"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
“The Hepi report finds that 61% of British students think that “when in doubt” their university “should ensure all students are protected from discrimination rather than allow unlimited free speech”.”
So 61% of students think universities should obey the law?
Interesting. So many people have confused liberalism with authoritarianism by believing 'liberalism' means holding a certain package of correct liberally type thoughts, and so it means compelling certain sorts of thoughts.
It's a shame that they don't do a little more critical thinking or philosophy or something that requires independent thought.
Liberalism is not a set of doctrines but a procedure for setting the frame of a free society. Its claim, and only claim, to moral height is that while others exclude, execrate and compel, liberalism includes and persuades.
Without its presuppositions neither PB nor a genuine modern university can exist.
To be fair to the humble consumer trying to have a holiday, I think most people have accepted that travel is going to be glitchy and problematic, for a while, following a deadly global plague. You are taking a risk in traveling, right now, and everyone understands that - but many are willing to risk it, because they have been starved of travel for so long
The moaning seems to come more from journalists seeking a story, than actual punters
Incredible shock too that people are paid to be negative for a living are seeking to be negative, while people going on holidays by and large might actually enjoy the idea of going away, even if it has hiccups.
Brexit is unlikely to be to blame for travel chaos at airports, HSBC has said, as a shortage of aviation workers is worse in America and “at least as intense elsewhere in Europe”.
I was reading some comments to an article just yesterday, people were moaning about cancelled flights and how the airlines/airports had sacked too many workers. Then I twigged that they were Americans moaning about America.
Pertinently
Bloomberg UK @BloombergUK · 2m "The airports are just folding, stopping"
Travel is a mess all over the world — but Europe is where you'll find the epicentre of this summer's vacation chaos
My other half works for a charity that has a lot of properties, providing housing for vulnerable people. She's just been speaking to their energy broker.
He's just told her to expect gas rationing this winter. It will affect industry first, probably won't affect domestic users, but there's always the possibility it might.
He also said there's a possibility that there could be petrol rationing.
All depends on how bad a winter it is.
What fun.
I await more details.
And Covid back with a vengeance. Putin further into Ukraine. The GOP taking Congress. Johnson still "delivering on the priorities of the British people".
To be fair to the humble consumer trying to have a holiday, I think most people have accepted that travel is going to be glitchy and problematic, for a while, following a deadly global plague. You are taking a risk in traveling, right now, and everyone understands that - but many are willing to risk it, because they have been starved of travel for so long
The moaning seems to come more from journalists seeking a story, than actual punters
Incredible shock too that people are paid to be negative for a living are seeking to be negative, while people going on holidays by and large might actually enjoy the idea of going away, even if it has hiccups.
India five wickets down.
The chaos is also somewhat exaggerated. I've done 12 flights in the last 10 weeks, From the USA to Europe to the Caucasus and Turkey
Nearly all have been glitch-free; I've experienced a couple of short take-off delays (as you normally do). That's it. I've been in no "three hour queues" and had no problem with baggage, passports, cancellations, whatever
I can't believe I have been simply lucky. Not over twelve flights on the bounce. Contrary to all the scare stories I am hugely impressed by how the travel industry has fought back to near-normality, in the most terrible of circumstances. Ditto hospitality, and all the restaurants somehow managing with half their staff missing: well done them
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
“The Hepi report finds that 61% of British students think that “when in doubt” their university “should ensure all students are protected from discrimination rather than allow unlimited free speech”.”
So 61% of students think universities should obey the law?
Interesting. So many people have confused liberalism with authoritarianism by believing 'liberalism' means holding a certain package of correct liberally type thoughts, and so it means compelling certain sorts of thoughts.
It's a shame that they don't do a little more critical thinking or philosophy or something that requires independent thought.
Liberalism is not a set of doctrines but a procedure for setting the frame of a free society. Its claim, and only claim, to moral height is that while others exclude, execrate and compel, liberalism includes and persuades.
Without its presuppositions neither PB nor a genuine modern university can exist.
A true liberal instinct is held in a minority only. I’m not sure what percentage of the population, maybe 10%? Along the same lines as left-handedness?
Most people crave stability, or alignment with peers, or want the government to “compel” something.
If the tv companies won’t play ball would it be possible to frame a legal ban on giving airtime to silly old farts?
One objection – esp for liberals like me - is it’d be a violation of free speech. But when you think about it properly it wouldn’t. The people impacted could still go around saying what they want. They just wouldn’t be on Good Morning Britain or Loose Women or whatever whilst they’re saying it. Friends and family would still have the pleasure. So, no problem there.
Next objection – this one particularly important for progressives (again like me) - is it would be ageist. However it wouldn’t, not if it’s framed right. We’re not talking about all people over 80 or anything like that. The likes of Attenborough and Judi Dench and OKC can have as much airtime as they like. The more the better in fact. Wisdom is needed more than ever these days. No, who we’re talking about are the Bernie Ecclestones, the Ken Livingstones, the David Starkeys, those possessing that distinct specific quality of sillyoldfartness.
Final potential objection. Can the attribute of sillyoldfartness be defined tightly enough to be included in a bill and sustain the scrutiny required for it to become law? I think it can. We all know what it is, we know it when we see it, so all you need is a parliamentary draughtsman to listen to us and turn it into the required text – a bit like the police do when sketching a photofit from an eye witness.
SOF Restrictions Act - bring it on.
Great idea.
It should also be accompanied by a Pensioner Peak Time Levy. If they shop, go to the hairdressers, use public transport, basically do anything that inconveniences me - and other working people I suppose - by having to put up with doddery old dears clogging aisles and wandering around looking slightly bewildered, before 9am and after 5pm Mon - Fri and between 10am - 4pm on Saturdays, they should pay double. No ifs, no buts.
Sundays will be open to all. I'm not a monster.
Surely allow us the Midnight to 6am slot, we barely get any sleep anyway...
Yes, that works!
I should never have started this. In fact 'sofness' is an attribute uncoupled from age. You can be a silly old fart way before then. Look at JRM. He's nearer 25 than 75.
If there is the possibility of energy rationing, is it worthwhile splashing out on a log burner for the living room of my 3 bed semi? I live in a Smoke Control Area so it'd have to be the proper fuel, kiln dried wood or anthracite.
To be fair to the humble consumer trying to have a holiday, I think most people have accepted that travel is going to be glitchy and problematic, for a while, following a deadly global plague. You are taking a risk in traveling, right now, and everyone understands that - but many are willing to risk it, because they have been starved of travel for so long
The moaning seems to come more from journalists seeking a story, than actual punters
Incredible shock too that people are paid to be negative for a living are seeking to be negative, while people going on holidays by and large might actually enjoy the idea of going away, even if it has hiccups.
India five wickets down.
The chaos is also somewhat exaggerated. I've done 12 flights in the last 10 weeks, From the USA to Europe to the Caucasus and Turkey
Nearly all have been glitch-free; I've experienced a couple of short take-off delays (as you normally do). That's it. I've been in no "three hour queues" and had no problem with baggage, passports, cancellations, whatever
I can't believe I have been simply lucky. Not over twelve flights on the bounce. Contrary to all the scare stories I am hugely impressed by how the travel industry has fought back to near-normality, in the most terrible of circumstances. Ditto hospitality, and all the restaurants somehow managing with half their staff missing: well done them
You’re not doing major routes, though, are you?
My mate who came over from London to see me had a nightmare at Newark, and then another nightmare back at Heathrow.
Doable for him; he was travelling alone. With kids? Fuck, no.
My other half works for a charity that has a lot of properties, providing housing for vulnerable people. She's just been speaking to their energy broker.
He's just told her to expect gas rationing this winter. It will affect industry first, probably won't affect domestic users, but there's always the possibility it might.
He also said there's a possibility that there could be petrol rationing.
All depends on how bad a winter it is.
What fun.
I await more details.
Add in rising interest rates, soaring inflation, potential new covid restrictions,ballooning waitings lists, strikes, swingeing taxation, plus the above, and how bad a recession are we looking at this winter? How bad could things get?
The tories are sinking without trace here. Sinking without f8cking trace.
Who actually runs the ship at 10 Downing Street? There appears to be no coherent alignment between executive (PM), operations (Cabinet Sec, Chief of Staff), and Comms.
And it’s kind of “baked in” at this point. Nobody expects any different.
Personally I do not recall a more shambolic administration.
To be fair to the humble consumer trying to have a holiday, I think most people have accepted that travel is going to be glitchy and problematic, for a while, following a deadly global plague. You are taking a risk in traveling, right now, and everyone understands that - but many are willing to risk it, because they have been starved of travel for so long
The moaning seems to come more from journalists seeking a story, than actual punters
Incredible shock too that people are paid to be negative for a living are seeking to be negative, while people going on holidays by and large might actually enjoy the idea of going away, even if it has hiccups.
India five wickets down.
The chaos is also somewhat exaggerated. I've done 12 flights in the last 10 weeks, From the USA to Europe to the Caucasus and Turkey
Nearly all have been glitch-free; I've experienced a couple of short take-off delays (as you normally do). That's it. I've been in no "three hour queues" and had no problem with baggage, passports, cancellations, whatever
I can't believe I have been simply lucky. Not over twelve flights on the bounce. Contrary to all the scare stories I am hugely impressed by how the travel industry has fought back to near-normality, in the most terrible of circumstances. Ditto hospitality, and all the restaurants somehow managing with half their staff missing: well done them
You’re not doing major routes, though, are you?
