Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
Yeah, pretty much. It reminds me of the pre-February invasion intelligence that the Russians had deployed supplies of blood. Makes it look like they're really going to go for it.
Wind forecast for tomorrow doesn't a seem terrible from a Russian point of view for doing so.
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
You make very good points
This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.
The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person
This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
You don’t find him repellant because you have a not very well concealed admiration for fascist types and fascist hangers-on.
I don’t mean this to be offensive, it’s just what you do.
I don’t want to silence Grimes, but nor will I pretend he is anything more than a snivelling creep.
A handy animation of the probable fall out from a disaster at the Zap Nuke Plant
"In case a nuclear disaster at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant occurred on Aug 15-18, this is how the released airborne radioactive contaminants would probably get dispersed - Ukrainian hydrometeorological institute"
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
You make very good points
This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.
The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person
This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
You don’t find him repellant because you have a not very well concealed admiration for fascist types and fascist hangers-on.
I don’t mean this to be offensive, it’s just what you do.
I don’t want to silence Grimes, but nor will I pretend he is anything more than a snivelling creep.
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
You make very good points
This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.
The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
Nick Griffin very anti COVID lockdown, comparing it to a concentration camp. Given his political history one might wonder whether or not he meant lockdown was a good or indeed mythical thing.
I know Griffers has his fans on here related to his willingness to ‘speak out’.
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
Given the inability of any of us, or indeed the West to do anything to stop him by tomorrow we should probably very much hope not
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
You make very good points
This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.
The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person
This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
You don’t find him repellant because you have a not very well concealed admiration for fascist types and fascist hangers-on.
I don’t mean this to be offensive, it’s just what you do.
I don’t want to silence Grimes, but nor will I pretend he is anything more than a snivelling creep.
Yes, whatevs
True doh.
Anyway, I’m on the anti-lockdown, pro-lab leak theory centre-left so I don’t really fit into your stereotype.
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
You make very good points
This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.
The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person
This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
The same is true of our freedoms. Cyclefree went on about the iniquities of police recording non-crime hate incidents and how we should ensure this stops the other day.
Who took up and won the court case that stopped non-crime hate incidents in England being recorded? A crusading mainstream MP? No, they wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.
It was the chairman of Reclaim Harry Miller. Yet I bet if you asked Cyclefree what she thought of Reclaim, the answer would be unprintable.
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
You make very good points
This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.
The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person
This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
Grimes's sucking up to Farage by slandering the RNLI persuaded me to donate fifty quid to it.
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
You make very good points
This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
I dunno, some principled left-wingers would be handy. I find it hard to imagine Tony Benn calling for a stricter lockdown.
You what? The Left - including the Far Left - gets sexually aroused by lockdowns. All that control of society. Yummy. And masks and snitching and clapping the NHS and state surveillance, mmmm! Look at the Chinese Communist Party. Gets a hard on for quarantine
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
Just seen the Marin video, looks pretty tame by Finnish standards!
The worst hangover I ever had was after an end of conference night in Tampere - started tame enough in a bar, then the locals took us to a club drinking salmari, then back at their flat drinking god knows what. Passed a car with an axe through its windscreen on the way home. Missed my train to Helsinki the next day.
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
You make very good points
This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
We do need them, yes, but preferably not colonizing mainstream centre right parties and whipping up bigotry to win elections and take countries out of inevitably flawed but essentially benign transnational institutions and agreements.
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
You make very good points
This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.
The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
Nick Griffin very anti COVID lockdown, comparing it to a concentration camp. Given his political history one might wonder whether or not he meant lockdown was a good or indeed mythical thing.
I know Griffers has his fans on here related to his willingness to ‘speak out’.
Everybody despises Griffin, Now that is an unpleasant individual, but it didn't stop him blowing the whistle on grooming gangs (to an astonished Gavin Esler) years before it surfaced in the mainstream.
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture
So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies
And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
It doesn't actually, it's completely irrelevant. Not familiar with all those people but what they have in common seems to be professional contrarianism rather than populism (and you forget that the people who were more in favour of lockdown were the government and sks were the vast majority of the actual people.
Politics is the art of the possible and there was never any way on God's green earth that a UK government was going to buck the international trend on dealing with covid. It would have held its nerve for a week and then caved.
That's actually pretty much exactly what happened, isn't it? Boris did manage to hold out for about a week before being forced to cave to the unending scaremongering from the media and "scientists".
Japan seemed to defy the conventional Covid thinking for so long. But this looks a bit more than a blip.
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1560271578289475585 Japan's BA.5 wave deaths are now higher than any previous variant and still rising sharply... ...Japan ranks 4th in the world for boosters, the US ranks 71st ...Japan's cumulative deaths per capita is 1/11th of the US Yet BA.5, with its very high level of immune evasion, has challenged its immunity wall...
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
From the err 'dark side'
🇷🇺🇺🇦 The administration of the Zaporozhye region promises that tomorrow the drones will broadcast online the situation at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant - RIA Novosti.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Ukrainian troops are preparing a provocation tomorrow.
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
The problem is that the plant requires a stable electricity supply to stop it from melting down, so there's a pretty high risk of a major nuclear incident if they shut it down and collapse the Ukrainian electricity grid.
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
From the err 'dark side'
🇷🇺🇺🇦 The administration of the Zaporozhye region promises that tomorrow the drones will broadcast online the situation at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant - RIA Novosti.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Ukrainian troops are preparing a provocation tomorrow.
Well, that's tomorrow's entertainment sorted. Fuck the cricket, I shall be watching a nuclear power plant in Ukraine every minute of every hour. While praying
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
You make very good points
This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.
