Having recovered from the mild shock of discovering that I have been working in a left-wing establishment most of my life (perhaps all those City traders with photos on their computers of girls too poor, apparently, to afford underwear were fiddling the books to provide charitable assistance to said girls), I just want to post this.
Immensely honoured to be named among such select and expert company - my peers (in truth, KCs and others who are well above my pay grade). (Edited: I have written some articles for LegalFeminist.)
I was at a conference yesterday in Central London on Women and Education. A very interesting day. As I am a trustee of a school I was partly there for professional purposes. There was a small demo outside with some students and others shouting "c***s" at us and we waved politely back and some of us sat on the bench opposite eating sandwiches and having tea from our flasks, in the way that many sensible middle-aged women do. Security was pretty good. Sadly one woman did later get beaten up by a masked person and, hopefully, the police will find and arrest the attacker.
I must confess that I found myself signing up to the Labour Women's mailing list - as much to hear what they are up to - but also because the person I was talking to was very interesting and we had a good chat.
The light and late afternoon sky around Grasmere today was glorious. There is more than a hint of spring in the air.
Nice update and congratulations on your blog getting a mention.
Just to say though that in my 37 years of working in financial services the few people (men of course) found with degrading pictures on their computers were all sacked. Maybe it was different on the trading floors.
It most certainly was. Pictures of undressed girls were the very least of it. One very senior person set up his own professional pornographic website. Investigating that and interviewing him was quite something. And, no, he was not sacked. He made lots of money you see .....
It does seem different subsectors have different norms. That kind of thing is on a hair-trigger where I work, regardless of what the individual brings in financially. Several cases in recent years.
Be a serious offence in my place of work too.
Anyone who keeps inappropriate photos on a work computer is so bloody stupid you probably wouldn't want them working for you anyway.
There were cases in teaching I worked on. One of them asked me why it was a big deal. My answer was, 'if you think it isn't, you're too thick to be a teacher.'
Where does he work now - Child safeguarding? Nuclear weapons security?
Having recovered from the mild shock of discovering that I have been working in a left-wing establishment most of my life (perhaps all those City traders with photos on their computers of girls too poor, apparently, to afford underwear were fiddling the books to provide charitable assistance to said girls), I just want to post this.
Immensely honoured to be named among such select and expert company - my peers (in truth, KCs and others who are well above my pay grade). (Edited: I have written some articles for LegalFeminist.)
I was at a conference yesterday in Central London on Women and Education. A very interesting day. As I am a trustee of a school I was partly there for professional purposes. There was a small demo outside with some students and others shouting "c***s" at us and we waved politely back and some of us sat on the bench opposite eating sandwiches and having tea from our flasks, in the way that many sensible middle-aged women do. Security was pretty good. Sadly one woman did later get beaten up by a masked person and, hopefully, the police will find and arrest the attacker.
I must confess that I found myself signing up to the Labour Women's mailing list - as much to hear what they are up to - but also because the person I was talking to was very interesting and we had a good chat.
The light and late afternoon sky around Grasmere today was glorious. There is more than a hint of spring in the air.
Nice update and congratulations on your blog getting a mention.
Just to say though that in my 37 years of working in financial services the few people (men of course) found with degrading pictures on their computers were all sacked. Maybe it was different on the trading floors.
It most certainly was. Pictures of undressed girls were the very least of it. One very senior person set up his own professional pornographic website. Investigating that and interviewing him was quite something. And, no, he was not sacked. He made lots of money you see .....
It does seem different subsectors have different norms. That kind of thing is on a hair-trigger where I work, regardless of what the individual brings in financially. Several cases in recent years.
Be a serious offence in my place of work too.
Anyone who keeps inappropriate photos on a work computer is so bloody stupid you probably wouldn't want them working for you anyway.
There were cases in teaching I worked on. One of them asked me why it was a big deal. My answer was, 'if you think it isn't, you're too thick to be a teacher.'
Where does he work now - Child safeguarding? Nuclear weapons security?
I'm loathe to be fair to Truss but did she actually blame the city types or was it the public officials at the Bank of England and Treasury who scuppered her chances? Thanks. I didn't think spending 20 minutes reading her piece would be an effective use of my time.
Attempting to find "single causes" is usually a fool's errand.
To my mind, she (and Kwasi) combined a chunk of arrogance with a bit of bad luck.
The budget presented by Kwasi was designed to kick start growth, by reducing taxes, while continuing to leave the spending taps open. It would certainly have "stimulated" the economy. But it would have stimulated it at a time when inflation was already elevated thanks to both labour shortages coming out of Covid, and the impact of the Ukraine war on imported energy prices.
Investors, by and large, are not irrational. Individually they thought to themselves "this budget will add fiscal fuel to the UK's already elevated inflation rates, and I don't want to be left holding the gilts when rates inevitably rise."
Having recovered from the mild shock of discovering that I have been working in a left-wing establishment most of my life (perhaps all those City traders with photos on their computers of girls too poor, apparently, to afford underwear were fiddling the books to provide charitable assistance to said girls), I just want to post this.
Immensely honoured to be named among such select and expert company - my peers (in truth, KCs and others who are well above my pay grade). (Edited: I have written some articles for LegalFeminist.)
I was at a conference yesterday in Central London on Women and Education. A very interesting day. As I am a trustee of a school I was partly there for professional purposes. There was a small demo outside with some students and others shouting "c***s" at us and we waved politely back and some of us sat on the bench opposite eating sandwiches and having tea from our flasks, in the way that many sensible middle-aged women do. Security was pretty good. Sadly one woman did later get beaten up by a masked person and, hopefully, the police will find and arrest the attacker.
I must confess that I found myself signing up to the Labour Women's mailing list - as much to hear what they are up to - but also because the person I was talking to was very interesting and we had a good chat.
The light and late afternoon sky around Grasmere today was glorious. There is more than a hint of spring in the air.
Nice update and congratulations on your blog getting a mention.
Just to say though that in my 37 years of working in financial services the few people (men of course) found with degrading pictures on their computers were all sacked. Maybe it was different on the trading floors.
It most certainly was. Pictures of undressed girls were the very least of it. One very senior person set up his own professional pornographic website. Investigating that and interviewing him was quite something. And, no, he was not sacked. He made lots of money you see .....
It does seem different subsectors have different norms. That kind of thing is on a hair-trigger where I work, regardless of what the individual brings in financially. Several cases in recent years.
Be a serious offence in my place of work too.
Anyone who keeps inappropriate photos on a work computer is so bloody stupid you probably wouldn't want them working for you anyway.
There were cases in teaching I worked on. One of them asked me why it was a big deal. My answer was, 'if you think it isn't, you're too thick to be a teacher.'
Where does he work now - Child safeguarding? Nuclear weapons security?
I believe he's now a driving instructor. Bizarrely.
Edit - he did work in child safeguarding at the time. And was in charge of the school's internet accounts, including the firewall.
Never been near Oxford or Cambridge. Actually, I lie. I spent a night at a friends place in Cambridge in my first year of University. Aberystwyth, if you must know. Very Not Oxbridge. I went to a bizarre born again christian music festival in Oxford as a teenager, though. Perhaps I unconsciously absorbed neocolonialist vibes radiating out of the university? Who knows…
A clear demonstration if why Rhodes must fall. Or there will be more of you.
I'm loathe to be fair to Truss but did she actually blame the city types or was it the public officials at the Bank of England and Treasury who scuppered her chances? Thanks. I didn't think spending 20 minutes reading her piece would be an effective use of my time.
Attempting to find "single causes" is usually a fool's errand.
To my mind, she (and Kwasi) combined a chunk of arrogance with a bit of bad luck.
The budget presented by Kwasi was designed to kick start growth, by reducing taxes, while continuing to leave the spending taps open. It would certainly have "stimulated" the economy. But it would have stimulated it at a time when inflation was already elevated thanks to both labour shortages coming out of Covid, and the impact of the Ukraine war on imported energy prices.
Investors, by and large, are not irrational. Individually they thought to themselves "this budget will add fiscal fuel to the UK's already elevated inflation rates, and I don't want to be left holding the gilts when rates inevitably rise."
Having recovered from the mild shock of discovering that I have been working in a left-wing establishment most of my life (perhaps all those City traders with photos on their computers of girls too poor, apparently, to afford underwear were fiddling the books to provide charitable assistance to said girls), I just want to post this.
Immensely honoured to be named among such select and expert company - my peers (in truth, KCs and others who are well above my pay grade). (Edited: I have written some articles for LegalFeminist.)
I was at a conference yesterday in Central London on Women and Education. A very interesting day. As I am a trustee of a school I was partly there for professional purposes. There was a small demo outside with some students and others shouting "c***s" at us and we waved politely back and some of us sat on the bench opposite eating sandwiches and having tea from our flasks, in the way that many sensible middle-aged women do. Security was pretty good. Sadly one woman did later get beaten up by a masked person and, hopefully, the police will find and arrest the attacker.
I must confess that I found myself signing up to the Labour Women's mailing list - as much to hear what they are up to - but also because the person I was talking to was very interesting and we had a good chat.
The light and late afternoon sky around Grasmere today was glorious. There is more than a hint of spring in the air.
Nice update and congratulations on your blog getting a mention.
Just to say though that in my 37 years of working in financial services the few people (men of course) found with degrading pictures on their computers were all sacked. Maybe it was different on the trading floors.
It most certainly was. Pictures of undressed girls were the very least of it. One very senior person set up his own professional pornographic website. Investigating that and interviewing him was quite something. And, no, he was not sacked. He made lots of money you see .....
It does seem different subsectors have different norms. That kind of thing is on a hair-trigger where I work, regardless of what the individual brings in financially. Several cases in recent years.
Be a serious offence in my place of work too.
Anyone who keeps inappropriate photos on a work computer is so bloody stupid you probably wouldn't want them working for you anyway.
There were cases in teaching I worked on. One of them asked me why it was a big deal. My answer was, 'if you think it isn't, you're too thick to be a teacher.'
Where does he work now - Child safeguarding? Nuclear weapons security?
I believe he's now a driving instructor. Bizarrely.
Edit - he did work in child safeguarding at the time. And was in charge of the school's internet accounts, including the firewall.
I find it very... interesting that certain child protection organisations seem to be scandal free. Apparently.
From what I can recall of those far off days of the Trusster, it was the anti-growth coalition who were the blockers. Are they the same people who comprise the left wing economic establishment?
I'd completely forgotten about the 'Anti-Growth Coalition'. How time flies! It was, of course, going to be the thing to sink Sir Keir:
Is this a risky approach? Yes. Is it a clear one? Absolutely. The trap for Labour is that they adopt the Sunak Strategy. Liz Truss’s ideas are simplified not simplistic; and as Rishi Sunak’s defeat showed, treating the new PM as a simpleton won’t win votes. Truss may not have the right answers, but she has asked the right question. Growth is the only game in town.
From what I can recall of those far off days of the Trusster, it was the anti-growth coalition who were the blockers. Are they the same people who comprise the left wing economic establishment?
I'd completely forgotten about the 'Anti-Growth Coalition'. How time flies! It was, of course, going to be the thing to sink Sir Keir:
Is this a risky approach? Yes. Is it a clear one? Absolutely. The trap for Labour is that they adopt the Sunak Strategy. Liz Truss’s ideas are simplified not simplistic; and as Rishi Sunak’s defeat showed, treating the new PM as a simpleton won’t win votes. Truss may not have the right answers, but she has asked the right question. Growth is the only game in town.
Well, forgive me, but I was a small child in 1994. At that age I got my news from, iirc, BBC Newsround. What did I say at the time? Probably something along the lines of "Oh no, that's awful" and then watched neighbours.
A decade later, though, while still a teenager, I spent a weekend in Rwanda, which included visiting a school at Gikongoro and standing a foot away from the lime covered bodies of dead Tutsis and moderate Hutus. I saw with my own eyes the slit achiles tendons on the bottom of the childrens legs - done so to prevent their victims running away, while the perpetrators could have lunch and a few beers before getting back to their genocide.
I've also read a few books and spent some time at university engaging with the literature on various genocides. Grim stuff. In the mid-2000's there was a brief debate about a"responsibility to protect" principle - how and whether it should be enshrined in International law. My conclusion isn't that state sovereignty should be inviolable, but it should be largely respected as the best long term stategy for reducing aggregate human misery and death from violence. The tiny proportion of the world population killed through violent conflict since 1945 - relative to pretty much any point prior to that is, in my considered view, largely down to the respecting of borders and national sovereignty. Russia's justification for their war is a cynical perversion of the R2P principle. It's bullshit framing for domestic consumption.
Mearsheimer, in fairness to him, sees straight through Russia's humanitarian justifications. It's all about power politics in his worldview.
There is nothing that happened in the Donbass or Crimea between the 1990's and 2014/2022 that justified Russia violating Ukraine's sovereignty.
I see what you did there. You don't see the 2014 referendums as legitimate, then.
I'm all in favour of holding re-runs after both sides agree to respect the results. That would bring an end to the killing. Minor alterations to boundaries of one or more of the territories would be allowed if indicated and agreed. The voting should be supervised by a neutral heavyweight power on behalf of the UN. China would be the obvious choice.
But no. The regime in Kiev won't hear of it. They want their forces to be in military control of all the territories, and that's it. Screw what people living in those areas actually want. They're even putting out stuff about how residents of Bakhmut, which they seem to want to defend to the death of the last inhabitant, are a bunch of disloyal types (and we know what can happen to disloyal types during sieges) who are simply "waiting" for the city to fall to Russian forces. Perhaps these "waiting" people see the 2014 and 2022 referendums as legitimate and therefore view the Donetsk region as having legitimately claimed independence and then legitimately joined Russia. They live there. They're entitled to hold that view, yes? It matters whether they do or not. But hey no, impossible.
Since there is no way democratic referendums could be held under Russian occupation, that's entirely logical. And anyone who thinks the 2014 referendum was 'legitimate' has not bothered to look closely enough at what was happening.
Also the criminal Russian regime has carried out extensive ethnic cleansing and the kidnapping of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children since 2014. There is no way any result prior to the return of all refugees is morally acceptable.
I'm loathe to be fair to Truss but did she actually blame the city types or was it the public officials at the Bank of England and Treasury who scuppered her chances? Thanks. I didn't think spending 20 minutes reading her piece would be an effective use of my time.
Attempting to find "single causes" is usually a fool's errand.
To my mind, she (and Kwasi) combined a chunk of arrogance with a bit of bad luck.
The budget presented by Kwasi was designed to kick start growth, by reducing taxes, while continuing to leave the spending taps open. It would certainly have "stimulated" the economy. But it would have stimulated it at a time when inflation was already elevated thanks to both labour shortages coming out of Covid, and the impact of the Ukraine war on imported energy prices.