My mate who came over from London to see me had a nightmare at Newark, and then another nightmare back at Heathrow.
Doable for him; he was travelling alone. With kids? Fuck, no.
I did LHR-JFK, doesn't get more major than that
Also JFK-Nashville, Dallas-Munich, Munich-Istanbul
And lots of more obscure routes, but often through big or biggish airports (Istanbul, Athens)
If global travel was in "chaos" I should have experienced *some* hassle?
Anyway, I am now going to sunbathe and swim in Tivat. Later
For old time’s sake, Scott, you should link to that Vote Leave video in which youthful looking voters inhabit a slightly creepy alternative reality of “better funded public services”, “lower food costs”, and “healthier farming and fishing industries”.
Conservative problem here is NOT that they are randier, hornier or pervertier than Labour, Lib Dems, SNP, PC, etc.
Instead, it's that a) there are more of them (that pesky 80-seat majority); and b) they are "lead" by pack of incompetents who not only share & are quite unable to curb these vices, but are compelled to publicize them as some freakish form of performance art.
The Left is also much more prudish and Puritan than it used to be. They are the anti sex league
So I imagine Labour MPs are self censoring their behaviour, hence getting into less trouble
Being a bunch of useless boring joyless drones has its advantages
If only there was a happy medium between being a boring, joylous drone on the one hand, and grabbing at penises in gentlemen's clubs, taking coke in an effort to impress women young enough to be your daughter, or watching pornography in the House of Commons on the other.
It's such a fine line, isn't it?
You'll be surprised to hear I'm with the penis-grabbing, coke-snorting, porn-watchers. Well, not the oenis grabbing, but you know what I mean
I'd rather have my politicians made out of the normal crooked timber of humanity than be Woke Robots, cancelling everyone for having a libido
From Churchill to Cromwell, JFK to FDR, Lloyd George to d'Annunzio, Martin Luther King to Paddy Ashdown, Alexander the Great to Jo Swinson, great leaders have had terrible human flaws. It's the price we pay
I know you're being tongue in cheek about it (and we all get a tremendous kick out of you playing the part you do of the devil-may-care lothario who nevertheless has time to spend 23 hours a day posting below the line on a politics forum on t'internet).
But which of Chris Pincher, David Warburton, and Neil Parish would you classify as "great leaders"? They are all rather inadequate (indeed extremely boring) politicians who are either unable or unwilling to exercise sensible levels of self-control around young men, young women, and tractors respectively.
To be fair to the humble consumer trying to have a holiday, I think most people have accepted that travel is going to be glitchy and problematic, for a while, following a deadly global plague. You are taking a risk in traveling, right now, and everyone understands that - but many are willing to risk it, because they have been starved of travel for so long
The moaning seems to come more from journalists seeking a story, than actual punters
Incredible shock too that people are paid to be negative for a living are seeking to be negative, while people going on holidays by and large might actually enjoy the idea of going away, even if it has hiccups.
India five wickets down.
The chaos is also somewhat exaggerated. I've done 12 flights in the last 10 weeks, From the USA to Europe to the Caucasus and Turkey
Nearly all have been glitch-free; I've experienced a couple of short take-off delays (as you normally do). That's it. I've been in no "three hour queues" and had no problem with baggage, passports, cancellations, whatever
I can't believe I have been simply lucky. Not over twelve flights on the bounce. Contrary to all the scare stories I am hugely impressed by how the travel industry has fought back to near-normality, in the most terrible of circumstances. Ditto hospitality, and all the restaurants somehow managing with half their staff missing: well done them
I travelled a lot during the pandemic. That was easy except for the testing and paperwork. I have done one trip since. The trip out was not good. Gatwick North Car Park open section was full even though booked. Cars just going round and round. We moved the bollards and parked in another section, but then had to walk to the full section to get the bus and we had the 3 hour wait at Lisbon passport. Our flight back was cancelled but we had plenty of notice so rearranged easily. The trip back was a dream
To be fair to the humble consumer trying to have a holiday, I think most people have accepted that travel is going to be glitchy and problematic, for a while, following a deadly global plague. You are taking a risk in traveling, right now, and everyone understands that - but many are willing to risk it, because they have been starved of travel for so long
The moaning seems to come more from journalists seeking a story, than actual punters
Incredible shock too that people are paid to be negative for a living are seeking to be negative, while people going on holidays by and large might actually enjoy the idea of going away, even if it has hiccups.
India five wickets down.
The chaos is also somewhat exaggerated. I've done 12 flights in the last 10 weeks, From the USA to Europe to the Caucasus and Turkey
Nearly all have been glitch-free; I've experienced a couple of short take-off delays (as you normally do). That's it. I've been in no "three hour queues" and had no problem with baggage, passports, cancellations, whatever
I can't believe I have been simply lucky. Not over twelve flights on the bounce. Contrary to all the scare stories I am hugely impressed by how the travel industry has fought back to near-normality, in the most terrible of circumstances. Ditto hospitality, and all the restaurants somehow managing with half their staff missing: well done them
I travelled a lot during the pandemic. That was easy except for the testing and paperwork. I have done one trip since. The trip out was not good. Gatwick North Car Park open section was full even though booked. Cars just going round and round. We moved the bollards and parked in another section, but then had to walk to the full section to get the bus and we had the 3 hour wait at Lisbon passport. Our flight back was cancelled but we had plenty of notice so rearranged easily. The trip back was a dream
Who actually runs the ship at 10 Downing Street? There appears to be no coherent alignment between executive (PM), operations (Cabinet Sec, Chief of Staff), and Comms.
And it’s kind of “baked in” at this point. Nobody expects any different.
Personally I do not recall a more shambolic administration.
It would all be hilarious if this wasn't the actual frigging government of the UK in the third month of a major european war into which we are surely slowly being dragged.
I just made a bunch of comments at the end of the last thread.
Sigh.
I spent over an hour effusing over why I thought Steve Bray was a nob the other day without realising everyone else was over 300 comments into a new thread.
It happens.
The mystery of how new threads get to be triggered finally revealed…?
Who actually runs the ship at 10 Downing Street? There appears to be no coherent alignment between executive (PM), operations (Cabinet Sec, Chief of Staff), and Comms.
And it’s kind of “baked in” at this point. Nobody expects any different.
Personally I do not recall a more shambolic administration.
It would all be hilarious if this wasn't the actual frigging government of the UK in the third month of a major european war into which we are surely slowly being dragged.
Not to mention the slow collapse of the British economy, which can’t be mentioned because of reasons.
My other half works for a charity that has a lot of properties, providing housing for vulnerable people. She's just been speaking to their energy broker.
He's just told her to expect gas rationing this winter. It will affect industry first, probably won't affect domestic users, but there's always the possibility it might.
He also said there's a possibility that there could be petrol rationing.
All depends on how bad a winter it is.
What fun.
I await more details.
Add in rising interest rates, soaring inflation, potential new covid restrictions,ballooning waitings lists, strikes, swingeing taxation, plus the above, and how bad a recession are we looking at this winter? How bad could things get?
The tories are sinking without trace here. Sinking without f8cking trace.
If there is the possibility of energy rationing, is it worthwhile splashing out on a log burner for the living room of my 3 bed semi? I live in a Smoke Control Area so it'd have to be the proper fuel, kiln dried wood or anthracite.
You will need a stove that is smoke control adapted. iirc they can only sell those these days but best to check.
I have a burner and I am bloody glad of it looking at what is coming next winter.
Note also that Gove's meddling has made wood more expensive in last few months and could get a lot worse according my supplier.
Javier Blas @JavierBlas · 4h In the middle of the summer, when we should be saving as much natural gas as possible for winter, European nations are burning lots of gas for electricity generation.
The UK is now generating >60% of its electricity output burning gas. We will come to regret it this winter.
The prospect of Energy rationing is being mentioned more and more in the papers. Proper tory Frosty thinks its inevitable.
Whichever government presides over energy rationing.....boy, will they regret that.
Not as much as they'll regret it if they don't do it and rolling blackouts happen instead.
We had energy rationing when I lived overseas and there was a major gas explosion at the local facility. For a couple of weeks all homes in the area were ordered to turn their gas supply off completely so that it'd be rationed for just the vulnerable and essential services to use. Thankfully it was not winter, so it was mainly cold showers and microwave food that became the solution.
The conservatives could not survive energy rationing electorally. No way.
There's no way they should survive it either! Government is there to secure its own population, that includes keeping them warm and giving them light - how on EARTH we've got to the stage where prancing around the world stage being 'tough on Putin' is considered more important for the Government of the UK than ensuring we have power, is beyond me.
Because it is.
Security is the first responsibility of the state, not light and warmth. You would have been prancing around objecting to rationing saying why we are being "tough on Hitler" eighty years ago.
