"Sarge, I'm only eighteen, I got a ruptured spleen And I always carry a purse I've got eyes like a bat and my feet are flat My asthma's getting worse" "Yes, think of my career, my sweetheart dear And my poor old invalid aunt Besides, I ain't no fool, I'm a-goin' to school And I'm working in a defense plant"
"I've got a dislocated disc and a wracked up back I'm allergic to flowers and bugs And when the bombshell hits, I get epileptic fits And I'm addicted to a thousand drugs" "I got the weakness woes, I can't touch my toes I can hardly reach my knees And if the enemy came close to me I'd probably start to sneeze"
Presumably they'll be building a wall next to stop people getting out .......
They must have some old plans they could dust down and use.
Seems to me it’s all about messaging to Ukraine and it’s supporters though - the one thing we are not supplying Ukraine enough of Russia signalling it can take this deep with 🥺
My understanding of end of First World War was the amount of running out of fighters wore heavily on governments of the protagonists - it wasn’t a clear military win but stalemate and amount of your own casualties draining the pool to call on leading to truce and talks.
particularly if Kremlin now choose more limited seize and hold options, with a much smaller front to defend, switching from attack to defend, then today for me is all about Russia signalling it’s up for a very long one ☹️
Nope - go and read some history. Germany capitulated when the army was just about still intact. Another few months and the allies would have been in Berlin, just as in 1945 (except all coming from the west). For sure the French and British (Empire) had lost a lot of men, and strategy and tactics had evolved to use arms not men, but with the US entry into the war there was not going to be a shortage of manpower. In hindsight it was Germany agreeing to the Armistice that ultimately allowed the myth of the Stab in the Back to take hold - in 1918 German troops still fought outside the Reich, not so much in May 1945.
As Syrians rocked up on the beaches of Greece, the locals shouted get back and fight for your country you cowardly twits. How are the Ukrainians making new lives in places like UK thought of by those still fighting back home? What seems to me is not everyone is made the same, not everyone is made for the fight are they?
I’m up for a fight for England if invaded, not run away, though I am not at all sure how I would do my hair for fighting, it would be mostly in a hat would it? But what would we think of those who fled England for new lives in Canada and Australia the more it went on?
The Ukrainians said that conscript age men shouldn't leave. Not sure how much they enforced that. Nearly all the refugees are outside that group.
MY theory on what would have happened if the Germans invaded the UK is that a third would have fought to the death, a third would have queued round the block to get an armband and clipboard to tell other people what to do* and a third would not have noticed, unless the football was interrupted.
*PJ O'Rourke observed (with respect to the Paraguay) that "The beauty of a well designed Fascism is that it gives every piss-ant an anthill to piss from"
Henry Foy @HenryJFoy · 47m "This is probably the most delicate phase of this decades-long game of chicken," said a senior European diplomat. "Putin is actively trying to sow discord."
"But if Putin blinks he is gone and with him the dream of a resurgent imperial Russia."
For anyone who likes to totally scare themselves to death over Nuclear War I recommend War Plan UK by Duncan Campbell, it details the UK and others preparedness (or not!) for nuclear exchange in the Cold War. Operation Square Leg simulated a 205 megaton, 130 warheads all out attack on the UK killing 29 million and injuring 7 million with 19 million short term survivors. The following is the diary entry for day 13 after the attack from the Warwickshire regional command response (Square Leg was the main driver of the scenario depicted in Threads)
Feeding to commence at 1800 hrs. Calorific content of meals will be six hundred + one pint of water (non- workers), 800 + two pints of water (workers). Meals provided for infant feeding totally inadequate, request additional supplies. Known casualty figures 37,000; seriously injured 67,000. Radiation sickness entering the third stage. Disease control absolute priority. All Essential Service Routes cleared. Identify and prepare additional burial resources. Advise public on location and times Feeding Centres will be open, safe routes to them (and) emphasize subsistence level of feeding in operation.
These were to be the first feedings of survivors, a full fortnight in. 800 calories for workers! A bowl of thin soup and a roll basically. Youd get maybe a week of work before malnutrition started to set in.
The 'good' news is we wont get hit by 130 warheads now if it goes hot. Grim grim grim
But at least we'd have Leon reassuring us that our thin soup was the equal of anything France or Italy could produce.
Leons tour of subsistence feeding centres! A must read for all irradiated PBers
Leon lives in inner London so like me he would be one of the lucky millions to die immediately. And I mean lucky.
Likeliest London strikes would be Whitehall, Northolt, away from those you'd probably be 'ok'. An all out assault on the UK in 2022 would be somewhere between 10 to 20 warheads if they all got through/worked. A large majority uk wide would survive to suffer the aftermath
A nuclear attack on Whitehall would certainly be one way of breaking with Treasury orthodoxy.
This whole thread is desolating: when American capitalist medicine meets a crazy new ideology
American clinics are pushing radical trans surgery and puberty blockers on kids "because they make so much m money for us". Here they are ADMITTING it
"Vanderbilt opened its trans clinic in 2018. During a lecture the same year, Dr. Shayne Taylor explained how she convinced Nashville to get into the gender transition game. She emphasized that it's a "big money maker," especially because the surgeries require a lot of "follow ups""
"Just a few vaginoplasties can finance the whole clinic"
They had better have some bloody good insurance in place for the inevitable lawsuits, which have already started.
There’s an ambulance chasing law firm running around the UK trying to drum up business. Have they actually managed to find more than a single digit numbers of clients?
I was referring to law suits in the US.
As far as the U.K. is concerned, I don't know the answer to your question. The name of the law firm was unknown to me and is not one I've heard of in relation to medical negligence claims.
Rather than suing after the event (when damage, possibly or reversible damage, is done), it would be more sensible to get a properly evidenced basis for the right sort of treatment for those with properly diagnosed gender dysphoria, especially in the case of children. Hopefully, the final Cass Report will help with that and those with a financial or other interest in pushing drugs or surgery will not be involved in making recommendations. Medical treatment should only be given for sound medical reasons and only if it is in the best medical interests of the patient.
I am curious as to why NICE has not been involved in relation to the Tavistock issue. Perhaps it was.
Isn't it more a CQC matter than a NICE matter? NICE advise on specific treatments, generally new ones, with a focus on more common conditions. CQC oversees care more generally. The Cass Report suggests the problems at the Tavistock are more general rather than in terms of the efficacy of specific treatments. Also, CQC regulates while NICE advises.
Whoever is responsible I hope they are scrutinising this very closely:
The Standards of Care are not official standards, but are influential around the world. WPATH calls them “internationally accepted guidelines”. The NHS refers to the WPATH Standards of Care in a variety of medical documents (including the previous service specification for the Tavistock Gender and Identity Development Service clinic). The Scottish government also relies on them in its decision-making. The Standards of Care featured heavily in the significant case of Bell v Tavistock. These guidelines have been used by numerous private health clinics throughout the UK, to justify irreversible treatment on children and young people…..
…..The guidelines have removed any minimum age limit for a child to be given puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or sex-reassignment surgery (so long as that child has reached ‘Tanner Stage 2’ of puberty, which can be as young as nine years old)….
…Abandonment of mental-health safeguarding – The guidelines explicitly state that therapy or counselling should “never be mandatory” before prescribing irreversible medication or surgery, including for children. Therapeutic professionals are told that they must not impose their own narratives or preconceptions, yet are also told that they must be “gender affirming”. These principles are fundamentally incompatible.
The more important point to note is that many of the people behind W-PATH are not doctors at all and some of those who are have very clear conflicts of interest. More worryingly it has worked closely with some very odd individuals, who really should be nowhere near medical care of any kind - see for instance the person who was apparently involved in writing the chapter on eunuchs.
The wider point is perhaps this: even the medical establishment is not immune from fads or for allowing ideologies to influence treatment. See the sterilisation of "simple-minded" women during the 20th century or the treatment of homosexuality, considered a mental disorder at one time. So it really matters to get care which is based on sound and properly tested evidence not as a result of wish fulfilment or ideology of self-interest. The evidence in the Keira Bell case is really interesting on this aspect, as is the Court's reaction, even if the decision - on the issue of Gillick competence - was the right one.
W-PATH is an international, interdisciplinary body. Most of them are doctors. This is the current executive committee: https://www.wpath.org/about/EC-BOD You will see nearly all of them are MDs or MBBSs (i.e., doctors). The four people there who aren't are a JD, a PsyD and a PhD, plus a medical student representative. These would appear to be relevant qualifications.
You're right about fads, of course. Doctors can be wrong about things. Doctors often are wrong about things.
It rather depends on what their speciality is and whether they have a financial or other interest in the recommendations they are making. Conflicts of interest make for bad decisions, whether by doctors or anyone else.
I would be surprised if their specialties was not in transgendered medicine.
I couldn't see any conflict of interest statement on their website. Conflicts of interest can be problematic, but are also often hard to avoid. At a general level, if you are a doctor who works in specialty X, then you're going to have an interest in people providing good funding for specialty X! Transparency is to be recommended.
More generally, I concur with your earlier point about fads. I've not looked into this in depth, but as far as I can tell, W-PATH is a bunch of people who are interested in the best outcome for patients. However, it is possible to have good intentions, but come to the wrong conclusions.
It strikes me that the riots in Birmingham and Leicester are an above-politics situation where the new king could immediately get involved to plead for unity and calm, and also set the tone of his reign. Inter-faith understanding has been one of his main obsessions and passions for forty or maybe fifty years.
There would have to be some sort of statement or governmental stance by Truss and/or one of her ministers first, obviously and clearly.
A bigger question is why we have sectarian hostility and violence in mainland Britain in 2022. This is the sort of thing you expect from the nutters in Northern Ireland. We had long moved past this sort of thing but our immigration policy has brought it back. Of course there will be a conspiracy of silence about the origins of this among the media and there will be accountability.
Point of order: plenty of sectarianism on the mainland, though declining over the long term; in that case Royal intervention would be tricky (one side being very much affiliated to the RF, the other the opposite).
I may have underestimated how backwards Western Scotland is on this issue. But again, mainly an imported thing from Ireland, isn't it?
Can we call it that? It's been there since the late C19, so 'imported' is perhaps pushing it. And a lot of it stemmed from nativist hostility, which is by defintion not imported. Though there remain cultural and organizational links with NI.
According to these articles, sectarianism in Scotland is tiny and largely myth.
Whatever you think of the Royal family, you have to applaud the wit of the Celtic fans there. It is a genuine LOL even if it shouldn't be. Scottish sectarianism is mostly football related but does have some independent life still and is most definitely still a thing, although much diminished thankfully. More of a west coast thing too, wasn't much of a thing growing up in Fife in the 1980s/90s but not entirely absent either.
Not sure I am seeing the wit in the Celtic effort. I know Would you like a chicken sandwich, Bobby Sands? is sometimes sung to that tune, but presumably by their opponents.
Presumably they'll be building a wall next to stop people getting out .......
They must have some old plans they could dust down and use.
