Theory doing the rounds that we’re set to see a lot of kites flown on cuts. Defence. Triple lock. NHS. And then Hunt turns round and says “Right. There you go, you didn’t like that did you. So you decide - it’s either welfare, or the pensioners, squaddies and nurses take the hit. https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1582355565103050754
Whatever they settle on, we can look forward to Labour opportunistically opposing all the 'tory cuts', whilst also promising to 'balance the books';
Advantage of opposition. You can have your cake and eat it.
The last time Labour came to power without being gifted a golden economic situation was almost 50 years ago (1974). They hung on for one 5 year term of strife until ejected by Thatcher. If (when) Labour win the next General Election they are going to be ripped asunder by having to try to balance the books whilst dealing with the Unions.
Yes, the analogy between the mid 70's and the current period is very strong on a number of levels. Interestingly this was also around the time that we joined the EU.
Labour will have absolutely no difficulty balancing the books if they extend NI to all earnings and introduce a land value or similar wealth tax.
It absolutely does my head in that all that is being spoken of is 'which cuts are going to be made'. Public services are on their arse due to years of 'efficiency savings' and other cuts. If people vote Labour they are voting for better public services, among other things.
Rich pensioners, BTL rentiers, people living off inherited wealth and those squirrelling away millions so that their descendants can enjoy idle luxury are going to have to suck it up.
Labour won't do this though. A large proportion of their supporters are middle class people, many of whom are on 'gold plated pensions' of various kinds, or are eligible for such, and have benefitted as much as anyone from the low taxes on wealth acquisition in this country. I know lots of these people and they mainly vote Labour. I suspect many of the posters on here actually fall within this category. I just don't think that Labour will do something that works against the obvious financial interests of their supporters.
What I would guess we will instead from the Starmer led Labour party by way of policy is a tax on the super rich, ie the '1%'. This plays in to the delusions of their supporters that they are not actually rich and privileged. The 'super rich taxes' probably won't work because as we know the super rich will just leave the country or find loopholes. I would expect that everything else will remain pretty much as it is.
Can't see much doing about Kherson. If Ukraine does something significant there's normally a dozen or so profiles with a squashed shiba profile picture congratulating each other on twitter.
@GeromanAT #Russia #Ukraine #Kherson Front AFU tried another attack in the good old bridgehead near Bruskinskoe - it failed. "More than 100 Ukrainian servicemen, 13 armored combat vehicles and 8 vehicles were destroyed."
Someone (Probably both) might be inventing their truth
The question remains the one I asked @HYUFD earlier on and then the Telegraph asked rhetorically afterwards.
What exactly do you believe in if you are a Tory these days.
Your party has performed a 180 degree change in policy so what kind of political beliefs do you hold if you supported them after the mini-budget and you support them now.
Fiscal responsibility again, not pure libertarianism, the monarchy, choice, maintaining Brexit etc.
Labour also now backs Brexit, sings God Save the King and has promised fiscal responsibility too
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
The nature and execution of wars change. The nature of people doesn't.
Lefty Remoaner propaganda alert. A half-hour video:-
The Brexit effect: how leaving the EU hit the UK | FT Film
The UK's recent disastrous "mini" Budget can trace its origins back to Britain's decision to leave the European Union. The economic costs of Brexit were masked by the Covid-19 pandemic and the crisis in Ukraine. But six years after the UK voted to leave, the effect has become clear. In this film, senior FT writers and British businesspeople examine how Brexit hit the UK economy, the political conspiracy of silence, and why there has not yet been a convincing case for a 'Brexit dividend'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO2lWmgEK1Y
Timestamped Section links from the video description (not links here because I'm too lazy:- 00:00 - The Brexit effect 01:41 - The economic impact 04:40 - Brexit and business 09:45 - Britain falls behind 13:45 - The labour market 15:05 - Northern Ireland conundrum 16:50 - The conspiracy of silence 18:57 - Winners and losers 21:17 - The Brexit 'dividend
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
Worth listening/watching to the Perun on the state of the air war in Ukraine, if you haven't already. It supports some of what you have been saying - Russian can currently source/supply missiles & drones quicker than Ukraine can supply anti-air ammunition.
Theory doing the rounds that we’re set to see a lot of kites flown on cuts. Defence. Triple lock. NHS. And then Hunt turns round and says “Right. There you go, you didn’t like that did you. So you decide - it’s either welfare, or the pensioners, squaddies and nurses take the hit. https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1582355565103050754
Whatever they settle on, we can look forward to Labour opportunistically opposing all the 'tory cuts', whilst also promising to 'balance the books';
Advantage of opposition. You can have your cake and eat it.
The last time Labour came to power without being gifted a golden economic situation was almost 50 years ago (1974). They hung on for one 5 year term of strife until ejected by Thatcher. If (when) Labour win the next General Election they are going to be ripped asunder by having to try to balance the books whilst dealing with the Unions.
Yes, the analogy between the mid 70's and the current period is very strong on a number of levels. Interestingly this was also around the time that we joined the EU.
Labour will have absolutely no difficulty balancing the books if they extend NI to all earnings and introduce a land value or similar wealth tax.
It absolutely does my head in that all that is being spoken of is 'which cuts are going to be made'. Public services are on their arse due to years of 'efficiency savings' and other cuts. If people vote Labour they are voting for better public services, among other things.
Rich pensioners, BTL rentiers, people living off inherited wealth and those squirrelling away millions so that their descendants can enjoy idle luxury are going to have to suck it up.
Labour won't do this though. A large proportion of their supporters are middle class people, many of whom are on 'gold plated pensions' of various kinds, or are eligible for such, and have benefitted as much as anyone from the low taxes on wealth acquisition in this country. I know lots of these people and they mainly vote Labour. I suspect many of the posters on here actually fall within this category. I just don't think that Labour will do something that works against the obvious financial interests of their supporters.
What I would guess we will instead from the Starmer led Labour party by way of policy is a tax on the super rich, ie the '1%'. This plays in to the delusions of their supporters that they are not actually rich and privileged. The 'super rich taxes' probably won't work because as we know the super rich will just leave the country or find loopholes. I would expect that everything else will remain pretty much as it is.
The really super rich simply don't have their money here.
Iran has promised to provide Russia with surface to surface missiles, in addition to more drones, two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats tell Reuters
There's quite a few world cups going on at the moment.
Soccer is a good and acceptable English word from the 19th century.
It comes from association.
Thanks for the etymological lesson. I can't bear the word soccer though, I heard it too often living in the States. It has to be football, or fitba. Of course there are all kinds of world cups (cricket, tiddlywinks, rugby in order of importance) but there is only one World Cup.* * not very woke of me with respect to the women's game sorry.
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
2400 moderate sized model airplanes doesn't win a war.
These Iranian drones are not “model airplanes”
“The British military describes the Shahed-136’s 80-pound payload as small. Still, its precision targeting gives it a potentially devastating effect. A Ukrainian officer who saw the drone used in combat said it could target a self-propelled howitzer near where the gunpowder was stored, causing a greater explosion than its warhead alone would achieve.”
More importantly, they are so cheap they can be used in suicidal SWARMS. That’s when they become seriously dangerous to Ukraine - and its infrastructure
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
Worth listening/watching to the Perun on the state of the air war in Ukraine, if you haven't already. It supports some of what you have been saying - Russian can currently source/supply missiles & drones quicker than Ukraine can supply anti-air ammunition.
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
Theory doing the rounds that we’re set to see a lot of kites flown on cuts. Defence. Triple lock. NHS. And then Hunt turns round and says “Right. There you go, you didn’t like that did you. So you decide - it’s either welfare, or the pensioners, squaddies and nurses take the hit. https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1582355565103050754
Whatever they settle on, we can look forward to Labour opportunistically opposing all the 'tory cuts', whilst also promising to 'balance the books';
Advantage of opposition. You can have your cake and eat it.
The last time Labour came to power without being gifted a golden economic situation was almost 50 years ago (1974). They hung on for one 5 year term of strife until ejected by Thatcher. If (when) Labour win the next General Election they are going to be ripped asunder by having to try to balance the books whilst dealing with the Unions.
Yes, the analogy between the mid 70's and the current period is very strong on a number of levels. Interestingly this was also around the time that we joined the EU.
Labour will have absolutely no difficulty balancing the books if they extend NI to all earnings and introduce a land value or similar wealth tax.
It absolutely does my head in that all that is being spoken of is 'which cuts are going to be made'. Public services are on their arse due to years of 'efficiency savings' and other cuts. If people vote Labour they are voting for better public services, among other things.
Rich pensioners, BTL rentiers, people living off inherited wealth and those squirrelling away millions so that their descendants can enjoy idle luxury are going to have to suck it up.
Labour won't do this though. A large proportion of their supporters are middle class people, many of whom are on 'gold plated pensions' of various kinds, or are eligible for such, and have benefitted as much as anyone from the low taxes on wealth acquisition in this country. I know lots of these people and they mainly vote Labour. I suspect many of the posters on here actually fall within this category. I just don't think that Labour will do something that works against the obvious financial interests of their supporters.
What I would guess we will instead from the Starmer led Labour party by way of policy is a tax on the super rich, ie the '1%'. This plays in to the delusions of their supporters that they are not actually rich and privileged. The 'super rich taxes' probably won't work because as we know the super rich will just leave the country or find loopholes. I would expect that everything else will remain pretty much as it is.
