I'm interested on how PB's finest would tackle the boats across the channel issue. I think a deal with the French is needed along lines of processing applications for asylum jointly in France and we take a certain percentage or number and French agree that intercepted boats can be turned back. Anybody think that Rwanda might "work" if implemented fully?
Easy.
Permanent landlord ban on anyone housing undocumented migrants
Permanent director ban for any company employing them
Permanent driving ban for anyone moving them about
Etc etc
And residency rights for any illegal immigrant who whistleblows on the above.
But think about the companies. How are they to know, in the absence of a UK ID card?
They'd need to ask everyone to show a passport. How do they know they are real? And what about the many, many UK subjects who don't have a passport? Are they to become unemployable?
Companies are already required to do that.
Butd how do they know whom to ask? Presumably everyone? So those sans passports are ...?
Everyone, yes. It is quite tedious.
We used to use Passport, or gov approved IDV service.
We now have to do criminal record checks too (required by some of our larger clients anti-this that and the other policies) and use an all-in-one IDV and background check service to do it. It adds another few quid to the cost of employing anyone.
I'm interested on how PB's finest would tackle the boats across the channel issue. I think a deal with the French is needed along lines of processing applications for asylum jointly in France and we take a certain percentage or number and French agree that intercepted boats can be turned back. Anybody think that Rwanda might "work" if implemented fully?
Good God! Strike a deal with the French? You absolute traitor, sir, how dare you!
Sink, burn or destroy then.
Ghastly though it sounds it'd probably save lives.
Reminded again of 1984 Last night to the flicks. All war films. One very good one of a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean. Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with a helicopter after him, first you saw him wallowing along in the water like a porpoise, then you saw him through the helicopters gunsights, then he was full of holes and the sea round him turned pink and he sank as suddenly as though the holes had let in the water, audience shouting with laughter when he sank. then you saw a lifeboat full of children with a helicopter hovering over it.
Is that really in 1984?
Orwell was such a prescient genius. Astonishing
Here is more
"Last night to the flicks. All war films. One very good one of a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean. Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with a helicopter after him, first you saw him wallowing along in the water like a porpoise, then you saw him through the helicopters gunsights, then he was full of holes and the sea round him turned pink and he sank as suddenly as though the holes had let in the water, audience shouting with laughter when he sank. then you saw a lifeboat full of children with a helicopter hovering over it. there was a middle-aged woman might have been a jewess sitting up in the bow with a little boy about three years old in her arms. little boy screaming with fright and hiding his head between her breasts as if he was trying to burrow right into her and the woman putting her .arms round him and comforting him although she was blue with fright herself, all the time covering him up as much as possible as if she thought her arms could keep the bullets off him. then the helicopter planted a 20 kilo bomb in among them terrific flash and the boat went all to matchwood. Then there was a wonderful shot of a child’s arm going up up up right up into the air a helicopter with a camera in its nose must have followed it up and there was a lot of applause from the party seats."
Genius indeed.
My favourite is Duckspeak (from chapter 5)
"Winston had finished his bread and cheese. He turned a little sideways in his chair to drink his mug of coffee. At the table on his left the man with the strident voice was still talking remorselessly away. A young woman who was perhaps his secretary, and who was sitting with her back to Winston, was listening to him and seemed to be eagerly agreeing with everything that he said. From time to time Winston caught some such remark as 'I think you're so right, I do so agree with you', uttered in a youthful and rather silly feminine voice. But the other voice never stopped for an instant, even when the girl was speaking.
"Winston knew the man by sight, though he knew no more about him than that he held some important post in the Fiction Department. He was a man of about thirty, with a muscular throat and a large, mobile mouth. His head was thrown back a little, and because of the angle at which he was sitting, his spectacles caught the light and presented to Winston two blank discs instead of eyes. What was slightly horrible, was that from the stream of sound that poured out of his mouth it was almost impossible to distinguish a single word. Just once Winston caught a phrase -'complete and final elimination of Goldsteinism'- jerked out very rapidly and, as it seemed, all in one piece, like a line of type cast solid.
"For the rest it was just a noise, a quack-quack-quacking. And yet, though you could not actually hear what the man was saying, you could not be in any doubt about its general nature. He might be denouncing Goldstein and demanding sterner measures against thought-criminals and saboteurs, he might be fulminating against the atrocities of the Eurasian army, he might be praising Big Brother or the heroes on the Malabar front -- it made no difference. Whatever it was, you could be certain that every word of it was pure orthodoxy, pure Ingsoc. As he watched the eyeless face with the jaw moving rapidly up and down, Winston had a curious feeling that this was not a real human being but some kind of dummy. It was not the man's brain that was speaking, it was his larynx.
"The stuff that was coming out of him consisted of words, but it was not speech in the true sense: it was a noise uttered in unconsciousness, like the quacking of a duck."
Genius.
When not writing fiction he was a complete wombat. Was reading the other day how he nearly drowned himself and others by taking a motorboat across the Corrievreckan outside slack water, after living on Jura for 3 years, which is like living next to the M25 for 3 years and thinking it is a good idea to cross it on foot in fog in the rush hour.
Mm, quite. I've sailed *well past* it in full flow - and seen another yacht under sail go backwards in the current in the adjacent Dorus Mor (IIRC).
On his plans to tackle illegal immigration he insisted that the failure to put a stop to the hundreds of people crossing the channel in small boats had frustrated him hugely and he wanted to complete the plans of deportations to Rwanda.
He said: “It vexes me and was part of the reason I supported Brexit, even though I was told that it would be potentially damaging for my career.
“But I believed in it and one of the reasons was clearly making sure that we had proper control of our borders. We've got to change the definition of asylum.
“At the moment we use the ECHR, the European definition, and that is very broad. It's become broader.”
He added: “Over time, it's exploited by lefty lawyers for lots of spurious reasons to keep people here. So, I think we should move to a different definition, another international standard that the Australians and others use, which is much tighter and narrower, so that will help.
“The plan I've set out is radical. I will do whatever it takes including any legal changes to make the Rwanda policy work, because we must have control over our borders.”
When asked if that meant he would leave the ECHR he said: “Yes, no option should be off the table.”
These remarks require fisking.
1) He does not say he will leave the ECHR. It's not 'off the table' that's different.
2) Unless he does his less broad definition of asylum is redundant.
3) 'I will do whatever it takes' only applies if his proposals are legally possible in UK and international law. This is not in his hands. he is bound by court decisions. It's just words.
4) Brexit has palpably made no difference to the situation.
5) Which nationalities is he thinking of returning? Persecuted ones or war zone ones? He already has the power to return Albanians by due process.
6) Hands up every Tory MP who wants to send Paddington Bear to Rwanda along with some middle class Ukrainian mothers and their small children.
I'm interested on how PB's finest would tackle the boats across the channel issue. I think a deal with the French is needed along lines of processing applications for asylum jointly in France and we take a certain percentage or number and French agree that intercepted boats can be turned back. Anybody think that Rwanda might "work" if implemented fully?
Good God! Strike a deal with the French? You absolute traitor, sir, how dare you!
More importantly, the French will never stop the boats.
They will make agreements, but the locals hate the migrants with a considerable heat.
No French politician is going to upset so many French people to accommodate foreigners. Especially the British.
The only way to stop the boats is to eliminate the pull factor. It must be clearly understood that there is no direct route to staying in the country for boat arrivals. No ifs or buts.
Not logical. Why treat them differently from other illegals?
We shouldn't. Anyone here illegally should, by definition, be deported.
Where to?
Their choice, and if they don't have one, dealer's choice.
Mr. Leon, dystopia isn't my preferred genre, but in the novella The Machine Stops EM Forster predicts instant messaging and (implicitly) the internet. And an increasingly sedentary lifestyle.
It's from before World War One, which makes the insight quite impressive.
Talking of sedentary lifestyles: something interesting has happened in England since the lockdown in my experience. There seem to be fewer obese and overweight people walking around. But whether this is because a lot of people have decided to lose weight, or whether they've just decided to stay at home more than they use to and so you don't seem them as often, I don't know.
I lost five stone during lockdown and afterwards - and have managed to keep it off mostly. In the early months I basically treated it as a holiday and binged on booze and grub. Then I stepped on some scales one random day and realised that was a huge mistake. My guess is that a lot of others did the same. Also worth bearing in mind that obesity was one of the factors that seemed to lead to very serious covid cases, as the then PM found out.
The BOE is becoming a definite problem. Since being granted its independence it seems to have done a sort of reverse takeover of the Treasury, which now seems to need to be granted independence from the Bank.
TBF to Sunak, if Simon Case advised me to take a particular course of action on an HR matter and really made an issue of it, I would be tempted to do the opposite as well, on the grounds that he's lazy, has no judgment, no sense and has been wrong on almost every big personnel call he's ever made.
However, a phrase about stopped clocks springs to mind.
Betting post Lula at 1.54 to win the Brazilian presidential election is value.
Yes the polls overestimated the R1 gap between Lula and Bolsonaro, but that was because they overestimated voteshare going to smaller parties that actually went to Bolsonaro. The R1 results were:
Lula needs to pick up 1.6% to win R2. The key fact is that Tebet and Gomes have both endorsed Lula. Their combined voteshare is 7.2%. If he picks up all of that, Lula will be on 55.6%, winning by an 11% margin. If we make the heroic for Bolsonaro assumption that he will pick up the voteshares of all the Others, Lula will need to pick up less than 1.6pp of that 7.2%, with the other 5.6% not abstaining but going to Bolsonaro, to lose this election. That is not going to happen.
In 2018, valid-vote turnout was 90.4% in R2, 91.2% in R1. (3rd cand in R1: 12%) 2014: 93.7%, 90.4%. (3rd cand in R1: 21%) 2010: 93.3%, 91.4% (3rd cand in R1: 19%)
2022: R1: 96% (3rd cand: 4%)
It's over. If there's talk of a Bolsonaro surge, it's probably coming from the Lula campaign to make sure they get their vote out.
Friends in Brazil tell me that people they know are saying yeah, Lula is a bit corrupt but they don't care - they just want to get rid of that c*** Bolsonaro.
I'm interested on how PB's finest would tackle the boats across the channel issue. I think a deal with the French is needed along lines of processing applications for asylum jointly in France and we take a certain percentage or number and French agree that intercepted boats can be turned back. Anybody think that Rwanda might "work" if implemented fully?
Good God! Strike a deal with the French? You absolute traitor, sir, how dare you!
More importantly, the French will never stop the boats.
They will make agreements, but the locals hate the migrants with a considerable heat.
No French politician is going to upset so many French people to accommodate foreigners. Especially the British.
The only way to stop the boats is to eliminate the pull factor. It must be clearly understood that there is no direct route to staying in the country for boat arrivals. No ifs or buts.
Not logical. Why treat them differently from other illegals?
We shouldn't. Anyone here illegally should, by definition, be deported.
Where to?
Their choice, and if they don't have one, dealer's choice.
Because soooo many countries have border policies such that you can turn up with a ship or plane full of a few hundred passportless undesirables and offload them and fuck off home to get the next lot.
I'm interested on how PB's finest would tackle the boats across the channel issue. I think a deal with the French is needed along lines of processing applications for asylum jointly in France and we take a certain percentage or number and French agree that intercepted boats can be turned back. Anybody think that Rwanda might "work" if implemented fully?
Good God! Strike a deal with the French? You absolute traitor, sir, how dare you!
Sink, burn or destroy then.
Ghastly though it sounds it'd probably save lives.
Reminded again of 1984 Last night to the flicks. All war films. One very good one of a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean. Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with a helicopter after him, first you saw him wallowing along in the water like a porpoise, then you saw him through the helicopters gunsights, then he was full of holes and the sea round him turned pink and he sank as suddenly as though the holes had let in the water, audience shouting with laughter when he sank. then you saw a lifeboat full of children with a helicopter hovering over it.
Is that really in 1984?