Seems to me it’s all about messaging to Ukraine and it’s supporters though - the one thing we are not supplying Ukraine enough of Russia signalling it can take this deep with 🥺
My understanding of end of First World War was the amount of running out of fighters wore heavily on governments of the protagonists - it wasn’t a clear military win but stalemate and amount of your own casualties draining the pool to call on leading to truce and talks.
particularly if Kremlin now choose more limited seize and hold options, with a much smaller front to defend, switching from attack to defend, then today for me is all about Russia signalling it’s up for a very long one ☹️
Nope - go and read some history. Germany capitulated when the army was just about still intact. Another few months and the allies would have been in Berlin, just as in 1945 (except all coming from the west). For sure the French and British (Empire) had lost a lot of men, and strategy and tactics had evolved to use arms not men, but with the US entry into the war there was not going to be a shortage of manpower. In hindsight it was Germany agreeing to the Armistice that ultimately allowed the myth of the Stab in the Back to take hold - in 1918 German troops still fought outside the Reich, not so much in May 1945.
Shortage of Ukrainian manpower in a long conflict is at the heart of what Russia is signalling today isn’t it?
Judging by the comments of our favourite Russian apologist, they're actually signalling the shortage of Putin's manhood.
Russia seems to be trying to measure it's strength (and level of effort) in casualties. To their own side.
I grew up with Tankies telling people that the Russians won WWII because they lost so many more men than the Americans. Even as a child that seemed bizarre - I agree with General Patton on that one.
Presumably they'll be building a wall next to stop people getting out .......
They must have some old plans they could dust down and use.
Seems to me it’s all about messaging to Ukraine and it’s supporters though - the one thing we are not supplying Ukraine enough of Russia signalling it can take this deep with 🥺
My understanding of end of First World War was the amount of running out of fighters wore heavily on governments of the protagonists - it wasn’t a clear military win but stalemate and amount of your own casualties draining the pool to call on leading to truce and talks.
particularly if Kremlin now choose more limited seize and hold options, with a much smaller front to defend, switching from attack to defend, then today for me is all about Russia signalling it’s up for a very long one ☹️
Nope - go and read some history. Germany capitulated when the army was just about still intact. Another few months and the allies would have been in Berlin, just as in 1945 (except all coming from the west). For sure the French and British (Empire) had lost a lot of men, and strategy and tactics had evolved to use arms not men, but with the US entry into the war there was not going to be a shortage of manpower. In hindsight it was Germany agreeing to the Armistice that ultimately allowed the myth of the Stab in the Back to take hold - in 1918 German troops still fought outside the Reich, not so much in May 1945.
As Syrians rocked up on the beaches of Greece, the locals shouted get back and fight for your country you cowardly twits. How are the Ukrainians making new lives in places like UK thought of by those still fighting back home? What seems to me is not everyone is made the same, not everyone is made for the fight are they?
I’m up for a fight for England if invaded, not run away, though I am not at all sure how I would do my hair for fighting, it would be mostly in a hat would it? But what would we think of those who fled England for new lives in Canada and Australia the more it went on?
The Ukrainians said that conscript age men shouldn't leave. Not sure how much they enforced that. Nearly all the refugees are outside that group.
MY theory on what would have happened if the Germans invaded the UK is that a third would have fought to the death, a third would have queued round the block to get an armband and clipboard to tell other people what to do* and a third would not have noticed, unless the football was interrupted.
*PJ O'Rourke observed (with respect to the Paraguay) that "The beauty of a well designed Fascism is that it gives every piss-ant an anthill to piss from"
today for me is all about Russia signalling it’s up for a very long one, is that the right reading of this?
But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems. 1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra. 2) Cost of living is a problem for many people. 3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.
Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.
This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.
With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.
Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.
The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.
But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
I’m trying to work out some funny way to pun Truss and Kansas. Kantruss? Hmmm… not funny enough… The point being that this fantasy that you can cut taxes and everything will work out has been tried, and it doesn’t work. The classic, and very tragic, example of this is known as the Kansas Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
The Kansas experiment was deeply, deeply flawed and not remotely comparable to the UK whatsoever. The UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago, from a record high base in the past 74 years.
As opposed to Kansas where tax loopholes were introduced allowed many people to cut their tax rate to literally zero. Zero percent tax rate is not something I'm advocating or anyone sane is. Oh and the Kansas bill also increased many other people's tax rates, it didn't reduce it, so increasing their tax rates would of course harm the economy while eliminating tax from others does nothing to raise revenues.
You say the UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago. Are the stamp duty changes taking us back to where we were a few months ago? Indeed, I think there had already been 7 cuts in stamp duty since 2008.
The idea that the Kansas Experiment failed because it increased people’s taxes is a novel one.
Not that novel, its actually explicitly mentioned in your own link.
Direct benefits for the affluent The act received criticism for shifting the tax burden from wealthy Kansans to low- and moderate-income workers.[81][40]
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the bill cut the taxes of "the wealthiest 1% of Kansans by 2.2%," while it projected that the poorest 20% of Kansans would see "their taxes increase by 1.3%".[82]
Bryan Lowry of The Wichita Eagle estimated that almost 70% of Kansas lawmakers, as well as Governor Brownback and his wife, benefited personally from the tax cuts through business or property that they owned, which being non-wage income, was exempt from taxes under the 2012 law.[83]
I 100% wholeheartedly recognise that raising taxes on working income and eliminating taxes on non-earned incomes is a terrible, terrible idea. What tax is it in the UK that is most similar to the Kansas experiment, whereby those working see their taxes go up, while those not working see their taxes go down? Oh yes, its National Insurance, isn't it.
Sunak's plans of slashing Income Tax by 4p while raising National Insurance to pay for it is what was more like the Kansas Experiment, not Truss reversing tax rises on earnt incomes.
Sunak was seeking to balance the budget. Truss, like Kansas, is relying on future growth to pay for hers. That’s where the similarity is.
There are times when it’s appropriate to cut taxes, and times when it’s appropriate to borrow money. What’s particularly dangerous, however, is pretending that you can cut taxes because you’re sure future growth will be along any day now to fill the Treasury’s coffers.
Saying you're balancing the budget and actually doing so are two completely different things. How does cutting Income Tax by 4p while increasing National Insurance, thus completely distorting taxation away from unearned incomes and towards earned ones, do anything whatsoever to balance the budget.
Yes there are times when its appropriate to borrow money. During a supply shock recession is one of them, which is right now.
I agree that saying you’re balancing the budget and actually doing so are two different things. The Truss government isn’t even saying they’re balancing the budget!
Do you think it is sensible to rely on future growth projections?
Let's look at what we know, and what we know is that Sunakism is failing. That isn't conjecture any more, it is fact. Look at the PSBR numbers now, before higher interest rates and higher corporation taxes hit home. The UK under Sunak was manifestly heading for a depression. A depression that would have blown his 'balanced budget' fantasy even more off course than it is now.
Where would he have gone after the financial meltdown he was creating became undeniable? massive public spending cuts would have been his only option.
Then let’s get rid of every MP who supported Sunakism… or at least the Cabinet members who did.
That seems to have been done. 👍
The people in Number's 10 and 11 when Sunak started putting up the tax rises are now backbenchers and the Tories just had a bitter campaign fought on whether to continue with Sunakism or reverse his tax rises and go back to the rates before. As far as I can tell, practically everyone who endorsed Sunakism is now out of the Cabinet and quite right too.
Good riddance.
Was Liz Truss not in the same Cabinet as Sunak? Was Jacob Rees-Mogg not? Suella Braverman? Ben Wallace? Alok Sharma?
Truss was reported at the time to have opposed the decision but had to follow collective responsibility.
The leadership campaign gave the opportunity to choose between the two models, and Truss unabashedly stood for reversing those tax rises. Good for her, and good for everyone who endorsed her, and good riddance to everyone who endorsed Sunak instead.
Had to follow collective responsibility? You mean chose to follow collective responsibility.
I believe every member of the current Cabinet voted for Sunak’s last budget.
Every member of a party, even backbenchers, have to vote to follow their own government's budget, that's not new.
But the leadership campaign gave people a free and unwhipped choice and they made their choices then.
Again you confuse “has” with “chooses”.
Chooses to keep the whip? Yes, they could cross the floor if they wanted to vote against the budget, but that's a bit extreme. The leadership campaign gave people a chance to choose between those two visions.
It did… and Tory MPs made clear their preference when voting for… oh, well for Sunak’s vision actually.
Tory MPs keep getting things wrong. You and MISTY are saying they sometimes get things wrong; I’m saying they nearly always get it wrong. I don’t think we’re too far apart here! My solution is that, at the next available democratic opportunity, we get rid of them.
Tory MPs didn't vote for Sunak's vision, about a third did but they lost the election and aren't in the Cabinet. 👍
If alternative candidates come with a better, lower tax vision then I of course could be tempted to vote for them.
If you want lower taxes you should be cutting Government spending.
Where would you like to begin cutting it - as the big items can't be touched.
There need to be a zero-based spending review, it’s long overdue.
Spending in most government departments has been in real terms decline for some time: the problem is that pensions and healthcare are basically locked in to rise dramatically in the next decade.
And if you suggest potentially handling the pensions and healthcare issue differently, as I did earlier, then people will accuse you of wanting to kill old people.
Fwiw, I completely agree with your proposal to remove the triple lock. The problem is that even then, pensions will rise as a percentage of GDP as earnings and GDP growth are likely to be basically identical, while the number of retirees rises.
We need to take a longer term approach of essentially copying the Australian system of compulsory pension savings, so as to avoid the government being on the hook for so many people's retirement.
Tories will be morified, mortified i tells thee if the argument is about whether theres a forecast or not
It won’t just be the opposition though, will it?
The more time spent arguing over this, the less time the opposition have to frame whatever narrative they have decided to try and create over the policies and Truss and Kwarteng say 'we are doing whatever it takes to protect people and business, all they care about is spreadsheets'
"Sarge, I'm only eighteen, I got a ruptured spleen And I always carry a purse I've got eyes like a bat and my feet are flat My asthma's getting worse" "Yes, think of my career, my sweetheart dear And my poor old invalid aunt Besides, I ain't no fool, I'm a-goin' to school And I'm working in a defense plant"
"I've got a dislocated disc and a wracked up back I'm allergic to flowers and bugs And when the bombshell hits, I get epileptic fits And I'm addicted to a thousand drugs" "I got the weakness woes, I can't touch my toes I can hardly reach my knees And if the enemy came close to me I'd probably start to sneeze"
Presumably they'll be building a wall next to stop people getting out .......
They must have some old plans they could dust down and use.
Seems to me it’s all about messaging to Ukraine and it’s supporters though - the one thing we are not supplying Ukraine enough of Russia signalling it can take this deep with 🥺
My understanding of end of First World War was the amount of running out of fighters wore heavily on governments of the protagonists - it wasn’t a clear military win but stalemate and amount of your own casualties draining the pool to call on leading to truce and talks.
particularly if Kremlin now choose more limited seize and hold options, with a much smaller front to defend, switching from attack to defend, then today for me is all about Russia signalling it’s up for a very long one ☹️
Nope - go and read some history. Germany capitulated when the army was just about still intact. Another few months and the allies would have been in Berlin, just as in 1945 (except all coming from the west). For sure the French and British (Empire) had lost a lot of men, and strategy and tactics had evolved to use arms not men, but with the US entry into the war there was not going to be a shortage of manpower. In hindsight it was Germany agreeing to the Armistice that ultimately allowed the myth of the Stab in the Back to take hold - in 1918 German troops still fought outside the Reich, not so much in May 1945.
Shortage of Ukrainian manpower in a long conflict is at the heart of what Russia is signalling today isn’t it?
Judging by the comments of our favourite Russian apologist, they're actually signalling the shortage of Putin's manhood.
Russia seems to be trying to measure it's strength (and level of effort) in casualties. To their own side.