Investors, by and large, are not irrational. Individually they thought to themselves "this budget will add fiscal fuel to the UK's already elevated inflation rates, and I don't want to be left holding the gilts when rates inevitably rise."
Could this have been foreseen?
Yes, probably.
But it wasn't.
But that is to excuse the utter idiocy and blindness of so much of the KK budget. Two points immediately spring to mind.
Removing the caps on pay was never realistically going to do anything to stimulate the economy and just made it appear that the budget was designed to help rich friends rather than achieve any meaningful or even ideologically driven reform.
Refusing to get an OBR assessment of the budget was always going to spook the markets. If you have an OBR assessment with a range of possibilities then people will work with those and you can argue your case. If you leave a void people will fill it with their own expectations - which will always be far worse than anything the OBR might have produced.
Above everything Truss and Kwartang were imcompatent and that is why they were rightly deposed.
Having recovered from the mild shock of discovering that I have been working in a left-wing establishment most of my life (perhaps all those City traders with photos on their computers of girls too poor, apparently, to afford underwear were fiddling the books to provide charitable assistance to said girls), I just want to post this.
Immensely honoured to be named among such select and expert company - my peers (in truth, KCs and others who are well above my pay grade). (Edited: I have written some articles for LegalFeminist.)
I was at a conference yesterday in Central London on Women and Education. A very interesting day. As I am a trustee of a school I was partly there for professional purposes. There was a small demo outside with some students and others shouting "c***s" at us and we waved politely back and some of us sat on the bench opposite eating sandwiches and having tea from our flasks, in the way that many sensible middle-aged women do. Security was pretty good. Sadly one woman did later get beaten up by a masked person and, hopefully, the police will find and arrest the attacker.
I must confess that I found myself signing up to the Labour Women's mailing list - as much to hear what they are up to - but also because the person I was talking to was very interesting and we had a good chat.
The light and late afternoon sky around Grasmere today was glorious. There is more than a hint of spring in the air.
Nice update and congratulations on your blog getting a mention.
Just to say though that in my 37 years of working in financial services the few people (men of course) found with degrading pictures on their computers were all sacked. Maybe it was different on the trading floors.
It most certainly was. Pictures of undressed girls were the very least of it. One very senior person set up his own professional pornographic website. Investigating that and interviewing him was quite something. And, no, he was not sacked. He made lots of money you see .....
It does seem different subsectors have different norms. That kind of thing is on a hair-trigger where I work, regardless of what the individual brings in financially. Several cases in recent years.
Be a serious offence in my place of work too.
Anyone who keeps inappropriate photos on a work computer is so bloody stupid you probably wouldn't want them working for you anyway.
There were cases in teaching I worked on. One of them asked me why it was a big deal. My answer was, 'if you think it isn't, you're too thick to be a teacher.'
Where does he work now - Child safeguarding? Nuclear weapons security?
I believe he's now a driving instructor. Bizarrely.
Edit - he did work in child safeguarding at the time. And was in charge of the school's internet accounts, including the firewall.
I'm loathe to be fair to Truss but did she actually blame the city types or was it the public officials at the Bank of England and Treasury who scuppered her chances? Thanks. I didn't think spending 20 minutes reading her piece would be an effective use of my time.
Attempting to find "single causes" is usually a fool's errand.
To my mind, she (and Kwasi) combined a chunk of arrogance with a bit of bad luck.
The budget presented by Kwasi was designed to kick start growth, by reducing taxes, while continuing to leave the spending taps open. It would certainly have "stimulated" the economy. But it would have stimulated it at a time when inflation was already elevated thanks to both labour shortages coming out of Covid, and the impact of the Ukraine war on imported energy prices.
Investors, by and large, are not irrational. Individually they thought to themselves "this budget will add fiscal fuel to the UK's already elevated inflation rates, and I don't want to be left holding the gilts when rates inevitably rise."
Could this have been foreseen?
Yes, probably.
But it wasn't.
I don't think it was what they did, so much as how they did it, combined with tons of bad luck. Most of the tax cuts had already been announced in her programme over the summer, with the exception of the higher rate income tax cut. The markets hadn't budged either then or when she'd been elected. They could read the news - in fact they do little else.
So why the strong adverse reaction when she did what she said she would? It wasn't the level of debt - Japan has a much higher level of debt, and France has a higher level of debt, without its own currency. Both have growth problems like we do.
Partly it was a case of Dornbusch overshooting, that would have corrected itself eventually as it did with the exchange rate. Partly, I think, because she didn't allow the OBR to do their thing, which gave the impression that she was hiding something. Partly it was sheer bad luck - the debt markets were turning in every country at about the same time, as the period of free interest rates ended. And partly because Kwasi explicitly said that there were more tax cuts to come, without specifying how much or how little.
'Hedge fund tycoon Crispin Odey has said that “we probably need a Labour” government to force the Conservative party to rally behind the low-tax economic agenda advocated by Liz Truss.' “This Conservative Party looks like Ted Heath's Conservative Party,” he said. “It has stolen the policies of Labour the whole way along.
See. Hedge fund tycoons want a Labour government. Liz was spot on.
Finance types have really cooled on the Tories in the last few years, it's been very noticeable. Not because traders have suddenly become left wing, but because the Tories have become a total laughing stock.
I follow ~320 Tory MPs so you don't have to. Number of MP retweets or supportive tweets relating to @trussliz batshit story in @Telegraph so far = zero
I cannot believe there are not significant numbers who agree with her analysis - their generally expressed beliefs would tend toward that stance.
So I put that down to either Sunak being slightly stronger with the malcontented than I thought or, more likely, they're pinning their hopes on Boris, not the person who said 'Boris should not have resigned and was amazing; here's why we should completely change our approach from what Boris was doing'.
Having recovered from the mild shock of discovering that I have been working in a left-wing establishment most of my life (perhaps all those City traders with photos on their computers of girls too poor, apparently, to afford underwear were fiddling the books to provide charitable assistance to said girls), I just want to post this.
Immensely honoured to be named among such select and expert company - my peers (in truth, KCs and others who are well above my pay grade). (Edited: I have written some articles for LegalFeminist.)
I was at a conference yesterday in Central London on Women and Education. A very interesting day. As I am a trustee of a school I was partly there for professional purposes. There was a small demo outside with some students and others shouting "c***s" at us and we waved politely back and some of us sat on the bench opposite eating sandwiches and having tea from our flasks, in the way that many sensible middle-aged women do. Security was pretty good. Sadly one woman did later get beaten up by a masked person and, hopefully, the police will find and arrest the attacker.
I must confess that I found myself signing up to the Labour Women's mailing list - as much to hear what they are up to - but also because the person I was talking to was very interesting and we had a good chat.
The light and late afternoon sky around Grasmere today was glorious. There is more than a hint of spring in the air.
"Sadly one woman did later get beaten up by a masked person and, hopefully, the police will find and arrest the attacker."
Wut? Wa this related to the conference?!?
She was an attendee and this happened as she left. So that is the assumption. But until the attacker is found it is not possible to say. It could be a random attack but the lady was beaten rather than having stuff stolen. At any event it is awful and I really hope the perpetrator is found.
Fuck's sake. Two singles are often vastly cheaper than a return.
Discounted return train tickets will be scrapped with passengers having to buy single fares, under rail network reforms expected to be announced this week.
Mark Harper, the transport secretary, will outline the government’s vision for solving the long-running rail crisis with a “Fat Controller” public body placed in charge.
Passengers could be faced with a stealth increase in costs if discounted return tickets are scrapped and all fares offered at “single-leg pricing” for each stage of their journeys.
Paper tickets could be replaced by smartcards similar to the Oyster Card used across public transport in London and QR-style digital codes, according to a political briefing at the weekend...
...Commentators calculated that some trips could be a third more expensive if return tickets are scrapped. The trainline.com ticket service advised it is sometimes actually cheaper to buy single tickets for each leg than a return.
Around these parts a single and a return are always pretty much the same price.
No Advance fares, I guess, then?
So Avanti has been testing to see how abolishing advance fares works.
Largely by abolishing the operation of trains.
It has become so bad, Manchester based staff for trips to London are going to Leeds so they can catch the LNER trains to London from Leeds.
They're on to you there as well. From The Times story;
Passengers also face having some services cut further with the TransPennine Express said to be considering reducing the number of carriages on trains from six to three.
They've been reducing them from six to zero on plenty of the trains I've been wanting to catch recently.
I follow ~320 Tory MPs so you don't have to. Number of MP retweets or supportive tweets relating to @trussliz batshit story in @Telegraph so far = zero
I cannot believe there are not significant numbers who agree with her analysis - their generally expressed beliefs would tend toward that stance.
So I put that down to either Sunak being slightly stronger with the malcontented than I thought or, more likely, they're pinning their hopes on Boris, not the person who said 'Boris should not have resigned and was amazing; here's why we should completely change our approach from what Boris was doing'.
There didn't seem to be much sympathy for Liz at the time. My recollection is that the Tory MPs couldn't wait to be rid.
I'm loathe to be fair to Truss but did she actually blame the city types or was it the public officials at the Bank of England and Treasury who scuppered her chances? Thanks. I didn't think spending 20 minutes reading her piece would be an effective use of my time.
Attempting to find "single causes" is usually a fool's errand.
To my mind, she (and Kwasi) combined a chunk of arrogance with a bit of bad luck.
The budget presented by Kwasi was designed to kick start growth, by reducing taxes, while continuing to leave the spending taps open. It would certainly have "stimulated" the economy. But it would have stimulated it at a time when inflation was already elevated thanks to both labour shortages coming out of Covid, and the impact of the Ukraine war on imported energy prices.
Investors, by and large, are not irrational. Individually they thought to themselves "this budget will add fiscal fuel to the UK's already elevated inflation rates, and I don't want to be left holding the gilts when rates inevitably rise."
Could this have been foreseen?
Yes, probably.
But it wasn't.
I don't think it was what they did, so much as how they did it, combined with tons of bad luck. Most of the tax cuts had already been announced in her programme over the summer, with the exception of the higher rate income tax cut. The markets hadn't budged either then or when she'd been elected. They could read the news - in fact they do little else.
So why the strong adverse reaction when she did what she said she would? It wasn't the level of debt - Japan has a much higher level of debt, and France has a higher level of debt, without its own currency. Both have growth problems like we do.
Partly it was a case of Dornbusch overshooting, that would have corrected itself eventually as it did with the exchange rate. Partly, I think, because she didn't allow the OBR to do their thing, which gave the impression that she was hiding something. Partly it was sheer bad luck - the debt markets were turning in every country at about the same time, as the period of free interest rates ended. And partly because Kwasi explicitly said that there were more tax cuts to come, without specifying how much or how little.
It wasn't levels of debt: markets tend to be relatively relaxed by debt levels*.
It was the expected impact on inflation.
Specifically, it was the fact that inflation was already at 10% in September 2022, going to 11%. Adding additional fiscal stimulus to a labour market with shortages, and where there is a "push" from rising commodity prices, was only going to have one impact.
And when inflation rises, government and the BoE need to raise interest rates to curb it. That was what the markets were worried about, not the absolute debt levels.
* Although Japan is not a great compare, as it's the BoJ that does most of the buying of Japanese government debt.
I'm loathe to be fair to Truss but did she actually blame the city types or was it the public officials at the Bank of England and Treasury who scuppered her chances? Thanks. I didn't think spending 20 minutes reading her piece would be an effective use of my time.
Attempting to find "single causes" is usually a fool's errand.
To my mind, she (and Kwasi) combined a chunk of arrogance with a bit of bad luck.
The budget presented by Kwasi was designed to kick start growth, by reducing taxes, while continuing to leave the spending taps open. It would certainly have "stimulated" the economy. But it would have stimulated it at a time when inflation was already elevated thanks to both labour shortages coming out of Covid, and the impact of the Ukraine war on imported energy prices.
Investors, by and large, are not irrational. Individually they thought to themselves "this budget will add fiscal fuel to the UK's already elevated inflation rates, and I don't want to be left holding the gilts when rates inevitably rise."
Could this have been foreseen?
Yes, probably.
But it wasn't.
I don't think it was what they did, so much as how they did it, combined with tons of bad luck. Most of the tax cuts had already been announced in her programme over the summer, with the exception of the higher rate income tax cut. The markets hadn't budged either then or when she'd been elected. They could read the news - in fact they do little else.
So why the strong adverse reaction when she did what she said she would? It wasn't the level of debt - Japan has a much higher level of debt, and France has a higher level of debt, without its own currency. Both have growth problems like we do.
Partly it was a case of Dornbusch overshooting, that would have corrected itself eventually as it did with the exchange rate. Partly, I think, because she didn't allow the OBR to do their thing, which gave the impression that she was hiding something. Partly it was sheer bad luck - the debt markets were turning in every country at about the same time, as the period of free interest rates ended. And partly because Kwasi explicitly said that there were more tax cuts to come, without specifying how much or how little.
And partly because of the BOE bond sell off that afaicr started the previous day.
But Liz and Kwasi should have been all over everything, and they weren't.
Having recovered from the mild shock of discovering that I have been working in a left-wing establishment most of my life (perhaps all those City traders with photos on their computers of girls too poor, apparently, to afford underwear were fiddling the books to provide charitable assistance to said girls), I just want to post this.
Immensely honoured to be named among such select and expert company - my peers (in truth, KCs and others who are well above my pay grade). (Edited: I have written some articles for LegalFeminist.)
I was at a conference yesterday in Central London on Women and Education. A very interesting day. As I am a trustee of a school I was partly there for professional purposes. There was a small demo outside with some students and others shouting "c***s" at us and we waved politely back and some of us sat on the bench opposite eating sandwiches and having tea from our flasks, in the way that many sensible middle-aged women do. Security was pretty good. Sadly one woman did later get beaten up by a masked person and, hopefully, the police will find and arrest the attacker.
I must confess that I found myself signing up to the Labour Women's mailing list - as much to hear what they are up to - but also because the person I was talking to was very interesting and we had a good chat.
The light and late afternoon sky around Grasmere today was glorious. There is more than a hint of spring in the air.
"Sadly one woman did later get beaten up by a masked person and, hopefully, the police will find and arrest the attacker."
Wut? Wa this related to the conference?!?
She was an attendee and this happened as she left. So that is the assumption. But until the attacker is found it is not possible to say. It could be a random attack but the lady was beaten rather than having stuff stolen. At any event it is awful and I really hope the perpetrator is found.
It's ghastly and, to me, bizarre. Are there really people getting bent out of shape by "Women and Education" conferences?
Do the Tories actually appreciate how this looks from planet Earth? There is now a cottage industry dedicated to proclaiming that Liz Truss of all people is the national saviour waiting in the wings and other Tories are having to rebut it. Sir Keir wouldn't dare suggest something so suicidal for the Tories if he was allowed to design it.