Which part of degrading our own combat readiness to back one country against another (nuclear armed, commodities superpower) comes under the 'security' for which we should be expected to sacrifice light and heat? Unmitigated garbage from a Government that has ceased to function meaningfully as such.
Because the country which we are opposing is hostile to us, and by ensuring that they get a bloody nose in Ukraine, we reduce their capacity to cause mischief to us and our allies.
Precisely.
We are running down the stock of NLAWS, but in the process, running down the stock of Russian tanks against which they might ever be used.
It could also be argued that the Ukraine war is *improving* the combat capability of the military.
The intelligence we are receiving on actual modern combat is probably worth billions, in terms of making our next generation of weapons actually do what is needed. Also probably saving the lives of British troops in future battles.
Also helping our own defence industry, as all the countries holding Russian kit realise it’s not up to a modern war against NATO kit.
Do we know why the Ukrainians are struggling with it so much?
1. The Ukrainians are now mostly an army of, occasionally reluctant, conscripts with all that implies for moral and technical competence. Most of the really brave ones are dead by now.
2. Sheer scale. The Russians can bring truly massive amounts of artillery to bear for a very long time.
3. The Russians don't give a fuck how many civvies they kill or how many of their own they lose. Unflinchingly acceptance of mass casualties is thetical to Russian military culture.
Your first point is nonsense, lots of evidence that Ukrainian morale is high, Russian morale is low. The Ukrainians are balancing casualties versus territory and have had to concede piffling amounts of the latter in last two months (balanced by small gains). Point 2 is correct but will fade (first signs already) due to incremental deployment of superior Western artillery conducting counter-battery fire and hitting ammo dumps etc. On the third point the leadership are totally ruthless but dismal Russian demographics and fear of political collapse (no general mobilisation yet you will notice) are constraining them. The Russians are facing comprehensive defeat and presumably many are starting to realise it. They probably think they can keep current gains by hitting civilians and hoping West falls for a "let's stop the killing" line when they propose a cease fire. I think they have misjudged that and will be rolled back and Putin will be a goner.
Dura_Ace likes to accuse some on here (almost certainly including me) of being to pro-Ukraine, and thinking the war is progressing better for them than it is.
I think he suffers from the opposite problem: he give the impression that he thinks that the Russians are totally invincible given time.
That’s how he was trained to think when serving, rather than what us amateur military strategists can now see more clearly - that the Russian army really is a paper bear making basic mistakes, with limited amounts of new equipment and reliant on a small number of senior officers for direction.
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
Brexit is unlikely to be to blame for travel chaos at airports, HSBC has said, as a shortage of aviation workers is worse in America and “at least as intense elsewhere in Europe”.
I was reading some comments to an article just yesterday, people were moaning about cancelled flights and how the airlines/airports had sacked too many workers. Then I twigged that they were Americans moaning about America.
Pertinently
Bloomberg UK @BloombergUK · 2m "The airports are just folding, stopping"
Travel is a mess all over the world — but Europe is where you'll find the epicentre of this summer's vacation chaos
Brexit is unlikely to be to blame for travel chaos at airports, HSBC has said, as a shortage of aviation workers is worse in America and “at least as intense elsewhere in Europe”.
I was reading some comments to an article just yesterday, people were moaning about cancelled flights and how the airlines/airports had sacked too many workers. Then I twigged that they were Americans moaning about America.
Pertinently
Bloomberg UK @BloombergUK · 2m "The airports are just folding, stopping"
Travel is a mess all over the world — but Europe is where you'll find the epicentre of this summer's vacation chaos
What's your point? Part of the reason for this war - and our backing Ukraine in it - is to uphold the concept that independent countries can be part of whatever blocs they want. If Ukraine thinks the EU membership is right for them, then fair enough. That's their choice.
(I was surprised that Denys, a Ukrainian YouTuber I watch, is *not* personally in favour of EU membership.)
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
Each generation will normally be the wokest. Would be a bit odd if they weren't.
And, yes, I know we've just agreed that sillyoldfartness can manifest in the young, which it can - but it's less likely.
The key question here is whether or not Kaufmann is past the normal age for SOF to manifest. If not, we need to look for explanations for his early onset.
Well this account of levelling up does go a little way towards that: ...It involves putting poor people into potholes thus “levelling up” the surface so that rich people have a smoother ride.
Who actually runs the ship at 10 Downing Street? There appears to be no coherent alignment between executive (PM), operations (Cabinet Sec, Chief of Staff), and Comms.
And it’s kind of “baked in” at this point. Nobody expects any different.
Personally I do not recall a more shambolic administration.
It would all be hilarious if this wasn't the actual frigging government of the UK in the third month of a major european war into which we are surely slowly being dragged.
To be fair to them (I know), the war strategy is the one thing they are getting right. Well done to Ben Wallace.
If there is the possibility of energy rationing, is it worthwhile splashing out on a log burner for the living room of my 3 bed semi? I live in a Smoke Control Area so it'd have to be the proper fuel, kiln dried wood or anthracite.
I have 3 log burners. You do not need kiln dried logs. I have never bought a log in my life. I get mine from my garden and neighbours, but if you see a tree surgeon at work ask them. They will try and sell it to you, but actually they just want rid of it. Hardwood is best but softwood is ok regardless of what you hear. But you must season it properly so you do need some space. Buy a water meter. You may need your chimney lined. That really adds to the cost. I needed 2 of mine done but not the 3rd. They are very controllable. I spend hours chopping wood. It is very satisfying.
I don't get the orthodoxy that Russia has now started 'winning' as some kind of change.
I think it is the perspective of the news focussing on Kyiv at first and the Russian failures to hold territory there with their extended supply lines and ambush tactics.
But, in February, Russia advanced quickly in the south up to Mariupol and Kherson, and the taking of territory in Luhansk was pretty consistent from week 1 of this war.
If anything, the rate of Russian progress to take the final bit of Luhansk has slowed to a crawl, I guess due to taking cities rather than countryside, but what I haven't seen is what advances are being made North and South along the whole pocket.
It looks to my eye that we've reached the stage where the advance is progressing square kilometer by square kilometer. Is this wrong?
So, I guess who is winning should be judged on the next breakthrough - will Russia surround Ukr troops in the Donbass pocket, will Ukr forces get degraded, will longer range munitions degrade Russia's forward advance, will overextension become apparent in Kherson and Ukr push back there?
But at current rate it looks to me like we're getting little progress on either side and we're at an attritional quite stalemate stage, with all that implies.
If there is the possibility of energy rationing, is it worthwhile splashing out on a log burner for the living room of my 3 bed semi? I live in a Smoke Control Area so it'd have to be the proper fuel, kiln dried wood or anthracite.
Either that, or get hold of a 5kw generator and a few Jerry cans for fuel.
To be fair to the humble consumer trying to have a holiday, I think most people have accepted that travel is going to be glitchy and problematic, for a while, following a deadly global plague. You are taking a risk in traveling, right now, and everyone understands that - but many are willing to risk it, because they have been starved of travel for so long
The moaning seems to come more from journalists seeking a story, than actual punters
Incredible shock too that people are paid to be negative for a living are seeking to be negative, while people going on holidays by and large might actually enjoy the idea of going away, even if it has hiccups.
India five wickets down.
The chaos is also somewhat exaggerated. I've done 12 flights in the last 10 weeks, From the USA to Europe to the Caucasus and Turkey
Nearly all have been glitch-free; I've experienced a couple of short take-off delays (as you normally do). That's it. I've been in no "three hour queues" and had no problem with baggage, passports, cancellations, whatever
I can't believe I have been simply lucky. Not over twelve flights on the bounce. Contrary to all the scare stories I am hugely impressed by how the travel industry has fought back to near-normality, in the most terrible of circumstances. Ditto hospitality, and all the restaurants somehow managing with half their staff missing: well done them
You've not been booking flights far in advance though, as you've been making up your travels as you go along. Several people who booked flights across the Atlantic for a recent family wedding had their flights cancelled. Some could rebook, but others couldn't find new flights to fit with their work commitments.
I'm not surprised that there are teething problems, particularly because of the staffing issues, but it doesn't seem as bad as when the volcano went off. There's just no nuance in media reporting.
My other half works for a charity that has a lot of properties, providing housing for vulnerable people. She's just been speaking to their energy broker.
He's just told her to expect gas rationing this winter. It will affect industry first, probably won't affect domestic users, but there's always the possibility it might.
He also said there's a possibility that there could be petrol rationing.
All depends on how bad a winter it is.
What fun.
I await more details.
Got a bit more detail on this:
Russia have reduced their contracted supply from 167mcm - million cubic metres - to 67mcm on Tuesday and 57mcm today. Russia saying due to planned maintenance, but that has to be approved by Germany and they know nothing of any maintenance.
Very likely Russia will cut gas entirely to Europe, increasing prices by 20-30%
UK's Energy Strategic Planning confirmed considerable price rises expected leading up to the winter, and we may have to ration gas, as they're already doing in Germany and likely France, Italy and Netherlands will follow shortly.
Very likely we will see blackouts in the coming months.
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
Each generation will normally be the wokest. Would be a bit odd if they weren't.
And, yes, I know we've just agreed that sillyoldfartness can manifest in the young, which it can - but it's less likely.
