great show, one of the best concerts that I have been to in recent years. Early Floyd and a great band that he has put together.
Thanks for reminding me! I booked two tickets in 2020, and just seen it is rescheduled for Sunday in Leicester. My tickets were £49
Why do employers ask for salary expectations, and what sort of salary should you ask for?
They’re hoping that you low-ball them on your expectations. Give them a number 10-20% higher then you’d be happy with.
I remember as a young whipper snapper having a job review after a few months of working somewhere and them asking me this question and I asked for double my probationary period salary thinking we were going to barter and they said yes...
Rather taken aback, thought I had must clearly still be selling myself too cheap...went to the pub with some of those who worked there a number of years and stupidly said this, lots of faces turned very angry all of a sudden, as we all realised the spotty face yobbo was paid more than them. Always seemed to be my round for the next few months....
Groovier people than me: is £55 really what it costs these days to see Nick Mason at Plymouth Pavilions? It is a long time since I went to a concert not a festival.
Quite reasonable. Most of the tickets for this year's Roxy Music tour (surely the last?) are higher than that.
Disgusting, not shocking. I’m not massively surprised by it.
It's actually a contradiction anyway in that you can't be an attacked country if you're already part of Russia.
I will say though that it's really important that we get to hear all views at the moment. I'm very uncomfortable with bans on broadcasters - RT for example.
I agree. If they were spending vast amounts of cash to materially distort UK media, then I could understand the case for taking some sort of action. But while their business is likely uneconomic (ie paid propaganda), its impact is minimal, and probably counterproductive to boot.
(You can't go around agreeing with people on PB!)
The difficulty is of course fact versus opinion. Our own (lovely) BBC is far more about opinion than fact. The BBC are horrid in that they actually have many news items that they could run (from World Service), but they never do.
On topic I would have thought Sinn Fein as largest party is pretty much free money at this point given they were 7% ahead in the latest poll. There is maybe some evidence of DUP squeezing the TUV but I expect the UUP to be more resistant to a DUP squeeze and get more transfers from Alliance and SDLP supporters now.
Also noteworthy that TheGreenMachine is predicting only one unionist seat in North Belfast.
The heroic Swiss (from The Guardian). Harry Lime was right, after all.
Switzerland has vetoed the re-export of Swiss-made ammunition used in Gepard anti-aircraft systems that Germany is sending to Ukraine, the government said.
The Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) confirmed it had blocked Germany from sending munitions for the Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine, Reuters reports.
The agency said it had received two requests from Germany to transfer to Ukraine ammunition it had previously received from Switzerland.
SECO said:
Both inquiries by Germany as to whether the ammunition received from Switzerland may be transferred to Ukraine were answered in the negative with reference to Swiss neutrality and the mandatory rejection criteria of Swiss war material legislation.
According to broadcaster SRF, it was unclear which ammunition Germany was now sending to Ukraine along with the Gepards, following the Swiss veto.
Although Switzerland has adopted EU sanctions designed to punish Russia’s actions in Ukraine, it has said its neutrality does not permit providing arms for use in conflict zones. Last month, it rejected Poland’s request for arms to help Ukraine.
Disgusting, not shocking. I’m not massively surprised by it.
It's actually a contradiction anyway in that you can't be an attacked country if you're already part of Russia.
I will say though that it's really important that we get to hear all views at the moment. I'm very uncomfortable with bans on broadcasters - RT for example.
I agree. If they were spending vast amounts of cash to materially distort UK media, then I could understand the case for taking some sort of action. But while their business is likely uneconomic (ie paid propaganda), its impact is minimal, and probably counterproductive to boot.
(You can't go around agreeing with people on PB!)
The difficulty is of course fact versus opinion. Our own (lovely) BBC is far more about opinion than fact. The BBC are horrid in that they actually have many news items that they could run (from World Service), but they never do.
I’d welcome more news on the BBC. If government wanted it, I don’t think there’d be much resistance to the idea. (Though I’m not sure it would help ratings.)
The heroic Swiss (from The Guardian). Harry Lime was right, after all.
Switzerland has vetoed the re-export of Swiss-made ammunition used in Gepard anti-aircraft systems that Germany is sending to Ukraine, the government said.
The Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) confirmed it had blocked Germany from sending munitions for the Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine, Reuters reports.