Orwell was such a prescient genius. Astonishing
Here is more
"Last night to the flicks. All war films. One very good one of a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean. Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with a helicopter after him, first you saw him wallowing along in the water like a porpoise, then you saw him through the helicopters gunsights, then he was full of holes and the sea round him turned pink and he sank as suddenly as though the holes had let in the water, audience shouting with laughter when he sank. then you saw a lifeboat full of children with a helicopter hovering over it. there was a middle-aged woman might have been a jewess sitting up in the bow with a little boy about three years old in her arms. little boy screaming with fright and hiding his head between her breasts as if he was trying to burrow right into her and the woman putting her .arms round him and comforting him although she was blue with fright herself, all the time covering him up as much as possible as if she thought her arms could keep the bullets off him. then the helicopter planted a 20 kilo bomb in among them terrific flash and the boat went all to matchwood. Then there was a wonderful shot of a child’s arm going up up up right up into the air a helicopter with a camera in its nose must have followed it up and there was a lot of applause from the party seats."
Genius indeed.
My favourite is Duckspeak (from chapter 5)
"Winston had finished his bread and cheese. He turned a little sideways in his chair to drink his mug of coffee. At the table on his left the man with the strident voice was still talking remorselessly away. A young woman who was perhaps his secretary, and who was sitting with her back to Winston, was listening to him and seemed to be eagerly agreeing with everything that he said. From time to time Winston caught some such remark as 'I think you're so right, I do so agree with you', uttered in a youthful and rather silly feminine voice. But the other voice never stopped for an instant, even when the girl was speaking.
"Winston knew the man by sight, though he knew no more about him than that he held some important post in the Fiction Department. He was a man of about thirty, with a muscular throat and a large, mobile mouth. His head was thrown back a little, and because of the angle at which he was sitting, his spectacles caught the light and presented to Winston two blank discs instead of eyes. What was slightly horrible, was that from the stream of sound that poured out of his mouth it was almost impossible to distinguish a single word. Just once Winston caught a phrase -'complete and final elimination of Goldsteinism'- jerked out very rapidly and, as it seemed, all in one piece, like a line of type cast solid.
"For the rest it was just a noise, a quack-quack-quacking. And yet, though you could not actually hear what the man was saying, you could not be in any doubt about its general nature. He might be denouncing Goldstein and demanding sterner measures against thought-criminals and saboteurs, he might be fulminating against the atrocities of the Eurasian army, he might be praising Big Brother or the heroes on the Malabar front -- it made no difference. Whatever it was, you could be certain that every word of it was pure orthodoxy, pure Ingsoc. As he watched the eyeless face with the jaw moving rapidly up and down, Winston had a curious feeling that this was not a real human being but some kind of dummy. It was not the man's brain that was speaking, it was his larynx.
"The stuff that was coming out of him consisted of words, but it was not speech in the true sense: it was a noise uttered in unconsciousness, like the quacking of a duck."
Genius.
When not writing fiction he was a complete wombat. Was reading the other day how he nearly drowned himself and others by taking a motorboat across the Corrievreckan outside slack water, after living on Jura for 3 years, which is like living next to the M25 for 3 years and thinking it is a good idea to cross it on foot in fog in the rush hour.
Tbf he knew he was dying by then. Maybe clouded his judgement
What he might have written if he’d lived to a riper age!
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
I'm interested on how PB's finest would tackle the boats across the channel issue. I think a deal with the French is needed along lines of processing applications for asylum jointly in France and we take a certain percentage or number and French agree that intercepted boats can be turned back. Anybody think that Rwanda might "work" if implemented fully?
Good God! Strike a deal with the French? You absolute traitor, sir, how dare you!
More importantly, the French will never stop the boats.
They will make agreements, but the locals hate the migrants with a considerable heat.
No French politician is going to upset so many French people to accommodate foreigners. Especially the British.
The only way to stop the boats is to eliminate the pull factor. It must be clearly understood that there is no direct route to staying in the country for boat arrivals. No ifs or buts.
Not logical. Why treat them differently from other illegals?
We shouldn't. Anyone here illegally should, by definition, be deported.
Where to?
Their choice, and if they don't have one, dealer's choice.
It's not like posting a letter; the recipient has to agree too, you know that right?
I'm interested on how PB's finest would tackle the boats across the channel issue. I think a deal with the French is needed along lines of processing applications for asylum jointly in France and we take a certain percentage or number and French agree that intercepted boats can be turned back. Anybody think that Rwanda might "work" if implemented fully?
Good God! Strike a deal with the French? You absolute traitor, sir, how dare you!
Sink, burn or destroy then.
Ghastly though it sounds it'd probably save lives.
Reminded again of 1984 Last night to the flicks. All war films. One very good one of a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean. Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with a helicopter after him, first you saw him wallowing along in the water like a porpoise, then you saw him through the helicopters gunsights, then he was full of holes and the sea round him turned pink and he sank as suddenly as though the holes had let in the water, audience shouting with laughter when he sank. then you saw a lifeboat full of children with a helicopter hovering over it.
Is that really in 1984?
Orwell was such a prescient genius. Astonishing
Here is more
"Last night to the flicks. All war films. One very good one of a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean. Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with a helicopter after him, first you saw him wallowing along in the water like a porpoise, then you saw him through the helicopters gunsights, then he was full of holes and the sea round him turned pink and he sank as suddenly as though the holes had let in the water, audience shouting with laughter when he sank. then you saw a lifeboat full of children with a helicopter hovering over it. there was a middle-aged woman might have been a jewess sitting up in the bow with a little boy about three years old in her arms. little boy screaming with fright and hiding his head between her breasts as if he was trying to burrow right into her and the woman putting her .arms round him and comforting him although she was blue with fright herself, all the time covering him up as much as possible as if she thought her arms could keep the bullets off him. then the helicopter planted a 20 kilo bomb in among them terrific flash and the boat went all to matchwood. Then there was a wonderful shot of a child’s arm going up up up right up into the air a helicopter with a camera in its nose must have followed it up and there was a lot of applause from the party seats."
Genius indeed.
My favourite is Duckspeak (from chapter 5)
"Winston had finished his bread and cheese. He turned a little sideways in his chair to drink his mug of coffee. At the table on his left the man with the strident voice was still talking remorselessly away. A young woman who was perhaps his secretary, and who was sitting with her back to Winston, was listening to him and seemed to be eagerly agreeing with everything that he said. From time to time Winston caught some such remark as 'I think you're so right, I do so agree with you', uttered in a youthful and rather silly feminine voice. But the other voice never stopped for an instant, even when the girl was speaking.
"Winston knew the man by sight, though he knew no more about him than that he held some important post in the Fiction Department. He was a man of about thirty, with a muscular throat and a large, mobile mouth. His head was thrown back a little, and because of the angle at which he was sitting, his spectacles caught the light and presented to Winston two blank discs instead of eyes. What was slightly horrible, was that from the stream of sound that poured out of his mouth it was almost impossible to distinguish a single word. Just once Winston caught a phrase -'complete and final elimination of Goldsteinism'- jerked out very rapidly and, as it seemed, all in one piece, like a line of type cast solid.
"For the rest it was just a noise, a quack-quack-quacking. And yet, though you could not actually hear what the man was saying, you could not be in any doubt about its general nature. He might be denouncing Goldstein and demanding sterner measures against thought-criminals and saboteurs, he might be fulminating against the atrocities of the Eurasian army, he might be praising Big Brother or the heroes on the Malabar front -- it made no difference. Whatever it was, you could be certain that every word of it was pure orthodoxy, pure Ingsoc. As he watched the eyeless face with the jaw moving rapidly up and down, Winston had a curious feeling that this was not a real human being but some kind of dummy. It was not the man's brain that was speaking, it was his larynx.
"The stuff that was coming out of him consisted of words, but it was not speech in the true sense: it was a noise uttered in unconsciousness, like the quacking of a duck."
Genius.
When not writing fiction he was a complete wombat. Was reading the other day how he nearly drowned himself and others by taking a motorboat across the Corrievreckan outside slack water, after living on Jura for 3 years, which is like living next to the M25 for 3 years and thinking it is a good idea to cross it on foot in fog in the rush hour.
Tbf he knew he was dying by then. Maybe clouded his judgement
What he might have written if he’d lived to a riper age!
I would have thought it was perfectly safe to cross the M25 on foot in rush hour, fog or no, on the grounds that stationary traffic can't hurt you.
Betting post Lula at 1.54 to win the Brazilian presidential election is value.
Yes the polls overestimated the R1 gap between Lula and Bolsonaro, but that was because they overestimated voteshare going to smaller parties that actually went to Bolsonaro. The R1 results were:
Lula needs to pick up 1.6% to win R2. The key fact is that Tebet and Gomes have both endorsed Lula. Their combined voteshare is 7.2%. If he picks up all of that, Lula will be on 55.6%, winning by an 11% margin. If we make the heroic for Bolsonaro assumption that he will pick up the voteshares of all the Others, Lula will need to pick up less than 1.6pp of that 7.2%, with the other 5.6% not abstaining but going to Bolsonaro, to lose this election. That is not going to happen.
In 2018, valid-vote turnout was 90.4% in R2, 91.2% in R1. (3rd cand in R1: 12%) 2014: 93.7%, 90.4%. (3rd cand in R1: 21%) 2010: 93.3%, 91.4% (3rd cand in R1: 19%)
2022: R1: 96% (3rd cand: 4%)
It's over. If there's talk of a Bolsonaro surge, it's probably coming from the Lula campaign to make sure they get their vote out.
Friends in Brazil tell me that people they know are saying yeah, Lula is a bit corrupt but they don't care - they just want to get rid of that c*** Bolsonaro.
Lula has won this.
Not the first election where "Vote for the crook, not the fascist' is the rallying cry?
(Actually I don't know enough to say if Bolsonaro could be called fascist, or just an authoritarian dick)
For US poll watchers 4 new generic ballot polls have so far come out today .
After a poor run of polls for the Dems 3 out of the 4 show them leading between 3 and 4 points . The other has a GOP lead of 2 points .
Also more drama in the Georgia Senate race . A second woman is coming forward today to accuse Herschel Walker of taking her to an abortion clinic to terminate her pregnancy .
We decided the most uncannily prescient movie is Life of Brian, right down to the trans debate
Stanislaw Lem describes reading a newspaper on an iPad in some detail in Return from the Stars (1961).
I remember in my very early teens reading an ?Azimov story in which 1. Our hero's spaceship returns from hyper- to normal space in orbit round an extra-solar planet and 2. the hero takes a device out of his pocket and catches up on the local newspaper. And thinking 1. was a decade or two away, and 2: yeah, like that's ever going to happen.
Just once Winston caught a phrase -'complete and final elimination of Goldsteinism'- jerked out very rapidly and, as it seemed, all in one piece, like a line of type cast solid.
Now there's a metaphor whose originating technology has faded into the past, only decades later. A pity, because it's very evocative.
Well, for @Jim_Miller's benefit, we don't have to wait for a thread header to discuss an interesting election in another country. Denmark votes in 6 days and polling continues to show fascinating trends and directions.
Two surveys out this evening:
YouGov has the centre-left bloc (Social Democrats, Radikale Venstre, Socialist Folkeparti, Red/Green List and Alternative) on 49.5%
The centre-right bloc (Venstre, Conservative, Dansk Folkeparti, New Right, Liberal Alliance, Denmark Democrats) on 39.4% (a terrible poll for Venstre with just 10.4%).
The Moderates are on 9.6% so even if with their support the centre-right are going to just come up short.
Voxmeter did their fieldwork on 22-24 October.
The centre-left bloc has 44.9% and the centre-right has 38.8% (with the Danish People's Party falling below the 2% threshold).
The moderates are on 11.5% making them potentially the third largest party in the Folketing behind the Social Democrats and Venstre.
Lars Lokke Rasmussen has had a good campaign so far and his party has hoovered up support mainly but not exclusively from the centre-right. Mette Frederiksen remains in a strong position and YouGov would be good enough but with Voxmeter she could still fall if the moderates throw in with the centre-right.