I went to see Stewart Lee last night. The second half of his show was devoted to wokeness and the culture wars, where he satirised anti woke warriors while also lampooning his left-wing audience. It was great stuff.
To be fair to the humble consumer trying to have a holiday, I think most people have accepted that travel is going to be glitchy and problematic, for a while, following a deadly global plague. You are taking a risk in traveling, right now, and everyone understands that - but many are willing to risk it, because they have been starved of travel for so long
The moaning seems to come more from journalists seeking a story, than actual punters
Incredible shock too that people are paid to be negative for a living are seeking to be negative, while people going on holidays by and large might actually enjoy the idea of going away, even if it has hiccups.
India five wickets down.
The chaos is also somewhat exaggerated. I've done 12 flights in the last 10 weeks, From the USA to Europe to the Caucasus and Turkey
Nearly all have been glitch-free; I've experienced a couple of short take-off delays (as you normally do). That's it. I've been in no "three hour queues" and had no problem with baggage, passports, cancellations, whatever
I can't believe I have been simply lucky. Not over twelve flights on the bounce. Contrary to all the scare stories I am hugely impressed by how the travel industry has fought back to near-normality, in the most terrible of circumstances. Ditto hospitality, and all the restaurants somehow managing with half their staff missing: well done them
You've not been booking flights fast in advance though, as you've been making up your travels as you go along. Several people who booked flights across the Atlantic for a recent family wedding had their flights cancelled. Some could rebook, but others couldn't find new flights to fit with their work commitments.
I'm not surprised that there are teething problems, particularly because of the staffing issues, but it doesn't seem as bad as when the volcano went off. There's just no nuance in media reporting.
Everything to do with modern media is bollocks, driven by short attention spans and social media eating their lunch.
If only there were a national media platform that didn’t need to compete for clicks and likes, but had a mission to inform and educate.
Oh, there is, but they’ve gone down the same damn rabbit hole as everyone else.
Back from lunch with Pa Woolie. He wasnt aware Mr groper was called Pincher so that gave him a good chuckle. The Woolies are in full agreement that the Tories are DONE unless they act immediately and Undog themselves, in which case they are just a bit buggared. Not sure of the mechanics but its becoming obvioua they will need to invent mechanics post haste.
Interesting by elections (10 of them), will post some thoughts but the TL/DR will be Tories moribund, Labour happy to vote LD to oust tories but Lab struggling to attract much tactical support or advance far vs Tories in straight fights (but are making some progress)
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
Each generation will normally be the wokest. Would be a bit odd if they weren't.
And, yes, I know we've just agreed that sillyoldfartness can manifest in the young, which it can - but it's less likely.
I went to see Stewart Lee last night. The second half of his show was devoted to wokeness and the culture wars, where he satirised anti woke warriors while also lampooning his left-wing audience. It was great stuff.
Stewart Lee is great, an equal opportunity piss-taker.
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
Each generation will normally be the wokest. Would be a bit odd if they weren't.
And, yes, I know we've just agreed that sillyoldfartness can manifest in the young, which it can - but it's less likely.
I went to see Stewart Lee last night. The second half of his show was devoted to wokeness and the culture wars, where he satirised anti woke warriors while also lampooning his left-wing audience. It was great stuff.
Stewart Lee is great, an equal opportunity piss-taker.
In his third series his absolute crushing of Rod Liddle is legendary.
https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1542867352118870023 A Russian Tigr-M armored infantry mobility vehicle was blown up on an anti-tank mine last month in #Luhansk Oblast, but all the Russian soldiers inside were unscathed. No wonder why captured Tigrs are so well regarded by Ukrainian forces.
northern_monkey - I grew up on a farm where we raised apples, pears, and cherries, so we had no shortage of wood for our fireplace. The best, as I recall, was seasoned apple wood. It burns hot and clean, leaving few ashes, and has a pleasant smell while it is burning. The wood from cherry and pear trees is almost as good.
(I have no idea whether these woods would meet legal requirements where you live.)
Global travel chaos is why I can’t be bothered flying this summer. I’m driving up to Maine instead.
Apparently there is a glut of lobster, too. Can’t give the buggers away.
You just moved to the US, a driving holiday is compulsory in your first year there
You don’t even think $5 a gallon (c. £1 a litre) is particularly expensive ‘gas’.
Enjoy the seafood!
I am finalising my autumn US road trip as we type. Last time (2019) I headed out to South Dakota; this time I am mostly giving Trumpland a miss, doing a circuit of the New England states, heading down in a loop toward North Carolina before heading back to NYC.
https://twitter.com/ianbassin/status/1542649601815040001 If Meadows either sent these messages or caused them to be sent, he *will* be indicted. Whatever complicated legal questions Jan 6 does or does not raise, witness intimidation is not complicated and DOJ does not tolerate it. Period. They will indict him.
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
Each generation will normally be the wokest. Would be a bit odd if they weren't.
And, yes, I know we've just agreed that sillyoldfartness can manifest in the young, which it can - but it's less likely.
I'd challenge that. No reason we have to continue getting woker. Some of us would struggle to see how that would be possible. It certainly can't be desirable for the future of a free and/or wealthy society.
On which subject, following my visit in May to a disturbingly woke private school which we were considering for our daughter, I visited two state schools yesterday and today and am vaguely horrified to conclude that 'disturbingly woke' is simply the norm for secondary schools. My wife simply dismisses this as youth culture, and she is right that the young have always - quite rightly - pushed at the edges and challenged society. But in the past grown-ups have taken the role of tempering the excesses of all this, rather than simply joining in with and encouraging it. Some nuance: the first school - academy controlled state selective with fairly mixed socio-economic catchment - wasn't that bad, actually. I'd be happy if she ended up there. It felt Al out normal, with the exception of the plethora of posters following the mold of "famous person x in field relevant to this department has achieved y - and he's gay". These were all suffixed with the strapline "just like us", which offered a message ("they're just like us, the gays") which came across as possibly lessinclusive than the authors had intended. Possibly that was all just there for the pride month though. Anyway, a bit over the top, but not too much to object to, apart from the mangling of the English language about and Sam Smith which concluded "and they're non-binary". I cannot be doing with using the word 'they' to refer to one person. It's clunky and awful. But the second school - council controlled, non-selective - I came out with feeling physically sickened. I reckon we'll over 50% of display materials around the school were about particular sexualities or gender identities, or about racism. I can accept the need to educate kids about this sort of thing, but the impression was that the school believes educating kids about all the different gender identities and about being anti-racist was its primary purpose. Weirdly, lessons seemed normal and no teachers or students mentioned any of it at any stage. There was a massive dichotomy between what was going on in the foreground and what was going on in the background. If I was asked to pick anything I didn't like about the school
Brexit is unlikely to be to blame for travel chaos at airports, HSBC has said, as a shortage of aviation workers is worse in America and “at least as intense elsewhere in Europe”.
I was reading some comments to an article just yesterday, people were moaning about cancelled flights and how the airlines/airports had sacked too many workers. Then I twigged that they were Americans moaning about America.
Pertinently
Bloomberg UK @BloombergUK · 2m "The airports are just folding, stopping"
Travel is a mess all over the world — but Europe is where you'll find the epicentre of this summer's vacation chaos
Contrary to the myth that we are sliding into a comfortable evolutionary relationship with a common-cold-like, friendly virus, this is more like being trapped on a rollercoaster in a horror film. There’s nothing cold-like or friendly about a large part of the workforce needing significant absences from work, feeling awful and sometimes getting reinfected over and over again, just weeks apart...
As an immunologist struggling to decode long Covid mechanisms and potential treatments, it is both perplexing and not a little devastating that this mysterious, lingering disease finds a way to continue wreaking havoc in the face of a largely vaccinated population and a supposedly milder variant...
The first generation of vaccines served brilliantly to dig us out of the hole of the first year, but the arms race of boosters versus new variants is no longer going well for us... A study reported in the BMJ last week showed us that the protection gained from a fourth booster dose likely wanes even faster than previous boosters. This leaves us between a rock and a hard place: continue to offer suboptimal boosters to a population who seem to have lost faith or interest in taking them up, or do nothing and cross our fingers that residual immunity might somehow keep a lid on hospitalisations (as happened in South Africa and Portugal).
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
Each generation will normally be the wokest. Would be a bit odd if they weren't.
And, yes, I know we've just agreed that sillyoldfartness can manifest in the young, which it can - but it's less likely.
I'd challenge that. No reason we have to continue getting woker. Some of us would struggle to see how that would be possible. It certainly can't be desirable for the future of a free and/or wealthy society.