The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person
This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
Ah it's Fruity Friends S3 Ep12 - the one where "the left think good people can't do bad things".
Is there any right wing twittersphere cliche that you don't parrot?
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
But you were like this - into people like Trump and our Lozza - before the pandemic.
Look Trump's behaviour since he lost the presidency, well, its been pretty bad and the Jan 6 stuff was inexcusable. People call him a tyrant and an anti-democrat, personally I think its an ego thing, his vanity meant he could not accept the reality of defeat.
But the consensus needs to be confronted. At all times.
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
You make very good points
This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.
The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person
This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
Ah it's Fruity Friends S3 Ep12 - the one where "the left think good people can't do bad things".
Is there any right wing twittersphere cliche that you don't parrot?
Can't think of one offhand.
Aaaand so we get the reflexive, inert, tiny dick energy of your normal low watt middlebrow mentation
You're like an old clock ticking in a corner. Annoying when it is noticed, but generally it is not noticed
According to that reasonable sounding doctor from Lancashire on YouTube, the wind direction is toward North Western Europe.
The level and breadth of contamination they were predicting had the thermal explosion happened at Chernobyl was pretty much 50 mile radius permanently uninhabitable, wipeout of Ukraine and Belarus as viable republics, with agriculture as far as parts of Western Europe fucked medium and longer term, 50 million people displaced. Thats just the radiation issues, the explosion would have been in the low megatons range
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
You make very good points
This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.
The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
Nick Griffin very anti COVID lockdown, comparing it to a concentration camp. Given his political history one might wonder whether or not he meant lockdown was a good or indeed mythical thing.
I know Griffers has his fans on here related to his willingness to ‘speak out’.
Everybody despises Griffin, Now that is an unpleasant individual, but it didn't stop him blowing the whistle on grooming gangs (to an astonished Gavin Esler) years before it surfaced in the mainstream.
I sense that unlike the left you are savvy and sophisticated to realize that bad people can do good things.
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
The problem is that the plant requires a stable electricity supply to stop it from melting down, so there's a pretty high risk of a major nuclear incident if they shut it down and collapse the Ukrainian electricity grid.
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture
So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies
And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent. So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
It doesn't actually, it's completely irrelevant. Not familiar with all those people but what they have in common seems to be professional contrarianism rather than populism (and you forget that the people who were more in favour of lockdown were the government and sks were the vast majority of the actual people.
Politics is the art of the possible and there was never any way on God's green earth that a UK government was going to buck the international trend on dealing with covid. It would have held its nerve for a week and then caved.
That's actually pretty much exactly what happened, isn't it? Boris did manage to hold out for about a week before being forced to cave to the unending scaremongering from the media and "scientists".
Yeah, remember that joker Ferguson? The one who predicted over 100k might die in the UK and 60% or more of the population could get Covid? Talk about scaremongering
I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant
This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture
So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies
And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent. So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal
Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant
This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?
Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it
And the Russian defence ministry has today set out the circumsrances in whuch nuclear weapons may be used by Russia. (In response to a West first strike or 'in an emergency') Of course China have also announced they are joining a joint military exercise with the Ruskies
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
It doesn't actually, it's completely irrelevant. Not familiar with all those people but what they have in common seems to be professional contrarianism rather than populism (and you forget that the people who were more in favour of lockdown were the government and sks were the vast majority of the actual people.
Politics is the art of the possible and there was never any way on God's green earth that a UK government was going to buck the international trend on dealing with covid. It would have held its nerve for a week and then caved.
That's actually pretty much exactly what happened, isn't it? Boris did manage to hold out for about a week before being forced to cave to the unending scaremongering from the media and "scientists".
Impartially put. The "scientists" were scientists, i don't recall any predictions which were so much worse than the reality that you could call them scaremongering, but yes: in the end neither Johnson's nor any other government would have had a choice here.
I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant
This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?
Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it
And the Russian defence ministry has today set out the circumsrances in whuch nuclear weapons may be used by Russia. (In response to a West first strike or 'in an emergency') Of course China have also announced they are joining a joint military exercise with the Ruskies
I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant
This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?
Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it
And the Russian defence ministry has today set out the circumsrances in whuch nuclear weapons may be used by Russia. (In response to a West first strike or 'in an emergency') Of course China have also announced they are joining a joint military exercise with the Ruskies
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
It doesn't actually, it's completely irrelevant. Not familiar with all those people but what they have in common seems to be professional contrarianism rather than populism (and you forget that the people who were more in favour of lockdown were the government and sks were the vast majority of the actual people.
Politics is the art of the possible and there was never any way on God's green earth that a UK government was going to buck the international trend on dealing with covid. It would have held its nerve for a week and then caved.
That's actually pretty much exactly what happened, isn't it? Boris did manage to hold out for about a week before being forced to cave to the unending scaremongering from the media and "scientists".
Yeah, remember that joker Ferguson? The one who predicted over 100k might die in the UK and 60% or more of the population could get Covid? Talk about scaremongering
Apparently totally discredited by having a bit on the side, said all the rightwingers and libertarians. Who else do we know had a bit on ther side and/or had lots of parties, come to think of it? It'll come to me if I sit down and cogitate.
I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant
This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?
Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it
I should have said "really worried".
Concerned, yes. But I get really worried when people tell me everything is fine.
I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant
This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?
Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it
And the Russian defence ministry has today set out the circumsrances in whuch nuclear weapons may be used by Russia. (In response to a West first strike or 'in an emergency') Of course China have also announced they are joining a joint military exercise with the Ruskies
The market is telling us Liz Truss is home and hosed. She probably is. We have not seen a 20/1 upset in a political 2-horse race since last year's Chesham and Amersham by-election when a number of us followed OGH in on the LibDems.