Is Truss auditioning for a new stage production of Sunset Boulevard ?
She seems to be channeling her Norma Desmond !
Why on earth are the papers indulging her . Someone needs to call for an intervention as this is painful to watch .
To be charitable, you could say this is some kind of coping mechanism. The poor lady suffered the greatest humiliation in political history. But someone does need to step in and ensure she receives all the care she needs.
I'm loathe to be fair to Truss but did she actually blame the city types or was it the public officials at the Bank of England and Treasury who scuppered her chances? Thanks. I didn't think spending 20 minutes reading her piece would be an effective use of my time.
Attempting to find "single causes" is usually a fool's errand.
To my mind, she (and Kwasi) combined a chunk of arrogance with a bit of bad luck.
The budget presented by Kwasi was designed to kick start growth, by reducing taxes, while continuing to leave the spending taps open. It would certainly have "stimulated" the economy. But it would have stimulated it at a time when inflation was already elevated thanks to both labour shortages coming out of Covid, and the impact of the Ukraine war on imported energy prices.
Investors, by and large, are not irrational. Individually they thought to themselves "this budget will add fiscal fuel to the UK's already elevated inflation rates, and I don't want to be left holding the gilts when rates inevitably rise."
Could this have been foreseen?
Yes, probably.
But it wasn't.
I don't think it was what they did, so much as how they did it, combined with tons of bad luck. Most of the tax cuts had already been announced in her programme over the summer, with the exception of the higher rate income tax cut. The markets hadn't budged either then or when she'd been elected. They could read the news - in fact they do little else.
So why the strong adverse reaction when she did what she said she would? It wasn't the level of debt - Japan has a much higher level of debt, and France has a higher level of debt, without its own currency. Both have growth problems like we do.
Partly it was a case of Dornbusch overshooting, that would have corrected itself eventually as it did with the exchange rate. Partly, I think, because she didn't allow the OBR to do their thing, which gave the impression that she was hiding something. Partly it was sheer bad luck - the debt markets were turning in every country at about the same time, as the period of free interest rates ended. And partly because Kwasi explicitly said that there were more tax cuts to come, without specifying how much or how little.
It wasn't levels of debt: markets tend to be relatively relaxed by debt levels*.
It was the expected impact on inflation.
Specifically, it was the fact that inflation was already at 10% in September 2022, going to 11%. Adding additional fiscal stimulus to a labour market with shortages, and where there is a "push" from rising commodity prices, was only going to have one impact.
And when inflation rises, government and the BoE need to raise interest rates to curb it. That was what the markets were worried about, not the absolute debt levels.
* Although Japan is not a great compare, as it's the BoJ that does most of the buying of Japanese government debt.
I am always amazed at how relaxed the markets seem to be at governments defaulting. It seems that the rational behavior for a government would be to slowly acquire debt, build long term infrastructure with it, and then default every few decades.
Still wondering about the idea that Starmer isn't Blair? Therefore no landslide is possible. Relies on the idea it was Blair rather than Tory incompetence than was the main factor. If it wasn't then there is trouble ahead. Can't recollect a less functional government.
Do the Tories actually appreciate how this looks from planet Earth? There is now a cottage industry dedicated to proclaiming that Liz Truss of all people is the national saviour waiting in the wings and other Tories are having to rebut it. Sir Keir wouldn't dare suggest something so suicidal for the Tories if he was allowed to design it.
But as one or two posts here show, she is still taken seriously by some deep in the conservative membership.
Don’t bet on them not doing something at Corbyn+ levels of stupidity after the next election. Like JRM as leader.
Its worth keeping an eye on Ukraine in the next two weeks. Russia appears to be throwing resources in and has aleady made notable tactical level gains. These could turn into strategic gains in terms of the Russia objective of occupying the Donbas (or Donetsk & Luhansk to you and me). Holding that and being able to negotiate Russian control post-conflict is high on the Kremlin's list.
Just one comment on the now infamous Chinese spy balloon. The Americans already have a fair gauge of what that thing was at, they were capturing signals from pretty much everything on it by following it with aircraft chock full of emissions capture gear.
Still wondering about the idea that Starmer isn't Blair? Therefore no landslide is possible. Relies on the idea it was Blair rather than Tory incompetence than was the main factor. If it wasn't then there is trouble ahead. Can't recollect a less functional government.
I’m now so confident in a Tory defeat next time that I’m out the other end and starting to worry about Keir’s Labour being a disappointment. There’s a new pattern of trying to out-Tory the Tories, which is fine if it’s just bullshit for red wall votes but let’s hope they don’t start inhaling.
Still wondering about the idea that Starmer isn't Blair? Therefore no landslide is possible. Relies on the idea it was Blair rather than Tory incompetence than was the main factor. If it wasn't then there is trouble ahead. Can't recollect a less functional government.
Yes we will soon have the answer to the question that has been posed since 1997: would John Smith have won a similar landslide anyway?
If Starmer wins a landslide I think it is safe to say that it was the Tories wot lost it, not Blair that won it (I am glad he won regardless).
Its worth keeping an eye on Ukraine in the next two weeks. Russia appears to be throwing resources in and has aleady made notable tactical level gains. These could turn into strategic gains in terms of the Russia objective of occupying the Donbas (or Donetsk & Luhansk to you and me). Holding that and being able to negotiate Russian control post-conflict is high on the Kremlin's list.
Just one comment on the now infamous Chinese spy balloon. The Americans already have a fair gauge of what that thing was at, they were capturing signals from pretty much everything on it by following it with aircraft chock full of emissions capture gear.
Something definitely changed at the end of Autumn, with Ukrainian momentum slowing and Russia appearing to find a second wind. Hard to pinpoint in the fog of war whether it’s tiring/deleted Ukrainian forces, ammo shortages, Russian mobilisation, or just better Russian tactics.
Similar happened last May with Severodonetsk and then Mariupol. Then Ukraine bounced back dramatically.
Long term there’s one thing above all that will determine the direction of the war: the global oil price.
Its worth keeping an eye on Ukraine in the next two weeks. Russia appears to be throwing resources in and has aleady made notable tactical level gains. These could turn into strategic gains in terms of the Russia objective of occupying the Donbas (or Donetsk & Luhansk to you and me). Holding that and being able to negotiate Russian control post-conflict is high on the Kremlin's list.
Just one comment on the now infamous Chinese spy balloon. The Americans already have a fair gauge of what that thing was at, they were capturing signals from pretty much everything on it by following it with aircraft chock full of emissions capture gear.
Something definitely changed at the end of Autumn, with Ukrainian momentum slowing and Russia appearing to find a second wind. Hard to pinpoint in the fog of war whether it’s tiring/deleted Ukrainian forces, ammo shortages, Russian mobilisation, or just better Russian tactics.
Similar happened last May with Severodonetsk and then Mariupol. Then Ukraine bounced back dramatically.
Long term there’s one thing above all that will determine the direction of the war: the global oil price.
I believe Wagner is running low on the convicts they are using for their human wave attacks - because the regular Russian army has grabbed hold of the supply.
That doesn't sound like a military that's going to be doing any manoeuvre warfare, anytime soon.
Its worth keeping an eye on Ukraine in the next two weeks. Russia appears to be throwing resources in and has aleady made notable tactical level gains. These could turn into strategic gains in terms of the Russia objective of occupying the Donbas (or Donetsk & Luhansk to you and me). Holding that and being able to negotiate Russian control post-conflict is high on the Kremlin's list.
Just one comment on the now infamous Chinese spy balloon. The Americans already have a fair gauge of what that thing was at, they were capturing signals from pretty much everything on it by following it with aircraft chock full of emissions capture gear.
Something definitely changed at the end of Autumn, with Ukrainian momentum slowing and Russia appearing to find a second wind. Hard to pinpoint in the fog of war whether it’s tiring/deleted Ukrainian forces, ammo shortages, Russian mobilisation, or just better Russian tactics.
Similar happened last May with Severodonetsk and then Mariupol. Then Ukraine bounced back dramatically.
Long term there’s one thing above all that will determine the direction of the war: the global oil price.
Its all of the above, perhaps the most significant is that the Russians have sorted out a lot of the logistic chain issues. The most simple change was to put its main depots out of range and improve its transport mechanisms. Its notable the the US is donating enhanced range ground launched depth strke capabilities.
Is Truss auditioning for a new stage production of Sunset Boulevard ?
She seems to be channeling her Norma Desmond !
Why on earth are the papers indulging her . Someone needs to call for an intervention as this is painful to watch .
To be charitable, you could say this is some kind of coping mechanism. The poor lady suffered the greatest humiliation in political history. But someone does need to step in and ensure she receives all the care she needs.
Posts about Truss here seem to get very icky and personal very quickly.
Its worth keeping an eye on Ukraine in the next two weeks. Russia appears to be throwing resources in and has aleady made notable tactical level gains. These could turn into strategic gains in terms of the Russia objective of occupying the Donbas (or Donetsk & Luhansk to you and me). Holding that and being able to negotiate Russian control post-conflict is high on the Kremlin's list.
Just one comment on the now infamous Chinese spy balloon. The Americans already have a fair gauge of what that thing was at, they were capturing signals from pretty much everything on it by following it with aircraft chock full of emissions capture gear.
Something definitely changed at the end of Autumn, with Ukrainian momentum slowing and Russia appearing to find a second wind. Hard to pinpoint in the fog of war whether it’s tiring/deleted Ukrainian forces, ammo shortages, Russian mobilisation, or just better Russian tactics.
Similar happened last May with Severodonetsk and then Mariupol. Then Ukraine bounced back dramatically.
Long term there’s one thing above all that will determine the direction of the war: the global oil price.
Its all of the above, perhaps the most significant is that the Russians have sorted out a lot of the logistic chain issues. The most simple change was to put its main depots out of range and improve its transport mechanisms. Its notable the the US is donating enhanced range ground launched depth strke capabilities.
They haven't sorted out not using palletised, road vehicle based resupply. they are simply living with driving what they have longer distances from the rail heads.
Is Truss auditioning for a new stage production of Sunset Boulevard ?
She seems to be channeling her Norma Desmond !
Why on earth are the papers indulging her . Someone needs to call for an intervention as this is painful to watch .
To be charitable, you could say this is some kind of coping mechanism. The poor lady suffered the greatest humiliation in political history. But someone does need to step in and ensure she receives all the care she needs.
Posts about Truss here seem to get very icky and personal very quickly.
It's a well known fact that nobody on here ever expressed personal dislike for - say... - Boris Johnson.
Its worth keeping an eye on Ukraine in the next two weeks. Russia appears to be throwing resources in and has aleady made notable tactical level gains. These could turn into strategic gains in terms of the Russia objective of occupying the Donbas (or Donetsk & Luhansk to you and me). Holding that and being able to negotiate Russian control post-conflict is high on the Kremlin's list.
Just one comment on the now infamous Chinese spy balloon. The Americans already have a fair gauge of what that thing was at, they were capturing signals from pretty much everything on it by following it with aircraft chock full of emissions capture gear.
Something definitely changed at the end of Autumn, with Ukrainian momentum slowing and Russia appearing to find a second wind. Hard to pinpoint in the fog of war whether it’s tiring/deleted Ukrainian forces, ammo shortages, Russian mobilisation, or just better Russian tactics.
Similar happened last May with Severodonetsk and then Mariupol. Then Ukraine bounced back dramatically.
Long term there’s one thing above all that will determine the direction of the war: the global oil price.
Its all of the above, perhaps the most significant is that the Russians have sorted out a lot of the logistic chain issues. The most simple change was to put its main depots out of range and improve its transport mechanisms. Its notable the the US is donating enhanced range ground launched depth strke capabilities.
They haven't sorted out not using palletised, road vehicle based resupply. they are simply living with driving what they have longer distances from the rail heads.
Thats just a basic fact of the situation and their adaptation to it is an improvement. They have developed the road transport work, e.g. improving the staging process to enable road transport but on a wider level also ensuring more plentiful supply, even if further away plus better interim staging to ensure units moving to the front get better equipped and carry larger supplies for more sustained combat. Previously they were going to the front surprisingly light
Its worth keeping an eye on Ukraine in the next two weeks. Russia appears to be throwing resources in and has aleady made notable tactical level gains. These could turn into strategic gains in terms of the Russia objective of occupying the Donbas (or Donetsk & Luhansk to you and me). Holding that and being able to negotiate Russian control post-conflict is high on the Kremlin's list.
Just one comment on the now infamous Chinese spy balloon. The Americans already have a fair gauge of what that thing was at, they were capturing signals from pretty much everything on it by following it with aircraft chock full of emissions capture gear.
I have a rather different view: I think Ukraine is fairly happy for Russia to commit forces and to engage in trench warfare. Yes, it's fucking painful and miserable, but the attacker in these kind of situations is usually the one who is taking the bulk of the losses.
At the same time, Ukraine is building up a mobile force led by modern tanks for the first time this war.
While all the talk is about an upcoming Russian offensive, I suspect that we might actually be about to see the opposite.
Its worth keeping an eye on Ukraine in the next two weeks. Russia appears to be throwing resources in and has aleady made notable tactical level gains. These could turn into strategic gains in terms of the Russia objective of occupying the Donbas (or Donetsk & Luhansk to you and me). Holding that and being able to negotiate Russian control post-conflict is high on the Kremlin's list.
Just one comment on the now infamous Chinese spy balloon. The Americans already have a fair gauge of what that thing was at, they were capturing signals from pretty much everything on it by following it with aircraft chock full of emissions capture gear.
Something definitely changed at the end of Autumn, with Ukrainian momentum slowing and Russia appearing to find a second wind. Hard to pinpoint in the fog of war whether it’s tiring/deleted Ukrainian forces, ammo shortages, Russian mobilisation, or just better Russian tactics.
Similar happened last May with Severodonetsk and then Mariupol. Then Ukraine bounced back dramatically.
Long term there’s one thing above all that will determine the direction of the war: the global oil price.
Its all of the above, perhaps the most significant is that the Russians have sorted out a lot of the logistic chain issues. The most simple change was to put its main depots out of range and improve its transport mechanisms. Its notable the the US is donating enhanced range ground launched depth strke capabilities.
They haven't sorted out not using palletised, road vehicle based resupply. they are simply living with driving what they have longer distances from the rail heads.
Its worth keeping an eye on Ukraine in the next two weeks. Russia appears to be throwing resources in and has aleady made notable tactical level gains. These could turn into strategic gains in terms of the Russia objective of occupying the Donbas (or Donetsk & Luhansk to you and me). Holding that and being able to negotiate Russian control post-conflict is high on the Kremlin's list.