On which subject, following my visit in May to a disturbingly woke private school which we were considering for our daughter, I visited two state schools yesterday and today and am vaguely horrified to conclude that 'disturbingly woke' is simply the norm for secondary schools. My wife simply dismisses this as youth culture, and she is right that the young have always - quite rightly - pushed at the edges and challenged society. But in the past grown-ups have taken the role of tempering the excesses of all this, rather than simply joining in with and encouraging it. Some nuance: the first school - academy controlled state selective with fairly mixed socio-economic catchment - wasn't that bad, actually. I'd be happy if she ended up there. It felt Al out normal, with the exception of the plethora of posters following the mold of "famous person x in field relevant to this department has achieved y - and he's gay". These were all suffixed with the strapline "just like us", which offered a message ("they're just like us, the gays") which came across as possibly lessinclusive than the authors had intended. Possibly that was all just there for the pride month though. Anyway, a bit over the top, but not too much to object to, apart from the mangling of the English language about and Sam Smith which concluded "and they're non-binary". I cannot be doing with using the word 'they' to refer to one person. It's clunky and awful. But the second school - council controlled, non-selective - I came out with feeling physically sickened. I reckon we'll over 50% of display materials around the school were about particular sexualities or gender identities, or about racism. I can accept the need to educate kids about this sort of thing, but the impression was that the school believes educating kids about all the different gender identities and about being anti-racist was its primary purpose. Weirdly, lessons seemed normal and no teachers or students mentioned any of it at any stage. There was a massive dichotomy between what was going on in the foreground and what was going on in the background. If I was asked to pick anything I didn't like about the school
...aside from the display materials it would be that the girls dressed slightly sluttily and the headtea her used the word 'less' where 'fewer' should have been.
It felt like a play being performed on another plays set.
Global travel chaos is why I can’t be bothered flying this summer. I’m driving up to Maine instead.
Apparently there is a glut of lobster, too. Can’t give the buggers away.
You just moved to the US, a driving holiday is compulsory in your first year there
You don’t even think $5 a gallon (c. £1 a litre) is particularly expensive ‘gas’.
Enjoy the seafood!
I am finalising my autumn US road trip as we type. Last time (2019) I headed out to South Dakota; this time I am mostly giving Trumpland a miss, doing a circuit of the New England states, heading down in a loop toward North Carolina before heading back to NYC.
Awesome! A proper US road trip is on my bucket list. Half of me wants to start with the Cannonball Run, and then spend a month driving back East a lot more slowly.
northern_monkey - I grew up on a farm where we raised apples, pears, and cherries, so we had no shortage of wood for our fireplace. The best, as I recall, was seasoned apple wood. It burns hot and clean, leaving few ashes, and has a pleasant smell while it is burning. The wood from cherry and pear trees is almost as good.
(I have no idea whether these woods would meet legal requirements where you live.)
Fruit tree wood is about the best you can get for burning.
What's your point? Part of the reason for this war - and our backing Ukraine in it - is to uphold the concept that independent countries can be part of whatever blocs they want. If Ukraine thinks the EU membership is right for them, then fair enough. That's their choice.
(I was surprised that Denys, a Ukrainian YouTuber I watch, is *not* personally in favour of EU membership.)
Always telling when a reply goes straight into finger prodding chest mode.
If every post on here has to have a 'point', well, there're loads of pixels being wasted.
Global travel chaos is why I can’t be bothered flying this summer. I’m driving up to Maine instead.
Apparently there is a glut of lobster, too. Can’t give the buggers away.
You just moved to the US, a driving holiday is compulsory in your first year there
You don’t even think $5 a gallon (c. £1 a litre) is particularly expensive ‘gas’.
Enjoy the seafood!
I am finalising my autumn US road trip as we type. Last time (2019) I headed out to South Dakota; this time I am mostly giving Trumpland a miss, doing a circuit of the New England states, heading down in a loop toward North Carolina before heading back to NYC.
Awesome! A proper US road trip is on my bucket list. Half of me wants to start with the Cannonball Run, and then spend a month driving back East a lot more slowly.
Last time I did 6,088 miles in about seven weeks. This time I have about six weeks and am expecting the mileage to be lower.
In 2019 I hired a car (a Toyota Corolla, which subsequently led to me buying one for myself - the car will drive itself on the motorway while I feed the dog in the back seat) for about £1200 for just over six weeks (I ditched it before returning to NYC); this year I had one reserved with Avis for over £3000 - fortunately prices have very recently reduced and I snapped one up for about £2200 for just under six weeks. Which looks like a good deal given reports of £700 for a week hiring a car in Europe right now.
The outline plan is NYC-RI-NH-VT-NY(upstate)-PA-VA-NC-PA-NYC
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
Each generation will normally be the wokest. Would be a bit odd if they weren't.
And, yes, I know we've just agreed that sillyoldfartness can manifest in the young, which it can - but it's less likely.
I'd challenge that. No reason we have to continue getting woker. Some of us would struggle to see how that would be possible. It certainly can't be desirable for the future of a free and/or wealthy society.
On which subject, following my visit in May to a disturbingly woke private school which we were considering for our daughter, I visited two state schools yesterday and today and am vaguely horrified to conclude that 'disturbingly woke' is simply the norm for secondary schools. My wife simply dismisses this as youth culture, and she is right that the young have always - quite rightly - pushed at the edges and challenged society. But in the past grown-ups have taken the role of tempering the excesses of all this, rather than simply joining in with and encouraging it. Some nuance: the first school - academy controlled state selective with fairly mixed socio-economic catchment - wasn't that bad, actually. I'd be happy if she ended up there. It felt Al out normal, with the exception of the plethora of posters following the mold of "famous person x in field relevant to this department has achieved y - and he's gay". These were all suffixed with the strapline "just like us", which offered a message ("they're just like us, the gays") which came across as possibly lessinclusive than the authors had intended. Possibly that was all just there for the pride month though. Anyway, a bit over the top, but not too much to object to, apart from the mangling of the English language about and Sam Smith which concluded "and they're non-binary". I cannot be doing with using the word 'they' to refer to one person. It's clunky and awful. But the second school - council controlled, non-selective - I came out with feeling physically sickened. I reckon we'll over 50% of display materials around the school were about particular sexualities or gender identities, or about racism. I can accept the need to educate kids about this sort of thing, but the impression was that the school believes educating kids about all the different gender identities and about being anti-racist was its primary purpose. Weirdly, lessons seemed normal and no teachers or students mentioned any of it at any stage. There was a massive dichotomy between what was going on in the foreground and what was going on in the background. If I was asked to pick anything I didn't like about the school
...aside from the display materials it would be that the girls dressed slightly sluttily and the headtea her used the word 'less' where 'fewer' should have been.
It felt like a play being performed on another plays set.
I don't get the orthodoxy that Russia has now started 'winning' as some kind of change.
I think it is the perspective of the news focussing on Kyiv at first and the Russian failures to hold territory there with their extended supply lines and ambush tactics.
But, in February, Russia advanced quickly in the south up to Mariupol and Kherson, and the taking of territory in Luhansk was pretty consistent from week 1 of this war.
If anything, the rate of Russian progress to take the final bit of Luhansk has slowed to a crawl, I guess due to taking cities rather than countryside, but what I haven't seen is what advances are being made North and South along the whole pocket.
It looks to my eye that we've reached the stage where the advance is progressing square kilometer by square kilometer. Is this wrong?
So, I guess who is winning should be judged on the next breakthrough - will Russia surround Ukr troops in the Donbass pocket, will Ukr forces get degraded, will longer range munitions degrade Russia's forward advance, will overextension become apparent in Kherson and Ukr push back there?
But at current rate it looks to me like we're getting little progress on either side and we're at an attritional quite stalemate stage, with all that implies.
I think that's right. But if the question is 'who is winning?', then I see few routes from an attritional stalemate to a Russian 'victory' - unless Russia mobilises.
The thing Ukraine needs is time. The longer this goes on, the more equipment they will get (and the more Russian equipment will get worn down). The longer this goes on, the greater the damage done to Russia's economy.
I'd love to hear a realistic route to a Russian 'victory' in this war (where 'victory' means that within five years, Russia is in a better state than it was on February 24th).
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
It’s a comment on the relative weakness of Labour that the question “what will you do if you don’t get a majority” is so pertinent for them. Usually it’s the LibDems who have to dodge being skewered by questions like that.
What's your point? Part of the reason for this war - and our backing Ukraine in it - is to uphold the concept that independent countries can be part of whatever blocs they want. If Ukraine thinks the EU membership is right for them, then fair enough. That's their choice.
(I was surprised that Denys, a Ukrainian YouTuber I watch, is *not* personally in favour of EU membership.)
Always telling when a reply goes straight into finger prodding chest mode.
If every post on here has to have a 'point', well, there're loads of pixels being wasted.
Who actually runs the ship at 10 Downing Street? There appears to be no coherent alignment between executive (PM), operations (Cabinet Sec, Chief of Staff), and Comms.
And it’s kind of “baked in” at this point. Nobody expects any different.
Personally I do not recall a more shambolic administration.
It would all be hilarious if this wasn't the actual frigging government of the UK in the third month of a major european war into which we are surely slowly being dragged.
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
Contrary to the myth that we are sliding into a comfortable evolutionary relationship with a common-cold-like, friendly virus, this is more like being trapped on a rollercoaster in a horror film. There’s nothing cold-like or friendly about a large part of the workforce needing significant absences from work, feeling awful and sometimes getting reinfected over and over again, just weeks apart...
As an immunologist struggling to decode long Covid mechanisms and potential treatments, it is both perplexing and not a little devastating that this mysterious, lingering disease finds a way to continue wreaking havoc in the face of a largely vaccinated population and a supposedly milder variant...