So your thesis is that wealthy pensioners are protected because they vote Labour as well as because they vote Conservative? What about poor pensioners on the state pension which is less than £10,000 a year despite the triple lock?
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
I don't think Ukraine's electricity grid is that great: the EU can be helpful in the West, but I don't think there's the cross country capacity to supply Eastern Ukraine from the EU.
Iran has promised to provide Russia with surface to surface missiles, in addition to more drones, two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats tell Reuters
There's quite a few world cups going on at the moment.
Soccer is a good and acceptable English word from the 19th century.
It comes from association.
Thanks for the etymological lesson. I can't bear the word soccer though, I heard it too often living in the States. It has to be football, or fitba. Of course there are all kinds of world cups (cricket, tiddlywinks, rugby in order of importance) but there is only one World Cup.* * not very woke of me with respect to the women's game sorry.
Not woke, but true. There is definitely only one World Cup - when talking to a general audience, "the World Cup" doesn't need clarification. And in this context, what other world cups do Iran play in? Kabaddi?
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
40kg munitions load per Shahed according to Perun and Wiki
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
2400 moderate sized model airplanes doesn't win a war.
These Iranian drones are not “model airplanes”
“The British military describes the Shahed-136’s 80-pound payload as small. Still, its precision targeting gives it a potentially devastating effect. A Ukrainian officer who saw the drone used in combat said it could target a self-propelled howitzer near where the gunpowder was stored, causing a greater explosion than its warhead alone would achieve.”
More importantly, they are so cheap they can be used in suicidal SWARMS. That’s when they become seriously dangerous to Ukraine - and its infrastructure
So it looks like Putin is - so far - successfully doing what I said he would do. Relentlessly degrading Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Via a new supply of drones/missiles
yes and he wants to degrade ukrainian army supply lines. Since the breakthrough a few weeks ago ukrainian advances appear to have stalled.
There seems to be something interesting happening around Kherson.....
EDIT: Re-reading Red Storm Rising. Clancy really did get so much right
- Russia logistics suck
- Their armoured warfare bogs down with man portable AT weapons blunting every advance. - "Robots" own the sky over the battlefield, with aircraft having a very short life expectancy - Corruption in the Russian system reducing military effectiveness. - Higher ammo expenditure than expected. - etc
Haven't seen much - what seems to be happening?
Kherson - Russian panic. Ukraine have self imposed a blackout on media from the area.
Both are what happen previously, when things moved.
Russia moving people out of Kherson - including top Russians and collaborators, it is whispered.
Also supposedly moving out the bank reserves (although I can't believe the wouldn't have done that already - straight to Putin's Swiss bank account).
Various reports the lack of supplies is biting. Not just here either - across the whole front.
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
Worth listening/watching to the Perun on the state of the air war in Ukraine, if you haven't already. It supports some of what you have been saying - Russian can currently source/supply missiles & drones quicker than Ukraine can supply anti-air ammunition.
Those Shahads are single-use I believe, with 40kg of explosive each, so c.100 tonnes of explosive in total for 2,400 drones.
I am not sure that sounds like a game-changer to me. A trickier issue is that the drones are cheaper than the missiles used to shoot them down.
With a quoted price of $20K each... A few rounds from a Gepard would be cheaper than that.
Looks like the Ukrainians will be wanting a whole pile of gun based AA systems.
Spot on. That's exactly the point Perun makes in his article. It's just that the Ukrainians have been having to use much more expensive missiles to date.
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
God, I can only thank God there was no such thing as PB and @Leon in 1940. Careless keyboard warrior bullshit costs lives.
A housing crash does not help buyers much if it is more difficult for them to get a mortgage, as it would be
If this hypothetical buyer has saved a deposit, it becomes relatively bigger with every fall in prices, so not only do they need to borrow a smaller amount of money, but their loan-to-value ratio also gets better. It's absolutely perverse to argue that people can't benefit from paying less for something.
I wish I could like this twice.
Why? It's just wrong. I am in favour of a fall in house prices, but LTV ratio change in practice doesn't help in the very common situation where ltv is 75%, then price falls so it is suddenly 66%, hurrah, but lenders are shell-shocked into limiting it to 50% so won't lend at 66% where they would have lent at 75%.
I'd rather borrow less at a higher rate than have to borrow big and hope rates stay low.
'rates were so much higher back in the day'
Forgetting mortgages were 2-2.5x incomes not 5-6 as they are now.
The dream is house prices come off a bit then stay flat for a few years whilst earnings inflate. Then you get the much needed correction with no innocent blood.
EXC: A married Labour MP is understood to be facing sexual harassment allegations in a Commons probe, The Sun understands. The male MP could even face expulsion from Parliament as the investigation by Westminster’s complaints body is close to concluding
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
Makes me wonder how much explosive it would take to cripple the UK if you could put it wherever you want?
Fireworks were thrown towards Just Stop Oil protesters who scaled the Dartford Crossing and forced road closures on Monday.
The protesters scaled the Queen Elizabeth II bridge linking Essex to Kent in the early hours of Monday morning, climbing up the 275ft masts and securing themselves to the structure with climbing ropes and harnesses.
Marcus, a 33-year-old teacher from London, and Morgan Trowland, a 39-year-old bridge engineer, had vowed to stay there and keep the bridge closed for 24 hours.
A video posted online shows fireworks thrown in the protesters' direction on Monday evening.
The protesters remain on the bridge and the road is still closed.
Iran has promised to provide Russia with surface to surface missiles, in addition to more drones, two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats tell Reuters
There's quite a few world cups going on at the moment.
Soccer is a good and acceptable English word from the 19th century.
It comes from association.
Thanks for the etymological lesson. I can't bear the word soccer though, I heard it too often living in the States. It has to be football, or fitba. Of course there are all kinds of world cups (cricket, tiddlywinks, rugby in order of importance) but there is only one World Cup.* * not very woke of me with respect to the women's game sorry.
Association Football is a lot of syllables, but it's preferable to soccer and avoids confusion when speaking with people for whom football defaults to American or GAA versions.
Defence Secretary @BWallaceMP is in the US on a seemingly hastily-arranged trip. Fellow minister @JSHeappey hinted at what it’s about: “To have the sort of conversations that… beyond belief really the fact we are at a time when these sorts of conversations are necessary”
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
40kg munitions load per Shahed according to Perun and Wiki
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
The payload is much less than that - more like 40-80 pounds. They are not at all impressive if you see them as traditional bombs. But if you see them as a new form of air warfare - swarming with suicidal precision on to known targets - they are a lot scarier
I don’t type this with pleasure. But there are an awful lot of PB-ers who don’t want to hear ANYTHING negative/depressing about the war and only want to hear endless stories of Ukrainian brilliance and bravery and squalidly pathetic Russian defeat, and how that means Ukraine obviously wins and then Putin magically disappears
Sadly, reality isn’t like that. Putin still has military options and he can still win. It won’t be easy for him - indeed it will go bloody and difficult - but it is possible
NI will face an election before Christmas, unless power sharing is restored in the next 10 days, the government has confirmed - Chris Heaton Harris hinted at election on 8th or 15 December. Parties don't expect Stormont to be back by 28 Oct so new election next step by law https://twitter.com/lisaocarroll/status/1582381074566369280
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
The payload is much less than that - more like 40-80 pounds. They are not at all impressive if you see them as traditional bombs. But if you see them as a new form of air warfare - swarming with suicidal precision on to known targets - they are a lot scarier
I don’t type this with pleasure. But there are an awful lot of PB-ers who don’t want to hear ANYTHING negative/depressing about the war and only want to hear endless stories of Ukrainian brilliance and bravery and squalidly pathetic Russian defeat, and how that means Ukraine obviously wins and then Putin magically disappears
Sadly, reality isn’t like that. Putin still has military options and he can still win. It won’t be easy for him - indeed it will go bloody and difficult - but it is possible
Bear in mind that back in February, many serious people in the West thought that it would be a question of supporting a Ukrainian insurgency after Putin succeeded in conquering them. Even if he 'wins', it doesn't mean he's won.
"Truss no longer committed to maintaining triple lock on pensions, No 10 says Liz Truss is no longer publicly committed to defending the triple lock – the guarantee that the state pension will rise every year in line with inflation, earnings, or 2.5%, whichever is highest." - Guardian Live.
OBR forecast pensions at £110bn for 2022-23 (forecast done in Oct 2021) - assuming they expected a 3-4 % inflation this would now be £117m if uplift by 10% in line with tomorrows inflation figure next April. Would save £1.1bn for every percentage point they pay below the inflation rate.
Realistically they cannot go below 8% uplift which would only save about £2.2bn - The grief it would cause to the Conservative Party would be comparable to Clegg's student fees promise and would be felt by the only bit of the electorate who still might vote Conservative. 20% in the polls - they will be lucky to be in double figures and no doubt the MPs would turn on Hunt!
Iran has promised to provide Russia with surface to surface missiles, in addition to more drones, two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats tell Reuters
There's quite a few world cups going on at the moment.
Soccer is a good and acceptable English word from the 19th century.
It comes from association.