I grew up with Tankies telling people that the Russians won WWII because they lost so many more men than the Americans. Even as a child that seemed bizarre - I agree with General Patton on that one.
But Paton himself was all about capturing the hill in Blitzkrieg and then counting the dead, unless I have misunderstood that too?
Presumably they'll be building a wall next to stop people getting out .......
They must have some old plans they could dust down and use.
Seems to me it’s all about messaging to Ukraine and it’s supporters though - the one thing we are not supplying Ukraine enough of Russia signalling it can take this deep with 🥺
My understanding of end of First World War was the amount of running out of fighters wore heavily on governments of the protagonists - it wasn’t a clear military win but stalemate and amount of your own casualties draining the pool to call on leading to truce and talks.
particularly if Kremlin now choose more limited seize and hold options, with a much smaller front to defend, switching from attack to defend, then today for me is all about Russia signalling it’s up for a very long one ☹️
Nope - go and read some history. Germany capitulated when the army was just about still intact. Another few months and the allies would have been in Berlin, just as in 1945 (except all coming from the west). For sure the French and British (Empire) had lost a lot of men, and strategy and tactics had evolved to use arms not men, but with the US entry into the war there was not going to be a shortage of manpower. In hindsight it was Germany agreeing to the Armistice that ultimately allowed the myth of the Stab in the Back to take hold - in 1918 German troops still fought outside the Reich, not so much in May 1945.
As Syrians rocked up on the beaches of Greece, the locals shouted get back and fight for your country you cowardly twits. How are the Ukrainians making new lives in places like UK thought of by those still fighting back home? What seems to me is not everyone is made the same, not everyone is made for the fight are they?
I’m up for a fight for England if invaded, not run away, though I am not at all sure how I would do my hair for fighting, it would be mostly in a hat would it? But what would we think of those who fled England for new lives in Canada and Australia the more it went on?
The Ukrainians said that conscript age men shouldn't leave. Not sure how much they enforced that. Nearly all the refugees are outside that group.
MY theory on what would have happened if the Germans invaded the UK is that a third would have fought to the death, a third would have queued round the block to get an armband and clipboard to tell other people what to do* and a third would not have noticed, unless the football was interrupted.
*PJ O'Rourke observed (with respect to the Paraguay) that "The beauty of a well designed Fascism is that it gives every piss-ant an anthill to piss from"
today for me is all about Russia signalling it’s up for a very long one, is that the right reading of this?
Damned if I know.
It could be any of
- "We will fight them on the steppes. We will fight etc...." - We must do something. This is something. Therefore we will do this. - "The old man is Loco. Fuck, let him play with a mobilisation. The boys won't get near a battlefield, before we find him a window."
Presumably they'll be building a wall next to stop people getting out .......
They must have some old plans they could dust down and use.
Seems to me it’s all about messaging to Ukraine and it’s supporters though - the one thing we are not supplying Ukraine enough of Russia signalling it can take this deep with 🥺
My understanding of end of First World War was the amount of running out of fighters wore heavily on governments of the protagonists - it wasn’t a clear military win but stalemate and amount of your own casualties draining the pool to call on leading to truce and talks.
particularly if Kremlin now choose more limited seize and hold options, with a much smaller front to defend, switching from attack to defend, then today for me is all about Russia signalling it’s up for a very long one ☹️
Nope - go and read some history. Germany capitulated when the army was just about still intact. Another few months and the allies would have been in Berlin, just as in 1945 (except all coming from the west). For sure the French and British (Empire) had lost a lot of men, and strategy and tactics had evolved to use arms not men, but with the US entry into the war there was not going to be a shortage of manpower. In hindsight it was Germany agreeing to the Armistice that ultimately allowed the myth of the Stab in the Back to take hold - in 1918 German troops still fought outside the Reich, not so much in May 1945.
Shortage of Ukrainian manpower in a long conflict is at the heart of what Russia is signalling today isn’t it?
Judging by the comments of our favourite Russian apologist, they're actually signalling the shortage of Putin's manhood.
Russia seems to be trying to measure it's strength (and level of effort) in casualties. To their own side.
I grew up with Tankies telling people that the Russians won WWII because they lost so many more men than the Americans. Even as a child that seemed bizarre - I agree with General Patton on that one.
Perhaps they are devotees of Sir Terry Pratchett's creation Lord Rust:
'The key point in Ankh-Morpork military doctrine was that there should be massive casualties. If they were on the other side, this was regarded as a valuable bonus.'
For anyone who likes to totally scare themselves to death over Nuclear War I recommend War Plan UK by Duncan Campbell, it details the UK and others preparedness (or not!) for nuclear exchange in the Cold War. Operation Square Leg simulated a 205 megaton, 130 warheads all out attack on the UK killing 29 million and injuring 7 million with 19 million short term survivors. The following is the diary entry for day 13 after the attack from the Warwickshire regional command response (Square Leg was the main driver of the scenario depicted in Threads)
Feeding to commence at 1800 hrs. Calorific content of meals will be six hundred + one pint of water (non- workers), 800 + two pints of water (workers). Meals provided for infant feeding totally inadequate, request additional supplies. Known casualty figures 37,000; seriously injured 67,000. Radiation sickness entering the third stage. Disease control absolute priority. All Essential Service Routes cleared. Identify and prepare additional burial resources. Advise public on location and times Feeding Centres will be open, safe routes to them (and) emphasize subsistence level of feeding in operation.
These were to be the first feedings of survivors, a full fortnight in. 800 calories for workers! A bowl of thin soup and a roll basically. Youd get maybe a week of work before malnutrition started to set in.
The 'good' news is we wont get hit by 130 warheads now if it goes hot. Grim grim grim
It's interesting to look at perceptions between say the late 1950s and the mid 1980s of what a nuclear war between major powers would look like, and then compare them with perceptions now. One thing that has gone for a complete burton is the idea of nuclear winter. Nowadays if it's mentioned at all it can even be dismissed as KGB propaganda. Which is ironic, given all the shouting about climate change supposedly caused by types of human action that aren't nuclear warfare.
"Advise public on location and times Feeding Centres will be open, safe routes to them (and) emphasize subsistence level of feeding in operation."
Sounds like Covid marshal heaven!
Square Leg was heavily criticised for being too bleak and 'society ending' (very much as suggested by the end of Threads'), they wanted more of an idea on survival and reconstruction after a more limited exchange, such as today's even all out war would be. Nuclear winter was predicated on soot from urban infernos/firestorms. Modern building design lessens that risk considerably
The idea may have returned. See this article published last month in Nature Food:
"Atmospheric soot loadings from nuclear weapon detonation would cause disruptions to the Earth’s climate, limiting terrestrial and aquatic food production. (...) We estimate more than 2 billion people could die from nuclear war between India and Pakistan, and more than 5 billion could die from a war between the United States and Russia (...)"
They look at a range of different soot mass scenarios.
First time I've seen teragram used instead of megatonne. I guess they want to avoid confusion with explosive yield.
"Teragram" might be a good bet for Word Of The Year 2023.
Yes, let’s all tremble before Russia and its steampunk military and nuclear weapons held together with chewing gum and wishful thinking. Russia can’t even manufacture its own tractors any more. It just buys them from more advanced economies and repaints them. It’s having to buy ammunition from North Korea. That is, it is now less technologically advanced than North Korea. The idea that it can manufacture an apocalypse is looking increasingly dubious.
Tories will be morified, mortified i tells thee if the argument is about whether theres a forecast or not
It won’t just be the opposition though, will it?
The more time spent arguing over this, the less time the opposition have to frame whatever narrative they have decided to try and create over the policies and Truss and Kwarteng say 'we are doing whatever it takes to protect people and business, all they care about is spreadsheets'
Edit - and im not defending that approach
Good luck with that approach, I think Truss and Fred (we are calling him Fred now on social media cause it’s short?) trying to hide how they are ripping up fiscal rules and not balancing books will bring the roof in on their heads.
This whole thread is desolating: when American capitalist medicine meets a crazy new ideology
American clinics are pushing radical trans surgery and puberty blockers on kids "because they make so much m money for us". Here they are ADMITTING it
"Vanderbilt opened its trans clinic in 2018. During a lecture the same year, Dr. Shayne Taylor explained how she convinced Nashville to get into the gender transition game. She emphasized that it's a "big money maker," especially because the surgeries require a lot of "follow ups""
"Just a few vaginoplasties can finance the whole clinic"
They had better have some bloody good insurance in place for the inevitable lawsuits, which have already started.
There’s an ambulance chasing law firm running around the UK trying to drum up business. Have they actually managed to find more than a single digit numbers of clients?
I was referring to law suits in the US.
As far as the U.K. is concerned, I don't know the answer to your question. The name of the law firm was unknown to me and is not one I've heard of in relation to medical negligence claims.
Rather than suing after the event (when damage, possibly or reversible damage, is done), it would be more sensible to get a properly evidenced basis for the right sort of treatment for those with properly diagnosed gender dysphoria, especially in the case of children. Hopefully, the final Cass Report will help with that and those with a financial or other interest in pushing drugs or surgery will not be involved in making recommendations. Medical treatment should only be given for sound medical reasons and only if it is in the best medical interests of the patient.
I am curious as to why NICE has not been involved in relation to the Tavistock issue. Perhaps it was.
Isn't it more a CQC matter than a NICE matter? NICE advise on specific treatments, generally new ones, with a focus on more common conditions. CQC oversees care more generally. The Cass Report suggests the problems at the Tavistock are more general rather than in terms of the efficacy of specific treatments. Also, CQC regulates while NICE advises.
Whoever is responsible I hope they are scrutinising this very closely:
The Standards of Care are not official standards, but are influential around the world. WPATH calls them “internationally accepted guidelines”. The NHS refers to the WPATH Standards of Care in a variety of medical documents (including the previous service specification for the Tavistock Gender and Identity Development Service clinic). The Scottish government also relies on them in its decision-making. The Standards of Care featured heavily in the significant case of Bell v Tavistock. These guidelines have been used by numerous private health clinics throughout the UK, to justify irreversible treatment on children and young people…..
…..The guidelines have removed any minimum age limit for a child to be given puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or sex-reassignment surgery (so long as that child has reached ‘Tanner Stage 2’ of puberty, which can be as young as nine years old)….
…Abandonment of mental-health safeguarding – The guidelines explicitly state that therapy or counselling should “never be mandatory” before prescribing irreversible medication or surgery, including for children. Therapeutic professionals are told that they must not impose their own narratives or preconceptions, yet are also told that they must be “gender affirming”. These principles are fundamentally incompatible.
The more important point to note is that many of the people behind W-PATH are not doctors at all and some of those who are have very clear conflicts of interest. More worryingly it has worked closely with some very odd individuals, who really should be nowhere near medical care of any kind - see for instance the person who was apparently involved in writing the chapter on eunuchs.
The wider point is perhaps this: even the medical establishment is not immune from fads or for allowing ideologies to influence treatment. See the sterilisation of "simple-minded" women during the 20th century or the treatment of homosexuality, considered a mental disorder at one time. So it really matters to get care which is based on sound and properly tested evidence not as a result of wish fulfilment or ideology of self-interest. The evidence in the Keira Bell case is really interesting on this aspect, as is the Court's reaction, even if the decision - on the issue of Gillick competence - was the right one.