The first generation of vaccines served brilliantly to dig us out of the hole of the first year, but the arms race of boosters versus new variants is no longer going well for us... A study reported in the BMJ last week showed us that the protection gained from a fourth booster dose likely wanes even faster than previous boosters. This leaves us between a rock and a hard place: continue to offer suboptimal boosters to a population who seem to have lost faith or interest in taking them up, or do nothing and cross our fingers that residual immunity might somehow keep a lid on hospitalisations (as happened in South Africa and Portugal).
It must be a new wave as Pagel is back on our rolling news channels.
Global travel chaos is why I can’t be bothered flying this summer. I’m driving up to Maine instead.
Apparently there is a glut of lobster, too. Can’t give the buggers away.
You just moved to the US, a driving holiday is compulsory in your first year there
You don’t even think $5 a gallon (c. £1 a litre) is particularly expensive ‘gas’.
Enjoy the seafood!
I am finalising my autumn US road trip as we type. Last time (2019) I headed out to South Dakota; this time I am mostly giving Trumpland a miss, doing a circuit of the New England states, heading down in a loop toward North Carolina before heading back to NYC.
Awesome! A proper US road trip is on my bucket list. Half of me wants to start with the Cannonball Run, and then spend a month driving back East a lot more slowly.
Last time I did 6,088 miles in about seven weeks. This time I have about six weeks and am expecting the mileage to be lower.
In 2019 I hired a car (a Toyota Corolla, which subsequently led to me buying one for myself - the car will drive itself on the motorway while I feed the dog in the back seat) for about £1200 for just over six weeks (I ditched it before returning to NYC); this year I had one reserved with Avis for over £3000 - fortunately prices have very recently reduced and I snapped one up for about £2200 for just under six weeks. Which looks like a good deal given reports of £700 for a week hiring a car in Europe right now.
The outline plan is NYC-RI-NH-VT-NY(upstate)-PA-VA-NC-PA-NYC
Sounds like an epic trip. Enjoy. But watch out for hotel rates. They have doubled or even tripled across the States
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
Each generation will normally be the wokest. Would be a bit odd if they weren't.
And, yes, I know we've just agreed that sillyoldfartness can manifest in the young, which it can - but it's less likely.
I'd challenge that. No reason we have to continue getting woker. Some of us would struggle to see how that would be possible. It certainly can't be desirable for the future of a free and/or wealthy society.
On which subject, following my visit in May to a disturbingly woke private school which we were considering for our daughter, I visited two state schools yesterday and today and am vaguely horrified to conclude that 'disturbingly woke' is simply the norm for secondary schools. My wife simply dismisses this as youth culture, and she is right that the young have always - quite rightly - pushed at the edges and challenged society. But in the past grown-ups have taken the role of tempering the excesses of all this, rather than simply joining in with and encouraging it. Some nuance: the first school - academy controlled state selective with fairly mixed socio-economic catchment - wasn't that bad, actually. I'd be happy if she ended up there. It felt Al out normal, with the exception of the plethora of posters following the mold of "famous person x in field relevant to this department has achieved y - and he's gay". These were all suffixed with the strapline "just like us", which offered a message ("they're just like us, the gays") which came across as possibly lessinclusive than the authors had intended. Possibly that was all just there for the pride month though. Anyway, a bit over the top, but not too much to object to, apart from the mangling of the English language about and Sam Smith which concluded "and they're non-binary". I cannot be doing with using the word 'they' to refer to one person. It's clunky and awful. But the second school - council controlled, non-selective - I came out with feeling physically sickened. I reckon we'll over 50% of display materials around the school were about particular sexualities or gender identities, or about racism. I can accept the need to educate kids about this sort of thing, but the impression was that the school believes educating kids about all the different gender identities and about being anti-racist was its primary purpose. Weirdly, lessons seemed normal and no teachers or students mentioned any of it at any stage. There was a massive dichotomy between what was going on in the foreground and what was going on in the background. If I was asked to pick anything I didn't like about the school
...aside from the display materials it would be that the girls dressed slightly sluttily and the headtea her used the word 'less' where 'fewer' should have been.
It felt like a play being performed on another plays set.
Ahh makes me yearn for the casual racism and brutal homophobia of my 1980s/90s school days. Happy times! BTW not sure a middle aged man commenting on children dressing "sluttily" is a good look for you. I fully support your less vs fewer pedantry, however. Seems to be an "attacking schools for wokeness" thing in the water right now, our kids' secondary school has got monstered by three national newspapers now based on inaccurate reporting of a complaint from an ill-informed parent.
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
It’s a comment on the relative weakness of Labour that the question “what will you do if you don’t get a majority” is so pertinent for them. Usually it’s the LibDems who have to dodge being skewered by questions like that.
I am very pleased with labour's stance as the SNP and their supporters turn their attack on labour as indyref 2 disappears
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
There's nothing morally wrong with a party choosing not to cooperate or enter into an agreement with another, especially when the moral argument being made is for an election to a different parliament to the mandate he claims exists.
Dunt is just proving once again he's politically illiterate, as I know fine well he'd be up in arms if a German federal government went into coalition or made an agreement with the AfD or The Left.
My other half works for a charity that has a lot of properties, providing housing for vulnerable people. She's just been speaking to their energy broker.
He's just told her to expect gas rationing this winter. It will affect industry first, probably won't affect domestic users, but there's always the possibility it might.
He also said there's a possibility that there could be petrol rationing.
All depends on how bad a winter it is.
What fun.
I await more details.
Got a bit more detail on this:
Russia have reduced their contracted supply from 167mcm - million cubic metres - to 67mcm on Tuesday and 57mcm today. Russia saying due to planned maintenance, but that has to be approved by Germany and they know nothing of any maintenance.
Very likely Russia will cut gas entirely to Europe, increasing prices by 20-30%
UK's Energy Strategic Planning confirmed considerable price rises expected leading up to the winter, and we may have to ration gas, as they're already doing in Germany and likely France, Italy and Netherlands will follow shortly.
Very likely we will see blackouts in the coming months.
What would go first - exports to other countries or domestic supply?
Global travel chaos is why I can’t be bothered flying this summer. I’m driving up to Maine instead.
Apparently there is a glut of lobster, too. Can’t give the buggers away.
You just moved to the US, a driving holiday is compulsory in your first year there
You don’t even think $5 a gallon (c. £1 a litre) is particularly expensive ‘gas’.
Enjoy the seafood!
I am finalising my autumn US road trip as we type. Last time (2019) I headed out to South Dakota; this time I am mostly giving Trumpland a miss, doing a circuit of the New England states, heading down in a loop toward North Carolina before heading back to NYC.
Awesome! A proper US road trip is on my bucket list. Half of me wants to start with the Cannonball Run, and then spend a month driving back East a lot more slowly.
Last time I did 6,088 miles in about seven weeks. This time I have about six weeks and am expecting the mileage to be lower.
In 2019 I hired a car (a Toyota Corolla, which subsequently led to me buying one for myself - the car will drive itself on the motorway while I feed the dog in the back seat) for about £1200 for just over six weeks (I ditched it before returning to NYC); this year I had one reserved with Avis for over £3000 - fortunately prices have very recently reduced and I snapped one up for about £2200 for just under six weeks. Which looks like a good deal given reports of £700 for a week hiring a car in Europe right now.
The outline plan is NYC-RI-NH-VT-NY(upstate)-PA-VA-NC-PA-NYC
Sounds like an epic trip. Enjoy. But watch out for hotel rates. They have doubled or even tripled across the States
You are absolutely right. This time I have had to resign myself to paying significantly more for hotels than before. Especially with the £ being so weak because of the Brexit you voted for after rather too much of that Italian red.
Last time I wanted to do coast to coast, having people in Cali I was keen to revisit, but the driving time was ridiculous - especially since I would have to drive all the way back since I won’t fly with the dog and Amtrak refuses them on board. So I settled for South Dakota as my farthest point - an amazing spot to visit, well off the international tourist trail.
This time my routing is constrained by people I met last time who I wish to revisit, and also there is the female dog in Lynchburg who my dog, who is the same age, hit it off with more than any dog he has ever met in his four years. Not wanting to deny him the same pleasure of reacquaintance, some of this trip is retracting steps from 2019..
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
Global travel chaos is why I can’t be bothered flying this summer. I’m driving up to Maine instead.
Apparently there is a glut of lobster, too. Can’t give the buggers away.
You just moved to the US, a driving holiday is compulsory in your first year there
You don’t even think $5 a gallon (c. £1 a litre) is particularly expensive ‘gas’.
Enjoy the seafood!
I am finalising my autumn US road trip as we type. Last time (2019) I headed out to South Dakota; this time I am mostly giving Trumpland a miss, doing a circuit of the New England states, heading down in a loop toward North Carolina before heading back to NYC.
Awesome! A proper US road trip is on my bucket list. Half of me wants to start with the Cannonball Run, and then spend a month driving back East a lot more slowly.
Last time I did 6,088 miles in about seven weeks. This time I have about six weeks and am expecting the mileage to be lower.