Thanks for the etymological lesson. I can't bear the word soccer though, I heard it too often living in the States. It has to be football, or fitba. Of course there are all kinds of world cups (cricket, tiddlywinks, rugby in order of importance) but there is only one World Cup.* * not very woke of me with respect to the women's game sorry.
Association Football is a lot of syllables, but it's preferable to soccer and avoids confusion when speaking with people for whom football defaults to American or GAA versions.
Or Australian. Or Canadian.
But if you need to clarify, can't use "football" and don't want to use "soccer" then the shortest way that doesn't need disambiguation is probably to use "FIFA".
A good move, but it looks like the Tories have thrown in the towel for the next election.
I think this is very encouraging - is Hunt calculating that the Tories have lost, and so he can/should do what is actually best for the country's long term position?
If the Triple Lock goes, along with the Health and Social Care Levy going, then Truss will have done two very good things.
Now merge NI into Income Tax so all incomes, earned and unearned, are taxed evenly and trigger a housing market crash and the Tories can head into opposition having sorted out the biggest problems in the economy.
Do you genuinely believe that Truss is making these decisions?
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
Worth listening/watching to the Perun on the state of the air war in Ukraine, if you haven't already. It supports some of what you have been saying - Russian can currently source/supply missiles & drones quicker than Ukraine can supply anti-air ammunition.
Those Shahads are single-use I believe, with 40kg of explosive each, so c.100 tonnes of explosive in total for 2,400 drones.
I am not sure that sounds like a game-changer to me. A trickier issue is that the drones are cheaper than the missiles used to shoot them down.
With a quoted price of $20K each... A few rounds from a Gepard would be cheaper than that.
Looks like the Ukrainians will be wanting a whole pile of gun based AA systems.
Spot on. That's exactly the point Perun makes in his article. It's just that the Ukrainians have been having to use much more expensive missiles to date.
There's a whole bunch of literature on this going back decades. There was a chap who modelled the possibility of updating and mass producing the V1 as a thought experiment back in the 80s. His conclusion was that you might be able to get the unit price down to $10K with mass production in the modern style. $1 billion dollars of missiles could mean a 100,000 missiles. Put 100 on each of your favourite 1000 targets etc.
The counter to low capability drones is either guns or directed energy weapons. At a certain level of sophistication of the drones, small missiles (see Iron Dome) become a better bet.
Criminals have been exploiting the growing backlog in court cases by pleading not guilty instead of admitting their offences in an attempt to avoid conviction
A good move, but it looks like the Tories have thrown in the towel for the next election.
I think this is very encouraging - is Hunt calculating that the Tories have lost, and so he can/should do what is actually best for the country's long term position?
If the Triple Lock goes, along with the Health and Social Care Levy going, then Truss will have done two very good things.
Now merge NI into Income Tax so all incomes, earned and unearned, are taxed evenly and trigger a housing market crash and the Tories can head into opposition having sorted out the biggest problems in the economy.
Do you genuinely believe that Truss is making these decisions?
Theory doing the rounds that we’re set to see a lot of kites flown on cuts. Defence. Triple lock. NHS. And then Hunt turns round and says “Right. There you go, you didn’t like that did you. So you decide - it’s either welfare, or the pensioners, squaddies and nurses take the hit. https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1582355565103050754
Whatever they settle on, we can look forward to Labour opportunistically opposing all the 'tory cuts', whilst also promising to 'balance the books';
Advantage of opposition. You can have your cake and eat it.
The last time Labour came to power without being gifted a golden economic situation was almost 50 years ago (1974). They hung on for one 5 year term of strife until ejected by Thatcher. If (when) Labour win the next General Election they are going to be ripped asunder by having to try to balance the books whilst dealing with the Unions.
Yes, the analogy between the mid 70's and the current period is very strong on a number of levels. Interestingly this was also around the time that we joined the EU.
Labour will have absolutely no difficulty balancing the books if they extend NI to all earnings and introduce a land value or similar wealth tax.
It absolutely does my head in that all that is being spoken of is 'which cuts are going to be made'. Public services are on their arse due to years of 'efficiency savings' and other cuts. If people vote Labour they are voting for better public services, among other things.
Rich pensioners, BTL rentiers, people living off inherited wealth and those squirrelling away millions so that their descendants can enjoy idle luxury are going to have to suck it up.
Labour won't do this though. A large proportion of their supporters are middle class people, many of whom are on 'gold plated pensions' of various kinds, or are eligible for such, and have benefitted as much as anyone from the low taxes on wealth acquisition in this country. I know lots of these people and they mainly vote Labour. I suspect many of the posters on here actually fall within this category. I just don't think that Labour will do something that works against the obvious financial interests of their supporters.
What I would guess we will instead from the Starmer led Labour party by way of policy is a tax on the super rich, ie the '1%'. This plays in to the delusions of their supporters that they are not actually rich and privileged. The 'super rich taxes' probably won't work because as we know the super rich will just leave the country or find loopholes. I would expect that everything else will remain pretty much as it is.
Your paragraph describes me a and a lot of my friends to a tee.
I will definitely vote for the increased taxes on people like me because reducing debt while protecting public services is the right thing to do for the country. Many others I know will I am sure do likewise.
As for the 1% whose loyalty to their money exceeds their loyalty to their country... well they can f*ck right off to wherever they prefer to live - but don't expect to retain their UK citizenship, non-dom tax privileges or UK property without paying the associated wealth taxes.
A housing crash does not help buyers much if it is more difficult for them to get a mortgage, as it would be
If this hypothetical buyer has saved a deposit, it becomes relatively bigger with every fall in prices, so not only do they need to borrow a smaller amount of money, but their loan-to-value ratio also gets better. It's absolutely perverse to argue that people can't benefit from paying less for something.
I wish I could like this twice.
Why? It's just wrong. I am in favour of a fall in house prices, but LTV ratio change in practice doesn't help in the very common situation where ltv is 75%, then price falls so it is suddenly 66%, hurrah, but lenders are shell-shocked into limiting it to 50% so won't lend at 66% where they would have lent at 75%.
I'd rather borrow less at a higher rate than have to borrow big and hope rates stay low.
'rates were so much higher back in the day'
Forgetting mortgages were 2-2.5x incomes not 5-6 as they are now.
The dream is house prices come off a bit then stay flat for a few years whilst earnings inflate. Then you get the much needed correction with no innocent blood.
If you can engineer that, solving Israel-Palestine and India-Pakistan will be trivial.
Theory doing the rounds that we’re set to see a lot of kites flown on cuts. Defence. Triple lock. NHS. And then Hunt turns round and says “Right. There you go, you didn’t like that did you. So you decide - it’s either welfare, or the pensioners, squaddies and nurses take the hit. https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1582355565103050754
Whatever they settle on, we can look forward to Labour opportunistically opposing all the 'tory cuts', whilst also promising to 'balance the books';
Advantage of opposition. You can have your cake and eat it.
The last time Labour came to power without being gifted a golden economic situation was almost 50 years ago (1974). They hung on for one 5 year term of strife until ejected by Thatcher. If (when) Labour win the next General Election they are going to be ripped asunder by having to try to balance the books whilst dealing with the Unions.
Yes, the analogy between the mid 70's and the current period is very strong on a number of levels. Interestingly this was also around the time that we joined the EU.
Labour will have absolutely no difficulty balancing the books if they extend NI to all earnings and introduce a land value or similar wealth tax.
It absolutely does my head in that all that is being spoken of is 'which cuts are going to be made'. Public services are on their arse due to years of 'efficiency savings' and other cuts. If people vote Labour they are voting for better public services, among other things.
Rich pensioners, BTL rentiers, people living off inherited wealth and those squirrelling away millions so that their descendants can enjoy idle luxury are going to have to suck it up.
Labour won't do this though. A large proportion of their supporters are middle class people, many of whom are on 'gold plated pensions' of various kinds, or are eligible for such, and have benefitted as much as anyone from the low taxes on wealth acquisition in this country. I know lots of these people and they mainly vote Labour. I suspect many of the posters on here actually fall within this category. I just don't think that Labour will do something that works against the obvious financial interests of their supporters.
What I would guess we will instead from the Starmer led Labour party by way of policy is a tax on the super rich, ie the '1%'. This plays in to the delusions of their supporters that they are not actually rich and privileged. The 'super rich taxes' probably won't work because as we know the super rich will just leave the country or find loopholes. I would expect that everything else will remain pretty much as it is.
So your thesis is that wealthy pensioners are protected because they vote Labour as well as because they vote Conservative? What about poor pensioners on the state pension which is less than £10,000 a year despite the triple lock?
I doubt any party is going to do anything that makes things worse for people in this category, although I don't think this group is particularly affiliated to either party. My point is just that, if you want to ask 'which group is going to pay more', it is not a particularly easy question for the Labour party.
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
The payload is much less than that - more like 40-80 pounds. They are not at all impressive if you see them as traditional bombs. But if you see them as a new form of air warfare - swarming with suicidal precision on to known targets - they are a lot scarier
I don’t type this with pleasure. But there are an awful lot of PB-ers who don’t want to hear ANYTHING negative/depressing about the war and only want to hear endless stories of Ukrainian brilliance and bravery and squalidly pathetic Russian defeat, and how that means Ukraine obviously wins and then Putin magically disappears
Sadly, reality isn’t like that. Putin still has military options and he can still win. It won’t be easy for him - indeed it will go bloody and difficult - but it is possible
The response so far from the west has been to tell FIFA that Iran should be barred from the upcoming soccer World Cup.