Just one comment on the now infamous Chinese spy balloon. The Americans already have a fair gauge of what that thing was at, they were capturing signals from pretty much everything on it by following it with aircraft chock full of emissions capture gear.
I have a rather different view: I think Ukraine is fairly happy for Russia to commit forces and to engage in trench warfare. Yes, it's fucking painful and miserable, but the attacker in these kind of situations is usually the one who is taking the bulk of the losses.
At the same time, Ukraine is building up a mobile force led by modern tanks for the first time this war.
While all the talk is about an upcoming Russian offensive, I suspect that we might actually be about to see the opposite.
Thats perfectly feasible, both sides have been prepping and there is little doubt the Ukrainians are gearing, probably for a straight south easterly push to cut Russian forces in two. Right now, however, all the local success at the moment lies with the Russians. The danger is that local success can become wider if the Ukrainians get wheeled around and the Russians can find a thin spot. Fronts tend to wear and wear then the collpase is quick. That is a concern right now.
The other, perhaps not so well known, point is that there are (or at least were) arguments over the willingness of the Ukrainians to put their own troops into the furnace at Bakhmut. There were those who felt that the expedniture of men and material around the Bakhmut front was simply not worth it. Ukrainian casualties are high, maybe not quite as high as the Russians but high nonetheless. There are stories that the Ukrainians have taken out their most capable units from that front for R&R and they havent returned.
Well, forgive me, but I was a small child in 1994. At that age I got my news from, iirc, BBC Newsround. What did I say at the time? Probably something along the lines of "Oh no, that's awful" and then watched neighbours.
A decade later, though, while still a teenager, I spent a weekend in Rwanda, which included visiting a school at Gikongoro and standing a foot away from the lime covered bodies of dead Tutsis and moderate Hutus. I saw with my own eyes the slit achiles tendons on the bottom of the childrens legs - done so to prevent their victims running away, while the perpetrators could have lunch and a few beers before getting back to their genocide.
I've also read a few books and spent some time at university engaging with the literature on various genocides. Grim stuff. In the mid-2000's there was a brief debate about a"responsibility to protect" principle - how and whether it should be enshrined in International law. My conclusion isn't that state sovereignty should be inviolable, but it should be largely respected as the best long term stategy for reducing aggregate human misery and death from violence. The tiny proportion of the world population killed through violent conflict since 1945 - relative to pretty much any point prior to that is, in my considered view, largely down to the respecting of borders and national sovereignty. Russia's justification for their war is a cynical perversion of the R2P principle. It's bullshit framing for domestic consumption.
Mearsheimer, in fairness to him, sees straight through Russia's humanitarian justifications. It's all about power politics in his worldview.
There is nothing that happened in the Donbass or Crimea between the 1990's and 2014/2022 that justified Russia violating Ukraine's sovereignty.
I see what you did there. You don't see the 2014 referendums as legitimate, then.
I'm all in favour of holding re-runs after both sides agree to respect the results. That would bring an end to the killing. Minor alterations to boundaries of one or more of the territories would be allowed if indicated and agreed. The voting should be supervised by a neutral heavyweight power on behalf of the UN. China would be the obvious choice.
But no. The regime in Kiev won't hear of it. They want their forces to be in military control of all the territories, and that's it. Screw what people living in those areas actually want. They're even putting out stuff about how residents of Bakhmut, which they seem to want to defend to the death of the last inhabitant, are a bunch of disloyal types (and we know what can happen to disloyal types during sieges) who are simply "waiting" for the city to fall to Russian forces. Perhaps these "waiting" people see the 2014 and 2022 referendums as legitimate and therefore view the Donetsk region as having legitimately claimed independence and then legitimately joined Russia. They live there. They're entitled to hold that view, yes? It matters whether they do or not. But hey no, impossible.
Since there is no way democratic referendums could be held under Russian occupation, that's entirely logical. And anyone who thinks the 2014 referendum was 'legitimate' has not bothered to look closely enough at what was happening.
Logical that they couldn't be held under Russian military control? What about under Ukrainian military control?
Ceasefire ASAP. Internationally supervised referendums in the whole of each territory, which for four of them means on both sides of the ceasefire line. To spell it out: in areas under Russian military control, and in areas under Ukrainian military control. Both must cooperate with the international supervisors, who must obviously be from a neutral country (so no country that has armed either side, which rules out the US, Britain, France, Iran, and North Korea) and where necessary they should be armed.
Also the criminal Russian regime has carried out extensive ethnic cleansing and the kidnapping of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children since 2014. There is no way any result prior to the return of all refugees is morally acceptable.
And then there's the adrenochrome?
Did the Russians stop being able to make their own babies? Or are they part of the pizza conspiracy?
Return of refugees, though - yes, of course. And no votes in a territory for those who don't come from any of the territories and are only present by dint of being military personnel.
On topic, it was the interest rates pumped up by unfunded tax cuts that did for her. There are germs of points to what she is saying, albeit with no sound logical connection to her removal from office. Tory MPs did vote for her without wanting to vote for her microeconomic policies on housing, energy, et cetera, which she was explicitly offering them. That was daft of them but not her fault. It is also true that many people who do economics and write about it forgot vital precepts in the last 15 years, but mostly those were about, erm, the potential for interest rates to go up...
Still wondering about the idea that Starmer isn't Blair? Therefore no landslide is possible. Relies on the idea it was Blair rather than Tory incompetence than was the main factor. If it wasn't then there is trouble ahead. Can't recollect a less functional government.
I’m now so confident in a Tory defeat next time that I’m out the other end and starting to worry about Keir’s Labour being a disappointment. There’s a new pattern of trying to out-Tory the Tories, which is fine if it’s just bullshit for red wall votes but let’s hope they don’t start inhaling.
Too late. They’re already out their tits. The Starmer government is gonna be a car crash.
Well, forgive me, but I was a small child in 1994. At that age I got my news from, iirc, BBC Newsround. What did I say at the time? Probably something along the lines of "Oh no, that's awful" and then watched neighbours.
A decade later, though, while still a teenager, I spent a weekend in Rwanda, which included visiting a school at Gikongoro and standing a foot away from the lime covered bodies of dead Tutsis and moderate Hutus. I saw with my own eyes the slit achiles tendons on the bottom of the childrens legs - done so to prevent their victims running away, while the perpetrators could have lunch and a few beers before getting back to their genocide.
I've also read a few books and spent some time at university engaging with the literature on various genocides. Grim stuff. In the mid-2000's there was a brief debate about a"responsibility to protect" principle - how and whether it should be enshrined in International law. My conclusion isn't that state sovereignty should be inviolable, but it should be largely respected as the best long term stategy for reducing aggregate human misery and death from violence. The tiny proportion of the world population killed through violent conflict since 1945 - relative to pretty much any point prior to that is, in my considered view, largely down to the respecting of borders and national sovereignty. Russia's justification for their war is a cynical perversion of the R2P principle. It's bullshit framing for domestic consumption.
Mearsheimer, in fairness to him, sees straight through Russia's humanitarian justifications. It's all about power politics in his worldview.
There is nothing that happened in the Donbass or Crimea between the 1990's and 2014/2022 that justified Russia violating Ukraine's sovereignty.
I see what you did there. You don't see the 2014 referendums as legitimate, then.
I'm all in favour of holding re-runs after both sides agree to respect the results. That would bring an end to the killing. Minor alterations to boundaries of one or more of the territories would be allowed if indicated and agreed. The voting should be supervised by a neutral heavyweight power on behalf of the UN. China would be the obvious choice.
But no. The regime in Kiev won't hear of it. They want their forces to be in military control of all the territories, and that's it. Screw what people living in those areas actually want. They're even putting out stuff about how residents of Bakhmut, which they seem to want to defend to the death of the last inhabitant, are a bunch of disloyal types (and we know what can happen to disloyal types during sieges) who are simply "waiting" for the city to fall to Russian forces. Perhaps these "waiting" people see the 2014 and 2022 referendums as legitimate and therefore view the Donetsk region as having legitimately claimed independence and then legitimately joined Russia. They live there. They're entitled to hold that view, yes? It matters whether they do or not. But hey no, impossible.
Since there is no way democratic referendums could be held under Russian occupation, that's entirely logical. And anyone who thinks the 2014 referendum was 'legitimate' has not bothered to look closely enough at what was happening.
Logical that they couldn't be held under Russian military control? What about under Ukrainian military control?
Ceasefire ASAP. Internationally supervised referendums in the whole of each territory, which for four of them means on both sides of the ceasefire line. To spell it out: in areas under Russian military control, and in areas under Ukrainian military control. Both must cooperate with the international supervisors, who must obviously be from a neutral country (so no country that has armed either side, which rules out the US, Britain, France, Iran, and North Korea) and where necessary they should be armed.
Also the criminal Russian regime has carried out extensive ethnic cleansing and the kidnapping of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children since 2014. There is no way any result prior to the return of all refugees is morally acceptable.
And then there's the adrenochrome?
Did the Russians stop being able to make their own babies? Or are they part of the pizza conspiracy?
Return of refugees, though - yes, of course. And no votes in a territory for those who don't come from any of the territories and are only present by dint of being military personnel.
The mass abductions of Ukrainian children are well documented.
Of course, this is all obvious to someone who isn't a pathetic Russian shill. Your country is no better than Nazi Germany. And you are human sputum for defending it.
Whether it's a few months or a few years from now, Russia will lose this war. They will pathetically withdraw with their tail between their legs, defeated by a country a fifth their size, having fully depleted their military capacity. Shortly after that, Putin will be deposed and killed. The following waves of political instability will wreak economic havoc on the place. And the final humiliation of Russia as not even a fourth tier power will be visible to the whole world. Ostracized from civilized nations, the lowly Russian weasel will become a weak vassal of China.
By that point of course, the pond scum that visit Western websites to try to influence things will have shuffled off to avoid the ignominy. But you can always remember me and how happy I will be that Russia will be down with pond scum in the place she deserves.
Fuck's sake. Two singles are often vastly cheaper than a return.
Discounted return train tickets will be scrapped with passengers having to buy single fares, under rail network reforms expected to be announced this week.
Mark Harper, the transport secretary, will outline the government’s vision for solving the long-running rail crisis with a “Fat Controller” public body placed in charge.
Passengers could be faced with a stealth increase in costs if discounted return tickets are scrapped and all fares offered at “single-leg pricing” for each stage of their journeys.
Paper tickets could be replaced by smartcards similar to the Oyster Card used across public transport in London and QR-style digital codes, according to a political briefing at the weekend...
...Commentators calculated that some trips could be a third more expensive if return tickets are scrapped. The trainline.com ticket service advised it is sometimes actually cheaper to buy single tickets for each leg than a return.
The absurd pricing structure and nonsense like split ticketing and this are probably the biggest disincentive to use the rail network in this country. Even ahead of their remarkable propensity not to actually run the service promised.
Fuck's sake. Two singles are often vastly cheaper than a return.
Discounted return train tickets will be scrapped with passengers having to buy single fares, under rail network reforms expected to be announced this week.
Mark Harper, the transport secretary, will outline the government’s vision for solving the long-running rail crisis with a “Fat Controller” public body placed in charge.
Passengers could be faced with a stealth increase in costs if discounted return tickets are scrapped and all fares offered at “single-leg pricing” for each stage of their journeys.
Paper tickets could be replaced by smartcards similar to the Oyster Card used across public transport in London and QR-style digital codes, according to a political briefing at the weekend...
...Commentators calculated that some trips could be a third more expensive if return tickets are scrapped. The trainline.com ticket service advised it is sometimes actually cheaper to buy single tickets for each leg than a return.
The absurd pricing structure and nonsense like split ticketing and this are probably the biggest disincentive to use the rail network in this country. Even ahead of their remarkable propensity not to actually run the service promised.
We have one here on the island where the rail fares to London from the pier are generally higher than the rail fares to London from further south, with the extra rail journey needed to reach the pier. Doubtless this makes sense in market terms as the former journey is mostly done by tourists and the latter mostly by locals, but it does mean they are effectively paying us to use the island railway. Canny visitors can save money by booking their journey through to a station on the island line, and then not using it; but I doubt many do.
Fuck's sake. Two singles are often vastly cheaper than a return.
Discounted return train tickets will be scrapped with passengers having to buy single fares, under rail network reforms expected to be announced this week.
Mark Harper, the transport secretary, will outline the government’s vision for solving the long-running rail crisis with a “Fat Controller” public body placed in charge.
Passengers could be faced with a stealth increase in costs if discounted return tickets are scrapped and all fares offered at “single-leg pricing” for each stage of their journeys.
Paper tickets could be replaced by smartcards similar to the Oyster Card used across public transport in London and QR-style digital codes, according to a political briefing at the weekend...
...Commentators calculated that some trips could be a third more expensive if return tickets are scrapped. The trainline.com ticket service advised it is sometimes actually cheaper to buy single tickets for each leg than a return.
The absurd pricing structure and nonsense like split ticketing and this are probably the biggest disincentive to use the rail network in this country. Even ahead of their remarkable propensity not to actually run the service promised.
Had a really cool transport experience yesterday, where everything just worked. Ran to Newmarket, and got to the station 15 minutes before the hourly train. A modern, clean train pulled up on time, and got into Cambridge station a minute early. A long walk to the bus station (their locations hardly the fault of the companies), and the bus back home only cost £2, due to the government scheme, and deposited me a metre from my door.
(There is a bus service between the railway and bus stations in Cambridge; I never use it as it can be quicker to walk.)
Fuck's sake. Two singles are often vastly cheaper than a return.
Discounted return train tickets will be scrapped with passengers having to buy single fares, under rail network reforms expected to be announced this week.
Mark Harper, the transport secretary, will outline the government’s vision for solving the long-running rail crisis with a “Fat Controller” public body placed in charge.
Passengers could be faced with a stealth increase in costs if discounted return tickets are scrapped and all fares offered at “single-leg pricing” for each stage of their journeys.
Paper tickets could be replaced by smartcards similar to the Oyster Card used across public transport in London and QR-style digital codes, according to a political briefing at the weekend...
...Commentators calculated that some trips could be a third more expensive if return tickets are scrapped. The trainline.com ticket service advised it is sometimes actually cheaper to buy single tickets for each leg than a return.
The absurd pricing structure and nonsense like split ticketing and this are probably the biggest disincentive to use the rail network in this country. Even ahead of their remarkable propensity not to actually run the service promised.
Had a really cool transport experience yesterday, where everything just worked. Ran to Newmarket, and got to the station 15 minutes before the hourly train. A modern, clean train pulled up on time, and got into Cambridge station a minute early. A long walk to the bus station (their locations hardly the fault of the companies), and the bus back home only cost £2, due to the government scheme, and deposited me a metre from my door.
(There is a bus service between the railway and bus stations in Cambridge; I never use it as it can be quicker to walk.)
