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The Dems win the Georgia runoff and now the Senate is 51-49 – politicalbetting.com
The Dems win the Georgia runoff and now the Senate is 51-49 – politicalbetting.com
Georgia Senate Runoff (estimated >95% in):Warnock (D-inc) 50.8%Walker (R) 49.2%Via: @nytimes pic.twitter.com/oGZM30AgSB
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/vpns-online-safety-bill-labour-champion-b2239810.html
These maniacs won't rest until the entire internet is child-safe.
Musk has argued that Twitter ought to be a place where all political viewpoints can be aired. But keeping people informed can have dire consequences. Democracy has no chance of working properly if people keep insisting on voting for the wrong candidates.
Like many on the left, I have decided to delete my Twitter account in protest. Musk won’t know what hit him. Without my wisdom on the platform, the company will soon collapse into oblivion. There will be an outcry, share prices will plummet, and Musk will come begging for me to return. But I shall stand firm.
Come to think of it, maybe I should wait until next week to delete my account. I’ve got a book to sell.
https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/december-january-2023/elon-musk-worse-than-hitler/
Flipped over to Fox to see how they're covering the Georgia election, and if you guessed that instead of covering it at all they're talking about Hunter Biden, guess what you're right
https://mobile.twitter.com/paulwaldman1/status/1600336231853760512
Tommy Tuberville retains his title as dumbest Senator
However, I do agree otherwise and I suspect this is grandstanding by Labour. I don't see how they can restrict VPN's. They will always exist and, as y'all know, I use them for protecting my online privacy. In many ways I think everyone should use a VPN. The amount of snooping used by tech is beyond insidious. It's downright evil.
An example. I was having a face to face chat with someone recently. My phone was sitting on the table between us. Not connected to anything except 4G. I happened to mention in conversation a pretty esoteric place I had visited in Germany. It's not a place that I had talked about to anyone for over a year, and it was three years since I visited it.
5 minutes later an email arrived in my inbox from that venue.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/6/2140383/-Trump-Organization-verdict
How do Labour think people pay for VPNs?
They either seize power as was the plan or they face being out-voted.
Otherwise working from home goes away completely.
The biggest losers in the US midterm elections? Republican mega-donors
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/06/republican-mega-donors-lost-midterms-super-pac-thiel
Donors like Peter Thiel poured millions into candidates that no amount of money could sell to voters while Mehmet Oz self-funded a failed run
Extradordinary story just reported on R4 today - German police just broken up a huge far-terrorist group, first who were planning to raid the bundestag, and in the last analysis including a 70-year old aristocrat they were planning to install as head of state ( ! ).
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=341288
The first batch of 24 K9 self-propelled howitzers and 10 K2 battle tanks has been delivered to Poland, Tuesday (local time), according to South Korean defense companies.
The shipment came after Poland signed a purchase agreement in July for 980 K2 battle tanks from Hyundai Rotem and 648 K9 self-propelled howitzers from Hanwha Aerospace as well as 48 FA-50 light attack aircraft from South Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI). The deal was among South Korea's most important and largest defense orders in recent years. They also signed with Warsaw's Armament Agency a follow-up arrangement to the "framework" contract in August. ...
...For Hanwha's part, it also plans to build an advanced MRO center in Poland to provide efficient logistics support to Poland and other K9 user countries across the European region.
..."Hanwha is committed to making Poland a hub for the supply of K9 systems in Europe based on stronger partnership with the government of Poland."
European defence manufacturers have some serious competition for the rearming of NATO.
https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/1600376574439727104?t=07oAt0rDLlajaqulp-Tvyg&s=09
Still tighter than most of the planet, but a major loosening by China.
Scotland’s lead in decarbonising over the rest of the UK has now been lost. Progress is now broadly the same as the UK as a whole. Two years after the publication of the Climate Change Plan update, we do not see evidence of sufficient action to meet the Scottish Parliament’s ambition. There are now glaring gaps in the Scottish Government’s climate plan and particular concerns about the achievement of the 2030 goal to cut emissions by 75%:
https://www.theccc.org.uk/2022/12/07/scotlands-climate-targets-are-in-danger-of-becoming-meaningless/
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/germany-arrests-far-right-group-planning-coup
Seems to have been a reasonably large group, expecting help from members of the armed forces, Trump-stylee.
https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-backtracks-on-defense-spending-promise-warns-about-delays-ukraine-war/
Tories - only concerned with preserving the capital wealth of rich country landowners on the excuse that it preserves the countryside, by pampering them with massive IHT relief.
When it comes to helping the actual farmers make a living - piss off, they say.
"The government has ruled out making any intervention in the market to help farmers or consumers with high food prices, the environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, has said.
Food prices have soared in the past year, in part owing to higher input prices such as energy, fertiliser and animal feed. Last month, food price inflation hit a fresh high of 12.4%, with poorer households hit hardest.
Farmers have also complained that supermarkets are driving down the prices they pay to producers at the farmgate, leaving them making tiny profits. A report published last week by the food charity Sustain found farmers made less than a tenth of a penny in profit from a supermarket loaf selling to consumers for £1.14, and just a penny in profit from a £2.50 block of mild cheddar cheese.
But Coffey, secretary of state for environment food and rural affairs since Rishi Sunak took office in September, refused to criticise supermarkets and said the government would not be taking action."