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
The payload is much less than that - more like 40-80 pounds. They are not at all impressive if you see them as traditional bombs. But if you see them as a new form of air warfare - swarming with suicidal precision on to known targets - they are a lot scarier
I don’t type this with pleasure. But there are an awful lot of PB-ers who don’t want to hear ANYTHING negative/depressing about the war and only want to hear endless stories of Ukrainian brilliance and bravery and squalidly pathetic Russian defeat, and how that means Ukraine obviously wins and then Putin magically disappears
Sadly, reality isn’t like that. Putin still has military options and he can still win. It won’t be easy for him - indeed it will go bloody and difficult - but it is possible
The reality is that it is better to look at facts on the battlefield rather than generally indulge in negative speculation for the sake of being contrary. The more positively balanced analysis of the situation is that it is a sign of desperation from the Kremlin. I am not saying it is a last throw of the dice from an army in military retreat, but it does seem somewhat reminiscent of Japan's use of the Kamikaze
NI will face an election before Christmas, unless power sharing is restored in the next 10 days, the government has confirmed - Chris Heaton Harris hinted at election on 8th or 15 December. Parties don't expect Stormont to be back by 28 Oct so new election next step by law https://twitter.com/lisaocarroll/status/1582381074566369280
Are we still in the DUP refusing to play ball phase? I.e. they refuse to serve if Michelle O’Neill is first minister (even though she has, erm, been elected as such)
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
Makes me wonder how much explosive it would take to cripple the UK if you could put it wherever you want?
There was a brief discussion recently about potential vulnerabilities of offshore wind turbines, or rather the cables bringing power onshore. Comms cables are, we know, already vulnerable to Russian submarines. Underwater gas pipelines can be destroyed by, well, take your pick of conspiracy theories about Nordstream.
Then there are online cyberattacks, perhaps made easier by backdoors planted by Chinese or American hardware suppliers.
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
The payload is much less than that - more like 40-80 pounds. They are not at all impressive if you see them as traditional bombs. But if you see them as a new form of air warfare - swarming with suicidal precision on to known targets - they are a lot scarier
I don’t type this with pleasure. But there are an awful lot of PB-ers who don’t want to hear ANYTHING negative/depressing about the war and only want to hear endless stories of Ukrainian brilliance and bravery and squalidly pathetic Russian defeat, and how that means Ukraine obviously wins and then Putin magically disappears
Sadly, reality isn’t like that. Putin still has military options and he can still win. It won’t be easy for him - indeed it will go bloody and difficult - but it is possible
My Tory MP is very interested in suicide prevention at the moment. If he feels there's a political crisis going on in his party he's being very quiet about it. He has been on panel in a discussion about the future of Cumbrian uplands too.
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
The payload is much less than that - more like 40-80 pounds. They are not at all impressive if you see them as traditional bombs. But if you see them as a new form of air warfare - swarming with suicidal precision on to known targets - they are a lot scarier
I don’t type this with pleasure. But there are an awful lot of PB-ers who don’t want to hear ANYTHING negative/depressing about the war and only want to hear endless stories of Ukrainian brilliance and bravery and squalidly pathetic Russian defeat, and how that means Ukraine obviously wins and then Putin magically disappears
Sadly, reality isn’t like that. Putin still has military options and he can still win. It won’t be easy for him - indeed it will go bloody and difficult - but it is possible
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
The payload is much less than that - more like 40-80 pounds. They are not at all impressive if you see them as traditional bombs. But if you see them as a new form of air warfare - swarming with suicidal precision on to known targets - they are a lot scarier
I don’t type this with pleasure. But there are an awful lot of PB-ers who don’t want to hear ANYTHING negative/depressing about the war and only want to hear endless stories of Ukrainian brilliance and bravery and squalidly pathetic Russian defeat, and how that means Ukraine obviously wins and then Putin magically disappears
Sadly, reality isn’t like that. Putin still has military options and he can still win. It won’t be easy for him - indeed it will go bloody and difficult - but it is possible
A housing crash does not help buyers much if it is more difficult for them to get a mortgage, as it would be
If this hypothetical buyer has saved a deposit, it becomes relatively bigger with every fall in prices, so not only do they need to borrow a smaller amount of money, but their loan-to-value ratio also gets better. It's absolutely perverse to argue that people can't benefit from paying less for something.
I wish I could like this twice.
Why? It's just wrong. I am in favour of a fall in house prices, but LTV ratio change in practice doesn't help in the very common situation where ltv is 75%, then price falls so it is suddenly 66%, hurrah, but lenders are shell-shocked into limiting it to 50% so won't lend at 66% where they would have lent at 75%.
I'd rather borrow less at a higher rate than have to borrow big and hope rates stay low.
'rates were so much higher back in the day'
Forgetting mortgages were 2-2.5x incomes not 5-6 as they are now.
The dream is house prices come off a bit then stay flat for a few years whilst earnings inflate. Then you get the much needed correction with no innocent blood.
If you can engineer that, solving Israel-Palestine and India-Pakistan will be trivial.
That kind of scenario (modest fall in prices followed by several years of flat prices) is what happened last time, although earnings inflation wasn't great thanks in part to austerity.
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
God, I can only thank God there was no such thing as PB and @Leon in 1940. Careless keyboard warrior bullshit costs lives.
Think how Stanley Baldwin felt about Churchill and his supporters (including gay Tory MPs as described in Chris Bryant's book) in the 1930s.
ETA OMG I've just compared Leon to Churchill, and not in their drinking.
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
The payload is much less than that - more like 40-80 pounds. They are not at all impressive if you see them as traditional bombs. But if you see them as a new form of air warfare - swarming with suicidal precision on to known targets - they are a lot scarier
I don’t type this with pleasure. But there are an awful lot of PB-ers who don’t want to hear ANYTHING negative/depressing about the war and only want to hear endless stories of Ukrainian brilliance and bravery and squalidly pathetic Russian defeat, and how that means Ukraine obviously wins and then Putin magically disappears
Sadly, reality isn’t like that. Putin still has military options and he can still win. It won’t be easy for him - indeed it will go bloody and difficult - but it is possible
A housing crash does not help buyers much if it is more difficult for them to get a mortgage, as it would be
If this hypothetical buyer has saved a deposit, it becomes relatively bigger with every fall in prices, so not only do they need to borrow a smaller amount of money, but their loan-to-value ratio also gets better. It's absolutely perverse to argue that people can't benefit from paying less for something.
I wish I could like this twice.
Why? It's just wrong. I am in favour of a fall in house prices, but LTV ratio change in practice doesn't help in the very common situation where ltv is 75%, then price falls so it is suddenly 66%, hurrah, but lenders are shell-shocked into limiting it to 50% so won't lend at 66% where they would have lent at 75%.
I'd rather borrow less at a higher rate than have to borrow big and hope rates stay low.
'rates were so much higher back in the day'
Forgetting mortgages were 2-2.5x incomes not 5-6 as they are now.
The dream is house prices come off a bit then stay flat for a few years whilst earnings inflate. Then you get the much needed correction with no innocent blood.
If you can engineer that, solving Israel-Palestine and India-Pakistan will be trivial.
If we had a nice orderly planned economy I could. Just flick my fingers.
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
Makes me wonder how much explosive it would take to cripple the UK if you could put it wherever you want?
Define 'cripple'.
We have got used to a certain lifestyle. There is a good chance this winter that there might be power cuts, and that is *not* what we are used to. But life will go on; we will adapt. Just as places that have frequent power cuts will. Or as we adapted to working-from-home during Covid. It is not ideal; there will be pain. But we will not be 'crippled'.
If you want to cause maximum distress, you would go for long-lead items that are relatively rare around the world. Generator sets being an example (in CCGT, this is essentially a jet engine). But generators tend to be in the middle of buildings and harder to get at.
Or go totally off-base and do something to water supplies. Poisoning water supplies would be a biggie; though I (thankfully) have no idea what you could poison it with, or how much you would need in a reservoir the size of (e.g.) Grafham Water.
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
2400 drones. If they send ~100/day that's 24 days. Of those, 80%+ are shot down (and that number will rise as more air defence comes online)
This sounds more like a harassing measure, unless they can significantly improve penetration, and/or significantly improve targeting.
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
The payload is much less than that - more like 40-80 pounds. They are not at all impressive if you see them as traditional bombs. But if you see them as a new form of air warfare - swarming with suicidal precision on to known targets - they are a lot scarier
I don’t type this with pleasure. But there are an awful lot of PB-ers who don’t want to hear ANYTHING negative/depressing about the war and only want to hear endless stories of Ukrainian brilliance and bravery and squalidly pathetic Russian defeat, and how that means Ukraine obviously wins and then Putin magically disappears
Sadly, reality isn’t like that. Putin still has military options and he can still win. It won’t be easy for him - indeed it will go bloody and difficult - but it is possible
Are you the Adult In The Room on this one then?