In 2019 I hired a car (a Toyota Corolla, which subsequently led to me buying one for myself - the car will drive itself on the motorway while I feed the dog in the back seat) for about £1200 for just over six weeks (I ditched it before returning to NYC); this year I had one reserved with Avis for over £3000 - fortunately prices have very recently reduced and I snapped one up for about £2200 for just under six weeks. Which looks like a good deal given reports of £700 for a week hiring a car in Europe right now.
The outline plan is NYC-RI-NH-VT-NY(upstate)-PA-VA-NC-PA-NYC
Sounds like an epic trip. Enjoy. But watch out for hotel rates. They have doubled or even tripled across the States
I stopped planning my cheap Florida trip when I saw that it cost £80 a night for a bed in a 10-person dorm room in Key West. Makes the cheapness of the flights irrelevant.
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
There's nothing morally wrong with a party choosing not to cooperate or enter into an agreement with another, especially when the moral argument being made is for an election to a different parliament to the mandate he claims exists.
Dunt is just proving once again he's politically illiterate, as I know fine well he'd be up in arms if a German federal government went into coalition or made an agreement with the AfD or The Left.
SNP + Greens have a mandate in *both* parliaments, as far as the Scottish constituences are concerned. So that point falls.
I have just paid £29 for a one year subscription to the Daily and Sunday Telegraph digital edition
Seems a good deal
You might not be saying that after a month of reading daily "Britain is hopelessly broken beyond repair and it is all Johnson's fault except for the bits that are the BBC's fault." columns
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
He should take over from Boris as there is little difference between them but he is not toxic
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
The creatures outside looked from Keir to Boris, and from Boris to Keir, and from Keir to Boris again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
I don't get the orthodoxy that Russia has now started 'winning' as some kind of change.
I think it is the perspective of the news focussing on Kyiv at first and the Russian failures to hold territory there with their extended supply lines and ambush tactics.
But, in February, Russia advanced quickly in the south up to Mariupol and Kherson, and the taking of territory in Luhansk was pretty consistent from week 1 of this war.
If anything, the rate of Russian progress to take the final bit of Luhansk has slowed to a crawl, I guess due to taking cities rather than countryside, but what I haven't seen is what advances are being made North and South along the whole pocket.
It looks to my eye that we've reached the stage where the advance is progressing square kilometer by square kilometer. Is this wrong?
So, I guess who is winning should be judged on the next breakthrough - will Russia surround Ukr troops in the Donbass pocket, will Ukr forces get degraded, will longer range munitions degrade Russia's forward advance, will overextension become apparent in Kherson and Ukr push back there?
But at current rate it looks to me like we're getting little progress on either side and we're at an attritional quite stalemate stage, with all that implies.
I think that's right. But if the question is 'who is winning?', then I see few routes from an attritional stalemate to a Russian 'victory' - unless Russia mobilises.
The thing Ukraine needs is time. The longer this goes on, the more equipment they will get (and the more Russian equipment will get worn down). The longer this goes on, the greater the damage done to Russia's economy.
I'd love to hear a realistic route to a Russian 'victory' in this war (where 'victory' means that within five years, Russia is in a better state than it was on February 24th).
Look at Britain's current account deficit and the weakness of Sterling. Suppose this worsens and we have a full-blown Sterling and sovereign debt crisis. Our capacity to provide financial and military assistance to Ukraine will be impaired.
If one Western domino falls, others could follow, and Western weakness might encourage China to provide more material support to Russia.
Ukraine is completely dependent on Western support. The route to Russian victory is through Western weakness and disunity.
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
I did try and tell you. The Tories definitely won’t give you a referendum, and Labour almost certainly won’t
Partly because most Scots don’t want one, as per the polls, so this is popular
Next indyref: 2030s
That's handy as Sturgeon doesn't want one at the moment either because she knows she will lose.
So this is all a Sturgeon stunt. She can blame Tories and Labour for denying her followers a vote her extremists want, but the likely loss of which would undermine the SNP's raison d'etre?
I have just paid £29 for a one year subscription to the Daily and Sunday Telegraph digital edition
Seems a good deal
You might not be saying that after a month of reading daily "Britain is hopelessly broken beyond repair and it is all Johnson's fault except for the bits that are the BBC's fault." columns
I have just paid £29 for a one year subscription to the Daily and Sunday Telegraph digital edition
Seems a good deal
You might not be saying that after a month of reading daily "Britain is hopelessly broken beyond repair and it is all Johnson's fault except for the bits that are the BBC's fault." columns
BigG might do well to wonder *why* it is so cheap.
I used to get the DT *every* time I flew from an airport, and sometimes on the train.
The DT + mineral water was cheaper than the mineral water - I just asked the person at the counter to shove the DT into the recycling.
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
He should take over from Boris as there is little difference between them but he is not toxic
Sir Keir has a Knighthood unlike Boris, at the moment that is the biggest difference between them
Global travel chaos is why I can’t be bothered flying this summer. I’m driving up to Maine instead.
Apparently there is a glut of lobster, too. Can’t give the buggers away.
You just moved to the US, a driving holiday is compulsory in your first year there
You don’t even think $5 a gallon (c. £1 a litre) is particularly expensive ‘gas’.
Enjoy the seafood!
I am finalising my autumn US road trip as we type. Last time (2019) I headed out to South Dakota; this time I am mostly giving Trumpland a miss, doing a circuit of the New England states, heading down in a loop toward North Carolina before heading back to NYC.
Awesome! A proper US road trip is on my bucket list. Half of me wants to start with the Cannonball Run, and then spend a month driving back East a lot more slowly.
Last time I did 6,088 miles in about seven weeks. This time I have about six weeks and am expecting the mileage to be lower.
In 2019 I hired a car (a Toyota Corolla, which subsequently led to me buying one for myself - the car will drive itself on the motorway while I feed the dog in the back seat) for about £1200 for just over six weeks (I ditched it before returning to NYC); this year I had one reserved with Avis for over £3000 - fortunately prices have very recently reduced and I snapped one up for about £2200 for just under six weeks. Which looks like a good deal given reports of £700 for a week hiring a car in Europe right now.
The outline plan is NYC-RI-NH-VT-NY(upstate)-PA-VA-NC-PA-NYC
Sounds like an epic trip. Enjoy. But watch out for hotel rates. They have doubled or even tripled across the States
You are absolutely right. This time I have had to resign myself to paying significantly more for hotels than before. Especially with the £ being so weak because of the Brexit you voted for after rather too much of that Italian red.
Last time I wanted to do coast to coast, having people I in Cali I was keen to visit, but the driving time was ridiculous - especially since I would have to drive back since I won’t fly with the dog and Amtrak refuses them on board. So I settled for South Dakota as my farthest point - an amazing spot to visit, well off the international tourist trail.
This time my routing is constrained by people I met last time who I wish to revisit, and also there is the female dog in Lynchburg who my dog, who is the same age, hit it off with more than any dog he has ever met in his four years. Not wanting to deny him the same pleasure of reacquaintance, some of this trip is retracting steps from 2019..
How do you explain the Pound : Euro rate going from 1.49 in February 2007 to 1.09 in March 2009 whilst we were inside the EU with no prospect of any referendum?
Comments
It's a shame that they don't do a little more critical thinking or philosophy or something that requires independent thought.
Liberalism is not a set of doctrines but a procedure for setting the frame of a free society. Its claim, and only claim, to moral height is that while others exclude, execrate and compel, liberalism includes and persuades.
Without its presuppositions neither PB nor a genuine modern university can exist.
Apparently there is a glut of lobster, too.
Can’t give the buggers away.
India five wickets down.
Nobody's idea of walking in a winter wonderland.
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1542870095827025921
https://twitter.com/theousherwood/status/1542867039945097218
Nearly all have been glitch-free; I've experienced a couple of short take-off delays (as you normally do). That's it. I've been in no "three hour queues" and had no problem with baggage, passports, cancellations, whatever
I can't believe I have been simply lucky. Not over twelve flights on the bounce. Contrary to all the scare stories I am hugely impressed by how the travel industry has fought back to near-normality, in the most terrible of circumstances. Ditto hospitality, and all the restaurants somehow managing with half their staff missing: well done them
I’m not sure what percentage of the population, maybe 10%? Along the same lines as left-handedness?
Most people crave stability, or alignment with peers, or want the government to “compel” something.
My mate who came over from London to see me had a nightmare at Newark, and then another nightmare back at Heathrow.
Doable for him; he was travelling alone.
With kids? Fuck, no.
I encourage you,
Challenge you,
…to find a single part of it, that hasn’t turned out to be complete bollocks. https://twitter.com/MarinaPurkiss/status/1542765885705932802/photo/1
And it’s kind of “baked in” at this point. Nobody expects any different.
Personally I do not recall a more shambolic administration.
I did LHR-JFK, doesn't get more major than that
Also JFK-Nashville, Dallas-Munich, Munich-Istanbul
And lots of more obscure routes, but often through big or biggish airports (Istanbul, Athens)
If global travel was in "chaos" I should have experienced *some* hassle?
Anyway, I am now going to sunbathe and swim in Tivat. Later
https://twitter.com/mattimaasikas/status/1542762739143254016?s=21&t=HLdga8YvIV5UwGaPoo6XiA
Just saying...