And some if us emptied their Ladbrokes account betting on the Tories there.
I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant
This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?
Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it
I should have said "really worried".
Concerned, yes. But I get really worried when people tell me everything is fine.
"Any potential damage to Zaporizhzhia is suicide, it must not be used as part of any military operation: UN chief"
I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant
This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?
Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it
And the Russian defence ministry has today set out the circumsrances in whuch nuclear weapons may be used by Russia. (In response to a West first strike or 'in an emergency') Of course China have also announced they are joining a joint military exercise with the Ruskies
MOSCOW, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Russia has "no need" to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, its defence minister said on Tuesday, describing media speculation that Moscow might deploy nuclear or chemical weapons in the conflict as "absolute lies".
"No need" is clever. because indeed who needs to use nuclear weapons when they can weaponise a nuclear power plant?
Looks like the wind could take fallout South over the Western Black Sea coast tomorrow, so I guess the RAF would have to evacuate Johnson from Greece and back to Blighty.
Neither the right or the left have a monopoly on authoritarianism.
It’s a different axis entirely.
In this respect I look at left and right as a circle. Start at 6 o'clock, centrist space, and move towards 5 o'clock - the moderate right; move towards 7 o'clock - moderate left etc. They are like each other like centrists are (social democrats and One Nation etc). Move further and they are are more unlike - Abbott and Chope, but multi party democrats after a fashion. But move further and they meet at the authoritarian violent exclusivist back of the circle (12 o'clock) where pigs and men are indistinguishable, both groups wanting a fascistic state run by themselves.
MOSCOW, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Russia has "no need" to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, its defence minister said on Tuesday, describing media speculation that Moscow might deploy nuclear or chemical weapons in the conflict as "absolute lies".
"No need" is clever. because indeed who needs to use nuclear weapons when they can weaponise a nuclear power plant?
Quite. And see here
"If a nuclear disaster occurs in Zaporizhzhia, radiation could spread as far north as Estonia and as far west as the Czech Republic.
This fallout radius is based on Ukraine's assessment. The Russian Ministry of Defence's forecast sees radioactivity extending as far west as Germany."
Putin is playing the Madman Gambit. Spook the Europeans into thinking he is crazy enough to do this. Trouble is, now he has happily sacrificed the lives of 50,000 Russian young men, I am easily persuaded that he is capable of doing this
And I am not sitting in Germany, which is directly in line to be Chernobylised, according to the Russian Defence Ministry
MOSCOW, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Russia has "no need" to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, its defence minister said on Tuesday, describing media speculation that Moscow might deploy nuclear or chemical weapons in the conflict as "absolute lies".
"No need" is clever. because indeed who needs to use nuclear weapons when they can weaponise a nuclear power plant?
Or when you can try and pin an incident at the plant on Ukraine and thus a 'nuclear attack' on Mother Russia
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture
So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies
And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent. So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal
Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
You have to assume he's bluffing.
I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start. Literal knife-edge stuff.
I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war. Even the Cuban crisis, at least we were talking to each other.
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
You make very good points
This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.
The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person
This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
Ah it's Fruity Friends S3 Ep12 - the one where "the left think good people can't do bad things".
Is there any right wing twittersphere cliche that you don't parrot?
Can't think of one offhand.
Aaaand so we get the reflexive, inert, tiny dick energy of your normal low watt middlebrow mentation
You're like an old clock ticking in a corner. Annoying when it is noticed, but generally it is not noticed
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
You make very good points
This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.
The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
Nick Griffin very anti COVID lockdown, comparing it to a concentration camp. Given his political history one might wonder whether or not he meant lockdown was a good or indeed mythical thing.
I know Griffers has his fans on here related to his willingness to ‘speak out’.
Everybody despises Griffin, Now that is an unpleasant individual, but it didn't stop him blowing the whistle on grooming gangs (to an astonished Gavin Esler) years before it surfaced in the mainstream.
I sense that unlike the left you are savvy and sophisticated to realize that bad people can do good things.
Would this be fair?
And vice versa. The road to hell can indeed be paved with good intentions....!
Looks like the wind could take fallout South over the Western Black Sea coast tomorrow, so I guess the RAF would have to evacuate Johnson from Greece and back to Blighty.
I think even lazybones might head home and do some leadership if the big one went up
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture
So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies
And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent. So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal
Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
You have to assume he's bluffing.
I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start. Literal knife-edge stuff.
I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war.
You want your family to die for Ukraine?
I'm not sure I do. I am tempted to say: surrender. Stop the sanctions
Give him Ukraine. Wean ourselves off his energy, build up our military, then pray that he dies
Or we confront him and it turns out he's not bluffing and half of Europe is poisoned for 500 years....
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture
So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies
And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent. So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal
Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
You have to assume he's bluffing.
I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start. Literal knife-edge stuff.
I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war. Even the Cuban crisis, at least we were talking to each other.
We have to convince him that there would be dire consequences if he pushes the nuclear button, these would be worse than simply losing the war, and that we aren't bluffing.
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
You make very good points
This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.
The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person
This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
Ah it's Fruity Friends S3 Ep12 - the one where "the left think good people can't do bad things".
Is there any right wing twittersphere cliche that you don't parrot?
Can't think of one offhand.