I fear I am
Does it have padded walls and a locked door?
you will be accusing Leon of working with the russians next
Theory doing the rounds that we’re set to see a lot of kites flown on cuts. Defence. Triple lock. NHS. And then Hunt turns round and says “Right. There you go, you didn’t like that did you. So you decide - it’s either welfare, or the pensioners, squaddies and nurses take the hit. https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1582355565103050754
Whatever they settle on, we can look forward to Labour opportunistically opposing all the 'tory cuts', whilst also promising to 'balance the books';
Advantage of opposition. You can have your cake and eat it.
The last time Labour came to power without being gifted a golden economic situation was almost 50 years ago (1974). They hung on for one 5 year term of strife until ejected by Thatcher. If (when) Labour win the next General Election they are going to be ripped asunder by having to try to balance the books whilst dealing with the Unions.
Yes, the analogy between the mid 70's and the current period is very strong on a number of levels. Interestingly this was also around the time that we joined the EU.
Labour will have absolutely no difficulty balancing the books if they extend NI to all earnings and introduce a land value or similar wealth tax.
It absolutely does my head in that all that is being spoken of is 'which cuts are going to be made'. Public services are on their arse due to years of 'efficiency savings' and other cuts. If people vote Labour they are voting for better public services, among other things.
Rich pensioners, BTL rentiers, people living off inherited wealth and those squirrelling away millions so that their descendants can enjoy idle luxury are going to have to suck it up.
Labour won't do this though. A large proportion of their supporters are middle class people, many of whom are on 'gold plated pensions' of various kinds, or are eligible for such, and have benefitted as much as anyone from the low taxes on wealth acquisition in this country. I know lots of these people and they mainly vote Labour. I suspect many of the posters on here actually fall within this category. I just don't think that Labour will do something that works against the obvious financial interests of their supporters.
What I would guess we will instead from the Starmer led Labour party by way of policy is a tax on the super rich, ie the '1%'. This plays in to the delusions of their supporters that they are not actually rich and privileged. The 'super rich taxes' probably won't work because as we know the super rich will just leave the country or find loopholes. I would expect that everything else will remain pretty much as it is.
Your paragraph describes me a and a lot of my friends to a tee.
I will definitely vote for the increased taxes on people like me because reducing debt while protecting public services is the right thing to do for the country. Many others I know will I am sure do likewise.
As for the 1% whose loyalty to their money exceeds their loyalty to their country... well they can f*ck right off to wherever they prefer to live - but don't expect to retain their UK citizenship, non-dom tax privileges or UK property without paying the associated wealth taxes.
I think 'wait and see' is the right approach on the question of whether a government can be elected on the basis of a manifesto of higher taxes. No-one has really had the chance to do this since 1992.
Iran has promised to provide Russia with surface to surface missiles, in addition to more drones, two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats tell Reuters
There's quite a few world cups going on at the moment.
Soccer is a good and acceptable English word from the 19th century.
It comes from association.
Thanks for the etymological lesson. I can't bear the word soccer though, I heard it too often living in the States. It has to be football, or fitba. Of course there are all kinds of world cups (cricket, tiddlywinks, rugby in order of importance) but there is only one World Cup.* * not very woke of me with respect to the women's game sorry.
Association Football is a lot of syllables, but it's preferable to soccer and avoids confusion when speaking with people for whom football defaults to American or GAA versions.
Now that the Tories have given us a Poundshop Churchill and a Poundshop Thatcher, I wonder what other lightweight versions of historical heavyweights we might expect?
NI will face an election before Christmas, unless power sharing is restored in the next 10 days, the government has confirmed - Chris Heaton Harris hinted at election on 8th or 15 December. Parties don't expect Stormont to be back by 28 Oct so new election next step by law https://twitter.com/lisaocarroll/status/1582381074566369280
Are we still in the DUP refusing to play ball phase? I.e. they refuse to serve if Michelle O’Neill is first minister (even though she has, erm, been elected as such)
Yes although the reason has a lot more to do with Bozo's Brexit deal which means checks on all goods coming from the UK while goods coming via Ireland are free flowing.
Odd supermarket finding. Big gaps on the confectionery shelves. Is there a supply problem or have Sainsbury's underestimated the conjunction of halloween, Diwali and people stocking up early for Christmas?
🍛ARGY-BHAJI: Truss faces fresh peril as ‘Balti Bandit’ plotters meet for secret curry
Mel Stride hosted more than a dozen "miserable" Conservative MPs in his large House of Commons office for an Indian takeaway - with the PM's fate also on the table...
Now that the Tories have given us a Poundshop Churchill and a Poundshop Thatcher, I wonder what other lightweight versions of historical heavyweights we might expect?
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
The payload is much less than that - more like 40-80 pounds. They are not at all impressive if you see them as traditional bombs. But if you see them as a new form of air warfare - swarming with suicidal precision on to known targets - they are a lot scarier
I don’t type this with pleasure. But there are an awful lot of PB-ers who don’t want to hear ANYTHING negative/depressing about the war and only want to hear endless stories of Ukrainian brilliance and bravery and squalidly pathetic Russian defeat, and how that means Ukraine obviously wins and then Putin magically disappears
Sadly, reality isn’t like that. Putin still has military options and he can still win. It won’t be easy for him - indeed it will go bloody and difficult - but it is possible
Are you the Adult In The Room on this one then?
I fear I am
Well you'll have to battle TOPPING for it.
He keeps elevating into space and trying to put it all into "some sort of geopolitical context".
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
The payload is much less than that - more like 40-80 pounds. They are not at all impressive if you see them as traditional bombs. But if you see them as a new form of air warfare - swarming with suicidal precision on to known targets - they are a lot scarier
I don’t type this with pleasure. But there are an awful lot of PB-ers who don’t want to hear ANYTHING negative/depressing about the war and only want to hear endless stories of Ukrainian brilliance and bravery and squalidly pathetic Russian defeat, and how that means Ukraine obviously wins and then Putin magically disappears
Sadly, reality isn’t like that. Putin still has military options and he can still win. It won’t be easy for him - indeed it will go bloody and difficult - but it is possible
Putin might still win.
On the other hand, how many drones can Iran build per day? Because right now, Russia is chewing through Iranian stockpiles. Is it 100? Is it 1,000? If it's the former number, then Russia is going to struggle to reign terror when they start to run out.
And don't forget that the Iranian drones will require components from developed countries:
- GPS chips - communications chips - processors and sensors
How easy is it to jam the communications and prevent the operators from controlling them? (For that matter, can you have a swarm all in the same place, given radio interference and the necessity of a high bandwidth link for transmitting radio? Also worth noting... all that transmission makes the drones easy to spot with the right equipment. A piloted plane can go radio silent, these drones are not autonomous and need to be piloted from afar.)
And if the drones relies on GPS, might a few GPS jammers around key infrastructure targets might have a pretty serious affect.
It's possible that the drones are game changers. We certainly shouldn't discount the possibility. But we should also recognise that (a) they are not unlimited in quantity, (b) they deliver only a very small punch, and (c) it's quite possible that their effectiveness can be mitigated significantly.
NI will face an election before Christmas, unless power sharing is restored in the next 10 days, the government has confirmed - Chris Heaton Harris hinted at election on 8th or 15 December. Parties don't expect Stormont to be back by 28 Oct so new election next step by law https://twitter.com/lisaocarroll/status/1582381074566369280
Are we still in the DUP refusing to play ball phase? I.e. they refuse to serve if Michelle O’Neill is first minister (even though she has, erm, been elected as such)
Yes although the reason has a lot more to do with Bozo's Brexit deal which means checks on all goods coming from the UK while goods coming via Ireland are free flowing.
Bollocks -the DUP don't want Sinn Fein to have the first minister position - every thing is an excuse - if the Brexit issue was sorted they would find another reason not to cooperate.
BTW, for years I have been going on about building more resilience into our vital systems. We persist in cutting everything to the bone and not having excess capacity - from power generation to the NHS. We may need to pay a little more, but if it avoids fuck-ups like the ones we might be seeing this winter, it may well be worth it.
BTW, power generators and the National Grid (and the water companies) do a brilliant job in supplying us with our services. They get a lot of sh*t thrown at them, but they have brilliant uptimes. Power cuts or water shortages are very rare events. I'd just like them to be a little more resilient to unexpected or rare events.
Seattle Times ($) - Bus-riding dog who took herself to park remembered as ‘Seattle icon’
The most unusual passenger on Seattle public transit never rode the bus for long, just a few stops. She sometimes dozed during her short journeys, drooping her head onto the laps of strangers who never seemed to mind. Approaching her stop, she banged on the door in anticipation.
And other riders loved her for it.
But Seattle’s buses will no longer carry perhaps their most famous passenger. Eclipse, the black Lab-bullmastiff mix who achieved fame by riding to the park alone, died Friday. She was 10.
Eclipse started getting attention in early 2015 when she slipped aboard her usual bus while her owner, Jeff Young, was finishing a cigarette, unaware she had proceeded without him, he said. Guided only by habit, she exited at the correct stop and was very much enjoying herself at the dog park when Young, relieved from his panic, found her. After that, Eclipse became a regular commuter, taking two to three solo trips to the dog park each week, looking out the window to make sure she didn’t miss her stop.
Stardom soon followed. A local radio host noticed her get off the bus without an owner, which led to an on-air segment which, in turn, piqued the interest of Seattle TV station KOMO. National media coverage followed, and the internet did the rest.