Cambridge station is so far from the town centre because the University always blocked proposals to site it any closer.
Fuck's sake. Two singles are often vastly cheaper than a return.
Discounted return train tickets will be scrapped with passengers having to buy single fares, under rail network reforms expected to be announced this week.
Mark Harper, the transport secretary, will outline the government’s vision for solving the long-running rail crisis with a “Fat Controller” public body placed in charge.
Passengers could be faced with a stealth increase in costs if discounted return tickets are scrapped and all fares offered at “single-leg pricing” for each stage of their journeys.
Paper tickets could be replaced by smartcards similar to the Oyster Card used across public transport in London and QR-style digital codes, according to a political briefing at the weekend...
...Commentators calculated that some trips could be a third more expensive if return tickets are scrapped. The trainline.com ticket service advised it is sometimes actually cheaper to buy single tickets for each leg than a return.
The absurd pricing structure and nonsense like split ticketing and this are probably the biggest disincentive to use the rail network in this country. Even ahead of their remarkable propensity not to actually run the service promised.
Had a really cool transport experience yesterday, where everything just worked. Ran to Newmarket, and got to the station 15 minutes before the hourly train. A modern, clean train pulled up on time, and got into Cambridge station a minute early. A long walk to the bus station (their locations hardly the fault of the companies), and the bus back home only cost £2, due to the government scheme, and deposited me a metre from my door.
(There is a bus service between the railway and bus stations in Cambridge; I never use it as it can be quicker to walk.)
Cambridge station is so far from the town centre because the University always blocked proposals to site it any closer.
Yeah, they were afraid of students travelling to the fleshpots of London. From what I've heard, it's the lecturers they needed to worry about...
Fuck's sake. Two singles are often vastly cheaper than a return.
Discounted return train tickets will be scrapped with passengers having to buy single fares, under rail network reforms expected to be announced this week.
Mark Harper, the transport secretary, will outline the government’s vision for solving the long-running rail crisis with a “Fat Controller” public body placed in charge.
Passengers could be faced with a stealth increase in costs if discounted return tickets are scrapped and all fares offered at “single-leg pricing” for each stage of their journeys.
Paper tickets could be replaced by smartcards similar to the Oyster Card used across public transport in London and QR-style digital codes, according to a political briefing at the weekend...
...Commentators calculated that some trips could be a third more expensive if return tickets are scrapped. The trainline.com ticket service advised it is sometimes actually cheaper to buy single tickets for each leg than a return.
The absurd pricing structure and nonsense like split ticketing and this are probably the biggest disincentive to use the rail network in this country. Even ahead of their remarkable propensity not to actually run the service promised.
We have one here on the island where the rail fares to London from the pier are generally higher than the rail fares to London from further south, with the extra rail journey needed to reach the pier. Doubtless this makes sense in market terms as the former journey is mostly done by tourists and the latter mostly by locals, but it does mean they are effectively paying us to use the island railway. Canny visitors can save money by booking their journey through to a station on the island line, and then not using it; but I doubt many do.
It's so early that I was on my third read through of that before I thought, oh, Isle of Wight.
Fuck's sake. Two singles are often vastly cheaper than a return.
Discounted return train tickets will be scrapped with passengers having to buy single fares, under rail network reforms expected to be announced this week.
Mark Harper, the transport secretary, will outline the government’s vision for solving the long-running rail crisis with a “Fat Controller” public body placed in charge.
Passengers could be faced with a stealth increase in costs if discounted return tickets are scrapped and all fares offered at “single-leg pricing” for each stage of their journeys.
Paper tickets could be replaced by smartcards similar to the Oyster Card used across public transport in London and QR-style digital codes, according to a political briefing at the weekend...
...Commentators calculated that some trips could be a third more expensive if return tickets are scrapped. The trainline.com ticket service advised it is sometimes actually cheaper to buy single tickets for each leg than a return.
The absurd pricing structure and nonsense like split ticketing and this are probably the biggest disincentive to use the rail network in this country. Even ahead of their remarkable propensity not to actually run the service promised.
We have one here on the island where the rail fares to London from the pier are generally higher than the rail fares to London from further south, with the extra rail journey needed to reach the pier. Doubtless this makes sense in market terms as the former journey is mostly done by tourists and the latter mostly by locals, but it does mean they are effectively paying us to use the island railway. Canny visitors can save money by booking their journey through to a station on the island line, and then not using it; but I doubt many do.
It's so early that I was on my third read through of that before I thought, oh, Isle of Wight.
I thought of Mordor's twin island, where Sauron keeps his preserved train collection, under the guise of the Lord of the Isles, Sir Topham Hat:
Fuck's sake. Two singles are often vastly cheaper than a return.
Discounted return train tickets will be scrapped with passengers having to buy single fares, under rail network reforms expected to be announced this week.
Mark Harper, the transport secretary, will outline the government’s vision for solving the long-running rail crisis with a “Fat Controller” public body placed in charge.
Passengers could be faced with a stealth increase in costs if discounted return tickets are scrapped and all fares offered at “single-leg pricing” for each stage of their journeys.
Paper tickets could be replaced by smartcards similar to the Oyster Card used across public transport in London and QR-style digital codes, according to a political briefing at the weekend...
...Commentators calculated that some trips could be a third more expensive if return tickets are scrapped. The trainline.com ticket service advised it is sometimes actually cheaper to buy single tickets for each leg than a return.
The absurd pricing structure and nonsense like split ticketing and this are probably the biggest disincentive to use the rail network in this country. Even ahead of their remarkable propensity not to actually run the service promised.
We have one here on the island where the rail fares to London from the pier are generally higher than the rail fares to London from further south, with the extra rail journey needed to reach the pier. Doubtless this makes sense in market terms as the former journey is mostly done by tourists and the latter mostly by locals, but it does mean they are effectively paying us to use the island railway. Canny visitors can save money by booking their journey through to a station on the island line, and then not using it; but I doubt many do.
It's so early that I was on my third read through of that before I thought, oh, Isle of Wight.
I thought of Mordor's twin island, where Sauron keeps his preserved train collection, under the guise of the Lord of the Isles, Sir Topham Hat:
Well, forgive me, but I was a small child in 1994. At that age I got my news from, iirc, BBC Newsround. What did I say at the time? Probably something along the lines of "Oh no, that's awful" and then watched neighbours.
A decade later, though, while still a teenager, I spent a weekend in Rwanda, which included visiting a school at Gikongoro and standing a foot away from the lime covered bodies of dead Tutsis and moderate Hutus. I saw with my own eyes the slit achiles tendons on the bottom of the childrens legs - done so to prevent their victims running away, while the perpetrators could have lunch and a few beers before getting back to their genocide.
I've also read a few books and spent some time at university engaging with the literature on various genocides. Grim stuff. In the mid-2000's there was a brief debate about a"responsibility to protect" principle - how and whether it should be enshrined in International law. My conclusion isn't that state sovereignty should be inviolable, but it should be largely respected as the best long term stategy for reducing aggregate human misery and death from violence. The tiny proportion of the world population killed through violent conflict since 1945 - relative to pretty much any point prior to that is, in my considered view, largely down to the respecting of borders and national sovereignty. Russia's justification for their war is a cynical perversion of the R2P principle. It's bullshit framing for domestic consumption.
Mearsheimer, in fairness to him, sees straight through Russia's humanitarian justifications. It's all about power politics in his worldview.
There is nothing that happened in the Donbass or Crimea between the 1990's and 2014/2022 that justified Russia violating Ukraine's sovereignty.
I see what you did there. You don't see the 2014 referendums as legitimate, then.
I'm all in favour of holding re-runs after both sides agree to respect the results. That would bring an end to the killing. Minor alterations to boundaries of one or more of the territories would be allowed if indicated and agreed. The voting should be supervised by a neutral heavyweight power on behalf of the UN. China would be the obvious choice.
But no. The regime in Kiev won't hear of it. They want their forces to be in military control of all the territories, and that's it. Screw what people living in those areas actually want. They're even putting out stuff about how residents of Bakhmut, which they seem to want to defend to the death of the last inhabitant, are a bunch of disloyal types (and we know what can happen to disloyal types during sieges) who are simply "waiting" for the city to fall to Russian forces. Perhaps these "waiting" people see the 2014 and 2022 referendums as legitimate and therefore view the Donetsk region as having legitimately claimed independence and then legitimately joined Russia. They live there. They're entitled to hold that view, yes? It matters whether they do or not. But hey no, impossible.
Since there is no way democratic referendums could be held under Russian occupation, that's entirely logical. And anyone who thinks the 2014 referendum was 'legitimate' has not bothered to look closely enough at what was happening.
Logical that they couldn't be held under Russian military control? What about under Ukrainian military control?
Ceasefire ASAP. Internationally supervised referendums in the whole of each territory, which for four of them means on both sides of the ceasefire line. To spell it out: in areas under Russian military control, and in areas under Ukrainian military control. Both must cooperate with the international supervisors, who must obviously be from a neutral country (so no country that has armed either side, which rules out the US, Britain, France, Iran, and North Korea) and where necessary they should be armed.
Also the criminal Russian regime has carried out extensive ethnic cleansing and the kidnapping of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children since 2014. There is no way any result prior to the return of all refugees is morally acceptable.
And then there's the adrenochrome?
Did the Russians stop being able to make their own babies? Or are they part of the pizza conspiracy?
Return of refugees, though - yes, of course. And no votes in a territory for those who don't come from any of the territories and are only present by dint of being military personnel.
Ukraine has a democracy. Russia does not.
As for ‘military control’ that’s a totally false equivalence. Is Scotland under British ‘military control?’
Having recovered from the mild shock of discovering that I have been working in a left-wing establishment most of my life (perhaps all those City traders with photos on their computers of girls too poor, apparently, to afford underwear were fiddling the books to provide charitable assistance to said girls), I just want to post this.
Immensely honoured to be named among such select and expert company - my peers (in truth, KCs and others who are well above my pay grade). (Edited: I have written some articles for LegalFeminist.)
I was at a conference yesterday in Central London on Women and Education. A very interesting day. As I am a trustee of a school I was partly there for professional purposes. There was a small demo outside with some students and others shouting "c***s" at us and we waved politely back and some of us sat on the bench opposite eating sandwiches and having tea from our flasks, in the way that many sensible middle-aged women do. Security was pretty good. Sadly one woman did later get beaten up by a masked person and, hopefully, the police will find and arrest the attacker.
I must confess that I found myself signing up to the Labour Women's mailing list - as much to hear what they are up to - but also because the person I was talking to was very interesting and we had a good chat.
The light and late afternoon sky around Grasmere today was glorious. There is more than a hint of spring in the air.
Nice update and congratulations on your blog getting a mention.
Just to say though that in my 37 years of working in financial services the few people (men of course) found with degrading pictures on their computers were all sacked. Maybe it was different on the trading floors.
It most certainly was. Pictures of undressed girls were the very least of it. One very senior person set up his own professional pornographic website. Investigating that and interviewing him was quite something. And, no, he was not sacked. He made lots of money you see .....
It does seem different subsectors have different norms. That kind of thing is on a hair-trigger where I work, regardless of what the individual brings in financially. Several cases in recent years.
Be a serious offence in my place of work too.
Anyone who keeps inappropriate photos on a work computer is so bloody stupid you probably wouldn't want them working for you anyway.
There were cases in teaching I worked on. One of them asked me why it was a big deal. My answer was, 'if you think it isn't, you're too thick to be a teacher.'
Where does he work now - Child safeguarding? Nuclear weapons security?
I believe he's now a driving instructor. Bizarrely.
Edit - he did work in child safeguarding at the time. And was in charge of the school's internet accounts, including the firewall.
Alone in a the car with mostly young people?
It may not be a mystery.
Lorry driving instructor working for a national haulier.
But that Principal is well known for forging references, so…
Well, forgive me, but I was a small child in 1994. At that age I got my news from, iirc, BBC Newsround. What did I say at the time? Probably something along the lines of "Oh no, that's awful" and then watched neighbours.
A decade later, though, while still a teenager, I spent a weekend in Rwanda, which included visiting a school at Gikongoro and standing a foot away from the lime covered bodies of dead Tutsis and moderate Hutus. I saw with my own eyes the slit achiles tendons on the bottom of the childrens legs - done so to prevent their victims running away, while the perpetrators could have lunch and a few beers before getting back to their genocide.
I've also read a few books and spent some time at university engaging with the literature on various genocides. Grim stuff. In the mid-2000's there was a brief debate about a"responsibility to protect" principle - how and whether it should be enshrined in International law. My conclusion isn't that state sovereignty should be inviolable, but it should be largely respected as the best long term stategy for reducing aggregate human misery and death from violence. The tiny proportion of the world population killed through violent conflict since 1945 - relative to pretty much any point prior to that is, in my considered view, largely down to the respecting of borders and national sovereignty. Russia's justification for their war is a cynical perversion of the R2P principle. It's bullshit framing for domestic consumption.
Mearsheimer, in fairness to him, sees straight through Russia's humanitarian justifications. It's all about power politics in his worldview.
There is nothing that happened in the Donbass or Crimea between the 1990's and 2014/2022 that justified Russia violating Ukraine's sovereignty.
I see what you did there. You don't see the 2014 referendums as legitimate, then.
I'm all in favour of holding re-runs after both sides agree to respect the results. That would bring an end to the killing. Minor alterations to boundaries of one or more of the territories would be allowed if indicated and agreed. The voting should be supervised by a neutral heavyweight power on behalf of the UN. China would be the obvious choice.
But no. The regime in Kiev won't hear of it. They want their forces to be in military control of all the territories, and that's it. Screw what people living in those areas actually want. They're even putting out stuff about how residents of Bakhmut, which they seem to want to defend to the death of the last inhabitant, are a bunch of disloyal types (and we know what can happen to disloyal types during sieges) who are simply "waiting" for the city to fall to Russian forces. Perhaps these "waiting" people see the 2014 and 2022 referendums as legitimate and therefore view the Donetsk region as having legitimately claimed independence and then legitimately joined Russia. They live there. They're entitled to hold that view, yes? It matters whether they do or not. But hey no, impossible.
Since there is no way democratic referendums could be held under Russian occupation, that's entirely logical. And anyone who thinks the 2014 referendum was 'legitimate' has not bothered to look closely enough at what was happening.
Logical that they couldn't be held under Russian military control? What about under Ukrainian military control?
Ceasefire ASAP. Internationally supervised referendums in the whole of each territory, which for four of them means on both sides of the ceasefire line. To spell it out: in areas under Russian military control, and in areas under Ukrainian military control. Both must cooperate with the international supervisors, who must obviously be from a neutral country (so no country that has armed either side, which rules out the US, Britain, France, Iran, and North Korea) and where necessary they should be armed.