The agency said it had received two requests from Germany to transfer to Ukraine ammunition it had previously received from Switzerland.
SECO said:
Both inquiries by Germany as to whether the ammunition received from Switzerland may be transferred to Ukraine were answered in the negative with reference to Swiss neutrality and the mandatory rejection criteria of Swiss war material legislation.
According to broadcaster SRF, it was unclear which ammunition Germany was now sending to Ukraine along with the Gepards, following the Swiss veto.
Although Switzerland has adopted EU sanctions designed to punish Russia’s actions in Ukraine, it has said its neutrality does not permit providing arms for use in conflict zones. Last month, it rejected Poland’s request for arms to help Ukraine.
I think this is fine though. If the Swiss want to take this line it's entirely understandable. It'd be hard to imagine that their ammunition can't be made elsewhere, and impossible to imagine that they could have any sort of armaments industry ever again. (Pretty hard to see why they have such a thing in the first place)
Why do employers ask for salary expectations, and what sort of salary should you ask for?
They’re hoping that you low-ball them on your expectations. Give them a number 10-20% higher then you’d be happy with.
I guess I'm worried about putting them off, or appearing absurd, if I ask for "too much". Aargh.
In my experience, if they want you for the job, they won't really be put off, rather they will just come back with a lower counter offer. Nobody is going to pass on a good hire because they initially asked for a bit more than they will probably pay...and you never know they might say yes.
Its only if you get down to the nitty gritty and stick to your guns of a higher salary than they might be willing to pay after some rounds of back and forth might they say actually this person just isn't going to work for the salary we are prepared to pay.
The heroic Swiss (from The Guardian). Harry Lime was right, after all.
Switzerland has vetoed the re-export of Swiss-made ammunition used in Gepard anti-aircraft systems that Germany is sending to Ukraine, the government said… .
Groovier people than me: is £55 really what it costs these days to see Nick Mason at Plymouth Pavilions? It is a long time since I went to a concert not a festival.
Quite reasonable. Most of the tickets for this year's Roxy Music tour (surely the last?) are higher than that.
The heroic Swiss (from The Guardian). Harry Lime was right, after all.
Switzerland has vetoed the re-export of Swiss-made ammunition used in Gepard anti-aircraft systems that Germany is sending to Ukraine, the government said… .
The heroic Swiss (from The Guardian). Harry Lime was right, after all.
Switzerland has vetoed the re-export of Swiss-made ammunition used in Gepard anti-aircraft systems that Germany is sending to Ukraine, the government said… .
Nothing new, so pearl clutching by any government is gross incompetence. . HMG tried to save money by closing the ROF for a certain type of ammunition and outsourcing to neutral production. Which caused problems when the next Gulf War began (i forget which one).
Groovier people than me: is £55 really what it costs these days to see Nick Mason at Plymouth Pavilions? It is a long time since I went to a concert not a festival.
Quite reasonable. Most of the tickets for this year's Roxy Music tour (surely the last?) are higher than that.
The heroic Swiss (from The Guardian). Harry Lime was right, after all.
Switzerland has vetoed the re-export of Swiss-made ammunition used in Gepard anti-aircraft systems that Germany is sending to Ukraine, the government said.
The Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) confirmed it had blocked Germany from sending munitions for the Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine, Reuters reports.
The agency said it had received two requests from Germany to transfer to Ukraine ammunition it had previously received from Switzerland.
SECO said:
Both inquiries by Germany as to whether the ammunition received from Switzerland may be transferred to Ukraine were answered in the negative with reference to Swiss neutrality and the mandatory rejection criteria of Swiss war material legislation.
According to broadcaster SRF, it was unclear which ammunition Germany was now sending to Ukraine along with the Gepards, following the Swiss veto.
Although Switzerland has adopted EU sanctions designed to punish Russia’s actions in Ukraine, it has said its neutrality does not permit providing arms for use in conflict zones. Last month, it rejected Poland’s request for arms to help Ukraine.
I think this is fine though. If the Swiss want to take this line it's entirely understandable. It'd be hard to imagine that their ammunition can't be made elsewhere, and impossible to imagine that they could have any sort of armaments industry ever again. (Pretty hard to see why they have such a thing in the first place)
Because theyt aren't stupid. It's a strategic resource, being able to make your own ammunition within your borders.