W-PATH is an international, interdisciplinary body. Most of them are doctors. This is the current executive committee: https://www.wpath.org/about/EC-BOD You will see nearly all of them are MDs or MBBSs (i.e., doctors). The four people there who aren't are a JD, a PsyD and a PhD, plus a medical student representative. These would appear to be relevant qualifications.
You're right about fads, of course. Doctors can be wrong about things. Doctors often are wrong about things.
It rather depends on what their speciality is and whether they have a financial or other interest in the recommendations they are making. Conflicts of interest make for bad decisions, whether by doctors or anyone else.
I would be surprised if their specialties was not in transgendered medicine.
I couldn't see any conflict of interest statement on their website. Conflicts of interest can be problematic, but are also often hard to avoid. At a general level, if you are a doctor who works in specialty X, then you're going to have an interest in people providing good funding for specialty X! Transparency is to be recommended.
More generally, I concur with your earlier point about fads. I've not looked into this in depth, but as far as I can tell, W-PATH is a bunch of people who are interested in the best outcome for patients. However, it is possible to have good intentions, but come to the wrong conclusions.
I would be interested to know more about how W-PATH came about and who is involved in writing their guidelines and in funding them. I have heard different accounts. The whole issue around medical treatment for those with dysphoria seems so bound up with debates about gender ideology that it seems hard to disentangle medicine from ideology. That worries me. It does not seem to me to be conducive to good decision-making. And scandals like the sterilisation of women etc should really make us think harder about such issues.
At some point the Russians will have to close this, as well
Closed is good. The more anti-war Russians trapped inside the country the better.
The question that arises for me is whether (a) the Russian public as a whole or (b) those with power in Russia are aware of and care about this. It's easy and enjoyable for us to laugh at Putin's plans, but what we need are for the Russians to laugh at Putin's plans.
Presumably they'll be building a wall next to stop people getting out .......
They must have some old plans they could dust down and use.
Seems to me it’s all about messaging to Ukraine and it’s supporters though - the one thing we are not supplying Ukraine enough of Russia signalling it can take this deep with 🥺
My understanding of end of First World War was the amount of running out of fighters wore heavily on governments of the protagonists - it wasn’t a clear military win but stalemate and amount of your own casualties draining the pool to call on leading to truce and talks.
particularly if Kremlin now choose more limited seize and hold options, with a much smaller front to defend, switching from attack to defend, then today for me is all about Russia signalling it’s up for a very long one ☹️
Nope - go and read some history. Germany capitulated when the army was just about still intact. Another few months and the allies would have been in Berlin, just as in 1945 (except all coming from the west). For sure the French and British (Empire) had lost a lot of men, and strategy and tactics had evolved to use arms not men, but with the US entry into the war there was not going to be a shortage of manpower. In hindsight it was Germany agreeing to the Armistice that ultimately allowed the myth of the Stab in the Back to take hold - in 1918 German troops still fought outside the Reich, not so much in May 1945.
Shortage of Ukrainian manpower in a long conflict is at the heart of what Russia is signalling today isn’t it?
Except that the Ukranian shortage isn't that bad. and their motivation for fighting is vastly greater than the Russian invaders.
Question is, what does Putin want really? Does he want Crimea, Zap, Kherson, Luhansk and Donbass and then stop? Does he want that plus regime change? Does he want the Baltics, Moldova, Armenia?
Because contrary to your belief the agreement doesn't put a border there, it explicitly states that NI is a sovereign part of the United Kingdom.
Great, well you'd better tell the ERG and put their minds at rest, then. They seem to be terribly worried about it.
There are issues, issues that can be resolved via domestic legislation like the NI Protocol Bill.
That is what sovereignty and taking back control is all about, evolving over time and Parliament doing its job.
Quite how you come to the conclusion that domestic legislation can unilaterally 'resolve' alleged issues with an international treaty is one of those mysteries to which I think we'll never find an answer. You do realise that there are two parties to the NIP, I take it?
Because we are a sovereign country domestic legislation can unilaterally resolve domestic issues.
If the other party has objections to our domestic law they're entitled to take whatever matters that they can do, but our domestic law applies to our domestic country, which the NI is part of.
As a point of absolute principle we should not be breaking treaties that we have signed up to as willing participants. The question of national law is immaterial. Many treaties we sign up to impact or are impacted by or national laws but we do not go around breaking them simply because they become politically problematic for one of our parties.
If ultimately we do not like the treaty we have signed then we should withdraw from the whole treaty under the formal mechanism, not unilaterally ignore the bits we don't like and pretend nothing has changed.
Henry Foy @HenryJFoy · 47m "This is probably the most delicate phase of this decades-long game of chicken," said a senior European diplomat. "Putin is actively trying to sow discord."
"But if Putin blinks he is gone and with him the dream of a resurgent imperial Russia."
But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems. 1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra. 2) Cost of living is a problem for many people. 3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.
Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.
This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.
With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.
Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.
The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.
But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
I’m trying to work out some funny way to pun Truss and Kansas. Kantruss? Hmmm… not funny enough… The point being that this fantasy that you can cut taxes and everything will work out has been tried, and it doesn’t work. The classic, and very tragic, example of this is known as the Kansas Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
The Kansas experiment was deeply, deeply flawed and not remotely comparable to the UK whatsoever. The UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago, from a record high base in the past 74 years.
As opposed to Kansas where tax loopholes were introduced allowed many people to cut their tax rate to literally zero. Zero percent tax rate is not something I'm advocating or anyone sane is. Oh and the Kansas bill also increased many other people's tax rates, it didn't reduce it, so increasing their tax rates would of course harm the economy while eliminating tax from others does nothing to raise revenues.
You say the UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago. Are the stamp duty changes taking us back to where we were a few months ago? Indeed, I think there had already been 7 cuts in stamp duty since 2008.
The idea that the Kansas Experiment failed because it increased people’s taxes is a novel one.
Not that novel, its actually explicitly mentioned in your own link.
Direct benefits for the affluent The act received criticism for shifting the tax burden from wealthy Kansans to low- and moderate-income workers.[81][40]
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the bill cut the taxes of "the wealthiest 1% of Kansans by 2.2%," while it projected that the poorest 20% of Kansans would see "their taxes increase by 1.3%".[82]
Bryan Lowry of The Wichita Eagle estimated that almost 70% of Kansas lawmakers, as well as Governor Brownback and his wife, benefited personally from the tax cuts through business or property that they owned, which being non-wage income, was exempt from taxes under the 2012 law.[83]
I 100% wholeheartedly recognise that raising taxes on working income and eliminating taxes on non-earned incomes is a terrible, terrible idea. What tax is it in the UK that is most similar to the Kansas experiment, whereby those working see their taxes go up, while those not working see their taxes go down? Oh yes, its National Insurance, isn't it.
Sunak's plans of slashing Income Tax by 4p while raising National Insurance to pay for it is what was more like the Kansas Experiment, not Truss reversing tax rises on earnt incomes.
Sunak was seeking to balance the budget. Truss, like Kansas, is relying on future growth to pay for hers. That’s where the similarity is.
There are times when it’s appropriate to cut taxes, and times when it’s appropriate to borrow money. What’s particularly dangerous, however, is pretending that you can cut taxes because you’re sure future growth will be along any day now to fill the Treasury’s coffers.
Saying you're balancing the budget and actually doing so are two completely different things. How does cutting Income Tax by 4p while increasing National Insurance, thus completely distorting taxation away from unearned incomes and towards earned ones, do anything whatsoever to balance the budget.
Yes there are times when its appropriate to borrow money. During a supply shock recession is one of them, which is right now.
I agree that saying you’re balancing the budget and actually doing so are two different things. The Truss government isn’t even saying they’re balancing the budget!
Do you think it is sensible to rely on future growth projections?
Let's look at what we know, and what we know is that Sunakism is failing. That isn't conjecture any more, it is fact. Look at the PSBR numbers now, before higher interest rates and higher corporation taxes hit home. The UK under Sunak was manifestly heading for a depression. A depression that would have blown his 'balanced budget' fantasy even more off course than it is now.
Where would he have gone after the financial meltdown he was creating became undeniable? massive public spending cuts would have been his only option.
Then let’s get rid of every MP who supported Sunakism… or at least the Cabinet members who did.
That seems to have been done. 👍
The people in Number's 10 and 11 when Sunak started putting up the tax rises are now backbenchers and the Tories just had a bitter campaign fought on whether to continue with Sunakism or reverse his tax rises and go back to the rates before. As far as I can tell, practically everyone who endorsed Sunakism is now out of the Cabinet and quite right too.
Good riddance.
Was Liz Truss not in the same Cabinet as Sunak? Was Jacob Rees-Mogg not? Suella Braverman? Ben Wallace? Alok Sharma?
Truss was reported at the time to have opposed the decision but had to follow collective responsibility.
The leadership campaign gave the opportunity to choose between the two models, and Truss unabashedly stood for reversing those tax rises. Good for her, and good for everyone who endorsed her, and good riddance to everyone who endorsed Sunak instead.
Had to follow collective responsibility? You mean chose to follow collective responsibility.
I believe every member of the current Cabinet voted for Sunak’s last budget.
Every member of a party, even backbenchers, have to vote to follow their own government's budget, that's not new.
But the leadership campaign gave people a free and unwhipped choice and they made their choices then.
Again you confuse “has” with “chooses”.
Chooses to keep the whip? Yes, they could cross the floor if they wanted to vote against the budget, but that's a bit extreme. The leadership campaign gave people a chance to choose between those two visions.
It did… and Tory MPs made clear their preference when voting for… oh, well for Sunak’s vision actually.
Tory MPs keep getting things wrong. You and MISTY are saying they sometimes get things wrong; I’m saying they nearly always get it wrong. I don’t think we’re too far apart here! My solution is that, at the next available democratic opportunity, we get rid of them.
Tory MPs didn't vote for Sunak's vision, about a third did but they lost the election and aren't in the Cabinet. 👍
If alternative candidates come with a better, lower tax vision then I of course could be tempted to vote for them.
If you want lower taxes you should be cutting Government spending.
Where would you like to begin cutting it - as the big items can't be touched.
There need to be a zero-based spending review, it’s long overdue.
Spending in most government departments has been in real terms decline for some time: the problem is that pensions and healthcare are basically locked in to rise dramatically in the next decade.
And if you suggest potentially handling the pensions and healthcare issue differently, as I did earlier, then people will accuse you of wanting to kill old people.
Fwiw, I completely agree with your proposal to remove the triple lock. The problem is that even then, pensions will rise as a percentage of GDP as earnings and GDP growth are likely to be basically identical, while the number of retirees rises.
We need to take a longer term approach of essentially copying the Australian system of compulsory pension savings, so as to avoid the government being on the hook for so many people's retirement.
But that will require people to put more money into their pensions because we need the current tax revenue to pay for the current pensioners...
They allegedly called the son of Putin's press-secretary Dmitry Peskov, Nikolay, and asked him why he did not respond to the military commissariat summons 😂
Henry Foy @HenryJFoy · 47m "This is probably the most delicate phase of this decades-long game of chicken," said a senior European diplomat. "Putin is actively trying to sow discord."
"But if Putin blinks he is gone and with him the dream of a resurgent imperial Russia."
Breaking: New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed a civil fraud lawsuit against former President Donald Trump and others, according to court records.
It strikes me that the riots in Birmingham and Leicester are an above-politics situation where the new king could immediately get involved to plead for unity and calm, and also set the tone of his reign. Inter-faith understanding has been one of his main obsessions and passions for forty or maybe fifty years.