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
You overlook the enormous consequences if such a 'US action' were to be proven. Why would the US take such a risk? Especially considering the pipelines were not in use with no immediate prospect of any use.
The BOE is becoming a definite problem. Since being granted its independence it seems to have done a sort of reverse takeover of the Treasury, which now seems to need to be granted independence from the Bank.
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
If it was the Finns that did it for Uncle Sam, what was the gameplan if they got exposed?
The Russians may not know (at p>0.8) who did it (I doubt this), but if it wasn't themselves then at least they'll know that.
"Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone"
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
You overlook the enormous consequences if such a 'US action' were to be proven. Why would the US take such a risk? Especially considering the pipelines were not in use with no immediate prospect of any use.
It would certainly be interesting to hear how the investigations are progressing, and when they're expected to report.
Betting post Lula at 1.54 to win the Brazilian presidential election is value.
Yes the polls overestimated the R1 gap between Lula and Bolsonaro, but that was because they overestimated voteshare going to smaller parties that actually went to Bolsonaro. The R1 results were:
Lula needs to pick up 1.6% to win R2. The key fact is that Tebet and Gomes have both endorsed Lula. Their combined voteshare is 7.2%. If he picks up all of that, Lula will be on 55.6%, winning by an 11% margin. If we make the heroic for Bolsonaro assumption that he will pick up the voteshares of all the Others, Lula will need to pick up less than 1.6pp of that 7.2%, with the other 5.6% not abstaining but going to Bolsonaro, to lose this election. That is not going to happen.
In 2018, valid-vote turnout was 90.4% in R2, 91.2% in R1. (3rd cand in R1: 12%) 2014: 93.7%, 90.4%. (3rd cand in R1: 21%) 2010: 93.3%, 91.4% (3rd cand in R1: 19%)
2022: R1: 96% (3rd cand: 4%)
It's over. If there's talk of a Bolsonaro surge, it's probably coming from the Lula campaign to make sure they get their vote out.
Friends in Brazil tell me that people they know are saying yeah, Lula is a bit corrupt but they don't care - they just want to get rid of that c*** Bolsonaro.
Lula has won this.
Not the first election where "Vote for the crook, not the fascist' is the rallying cry?
(Actually I don't know enough to say if Bolsonaro could be called fascist, or just an authoritarian dick)
The key question for the two candidates is this: what is their policy on refugees from nuclear war in Europe?
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
You overlook the enormous consequences if such a 'US action' were to be proven. Why would the US take such a risk? Especially considering the pipelines were not in use with no immediate prospect of any use.
What on earth makes you think it's provable? The US has been doing black ops stuff since time immemorial. As does the UK, as does Russia, etc
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
You overlook the enormous consequences if such a 'US action' were to be proven. Why would the US take such a risk? Especially considering the pipelines were not in use with no immediate prospect of any use.
It would certainly be interesting to hear how the investigations are progressing, and when they're expected to report.
Haven't Sweden said they won't be publishing the results of their inquiry because it was too sensitive?
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
If it was the Finns that did it for Uncle Sam, what was the gameplan if they got exposed?
The Russians may not know (at p>0.8) who did it (I doubt this), but if it wasn't themselves then at least they'll know that.
"Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone"
However, the supreme pontiff warned his ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ to ‘be careful’ as ‘the devil enters from there’
Even nuns and priests watch online pornography, Pope Francis has admitted, in an unusual admonishment of Catholic clergy.
Indulging in porn is a danger to the soul and a way of succumbing to the malign influence of “the devil”, the Pope warned an assembly of priests and seminarians in Rome.
“It’s a vice that many people have – many lay people but also priests and nuns. The devil enters from there,” he told the gathering at the Vatican earlier this week.
“And I’m not just talking about criminal pornography, involving the abuse of children, where you see live cases of abuse. That is already degenerate. I’m talking about ‘normal’ pornography. My dear brothers and sisters, be careful.”
A person with “a pure heart” should not be looking at porn, the head of the Roman Catholic Church said.
“If you can cancel it from your phone, then cancel it, then you won’t have temptation in your hand,” he continued.
“I’m sorry if I lower myself to such details about pornography, but it is reality. A reality that involves priests, seminarians, nuns, all consecrated souls. Have you understood? Good.”
It is not the first time the Argentinian pontiff has referenced pornography. In June he denounced porn as a threat to public health and the family.
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
You overlook the enormous consequences if such a 'US action' were to be proven. Why would the US take such a risk? Especially considering the pipelines were not in use with no immediate prospect of any use.
What on earth makes you think it's provable? The US has been doing black ops stuff since time immemorial. As does the UK, as does Russia, etc
Of course they have. And how do we know? Because they get leaked eventually.
This has to be one of the craziest conspiracy theories for years and those pushing it are playing the role of Vlad's useful idiots.
However, the supreme pontiff warned his ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ to ‘be careful’ as ‘the devil enters from there’
Even nuns and priests watch online pornography, Pope Francis has admitted, in an unusual admonishment of Catholic clergy.
Indulging in porn is a danger to the soul and a way of succumbing to the malign influence of “the devil”, the Pope warned an assembly of priests and seminarians in Rome.
“It’s a vice that many people have – many lay people but also priests and nuns. The devil enters from there,” he told the gathering at the Vatican earlier this week.
“And I’m not just talking about criminal pornography, involving the abuse of children, where you see live cases of abuse. That is already degenerate. I’m talking about ‘normal’ pornography. My dear brothers and sisters, be careful.”
A person with “a pure heart” should not be looking at porn, the head of the Roman Catholic Church said.
“If you can cancel it from your phone, then cancel it, then you won’t have temptation in your hand,” he continued.
“I’m sorry if I lower myself to such details about pornography, but it is reality. A reality that involves priests, seminarians, nuns, all consecrated souls. Have you understood? Good.”
It is not the first time the Argentinian pontiff has referenced pornography. In June he denounced porn as a threat to public health and the family.
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
You overlook the enormous consequences if such a 'US action' were to be proven. Why would the US take such a risk? Especially considering the pipelines were not in use with no immediate prospect of any use.
What on earth makes you think it's provable? The US has been doing black ops stuff since time immemorial. As does the UK, as does Russia, etc
Of course they have. And how do we know? Because they get leaked eventually.
This has to be one of the craziest conspiracy theories for years and those pushing it are playing the role of Vlad's useful idiots.
As I say in my original comment, following the "cui bono" principle I think the US has the most to gain from blowing up the pipeline - I struggle to see what Russia's angle is in doing it. 5d chess aside, I generally default to believing the person who has the most to gain from something is the most likely to do it, and I don't think that's mad conspiracy theory territory at all.
As for black ops stuff getting leaked eventually, you're demonstrating a kind of survivorship bias here - only the stuff that has been leaked gets leaked eventually, leaving a ton of stuff that's never been leaked. Short of a team of navy seals snapchatting selfies of themselves in diving gear grinning with a load of plastic explosives, neatly time and GPS stamped, I'm not entirely sure how anyone proves who exactly blew up the pipeline or how it was done.
However, the supreme pontiff warned his ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ to ‘be careful’ as ‘the devil enters from there’
Even nuns and priests watch online pornography, Pope Francis has admitted, in an unusual admonishment of Catholic clergy.
Indulging in porn is a danger to the soul and a way of succumbing to the malign influence of “the devil”, the Pope warned an assembly of priests and seminarians in Rome.
“It’s a vice that many people have – many lay people but also priests and nuns. The devil enters from there,” he told the gathering at the Vatican earlier this week.
“And I’m not just talking about criminal pornography, involving the abuse of children, where you see live cases of abuse. That is already degenerate. I’m talking about ‘normal’ pornography. My dear brothers and sisters, be careful.”
A person with “a pure heart” should not be looking at porn, the head of the Roman Catholic Church said.
“If you can cancel it from your phone, then cancel it, then you won’t have temptation in your hand,” he continued.
“I’m sorry if I lower myself to such details about pornography, but it is reality. A reality that involves priests, seminarians, nuns, all consecrated souls. Have you understood? Good.”
It is not the first time the Argentinian pontiff has referenced pornography. In June he denounced porn as a threat to public health and the family.
Betting post Lula at 1.54 to win the Brazilian presidential election is value.
Yes the polls overestimated the R1 gap between Lula and Bolsonaro, but that was because they overestimated voteshare going to smaller parties that actually went to Bolsonaro. The R1 results were:
Lula needs to pick up 1.6% to win R2. The key fact is that Tebet and Gomes have both endorsed Lula. Their combined voteshare is 7.2%. If he picks up all of that, Lula will be on 55.6%, winning by an 11% margin. If we make the heroic for Bolsonaro assumption that he will pick up the voteshares of all the Others, Lula will need to pick up less than 1.6pp of that 7.2%, with the other 5.6% not abstaining but going to Bolsonaro, to lose this election. That is not going to happen.
In 2018, valid-vote turnout was 90.4% in R2, 91.2% in R1. (3rd cand in R1: 12%) 2014: 93.7%, 90.4%. (3rd cand in R1: 21%) 2010: 93.3%, 91.4% (3rd cand in R1: 19%)
2022: R1: 96% (3rd cand: 4%)
It's over. If there's talk of a Bolsonaro surge, it's probably coming from the Lula campaign to make sure they get their vote out.
Friends in Brazil tell me that people they know are saying yeah, Lula is a bit corrupt but they don't care - they just want to get rid of that c*** Bolsonaro.
Lula has won this.
Getting the vote out is less of an issue in countries where voting is compulsory, as is the case in Brazil.
However, the supreme pontiff warned his ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ to ‘be careful’ as ‘the devil enters from there’
Even nuns and priests watch online pornography, Pope Francis has admitted, in an unusual admonishment of Catholic clergy.
Indulging in porn is a danger to the soul and a way of succumbing to the malign influence of “the devil”, the Pope warned an assembly of priests and seminarians in Rome.
“It’s a vice that many people have – many lay people but also priests and nuns. The devil enters from there,” he told the gathering at the Vatican earlier this week.
“And I’m not just talking about criminal pornography, involving the abuse of children, where you see live cases of abuse. That is already degenerate. I’m talking about ‘normal’ pornography. My dear brothers and sisters, be careful.”
A person with “a pure heart” should not be looking at porn, the head of the Roman Catholic Church said.
“If you can cancel it from your phone, then cancel it, then you won’t have temptation in your hand,” he continued.
“I’m sorry if I lower myself to such details about pornography, but it is reality. A reality that involves priests, seminarians, nuns, all consecrated souls. Have you understood? Good.”
It is not the first time the Argentinian pontiff has referenced pornography. In June he denounced porn as a threat to public health and the family.
However, the supreme pontiff warned his ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ to ‘be careful’ as ‘the devil enters from there’
Even nuns and priests watch online pornography, Pope Francis has admitted, in an unusual admonishment of Catholic clergy.
Indulging in porn is a danger to the soul and a way of succumbing to the malign influence of “the devil”, the Pope warned an assembly of priests and seminarians in Rome.
“It’s a vice that many people have – many lay people but also priests and nuns. The devil enters from there,” he told the gathering at the Vatican earlier this week.
“And I’m not just talking about criminal pornography, involving the abuse of children, where you see live cases of abuse. That is already degenerate. I’m talking about ‘normal’ pornography. My dear brothers and sisters, be careful.”
A person with “a pure heart” should not be looking at porn, the head of the Roman Catholic Church said.
“If you can cancel it from your phone, then cancel it, then you won’t have temptation in your hand,” he continued.
“I’m sorry if I lower myself to such details about pornography, but it is reality. A reality that involves priests, seminarians, nuns, all consecrated souls. Have you understood? Good.”
It is not the first time the Argentinian pontiff has referenced pornography. In June he denounced porn as a threat to public health and the family.