Aaaand so we get the reflexive, inert, tiny dick energy of your normal low watt middlebrow mentation
You're like an old clock ticking in a corner. Annoying when it is noticed, but generally it is not noticed
And I'd probably miss you if you disappeared
Well now you've gone all Ad Hominus. Very telling
Cliche cliche cliche ... Trope trope trope
lol. I was nice! I said "I'd probably miss you if you disappeared"
And I probably would. I get fond of people on PB, even if I regard their opinions as absurd and comical
Moreover, there is a literal chance you will disappear tomorrow in a puff of radioactive dust, so I am feeling a bit emosh and sentimental about all of us
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture
So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies
And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent. So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal
Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
You have to assume he's bluffing.
I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start. Literal knife-edge stuff.
I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war. Even the Cuban crisis, at least we were talking to each other.
Closer than the younger generation have even ever considered. Theres no 4 minute warning system in place any more either.
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
But you were like this - into people like Trump and our Lozza - before the pandemic.
Look Trump's behaviour since he lost the presidency, well, its been pretty bad and the Jan 6 stuff was inexcusable. People call him a tyrant and an anti-democrat, personally I think its an ego thing, his vanity meant he could not accept the reality of defeat.
But the consensus needs to be confronted. At all times.
Ok, thanks. I think I'm back to where I'd assessed you before - here for the Troll. Which is absolutely fine.
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture
So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies
And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent. So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal
Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
You have to assume he's bluffing.
I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start. Literal knife-edge stuff.
I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war.
You want your family to die for Ukraine?
I'm not sure I do. I am tempted to say: surrender. Stop the sanctions
Give him Ukraine. Wean ourselves off his energy, build up our military, then pray that he dies
Or we confront him and it turns out he's not bluffing and half of Europe is poisoned for 500 years....
He ain't stopping at Ukraine if all it takes is nuclear blackmail. Look at the pre-war speculation. Putin's a greater Russia man.
I'd be handing Ukraine all our military kit. Better they use it now than we need it later.
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture
So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies
And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent. So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal
Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
You have to assume he's bluffing.
I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start. Literal knife-edge stuff.
I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war. Even the Cuban crisis, at least we were talking to each other.
Closer than the younger generation have even ever considered. Theres no 4 minute warning system in place any more either.
A mega-Chernobyl is probably worse than a tactical nuke. The terrible damage from the latter is limited, and can be predicted, to an extent
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
It doesn't actually, it's completely irrelevant. Not familiar with all those people but what they have in common seems to be professional contrarianism rather than populism (and you forget that the people who were more in favour of lockdown were the government and sks were the vast majority of the actual people.
Politics is the art of the possible and there was never any way on God's green earth that a UK government was going to buck the international trend on dealing with covid. It would have held its nerve for a week and then caved.
That's actually pretty much exactly what happened, isn't it? Boris did manage to hold out for about a week before being forced to cave to the unending scaremongering from the media and "scientists".
Yeah, remember that joker Ferguson? The one who predicted over 100k might die in the UK and 60% or more of the population could get Covid? Talk about scaremongering
Whatever happened with the Oxford modelling group who thought that we'd basically all been infected in wave 1?
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture
So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies
And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent. So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal
Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
You have to assume he's bluffing.
I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start. Literal knife-edge stuff.
I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war. Even the Cuban crisis, at least we were talking to each other.
Closer than the younger generation have even ever considered. Theres no 4 minute warning system in place any more either.
A mega-Chernobyl is probably worse than a tactical nuke. The terrible damage from the latter is limited, and can be predicted, to an extent
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture
So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies
And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent. So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal
Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
You have to assume he's bluffing.
I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start. Literal knife-edge stuff.
I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war. Even the Cuban crisis, at least we were talking to each other.
Closer than the younger generation have even ever considered. Theres no 4 minute warning system in place any more either.
A mega-Chernobyl is probably worse than a tactical nuke. The terrible damage from the latter is limited, and can be predicted, to an extent
We live in uncertain times im afraid
Can I just say I love your work with litotes
"Rumored footage from Zaporizhzhia NPP shows a large amount of Russian military hardware parked inside."
I'm glad I held back on booking that Austrian skiing holiday, given that Austria will be a smoking heap of toxic and deadly ruins, patrolled only by freakishly malformed rats, come next January
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
You make very good points
This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.
The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person
This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
Ah it's Fruity Friends S3 Ep12 - the one where "the left think good people can't do bad things".
Is there any right wing twittersphere cliche that you don't parrot?
Can't think of one offhand.
Aaaand so we get the reflexive, inert, tiny dick energy of your normal low watt middlebrow mentation
You're like an old clock ticking in a corner. Annoying when it is noticed, but generally it is not noticed
And I'd probably miss you if you disappeared
Well now you've gone all Ad Hominus. Very telling
Cliche cliche cliche ... Trope trope trope
lol. I was nice! I said "I'd probably miss you if you disappeared"
And I probably would. I get fond of people on PB, even if I regard their opinions as absurd and comical
Moreover, there is a literal chance you will disappear tomorrow in a puff of radioactive dust, so I am feeling a bit emosh and sentimental about all of us
Nope - "old clock" was not respectful at all.
Anyway, look, I'm onto you - I totally am - but I don't have the energy or the tools to prosecute to a conviction. So at the end of the day you're probably going to get away with it.
I agree that in the moment, MPs are better placed than members to choose a leader, but if nowadays members have a smaller and smaller say in who is selected as MP, leadership franchise is one of the few reasons to be a member at all.
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
You make very good points
This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.
The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person
This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
Ah it's Fruity Friends S3 Ep12 - the one where "the left think good people can't do bad things".
Is there any right wing twittersphere cliche that you don't parrot?
Can't think of one offhand.