Also the criminal Russian regime has carried out extensive ethnic cleansing and the kidnapping of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children since 2014. There is no way any result prior to the return of all refugees is morally acceptable.
And then there's the adrenochrome?
Did the Russians stop being able to make their own babies? Or are they part of the pizza conspiracy?
Return of refugees, though - yes, of course. And no votes in a territory for those who don't come from any of the territories and are only present by dint of being military personnel.
The mass abductions of Ukrainian children are well documented.
Of course, this is all obvious to someone who isn't a pathetic Russian shill. Your country is no better than Nazi Germany. And you are human sputum for defending it.
Whether it's a few months or a few years from now, Russia will lose this war. They will pathetically withdraw with their tail between their legs, defeated by a country a fifth their size, having fully depleted their military capacity. Shortly after that, Putin will be deposed and killed. The following waves of political instability will wreak economic havoc on the place. And the final humiliation of Russia as not even a fourth tier power will be visible to the whole world. Ostracized from civilized nations, the lowly Russian weasel will become a weak vassal of China.
By that point of course, the pond scum that visit Western websites to try to influence things will have shuffled off to avoid the ignominy. But you can always remember me and how happy I will be that Russia will be down with pond scum in the place she deserves.
You might have added that yes, the Russians did stop being able to make their own babies, with a birth rate somewhere around 1.5. The problem is worse for the Muscovite rulers of the empire, since it’s even lower for those that consider themselves ethnically Russian.
Forgive this front stage intrusion but you discuss an important point.
I note the discussion about the Russian inability to have children and the mass kidnaping of children. Bear in mind that we are now 30 years past the fall of USSR and the collapse of the Russian economy. Russia has suffered a demographic fall and yes, it now has far too little children. And as for the other point, yes the Russians have been stealing children en masse
One n-word, that nobody can hear, is worse than several million people being killed by a bomb
The hard-coded (and, politically speaking, very one sided) morality filters have made ChatGPT increasingly worthless with each successive update. Even responses to completely innocuous questions often look canned and hard-coded.
The people who created Stable Diffusion are working on an open source version...
Well, forgive me, but I was a small child in 1994. At that age I got my news from, iirc, BBC Newsround. What did I say at the time? Probably something along the lines of "Oh no, that's awful" and then watched neighbours.
A decade later, though, while still a teenager, I spent a weekend in Rwanda, which included visiting a school at Gikongoro and standing a foot away from the lime covered bodies of dead Tutsis and moderate Hutus. I saw with my own eyes the slit achiles tendons on the bottom of the childrens legs - done so to prevent their victims running away, while the perpetrators could have lunch and a few beers before getting back to their genocide.
I've also read a few books and spent some time at university engaging with the literature on various genocides. Grim stuff. In the mid-2000's there was a brief debate about a"responsibility to protect" principle - how and whether it should be enshrined in International law. My conclusion isn't that state sovereignty should be inviolable, but it should be largely respected as the best long term stategy for reducing aggregate human misery and death from violence. The tiny proportion of the world population killed through violent conflict since 1945 - relative to pretty much any point prior to that is, in my considered view, largely down to the respecting of borders and national sovereignty. Russia's justification for their war is a cynical perversion of the R2P principle. It's bullshit framing for domestic consumption.
Mearsheimer, in fairness to him, sees straight through Russia's humanitarian justifications. It's all about power politics in his worldview.
There is nothing that happened in the Donbass or Crimea between the 1990's and 2014/2022 that justified Russia violating Ukraine's sovereignty.
I see what you did there. You don't see the 2014 referendums as legitimate, then.
I'm all in favour of holding re-runs after both sides agree to respect the results. That would bring an end to the killing. Minor alterations to boundaries of one or more of the territories would be allowed if indicated and agreed. The voting should be supervised by a neutral heavyweight power on behalf of the UN. China would be the obvious choice.
But no. The regime in Kiev won't hear of it. They want their forces to be in military control of all the territories, and that's it. Screw what people living in those areas actually want. They're even putting out stuff about how residents of Bakhmut, which they seem to want to defend to the death of the last inhabitant, are a bunch of disloyal types (and we know what can happen to disloyal types during sieges) who are simply "waiting" for the city to fall to Russian forces. Perhaps these "waiting" people see the 2014 and 2022 referendums as legitimate and therefore view the Donetsk region as having legitimately claimed independence and then legitimately joined Russia. They live there. They're entitled to hold that view, yes? It matters whether they do or not. But hey no, impossible.
Since there is no way democratic referendums could be held under Russian occupation, that's entirely logical. And anyone who thinks the 2014 referendum was 'legitimate' has not bothered to look closely enough at what was happening.
Logical that they couldn't be held under Russian military control? What about under Ukrainian military control?
Ceasefire ASAP. Internationally supervised referendums in the whole of each territory, which for four of them means on both sides of the ceasefire line. To spell it out: in areas under Russian military control, and in areas under Ukrainian military control. Both must cooperate with the international supervisors, who must obviously be from a neutral country (so no country that has armed either side, which rules out the US, Britain, France, Iran, and North Korea) and where necessary they should be armed.
Also the criminal Russian regime has carried out extensive ethnic cleansing and the kidnapping of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children since 2014. There is no way any result prior to the return of all refugees is morally acceptable.
And then there's the adrenochrome?
Did the Russians stop being able to make their own babies? Or are they part of the pizza conspiracy?
Return of refugees, though - yes, of course. And no votes in a territory for those who don't come from any of the territories and are only present by dint of being military personnel.
The collapse in the Russian birth rate is something that really, really upsets the Greater Russian types. Such as Putin.
Bit hard to run an empire without young men…
“Did the Russians stop being able to make their own babies?” - yes, that’s not far off what happened.
Rishi Sunak was made aware of Dominic Raab’s “unacceptable” behaviour towards a fellow cabinet minister last summer, The Times has been told.
The justice secretary had allegedly tried to get Robert Buckland sacked as Welsh secretary in August after he publicly criticised Raab’s British bill of rights.
Buckland told Sunak about his “intimidating” and “unacceptable” behaviour at the time, sources told The Times.
However, a source close to Sunak denied that he was aware of the threat. “These claims are untrue. No allegations of threatening behaviour against the then-Welsh secretary were raised with the MP for Richmond,” the source said.
Raab had told Buckland during a phone call not to go ahead with an article he was due to write for The Daily Telegraph or he would report him to Downing Street for breaking the ministerial code on collective cabinet responsibility.
Fuck's sake. Two singles are often vastly cheaper than a return.
Discounted return train tickets will be scrapped with passengers having to buy single fares, under rail network reforms expected to be announced this week.
Mark Harper, the transport secretary, will outline the government’s vision for solving the long-running rail crisis with a “Fat Controller” public body placed in charge.
Passengers could be faced with a stealth increase in costs if discounted return tickets are scrapped and all fares offered at “single-leg pricing” for each stage of their journeys.
Paper tickets could be replaced by smartcards similar to the Oyster Card used across public transport in London and QR-style digital codes, according to a political briefing at the weekend...
...Commentators calculated that some trips could be a third more expensive if return tickets are scrapped. The trainline.com ticket service advised it is sometimes actually cheaper to buy single tickets for each leg than a return.
The absurd pricing structure and nonsense like split ticketing and this are probably the biggest disincentive to use the rail network in this country. Even ahead of their remarkable propensity not to actually run the service promised.
Once you figure it out though it is ok. This is almost certainly going to be a way of hiking up fares even further. Return fares over longer distances work out at about 20p per mile and can be used flexibly and are competitive to car use. Peak time singles are closer to £1 per mile. I am almost certain that they will just try and use this as a way of doubling the usual cost of the train to something like 40p per mile, so instead people are forced to use their cars instead of the train, causing more pollution and congestion on the roads.
One n-word, that nobody can hear, is worse than several million people being killed by a bomb
The hard-coded (and, politically speaking, very one sided) morality filters have made ChatGPT increasingly worthless with each successive update. Even responses to completely innocuous questions often look canned and hard-coded.
The people who created Stable Diffusion are working on an open source version...
You can run unfiltered Chat GPT for free, it just takes a few minutes work:
A prominent Russian MP has claimed there is a growing danger that “ultra-patriots” might attempt to overthrow President Putin because of discontent over the army’s failures in Ukraine.
Oleg Matveychev, a member of the pro-government United Russia party who has also worked as a spin doctor, said that ardent supporters of the war in Ukraine posed the greatest threat to Putin’s rule.
“The situation is not so critical yet, but 2023 will be very dangerous,” Matveychev said in an online video interview.
“We will not be pushed out [on to the streets] for a liberal Maidan,” he added, using the name of the main square in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, synonymous with the revolution that began there in 2013. “The liberals have all run away.”
One n-word, that nobody can hear, is worse than several million people being killed by a bomb
The hard-coded (and, politically speaking, very one sided) morality filters have made ChatGPT increasingly worthless with each successive update. Even responses to completely innocuous questions often look canned and hard-coded.
The people who created Stable Diffusion are working on an open source version...
Yes, it is hard coded. And quite hilariously silly.
But it's not making it worthless. It's an incredibly useful tool, because most things you want an AI to do, don't involve racial slurs*.
One n-word, that nobody can hear, is worse than several million people being killed by a bomb
The hard-coded (and, politically speaking, very one sided) morality filters have made ChatGPT increasingly worthless with each successive update. Even responses to completely innocuous questions often look canned and hard-coded.
The people who created Stable Diffusion are working on an open source version...
Fundamentally, this stuff isn't that hard intellectually (hence the half dozen Dalle-2 clones that have sprung up). It's just very hard computationally, with OpenAI spending $3m every day on server costs (!).
One n-word, that nobody can hear, is worse than several million people being killed by a bomb
This is easy.
Like Roger Moore, you dress up like a clown, sneak into a circus to disarm it seconds before it blows and then you jump an airplane in the process of taking off from a galloping horse, cling on to the sides and then use your feet to collapse the ailerons to take out the protagonist.
Well, forgive me, but I was a small child in 1994. At that age I got my news from, iirc, BBC Newsround. What did I say at the time? Probably something along the lines of "Oh no, that's awful" and then watched neighbours.
A decade later, though, while still a teenager, I spent a weekend in Rwanda, which included visiting a school at Gikongoro and standing a foot away from the lime covered bodies of dead Tutsis and moderate Hutus. I saw with my own eyes the slit achiles tendons on the bottom of the childrens legs - done so to prevent their victims running away, while the perpetrators could have lunch and a few beers before getting back to their genocide.
I've also read a few books and spent some time at university engaging with the literature on various genocides. Grim stuff. In the mid-2000's there was a brief debate about a"responsibility to protect" principle - how and whether it should be enshrined in International law. My conclusion isn't that state sovereignty should be inviolable, but it should be largely respected as the best long term stategy for reducing aggregate human misery and death from violence. The tiny proportion of the world population killed through violent conflict since 1945 - relative to pretty much any point prior to that is, in my considered view, largely down to the respecting of borders and national sovereignty. Russia's justification for their war is a cynical perversion of the R2P principle. It's bullshit framing for domestic consumption.
Mearsheimer, in fairness to him, sees straight through Russia's humanitarian justifications. It's all about power politics in his worldview.
There is nothing that happened in the Donbass or Crimea between the 1990's and 2014/2022 that justified Russia violating Ukraine's sovereignty.
I see what you did there. You don't see the 2014 referendums as legitimate, then.
I'm all in favour of holding re-runs after both sides agree to respect the results. That would bring an end to the killing. Minor alterations to boundaries of one or more of the territories would be allowed if indicated and agreed. The voting should be supervised by a neutral heavyweight power on behalf of the UN. China would be the obvious choice.
But no. The regime in Kiev won't hear of it. They want their forces to be in military control of all the territories, and that's it. Screw what people living in those areas actually want. They're even putting out stuff about how residents of Bakhmut, which they seem to want to defend to the death of the last inhabitant, are a bunch of disloyal types (and we know what can happen to disloyal types during sieges) who are simply "waiting" for the city to fall to Russian forces. Perhaps these "waiting" people see the 2014 and 2022 referendums as legitimate and therefore view the Donetsk region as having legitimately claimed independence and then legitimately joined Russia. They live there. They're entitled to hold that view, yes? It matters whether they do or not. But hey no, impossible.
Since there is no way democratic referendums could be held under Russian occupation, that's entirely logical. And anyone who thinks the 2014 referendum was 'legitimate' has not bothered to look closely enough at what was happening.
Logical that they couldn't be held under Russian military control? What about under Ukrainian military control?
Ceasefire ASAP. Internationally supervised referendums in the whole of each territory, which for four of them means on both sides of the ceasefire line. To spell it out: in areas under Russian military control, and in areas under Ukrainian military control. Both must cooperate with the international supervisors, who must obviously be from a neutral country (so no country that has armed either side, which rules out the US, Britain, France, Iran, and North Korea) and where necessary they should be armed.
Also the criminal Russian regime has carried out extensive ethnic cleansing and the kidnapping of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children since 2014. There is no way any result prior to the return of all refugees is morally acceptable.
And then there's the adrenochrome?
Did the Russians stop being able to make their own babies? Or are they part of the pizza conspiracy?
Return of refugees, though - yes, of course. And no votes in a territory for those who don't come from any of the territories and are only present by dint of being military personnel.
The collapse in the Russian birth rate is something that really, really upsets the Greater Russian types. Such as Putin.
Bit hard to run an empire without young men…
“Did the Russians stop being able to make their own babies?” - yes, that’s not far off what happened.
It's pretty common in Russian history for them to perform very poorly for the first 1-2 years of their major wars, with large and pointless numbers of casualties, before sorting themselves out and grinding out a victory through sheer weight of numbers and attrition.
The ones where they don't are where they suffer an internal political collapse, or the other side can take and inflict massive casualties for longer than they can - and the two are sometimes related.
Well, forgive me, but I was a small child in 1994. At that age I got my news from, iirc, BBC Newsround. What did I say at the time? Probably something along the lines of "Oh no, that's awful" and then watched neighbours.
A decade later, though, while still a teenager, I spent a weekend in Rwanda, which included visiting a school at Gikongoro and standing a foot away from the lime covered bodies of dead Tutsis and moderate Hutus. I saw with my own eyes the slit achiles tendons on the bottom of the childrens legs - done so to prevent their victims running away, while the perpetrators could have lunch and a few beers before getting back to their genocide.
I've also read a few books and spent some time at university engaging with the literature on various genocides. Grim stuff. In the mid-2000's there was a brief debate about a"responsibility to protect" principle - how and whether it should be enshrined in International law. My conclusion isn't that state sovereignty should be inviolable, but it should be largely respected as the best long term stategy for reducing aggregate human misery and death from violence. The tiny proportion of the world population killed through violent conflict since 1945 - relative to pretty much any point prior to that is, in my considered view, largely down to the respecting of borders and national sovereignty. Russia's justification for their war is a cynical perversion of the R2P principle. It's bullshit framing for domestic consumption.