However, the supreme pontiff warned his ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ to ‘be careful’ as ‘the devil enters from there’
Even nuns and priests watch online pornography, Pope Francis has admitted, in an unusual admonishment of Catholic clergy.
Indulging in porn is a danger to the soul and a way of succumbing to the malign influence of “the devil”, the Pope warned an assembly of priests and seminarians in Rome.
“It’s a vice that many people have – many lay people but also priests and nuns. The devil enters from there,” he told the gathering at the Vatican earlier this week.
“And I’m not just talking about criminal pornography, involving the abuse of children, where you see live cases of abuse. That is already degenerate. I’m talking about ‘normal’ pornography. My dear brothers and sisters, be careful.”
A person with “a pure heart” should not be looking at porn, the head of the Roman Catholic Church said.
“If you can cancel it from your phone, then cancel it, then you won’t have temptation in your hand,” he continued.
“I’m sorry if I lower myself to such details about pornography, but it is reality. A reality that involves priests, seminarians, nuns, all consecrated souls. Have you understood? Good.”
It is not the first time the Argentinian pontiff has referenced pornography. In June he denounced porn as a threat to public health and the family.
However, the supreme pontiff warned his ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ to ‘be careful’ as ‘the devil enters from there’
Even nuns and priests watch online pornography, Pope Francis has admitted, in an unusual admonishment of Catholic clergy.
Indulging in porn is a danger to the soul and a way of succumbing to the malign influence of “the devil”, the Pope warned an assembly of priests and seminarians in Rome.
“It’s a vice that many people have – many lay people but also priests and nuns. The devil enters from there,” he told the gathering at the Vatican earlier this week.
“And I’m not just talking about criminal pornography, involving the abuse of children, where you see live cases of abuse. That is already degenerate. I’m talking about ‘normal’ pornography. My dear brothers and sisters, be careful.”
A person with “a pure heart” should not be looking at porn, the head of the Roman Catholic Church said.
“If you can cancel it from your phone, then cancel it, then you won’t have temptation in your hand,” he continued.
“I’m sorry if I lower myself to such details about pornography, but it is reality. A reality that involves priests, seminarians, nuns, all consecrated souls. Have you understood? Good.”
It is not the first time the Argentinian pontiff has referenced pornography. In June he denounced porn as a threat to public health and the family.
It’s another world. Such gems as how difficult Labour will find it in 2024 to go up against substantially lower taxes. Lots of praise for her from the usual suspects for her low key approach. In the middle of the discussion someone mentioned that the pound was falling.
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
You overlook the enormous consequences if such a 'US action' were to be proven. Why would the US take such a risk? Especially considering the pipelines were not in use with no immediate prospect of any use.
It would certainly be interesting to hear how the investigations are progressing, and when they're expected to report.
Haven't Sweden said they won't be publishing the results of their inquiry because it was too sensitive?
I think they cancelled a joint investigation with Germany and another country.
However, the supreme pontiff warned his ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ to ‘be careful’ as ‘the devil enters from there’
Even nuns and priests watch online pornography, Pope Francis has admitted, in an unusual admonishment of Catholic clergy.
Indulging in porn is a danger to the soul and a way of succumbing to the malign influence of “the devil”, the Pope warned an assembly of priests and seminarians in Rome.
“It’s a vice that many people have – many lay people but also priests and nuns. The devil enters from there,” he told the gathering at the Vatican earlier this week.
“And I’m not just talking about criminal pornography, involving the abuse of children, where you see live cases of abuse. That is already degenerate. I’m talking about ‘normal’ pornography. My dear brothers and sisters, be careful.”
A person with “a pure heart” should not be looking at porn, the head of the Roman Catholic Church said.
“If you can cancel it from your phone, then cancel it, then you won’t have temptation in your hand,” he continued.
“I’m sorry if I lower myself to such details about pornography, but it is reality. A reality that involves priests, seminarians, nuns, all consecrated souls. Have you understood? Good.”
It is not the first time the Argentinian pontiff has referenced pornography. In June he denounced porn as a threat to public health and the family.
It’s another world. Such gems as how difficult Labour will find it in 2024 to go up against substantially lower taxes. Lots of praise for her from the usual suspects for her low key approach. In the middle of the discussion someone mentioned that the pound was falling.
Yes, I've not been part of the "Truss is rubbish" mob and I like her manner (though naturally not her direction of policy). I think British politics will benefit from having two adults debating instead of an adult and a comedian.
It was a different time, people couldn't see what was coming.
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
You overlook the enormous consequences if such a 'US action' were to be proven. Why would the US take such a risk? Especially considering the pipelines were not in use with no immediate prospect of any use.
It would certainly be interesting to hear how the investigations are progressing, and when they're expected to report.
Tell me, do you now believe the Dutch inquiry into the shootdown of MH17? Or did that inquiry come up with the 'wrong' answers?
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
You overlook the enormous consequences if such a 'US action' were to be proven. Why would the US take such a risk? Especially considering the pipelines were not in use with no immediate prospect of any use.
What on earth makes you think it's provable? The US has been doing black ops stuff since time immemorial. As does the UK, as does Russia, etc
Of course they have. And how do we know? Because they get leaked eventually.
This has to be one of the craziest conspiracy theories for years and those pushing it are playing the role of Vlad's useful idiots.
As I say in my original comment, following the "cui bono" principle I think the US has the most to gain from blowing up the pipeline - I struggle to see what Russia's angle is in doing it. 5d chess aside, I generally default to believing the person who has the most to gain from something is the most likely to do it, and I don't think that's mad conspiracy theory territory at all.
As for black ops stuff getting leaked eventually, you're demonstrating a kind of survivorship bias here - only the stuff that has been leaked gets leaked eventually, leaving a ton of stuff that's never been leaked. Short of a team of navy seals snapchatting selfies of themselves in diving gear grinning with a load of plastic explosives, neatly time and GPS stamped, I'm not entirely sure how anyone proves who exactly blew up the pipeline or how it was done.
Um... How do you know there's "a ton of stuff that's never been leaked"?
And don't give me the 'it's not in Russia's interest to do this' argument. It's not in Russia's interest to invade Ukraine, but there we are. We are dealing with a crazy dictator. There is no logic.
There's only one regime that's crazy enough to do this - Russia.
It’s another world. Such gems as how difficult Labour will find it in 2024 to go up against substantially lower taxes. Lots of praise for her from the usual suspects for her low key approach. In the middle of the discussion someone mentioned that the pound was falling.
The next page contains this gem.
Indeed, I think Truss has already made a fatal mistake.
JRM as the person in charge/public face of energy prices during this crisis is a bit of a howler.
Would have been better off making Josef Fritzl minister for women and children.
“One senior U.S. official said there were new, troubling developments involving Russia’s nuclear arsenal. The official asked for anonymity and declined to provide any details, given the sensitivity of the issue.”
However, the supreme pontiff warned his ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ to ‘be careful’ as ‘the devil enters from there’
Even nuns and priests watch online pornography, Pope Francis has admitted, in an unusual admonishment of Catholic clergy.
Indulging in porn is a danger to the soul and a way of succumbing to the malign influence of “the devil”, the Pope warned an assembly of priests and seminarians in Rome.
“It’s a vice that many people have – many lay people but also priests and nuns. The devil enters from there,” he told the gathering at the Vatican earlier this week.
“And I’m not just talking about criminal pornography, involving the abuse of children, where you see live cases of abuse. That is already degenerate. I’m talking about ‘normal’ pornography. My dear brothers and sisters, be careful.”
A person with “a pure heart” should not be looking at porn, the head of the Roman Catholic Church said.
“If you can cancel it from your phone, then cancel it, then you won’t have temptation in your hand,” he continued.
“I’m sorry if I lower myself to such details about pornography, but it is reality. A reality that involves priests, seminarians, nuns, all consecrated souls. Have you understood? Good.”
It is not the first time the Argentinian pontiff has referenced pornography. In June he denounced porn as a threat to public health and the family.
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
You overlook the enormous consequences if such a 'US action' were to be proven. Why would the US take such a risk? Especially considering the pipelines were not in use with no immediate prospect of any use.
What on earth makes you think it's provable? The US has been doing black ops stuff since time immemorial. As does the UK, as does Russia, etc
Of course they have. And how do we know? Because they get leaked eventually.
This has to be one of the craziest conspiracy theories for years and those pushing it are playing the role of Vlad's useful idiots.
To qualify as a conspiracy theory, it should contradict an official version of events, but there isn't one so it's merely a theory and it's not implausible.
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
You overlook the enormous consequences if such a 'US action' were to be proven. Why would the US take such a risk? Especially considering the pipelines were not in use with no immediate prospect of any use.
What on earth makes you think it's provable? The US has been doing black ops stuff since time immemorial. As does the UK, as does Russia, etc
Of course they have. And how do we know? Because they get leaked eventually.
This has to be one of the craziest conspiracy theories for years and those pushing it are playing the role of Vlad's useful idiots.
Do you think cutting off comms to Shetland (which resulted from a pair of undersea cable incidents, not just one) was done by a party deliberately, and if so which party?
However, the supreme pontiff warned his ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ to ‘be careful’ as ‘the devil enters from there’
Even nuns and priests watch online pornography, Pope Francis has admitted, in an unusual admonishment of Catholic clergy.
Indulging in porn is a danger to the soul and a way of succumbing to the malign influence of “the devil”, the Pope warned an assembly of priests and seminarians in Rome.
“It’s a vice that many people have – many lay people but also priests and nuns. The devil enters from there,” he told the gathering at the Vatican earlier this week.
“And I’m not just talking about criminal pornography, involving the abuse of children, where you see live cases of abuse. That is already degenerate. I’m talking about ‘normal’ pornography. My dear brothers and sisters, be careful.”
A person with “a pure heart” should not be looking at porn, the head of the Roman Catholic Church said.
“If you can cancel it from your phone, then cancel it, then you won’t have temptation in your hand,” he continued.
“I’m sorry if I lower myself to such details about pornography, but it is reality. A reality that involves priests, seminarians, nuns, all consecrated souls. Have you understood? Good.”
It is not the first time the Argentinian pontiff has referenced pornography. In June he denounced porn as a threat to public health and the family.
However, the supreme pontiff warned his ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ to ‘be careful’ as ‘the devil enters from there’
Even nuns and priests watch online pornography, Pope Francis has admitted, in an unusual admonishment of Catholic clergy.
Indulging in porn is a danger to the soul and a way of succumbing to the malign influence of “the devil”, the Pope warned an assembly of priests and seminarians in Rome.
“It’s a vice that many people have – many lay people but also priests and nuns. The devil enters from there,” he told the gathering at the Vatican earlier this week.
“And I’m not just talking about criminal pornography, involving the abuse of children, where you see live cases of abuse. That is already degenerate. I’m talking about ‘normal’ pornography. My dear brothers and sisters, be careful.”
A person with “a pure heart” should not be looking at porn, the head of the Roman Catholic Church said.
“If you can cancel it from your phone, then cancel it, then you won’t have temptation in your hand,” he continued.
“I’m sorry if I lower myself to such details about pornography, but it is reality. A reality that involves priests, seminarians, nuns, all consecrated souls. Have you understood? Good.”
It is not the first time the Argentinian pontiff has referenced pornography. In June he denounced porn as a threat to public health and the family.
However, the supreme pontiff warned his ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ to ‘be careful’ as ‘the devil enters from there’
Even nuns and priests watch online pornography, Pope Francis has admitted, in an unusual admonishment of Catholic clergy.
Indulging in porn is a danger to the soul and a way of succumbing to the malign influence of “the devil”, the Pope warned an assembly of priests and seminarians in Rome.
“It’s a vice that many people have – many lay people but also priests and nuns. The devil enters from there,” he told the gathering at the Vatican earlier this week.
“And I’m not just talking about criminal pornography, involving the abuse of children, where you see live cases of abuse. That is already degenerate. I’m talking about ‘normal’ pornography. My dear brothers and sisters, be careful.”