There would have to be some sort of statement or governmental stance by Truss and/or one of her ministers first, obviously and clearly.
A bigger question is why we have sectarian hostility and violence in mainland Britain in 2022. This is the sort of thing you expect from the nutters in Northern Ireland. We had long moved past this sort of thing but our immigration policy has brought it back. Of course there will be a conspiracy of silence about the origins of this among the media and there will be accountability.
Point of order: plenty of sectarianism on the mainland, though declining over the long term; in that case Royal intervention would be tricky (one side being very much affiliated to the RF, the other the opposite).
I may have underestimated how backwards Western Scotland is on this issue. But again, mainly an imported thing from Ireland, isn't it?
Can we call it that? It's been there since the late C19, so 'imported' is perhaps pushing it. And a lot of it stemmed from nativist hostility, which is by defintion not imported. Though there remain cultural and organizational links with NI.
According to these articles, sectarianism in Scotland is tiny and largely myth.
Whatever you think of the Royal family, you have to applaud the wit of the Celtic fans there. It is a genuine LOL even if it shouldn't be. Scottish sectarianism is mostly football related but does have some independent life still and is most definitely still a thing, although much diminished thankfully. More of a west coast thing too, wasn't much of a thing growing up in Fife in the 1980s/90s but not entirely absent either.
Rangers sectarianism....Ugly nasty intimidation
Celtic sectarianism.....witty harmless bants.
I'm not sure about that but I would certainly put the cited example in the latter category!
Would pretty much agree with your post (the one two posts back) about the state of sectarianism. West Central Belt to be more precise perhaps - you wouldn't get it on Barra I think! Of course some was imported into Fife by the postwar miners' migrations as pits closed and superpits opened, as a Fifer friend told me once.
But there was also a political link - Labour beginning as a pro-Irish, pro-lumpenproletariat*, pro-RC party and the UNionists a nativist reaction in part. Even today you get stuff like ths which is agruably on the insensitive side of things.
*Edit: Because that's whatg the RC immigrants got - the shitty end of the socio-economic stick thanks to discrimination (as well, of course, as their initial poverty).
BREAKING: New York's attorney general is suing former President Donald Trump and his three adult children, alleging business fraud https://trib.al/Da7wWRb
BREAKING: New York's attorney general is suing former President Donald Trump and his three adult children, alleging business fraud https://trib.al/Da7wWRb
#BREAKING: Huge Traffic Jam reported at the Russian-Mongolian border in Buryatia.
So as well as Russians having to buy weaponry from North Korea, Russians are now fleeing to Mongolia. Not really signs of a country in robust good health.
Today, I filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump for engaging in years of financial fraud to enrich himself, his family, and the Trump Organization.
There aren't two sets of laws for people in this nation: former presidents must be held to the same standards as everyday Americans.
Actions have consequences. We're seeking to:
➡️Make Trump pay $250 million.
➡️Ban the Trumps from running NY businesses for good.
➡️Ban Trump and Trump Org from buying commercial real estate in NY for 5 yrs.
➡️We're making a criminal referral to the U.S. Dept of Justice.
With the help of Donald Jr., Eric, Ivanka, and other defendants, Trump variously unlawfully inflated and deflated his net worth by billions to obtain and satisfy loans, get insurance benefits, and pay lower taxes.
In short, he lied to gain massive financial benefits for himself.
We found that Trump, his family, and the Trump Org used fraudulent and misleading asset valuations over 200 times in 10 years on his annual financial statements.
These statements were then used to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and insurance coverage.
Trump's crimes are not victimless.
When the well-connected and powerful break the law to get more money than they are entitled to, it reduces resources available to working people, small businesses, and taxpayers.
Question is, what does Putin want really? Does he want Crimea, Zap, Kherson, Luhansk and Donbass and then stop? Does he want that plus regime change? Does he want the Baltics, Moldova, Armenia?
He's made it fairly clear that it's the latter in the long term. And more. Which has been a totally stupid thing for him to say, as it forces those countries against his expansionist dreams. If he'd just made it out to be about Ukraine, or even those eastern states, then countries like Finland, Poland or Sweden might have been persuaded not to get so involved.
He should have been making nice noises, whilst simultaneously talking about the sad necessity of what he was doing in Ukraine. No-one likes Nazis, right? But instead he threatens everyone like a mad dog.
For anyone who likes to totally scare themselves to death over Nuclear War I recommend War Plan UK by Duncan Campbell, it details the UK and others preparedness (or not!) for nuclear exchange in the Cold War. Operation Square Leg simulated a 205 megaton, 130 warheads all out attack on the UK killing 29 million and injuring 7 million with 19 million short term survivors. The following is the diary entry for day 13 after the attack from the Warwickshire regional command response (Square Leg was the main driver of the scenario depicted in Threads)
Feeding to commence at 1800 hrs. Calorific content of meals will be six hundred + one pint of water (non- workers), 800 + two pints of water (workers). Meals provided for infant feeding totally inadequate, request additional supplies. Known casualty figures 37,000; seriously injured 67,000. Radiation sickness entering the third stage. Disease control absolute priority. All Essential Service Routes cleared. Identify and prepare additional burial resources. Advise public on location and times Feeding Centres will be open, safe routes to them (and) emphasize subsistence level of feeding in operation.
These were to be the first feedings of survivors, a full fortnight in. 800 calories for workers! A bowl of thin soup and a roll basically. Youd get maybe a week of work before malnutrition started to set in.
The 'good' news is we wont get hit by 130 warheads now if it goes hot. Grim grim grim
It's interesting to look at perceptions between say the late 1950s and the mid 1980s of what a nuclear war between major powers would look like, and then compare them with perceptions now. One thing that has gone for a complete burton is the idea of nuclear winter. Nowadays if it's mentioned at all it can even be dismissed as KGB propaganda. Which is ironic, given all the shouting about climate change supposedly caused by types of human action that aren't nuclear warfare.
"Advise public on location and times Feeding Centres will be open, safe routes to them (and) emphasize subsistence level of feeding in operation."
Sounds like Covid marshal heaven!
Square Leg was heavily criticised for being too bleak and 'society ending' (very much as suggested by the end of Threads'), they wanted more of an idea on survival and reconstruction after a more limited exchange, such as today's even all out war would be. Nuclear winter was predicated on soot from urban infernos/firestorms. Modern building design lessens that risk considerably
The idea may have returned. See this article published last month in Nature Food:
"Atmospheric soot loadings from nuclear weapon detonation would cause disruptions to the Earth’s climate, limiting terrestrial and aquatic food production. (...) We estimate more than 2 billion people could die from nuclear war between India and Pakistan, and more than 5 billion could die from a war between the United States and Russia (...)"
They look at a range of different soot mass scenarios.
First time I've seen teragram used instead of megatonne. I guess they want to avoid confusion with explosive yield.
"Teragram" might be a good bet for Word Of The Year 2023.
Yes, let’s all tremble before Russia and its steampunk military and nuclear weapons held together with chewing gum and wishful thinking. Russia can’t even manufacture its own tractors any more. It just buys them from more advanced economies and repaints them. It’s having to buy ammunition from North Korea. That is, it is now less technologically advanced than North Korea. The idea that it can manufacture an apocalypse is looking increasingly dubious.
maybe but it would only need 10% of its nuclear weapons to work...
10% detonating on the launchpad would do just fine.
Today, I filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump for engaging in years of financial fraud to enrich himself, his family, and the Trump Organization.
There aren't two sets of laws for people in this nation: former presidents must be held to the same standards as everyday Americans.
Actions have consequences. We're seeking to:
➡️Make Trump pay $250 million.
➡️Ban the Trumps from running NY businesses for good.
➡️Ban Trump and Trump Org from buying commercial real estate in NY for 5 yrs.
➡️We're making a criminal referral to the U.S. Dept of Justice.
With the help of Donald Jr., Eric, Ivanka, and other defendants, Trump variously unlawfully inflated and deflated his net worth by billions to obtain and satisfy loans, get insurance benefits, and pay lower taxes.
In short, he lied to gain massive financial benefits for himself.
Question is, what does Putin want really? Does he want Crimea, Zap, Kherson, Luhansk and Donbass and then stop? Does he want that plus regime change? Does he want the Baltics, Moldova, Armenia?
He wants Zelensky to have fled in February, and the people around him want him to have invaded in 2014 when Ukraine wouldn't have been able to defend itself. Now it's all gone wrong and he's fighting for the survival of his regime.
@Telegraph 5m "The next James Bond films will have bigger roles for women and a more sensitive 007, according to the producers, who said “Bond is evolving just as men are evolving”
This whole thread is desolating: when American capitalist medicine meets a crazy new ideology
American clinics are pushing radical trans surgery and puberty blockers on kids "because they make so much m money for us". Here they are ADMITTING it
"Vanderbilt opened its trans clinic in 2018. During a lecture the same year, Dr. Shayne Taylor explained how she convinced Nashville to get into the gender transition game. She emphasized that it's a "big money maker," especially because the surgeries require a lot of "follow ups""
"Just a few vaginoplasties can finance the whole clinic"
They had better have some bloody good insurance in place for the inevitable lawsuits, which have already started.
There’s an ambulance chasing law firm running around the UK trying to drum up business. Have they actually managed to find more than a single digit numbers of clients?
I was referring to law suits in the US.
As far as the U.K. is concerned, I don't know the answer to your question. The name of the law firm was unknown to me and is not one I've heard of in relation to medical negligence claims.
Rather than suing after the event (when damage, possibly or reversible damage, is done), it would be more sensible to get a properly evidenced basis for the right sort of treatment for those with properly diagnosed gender dysphoria, especially in the case of children. Hopefully, the final Cass Report will help with that and those with a financial or other interest in pushing drugs or surgery will not be involved in making recommendations. Medical treatment should only be given for sound medical reasons and only if it is in the best medical interests of the patient.
I am curious as to why NICE has not been involved in relation to the Tavistock issue. Perhaps it was.
Isn't it more a CQC matter than a NICE matter? NICE advise on specific treatments, generally new ones, with a focus on more common conditions. CQC oversees care more generally. The Cass Report suggests the problems at the Tavistock are more general rather than in terms of the efficacy of specific treatments. Also, CQC regulates while NICE advises.
Whoever is responsible I hope they are scrutinising this very closely:
The Standards of Care are not official standards, but are influential around the world. WPATH calls them “internationally accepted guidelines”. The NHS refers to the WPATH Standards of Care in a variety of medical documents (including the previous service specification for the Tavistock Gender and Identity Development Service clinic). The Scottish government also relies on them in its decision-making. The Standards of Care featured heavily in the significant case of Bell v Tavistock. These guidelines have been used by numerous private health clinics throughout the UK, to justify irreversible treatment on children and young people…..
…..The guidelines have removed any minimum age limit for a child to be given puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or sex-reassignment surgery (so long as that child has reached ‘Tanner Stage 2’ of puberty, which can be as young as nine years old)….
…Abandonment of mental-health safeguarding – The guidelines explicitly state that therapy or counselling should “never be mandatory” before prescribing irreversible medication or surgery, including for children. Therapeutic professionals are told that they must not impose their own narratives or preconceptions, yet are also told that they must be “gender affirming”. These principles are fundamentally incompatible.
The more important point to note is that many of the people behind W-PATH are not doctors at all and some of those who are have very clear conflicts of interest. More worryingly it has worked closely with some very odd individuals, who really should be nowhere near medical care of any kind - see for instance the person who was apparently involved in writing the chapter on eunuchs.