Aaaand so we get the reflexive, inert, tiny dick energy of your normal low watt middlebrow mentation
You're like an old clock ticking in a corner. Annoying when it is noticed, but generally it is not noticed
And I'd probably miss you if you disappeared
Well now you've gone all Ad Hominus. Very telling
Cliche cliche cliche ... Trope trope trope
lol. I was nice! I said "I'd probably miss you if you disappeared"
And I probably would. I get fond of people on PB, even if I regard their opinions as absurd and comical
Moreover, there is a literal chance you will disappear tomorrow in a puff of radioactive dust, so I am feeling a bit emosh and sentimental about all of us
I still have property assets in the UK, but I’m confident that even after a nuclear apocalypse the Tories will make sure they retain their value .
I may have to revise my opinion that life in Europe is mostly superior to life in America when most Europeans lose their teeth, hair, and eyeballs, and are subsisting on boiled lichen
1/ The Russian Ministry of Defense announced today that it might shut down the fifth and sixth power units of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, allegedly due to the "threat of shelling from Ukraine"
2/Conclusion of Enerhoatom: After disconnecting the generators of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant from the energy system of Ukraine, they cannot be used to cool nuclear fuel in case the plant is de-energized,which will bring a possible scenario of a radiation disaster closer
Neither the right or the left have a monopoly on authoritarianism.
It’s a different axis entirely.
And if our Covid response is somebody's idea of "Authoritarianism" they are a precious little creature indeed.
Handle with great care and keep in a darkened room.
Really? The covid response included: - suspension of the right of freedom of movement within the UK - suspension of the right of freedom of association - mass use of advertising of an 'obey the state' nature - freedom of speech? well, I suppose you were allowed to criticise the covid response as a wee bit over the top but it didn't go well for those who did.
You might think (and I don't think you did, if I recall correctly) that this was justified. But If you don't view this as authoritarianism it's hard to imagine what you would call authoritarianism.
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
You make very good points
This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.
The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
Nick Griffin very anti COVID lockdown, comparing it to a concentration camp. Given his political history one might wonder whether or not he meant lockdown was a good or indeed mythical thing.
I know Griffers has his fans on here related to his willingness to ‘speak out’.
Everybody despises Griffin, Now that is an unpleasant individual, but it didn't stop him blowing the whistle on grooming gangs (to an astonished Gavin Esler) years before it surfaced in the mainstream.
I sense that unlike the left you are savvy and sophisticated to realize that bad people can do good things.
Would this be fair?
And vice versa. The road to hell can indeed be paved with good intentions....!
Ha yes!
We can do a bit of 'duelling banjos' knockabout again now I've (re)sussed you're never serious but here for the Troll.
- It’s all bluff and will blow over. Putin is a rational actor. Stay out of it. Chinas short/medium term economic/energy interests and long term strategic interests are served by having the west and Russia bogged down in a non-nuclear stand off. China can play off both sides, to its benefit.
- Putin is a mad man, but zaphorizia is far away. A somewhat regionalised nuclear catastrophe has only a small/moderate economic impact on China.
- This shit is serious and china needs to step up as the adult in the room. Impose a peace. This is their time.
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture
So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies
And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent. So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal
Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
You have to assume he's bluffing.
I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start. Literal knife-edge stuff.
I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war. Even the Cuban crisis, at least we were talking to each other.
Closer than the younger generation have even ever considered. Theres no 4 minute warning system in place any more either.
A mega-Chernobyl is probably worse than a tactical nuke. The terrible damage from the latter is limited, and can be predicted, to an extent
We live in uncertain times im afraid
Can I just say I love your work with litotes
"Rumored footage from Zaporizhzhia NPP shows a large amount of Russian military hardware parked inside."
I become more sedate and wry as apocalypses progress. When post nuclear attack regional command are handing out the 1000 calorie daily ration for infirm bastards like me i dont want to be wasting calories on being alarmed and such.
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture
So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies
And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent. So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal
Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
You have to assume he's bluffing.
I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start. Literal knife-edge stuff.
I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war. Even the Cuban crisis, at least we were talking to each other.
Closer than the younger generation have even ever considered. Theres no 4 minute warning system in place any more either.
A mega-Chernobyl is probably worse than a tactical nuke. The terrible damage from the latter is limited, and can be predicted, to an extent
We live in uncertain times im afraid
Can I just say I love your work with litotes
"Rumored footage from Zaporizhzhia NPP shows a large amount of Russian military hardware parked inside."
I become more sedate and wry as apocalypses progress. When post nuclear attack regional command are handing out the daily 1000 calorie daily ration for infirm bastards like me i dont want to be wasting calories on being alarmed and such.
Look at the brightside.
Type 2 Diabetes rates will really plummet. It’s been a massive problem for the NHS.
- It’s all bluff and will blow over. Putin is a rational actor. Stay out of it. Chinas short/medium term economic/energy interests and long term strategic interests are served by having the west and Russia bogged down in a non-nuclear stand off. China can play off both sides, to its benefit.
- Putin is a mad man, but zaphorizia is far away. A somewhat regionalised nuclear catastrophe has only a small/moderate economic impact on China.
- This shit is serious and china needs to step up as the adult in the room. Impose a peace. This is their time.
Hmm.
As I said at the beginning of this;
Watch China.
China is sending troops to Russia for joint military exercises
- It’s all bluff and will blow over. Putin is a rational actor. Stay out of it. Chinas short/medium term economic/energy interests and long term strategic interests are served by having the west and Russia bogged down in a non-nuclear stand off. China can play off both sides, to its benefit.
- Putin is a mad man, but zaphorizia is far away. A somewhat regionalised nuclear catastrophe has only a small/moderate economic impact on China.
- This shit is serious and china needs to step up as the adult in the room. Impose a peace. This is their time.
Hmm.
As I said at the beginning of this;
Watch China.