Seattle’s public transportation system, King County Metro, quickly celebrated its newly famous pawed passenger, making a highly produced music video for the song “Bus Doggy Dog.” It closed with a tagline: “Get around like Eclipse. Plan your next trip.”
Young also leaned into his pet’s newfound fame, creating a public-figure Facebook page for “Eclipse Seattle’s Bus Riding Dog” where he shared Eclipse updates with her followers, which on Monday numbered 122,000. In 2016, Young co-wrote a children’s book titled “Dog on Board: The True Story of Eclipse, the Bus-Riding Dog.” And over the years, he and Eclipse acquired loads of swag — leashes, treats, harnesses.
“It just goes on and on and on,” Young said.
But stripped of the hoopla, their relationship at its core was that of a human and his dog — best friends, he said. Young got Eclipse when she was a 10-week-old puppy. He said they have spent all but three nights together in the nearly 11 years since.
Then on Wednesday, Young announced on Eclipse’s Facebook page that the vet had found cancerous tumors. He implored her fans to send “spare vibes” their way.
Two days later, he had bad news: Eclipse had died overnight in her sleep.
“She’s gone, and I miss her, and it really sucks,” he told The Washington Post.
King County Metro replied to Young’s announcement, offering condolences.
“Eclipse was a super sweet, world-famous, bus riding dog and true Seattle icon,” the agency wrote on Twitter. “You brought joy and happiness to everyone and showed us all that good dogs belong on the bus.”
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
The V1's and V2's we're only pointless because they were used so late in the war. Have they been used earlier things might well have been different!
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
Makes me wonder how much explosive it would take to cripple the UK if you could put it wherever you want?
Define 'cripple'.
We have got used to a certain lifestyle. There is a good chance this winter that there might be power cuts, and that is *not* what we are used to. But life will go on; we will adapt. Just as places that have frequent power cuts will. Or as we adapted to working-from-home during Covid. It is not ideal; there will be pain. But we will not be 'crippled'.
If you want to cause maximum distress, you would go for long-lead items that are relatively rare around the world. Generator sets being an example (in CCGT, this is essentially a jet engine). But generators tend to be in the middle of buildings and harder to get at.
Or go totally off-base and do something to water supplies. Poisoning water supplies would be a biggie; though I (thankfully) have no idea what you could poison it with, or how much you would need in a reservoir the size of (e.g.) Grafham Water.
Yes: poisoning water supplies would be a pretty effective weapon. Albeit one that is mitigated somewhat in a Ukrainian winter, due to the ample amounts of water in a solid form that falls from the sky.
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
2400 drones. If they send ~100/day that's 24 days. Of those, 80%+ are shot down (and that number will rise as more air defence comes online)
This sounds more like a harassing measure, unless they can significantly improve penetration, and/or significantly improve targeting.
OR they source a constant new supply of drones. How difficult is this shit?
A good move, but it looks like the Tories have thrown in the towel for the next election.
I think this is very encouraging - is Hunt calculating that the Tories have lost, and so he can/should do what is actually best for the country's long term position?
If the Triple Lock goes, along with the Health and Social Care Levy going, then Truss will have done two very good things.
Now merge NI into Income Tax so all incomes, earned and unearned, are taxed evenly and trigger a housing market crash and the Tories can head into opposition having sorted out the biggest problems in the economy.
Do you genuinely believe that Truss is making these decisions?
I don't care. The buck stops with her.
Whether the decisions are by her, Hunt, or the Illuminati, its her Government and her responsibility.
Not a great idea. I am sure there have been various expressions of support, probably best to find a way to display these 'spontaneously' rather than knocking on doors.
Iran has promised to provide Russia with surface to surface missiles, in addition to more drones, two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats tell Reuters
There's quite a few world cups going on at the moment.
Soccer is a good and acceptable English word from the 19th century.
It comes from association.
Thanks for the etymological lesson. I can't bear the word soccer though, I heard it too often living in the States. It has to be football, or fitba. Of course there are all kinds of world cups (cricket, tiddlywinks, rugby in order of importance) but there is only one World Cup.* * not very woke of me with respect to the women's game sorry.
Association Football is a lot of syllables, but it's preferable to soccer and avoids confusion when speaking with people for whom football defaults to American or GAA versions.
Assball, for short?
Gaeball and Amball, too, for consistency.
Can't see any problems with any of those
In Leicester - Leicester Football Club is the Rugby Club.
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
The payload is much less than that - more like 40-80 pounds. They are not at all impressive if you see them as traditional bombs. But if you see them as a new form of air warfare - swarming with suicidal precision on to known targets - they are a lot scarier
I don’t type this with pleasure. But there are an awful lot of PB-ers who don’t want to hear ANYTHING negative/depressing about the war and only want to hear endless stories of Ukrainian brilliance and bravery and squalidly pathetic Russian defeat, and how that means Ukraine obviously wins and then Putin magically disappears
Sadly, reality isn’t like that. Putin still has military options and he can still win. It won’t be easy for him - indeed it will go bloody and difficult - but it is possible
The response so far from the west has been to tell FIFA that Iran should be barred from the upcoming soccer World Cup.
I bet the Mullahs are quaking. They have already rung Putin and told him no more drones until after the World Cup
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
Worth listening/watching to the Perun on the state of the air war in Ukraine, if you haven't already. It supports some of what you have been saying - Russian can currently source/supply missiles & drones quicker than Ukraine can supply anti-air ammunition.
Those Shahads are single-use I believe, with 40kg of explosive each, so c.100 tonnes of explosive in total for 2,400 drones.
I am not sure that sounds like a game-changer to me. A trickier issue is that the drones are cheaper than the missiles used to shoot them down.
As I suggested earlier today, the solution to defence of compact high value targets like power plants is something like these systems (which the US has a few of). They are designed to take down targets much faster and smaller than the Iranian drones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS#Centurion_C-RAM
Similar stuff is available for naval use from other suppliers, and its only a matter of time before they come up with land based versions.
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
Makes me wonder how much explosive it would take to cripple the UK if you could put it wherever you want?
Define 'cripple'.
We have got used to a certain lifestyle. There is a good chance this winter that there might be power cuts, and that is *not* what we are used to. But life will go on; we will adapt. Just as places that have frequent power cuts will. Or as we adapted to working-from-home during Covid. It is not ideal; there will be pain. But we will not be 'crippled'.
If you want to cause maximum distress, you would go for long-lead items that are relatively rare around the world. Generator sets being an example (in CCGT, this is essentially a jet engine). But generators tend to be in the middle of buildings and harder to get at.
Or go totally off-base and do something to water supplies. Poisoning water supplies would be a biggie; though I (thankfully) have no idea what you could poison it with, or how much you would need in a reservoir the size of (e.g.) Grafham Water.
Yes: poisoning water supplies would be a pretty effective weapon. Albeit one that is mitigated somewhat in a Ukrainian winter, due to the ample amounts of water in a solid form that falls from the sky.
You could stop air travel, fairly simply. No casualties either. Not going to discuss the method on an open forum.
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
2400 drones. If they send ~100/day that's 24 days. Of those, 80%+ are shot down (and that number will rise as more air defence comes online)
This sounds more like a harassing measure, unless they can significantly improve penetration, and/or significantly improve targeting.
OR they source a constant new supply. How difficult is this shit?
Too difficult for PB, it seems
It is possible that they will - but I wouldn't count on that. I imagine there are some people giving considerable thought to covert means by which that can be prevented.
I'm by no means saying that you are wrong, just that RU has surprised us on the downside where these logistical matters have been concerned, thus far.
Theory doing the rounds that we’re set to see a lot of kites flown on cuts. Defence. Triple lock. NHS. And then Hunt turns round and says “Right. There you go, you didn’t like that did you. So you decide - it’s either welfare, or the pensioners, squaddies and nurses take the hit. https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1582355565103050754
Whatever they settle on, we can look forward to Labour opportunistically opposing all the 'tory cuts', whilst also promising to 'balance the books';
Advantage of opposition. You can have your cake and eat it.
The last time Labour came to power without being gifted a golden economic situation was almost 50 years ago (1974). They hung on for one 5 year term of strife until ejected by Thatcher. If (when) Labour win the next General Election they are going to be ripped asunder by having to try to balance the books whilst dealing with the Unions.
Yes, the analogy between the mid 70's and the current period is very strong on a number of levels. Interestingly this was also around the time that we joined the EU.
Labour will have absolutely no difficulty balancing the books if they extend NI to all earnings and introduce a land value or similar wealth tax.
It absolutely does my head in that all that is being spoken of is 'which cuts are going to be made'. Public services are on their arse due to years of 'efficiency savings' and other cuts. If people vote Labour they are voting for better public services, among other things.
Rich pensioners, BTL rentiers, people living off inherited wealth and those squirrelling away millions so that their descendants can enjoy idle luxury are going to have to suck it up.
Labour won't do this though. A large proportion of their supporters are middle class people, many of whom are on 'gold plated pensions' of various kinds, or are eligible for such, and have benefitted as much as anyone from the low taxes on wealth acquisition in this country. I know lots of these people and they mainly vote Labour. I suspect many of the posters on here actually fall within this category. I just don't think that Labour will do something that works against the obvious financial interests of their supporters.