The wider point is perhaps this: even the medical establishment is not immune from fads or for allowing ideologies to influence treatment. See the sterilisation of "simple-minded" women during the 20th century or the treatment of homosexuality, considered a mental disorder at one time. So it really matters to get care which is based on sound and properly tested evidence not as a result of wish fulfilment or ideology of self-interest. The evidence in the Keira Bell case is really interesting on this aspect, as is the Court's reaction, even if the decision - on the issue of Gillick competence - was the right one.
W-PATH is an international, interdisciplinary body. Most of them are doctors. This is the current executive committee: https://www.wpath.org/about/EC-BOD You will see nearly all of them are MDs or MBBSs (i.e., doctors). The four people there who aren't are a JD, a PsyD and a PhD, plus a medical student representative. These would appear to be relevant qualifications.
You're right about fads, of course. Doctors can be wrong about things. Doctors often are wrong about things.
It rather depends on what their speciality is and whether they have a financial or other interest in the recommendations they are making. Conflicts of interest make for bad decisions, whether by doctors or anyone else.
I would be surprised if their specialties was not in transgendered medicine.
I couldn't see any conflict of interest statement on their website. Conflicts of interest can be problematic, but are also often hard to avoid. At a general level, if you are a doctor who works in specialty X, then you're going to have an interest in people providing good funding for specialty X! Transparency is to be recommended.
More generally, I concur with your earlier point about fads. I've not looked into this in depth, but as far as I can tell, W-PATH is a bunch of people who are interested in the best outcome for patients. However, it is possible to have good intentions, but come to the wrong conclusions.
I would be interested to know more about how W-PATH came about and who is involved in writing their guidelines. I have heard different accounts. The whole issue around medical treatment for those with dysphoria seems so bound up with debates about gender ideology that it seems hard to disentangle medicine from ideology. That worries me. It does not seem to me to be conducive to good decision-making. And scandals like the sterilisation of women etc should really make us think harder about such issues.
I agree that the debates about medicine are entangled with debates about ideology, and that is concerning. However, I'm not certain these things can ever be disentangled. So, what do you do? I don't see a non-ideological path.
Once upon a time, it was accepted that homosexuality was a perversion. Discussion in medicine was about how best to cure people. Nowadays, fortunately, ideology has changed in most places and we see nothing wrong in homosexuality. Discussion in medicine has changed: there is no talk of cure, and instead talk of providing sensitive care and understanding specific medicine issues that may be commoner among MSM and WSW. The medicine and the ideology are intertwined, and thankfully society worked out the ideology. (Medicine/science can usefully inform the ideology, but there are still ideological choices to be made.)
Henry Foy @HenryJFoy · 47m "This is probably the most delicate phase of this decades-long game of chicken," said a senior European diplomat. "Putin is actively trying to sow discord."
"But if Putin blinks he is gone and with him the dream of a resurgent imperial Russia."
Ok - they are obviously shits but I am at a loss to know what crime they committed? Is it an offence to send a grossly offensive message to a friend? Is that different to a phone call saying the same things?
News Flash - my morning paper (Seattle Times) tells me that an old housemate of mine, Roger Nyus, has been nominated by President Biden to serve as US Ambassador to several former British possessions in the Caribbean, namely Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
ST - Biden nominates Seattle business leader Roger Nyhus as ambassador
". . . . [Nyus is] the founder and former CEO of Nyhus Communications, a Seattle-based communications, advocacy and marketing company he sold to a Spokane firm earlier this year. He also worked as former Gov. Gary Locke’s communications director and as a senior advocacy officer for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Nyhus has also been involved in international trade missions to China, Ireland, Cuba and the United Arab Emirates over a 30-year career, according to White House officials.
He’s an enrolled member of the Chinook Indian Nation and has advocated for causes that include advancements in LGBTQ+ and other civil rights, according to a biography he provided.
The son of a commercial fisherman and municipal court clerk, Nyhus grew up in Westport, Grays Harbor County, and ran a summer fishing derby to pay for college, the biography says."
SSI - Currently of the seven, five are among KCII's realms, where (if confirmed by US Senate) the new Ambassador will be accredited to His Majesty; the other two - Barbados and Dominica - are republics, so he will be accredited to their respective Presidents.
When I knew him, Roger Nyus was an eager young stringer for Associate Press covering a session of the WA Legislature. Since then he's emerged as a Seattle business leader, political player AND fundraiser - the latter being a VERY traditional pathway to an ambassadorship.
The last time a POTUS picked a Seattle businessperson & campaign fundraiser as an ambassador - to Luxembourg - it did NOT turn out well, for Obama and even less for the Ambassador. As per this recent article:
As a matter of interest, does anyone know the status of our Astutes? How many are at sea? I bet we and the Yanks are keeping as close an eye as possible on Russia's ballistic missile subs.
Presumably they'll be building a wall next to stop people getting out .......
They must have some old plans they could dust down and use.
Seems to me it’s all about messaging to Ukraine and it’s supporters though - the one thing we are not supplying Ukraine enough of Russia signalling it can take this deep with 🥺
My understanding of end of First World War was the amount of running out of fighters wore heavily on governments of the protagonists - it wasn’t a clear military win but stalemate and amount of your own casualties draining the pool to call on leading to truce and talks.
particularly if Kremlin now choose more limited seize and hold options, with a much smaller front to defend, switching from attack to defend, then today for me is all about Russia signalling it’s up for a very long one ☹️
Nope - go and read some history. Germany capitulated when the army was just about still intact. Another few months and the allies would have been in Berlin, just as in 1945 (except all coming from the west). For sure the French and British (Empire) had lost a lot of men, and strategy and tactics had evolved to use arms not men, but with the US entry into the war there was not going to be a shortage of manpower. In hindsight it was Germany agreeing to the Armistice that ultimately allowed the myth of the Stab in the Back to take hold - in 1918 German troops still fought outside the Reich, not so much in May 1945.
As Syrians rocked up on the beaches of Greece, the locals shouted get back and fight for your country you cowardly twits. How are the Ukrainians making new lives in places like UK thought of by those still fighting back home? What seems to me is not everyone is made the same, not everyone is made for the fight are they?
I’m up for a fight for England if invaded, not run away, though I am not at all sure how I would do my hair for fighting, it would be mostly in a hat would it? But what would we think of those who fled England for new lives in Canada and Australia the more it went on?
The vast majority of Ukranian refugees in Europe are women and children. Men of fighting age have been banned from leaving Ukraine since 24th February.
The lack of an electricity trading framework meant that upon Britain’s exit from the EU single energy market on January 1, 2021, the U.K. moved to a more inefficient system for buying and selling electricity through subsea inter-connectors linking Britain with France, the Netherlands and Belgium. This is adding hundreds of millions of pounds per year to the energy bills of British households, according to the U.K. energy industry.
And two years after Brexit, Britain has not yet managed to be readmitted to the North Sea Energy Cooperation (NSEC) platform, an intergovernmental organization to develop offshore wind-farms in the North Sea region and accelerate the transition to renewables. The Commission kicked Britain out of the group in 2020 despite it not being an EU agency, ignoring calls by several member countries and the EU’s Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans for the U.K. to remain.
Presumably they'll be building a wall next to stop people getting out .......
They must have some old plans they could dust down and use.
Seems to me it’s all about messaging to Ukraine and it’s supporters though - the one thing we are not supplying Ukraine enough of Russia signalling it can take this deep with 🥺
My understanding of end of First World War was the amount of running out of fighters wore heavily on governments of the protagonists - it wasn’t a clear military win but stalemate and amount of your own casualties draining the pool to call on leading to truce and talks.
particularly if Kremlin now choose more limited seize and hold options, with a much smaller front to defend, switching from attack to defend, then today for me is all about Russia signalling it’s up for a very long one ☹️
Nope - go and read some history. Germany capitulated when the army was just about still intact. Another few months and the allies would have been in Berlin, just as in 1945 (except all coming from the west). For sure the French and British (Empire) had lost a lot of men, and strategy and tactics had evolved to use arms not men, but with the US entry into the war there was not going to be a shortage of manpower. In hindsight it was Germany agreeing to the Armistice that ultimately allowed the myth of the Stab in the Back to take hold - in 1918 German troops still fought outside the Reich, not so much in May 1945.
As Syrians rocked up on the beaches of Greece, the locals shouted get back and fight for your country you cowardly twits. How are the Ukrainians making new lives in places like UK thought of by those still fighting back home? What seems to me is not everyone is made the same, not everyone is made for the fight are they?
I’m up for a fight for England if invaded, not run away, though I am not at all sure how I would do my hair for fighting, it would be mostly in a hat would it? But what would we think of those who fled England for new lives in Canada and Australia the more it went on?
The vast majority of Ukranian refugees in Europe are women and children. Men of fighting age have been banned from leaving Ukraine since 24th February.
That's not quite true: anecdotally I know of a man who left the country with his family and returned after a week after they were settled, although he did get permission to do so. I've heard of similar on t'Internet, so it seems the Ukies might have been quite flexible about it in the early days.
The thing is, the Ukrainians seem rather highly motivated in this war. Unlike the Russians.
It’s odd with Putin - before the Ukraine invasion, I’d have believed in a lot of his threats. However since then his army looks utterly crap and his country hopelessly weak.
That doesn’t mean we can ignore his threats cos of those nukes, but I do wonder if the west will feel more emboldened with support for Ukraine
He's already proven to be a dangerous and irrational figure (the shifts in his pretexts is why its irrational), so short of him losing his mind entirely his rhetoric will be less rattling, since he's already acted on it.
For anyone who likes to totally scare themselves to death over Nuclear War I recommend War Plan UK by Duncan Campbell, it details the UK and others preparedness (or not!) for nuclear exchange in the Cold War. Operation Square Leg simulated a 205 megaton, 130 warheads all out attack on the UK killing 29 million and injuring 7 million with 19 million short term survivors. The following is the diary entry for day 13 after the attack from the Warwickshire regional command response (Square Leg was the main driver of the scenario depicted in Threads)
Feeding to commence at 1800 hrs. Calorific content of meals will be six hundred + one pint of water (non- workers), 800 + two pints of water (workers). Meals provided for infant feeding totally inadequate, request additional supplies. Known casualty figures 37,000; seriously injured 67,000. Radiation sickness entering the third stage. Disease control absolute priority. All Essential Service Routes cleared. Identify and prepare additional burial resources. Advise public on location and times Feeding Centres will be open, safe routes to them (and) emphasize subsistence level of feeding in operation.
These were to be the first feedings of survivors, a full fortnight in. 800 calories for workers! A bowl of thin soup and a roll basically. Youd get maybe a week of work before malnutrition started to set in.
The 'good' news is we wont get hit by 130 warheads now if it goes hot. Grim grim grim
You should be quite skeptical about any simulated nuclear war. A lot of old models only calculated immediate deaths from radiation and blast, plus later deaths due to fallout, and all but dismissed deaths due to fire. Mainly because estimating blast and radiation exposure is relatively easy, but modelling fire spread is not. Later simulations that included fire often had much higher death tolls, in some cases exceeding the immediate blast and radiation deaths. i.e. You might survive the blast and then die as your entire city burns to the ground.