China is sending troops to Russia for joint military exercises
What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?
Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.
But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.
Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.
They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.
Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.
But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.
The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.
I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
"merit" - lol.
This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.
It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.
I could be wrong.
Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.
Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?
'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.
Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'
Sir Keir Starmer.
Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.
I hope that answers your question.
You make very good points
This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.
The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
Nick Griffin very anti COVID lockdown, comparing it to a concentration camp. Given his political history one might wonder whether or not he meant lockdown was a good or indeed mythical thing.
I know Griffers has his fans on here related to his willingness to ‘speak out’.
Everybody despises Griffin, Now that is an unpleasant individual, but it didn't stop him blowing the whistle on grooming gangs (to an astonished Gavin Esler) years before it surfaced in the mainstream.
I sense that unlike the left you are savvy and sophisticated to realize that bad people can do good things.
Would this be fair?
And vice versa. The road to hell can indeed be paved with good intentions....!
Ha yes!
We can do a bit of 'duelling banjos' knockabout again now I've (re)sussed you're never serious but here for the Troll.
Missed that.
I think what freaks you out is people with genuine opinions and convictions whereas you have none.
Hangover from your "journey" I have no doubt; it's left you in limbo.
But all the lines you write on PB are impeccable if that cheers you up.
The “populists”, or “deniers”, or whatever they are, didn’t get it right anyway.
They keep talking about Sweden, instead of Denmark, for example.
It’s possible they are forgetful, or maybe they just talk shit all day long.
Because Sweden did better at maintaining civil liberties than Denmark did.
The yeahbutDenmark crowd want to use Denmark to justify restrictions. Why would someone who opposes restrictions advocate a Danish solution which was in hindsight worse based upon my priorities?
I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant
This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?
Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it
I should have said "really worried".
Concerned, yes. But I get really worried when people tell me everything is fine.
"Any potential damage to Zaporizhzhia is suicide, it must not be used as part of any military operation: UN chief"
I have just dug off my shelf a book I read many years ago called The Weather Factor by Erik Durschmeid. I did so because I remembered a short chapter in it about the issues the Russians would have with the use of battlefield or tactical nuclear weapons along the western border of Warsaw Pact.
"Nuclear experts in both camps were fully aware that any Soviet nuclear strike on Central Europe would result in Russia’s collective suicide. Not due to the West’s nuclear retaliation, which would be unavoidable, but because of the permanently prevailing weather pattern. The wind factor. The dominant wind direction—west to east—in combination with the Earth’s rotation, would have it that the radioactive cloud from a two-megaton bomb, if exploded over France’s nuclear arsenal in the mountains of Provence, would rapidly extend to Kiev in the Ukraine. Or that a similar nuclear device, dropped on a NATO troop concentration at Germany’s Fulda Gap, would irradiate Moscow within twenty-four hours.2 Such was the equalising justice of the weather."
I am nor sure exactly how accurate this is but it put an interesting spin on Soviet threats to use nukes in Western Europe.
- It’s all bluff and will blow over. Putin is a rational actor. Stay out of it. Chinas short/medium term economic/energy interests and long term strategic interests are served by having the west and Russia bogged down in a non-nuclear stand off. China can play off both sides, to its benefit.
- Putin is a mad man, but zaphorizia is far away. A somewhat regionalised nuclear catastrophe has only a small/moderate economic impact on China.
- This shit is serious and china needs to step up as the adult in the room. Impose a peace. This is their time.
Hmm.
As I said at the beginning of this;
Watch China.
EU is China's biggest market, eur 500bn odd. It has an interest in all those customers not being nuked till they glow.
Josh Lederman @JoshNBCNews NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture
So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies
And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent. So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal
Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
You have to assume he's bluffing.
I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start. Literal knife-edge stuff.
I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war. Even the Cuban crisis, at least we were talking to each other.
Closer than the younger generation have even ever considered. Theres no 4 minute warning system in place any more either.
A mega-Chernobyl is probably worse than a tactical nuke. The terrible damage from the latter is limited, and can be predicted, to an extent
We live in uncertain times im afraid
Can I just say I love your work with litotes
"Rumored footage from Zaporizhzhia NPP shows a large amount of Russian military hardware parked inside."
I become more sedate and wry as apocalypses progress. When post nuclear attack regional command are handing out the daily 1000 calorie daily ration for infirm bastards like me i dont want to be wasting calories on being alarmed and such.
Look at the brightside.
Type 2 Diabetes rates will really plummet. It’s been a massive problem for the NHS.
Once i run out of beta blockers im going postal. I want to be a legendary character when humanity resets into hunter gatherer mode and beyond.
While everyone's having a panic attack, this is a great article on pollen.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-diamond-of-the-plant-world-helped-land-plants-evolve-20220719/ ...The main strategy that plants employ to protect that DNA is to encase it in a specialized shell of sporopollenin, which is impervious to the elements and among the toughest materials produced by any living thing. It has been found intact in half-billion-year-old rocks. A 2016 paper found that because of the robustness of sporopollenin, spores maintained their stability in diamond anvils at pressures of 10 gigapascals, or 725 tons per square inch....
...Li compared sporopollenin to lignin, the plant polymer that strengthens wood and bark. After woody plants first evolved about 360 million years ago, the geological record shows an abundance of fossilized lignin in strata for tens of millions of years. Then suddenly about 300 million years ago, the lignin vanishes. Its disappearance marks the moment when a fungus called white rot evolved enzymes capable of degrading lignin and ate much of it before it could fossilize. Sporopollenin, Li reasoned, must also have a fungus or other microbe capable of breaking it down. Otherwise we’d be drowning in the stuff...
I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant
This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?
Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it
I should have said "really worried".