A person with “a pure heart” should not be looking at porn, the head of the Roman Catholic Church said.
“If you can cancel it from your phone, then cancel it, then you won’t have temptation in your hand,” he continued.
“I’m sorry if I lower myself to such details about pornography, but it is reality. A reality that involves priests, seminarians, nuns, all consecrated souls. Have you understood? Good.”
It is not the first time the Argentinian pontiff has referenced pornography. In June he denounced porn as a threat to public health and the family.
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
You overlook the enormous consequences if such a 'US action' were to be proven. Why would the US take such a risk? Especially considering the pipelines were not in use with no immediate prospect of any use.
What on earth makes you think it's provable? The US has been doing black ops stuff since time immemorial. As does the UK, as does Russia, etc
Of course they have. And how do we know? Because they get leaked eventually.
This has to be one of the craziest conspiracy theories for years and those pushing it are playing the role of Vlad's useful idiots.
As I say in my original comment, following the "cui bono" principle I think the US has the most to gain from blowing up the pipeline - I struggle to see what Russia's angle is in doing it. 5d chess aside, I generally default to believing the person who has the most to gain from something is the most likely to do it, and I don't think that's mad conspiracy theory territory at all.
As for black ops stuff getting leaked eventually, you're demonstrating a kind of survivorship bias here - only the stuff that has been leaked gets leaked eventually, leaving a ton of stuff that's never been leaked. Short of a team of navy seals snapchatting selfies of themselves in diving gear grinning with a load of plastic explosives, neatly time and GPS stamped, I'm not entirely sure how anyone proves who exactly blew up the pipeline or how it was done.
Um... How do you know there's "a ton of stuff that's never been leaked"?
And don't give me the 'it's not in Russia's interest to do this' argument. It's not in Russia's interest to invade Ukraine, but there we are. We are dealing with a crazy dictator. There is no logic.
There's only one regime that's crazy enough to do this - Russia.
So what does Russia get out of it? Vs what the US gets out of salting the earth for Russian gas sales for decades to come, long after this war has ended?
Cui. Bono.
Cui bono. Let me say that one more time, and staple it to your forehead. Cui. Bono.
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
1) The Russians send exactly the message you say.
2) Europe has learnt the hard way the problems with relying on Russia for energy. There was virtually no chance of (say) Germany going back to using it - which is why they've refused once Russia offered a week or so ago.
3) The implications if the Americans get caught doing it are massive, and not good for them.
4) For Russia, it adds to the 'Russia stronk!' pathetic meme they like to sell to their population and silly people outside Russia.
5) The spate of recent cable breaks are *not* to the US's advantage. They are to Russia's.
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
You overlook the enormous consequences if such a 'US action' were to be proven. Why would the US take such a risk? Especially considering the pipelines were not in use with no immediate prospect of any use.
What on earth makes you think it's provable? The US has been doing black ops stuff since time immemorial. As does the UK, as does Russia, etc
Of course they have. And how do we know? Because they get leaked eventually.
This has to be one of the craziest conspiracy theories for years and those pushing it are playing the role of Vlad's useful idiots.
Do you think cutting off comms to Shetland (which resulted from a pair of undersea cable incidents, not just one) was done by a party deliberately, and if so which party?
The SNP were behind it. They've never forgiven Orkney and Shetland people for electing Alistair Carmichael after the McZinoviev affair.
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
You overlook the enormous consequences if such a 'US action' were to be proven. Why would the US take such a risk? Especially considering the pipelines were not in use with no immediate prospect of any use.
What on earth makes you think it's provable? The US has been doing black ops stuff since time immemorial. As does the UK, as does Russia, etc
Of course they have. And how do we know? Because they get leaked eventually.
This has to be one of the craziest conspiracy theories for years and those pushing it are playing the role of Vlad's useful idiots.
As I say in my original comment, following the "cui bono" principle I think the US has the most to gain from blowing up the pipeline - I struggle to see what Russia's angle is in doing it. 5d chess aside, I generally default to believing the person who has the most to gain from something is the most likely to do it, and I don't think that's mad conspiracy theory territory at all.
As for black ops stuff getting leaked eventually, you're demonstrating a kind of survivorship bias here - only the stuff that has been leaked gets leaked eventually, leaving a ton of stuff that's never been leaked. Short of a team of navy seals snapchatting selfies of themselves in diving gear grinning with a load of plastic explosives, neatly time and GPS stamped, I'm not entirely sure how anyone proves who exactly blew up the pipeline or how it was done.
Um... How do you know there's "a ton of stuff that's never been leaked"?
And don't give me the 'it's not in Russia's interest to do this' argument. It's not in Russia's interest to invade Ukraine, but there we are. We are dealing with a crazy dictator. There is no logic.
There's only one regime that's crazy enough to do this - Russia.
So what does Russia get out of it? Vs what the US gets out of salting the earth for Russian gas sales for decades to come, long after this war has ended?
Cui. Bono.
Cui bono. Let me say that one more time, and staple it to your forehead. Cui. Bono.
If any evidence lead to Russia, I think we can safely say that it would have been very widely reported, not surrounded in a veil of polite silence as this seems to have been.
It’s another world. Such gems as how difficult Labour will find it in 2024 to go up against substantially lower taxes. Lots of praise for her from the usual suspects for her low key approach. In the middle of the discussion someone mentioned that the pound was falling.
The next page contains this gem.
Indeed, I think Truss has already made a fatal mistake.
JRM as the person in charge/public face of energy prices during this crisis is a bit of a howler.
Would have been better off making Josef Fritzl minister for women and children.
Maybe I'm thick. But I just can't see how it all stacks up. Truss is going to spend huge sums of (taxpayers' or borrowed) money helping people and businesses with their energy bills. And 'fixing' the NHS backlog/ambulances/GPs/social care will also cost huge sums. This is all going to be done 'immediately' apparently.
But she's also going to deliver tax cuts immediately. Why?
Most inaccurate comment has got to be this:
I think politics is about to become very boring again. Which is a good thing
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
You overlook the enormous consequences if such a 'US action' were to be proven. Why would the US take such a risk? Especially considering the pipelines were not in use with no immediate prospect of any use.
What on earth makes you think it's provable? The US has been doing black ops stuff since time immemorial. As does the UK, as does Russia, etc
Of course they have. And how do we know? Because they get leaked eventually.
This has to be one of the craziest conspiracy theories for years and those pushing it are playing the role of Vlad's useful idiots.
Do you think cutting off comms to Shetland (which resulted from a pair of undersea cable incidents, not just one) was done by a party deliberately, and if so which party?
The SNP were behind it. They've never forgiven Orkney and Shetland people for electing Alistair Carmichael after the McZinoviev affair.
I was disappointed it was Shetland. Had it been Orkney the gags about PB's chances of survival with the Twatt connection down would have written themselves.
Interesting mix. A couple of tables of 30-something women (yes, yes no; yes, yes, yes, can't see, can't see), the group in earshot talking a lot about nothing. A bunch of male besuited City of London types, some with medals round their necks, two with poppies. And one other bloke on his own.
The BOE is becoming a definite problem. Since being granted its independence it seems to have done a sort of reverse takeover of the Treasury, which now seems to need to be granted independence from the Bank.
I'm no global economics expert, but borrowing billions to give tax cuts to rich people in an unfunded budget doesn't sound like a good idea. But now I'm told it was the Bank of England's fault. Really?
“One senior U.S. official said there were new, troubling developments involving Russia’s nuclear arsenal. The official asked for anonymity and declined to provide any details, given the sensitivity of the issue.”
M I hate to be a scare-mongerer, it’s not my style, but for a long time the consensus on PB has been that the West would always know if something bad was about to happen, because there would be “troubling developments involving Russia’s nuclear arsenal”
Well, here we are. Troubling developments involving Russia’s nuclear arsenal
It’s another world. Such gems as how difficult Labour will find it in 2024 to go up against substantially lower taxes. Lots of praise for her from the usual suspects for her low key approach. In the middle of the discussion someone mentioned that the pound was falling.
The next page contains this gem.
Indeed, I think Truss has already made a fatal mistake.
JRM as the person in charge/public face of energy prices during this crisis is a bit of a howler.
Would have been better off making Josef Fritzl minister for women and children.
Maybe I'm thick. But I just can't see how it all stacks up. Truss is going to spend huge sums of (taxpayers' or borrowed) money helping people and businesses with their energy bills. And 'fixing' the NHS backlog/ambulances/GPs/social care will also cost huge sums. This is all going to be done 'immediately' apparently.
But she's also going to deliver tax cuts immediately. Why?
Most inaccurate comment has got to be this:
I think politics is about to become very boring again. Which is a good thing
“One senior U.S. official said there were new, troubling developments involving Russia’s nuclear arsenal. The official asked for anonymity and declined to provide any details, given the sensitivity of the issue.”
“One senior U.S. official said there were new, troubling developments involving Russia’s nuclear arsenal. The official asked for anonymity and declined to provide any details, given the sensitivity of the issue.”
M I hate to be a scare-mongerer, it’s not my style, but for a long time the consensus on PB has been that the West would always know if something bad was about to happen, because there would be “troubling developments involving Russia’s nuclear arsenal”
Well, here we are. Troubling developments involving Russia’s nuclear arsenal
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
You overlook the enormous consequences if such a 'US action' were to be proven. Why would the US take such a risk? Especially considering the pipelines were not in use with no immediate prospect of any use.
What on earth makes you think it's provable? The US has been doing black ops stuff since time immemorial. As does the UK, as does Russia, etc
Of course they have. And how do we know? Because they get leaked eventually.
This has to be one of the craziest conspiracy theories for years and those pushing it are playing the role of Vlad's useful idiots.
As I say in my original comment, following the "cui bono" principle I think the US has the most to gain from blowing up the pipeline - I struggle to see what Russia's angle is in doing it. 5d chess aside, I generally default to believing the person who has the most to gain from something is the most likely to do it, and I don't think that's mad conspiracy theory territory at all.
As for black ops stuff getting leaked eventually, you're demonstrating a kind of survivorship bias here - only the stuff that has been leaked gets leaked eventually, leaving a ton of stuff that's never been leaked. Short of a team of navy seals snapchatting selfies of themselves in diving gear grinning with a load of plastic explosives, neatly time and GPS stamped, I'm not entirely sure how anyone proves who exactly blew up the pipeline or how it was done.
Um... How do you know there's "a ton of stuff that's never been leaked"?
And don't give me the 'it's not in Russia's interest to do this' argument. It's not in Russia's interest to invade Ukraine, but there we are. We are dealing with a crazy dictator. There is no logic.
There's only one regime that's crazy enough to do this - Russia.
So what does Russia get out of it? Vs what the US gets out of salting the earth for Russian gas sales for decades to come, long after this war has ended?
Cui. Bono.
Cui bono. Let me say that one more time, and staple it to your forehead. Cui. Bono.
If any evidence lead to Russia, I think we can safely say that it would have been very widely reported, not surrounded in a veil of polite silence as this seems to have been.
That's naive. Firstly, 'evidence' is quite hard to get in this case: unlike Salisbury or MH17, where the evidence was much firmer. Especially MH17.
Secondly, evidence they may get (such as position of Russian submarines) might be rather sensitive, in the form of how the intelligence was gathered. It's not like a Russian BUK launcher being photographed on the way to the shootdown. I wonder what they can do with any trace of the explosives left, if any? How fingerprinted would they be?
It’s another world. Such gems as how difficult Labour will find it in 2024 to go up against substantially lower taxes. Lots of praise for her from the usual suspects for her low key approach. In the middle of the discussion someone mentioned that the pound was falling.
I feel rehabillitated! No more Rogerdamus while Stocky Londonpubman Andy-JS Wooliedyed BiG G are still posting...
Surprisingly HYUFD stands apart from the donkeys. Not a surprise to me. He knows his marbles
I always feel extremely self-conscious, and a bit of a loser, if I'm on my own in a restaurant, pub or cinema and have to make jokes about the wife or kids before awkwardly going back to my newspaper, book or browsing my phone.