For anyone who likes to totally scare themselves to death over Nuclear War I recommend War Plan UK by Duncan Campbell, it details the UK and others preparedness (or not!) for nuclear exchange in the Cold War. Operation Square Leg simulated a 205 megaton, 130 warheads all out attack on the UK killing 29 million and injuring 7 million with 19 million short term survivors. The following is the diary entry for day 13 after the attack from the Warwickshire regional command response (Square Leg was the main driver of the scenario depicted in Threads)
Feeding to commence at 1800 hrs. Calorific content of meals will be six hundred + one pint of water (non- workers), 800 + two pints of water (workers). Meals provided for infant feeding totally inadequate, request additional supplies. Known casualty figures 37,000; seriously injured 67,000. Radiation sickness entering the third stage. Disease control absolute priority. All Essential Service Routes cleared. Identify and prepare additional burial resources. Advise public on location and times Feeding Centres will be open, safe routes to them (and) emphasize subsistence level of feeding in operation.
These were to be the first feedings of survivors, a full fortnight in. 800 calories for workers! A bowl of thin soup and a roll basically. Youd get maybe a week of work before malnutrition started to set in.
The 'good' news is we wont get hit by 130 warheads now if it goes hot. Grim grim grim
You should be quite skeptical about any simulated nuclear war. A lot of old models only calculated immediate deaths from radiation and blast, plus later deaths due to fallout, and all but dismissed deaths due to fire. Mainly because estimating blast and radiation exposure is relatively easy, but modelling fire spread is not. Later simulations that included fire often had much higher death tolls, in some cases exceeding the immediate blast and radiation deaths. i.e. You might survive the blast and then die as your entire city burns to the ground.
Trump sounds to be in real trouble. Valuing property 2 to 3 times their worth.
It’s always worth remembering in cases like this, that the “State Attorney General” is a directly elected position in the US. She is a politician as well as a prosecutor.
Trump sounds to be in real trouble. Valuing property 2 to 3 times their worth.
It’s always worth remembering in cases like this, that the “State Attorney General” is a directly elected position in the US. She is a politician as well as a prosecutor.
She ran on a 'get Trump' ticket That of course does not inform as to the outcome though
As a matter of interest, does anyone know the status of our Astutes?
LOL
I wasn't asking "Where are they in the ocean?", but which ones do we know are under maintenance. Basically, I wonder if we might be trying to keep an extra one at sea.
@Telegraph 5m "The next James Bond films will have bigger roles for women and a more sensitive 007, according to the producers, who said “Bond is evolving just as men are evolving”
Trump sounds to be in real trouble. Valuing property 2 to 3 times their worth.
It’s always worth remembering in cases like this, that the “State Attorney General” is a directly elected position in the US. She is a politician as well as a prosecutor.
She ran on a 'get Trump' ticket That of course does not inform as to the outcome though
Indeed, and something which Trump, irrespective of the merits (or otherwise) of the case, will seek to run all the way up to the Supreme Court as being a politically-motivated prosecution. Or he’ll formally declare he’s running in 2024, and see it adjourned until after the election.
@Telegraph 5m "The next James Bond films will have bigger roles for women and a more sensitive 007, according to the producers, who said “Bond is evolving just as men are evolving”
Trump sounds to be in real trouble. Valuing property 2 to 3 times their worth.
It’s always worth remembering in cases like this, that the “State Attorney General” is a directly elected position in the US. She is a politician as well as a prosecutor.
She ran on a 'get Trump' ticket That of course does not inform as to the outcome though
Indeed, and something which Trump, irrespective of the merits (or otherwise) of the case, will seek to run all the way up to the Supreme Court as being a politically-motivated prosecution. Or he’ll formally declare he’s running in 2024, and see it adjourned until after the election.
Quite. This will simply deepen the divide in the US
@Telegraph 5m "The next James Bond films will have bigger roles for women and a more sensitive 007, according to the producers, who said “Bond is evolving just as men are evolving”
I hate to sound like Leon, but this strikes me as a very stupid move. Bond fans won't buy any 'evolved' agenda and it's unlikely to attract new ones by pretending to be more in tune with the modern world.
If you feel it's inappropriate for the modern world, don't make any more films.
@Telegraph 5m "The next James Bond films will have bigger roles for women and a more sensitive 007, according to the producers, who said “Bond is evolving just as men are evolving”
@Telegraph 5m "The next James Bond films will have bigger roles for women and a more sensitive 007, according to the producers, who said “Bond is evolving just as men are evolving”
I hate to sound like Leon, but this strikes me as a very stupid move. Bond fans won't buy any 'evolved' agenda and it's unlikely to attract new ones by pretending to be more in tune with the modern world.
If you feel it's inappropriate for the modern world, don't make any more films.
Please, the last Bond film featured a black woman as 007, the world has moved on.
@Telegraph 5m "The next James Bond films will have bigger roles for women and a more sensitive 007, according to the producers, who said “Bond is evolving just as men are evolving”
I hate to sound like Leon, but this strikes me as a very stupid move. Bond fans won't buy any 'evolved' agenda and it's unlikely to attract new ones by pretending to be more in tune with the modern world.
If you feel it's inappropriate for the modern world, don't make any more films.
Please, the last Bond film featured a black woman as 007, the world has moved on.
It was also not very good.
Perhaps it's time to accept the world really has moved on?
So looks like we will be having a mini India Pakistan conflict in our biggest Midlands cities and maybe even beyond over the next few days
Congratulations to everyone on the British Left from 1960-2020. Good work
Actually it was under the Conservative government between 1951 and 1964 under which mass immigration from the sub-continent really got under way.
The Commonwealth Immigrants Acts 1962 and 1968 though brought in tighter controls, as did the Immigration Act 1971 and the British Nationality Act 1981
The lack of an electricity trading framework meant that upon Britain’s exit from the EU single energy market on January 1, 2021, the U.K. moved to a more inefficient system for buying and selling electricity through subsea inter-connectors linking Britain with France, the Netherlands and Belgium. This is adding hundreds of millions of pounds per year to the energy bills of British households, according to the U.K. energy industry.
And two years after Brexit, Britain has not yet managed to be readmitted to the North Sea Energy Cooperation (NSEC) platform, an intergovernmental organization to develop offshore wind-farms in the North Sea region and accelerate the transition to renewables. The Commission kicked Britain out of the group in 2020 despite it not being an EU agency, ignoring calls by several member countries and the EU’s Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans for the U.K. to remain.
Particularly daft given we have the majority of offshore wind generation in the North Sea at the moment. We generate just under 50% of the total European offshore wind (which includes Mediterranean generation). Cutting us out of the system is just plain dumb.
@Telegraph 5m "The next James Bond films will have bigger roles for women and a more sensitive 007, according to the producers, who said “Bond is evolving just as men are evolving”
I hate to sound like Leon, but this strikes me as a very stupid move. Bond fans won't buy any 'evolved' agenda and it's unlikely to attract new ones by pretending to be more in tune with the modern world.
If you feel it's inappropriate for the modern world, don't make any more films.
Please, the last Bond film featured a black woman as 007, the world has moved on.
It was also not very good.
Perhaps it's time to accept the world really has moved on?
For anyone who likes to totally scare themselves to death over Nuclear War I recommend War Plan UK by Duncan Campbell, it details the UK and others preparedness (or not!) for nuclear exchange in the Cold War. Operation Square Leg simulated a 205 megaton, 130 warheads all out attack on the UK killing 29 million and injuring 7 million with 19 million short term survivors. The following is the diary entry for day 13 after the attack from the Warwickshire regional command response (Square Leg was the main driver of the scenario depicted in Threads)
Feeding to commence at 1800 hrs. Calorific content of meals will be six hundred + one pint of water (non- workers), 800 + two pints of water (workers). Meals provided for infant feeding totally inadequate, request additional supplies. Known casualty figures 37,000; seriously injured 67,000. Radiation sickness entering the third stage. Disease control absolute priority. All Essential Service Routes cleared. Identify and prepare additional burial resources. Advise public on location and times Feeding Centres will be open, safe routes to them (and) emphasize subsistence level of feeding in operation.
These were to be the first feedings of survivors, a full fortnight in. 800 calories for workers! A bowl of thin soup and a roll basically. Youd get maybe a week of work before malnutrition started to set in.
The 'good' news is we wont get hit by 130 warheads now if it goes hot. Grim grim grim
But at least we'd have Leon reassuring us that our thin soup was the equal of anything France or Italy could produce.
Leons tour of subsistence feeding centres! A must read for all irradiated PBers
Leon lives in inner London so like me he would be one of the lucky millions to die immediately. And I mean lucky.
Likeliest London strikes would be Whitehall, Northolt, away from those you'd probably be 'ok'. An all out assault on the UK in 2022 would be somewhere between 10 to 20 warheads if they all got through/worked. A large majority uk wide would survive to suffer the aftermath
A nuclear attack on Whitehall would certainly be one way of breaking with Treasury orthodoxy.
Typical. It’s always London that gets selected first isn’t it?
@Telegraph 5m "The next James Bond films will have bigger roles for women and a more sensitive 007, according to the producers, who said “Bond is evolving just as men are evolving”
... and audiences down 80% I imagine. If people wanted sensitive, woke characters, they'd probably watch romcoms. Bond is supposed to be a licensed thug and killer.
@Telegraph 5m "The next James Bond films will have bigger roles for women and a more sensitive 007, according to the producers, who said “Bond is evolving just as men are evolving”
I hate to sound like Leon, but this strikes me as a very stupid move. Bond fans won't buy any 'evolved' agenda and it's unlikely to attract new ones by pretending to be more in tune with the modern world.
If you feel it's inappropriate for the modern world, don't make any more films.
Please, the last Bond film featured a black woman as 007, the world has moved on.
It was also not very good.
Perhaps it's time to accept the world really has moved on?
Moved on to a place where fiction is almost uniformly shit.
@Telegraph 5m "The next James Bond films will have bigger roles for women and a more sensitive 007, according to the producers, who said “Bond is evolving just as men are evolving”
I hate to sound like Leon, but this strikes me as a very stupid move. Bond fans won't buy any 'evolved' agenda and it's unlikely to attract new ones by pretending to be more in tune with the modern world.
If you feel it's inappropriate for the modern world, don't make any more films.
Please, the last Bond film featured a black woman as 007, the world has moved on.
It was also not very good.
Perhaps it's time to accept the world really has moved on?
I was no SPECTRE but I still enjoyed it.
Your taste in films is well known and therefore my point stands.
That it wasn't as good as spectre ghost without saying.
Question is, what does Putin want really? Does he want Crimea, Zap, Kherson, Luhansk and Donbass and then stop? Does he want that plus regime change? Does he want the Baltics, Moldova, Armenia?
He just wants to be treated with the respect that's due to him.
Question is, what does Putin want really? Does he want Crimea, Zap, Kherson, Luhansk and Donbass and then stop? Does he want that plus regime change? Does he want the Baltics, Moldova, Armenia?
I think he wants all those things. I think he would like the entire former Soviet Union to be integrated into Russia, and maybe a few extra bits too.
Men who eat meat should be banned from having sex, the animal rights group Peta has demanded, claiming that devouring sausages and schnitzel is a symptom of “toxic masculinity” which is killing the planet.
Peta’s German operation cited research from the scientific journal PLOS One which showed that men caused 41 per cent more greenhouse gas emissions than women largely because they consumed more meat.
Peta demanded a “sex ban for all meat-eating men” and called on women to “go on sex strike to save the world”.
Question is, what does Putin want really? Does he want Crimea, Zap, Kherson, Luhansk and Donbass and then stop? Does he want that plus regime change? Does he want the Baltics, Moldova, Armenia?