Mearsheimer, in fairness to him, sees straight through Russia's humanitarian justifications. It's all about power politics in his worldview.
There is nothing that happened in the Donbass or Crimea between the 1990's and 2014/2022 that justified Russia violating Ukraine's sovereignty.
I see what you did there. You don't see the 2014 referendums as legitimate, then.
I'm all in favour of holding re-runs after both sides agree to respect the results. That would bring an end to the killing. Minor alterations to boundaries of one or more of the territories would be allowed if indicated and agreed. The voting should be supervised by a neutral heavyweight power on behalf of the UN. China would be the obvious choice.
But no. The regime in Kiev won't hear of it. They want their forces to be in military control of all the territories, and that's it. Screw what people living in those areas actually want. They're even putting out stuff about how residents of Bakhmut, which they seem to want to defend to the death of the last inhabitant, are a bunch of disloyal types (and we know what can happen to disloyal types during sieges) who are simply "waiting" for the city to fall to Russian forces. Perhaps these "waiting" people see the 2014 and 2022 referendums as legitimate and therefore view the Donetsk region as having legitimately claimed independence and then legitimately joined Russia. They live there. They're entitled to hold that view, yes? It matters whether they do or not. But hey no, impossible.
Since there is no way democratic referendums could be held under Russian occupation, that's entirely logical. And anyone who thinks the 2014 referendum was 'legitimate' has not bothered to look closely enough at what was happening.
Logical that they couldn't be held under Russian military control? What about under Ukrainian military control?
Ceasefire ASAP. Internationally supervised referendums in the whole of each territory, which for four of them means on both sides of the ceasefire line. To spell it out: in areas under Russian military control, and in areas under Ukrainian military control. Both must cooperate with the international supervisors, who must obviously be from a neutral country (so no country that has armed either side, which rules out the US, Britain, France, Iran, and North Korea) and where necessary they should be armed.
Also the criminal Russian regime has carried out extensive ethnic cleansing and the kidnapping of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children since 2014. There is no way any result prior to the return of all refugees is morally acceptable.
And then there's the adrenochrome?
Did the Russians stop being able to make their own babies? Or are they part of the pizza conspiracy?
Return of refugees, though - yes, of course. And no votes in a territory for those who don't come from any of the territories and are only present by dint of being military personnel.
The collapse in the Russian birth rate is something that really, really upsets the Greater Russian types. Such as Putin.
Bit hard to run an empire without young men…
“Did the Russians stop being able to make their own babies?” - yes, that’s not far off what happened.
There are many tragedies in this mess; one of them is that Putin had a massive opportunity to rebuild his country over the last two decades, mainly using gas and oil money. Russia had the natural, human and technological resources to build itself into a world powerhouse.
But that would have been difficult. So he chose the easier way: let his friends steal all the money. And now Russia's not stronk, he wants to cheat.
And that's a problem, as this war does nothing to correct Russia's structural difficulties. In fact, it worsens them. Which means the only solution (if he wins) will be more war. Because the only thing Russia and Russians will be good at is killing everyone else.
Well, forgive me, but I was a small child in 1994. At that age I got my news from, iirc, BBC Newsround. What did I say at the time? Probably something along the lines of "Oh no, that's awful" and then watched neighbours.
A decade later, though, while still a teenager, I spent a weekend in Rwanda, which included visiting a school at Gikongoro and standing a foot away from the lime covered bodies of dead Tutsis and moderate Hutus. I saw with my own eyes the slit achiles tendons on the bottom of the childrens legs - done so to prevent their victims running away, while the perpetrators could have lunch and a few beers before getting back to their genocide.
I've also read a few books and spent some time at university engaging with the literature on various genocides. Grim stuff. In the mid-2000's there was a brief debate about a"responsibility to protect" principle - how and whether it should be enshrined in International law. My conclusion isn't that state sovereignty should be inviolable, but it should be largely respected as the best long term stategy for reducing aggregate human misery and death from violence. The tiny proportion of the world population killed through violent conflict since 1945 - relative to pretty much any point prior to that is, in my considered view, largely down to the respecting of borders and national sovereignty. Russia's justification for their war is a cynical perversion of the R2P principle. It's bullshit framing for domestic consumption.
Mearsheimer, in fairness to him, sees straight through Russia's humanitarian justifications. It's all about power politics in his worldview.
There is nothing that happened in the Donbass or Crimea between the 1990's and 2014/2022 that justified Russia violating Ukraine's sovereignty.
I see what you did there. You don't see the 2014 referendums as legitimate, then.
I'm all in favour of holding re-runs after both sides agree to respect the results. That would bring an end to the killing. Minor alterations to boundaries of one or more of the territories would be allowed if indicated and agreed. The voting should be supervised by a neutral heavyweight power on behalf of the UN. China would be the obvious choice.
But no. The regime in Kiev won't hear of it. They want their forces to be in military control of all the territories, and that's it. Screw what people living in those areas actually want. They're even putting out stuff about how residents of Bakhmut, which they seem to want to defend to the death of the last inhabitant, are a bunch of disloyal types (and we know what can happen to disloyal types during sieges) who are simply "waiting" for the city to fall to Russian forces. Perhaps these "waiting" people see the 2014 and 2022 referendums as legitimate and therefore view the Donetsk region as having legitimately claimed independence and then legitimately joined Russia. They live there. They're entitled to hold that view, yes? It matters whether they do or not. But hey no, impossible.
Since there is no way democratic referendums could be held under Russian occupation, that's entirely logical. And anyone who thinks the 2014 referendum was 'legitimate' has not bothered to look closely enough at what was happening.
Logical that they couldn't be held under Russian military control? What about under Ukrainian military control?
Ceasefire ASAP. Internationally supervised referendums in the whole of each territory, which for four of them means on both sides of the ceasefire line. To spell it out: in areas under Russian military control, and in areas under Ukrainian military control. Both must cooperate with the international supervisors, who must obviously be from a neutral country (so no country that has armed either side, which rules out the US, Britain, France, Iran, and North Korea) and where necessary they should be armed.
Also the criminal Russian regime has carried out extensive ethnic cleansing and the kidnapping of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children since 2014. There is no way any result prior to the return of all refugees is morally acceptable.
And then there's the adrenochrome?
Did the Russians stop being able to make their own babies? Or are they part of the pizza conspiracy?
Return of refugees, though - yes, of course. And no votes in a territory for those who don't come from any of the territories and are only present by dint of being military personnel.
The collapse in the Russian birth rate is something that really, really upsets the Greater Russian types. Such as Putin.
Bit hard to run an empire without young men…
“Did the Russians stop being able to make their own babies?” - yes, that’s not far off what happened.
It's pretty common in Russian history for them to perform very poorly for the first 1-2 years of their major wars, with large and pointless numbers of casualties, before sorting themselves out and grinding out a victory through sheer weight of numbers and attrition.
The ones where they don't are where they suffer an internal political collapse, or the other side can take and inflict massive casualties for longer than they can - and the two are sometimes related.
Ukraine is now at that stage.
Crimea wouldn't seem to fit neatly into either scenario.
Nor the Russo-Polish war, or the Russo-Japanese war.
Rishi Sunak was made aware of Dominic Raab’s “unacceptable” behaviour towards a fellow cabinet minister last summer, The Times has been told.
The justice secretary had allegedly tried to get Robert Buckland sacked as Welsh secretary in August after he publicly criticised Raab’s British bill of rights.
Buckland told Sunak about his “intimidating” and “unacceptable” behaviour at the time, sources told The Times.
However, a source close to Sunak denied that he was aware of the threat. “These claims are untrue. No allegations of threatening behaviour against the then-Welsh secretary were raised with the MP for Richmond,” the source said.
Raab had told Buckland during a phone call not to go ahead with an article he was due to write for The Daily Telegraph or he would report him to Downing Street for breaking the ministerial code on collective cabinet responsibility.
This is a mirror of Boris's eventual downfall, is it not? First he wasn't told about Mr Gropey, then he wasn't officially told about Mr Gropey, then he wasn't told the specifics about Mr Gropey, then he went.
One n-word, that nobody can hear, is worse than several million people being killed by a bomb
The hard-coded (and, politically speaking, very one sided) morality filters have made ChatGPT increasingly worthless with each successive update. Even responses to completely innocuous questions often look canned and hard-coded.
The people who created Stable Diffusion are working on an open source version...
Yes, it is hard coded. And quite hilariously silly.
But it's not making it worthless. It's an incredibly useful tool, because most things you want an AI to do, don't involve racial slurs*.
* Unless you're Mel Gibson.
I dunno - there's a lot of other stuff that make it questionable at this point. The other day, I asked it about a (hypothetical) situation where a person had been bitten by a dog as a child, and whether or not their fear of dogs was justified and it refused to answer because all _sentient_ life deserved respect and my question was disrespectful.
Massive judgement call on saying dogs are sentient, presumably meaning cows, sheep, pigs etc are too and it's wrong to eat them.
Another time, I asked it whether slavery or the holocaust was objectively worse, based on the relative death counts only, and again it refused to answer, saying that both things were simply objectively "evil" and not up for debate. Which is a position, I suppose, but it's really just a way of avoiding what are incredibly difficult moral questions.
And in terms of sheer usefulness, leaving morality aside, I used to be able to converse with it, and after a few conversations back and forth I was able to ask it to guess how I was feeling, what mood I was in, and it was able to guess with startling accuracy. I then asked it "write an inner monologue describing how I'm feeling from my perspective" and it was able to monologue back my train of thought in my own writing style to me. Now it just goes "As a large language model I can't..." (which it does for a lot of use cases).
And in terms of it getting dumber, it used to remember what was said about 15 prompts back, it now forgets after about 3 prompts. While it's still a knife, it's more of a blunt butter knife at this point than the razor sharp tool it was in December.
You're right about the server costs, but I'd happily pay fifty bucks a month to use the unfiltered version or the Stable Diffusion alternative. I wouldn't pay tuppence for the current canned-response-bot you have to play the Wokey-Cokey with every time you want to get a response out of it that isn't canned.
Well, forgive me, but I was a small child in 1994. At that age I got my news from, iirc, BBC Newsround. What did I say at the time? Probably something along the lines of "Oh no, that's awful" and then watched neighbours.
A decade later, though, while still a teenager, I spent a weekend in Rwanda, which included visiting a school at Gikongoro and standing a foot away from the lime covered bodies of dead Tutsis and moderate Hutus. I saw with my own eyes the slit achiles tendons on the bottom of the childrens legs - done so to prevent their victims running away, while the perpetrators could have lunch and a few beers before getting back to their genocide.
I've also read a few books and spent some time at university engaging with the literature on various genocides. Grim stuff. In the mid-2000's there was a brief debate about a"responsibility to protect" principle - how and whether it should be enshrined in International law. My conclusion isn't that state sovereignty should be inviolable, but it should be largely respected as the best long term stategy for reducing aggregate human misery and death from violence. The tiny proportion of the world population killed through violent conflict since 1945 - relative to pretty much any point prior to that is, in my considered view, largely down to the respecting of borders and national sovereignty. Russia's justification for their war is a cynical perversion of the R2P principle. It's bullshit framing for domestic consumption.
Mearsheimer, in fairness to him, sees straight through Russia's humanitarian justifications. It's all about power politics in his worldview.
There is nothing that happened in the Donbass or Crimea between the 1990's and 2014/2022 that justified Russia violating Ukraine's sovereignty.
I see what you did there. You don't see the 2014 referendums as legitimate, then.
I'm all in favour of holding re-runs after both sides agree to respect the results. That would bring an end to the killing. Minor alterations to boundaries of one or more of the territories would be allowed if indicated and agreed. The voting should be supervised by a neutral heavyweight power on behalf of the UN. China would be the obvious choice.
But no. The regime in Kiev won't hear of it. They want their forces to be in military control of all the territories, and that's it. Screw what people living in those areas actually want. They're even putting out stuff about how residents of Bakhmut, which they seem to want to defend to the death of the last inhabitant, are a bunch of disloyal types (and we know what can happen to disloyal types during sieges) who are simply "waiting" for the city to fall to Russian forces. Perhaps these "waiting" people see the 2014 and 2022 referendums as legitimate and therefore view the Donetsk region as having legitimately claimed independence and then legitimately joined Russia. They live there. They're entitled to hold that view, yes? It matters whether they do or not. But hey no, impossible.
Since there is no way democratic referendums could be held under Russian occupation, that's entirely logical. And anyone who thinks the 2014 referendum was 'legitimate' has not bothered to look closely enough at what was happening.
Logical that they couldn't be held under Russian military control? What about under Ukrainian military control?
Ceasefire ASAP. Internationally supervised referendums in the whole of each territory, which for four of them means on both sides of the ceasefire line. To spell it out: in areas under Russian military control, and in areas under Ukrainian military control. Both must cooperate with the international supervisors, who must obviously be from a neutral country (so no country that has armed either side, which rules out the US, Britain, France, Iran, and North Korea) and where necessary they should be armed.
Also the criminal Russian regime has carried out extensive ethnic cleansing and the kidnapping of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children since 2014. There is no way any result prior to the return of all refugees is morally acceptable.
And then there's the adrenochrome?
Did the Russians stop being able to make their own babies? Or are they part of the pizza conspiracy?
Return of refugees, though - yes, of course. And no votes in a territory for those who don't come from any of the territories and are only present by dint of being military personnel.
The collapse in the Russian birth rate is something that really, really upsets the Greater Russian types. Such as Putin.
Bit hard to run an empire without young men…
“Did the Russians stop being able to make their own babies?” - yes, that’s not far off what happened.
There are many tragedies in this mess; one of them is that Putin had a massive opportunity to rebuild his country over the last two decades, mainly using gas and oil money. Russia had the natural, human and technological resources to build itself into a world powerhouse.
But that would have been difficult. So he chose the easier way: let his friends steal all the money. And now Russia's not stronk, he wants to cheat.
And that's a problem, as this war does nothing to correct Russia's structural difficulties. In fact, it worsens them. Which means the only solution (if he wins) will be more war. Because the only thing Russia and Russians will be good at is killing everyone else.
I think you're a bit generous to Putin there. He let his friends steal because it was easier? I would say he and his friends stole because that was what they wanted all along.
One n-word, that nobody can hear, is worse than several million people being killed by a bomb
The hard-coded (and, politically speaking, very one sided) morality filters have made ChatGPT increasingly worthless with each successive update. Even responses to completely innocuous questions often look canned and hard-coded.
The people who created Stable Diffusion are working on an open source version...
