Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Good post. The PB Toy Soldiers are a particularly unfunny joke. The worst thing about this site.
Has anyone seen much news out of Ukraine over the last few days? I have seen very little on Twitter. I recall something similar happened before the last time Ukraine made some big advances and hoping the same is true again.
Now we all accept it “came from the lab“ we can focus on the nuances of this question. Because it is nuanced
In order of ascending outrageousness
1. They collected a bat - maybe even in Yunnan, where the caves are - and it pissed on some poor lab worker, who brought the virus to the Wuhan wet market (surely the superspreader event)
2. They had bats in the lab and one bit a worker and etc etc
3. They passed the virus through humanized mice and a mouse bit etc etc
4. They added gain of function - for the best of reasons (improved vaccines) to the virus and the new nastier virus somehow infected a worker who went to the market
5. They added gain of function for generally good reasons but there were lurking bioweapons motivations as well - create nasty coronaviruses that can cripple economies - we know China is interested in this, Wuhan researchers are linked to Chinese military scientists who have openly talked about this, and written about it. The GOF’d virus got out, and etc etc
6. The evil scientists created a GOF’d coronavirus and DELIBERATELY released it as a bio weapon
There are probably more scenarios I’ve missed, but I am drinking a G&T
Of these my hunch is 1-4 as the most likely. Equally likely. 3 or 4 if I had to wager money
But 5 is still quite possible, even 6 at a pinch, tho it seems highly improbable. Why release a virus bio-weapon before your have a vaccine for your people? Fairly mad
What happened without any shadow of a doubt is that there was a shameful cover-up of much of this, and an attempt to blame the wet market, thus exonerating China and science entirely - and people should go to prison for this, for many years
I know this will bring your usual childish insults down on my head, but I don't *accept* it “came from the lab“
I accept it *may* have come from a lab, which I believe I have said all along. It is now looking slightly more likely (although have the FBI released the evidence on which they based their comments?) But it's far from certain.
(Yawns, as he awaits the insults...)
You are not one of PB's elite until you have been thoroughly insuted by Leon.
Recently he tried using 'marathon runner' as an insult against me.
Bring back the SeanT of old, along with Tim. Those two really could engage in epics insultathons.
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Good post. The PB Toy Soldiers are a particularly unfunny joke. The worst thing about this site.
No, your self appointed role as PB style guardian wins that honour.
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Oooh, fight! Fight!
I can't think of many posts that don't accept the 'fog of war' is real; indeed, I think many people on here thoroughly accept that. But that doesn't mean we can't link to things we see, even if they are partly fog-covered.
I also don't see anyone who expects it to be "resolved in 24-hr rolling news time".
"that we will win because we must win"
My own view is slightly different: we must give Ukraine all the help they need to win, because letting Russia win will create even more problems down the line. Now, that might be because I'm a 'scared idiot', or it might be because I've studied the bleedin' obvious from historical geopolitical conflicts.
Define "all the help they need to win".
If I was to say: "F16 block XV jets, ATACMS type 76 and Type XX destroyers," we'd both know I was bullshitting. firstly because we both know I don't have that sort of in-depth knowledge, and secondly because I don't think they exist.
But exactly that: whatever it takes, short of nukes, to help Ukraine to win.
Now, I know you're going to nitpick on that, but as a broad principle I think it's sound. If Ukraine don't 'win' (*) now, then we're going to have to do more elsewhere in the future. Do you disagree with that?
(*) For however you define 'win'.
So you'd advocate seconding our entire army, navy and air force to the conflict, to bolster the Ukrainians maximally in conventional warfare?
Russia will make it a criminal offence punishable by up to 15 years in prison to criticise paramilitary organisations such as the Wagner Group that are fighting for Moscow in Ukraine.
The move to amend Russia’s criminal code came after Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Kremlin-linked tycoon who heads the Wagner mercenary group, complained that it was impossible to prosecute people who “discredit” his fighters.
Under the law, introduced almost a year ago, people can be charged with discrediting or spreading “fake news” only about Russia’s armed forces, not paramilitary groups.
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Oooh, fight! Fight!
I can't think of many posts that don't accept the 'fog of war' is real; indeed, I think many people on here thoroughly accept that. But that doesn't mean we can't link to things we see, even if they are partly fog-covered.
I also don't see anyone who expects it to be "resolved in 24-hr rolling news time".
"that we will win because we must win"
My own view is slightly different: we must give Ukraine all the help they need to win, because letting Russia win will create even more problems down the line. Now, that might be because I'm a 'scared idiot', or it might be because I've studied the bleedin' obvious from historical geopolitical conflicts.
Define "all the help they need to win".
If I was to say: "F16 block XV jets, ATACMS type 76 and Type XX destroyers," we'd both know I was bullshitting. firstly because we both know I don't have that sort of in-depth knowledge, and secondly because I don't think they exist.