Groovier people than me: is £55 really what it costs these days to see Nick Mason at Plymouth Pavilions? It is a long time since I went to a concert not a festival.
Quite reasonable. Most of the tickets for this year's Roxy Music tour (surely the last?) are higher than that.
Yes, back I the 90s you could usually see live music for less than the price of an album. A concert now costs five or six times as much as an album.
Live concerts have always been a bit crap. If you can see the band then it'll be far too noisy, and if you can't, well you can't.
Even concerts where there's just a small audience can fail. For example New Order once played at a Cambridge May Ball (New Hall) - they didn't want to be there at all. However I did get the scout mark for seeing them play!
Groovier people than me: is £55 really what it costs these days to see Nick Mason at Plymouth Pavilions? It is a long time since I went to a concert not a festival.
Quite reasonable. Most of the tickets for this year's Roxy Music tour (surely the last?) are higher than that.
The heroic Swiss (from The Guardian). Harry Lime was right, after all.
Switzerland has vetoed the re-export of Swiss-made ammunition used in Gepard anti-aircraft systems that Germany is sending to Ukraine, the government said… .
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Togo MPs pass vote to join Commonwealth
The West African nation embarked on the process of joining the Commonwealth in 2014.
https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/africa/2022-04-25-togo-mps-pass-vote-to-join-commonwealth/
I just bet he has.
It is both sad and embarrassing. It is to be our new role in the world. Grabbing onto others shirt tails. My hope is that when Johnson goes this really yucky chauvinism goes with him and we become the classy and thoughtful country we once were
Not as sad and embarrassing as Macron sitting at the end of that long table being lectured by Putin, as if he is going to take any notice of Marcon request, while by own admissions French intelligence services were totally out of the loop about what Russia's plans really were.
Read the article posted by Richard Nabavi. If accurate you're going to have a miserable few years
https://www.cer.eu/insights/very-french-europe
However, thanks for the analysis and insignts!
But "The electorate will be out in full force to give the sympathy vote to Edwin Poots [DUP]" in South Belfast?
WHY would the voters have sympathy for this loser (in more ways that one as far as I can tell)?
And what do "NAP" and "NB" signify?
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1518024361223110656?s=20&t=8-ceGHYqS9NcZ6B3_OM-NA
https://twitter.com/CanadianUkrain1/status/1517040544710594560?s=20&t=8-ceGHYqS9NcZ6B3_OM-NA
BUT politics DOES make strange bedfellows - just ask Liz Cheney!
https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/uc9kjm/you_may_not_have_known_but_there_are_skate_trоорs/
Serious skills.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-61228240
Quite a naive article in many respects, I think.
“We would like to emphasise that London’s actions to provoke the Kyiv regime into taking such steps will immediately trigger our response should they decide to do it,” Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
“As we have warned, Russia’s armed forces are ready to carry out strikes with high-precision, long-range weapons on the centres of decision-making in Kyiv.
“The presence of advisers from one Western country who are stationed at the centres of decision-making in Kyiv will not necessarily be a problem if Russia decided to respond.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/04/26/ukraine-war-latest-news-russia-attacks-mariupol-refugees-weapons/
That really does sound pathetic, just do it already if you are going to do it. I don't see that shelling Kyiv and hitting a British diplomat is any worse than shelling Kyiv is anyway. Encouraging in that it makes one think perhaps the nuclear threats are equally half arsed.
Consequently, the Department of International Trade predicts a negative impact on the British farming sector, but argues that benefits in other sector produce a small overall gain for British GDP.
I think better use of government PR would be to focus on a) mopping up the remaining oldies who haven't had boosters / 4th jab, and b) public education of what to do if you are vulnerable and you get COVID. I still can't believe there hasn't been a proper push on oximeters.
Under the new rules, Children will not face penalties but adults who facilitate their marriage could face up to seven years in jail and a fine. This would include adults who took children abroad to carry out the marriage.
In Massachusetts it's just 12 for girls.
Really.
EDIT: It would be even more valuable to expand the remit beyond COVID. Imagine all health data open sourced to this level of granularity.
(Albeit I accept that Australia scores lower on the Animal Protection Index than every EU country.)
Although I remember years ago Francis Maude saying something similar and that the census would go, and would use public sector data instead.