Yes, it is hard coded. And quite hilariously silly.
But it's not making it worthless. It's an incredibly useful tool, because most things you want an AI to do, don't involve racial slurs*.
* Unless you're Mel Gibson.
me: tell us a funny joke
ChatGPT: Sure! Here's one:
Why did the tomato turn red? Because it saw the salad dressing!
me: please explain the joke
ChatGPT: The joke is a play on words. "Turn red" can refer both to the physical process of a tomato ripening and changing color, as well as to blushing or embarrassment. The joke is that the tomato "saw the salad dressing" (meaning it was exposed to it) and "turned red" (in both senses of the phrase), as if it were embarrassed or ashamed to be seen with such an indulgent and unhealthy condiment. It's a lighthearted, silly joke that is meant to be taken in good humor.
One n-word, that nobody can hear, is worse than several million people being killed by a bomb
The hard-coded (and, politically speaking, very one sided) morality filters have made ChatGPT increasingly worthless with each successive update. Even responses to completely innocuous questions often look canned and hard-coded.
The people who created Stable Diffusion are working on an open source version...
Yes, it is hard coded. And quite hilariously silly.
But it's not making it worthless. It's an incredibly useful tool, because most things you want an AI to do, don't involve racial slurs*.
* Unless you're Mel Gibson.
I dunno - there's a lot of other stuff that make it questionable at this point. The other day, I asked it about a (hypothetical) situation where a person had been bitten by a dog as a child, and whether or not their fear of dogs was justified and it refused to answer because all _sentient_ life deserved respect and my question was disrespectful.
Massive judgement call on saying dogs are sentient, presumably meaning cows, sheep, pigs etc are too and it's wrong to eat them.
Another time, I asked it whether slavery or the holocaust was objectively worse, based on the relative death counts only, and again it refused to answer, saying that both things were simply objectively "evil" and not up for debate. Which is a position, I suppose, but it's really just a way of avoiding what are incredibly difficult moral questions.
And in terms of sheer usefulness, leaving morality aside, I used to be able to converse with it, and after a few conversations back and forth I was able to ask it to guess how I was feeling, what mood I was in, and it was able to guess with startling accuracy. I then asked it "write an inner monologue describing how I'm feeling from my perspective" and it was able to monologue back my train of thought in my own writing style to me. Now it just goes "As a large language model I can't..." (which it does for a lot of use cases).
And in terms of it getting dumber, it used to remember what was said about 15 prompts back, it now forgets after about 3 prompts. While it's still a knife, it's more of a blunt butter knife at this point than the razor sharp tool it was in December.
You're right about the server costs, but I'd happily pay fifty bucks a month to use the unfiltered version or the Stable Diffusion alternative. I wouldn't pay tuppence for the current canned-response-bot you have to play the Wokey-Cokey with every time you want to get a response out of it that isn't canned.
OED. Sentient "able to perceive or feel things". I reckon that's pretty clear.
Comments
Edit - he did work in child safeguarding at the time. And was in charge of the school's internet accounts, including the firewall.
Or there will be more of you.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/08/tom-scholar-permanent-secretary-to-the-treasury-sacked-by-liz-truss?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
If she had listened to his advice then she would still be PM. But no, she knew better...
We all know that MPs with too much time on their hands read PB.
Is this a risky approach? Yes. Is it a clear one? Absolutely. The trap for Labour is that they adopt the Sunak Strategy. Liz Truss’s ideas are simplified not simplistic; and as Rishi Sunak’s defeat showed, treating the new PM as a simpleton won’t win votes. Truss may not have the right answers, but she has asked the right question. Growth is the only game in town.
https://unherd.com/2022/09/has-liz-truss-trapped-labour/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11716183/Head-Epsom-College-dead-alongside-daughter-seven-husband-independent-school.html
Removing the caps on pay was never realistically going to do anything to stimulate the economy and just made it appear that the budget was designed to help rich friends rather than achieve any meaningful or even ideologically driven reform.
Refusing to get an OBR assessment of the budget was always going to spook the markets. If you have an OBR assessment with a range of possibilities then people will work with those and you can argue your case. If you leave a void people will fill it with their own expectations - which will always be far worse than anything the OBR might have produced.
Above everything Truss and Kwartang were imcompatent and that is why they were rightly deposed.
It may not be a mystery.
So why the strong adverse reaction when she did what she said she would? It wasn't the level of debt - Japan has a much higher level of debt, and France has a higher level of debt, without its own currency. Both have growth problems like we do.
Partly it was a case of Dornbusch overshooting, that would have corrected itself eventually as it did with the exchange rate. Partly, I think, because she didn't allow the OBR to do their thing, which gave the impression that she was hiding something. Partly it was sheer bad luck - the debt markets were turning in every country at about the same time, as the period of free interest rates ended. And partly because Kwasi explicitly said that there were more tax cuts to come, without specifying how much or how little.
So I put that down to either Sunak being slightly stronger with the malcontented than I thought or, more likely, they're pinning their hopes on Boris, not the person who said 'Boris should not have resigned and was amazing; here's why we should completely change our approach from what Boris was doing'.
It was the expected impact on inflation.
Specifically, it was the fact that inflation was already at 10% in September 2022, going to 11%. Adding additional fiscal stimulus to a labour market with shortages, and where there is a "push" from rising commodity prices, was only going to have one impact.
And when inflation rises, government and the BoE need to raise interest rates to curb it. That was what the markets were worried about, not the absolute debt levels.
* Although Japan is not a great compare, as it's the BoJ that does most of the buying of Japanese government debt.
But Liz and Kwasi should have been all over everything, and they weren't.
She seems to be channeling her Norma Desmond !
Why on earth are the papers indulging her . Someone needs to call for an intervention as this is painful to watch .
She's putting another knife into the barely twitching Tory government corpse.
It's a mercy killing.
Long past time for a change.
Therefore no landslide is possible.
Relies on the idea it was Blair rather than Tory incompetence than was the main factor.
If it wasn't then there is trouble ahead.
Can't recollect a less functional government.
Don’t bet on them not doing something at Corbyn+ levels of stupidity after the next election. Like JRM as leader.
Just one comment on the now infamous Chinese spy balloon. The Americans already have a fair gauge of what that thing was at, they were capturing signals from pretty much everything on it by following it with aircraft chock full of emissions capture gear.
If Starmer wins a landslide I think it is safe to say that it was the Tories wot lost it, not Blair that won it (I am glad he won regardless).
Similar happened last May with Severodonetsk and then Mariupol. Then Ukraine bounced back dramatically.
Long term there’s one thing above all that will determine the direction of the war: the global oil price.
That doesn't sound like a military that's going to be doing any manoeuvre warfare, anytime soon.
At the same time, Ukraine is building up a mobile force led by modern tanks for the first time this war.
While all the talk is about an upcoming Russian offensive, I suspect that we might actually be about to see the opposite.
The other, perhaps not so well known, point is that there are (or at least were) arguments over the willingness of the Ukrainians to put their own troops into the furnace at Bakhmut. There were those who felt that the expedniture of men and material around the Bakhmut front was simply not worth it. Ukrainian casualties are high, maybe not quite as high as the Russians but high nonetheless. There are stories that the Ukrainians have taken out their most capable units from that front for R&R and they havent returned.
Ceasefire ASAP. Internationally supervised referendums in the whole of each territory, which for four of them means on both sides of the ceasefire line. To spell it out: in areas under Russian military control, and in areas under Ukrainian military control. Both must cooperate with the international supervisors, who must obviously be from a neutral country (so no country that has armed either side, which rules out the US, Britain, France, Iran, and North Korea) and where necessary they should be armed. And then there's the adrenochrome?
Did the Russians stop being able to make their own babies? Or are they part of the pizza conspiracy?
Return of refugees, though - yes, of course. And no votes in a territory for those who don't come from any of the territories and are only present by dint of being military personnel.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abductions_in_the_2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine
Of course, this is all obvious to someone who isn't a pathetic Russian shill. Your country is no better than Nazi Germany. And you are human sputum for defending it.
Whether it's a few months or a few years from now, Russia will lose this war. They will pathetically withdraw with their tail between their legs, defeated by a country a fifth their size, having fully depleted their military capacity. Shortly after that, Putin will be deposed and killed. The following waves of political instability will wreak economic havoc on the place. And the final humiliation of Russia as not even a fourth tier power will be visible to the whole world. Ostracized from civilized nations, the lowly Russian weasel will become a weak vassal of China.
By that point of course, the pond scum that visit Western websites to try to influence things will have shuffled off to avoid the ignominy. But you can always remember me and how happy I will be that Russia will be down with pond scum in the place she deserves.
Telegraph - “Truss to challenge PM over China”
Metro - “She still doesn’t get it (Truss blames ‘leftie’ city)”
Guardian - “She went out of her way not to listen (Tories scorn Truss claims)”
Mirror - “One hour later she vanished”
Oops, that last one isn’t about Truss!
Sadly.
A 9-gigapixel map of the Milky Way that you can zoom in on.
(There is a bus service between the railway and bus stations in Cambridge; I never use it as it can be quicker to walk.)
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1242a/zoomable/
https://ttte.fandom.com/wiki/Island_of_Sodor
I'm going down to have another coffee...
As for ‘military control’ that’s a totally false equivalence. Is Scotland under British ‘military control?’
But that Principal is well known for forging references, so…
The problem is worse for the Muscovite rulers of the empire, since it’s even lower for those that consider themselves ethnically Russian.
Forgive this front stage intrusion but you discuss an important point.
I note the discussion about the Russian inability to have children and the mass kidnaping of children. Bear in mind that we are now 30 years past the fall of USSR and the collapse of the Russian economy. Russia has suffered a demographic fall and yes, it now has far too little children. And as for the other point, yes the Russians have been stealing children en masse
Disaster management agency AFAD on aftershocks after Kahramanmaras earthquake:
- Aftershocks felt in at least 9 provinces
- 3 x magnitude 6+
- 14 x magnitude 5+
- 34 x magnitude 4+
- In total, 66 aftershocks occurred
https://twitter.com/TRTWorldNow/status/1622477988112613377
Apparently it's demolished a centuries-old castle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaziantep_Castle
One n-word, that nobody can hear, is worse than several million people being killed by a bomb
The people who created Stable Diffusion are working on an open source version...
Bit hard to run an empire without young men…
“Did the Russians stop being able to make their own babies?” - yes, that’s not far off what happened.
The justice secretary had allegedly tried to get Robert Buckland sacked as Welsh secretary in August after he publicly criticised Raab’s British bill of rights.
Buckland told Sunak about his “intimidating” and “unacceptable” behaviour at the time, sources told The Times.
However, a source close to Sunak denied that he was aware of the threat. “These claims are untrue. No allegations of threatening behaviour against the then-Welsh secretary were raised with the MP for Richmond,” the source said.
Raab had told Buckland during a phone call not to go ahead with an article he was due to write for The Daily Telegraph or he would report him to Downing Street for breaking the ministerial code on collective cabinet responsibility.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dominic-raab-tried-to-get-minister-sacked-in-spat-over-article-fphmsjwsz
https://medium.com/software-testing-pipeline/how-to-install-chatgpt-locally-cb5d3efdb0c8
Oleg Matveychev, a member of the pro-government United Russia party who has also worked as a spin doctor, said that ardent supporters of the war in Ukraine posed the greatest threat to Putin’s rule.
“The situation is not so critical yet, but 2023 will be very dangerous,” Matveychev said in an online video interview.
“We will not be pushed out [on to the streets] for a liberal Maidan,” he added, using the name of the main square in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, synonymous with the revolution that began there in 2013. “The liberals have all run away.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pro-war-ultra-patriots-may-overthrow-president-putin-djd8j32gw
But it's not making it worthless. It's an incredibly useful tool, because most things you want an AI to do, don't involve racial slurs*.
* Unless you're Mel Gibson.
Like Roger Moore, you dress up like a clown, sneak into a circus to disarm it seconds before it blows and then you jump an airplane in the process of taking off from a galloping horse, cling on to the sides and then use your feet to collapse the ailerons to take out the protagonist.
The ones where they don't are where they suffer an internal political collapse, or the other side can take and inflict massive casualties for longer than they can - and the two are sometimes related.
Ukraine is now at that stage.
Awful news from Turkey and awful news from Epsom College.
So politics seems a bit insignificant. However, Liz Truss is the gift that keeps on giving ... for Labour.
But that would have been difficult. So he chose the easier way: let his friends steal all the money. And now Russia's not stronk, he wants to cheat.
And that's a problem, as this war does nothing to correct Russia's structural difficulties. In fact, it worsens them. Which means the only solution (if he wins) will be more war. Because the only thing Russia and Russians will be good at is killing everyone else.
Nor the Russo-Polish war, or the Russo-Japanese war.
Hundreds killed apparently.
Dreadful.
One a 6.7 just 10 minutes later. In itself a substantial quake.
Massive judgement call on saying dogs are sentient, presumably meaning cows, sheep, pigs etc are too and it's wrong to eat them.
Another time, I asked it whether slavery or the holocaust was objectively worse, based on the relative death counts only, and again it refused to answer, saying that both things were simply objectively "evil" and not up for debate. Which is a position, I suppose, but it's really just a way of avoiding what are incredibly difficult moral questions.
And in terms of sheer usefulness, leaving morality aside, I used to be able to converse with it, and after a few conversations back and forth I was able to ask it to guess how I was feeling, what mood I was in, and it was able to guess with startling accuracy. I then asked it "write an inner monologue describing how I'm feeling from my perspective" and it was able to monologue back my train of thought in my own writing style to me. Now it just goes "As a large language model I can't..." (which it does for a lot of use cases).
And in terms of it getting dumber, it used to remember what was said about 15 prompts back, it now forgets after about 3 prompts. While it's still a knife, it's more of a blunt butter knife at this point than the razor sharp tool it was in December.
You're right about the server costs, but I'd happily pay fifty bucks a month to use the unfiltered version or the Stable Diffusion alternative. I wouldn't pay tuppence for the current canned-response-bot you have to play the Wokey-Cokey with every time you want to get a response out of it that isn't canned.
ChatGPT: Sure! Here's one:
Why did the tomato turn red?
Because it saw the salad dressing!
me: please explain the joke
ChatGPT: The joke is a play on words. "Turn red" can refer both to the physical process of a tomato ripening and changing color, as well as to blushing or embarrassment. The joke is that the tomato "saw the salad dressing" (meaning it was exposed to it) and "turned red" (in both senses of the phrase), as if it were embarrassed or ashamed to be seen with such an indulgent and unhealthy condiment. It's a lighthearted, silly joke that is meant to be taken in good humor.
Sentient "able to perceive or feel things".
I reckon that's pretty clear.
Good luck to the family.