There is zero real justification for any Western European country to increase defense spending at the expense of more socially useful government activity.
Christ just minutes ago you were making the sensible point about Europe being too reliant on the USA, which might disengage, and you've bemoaned the ally nations being effectively under US command as a result in the past.
So which is it, is spending unnecessary or necessary? You described Poland as being in a rough neighbourhood. And it is indeed closer to the rough stuff. But is Poland very far from Germany? How far from the rough neighbourhood are they?
A similar argument over the last decade is what led to Putin thinking he could get away with his Ukrainian gamble.
And your 8:05 comment backs that up.
https://twitter.com/HowardSlutsken/status/1600341736639074304?cxt=HHwWgMDUuZOVx7UsAAAA
Haven't we also cut back on our spending commitment, or at least pushed it into the future?
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pfizerbiontech-covid-19-vaccine-authorised-for-use-in-infants-and-children-aged-6-months-to-4-years
Trump's 'election steal' crap, Truss's neoliberal nonsense, and now this. WTAF were they thinking? Any of them.
Should I go early or wait? Prices going up or will the recession cut demand and lead to price falls next summer?
If you're getting a Mercedes S580E or similar then wait until next year I reckon.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63885028
"Twenty-five people have been arrested in raids across Germany on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government.
German reports say the group of far-right and ex-military figures planned to storm the parliament building, the Reichstag, and seize power.
A German man referred to as a prince called Heinrich XIII, 71, is alleged to have been central to their plans.
According to federal prosecutors, he is one of two alleged ringleaders among those arrested across 11 German states."
- You have nothing to fear, if you haven't done anything wrong.
- All suspects are guilty. Otherwise they wouldn't be "suspect".
- “The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia,”
The problem is one general to politicians. They are by nature lawyers or proxies of lawyers. The Law is God.
So the next step is that all evidence must be instantly produced on the order of the courts or the police.
Along comes proper encryption. Which potentially locks them out forever. Or as a better man put it "For as long as humans are capable of evil"
Long ago, there was a proposal that the NHS standard encryption should be 40 bit. Even at that time it was insane. I went to my MP. In the course of showing him historical stuff on encryption, I made the mistake of explaining that modern encryption is beyond everyone.
The utter horror on his face was fascinating - I was describing the worst possible idea, it seems. The idea that The Law wasn't in charge.
Both major parties are in lockstep on this. They will fight reality - because *they* are supposed to Be In Charge.
'Look, there's a good chance that most of Putin's ICBMs won't work.'
'So why have I got several hundred nuclear warheads parked 25 miles from my house?'
'Shut up you ungrateful Jock, it's only the presence of these warheads that's preventing Vlad's useless missles from raining down on you!'
'So why use a condom?'
'Because its better to have some protection than no protection.'
Germany has run out of Gepard AA guns to send them. There is a frantic hunt on, in warehouses round the world, to find more.
Wars run on many things. But munitions stockpiles are vital. We are/were in a pretty poor state. Germany had a very bare cupboard.
Now, having a vast stack of MLRS rockets of various kinds, spare artillery barrels, a billion 155 shells etc might seem boring.
As is the logistical capability to get it somewhere.
If Europe want Eastern Europe to look to them and not the US, then it has to deal with the issue of collective security. Security is the first item on the government agenda. Everywhere. It's really hard to do free trade in a free fire zone.
Poland knows who will come when they dial emergency. And they do not believe it will be Germany or France.
When I was there, a couple of weeks ago, the mood from students to business men to pensioners was that they would need to be having a massive military to deter Russia for a generation. It was just assumed - no one disagreed in the slightest. The only contentious moment was when someone suggested that Poland acquire nuclear weapons.
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1600414621482876928
The prediction says significant loosening by China leads to ~1m Covid deaths in pretty short order. Why should it not? China has poor vax rates in the elderly, zero natural immunity, and they’re not using the best jabs
If this does NOT happen then something is seriously wrong with
1. Our estimates of Omicron’s infectivity/lethality or
2. China’s reporting of its own health data
Or some combination thereof
Mr. L, story priority can sometimes be very weird on the news.
Please don't come round to my house to forcibly put a condom on me btw.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63885028
Even with that low level of spending, it seems that it was sufficient to defeat Russia?
Poland spending 2% of GDP obviously equates to quite a different level of capacity than Germany spending 2%.
Only Poland is preparing for such a scenario. Other European countries should do so. Waiting for it to happen will be too late.
I'm sure if they decided to they could get those vaccination rates up pretty quickly.
Trump, now Germany? This is a theme
Excellent news
The bad news is that they demonstrated, and continue to demonstrate, the willingness to use what military effectiveness they possess to pursue an aggressive war of territorial conquest.
The worse news is that most European armed forces may be in as bad a state as the Russians, and if the Russians get their act together, Europe is unable to defend itself without the US.
The worst news is that the chances of having to defend Europe without the US are increasing.
“Douglas Eden reveals the extraordinary penetration of the 1970s Labour movement by pro-Soviet trade unionists and the extent of Callaghan’s toleration of the hard Left”
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/we-came-close-to-losing-our-democracy-in-1979/
The Baltics are protected by NATO though - so I think that, at least theoretically, would be a different proposition.