What I would guess we will instead from the Starmer led Labour party by way of policy is a tax on the super rich, ie the '1%'. This plays in to the delusions of their supporters that they are not actually rich and privileged. The 'super rich taxes' probably won't work because as we know the super rich will just leave the country or find loopholes. I would expect that everything else will remain pretty much as it is.
So your thesis is that wealthy pensioners are protected because they vote Labour as well as because they vote Conservative? What about poor pensioners on the state pension which is less than £10,000 a year despite the triple lock?
I doubt any party is going to do anything that makes things worse for people in this category, although I don't think this group is particularly affiliated to either party. My point is just that, if you want to ask 'which group is going to pay more', it is not a particularly easy question for the Labour party.
It is not a particularly easy question for any Party but it has to be answered.
Pensioners have been pandered to for a very long time. Why should they not bear more of the burden now?
NI will face an election before Christmas, unless power sharing is restored in the next 10 days, the government has confirmed - Chris Heaton Harris hinted at election on 8th or 15 December. Parties don't expect Stormont to be back by 28 Oct so new election next step by law https://twitter.com/lisaocarroll/status/1582381074566369280
Are we still in the DUP refusing to play ball phase? I.e. they refuse to serve if Michelle O’Neill is first minister (even though she has, erm, been elected as such)
Yes although the reason has a lot more to do with Bozo's Brexit deal which means checks on all goods coming from the UK while goods coming via Ireland are free flowing.
Bollocks -the DUP don't want Sinn Fein to have the first minister position - every thing is an excuse - if the Brexit issue was sorted they would find another reason not to cooperate.
Stop their pay if they are not sitting. Dismiss them from public service if they wilfully take unauthorised absence and bar them from ever standing again.
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
dont worry mate the russians are monitoring this forum lol
Their attempts at coming along incognito would be helped immeasurably if they learned basic English punctuation. Capital letters and full stops alone would do the trick.
It would be really helpful for Ukraine if the young people of Iran could overthrow the regime around about now. Because, if Putin has got access to an unrestricted supply of new Iranian drones - and the Guardian says he has stockpiled 2,400 already - that seriously changes the balance of military power in Ukraine. It means he CAN starve and freeze Ukraine through the winter, then take a weakened Kyiv from Belarus
I now believe Putin is reading PB, and taking my military advice
Not provided we keep sending food supplies to Ukraine
We can’t send water and leccy to Ukraine. That will be much more the problem
Putin has 2400 drones. And more coming. That’s a fuck of a lot. He can, perhaps, pound Ukrainian infrastructure relentlessly until there is a systemic failure and entire cities are without water and power for weeks at a time - and the population is helpless. In a Ukrainian winter
No matter how brave the Ukrainian soldiers - and they are decidedly brave - in that situation Ukraine would probably surrender
They can be helped on the electricity side from the EU - remember they are now connected to the EU grid. We could also supply them with the temporary generators which are now often used when the main supply goes down either for planned maintenance or in an emergency.
Either way these attacks won't make Ukraine surrender. Quite the opposite, they will simply harden Ukrainian resolve. They are as pointless as Hitler's V1s and V2s were.
Imagining the new war will be just like the last war is a perennial mistake. You are doing it
You continue to overestimate both the fragility of the Ukrainian power system and the effectiveness of these drones.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
Makes me wonder how much explosive it would take to cripple the UK if you could put it wherever you want?
Define 'cripple'.
We have got used to a certain lifestyle. There is a good chance this winter that there might be power cuts, and that is *not* what we are used to. But life will go on; we will adapt. Just as places that have frequent power cuts will. Or as we adapted to working-from-home during Covid. It is not ideal; there will be pain. But we will not be 'crippled'.
If you want to cause maximum distress, you would go for long-lead items that are relatively rare around the world. Generator sets being an example (in CCGT, this is essentially a jet engine). But generators tend to be in the middle of buildings and harder to get at.
Or go totally off-base and do something to water supplies. Poisoning water supplies would be a biggie; though I (thankfully) have no idea what you could poison it with, or how much you would need in a reservoir the size of (e.g.) Grafham Water.
Yes: poisoning water supplies would be a pretty effective weapon. Albeit one that is mitigated somewhat in a Ukrainian winter, due to the ample amounts of water in a solid form that falls from the sky.
You could stop air travel, fairly simply. No casualties either. Not going to discuss the method on an open forum.
Come now, we all know it involves blowing up Icelandic volcanoes
NI will face an election before Christmas, unless power sharing is restored in the next 10 days, the government has confirmed - Chris Heaton Harris hinted at election on 8th or 15 December. Parties don't expect Stormont to be back by 28 Oct so new election next step by law https://twitter.com/lisaocarroll/status/1582381074566369280
Are we still in the DUP refusing to play ball phase? I.e. they refuse to serve if Michelle O’Neill is first minister (even though she has, erm, been elected as such)
Yes although the reason has a lot more to do with Bozo's Brexit deal which means checks on all goods coming from the UK while goods coming via Ireland are free flowing.
Bollocks -the DUP don't want Sinn Fein to have the first minister position - every thing is an excuse - if the Brexit issue was sorted they would find another reason not to cooperate.
Now that the Tories have given us a Poundshop Churchill and a Poundshop Thatcher, I wonder what other lightweight versions of historical heavyweights we might expect?
Comments
What I would guess we will instead from the Starmer led Labour party by way of policy is a tax on the super rich, ie the '1%'. This plays in to the delusions of their supporters that they are not actually rich and privileged. The 'super rich taxes' probably won't work because as we know the super rich will just leave the country or find loopholes. I would expect that everything else will remain pretty much as it is.
https://www.railway.supply/en/russian-railway-is-on-the-verge-of-collapse/
https://twitter.com/david_n919
BRUTAL ATTACK (Oct 18)Ukraine National Guard Destroy 5000 Russian Troops and T-72B3 tanks in Kherson
OTOH
https://twitter.com/GeromanAT/status/1582197154135019520
@GeromanAT
#Russia #Ukraine #Kherson Front
AFU tried another attack in the good old bridgehead near Bruskinskoe -
it failed.
"More than 100 Ukrainian servicemen, 13 armored combat vehicles and 8 vehicles were destroyed."
Someone (Probably both) might be inventing their truth
And if the answer is, then how many of them?
The Brexit effect: how leaving the EU hit the UK | FT Film
The UK's recent disastrous "mini" Budget can trace its origins back to Britain's decision to leave the European Union. The economic costs of Brexit were masked by the Covid-19 pandemic and the crisis in Ukraine. But six years after the UK voted to leave, the effect has become clear. In this film, senior FT writers and British businesspeople examine how Brexit hit the UK economy, the political conspiracy of silence, and why there has not yet been a convincing case for a 'Brexit dividend'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO2lWmgEK1Y
Timestamped Section links from the video description (not links here because I'm too lazy:-
00:00 - The Brexit effect
01:41 - The economic impact
04:40 - Brexit and business
09:45 - Britain falls behind
13:45 - The labour market
15:05 - Northern Ireland conundrum
16:50 - The conspiracy of silence
18:57 - Winners and losers
21:17 - The Brexit 'dividend
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCEzEVwOwS4
Those Shahads are single-use I believe, with 40kg of explosive each, so c.100 tonnes of explosive in total for 2,400 drones.
I am not sure that sounds like a game-changer to me. A trickier issue is that the drones are cheaper than the missiles used to shoot them down.
Of course there are all kinds of world cups (cricket, tiddlywinks, rugby in order of importance) but there is only one World Cup.*
* not very woke of me with respect to the women's game sorry.
“The British military describes the Shahed-136’s 80-pound payload as small. Still, its precision targeting gives it a potentially devastating effect. A Ukrainian officer who saw the drone used in combat said it could target a self-propelled howitzer near where the gunpowder was stored, causing a greater explosion than its warhead alone would achieve.”
More importantly, they are so cheap they can be used in suicidal SWARMS. That’s when they become seriously dangerous to Ukraine - and its infrastructure
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/17/world/europe/russia-ukraine-iran-drones.html
Looks like the Ukrainians will be wanting a whole pile of gun based AA systems.
I imagine the Ukrainians are going to have a pretty horrible winter. There will be frequent power cuts. The war is coming again to Kyiv and Lviv.
But don't forget that most normal businesses and factories will have been forced to close by the war already. This means that electricity is demand is likely well down on where it was a year ago.
Coal fired power stations are also not complicated things: pipes can be replaced, boilers patched and repaired. And distributed generation - i.e. a few Aggreko containers - can power city blocks with relative ease (as well as being very hard to detect and destroy).
Then there's the other side of the equation: 2,400 drones sounds like a lot. But don't forget that they only have the oomph of a very small bomb. The total flying weight of the drones (including explosives) is 200 kilograms (440 pounds). If we - generously - assume that the amount of explosive it carries is half that, we get to a 220 pound bomb. An F16's standard bomb (of which it will carry several) is 2,000 pounds.
And let's not forget that not all of those drones are going to reach their targets: some will get shot down, some malfunction, some get lost, and some will simply miss at the end. And there's no shortage of countermeasures that the Ukrainians can take: the easiest of which is simply shining laser pointers on the drones, blinding the camera, and meaning operators will no longer be able to pinpoint exactly what gets hit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136
Also supposedly moving out the bank reserves (although I can't believe the wouldn't have done that already - straight to Putin's Swiss bank account).