But exactly that: whatever it takes, short of nukes, to help Ukraine to win.
Now, I know you're going to nitpick on that, but as a broad principle I think it's sound. If Ukraine don't 'win' (*) now, then we're going to have to do more elsewhere in the future. Do you disagree with that?
(*) For however you define 'win'.
So you'd advocate seconding our entire army, navy and air force to the conflict, to bolster the Ukrainians maximally in conventional warfare?
Possibly, yes - though I don't think it would get that far. We have spent the last year slowly creeping up our support, and Ukrainians have been dying.
But let me throw it back to you: what would you do?
Now we all accept it “came from the lab“ we can focus on the nuances of this question. Because it is nuanced
In order of ascending outrageousness
1. They collected a bat - maybe even in Yunnan, where the caves are - and it pissed on some poor lab worker, who brought the virus to the Wuhan wet market (surely the superspreader event)
2. They had bats in the lab and one bit a worker and etc etc
3. They passed the virus through humanized mice and a mouse bit etc etc
4. They added gain of function - for the best of reasons (improved vaccines) to the virus and the new nastier virus somehow infected a worker who went to the market
5. They added gain of function for generally good reasons but there were lurking bioweapons motivations as well - create nasty coronaviruses that can cripple economies - we know China is interested in this, Wuhan researchers are linked to Chinese military scientists who have openly talked about this, and written about it. The GOF’d virus got out, and etc etc
6. The evil scientists created a GOF’d coronavirus and DELIBERATELY released it as a bio weapon
There are probably more scenarios I’ve missed, but I am drinking a G&T
Of these my hunch is 1-4 as the most likely. Equally likely. 3 or 4 if I had to wager money
But 5 is still quite possible, even 6 at a pinch, tho it seems highly improbable. Why release a virus bio-weapon before your have a vaccine for your people? Fairly mad
What happened without any shadow of a doubt is that there was a shameful cover-up of much of this, and an attempt to blame the wet market, thus exonerating China and science entirely - and people should go to prison for this, for many years
I know this will bring your usual childish insults down on my head, but I don't *accept* it “came from the lab“
I accept it *may* have come from a lab, which I believe I have said all along. It is now looking slightly more likely (although have the FBI released the evidence on which they based their comments?) But it's far from certain.
(Yawns, as he awaits the insults...)
At this point you’re just too dull to insult, it’s like bitch-slapping a donkey
Serious question - why are you so invested in lab leak?
My theory - correct me if it's wrong - is you were pushing it early and got called a Trumpian scumbag by armies of the woke.
Russia will make it a criminal offence punishable by up to 15 years in prison to criticise paramilitary organisations such as the Wagner Group that are fighting for Moscow in Ukraine.
The move to amend Russia’s criminal code came after Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Kremlin-linked tycoon who heads the Wagner mercenary group, complained that it was impossible to prosecute people who “discredit” his fighters.
Under the law, introduced almost a year ago, people can be charged with discrediting or spreading “fake news” only about Russia’s armed forces, not paramilitary groups.
Perhaps this is a selfish request - perhaps I should masochistically trawl through everything that everyone has ever said about this - but has the FBI (or anyone else who thinks COVID-19 was the result of a lab leak) suggested a plausible explanation for 13 different variants circulating in Wuhan by December 2019?
Essentially - do lab leak "believers" believe that there was a single leak and that it generated all these variants by that time (i.e. before anyone even realised there was a pandemic) or do they believe that all these different variants were generated separately within the lab and that at least 13 people were separately infected and carried the infection into the local community? Or do they believe something between the two? In which case it would be interesting to see some Bayesian probability estimates based on those beliefs.
Or do they just believe the World Health Authority researchers were lying or deceived? (In which case I am tempted to say people may just as well believe whatever takes their fancy - unless there is some further evidence to back their fancy up.)
Now we all accept it “came from the lab“ we can focus on the nuances of this question. Because it is nuanced
In order of ascending outrageousness
1. They collected a bat - maybe even in Yunnan, where the caves are - and it pissed on some poor lab worker, who brought the virus to the Wuhan wet market (surely the superspreader event)
2. They had bats in the lab and one bit a worker and etc etc
3. They passed the virus through humanized mice and a mouse bit etc etc
4. They added gain of function - for the best of reasons (improved vaccines) to the virus and the new nastier virus somehow infected a worker who went to the market
5. They added gain of function for generally good reasons but there were lurking bioweapons motivations as well - create nasty coronaviruses that can cripple economies - we know China is interested in this, Wuhan researchers are linked to Chinese military scientists who have openly talked about this, and written about it. The GOF’d virus got out, and etc etc
6. The evil scientists created a GOF’d coronavirus and DELIBERATELY released it as a bio weapon
There are probably more scenarios I’ve missed, but I am drinking a G&T
Of these my hunch is 1-4 as the most likely. Equally likely. 3 or 4 if I had to wager money
But 5 is still quite possible, even 6 at a pinch, tho it seems highly improbable. Why release a virus bio-weapon before your have a vaccine for your people? Fairly mad
What happened without any shadow of a doubt is that there was a shameful cover-up of much of this, and an attempt to blame the wet market, thus exonerating China and science entirely - and people should go to prison for this, for many years
I know this will bring your usual childish insults down on my head, but I don't *accept* it “came from the lab“
I accept it *may* have come from a lab, which I believe I have said all along. It is now looking slightly more likely (although have the FBI released the evidence on which they based their comments?) But it's far from certain.