Concerned, yes. But I get really worried when people tell me everything is fine.
"Any potential damage to Zaporizhzhia is suicide, it must not be used as part of any military operation: UN chief"
I have just dug off my shelf a book I read many years ago called The Weather Factor by Erik Durschmeid. I did so because I remembered a short chapter in it about the issues the Russians would have with the use of battlefield or tactical nuclear weapons along the western border of Warsaw Pact.
"Nuclear experts in both camps were fully aware that any Soviet nuclear strike on Central Europe would result in Russia’s collective suicide. Not due to the West’s nuclear retaliation, which would be unavoidable, but because of the permanently prevailing weather pattern. The wind factor. The dominant wind direction—west to east—in combination with the Earth’s rotation, would have it that the radioactive cloud from a two-megaton bomb, if exploded over France’s nuclear arsenal in the mountains of Provence, would rapidly extend to Kiev in the Ukraine. Or that a similar nuclear device, dropped on a NATO troop concentration at Germany’s Fulda Gap, would irradiate Moscow within twenty-four hours.2 Such was the equalising justice of the weather."
I am nor sure exactly how accurate this is but it put an interesting spin on Soviet threats to use nukes in Western Europe.
So how was the equation of affection for the book, distress (perhaps) at it's condition, and the entusiasm for the the text?
Comments
They keep talking about Sweden, instead of Denmark, for example.
It’s possible they are forgetful, or maybe they just talk shit all day long.
Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
Wind forecast for tomorrow doesn't a seem terrible from a Russian point of view for doing so.
I don’t mean this to be offensive, it’s just what you do.
I don’t want to silence Grimes, but nor will I pretend he is anything more than a snivelling creep.
"In case a nuclear disaster at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant occurred on Aug 15-18, this is how the released airborne radioactive contaminants would probably get dispersed - Ukrainian hydrometeorological institute"
https://twitter.com/myroslavapetsa/status/1560225360209494017?s=20&t=akzUEp2RNiQ8lvJhlbJpbQ
If I was @cicero in Estonia, I'd be thinking about a quick flight home to Blighty. Or maybe Argentina
I know Griffers has his fans on here related to his willingness to ‘speak out’.
Anyway, I’m on the anti-lockdown, pro-lab leak theory centre-left so I don’t really fit into your stereotype.
The same is true of our freedoms. Cyclefree went on about the iniquities of police recording non-crime hate incidents and how we should ensure this stops the other day.
Who took up and won the court case that stopped non-crime hate incidents in England being recorded? A crusading mainstream MP? No, they wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.
It was the chairman of Reclaim Harry Miller. Yet I bet if you asked Cyclefree what she thought of Reclaim, the answer would be unprintable.
Look at the communist b1tch on SAGE
The worst hangover I ever had was after an end of conference night in Tampere - started tame enough in a bar, then the locals took us to a club drinking salmari, then back at their flat drinking god knows what. Passed a car with an axe through its windscreen on the way home. Missed my train to Helsinki the next day.
It’s a different axis entirely.
Stay in your lane right wing populists!
So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies
And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
But this looks a bit more than a blip.
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1560271578289475585
Japan's BA.5 wave deaths are now higher than any previous variant and still rising sharply...
...Japan ranks 4th in the world for boosters, the US ranks 71st
...Japan's cumulative deaths per capita is 1/11th of the US
Yet BA.5, with its very high level of immune evasion, has challenged its immunity wall...
🇷🇺🇺🇦 The administration of the Zaporozhye region promises that tomorrow the drones will broadcast online the situation at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant - RIA Novosti.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Ukrainian troops are preparing a provocation tomorrow.
Is there any right wing twittersphere cliche that you don't parrot?
Can't think of one offhand.
But the consensus needs to be confronted. At all times.
You're like an old clock ticking in a corner. Annoying when it is noticed, but generally it is not noticed
And I'd probably miss you if you disappeared
Thats just the radiation issues, the explosion would have been in the low megatons range
Would this be fair?
So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?
Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it
Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
Handle with great care and keep in a darkened room.
Of course China have also announced they are joining a joint military exercise with the Ruskies
Concerned, yes. But I get really worried when people tell me everything is fine.
https://twitter.com/anadoluagency/status/1560299212784500737?s=20&t=R0YL0d5tZAYNlhTUV8sxtw
"Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant urges world to prevent nuclear disaster that will make Chornobyl pale in comparison
Please Follow us to help the people of Ukraine
#ukrainewar #ukraine #war #army #military #specialforces #russia #nato #d"
https://twitter.com/swflwarrior/status/1560299367927582722?s=20&t=R0YL0d5tZAYNlhTUV8sxtw
No biggie. Chillax
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-nuclear-weapons-use-possible-only-emergency-circumstances-2022-08-18/
MOSCOW, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Russia has "no need" to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, its defence minister said on Tuesday, describing media speculation that Moscow might deploy nuclear or chemical weapons in the conflict as "absolute lies".
"No need" is clever. because indeed who needs to use nuclear weapons when they can weaponise a nuclear power plant?
"If a nuclear disaster occurs in Zaporizhzhia, radiation could spread as far north as Estonia and as far west as the Czech Republic.
This fallout radius is based on Ukraine's assessment. The Russian Ministry of Defence's forecast sees radioactivity extending as far west as Germany."
https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1560279299512381440?s=20&t=s9w2ET9jAp7OUpwwlSR7bQ
Putin is playing the Madman Gambit. Spook the Europeans into thinking he is crazy enough to do this. Trouble is, now he has happily sacrificed the lives of 50,000 Russian young men, I am easily persuaded that he is capable of doing this
And I am not sitting in Germany, which is directly in line to be Chernobylised, according to the Russian Defence Ministry
It's nuclear blackmail and he's going for it
I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start.