Various reports the lack of supplies is biting. Not just here either - across the whole front.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/politics/20149090/sleaze-investigation-into-labour-mp-due-to-conclude/
Defence Secretary
@BWallaceMP
is in the US on a seemingly hastily-arranged trip. Fellow minister
@JSHeappey
hinted at what it’s about: “To have the sort of conversations that… beyond belief really the fact we are at a time when these sorts of conversations are necessary”
https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1582288769369010176?s=20&t=i_tJk7c_wofoqRvDnV38Og
Labour victory: 60% (+13 from 27 Sep)
Conservative victory: 18% (-8)
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/who-do-people-think-will-win-the-next-election https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1582380777769435136/photo/1
So that means one-twentieth of the explosive power of just one of an F16s standard bombs.
If we assume an F16 is carrying two, that means that one F16 sortie is worth 40 drones.
I don’t type this with pleasure. But there are an awful lot of PB-ers who don’t want to hear ANYTHING negative/depressing about the war and only want to hear endless stories of Ukrainian brilliance and bravery and squalidly pathetic Russian defeat, and how that means Ukraine obviously wins and then Putin magically disappears
Sadly, reality isn’t like that. Putin still has military options and he can still win. It won’t be easy for him
- indeed it will go bloody and difficult - but it is possible
Parties don't expect Stormont to be back by 28 Oct so new election next step by law
https://twitter.com/lisaocarroll/status/1582381074566369280
Liz Truss is no longer publicly committed to defending the triple lock – the guarantee that the state pension will rise every year in line with inflation, earnings, or 2.5%, whichever is highest." - Guardian Live.
OBR forecast pensions at £110bn for 2022-23 (forecast done in Oct 2021) - assuming they expected a 3-4 % inflation this would now be £117m if uplift by 10% in line with tomorrows inflation figure next April. Would save £1.1bn for every percentage point they pay below the inflation rate.
Realistically they cannot go below 8% uplift which would only save about £2.2bn - The grief it would cause to the Conservative Party would be comparable to Clegg's student fees promise and would be felt by the only bit of the electorate who still might vote Conservative. 20% in the polls - they will be lucky to be in double figures and no doubt the MPs would turn on Hunt!
But if you need to clarify, can't use "football" and don't want to use "soccer" then the shortest way that doesn't need disambiguation is probably to use "FIFA".
The counter to low capability drones is either guns or directed energy weapons. At a certain level of sophistication of the drones, small missiles (see Iron Dome) become a better bet.
https://twitter.com/thesun/status/1582381214086090752?s=61&t=Y3u_JZgrIa7Bwkj42nfD7w
I will definitely vote for the increased taxes on people like me because reducing debt while protecting public services is the right thing to do for the country. Many others I know will I am sure do likewise.
As for the 1% whose loyalty to their money exceeds their loyalty to their country... well they can f*ck right off to wherever they prefer to live - but don't expect to retain their UK citizenship, non-dom tax privileges or UK property without paying the associated wealth taxes.
Then there are online cyberattacks, perhaps made easier by backdoors planted by Chinese or American hardware suppliers.
Gotta love the "we" here, considering above comes from someone who stated (I paraphrase) that UKR should just lay back and enjoy being raped by Putin.
The silence from ordinary MPs is deafening.
Crisis? What Crisis?
Queues in Kyiv forming due to water shortage.
https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1582315216175439872?s=20&t=ZWY0R4f7sdPTOfHJnsVGVA
https://tenor.com/view/paybolt-payboltarmy16-payboltarmy-gif-24280195
ETA OMG I've just compared Leon to Churchill, and not in their drinking.
We have got used to a certain lifestyle. There is a good chance this winter that there might be power cuts, and that is *not* what we are used to. But life will go on; we will adapt. Just as places that have frequent power cuts will. Or as we adapted to working-from-home during Covid. It is not ideal; there will be pain. But we will not be 'crippled'.
If you want to cause maximum distress, you would go for long-lead items that are relatively rare around the world. Generator sets being an example (in CCGT, this is essentially a jet engine). But generators tend to be in the middle of buildings and harder to get at.
Or go totally off-base and do something to water supplies. Poisoning water supplies would be a biggie; though I (thankfully) have no idea what you could poison it with, or how much you would need in a reservoir the size of (e.g.) Grafham Water.
This sounds more like a harassing measure, unless they can significantly improve penetration, and/or significantly improve targeting.
Gaeball and Amball, too, for consistency.
Can't see any problems with any of those
He keeps elevating into space and trying to put it all into "some sort of geopolitical context".
On the other hand, how many drones can Iran build per day? Because right now, Russia is chewing through Iranian stockpiles. Is it 100? Is it 1,000? If it's the former number, then Russia is going to struggle to reign terror when they start to run out.
And don't forget that the Iranian drones will require components from developed countries:
- GPS chips
- communications chips
- processors and sensors
How easy is it to jam the communications and prevent the operators from controlling them? (For that matter, can you have a swarm all in the same place, given radio interference and the necessity of a high bandwidth link for transmitting radio? Also worth noting... all that transmission makes the drones easy to spot with the right equipment. A piloted plane can go radio silent, these drones are not autonomous and need to be piloted from afar.)
And if the drones relies on GPS, might a few GPS jammers around key infrastructure targets might have a pretty serious affect.
It's possible that the drones are game changers. We certainly shouldn't discount the possibility. But we should also recognise that (a) they are not unlimited in quantity, (b) they deliver only a very small punch, and (c) it's quite possible that their effectiveness can be mitigated significantly.
BTW, power generators and the National Grid (and the water companies) do a brilliant job in supplying us with our services. They get a lot of sh*t thrown at them, but they have brilliant uptimes. Power cuts or water shortages are very rare events. I'd just like them to be a little more resilient to unexpected or rare events.
The most unusual passenger on Seattle public transit never rode the bus for long, just a few stops. She sometimes dozed during her short journeys, drooping her head onto the laps of strangers who never seemed to mind. Approaching her stop, she banged on the door in anticipation.
And other riders loved her for it.
But Seattle’s buses will no longer carry perhaps their most famous passenger. Eclipse, the black Lab-bullmastiff mix who achieved fame by riding to the park alone, died Friday. She was 10.
Eclipse started getting attention in early 2015 when she slipped aboard her usual bus while her owner, Jeff Young, was finishing a cigarette, unaware she had proceeded without him, he said. Guided only by habit, she exited at the correct stop and was very much enjoying herself at the dog park when Young, relieved from his panic, found her. After that, Eclipse became a regular commuter, taking two to three solo trips to the dog park each week, looking out the window to make sure she didn’t miss her stop.
Stardom soon followed. A local radio host noticed her get off the bus without an owner, which led to an on-air segment which, in turn, piqued the interest of Seattle TV station KOMO. National media coverage followed, and the internet did the rest.
Seattle’s public transportation system, King County Metro, quickly celebrated its newly famous pawed passenger, making a highly produced music video for the song “Bus Doggy Dog.” It closed with a tagline: “Get around like Eclipse. Plan your next trip.”
Young also leaned into his pet’s newfound fame, creating a public-figure Facebook page for “Eclipse Seattle’s Bus Riding Dog” where he shared Eclipse updates with her followers, which on Monday numbered 122,000. In 2016, Young co-wrote a children’s book titled “Dog on Board: The True Story of Eclipse, the Bus-Riding Dog.” And over the years, he and Eclipse acquired loads of swag — leashes, treats, harnesses.
“It just goes on and on and on,” Young said.
But stripped of the hoopla, their relationship at its core was that of a human and his dog — best friends, he said. Young got Eclipse when she was a 10-week-old puppy. He said they have spent all but three nights together in the nearly 11 years since.
Then on Wednesday, Young announced on Eclipse’s Facebook page that the vet had found cancerous tumors. He implored her fans to send “spare vibes” their way.
Two days later, he had bad news: Eclipse had died overnight in her sleep.
“She’s gone, and I miss her, and it really sucks,” he told The Washington Post.
King County Metro replied to Young’s announcement, offering condolences.
“Eclipse was a super sweet, world-famous, bus riding dog and true Seattle icon,” the agency wrote on Twitter. “You brought joy and happiness to everyone and showed us all that good dogs belong on the bus.”
Too difficult for PB, it seems
Whether the decisions are by her, Hunt, or the Illuminati, its her Government and her responsibility.
They are designed to take down targets much faster and smaller than the Iranian drones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS#Centurion_C-RAM
Similar stuff is available for naval use from other suppliers, and its only a matter of time before they come up with land based versions.
The Ukraine navy has actually ordered one of these
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aselsan_GOKDENIZ
And of course they have a handful of Gepards from Germany, which could preform a similar role.
To protect cities, you'd still need missiles.
I'm by no means saying that you are wrong, just that RU has surprised us on the downside where these logistical matters have been concerned, thus far.
Pensioners have been pandered to for a very long time. Why should they not bear more of the burden now?
They would be back at work in a heartbeat.
How embarrassed do you feel, if at all, by the economic and political situation in Britain at the present time?
Very: 46%
Fairly: 31%
Not very: 9%
Not at all: 6%
Conservative figures are 41% Very and 34% fairly - and those presumably are the few people who still say they are going to vote Conservative!
Eeesh!