He wants everything that was the USSR, as far as I can tell.
Breaking: New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed a civil fraud lawsuit against former President Donald Trump and others, according to court records.
#BREAKING: Huge Traffic Jam reported at the Russian-Mongolian border in Buryatia.
So as well as Russians having to buy weaponry from North Korea, Russians are now fleeing to Mongolia. Not really signs of a country in robust good health.
You would have thought any youngish man would have googled "How to leave Russia" months ago rather, as seems the case, today.
@Telegraph 5m "The next James Bond films will have bigger roles for women and a more sensitive 007, according to the producers, who said “Bond is evolving just as men are evolving”
I hate to sound like Leon, but this strikes me as a very stupid move. Bond fans won't buy any 'evolved' agenda and it's unlikely to attract new ones by pretending to be more in tune with the modern world.
If you feel it's inappropriate for the modern world, don't make any more films.
Please, the last Bond film featured a black woman as 007, the world has moved on.
It was also not very good.
Perhaps it's time to accept the world really has moved on?
The fact that it wasn't very good had nothing to do with the black woman as 007. Indeed her role seemed token (rather insulting really) compared to, say, Michelle Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies.
The reason it wasn't very good was an attempt to shovel all kinds of odds and ends into the plot. It seemed like a bad video game. Especially the last act.
Comments
And I always carry a purse
I've got eyes like a bat and my feet are flat
My asthma's getting worse"
"Yes, think of my career, my sweetheart dear
And my poor old invalid aunt
Besides, I ain't no fool, I'm a-goin' to school
And I'm working in a defense plant"
"I've got a dislocated disc and a wracked up back
I'm allergic to flowers and bugs
And when the bombshell hits, I get epileptic fits
And I'm addicted to a thousand drugs"
"I got the weakness woes, I can't touch my toes
I can hardly reach my knees
And if the enemy came close to me
I'd probably start to sneeze"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFFOUkipI4U
MY theory on what would have happened if the Germans invaded the UK is that a third would have fought to the death, a third would have queued round the block to get an armband and clipboard to tell other people what to do* and a third would not have noticed, unless the football was interrupted.
*PJ O'Rourke observed (with respect to the Paraguay) that "The beauty of a well designed Fascism is that it gives every piss-ant an anthill to piss from"
@HenryJFoy
·
47m
"This is probably the most delicate phase of this decades-long game of chicken," said a senior European diplomat. "Putin is actively trying to sow discord."
"But if Putin blinks he is gone and with him the dream of a resurgent imperial Russia."
https://twitter.com/HenryJFoy/status/1572596705899745281
I couldn't see any conflict of interest statement on their website. Conflicts of interest can be problematic, but are also often hard to avoid. At a general level, if you are a doctor who works in specialty X, then you're going to have an interest in people providing good funding for specialty X! Transparency is to be recommended.
More generally, I concur with your earlier point about fads. I've not looked into this in depth, but as far as I can tell, W-PATH is a bunch of people who are interested in the best outcome for patients. However, it is possible to have good intentions, but come to the wrong conclusions.
I grew up with Tankies telling people that the Russians won WWII because they lost so many more men than the Americans. Even as a child that seemed bizarre - I agree with General Patton on that one.
We need to take a longer term approach of essentially copying the Australian system of compulsory pension savings, so as to avoid the government being on the hook for so many people's retirement.
Edit - and im not defending that approach
Sentencing on 2 Nov.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-62981675
It could be any of
- "We will fight them on the steppes. We will fight etc...."
- We must do something. This is something. Therefore we will do this.
- "The old man is Loco. Fuck, let him play with a mobilisation. The boys won't get near a battlefield, before we find him a window."
'The key point in Ankh-Morpork military doctrine was that there should be massive casualties. If they were on the other side, this was regarded as a valuable bonus.'
Russia can’t even manufacture its own tractors any more. It just buys them from more advanced economies and repaints them.
It’s having to buy ammunition from North Korea. That is, it is now less technologically advanced than North Korea.
The idea that it can manufacture an apocalypse is looking increasingly dubious.
If ultimately we do not like the treaty we have signed then we should withdraw from the whole treaty under the formal mechanism, not unilaterally ignore the bits we don't like and pretend nothing has changed.
Can't prove it's him but the tone of voice is really similar. https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1572608312298053632/video/1
https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1572608786061213702
But there was also a political link - Labour beginning as a pro-Irish, pro-lumpenproletariat*, pro-RC party and the UNionists a nativist reaction in part. Even today you get stuff like ths which is agruably on the insensitive side of things.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/14902714.tory-hopeful-fraser-slammed-for-queens-xi-comment-after-old-firm-game/
*Edit: Because that's whatg the RC immigrants got - the shitty end of the socio-economic stick thanks to discrimination (as well, of course, as their initial poverty).
Not really signs of a country in robust good health.
There aren't two sets of laws for people in this nation: former presidents must be held to the same standards as everyday Americans.
Actions have consequences. We're seeking to:
➡️Make Trump pay $250 million.
➡️Ban the Trumps from running NY businesses for good.
➡️Ban Trump and Trump Org from buying commercial real estate in NY for 5 yrs.
➡️We're making a criminal referral to the U.S. Dept of Justice.
With the help of Donald Jr., Eric, Ivanka, and other defendants, Trump variously unlawfully inflated and deflated his net worth by billions to obtain and satisfy loans, get insurance benefits, and pay lower taxes.
In short, he lied to gain massive financial benefits for himself.
We found that Trump, his family, and the Trump Org used fraudulent and misleading asset valuations over 200 times in 10 years on his annual financial statements.
These statements were then used to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and insurance coverage.
Trump's crimes are not victimless.
When the well-connected and powerful break the law to get more money than they are entitled to, it reduces resources available to working people, small businesses, and taxpayers.
https://twitter.com/NewYorkStateAG/status/1572611517425618945
He should have been making nice noises, whilst simultaneously talking about the sad necessity of what he was doing in Ukraine. No-one likes Nazis, right? But instead he threatens everyone like a mad dog.
There aren't two sets of laws for people in this nation: former presidents must be held to the same standards as everyday Americans.
Actions have consequences. We're seeking to:
➡️Make Trump pay $250 million.
➡️Ban the Trumps from running NY businesses for good.
➡️Ban Trump and Trump Org from buying commercial real estate in NY for 5 yrs.
➡️We're making a criminal referral to the U.S. Dept of Justice.
With the help of Donald Jr., Eric, Ivanka, and other defendants, Trump variously unlawfully inflated and deflated his net worth by billions to obtain and satisfy loans, get insurance benefits, and pay lower taxes.
In short, he lied to gain massive financial benefits for himself.
https://twitter.com/NewYorkStateAG/status/1572611509351772165
5m
"The next James Bond films will have bigger roles for women and a more sensitive 007, according to the producers, who said “Bond is evolving just as men are evolving”
https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1572611839485251587?s=20&t=DBkpcYPhQqr3TJDm9GeP9Q
Video shows up to 200 masked and hooded men gathered outside a Hindu temple near Birmingham, shouting 'Allahu akbar'" (£)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/09/21/leicester-muslim-hindu-clashes-spread-smethwick/
Once upon a time, it was accepted that homosexuality was a perversion. Discussion in medicine was about how best to cure people. Nowadays, fortunately, ideology has changed in most places and we see nothing wrong in homosexuality. Discussion in medicine has changed: there is no talk of cure, and instead talk of providing sensitive care and understanding specific medicine issues that may be commoner among MSM and WSW. The medicine and the ideology are intertwined, and thankfully society worked out the ideology. (Medicine/science can usefully inform the ideology, but there are still ideological choices to be made.)
ST - Biden nominates Seattle business leader Roger Nyhus as ambassador
". . . . [Nyus is] the founder and former CEO of Nyhus Communications, a Seattle-based communications, advocacy and marketing company he sold to a Spokane firm earlier this year. He also worked as former Gov. Gary Locke’s communications director and as a senior advocacy officer for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Nyhus has also been involved in international trade missions to China, Ireland, Cuba and the United Arab Emirates over a 30-year career, according to White House officials.
He’s an enrolled member of the Chinook Indian Nation and has advocated for causes that include advancements in LGBTQ+ and other civil rights, according to a biography he provided.
The son of a commercial fisherman and municipal court clerk, Nyhus grew up in Westport, Grays Harbor County, and ran a summer fishing derby to pay for college, the biography says."
SSI - Currently of the seven, five are among KCII's realms, where (if confirmed by US Senate) the new Ambassador will be accredited to His Majesty; the other two - Barbados and Dominica - are republics, so he will be accredited to their respective Presidents.
When I knew him, Roger Nyus was an eager young stringer for Associate Press covering a session of the WA Legislature. Since then he's emerged as a Seattle business leader, political player AND fundraiser - the latter being a VERY traditional pathway to an ambassadorship.
The last time a POTUS picked a Seattle businessperson & campaign fundraiser as an ambassador - to Luxembourg - it did NOT turn out well, for Obama and even less for the Ambassador. As per this recent article:
https://washdiplomat.com/ambassador-oversight-act-aims-for-more-qualified-us-diplomats-abroad/
And two years after Brexit, Britain has not yet managed to be readmitted to the North Sea Energy Cooperation (NSEC) platform, an intergovernmental organization to develop offshore wind-farms in the North Sea region and accelerate the transition to renewables. The Commission kicked Britain out of the group in 2020 despite it not being an EU agency, ignoring calls by several member countries and the EU’s Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans for the U.K. to remain.
https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-accuses-eu-stalling-energy-cooperation-amid-crisis/
The thing is, the Ukrainians seem rather highly motivated in this war. Unlike the Russians.
That of course does not inform as to the outcome though
If you feel it's inappropriate for the modern world, don't make any more films.
Fake social media news has amplified it, it is mostly young people involved whilst the the elder generation are despairing.
Now is it is all about "My mate saw a Tik Tok that Woke Aliens are stealing our women. Quick, burn all the Woke Aliens".
There will, of course, be Community Leaders rabble rousing to enhance their positions.
Film at 11.
Perhaps it's time to accept the world really has moved on?
Particularly daft given we have the majority of offshore wind generation in the North Sea at the moment. We generate just under 50% of the total European offshore wind (which includes Mediterranean generation). Cutting us out of the system is just plain dumb.
That it wasn't as good as spectre ghost without saying.
Peta’s German operation cited research from the scientific journal PLOS One which showed that men caused 41 per cent more greenhouse gas emissions than women largely because they consumed more meat.
Peta demanded a “sex ban for all meat-eating men” and called on women to “go on sex strike to save the world”.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ban-meat-eating-men-from-sex-animal-rights-group-urges-d9rk3850z
If we're not supposed to eat animals why are they made out of meat?
At this moment, which of the following do Red Wall voters think would be the better PM for the UK? (19-20 September)
Liz Truss 40% (+8)
Keir Starmer 33% (-6)
Don't Know 27% (-2)
Changes +/- 4 September
https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/latest-red-wall-voting-intention-18-19-september-2022
Anonymous Operations
@AnonOpsSE
·
1h
NOW: Massive protests in Novosibirsk also huge number of Protestors arrested by the Police.
#PutinMeltdown #FCKPTN
https://twitter.com/AnonOpsSE/status/1572598847049986054
The reason it wasn't very good was an attempt to shovel all kinds of odds and ends into the plot. It seemed like a bad video game. Especially the last act.