Interesting mix. A couple of tables of 30-something women (yes, yes no; yes, yes, yes, can't see, can't see), the group in earshot talking a lot about nothing. A bunch of male besuited City of London types, some with medals round their necks, two with poppies. And one other bloke on his own.
Thanks for reading.
I'd forgotten Poppymas was almost upon us. I wonder if lamenting her late maj will in some way be brought into the narrative this year.
I always feel extremely self-conscious, and a bit of a loser, if I'm on my own in a restaurant, pub or cinema and have to make jokes about the wife or kids before awkwardly going back to my newspaper, book or browsing my phone.
Top Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov endorses Kadyrov's proclamation that Russia is embroiled in a jihad against Ukraine. He calls it a holy war. Solovyov sighs, moans and angrily ponders whether Russia actually has the nukes, since everything else is in such short supply.
I always feel extremely self-conscious, and a bit of a loser, if I'm on my own in a restaurant, pub or cinema and have to make jokes about the wife or kids before awkwardly going back to my newspaper, book or browsing my phone.
What's the secret to being comfortable with this?
Take an iPad and don’t give a fuck. I’ve done it so often now I don’t care whatsoever and I positively enjoy dining alone. I don’t have to make small talk and I can chat on here or Twitter or wherever
It’s rather restful
Of course I really enjoy dining with others as well. They are two very different experiences
I always feel extremely self-conscious, and a bit of a loser, if I'm on my own in a restaurant, pub or cinema and have to make jokes about the wife or kids before awkwardly going back to my newspaper, book or browsing my phone.
I always feel extremely self-conscious, and a bit of a loser, if I'm on my own in a restaurant, pub or cinema and have to make jokes about the wife or kids before awkwardly going back to my newspaper, book or browsing my phone.
What's the secret to being comfortable with this?
I think it's good to practice not caring too much about what you think other people might be thinking about you.
If you can do that, there is a lot of pleasure to be had from the peace of your own company.
I always feel extremely self-conscious, and a bit of a loser, if I'm on my own in a restaurant, pub or cinema and have to make jokes about the wife or kids before awkwardly going back to my newspaper, book or browsing my phone.
What's the secret to being comfortable with this?
I am extremely self-conscious, and a bit of a loser, so that takes a lot of the uncertainty out of it. A negroni, followed by another negroni, followed by a bottle of house wine is how I cope. That, and a few mindfulness exercises.
I always feel extremely self-conscious, and a bit of a loser, if I'm on my own in a restaurant, pub or cinema and have to make jokes about the wife or kids before awkwardly going back to my newspaper, book or browsing my phone.
What's the secret to being comfortable with this?
The occupational hazard of travelling abroad with work. In recent years (well, before Covid stopped most of that) I learned to lean into it and enjoy the freedom. Easier in a foreign city where self evidently you are there for work rather than a loner.
“One senior U.S. official said there were new, troubling developments involving Russia’s nuclear arsenal. The official asked for anonymity and declined to provide any details, given the sensitivity of the issue.”
However you season it, this paragraph is ominously distasteful
“That possibility only heightened concerns among already jittery senior Pentagon officials about Russia’s next possible step up the escalation ladder. One senior U.S. official said there were new, troubling developments involving Russia’s nuclear arsenal. The official asked for anonymity and declined to provide any details, given the sensitivity of the issue.”
It’s another world. Such gems as how difficult Labour will find it in 2024 to go up against substantially lower taxes. Lots of praise for her from the usual suspects for her low key approach. In the middle of the discussion someone mentioned that the pound was falling.
The next page contains this gem.
Indeed, I think Truss has already made a fatal mistake.
JRM as the person in charge/public face of energy prices during this crisis is a bit of a howler.
Would have been better off making Josef Fritzl minister for women and children.
Maybe I'm thick. But I just can't see how it all stacks up. Truss is going to spend huge sums of (taxpayers' or borrowed) money helping people and businesses with their energy bills. And 'fixing' the NHS backlog/ambulances/GPs/social care will also cost huge sums. This is all going to be done 'immediately' apparently.
But she's also going to deliver tax cuts immediately. Why?
Most inaccurate comment has got to be this:
I think politics is about to become very boring again. Which is a good thing
I won't say who that was...
My favourite from that Truss PMQ thread:
The contrast between Johnson and Truss is stark and just highlights why Johnson should never come back and conservative mps need to be grateful that Truss may just save their seats.
Guess who? Here's a clue - substitute 'Sunak' today for 'Truss'.
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
1) The Russians send exactly the message you say.
2) Europe has learnt the hard way the problems with relying on Russia for energy. There was virtually no chance of (say) Germany going back to using it - which is why they've refused once Russia offered a week or so ago.
3) The implications if the Americans get caught doing it are massive, and not good for them.
4) For Russia, it adds to the 'Russia stronk!' pathetic meme they like to sell to their population and silly people outside Russia.
5) The spate of recent cable breaks are *not* to the US's advantage. They are to Russia's.
It makes far more sense to blame the Russians for the Shetland cable sabotage. Why would they start with something huge (Nordstream) then follow it up with something small like telephones in Shetland?
My view is that by blowing up Nordstream, the US (assuming they are the culprits) ensure that there can be no normalisation of relations in the event of a complete Russian collapse and regime change - thus protecting their long term strategic interests. Put simply, they have the most to benefit from doing it. Especially if they believe a regime change is possible or even near (which they might). If I were America and expected Russia to lose this war quickly, but wanted to prevent a normalisation of relations and a resumption of gas supplies once the new regime was in place, this is *exactly* what I would do. This is simply realpolitik, and every nation state engages in it.
I don't get what the Russians get out of blowing up Nordstream that they can't get out of snipping a few phone lines in Shetland. The former effs up their income stream from gas for decades, the latter inconveniences a few shepherds while sending a message.
I really don't understand how America could get "caught" here. Even if there were photos of a grinning Joe Biden planting plastic explosives, while wearing an old-timey diving suit, and giving the thumbs up, the Americans would deny all knowledge, as they always do, and we would still be in "conspiracy theory" territory.
I always feel extremely self-conscious, and a bit of a loser, if I'm on my own in a restaurant, pub or cinema and have to make jokes about the wife or kids before awkwardly going back to my newspaper, book or browsing my phone.
What's the secret to being comfortable with this?
I'm fine with it at the cinema, but agree about restaurant. I feel absurdly as though I will be judged for taking up a valuable table.
Mr. Leon, dystopia isn't my preferred genre, but in the novella The Machine Stops EM Forster predicts instant messaging and (implicitly) the internet. And an increasingly sedentary lifestyle.
It's from before World War One, which makes the insight quite impressive.
Talking of sedentary lifestyles: something interesting has happened in England since the lockdown in my experience. There seem to be fewer obese and overweight people walking around. But whether this is because a lot of people have decided to lose weight, or whether they've just decided to stay at home more than they use to and so you don't seem them as often, I don't know.
It’s another world. Such gems as how difficult Labour will find it in 2024 to go up against substantially lower taxes. Lots of praise for her from the usual suspects for her low key approach. In the middle of the discussion someone mentioned that the pound was falling.
The next page contains this gem.
Indeed, I think Truss has already made a fatal mistake.
JRM as the person in charge/public face of energy prices during this crisis is a bit of a howler.
Would have been better off making Josef Fritzl minister for women and children.
Maybe I'm thick. But I just can't see how it all stacks up. Truss is going to spend huge sums of (taxpayers' or borrowed) money helping people and businesses with their energy bills. And 'fixing' the NHS backlog/ambulances/GPs/social care will also cost huge sums. This is all going to be done 'immediately' apparently.
But she's also going to deliver tax cuts immediately. Why?
Most inaccurate comment has got to be this:
I think politics is about to become very boring again. Which is a good thing
I won't say who that was...
My favourite from that Truss PMQ thread:
The contrast between Johnson and Truss is stark and just highlights why Johnson should never come back and conservative mps need to be grateful that Truss may just save their seats.
Guess who? Here's a clue - substitute 'Sunak' today for 'Truss'.
You mean, you don't like your own incredibly prescient comment?
Now that's a real legendary modesty klaxon sounding...
Mr. Leon, dystopia isn't my preferred genre, but in the novella The Machine Stops EM Forster predicts instant messaging and (implicitly) the internet. And an increasingly sedentary lifestyle.
It's from before World War One, which makes the insight quite impressive.
Talking of sedentary lifestyles: something interesting has happened in England since the lockdown in my experience. There seem to be fewer obese and overweight people walking around. But whether this is because a lot of people have decided to lose weight, or whether they've just decided to stay at home more than they use to and so you don't seem them as often, I don't know.
I always feel extremely self-conscious, and a bit of a loser, if I'm on my own in a restaurant, pub or cinema and have to make jokes about the wife or kids before awkwardly going back to my newspaper, book or browsing my phone.
What's the secret to being comfortable with this?
A book. Gives you something to focus on and you look vaguely interesting even if the book is the profanosaurus with an intellectual bigger book cover around the outside.
And where you can, smoking, as “you are never alone with a Strand” whilst an advertising failure if you are sitting outside alone with a smoke and a drink etc it seems more acceptable. And then you die earlier thus reducing the amount of times you have to dine alone.
I always feel extremely self-conscious, and a bit of a loser, if I'm on my own in a restaurant, pub or cinema and have to make jokes about the wife or kids before awkwardly going back to my newspaper, book or browsing my phone.
What's the secret to being comfortable with this?
Pick fights with complete strangers and get into brawls until pain is mother's milk to you. Eventually you'll have zero locus of external identity and won't give a fuck what people think.
“One senior U.S. official said there were new, troubling developments involving Russia’s nuclear arsenal. The official asked for anonymity and declined to provide any details, given the sensitivity of the issue.”
However you season it, this paragraph is ominously distasteful
“That possibility only heightened concerns among already jittery senior Pentagon officials about Russia’s next possible step up the escalation ladder. One senior U.S. official said there were new, troubling developments involving Russia’s nuclear arsenal. The official asked for anonymity and declined to provide any details, given the sensitivity of the issue.”
Theyve just been war gaming a nuclear exchange today, so that would cover some movement of the mobile truck silo stuff
It’s over 20C here in the Maconnais at 8.30 and I’m out on the terrace in the dark in short sleeves listening to crickets chirping. It’s nearly November. 25C forecast tomorrow.
#climatechange.
Incidentally I worked out the nearest nukeable location is St Yan air force base, 43km to our SW. reckon it would be a smallish warhead for that one rather than a megaton city-destroyer. Lyon 100km to the Soith gets one of them. Possibly Le Creusot or Montceau les Mines 50km to the NW get a small one. Dijon? Far enough away not to worry.
So I’d see the flash, possibly get a bit of fallout on a Westerly but not too much. Would be like the scene in Empire of the Sun when the boy sees the Nagasaki bomb and thinks it’s his mother going up to heaven.
I always feel extremely self-conscious, and a bit of a loser, if I'm on my own in a restaurant, pub or cinema and have to make jokes about the wife or kids before awkwardly going back to my newspaper, book or browsing my phone.
What's the secret to being comfortable with this?
Being a business traveller.
Meals out for one most nights when I'm travelling, and I rarely eat in the hotel bar (my former employer had a habit of sticking me in shitty hotels I wouldn't eat in, but had no problem with me expensing a damn fine dinner for one).
If you feel self conscious, just add "and make sure I get a copy of the receipt" to your order, which pretty much says "I'm in some weird part of the world, travelling on company expenses".
I'm just reading 'Lorenz: breaking Hitler's top secret code at Bletchley Park' by Captain Jerry Roberts. It is his memoir detailing his time working on decrypting Lorenz traffic with the Testery Team during the war.
And up pops a certain Roy Jenkins - apparently not a good codebreaker, but a very good wheelsetter. I wonder what happened to him?