I have a burner and I am bloody glad of it looking at what is coming next winter.
Note also that Gove's meddling has made wood more expensive in last few months and could get a lot worse according my supplier.
And, yes, I know we've just agreed that sillyoldfartness can manifest in the young, which it can - but it's less likely.
(I was surprised that Denys, a Ukrainian YouTuber I watch, is *not* personally in favour of EU membership.)
You don’t even think $5 a gallon (c. £1 a litre) is particularly expensive ‘gas’.
Enjoy the seafood!
'You’re not going to believe this but Neil Parish is well annoyed about Chris Pincher keeping the Tory whip.
“C’mon let’s be fair,” he tells @heart_andy'
...It involves putting poor people into potholes thus “levelling up” the surface so that rich people have a smoother ride.
https://twitter.com/quigonsmith/status/1542876217711419392
https://twitter.com/theousherwood/status/1542867039945097218
https://twitter.com/electpoliticsuk/status/1542779017971081216
https://twitter.com/knownasvan/status/1541514153080266761
I think it is the perspective of the news focussing on Kyiv at first and the Russian failures to hold territory there with their extended supply lines and ambush tactics.
But, in February, Russia advanced quickly in the south up to Mariupol and Kherson, and the taking of territory in Luhansk was pretty consistent from week 1 of this war.
If anything, the rate of Russian progress to take the final bit of Luhansk has slowed to a crawl, I guess due to taking cities rather than countryside, but what I haven't seen is what advances are being made North and South along the whole pocket.
It looks to my eye that we've reached the stage where the advance is progressing square kilometer by square kilometer. Is this wrong?
So, I guess who is winning should be judged on the next breakthrough - will Russia surround Ukr troops in the Donbass pocket, will Ukr forces get degraded, will longer range munitions degrade Russia's forward advance, will overextension become apparent in Kherson and Ukr push back there?
But at current rate it looks to me like we're getting little progress on either side and we're at an attritional quite stalemate stage, with all that implies.
https://www.power-mark.co.uk/collections/5kva-generators/products/warrior-ldg6500sv3wrc-5kw-3ph-diesel-generator
I'm not surprised that there are teething problems, particularly because of the staffing issues, but it doesn't seem as bad as when the volcano went off. There's just no nuance in media reporting.
Russia have reduced their contracted supply from 167mcm - million cubic metres - to 67mcm on Tuesday and 57mcm today. Russia saying due to planned maintenance, but that has to be approved by Germany and they know nothing of any maintenance.
Very likely Russia will cut gas entirely to Europe, increasing prices by 20-30%
UK's Energy Strategic Planning confirmed considerable price rises expected leading up to the winter, and we may have to ration gas, as they're already doing in Germany and likely France, Italy and Netherlands will follow shortly.
Very likely we will see blackouts in the coming months.
If only there were a national media platform that didn’t need to compete for clicks and likes, but had a mission to inform and educate.
Oh, there is, but they’ve gone down the same damn rabbit hole as everyone else.
Not sure of the mechanics but its becoming obvioua they will need to invent mechanics post haste.
Interesting by elections (10 of them), will post some thoughts but the TL/DR will be Tories moribund, Labour happy to vote LD to oust tories but Lab struggling to attract much tactical support or advance far vs Tories in straight fights (but are making some progress)
https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1542867352118870023
A Russian Tigr-M armored infantry mobility vehicle was blown up on an anti-tank mine last month in #Luhansk Oblast, but all the Russian soldiers inside were unscathed.
No wonder why captured Tigrs are so well regarded by Ukrainian forces.
(I have no idea whether these woods would meet legal requirements where you live.)
https://twitter.com/ianbassin/status/1542649601815040001
If Meadows either sent these messages or caused them to be sent, he *will* be indicted. Whatever complicated legal questions Jan 6 does or does not raise, witness intimidation is not complicated and DOJ does not tolerate it. Period. They will indict him.
On which subject, following my visit in May to a disturbingly woke private school which we were considering for our daughter, I visited two state schools yesterday and today and am vaguely horrified to conclude that 'disturbingly woke' is simply the norm for secondary schools.
My wife simply dismisses this as youth culture, and she is right that the young have always - quite rightly - pushed at the edges and challenged society. But in the past grown-ups have taken the role of tempering the excesses of all this, rather than simply joining in with and encouraging it.
Some nuance: the first school - academy controlled state selective with fairly mixed socio-economic catchment - wasn't that bad, actually. I'd be happy if she ended up there. It felt Al out normal, with the exception of the plethora of posters following the mold of "famous person x in field relevant to this department has achieved y - and he's gay". These were all suffixed with the strapline "just like us", which offered a message ("they're just like us, the gays") which came across as possibly lessinclusive than the authors had intended. Possibly that was all just there for the pride month though. Anyway, a bit over the top, but not too much to object to, apart from the mangling of the English language about and Sam Smith which concluded "and they're non-binary". I cannot be doing with using the word 'they' to refer to one person. It's clunky and awful.
But the second school - council controlled, non-selective - I came out with feeling physically sickened. I reckon we'll over 50% of display materials around the school were about particular sexualities or gender identities, or about racism. I can accept the need to educate kids about this sort of thing, but the impression was that the school believes educating kids about all the different gender identities and about being anti-racist was its primary purpose. Weirdly, lessons seemed normal and no teachers or students mentioned any of it at any stage. There was a massive dichotomy between what was going on in the foreground and what was going on in the background. If I was asked to pick anything I didn't like about the school
Contrary to the myth that we are sliding into a comfortable evolutionary relationship with a common-cold-like, friendly virus, this is more like being trapped on a rollercoaster in a horror film. There’s nothing cold-like or friendly about a large part of the workforce needing significant absences from work, feeling awful and sometimes getting reinfected over and over again, just weeks apart...
As an immunologist struggling to decode long Covid mechanisms and potential treatments, it is both perplexing and not a little devastating that this mysterious, lingering disease finds a way to continue wreaking havoc in the face of a largely vaccinated population and a supposedly milder variant...
The first generation of vaccines served brilliantly to dig us out of the hole of the first year, but the arms race of boosters versus new variants is no longer going well for us... A study reported in the BMJ last week showed us that the protection gained from a fourth booster dose likely wanes even faster than previous boosters. This leaves us between a rock and a hard place: continue to offer suboptimal boosters to a population who seem to have lost faith or interest in taking them up, or do nothing and cross our fingers that residual immunity might somehow keep a lid on hospitalisations (as happened in South Africa and Portugal).
It felt like a play being performed on another plays set.
Ukrainian Borshch Included in UNESCO Cultural Heritage List
https://www.eurointegration.com.ua/eng/news/2022/07/1/7142410/
If every post on here has to have a 'point', well, there're loads of pixels being wasted.
In 2019 I hired a car (a Toyota Corolla, which subsequently led to me buying one for myself - the car will drive itself on the motorway while I feed the dog in the back seat) for about £1200 for just over six weeks (I ditched it before returning to NYC); this year I had one reserved with Avis for over £3000 - fortunately prices have very recently reduced and I snapped one up for about £2200 for just under six weeks. Which looks like a good deal given reports of £700 for a week hiring a car in Europe right now.
The outline plan is NYC-RI-NH-VT-NY(upstate)-PA-VA-NC-PA-NYC
The thing Ukraine needs is time. The longer this goes on, the more equipment they will get (and the more Russian equipment will get worn down). The longer this goes on, the greater the damage done to Russia's economy.
I'd love to hear a realistic route to a Russian 'victory' in this war (where 'victory' means that within five years, Russia is in a better state than it was on February 24th).
Seems a good deal
A lot of them tend to grow up.
BTW not sure a middle aged man commenting on children dressing "sluttily" is a good look for you. I fully support your less vs fewer pedantry, however.
Seems to be an "attacking schools for wokeness" thing in the water right now, our kids' secondary school has got monstered by three national newspapers now based on inaccurate reporting of a complaint from an ill-informed parent.
Partly because most Scots don’t want one, as per the polls, so this is popular
Next indyref: 2030s
Dunt is just proving once again he's politically illiterate, as I know fine well he'd be up in arms if a German federal government went into coalition or made an agreement with the AfD or The Left.
Last time I wanted to do coast to coast, having people in Cali I was keen to revisit, but the driving time was ridiculous - especially since I would have to drive all the way back since I won’t fly with the dog and Amtrak refuses them on board. So I settled for South Dakota as my farthest point - an amazing spot to visit, well off the international tourist trail.
This time my routing is constrained by people I met last time who I wish to revisit, and also there is the female dog in Lynchburg who my dog, who is the same age, hit it off with more than any dog he has ever met in his four years. Not wanting to deny him the same pleasure of reacquaintance, some of this trip is retracting steps from 2019..
Alternatively, in song form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi2_2ogPMvo
If one Western domino falls, others could follow, and Western weakness might encourage China to provide more material support to Russia.
Ukraine is completely dependent on Western support. The route to Russian victory is through Western weakness and disunity.
Cunning little vixen, isn't she?
I used to get the DT *every* time I flew from an airport, and sometimes on the train.
The DT + mineral water was cheaper than the mineral water - I just asked the person at the counter to shove the DT into the recycling.