From equalitynow website.
There’s plenty of Russian propaganda on (eg) Twitter.
A lot of it is Chechens filming themselves doing stuff which is unmilitary, let alone unheroic.
Which is the stuff they donated.
That's crazy! I assumed it wsa a case of it not being explicitly disallowed by only a bare handful actually happened at worst.
Seems the sort of thing it'd be easy to get a bipartisan campaign behind.
Massachusetts - on the other hand - allows 12 with just parental consent.
BBC
Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia's Security Council, accused the US and other Western nations of trying to instil hatred towards Russia in Ukraine
Will artificial intelligence be able to be used in the future to determine whether a computer account is being operated by a real human being or by artificial intelligence?
The trouble with AIs is you can train one with yottabytes of data to distinguish the two and at the same time train its twin on the same data to output human looking stuff.
The long range stuff is pretty indiscriminate.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-26/russia-halted-gas-supplies-to-poland-onet-pl-reports-l2gapmmd
I’m not massively surprised by it.
The genius of Basic Instinct
The Paul Verhoeven classic is far cleverer and more powerful than people think" (£)
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-genius-of-basic-instinct
I will say though that it's really important that we get to hear all views at the moment. I'm very uncomfortable with bans on broadcasters - RT for example.
So, oddly, good news.
That is, if a country votes by a small margin (say 92-8) for independence, then we should probably accept that yes, it is independence they want.
If they were spending vast amounts of cash to materially distort UK media, then I could understand the case for taking some sort of action. But while their business is likely uneconomic (ie paid propaganda), its impact is minimal, and probably counterproductive to boot.
They must be almost out of all but the massive ICMBs now, and they probably only have a handful of those actually serviceable.
Rather taken aback, thought I had must clearly still be selling myself too cheap...went to the pub with some of those who worked there a number of years and stupidly said this, lots of faces turned very angry all of a sudden, as we all realised the spotty face yobbo was paid more than them. Always seemed to be my round for the next few months....
https://www.gigsandtours.com/tour/roxy-music
The difficulty is of course fact versus opinion. Our own (lovely) BBC is far more about opinion than fact. The BBC are horrid in that they actually have many news items that they could run (from World Service), but they never do.
Talk of the end of traditional values.
Also noteworthy that TheGreenMachine is predicting only one unionist seat in North Belfast.
https://www.energie-und-management.de/nachrichten/detail/die-gasfluesse-sind-stabil-152443
Switzerland has vetoed the re-export of Swiss-made ammunition used in Gepard anti-aircraft systems that Germany is sending to Ukraine, the government said.
The Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) confirmed it had blocked Germany from sending munitions for the Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine, Reuters reports.
The agency said it had received two requests from Germany to transfer to Ukraine ammunition it had previously received from Switzerland.
SECO said:
Both inquiries by Germany as to whether the ammunition received from Switzerland may be transferred to Ukraine were answered in the negative with reference to Swiss neutrality and the mandatory rejection criteria of Swiss war material legislation.
According to broadcaster SRF, it was unclear which ammunition Germany was now sending to Ukraine along with the Gepards, following the Swiss veto.
Although Switzerland has adopted EU sanctions designed to punish Russia’s actions in Ukraine, it has said its neutrality does not permit providing arms for use in conflict zones. Last month, it rejected Poland’s request for arms to help Ukraine.
If government wanted it, I don’t think there’d be much resistance to the idea.
(Though I’m not sure it would help ratings.)
2-0 already.
Its only if you get down to the nitty gritty and stick to your guns of a higher salary than they might be willing to pay after some rounds of back and forth might they say actually this person just isn't going to work for the salary we are prepared to pay.
NATO members should think twice before buying Swiss in future.
Plus they’re hypocrites.
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/investigation-exposes-the-use-of-swiss-arms-in-war-zones/47394434
https://twitter.com/FluTrackers/status/1519011762984693762
For a country that imports most of its essentials, that aint good.
Inflaaaaaation
I suppose we are the grey pound in marketingspeak
Even concerts where there's just a small audience can fail. For example New Order once played at a Cambridge May Ball (New Hall) - they didn't want to be there at all. However I did get the scout mark for seeing them play!
A friend went to see Nick Mason and was well impressed, must try to do likewise.
This is Germany you’re talking about….