It’s over 20C here in the Maconnais at 8.30 and I’m out on the terrace in the dark in short sleeves listening to crickets chirping. It’s nearly November. 25C forecast tomorrow.
#climatechange.
Incidentally I worked out the nearest nukeable location is St Yan air force base, 43km to our SW. reckon it would be a smallish warhead for that one rather than a megaton city-destroyer. Lyon 100km to the Soith gets one of them. Possibly Le Creusot or Montceau les Mines 50km to the NW get a small one. Dijon? Far enough away not to worry.
So I’d see the flash, possibly get a bit of fallout on a Westerly but not too much. Would be like the scene in Empire of the Sun when the boy sees the Nagasaki bomb and thinks it’s his mother going up to heaven.
I always feel extremely self-conscious, and a bit of a loser, if I'm on my own in a restaurant, pub or cinema and have to make jokes about the wife or kids before awkwardly going back to my newspaper, book or browsing my phone.
What's the secret to being comfortable with this?
Pick fights with complete strangers and get into brawls until pain is mother's milk to you. Eventually you'll have zero locus of external identity and won't give a fuck what people think.
It’s another world. Such gems as how difficult Labour will find it in 2024 to go up against substantially lower taxes. Lots of praise for her from the usual suspects for her low key approach. In the middle of the discussion someone mentioned that the pound was falling.
The next page contains this gem.
Indeed, I think Truss has already made a fatal mistake.
JRM as the person in charge/public face of energy prices during this crisis is a bit of a howler.
Would have been better off making Josef Fritzl minister for women and children.
Maybe I'm thick. But I just can't see how it all stacks up. Truss is going to spend huge sums of (taxpayers' or borrowed) money helping people and businesses with their energy bills. And 'fixing' the NHS backlog/ambulances/GPs/social care will also cost huge sums. This is all going to be done 'immediately' apparently.
But she's also going to deliver tax cuts immediately. Why?
Most inaccurate comment has got to be this:
I think politics is about to become very boring again. Which is a good thing
I won't say who that was...
My favourite from that Truss PMQ thread:
The contrast between Johnson and Truss is stark and just highlights why Johnson should never come back and conservative mps need to be grateful that Truss may just save their seats.
Guess who? Here's a clue - substitute 'Sunak' today for 'Truss'.
You mean, you don't like your own incredibly prescient comment?
Now that's a real legendary modesty klaxon sounding...
Well, far be it from me to claim credit for the "shrewdest comment", but thanks. Were it still in my power, I'd be having it out with those ***** at the DfE and Ofsted on your behalf. But, like you, I've moved on.
I’m inured somewhat to the nuclear scare stories considering I’ve been hearing we’re only hours away from a devastating apocalypse on here for some time.
I always feel extremely self-conscious, and a bit of a loser, if I'm on my own in a restaurant, pub or cinema and have to make jokes about the wife or kids before awkwardly going back to my newspaper, book or browsing my phone.
Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
So, going by Russian logic, that is exactly what Russia will now do. Then they can say Told you so, while scaring the shit out of everyone
Given the U?S at least and probably others have intel into the heart of the Kremlin (eg detailed advance knowledge of the Ukraine invasion) how do you think Russia will get away with this? Sure, there will be a gazillion Twitter twats who will go "Ooh, look, Ukrainian bastards!" but the higher levels of diplomacy will know exactly what gas gone on.
And Ukraine would lose its military and financial support overnight if they actually did it themselves. So it is beyond any credulity for it to work as the Russians suggest "it was Ukraine wot did it...."
Russia doesn't care about the truth, here, it cares about perceptions
If they set off a small dirty bomb and manage to at least temporarily blur the truth of who did it, then that is job done. Everyone will know it was probably Russia - probably - but won't be entirely sure. And everyone will be scared shitless and probably pushing Ukraine to back down
See the Kerch bombing, the Nordstream bombing, and the Dugin bombing. Each has been successfully blamed on various actors, even though we have a good idea in all cases who did it (Ukraine, USA, Ukraine)
You think US did nordstream? Interesting. I imagine any nuclear incident would lead to enormous pressure on China and India not to buy Russian oil. China is already alleged to be pretty furious with Putin and their economy is in trouble.
I am fairly confident the USA did Nordstream, tho they might have used a proxy to get it done yet avoid the blame (Ukraine itself, or maybe the Poles or Finns)
The strategic prize of keeping Germany on the western side, reliant on America, and also of cutting off Putin's options - one day selling more gas to Europe - was irresistible for Washington. And recall we have several vids of Biden and aides months ago saying the USA would do exactly this: cut Nordsream (one way or another)
But we cannot be sure. The fog of war obscures the truth. And that fog is what Putin might rely on, if he "does something radioactive"
I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I agree that the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream sabotage, on the "cui bono" principle. I don't understand what Russia got out of the sabotage, other than saying "look at what we did here, we can do it to something that matters, e.g. the north sea pipeline or a transatlantic communications cable.
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
1) The Russians send exactly the message you say.
2) Europe has learnt the hard way the problems with relying on Russia for energy. There was virtually no chance of (say) Germany going back to using it - which is why they've refused once Russia offered a week or so ago.
3) The implications if the Americans get caught doing it are massive, and not good for them.
4) For Russia, it adds to the 'Russia stronk!' pathetic meme they like to sell to their population and silly people outside Russia.
5) The spate of recent cable breaks are *not* to the US's advantage. They are to Russia's.
It makes far more sense to blame the Russians for the Shetland cable sabotage. Why would they start with something huge (Nordstream) then follow it up with something small like telephones in Shetland?
My view is that by blowing up Nordstream, the US (assuming they are the culprits) ensure that there can be no normalisation of relations in the event of a complete Russian collapse and regime change - thus protecting their long term strategic interests. Put simply, they have the most to benefit from doing it. Especially if they believe a regime change is possible or even near (which they might). If I were America and expected Russia to lose this war quickly, but wanted to prevent a normalisation of relations and a resumption of gas supplies once the new regime was in place, this is *exactly* what I would do. This is simply realpolitik, and every nation state engages in it.
I don't get what the Russians get out of blowing up Nordstream that they can't get out of snipping a few phone lines in Shetland. The former effs up their income stream from gas for decades, the latter inconveniences a few shepherds while sending a message.
I really don't understand how America could get "caught" here. Even if there were photos of a grinning Joe Biden planting plastic explosives, while wearing an old-timey diving suit, and giving the thumbs up, the Americans would deny all knowledge, as they always do, and we would still be in "conspiracy theory" territory.
"It makes far more sense to blame the Russians for the Shetland cable sabotage. Why would they start with something huge (Nordstream) then follow it up with something small like telephones in Shetland?"
To send the message that all out underwater infrastructure is vulnerable. If it was just gas pipelines we *might* be able to protect them; having to protect the vast network of cables as well is orders of magnitude more difficult because of the numbers involved. See https://www.submarinecablemap.com/
And attacking underwater cables might be much more immediately disruptive than even the gas pipelines. One of the most important acts we did in WW1 was cutting the German international cables - and we did that in the first few weeks.
How could Americans get caught? People talking. Other countries (perhaps those who might want to use pipelines) detecting submarines or ships that did it. Other intelligence means.
It’s a massive breakthrough when you realise you’ve reached the stage when you actually enjoy dining alone
Not least, because that means you can travel the world alone and still enjoy really good food at night. And travelling alone is the best for accruing experiences, as we have discussed
There’s also an interesting gradient of discomfort to be overcome. Breakfast alone is fine for everyone. We all do it. Lunch alone can make you a little more self conscious
But you’ve only beaten the silly awkwardness when you can waltz into a restaurant and dine alone. Do it with flair and a smile. Dinner for one!
I’m inured somewhat to the nuclear scare stories considering I’ve been hearing we’re only hours away from a devastating apocalypse on here for some time.
Strong point. I can imagine you at Los Alamos, 1944: Hur hur hur I have heard so much of this "I am become death, destroyer of worlds" bullshit, I'm immune to it.
I always feel extremely self-conscious, and a bit of a loser, if I'm on my own in a restaurant, pub or cinema and have to make jokes about the wife or kids before awkwardly going back to my newspaper, book or browsing my phone.
What's the secret to being comfortable with this?
I think it's good to practice not caring too much about what you think other people might be thinking about you.
If you can do that, there is a lot of pleasure to be had from the peace of your own company.
Yes indeed, in fact it's a general rule of life. In general, almost nobody is very interested in anything we do unless it's ridiculous or outrageous. If we see someone else sitting on their own, do we speculate about their situation? Nah.
It’s a massive breakthrough when you realise you’ve reached the stage when you actually enjoy dining alone
Not least, because that means you can travel the world alone and still enjoy really good food at night. And travelling alone is the best for accruing experiences, as we have discussed
There’s also an interesting gradient of discomfort to be overcome. Breakfast alone is fine for everyone. We all do it. Lunch alone can make you a little more self conscious
But you’ve only beaten the silly awkwardness when you can waltz into a restaurant and dine alone. Do it with flair and a smile. Dinner for one!
I always feel extremely self-conscious, and a bit of a loser, if I'm on my own in a restaurant, pub or cinema and have to make jokes about the wife or kids before awkwardly going back to my newspaper, book or browsing my phone.
It’s a massive breakthrough when you realise you’ve reached the stage when you actually enjoy dining alone
Not least, because that means you can travel the world alone and still enjoy really good food at night. And travelling alone is the best for accruing experiences, as we have discussed
There’s also an interesting gradient of discomfort to be overcome. Breakfast alone is fine for everyone. We all do it. Lunch alone can make you a little more self conscious
But you’ve only beaten the silly awkwardness when you can waltz into a restaurant and dine alone. Do it with flair and a smile. Dinner for one!
Then a dry martini. Mmmmm
In my case, I reached that stage aged nineteen. Does that make me unusual or just remarkably precocious?
You can keep the martinis though. Don't like them.
Comments
We used to use Passport, or gov approved IDV service.
We now have to do criminal record checks too (required by some of our larger clients anti-this that and the other policies) and use an all-in-one IDV and background check service to do it. It adds another few quid to the cost of employing anyone.
1) He does not say he will leave the ECHR. It's not 'off the table' that's different.
2) Unless he does his less broad definition of asylum is redundant.
3) 'I will do whatever it takes' only applies if his proposals are legally possible in UK and international law. This is not in his hands. he is bound by court decisions. It's just words.
4) Brexit has palpably made no difference to the situation.
5) Which nationalities is he thinking of returning? Persecuted ones or war zone ones? He already has the power to return Albanians by due process.
6) Hands up every Tory MP who wants to send Paddington Bear to Rwanda along with some middle class Ukrainian mothers and their small children.
However, a phrase about stopped clocks springs to mind.
Lula at 1.54 to win the Brazilian presidential election is value.
Yes the polls overestimated the R1 gap between Lula and Bolsonaro, but that was because they overestimated voteshare going to smaller parties that actually went to Bolsonaro. The R1 results were:
Lula 48.4%
Bolsonaro 43.2%
Tebet 4.2% (Democratic Movement)
Gomes 3.0% (Democratic Labour Party)
Others 1.2%
Lula needs to pick up 1.6% to win R2.
The key fact is that Tebet and Gomes have both endorsed Lula. Their combined voteshare is 7.2%. If he picks up all of that, Lula will be on 55.6%, winning by an 11% margin. If we make the heroic for Bolsonaro assumption that he will pick up the voteshares of all the Others, Lula will need to pick up less than 1.6pp of that 7.2%, with the other 5.6% not abstaining but going to Bolsonaro, to lose this election. That is not going to happen.
In 2018, valid-vote turnout was 90.4% in R2, 91.2% in R1. (3rd cand in R1: 12%)
2014: 93.7%, 90.4%. (3rd cand in R1: 21%)
2010: 93.3%, 91.4% (3rd cand in R1: 19%)
2022: R1: 96% (3rd cand: 4%)
It's over. If there's talk of a Bolsonaro surge, it's probably coming from the Lula campaign to make sure they get their vote out.