Literal knife-edge stuff.
I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war. Even the Cuban crisis, at least we were talking to each other.
Cliche cliche cliche ... Trope trope trope
I'm not sure I do. I am tempted to say: surrender. Stop the sanctions
Give him Ukraine. Wean ourselves off his energy, build up our military, then pray that he dies
Or we confront him and it turns out he's not bluffing and half of Europe is poisoned for 500 years....
I can see us falling short on all three.
And I probably would. I get fond of people on PB, even if I regard their opinions as absurd and comical
Moreover, there is a literal chance you will disappear tomorrow in a puff of radioactive dust, so I am feeling a bit emosh and sentimental about all of us
As we were, sergeant.
I'd be handing Ukraine all our military kit. Better they use it now than we need it later.
https://www.reddit.com/r/finlandConspiracy/
"Rumored footage from Zaporizhzhia NPP shows a large amount of Russian military hardware parked inside."
https://twitter.com/IntelCrab/status/1560303702912733186?s=20&t=VwuDDnV3ojEs1zCchUJ-Rw
BANG!
Anyway, look, I'm onto you - I totally am - but I don't have the energy or the tools to prosecute to a conviction. So at the end of the day you're probably going to get away with it.
https://twitter.com/LamyaeA/status/1560202380146352128
....Pound and Euro getting flayed as European gas contract settles at record high.....
2/Conclusion of Enerhoatom: After disconnecting the generators of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant from the energy system of Ukraine, they cannot be used to cool nuclear fuel in case the plant is de-energized,which will bring a possible scenario of a radiation disaster closer
https://twitter.com/Lyla_lilas/status/1560305227433218051?s=20&t=VwuDDnV3ojEs1zCchUJ-Rw
The covid response included:
- suspension of the right of freedom of movement within the UK
- suspension of the right of freedom of association
- mass use of advertising of an 'obey the state' nature
- freedom of speech? well, I suppose you were allowed to criticise the covid response as a wee bit over the top but it didn't go well for those who did.
You might think (and I don't think you did, if I recall correctly) that this was justified. But If you don't view this as authoritarianism it's hard to imagine what you would call authoritarianism.
We can do a bit of 'duelling banjos' knockabout again now I've (re)sussed you're never serious but here for the Troll.
Missed that.
I imagine strategic thinking is split between;
- It’s all bluff and will blow over. Putin is a rational actor. Stay out of it. Chinas short/medium term economic/energy interests and long term strategic interests are served by having the west and Russia bogged down in a non-nuclear stand off. China can play off both sides, to its benefit.
- Putin is a mad man, but zaphorizia is far away. A somewhat regionalised nuclear catastrophe has only a small/moderate economic impact on China.
- This shit is serious and china needs to step up as the adult in the room. Impose a peace. This is their time.
Hmm.
As I said at the beginning of this;
Watch China.
Type 2 Diabetes rates will really plummet.
It’s been a massive problem for the NHS.
"Ukraine is preparing for a Chernobyl-like nuclear disaster at the Russian occupied Zaporozhye nuclear power plant amid fears of a Radiation leak.
Hazmat suits and gas mask clad emergency servicemen were seen working in the city of Zaporizhzhia.
#UkraineRussiaWar #Ukraine"
https://twitter.com/W_W_3_2022/status/1560306372230598659?s=20&t=xbh5jTvPcxteeEksbV-4Yw
Whatever the case, Russian media want us to BELIEVE that Putin is prepared to go totally postal
Fuck, I’m out of the loop…
Hangover from your "journey" I have no doubt; it's left you in limbo.
But all the lines you write on PB are impeccable if that cheers you up.
The yeahbutDenmark crowd want to use Denmark to justify restrictions. Why would someone who opposes restrictions advocate a Danish solution which was in hindsight worse based upon my priorities?
"Nuclear experts in both camps were fully aware that any Soviet nuclear strike on Central Europe would result in Russia’s collective suicide. Not due to the West’s nuclear retaliation, which would be unavoidable, but because of the permanently prevailing weather pattern. The wind factor. The dominant wind direction—west to east—in combination with the Earth’s rotation, would have it that the radioactive cloud from a two-megaton bomb, if exploded over France’s nuclear arsenal in the mountains of Provence, would rapidly extend to Kiev in the Ukraine. Or that a similar nuclear device, dropped on a NATO troop concentration at Germany’s Fulda Gap, would irradiate Moscow within twenty-four hours.2 Such was the equalising justice of the weather."
I am nor sure exactly how accurate this is but it put an interesting spin on Soviet threats to use nukes in Western Europe.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-diamond-of-the-plant-world-helped-land-plants-evolve-20220719/
...The main strategy that plants employ to protect that DNA is to encase it in a specialized shell of sporopollenin, which is impervious to the elements and among the toughest materials produced by any living thing. It has been found intact in half-billion-year-old rocks. A 2016 paper found that because of the robustness of sporopollenin, spores maintained their stability in diamond anvils at pressures of 10 gigapascals, or 725 tons per square inch....
...Li compared sporopollenin to lignin, the plant polymer that strengthens wood and bark. After woody plants first evolved about 360 million years ago, the geological record shows an abundance of fossilized lignin in strata for tens of millions of years. Then suddenly about 300 million years ago, the lignin vanishes. Its disappearance marks the moment when a fungus called white rot evolved enzymes capable of degrading lignin and ate much of it before it could fossilize.
Sporopollenin, Li reasoned, must also have a fungus or other microbe capable of breaking it down. Otherwise we’d be drowning in the stuff...