Friends in Brazil tell me that people they know are saying yeah, Lula is a bit corrupt but they don't care - they just want to get rid of that c*** Bolsonaro.
Lula has won this.
But just give us an example.
What he might have written if he’d lived to a riper age!
America however benefits enormously from ensuring that Russian gas is cut off and stays cut off. Prevents waverers in Europe if there is a very cold winter. Add to that the fact that Biden literally said the US would "put an end" to Nordstream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine, back in January.
Corryvreckan, now...
(Actually I don't know enough to say if Bolsonaro could be called fascist, or just an authoritarian dick)
After a poor run of polls for the Dems 3 out of the 4 show them leading between 3 and 4 points . The other has a GOP lead of 2 points .
Also more drama in the Georgia Senate race . A second woman is coming forward today to accuse Herschel Walker of taking her to an abortion clinic to terminate her pregnancy .
Well, for @Jim_Miller's benefit, we don't have to wait for a thread header to discuss an interesting election in another country. Denmark votes in 6 days and polling continues to show fascinating trends and directions.
Two surveys out this evening:
YouGov has the centre-left bloc (Social Democrats, Radikale Venstre, Socialist Folkeparti, Red/Green List and Alternative) on 49.5%
The centre-right bloc (Venstre, Conservative, Dansk Folkeparti, New Right, Liberal Alliance, Denmark Democrats) on 39.4% (a terrible poll for Venstre with just 10.4%).
The Moderates are on 9.6% so even if with their support the centre-right are going to just come up short.
Voxmeter did their fieldwork on 22-24 October.
The centre-left bloc has 44.9% and the centre-right has 38.8% (with the Danish People's Party falling below the 2% threshold).
The moderates are on 11.5% making them potentially the third largest party in the Folketing behind the Social Democrats and Venstre.
Lars Lokke Rasmussen has had a good campaign so far and his party has hoovered up support mainly but not exclusively from the centre-right. Mette Frederiksen remains in a strong position and YouGov would be good enough but with Voxmeter she could still fall if the moderates throw in with the centre-right.
The Russians may not know (at p>0.8) who did it (I doubt this), but if it wasn't themselves then at least they'll know that.
"Russia has just claimed that Ukraine plan to shoot down a rocket filled with radioactive material over the Chernobyl exclusion zone"
Saying it was on its way to Kiev?
Boys will be boys...
Even nuns watch porn, says Pope
However, the supreme pontiff warned his ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ to ‘be careful’ as ‘the devil enters from there’
Even nuns and priests watch online pornography, Pope Francis has admitted, in an unusual admonishment of Catholic clergy.
Indulging in porn is a danger to the soul and a way of succumbing to the malign influence of “the devil”, the Pope warned an assembly of priests and seminarians in Rome.
“It’s a vice that many people have – many lay people but also priests and nuns. The devil enters from there,” he told the gathering at the Vatican earlier this week.
“And I’m not just talking about criminal pornography, involving the abuse of children, where you see live cases of abuse. That is already degenerate. I’m talking about ‘normal’ pornography. My dear brothers and sisters, be careful.”
A person with “a pure heart” should not be looking at porn, the head of the Roman Catholic Church said.
“If you can cancel it from your phone, then cancel it, then you won’t have temptation in your hand,” he continued.
“I’m sorry if I lower myself to such details about pornography, but it is reality. A reality that involves priests, seminarians, nuns, all consecrated souls. Have you understood? Good.”
It is not the first time the Argentinian pontiff has referenced pornography. In June he denounced porn as a threat to public health and the family.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/10/26/even-nuns-watch-porn-says-pope/
This has to be one of the craziest conspiracy theories for years and those pushing it are playing the role of Vlad's useful idiots.
As for black ops stuff getting leaked eventually, you're demonstrating a kind of survivorship bias here - only the stuff that has been leaked gets leaked eventually, leaving a ton of stuff that's never been leaked. Short of a team of navy seals snapchatting selfies of themselves in diving gear grinning with a load of plastic explosives, neatly time and GPS stamped, I'm not entirely sure how anyone proves who exactly blew up the pipeline or how it was done.
Oh my days, if. the Pope mentioned Pornhub.
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/10804/starmer-v-truss-the-first-pmqs-politicalbetting-com/p2
It’s another world. Such gems as how difficult Labour will find it in 2024 to go up against substantially lower taxes. Lots of praise for her from the usual suspects for her low key approach. In the middle of the discussion someone mentioned that the pound was falling.
And don't give me the 'it's not in Russia's interest to do this' argument. It's not in Russia's interest to invade Ukraine, but there we are. We are dealing with a crazy dictator. There is no logic.
There's only one regime that's crazy enough to do this - Russia.
Indeed, I think Truss has already made a fatal mistake.
JRM as the person in charge/public face of energy prices during this crisis is a bit of a howler.
Would have been better off making Josef Fritzl minister for women and children.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/20227110/troubling-developments-russias-nuclear-arsenal/
*that's enough. ed.
Cui. Bono.
Cui bono. Let me say that one more time, and staple it to your forehead. Cui. Bono.
2) Europe has learnt the hard way the problems with relying on Russia for energy. There was virtually no chance of (say) Germany going back to using it - which is why they've refused once Russia offered a week or so ago.
3) The implications if the Americans get caught doing it are massive, and not good for them.
4) For Russia, it adds to the 'Russia stronk!' pathetic meme they like to sell to their population and silly people outside Russia.
5) The spate of recent cable breaks are *not* to the US's advantage. They are to Russia's.
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4102405/#Comment_4102405
Maybe I'm thick. But I just can't see how it all stacks up. Truss is going to spend huge sums of (taxpayers' or borrowed) money helping people and businesses with their energy bills. And 'fixing' the NHS backlog/ambulances/GPs/social care will also cost huge sums. This is all going to be done 'immediately' apparently.
But she's also going to deliver tax cuts immediately. Why?
Most inaccurate comment has got to be this:
I think politics is about to become very boring again. Which is a good thing
I won't say who that was...
Interesting mix. A couple of tables of 30-something women (yes, yes no; yes, yes, yes, can't see, can't see), the group in earshot talking a lot about nothing. A bunch of male besuited City of London types, some with medals round their necks, two with poppies. And one other bloke on his own.
Thanks for reading.
But now I'm told it was the Bank of England's fault. Really?
I hate to be a scare-mongerer, it’s not my style, but for a long time the consensus on PB has been that the West would always know if something bad was about to happen, because there would be “troubling developments involving Russia’s nuclear arsenal”
Well, here we are. Troubling developments involving Russia’s nuclear arsenal
🧐
Hmm...
Secondly, evidence they may get (such as position of Russian submarines) might be rather sensitive, in the form of how the intelligence was gathered. It's not like a Russian BUK launcher being photographed on the way to the shootdown. I wonder what they can do with any trace of the explosives left, if any? How fingerprinted would they be?
Surprisingly HYUFD stands apart from the donkeys. Not a surprise to me. He knows his marbles
I always feel extremely self-conscious, and a bit of a loser, if I'm on my own in a restaurant, pub or cinema and have to make jokes about the wife or kids before awkwardly going back to my newspaper, book or browsing my phone.
What's the secret to being comfortable with this?
The medals thing is a bit weird.
Julia Davis
@JuliaDavisNews
Top Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov endorses Kadyrov's proclamation that Russia is embroiled in a jihad against Ukraine. He calls it a holy war. Solovyov sighs, moans and angrily ponders whether Russia actually has the nukes, since everything else is in such short supply.
https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1585315793889538049
It’s rather restful
Of course I really enjoy dining with others as well. They are two very different experiences
If you can do that, there is a lot of pleasure to be had from the peace of your own company.
However you season it, this paragraph is ominously distasteful
“That possibility only heightened concerns among already jittery senior Pentagon officials about Russia’s next possible step up the escalation ladder. One senior U.S. official said there were new, troubling developments involving Russia’s nuclear arsenal. The official asked for anonymity and declined to provide any details, given the sensitivity of the issue.”
The contrast between Johnson and Truss is stark and just highlights why Johnson should never come back and conservative mps need to be grateful that Truss may just save their seats.
Guess who? Here's a clue - substitute 'Sunak' today for 'Truss'.
My view is that by blowing up Nordstream, the US (assuming they are the culprits) ensure that there can be no normalisation of relations in the event of a complete Russian collapse and regime change - thus protecting their long term strategic interests. Put simply, they have the most to benefit from doing it. Especially if they believe a regime change is possible or even near (which they might). If I were America and expected Russia to lose this war quickly, but wanted to prevent a normalisation of relations and a resumption of gas supplies once the new regime was in place, this is *exactly* what I would do. This is simply realpolitik, and every nation state engages in it.
I don't get what the Russians get out of blowing up Nordstream that they can't get out of snipping a few phone lines in Shetland. The former effs up their income stream from gas for decades, the latter inconveniences a few shepherds while sending a message.
I really don't understand how America could get "caught" here. Even if there were photos of a grinning Joe Biden planting plastic explosives, while wearing an old-timey diving suit, and giving the thumbs up, the Americans would deny all knowledge, as they always do, and we would still be in "conspiracy theory" territory.
Now that's a real legendary modesty klaxon sounding...
And where you can, smoking, as “you are never alone with a Strand” whilst an advertising failure if you are sitting outside alone with a smoke and a drink etc it seems more acceptable. And then you die earlier thus reducing the amount of times you have to dine alone.
#climatechange.
Incidentally I worked out the nearest nukeable location is St Yan air force base, 43km to our SW. reckon it would be a smallish warhead for that one rather than a megaton city-destroyer. Lyon 100km to the Soith gets one of them. Possibly Le Creusot or Montceau les Mines 50km to the NW get a small one. Dijon? Far enough away not to worry.
So I’d see the flash, possibly get a bit of fallout on a Westerly but not too much. Would be like the scene in Empire of the Sun when the boy sees the Nagasaki bomb and thinks it’s his mother going up to heaven.
Meals out for one most nights when I'm travelling, and I rarely eat in the hotel bar (my former employer had a habit of sticking me in shitty hotels I wouldn't eat in, but had no problem with me expensing a damn fine dinner for one).
If you feel self conscious, just add "and make sure I get a copy of the receipt" to your order, which pretty much says "I'm in some weird part of the world, travelling on company expenses".
I'm just reading 'Lorenz: breaking Hitler's top secret code at Bletchley Park' by Captain Jerry Roberts. It is his memoir detailing his time working on decrypting Lorenz traffic with the Testery Team during the war.
And up pops a certain Roy Jenkins - apparently not a good codebreaker, but a very good wheelsetter. I wonder what happened to him?
(I had no idea he had worked at Bletchley Park)
https://www.gchq.gov.uk/person/roy-jenkins
Were it still in my power, I'd be having it out with those ***** at the DfE and Ofsted on your behalf. But, like you, I've moved on.
To send the message that all out underwater infrastructure is vulnerable. If it was just gas pipelines we *might* be able to protect them; having to protect the vast network of cables as well is orders of magnitude more difficult because of the numbers involved. See https://www.submarinecablemap.com/
And attacking underwater cables might be much more immediately disruptive than even the gas pipelines. One of the most important acts we did in WW1 was cutting the German international cables - and we did that in the first few weeks.
How could Americans get caught? People talking. Other countries (perhaps those who might want to use pipelines) detecting submarines or ships that did it. Other intelligence means.
Not least, because that means you can travel the world alone and still enjoy really good food at night. And travelling alone is the best for accruing experiences, as we have discussed
There’s also an interesting gradient of discomfort to be overcome. Breakfast alone is fine for everyone. We all do it. Lunch alone can make you a little more self conscious
But you’ve only beaten the silly awkwardness when you can waltz into a restaurant and dine alone. Do it with flair and a smile. Dinner for one!
Then a dry martini. Mmmmm
Fuck me.
You can keep the martinis though. Don't like them.