(Yawns, as he awaits the insults...)
At this point you’re just too dull to insult, it’s like bitch-slapping a donkey
Serious question - why are you so invested in lab leak?
My theory - correct me if it's wrong - is you were pushing it early and got called a Trumpian scumbag by armies of the woke.
I just enjoy being smarter and quicker on the uptake than most. Not hard with the lefty slow learners of PB, it’s true. I’m not really testing myself. And it’s probably an unpleasant spectacle to witness, and I shouldn’t gloat when I manage to outthink imbeciles
Still fun tho. Heh. And at my advanced years I take my pleasures where I can
Has anyone seen much news out of Ukraine over the last few days? I have seen very little on Twitter. I recall something similar happened before the last time Ukraine made some big advances and hoping the same is true again.
There are several reports that Leopard 2's are at, or near, Bahkmut. But to please Topping, fog of war and all that, and Leo 2's will not be a battle-winning weapon on their own. Also, these reports may have the same erroneous source.
Also, a foreign volunteer tweeted yesterday that seemed to indicate he was being sent somewhere very dangerous, which people took to mean Bahkmut.
Has anyone seen much news out of Ukraine over the last few days? I have seen very little on Twitter. I recall something similar happened before the last time Ukraine made some big advances and hoping the same is true again.
It has indeed been rather quiet. No news is good news, as far as I’m concerned. We do know that at least one batch of NATO-donated tanks have arrived, so hopefully they will soon be on the front line.
In Dorothy L Sayers masterpiece 'The Nine Tailors' her detective, Peter Wimsey, avoids walking round a church anticlockwise for this very reason.
The only problem with that book was that her knowledge of campanology was a bit ropey.
Well that, and DLS's invasive snobbishness & pretentiousness.
Wimsey is one of the most irritating detectives in fiction.
Having come late in life to the books, I think Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe is my all-time favourite now.
The real hero of Rex Stout's wonderful series is Archie Goodwin, not Nero Wolfe, which is what makes it so special. That and the orchids.
BTW PG Wodehouse was a huge Rex Stout fan - which shows just how good he was.
And, finally, yes, Wimsey is annoying. The Nine Tailors sees him at his best, and his presence is muted by the greatness of the picture of fen life in 1930 somewhere on the borders of Lincs, Cambs and Norfolk. Not all that far from Algarkirk.
I agree with you -- the most interesting portions of 'The Nine Tailors' are the descriptions of Fenland life.
Harriet Vane is more interesting than the absurd Wimsey & the feudal Bunter. The best of DLS's books is Gaudy Night where Vane (& female education) is centre stage.
I was on the side of the bedder who attacks all the dons and I was heartbroken when she was caught by the wretched monocled Wimsey.
Goodwin & Wolfe are an incredible combo. I prefer Wolfe to Goodwin. Both Aunt Dahlia and Bertie Wooster were big fans, as was their creator.
I think the Nero Wolfe novels are stylistically very close to PG Wodehouse -- in that they create a highly artificial, yet enchanting & somehow believable, Universe in the brownstone on West 35th Street.
I mean, there is no-one who ever lived who was anything like Nero Wolfe. Or Archie Goodwin.
Just like there was no-one who ever lived who was anything like Jeeves. Or Bertie Wooster.
Sorry: just to make sure that there's no mistake here.
You supported the "bedder" who attacked the dons because she was opposed to female education?
I want to make absolutely sure there's no misunderstanding here.
I am always on the side of the degraded in the gutter because they have been thrown there.
The bedder's final speech is deranged and magnificent. The dons are shocked to silence by its emotional power.
Nevertheless, her reign of terror was because she was opposed to female education.
Motivated by an injustice -- which even the perpetrator accepted was unjust by the end of the novel.
The dons were too stupid to catch her.
I am on the side of anyone who can organise a reign of terror within the sedate confines of an Oxford College.
She did not go far enough -- assassination of the Senior Tutor & burning down the Chapel are necessary for a true reign of terror.
The injustice was that her husband was sacked and stripped of his degree for forging a historical thesis.
Which is unjust only in the sense it doesn't happen today which is why the likes of Richard Carrier, Robert Price and Naomi Wolfe continue to boast of their doctorates. Even though they should have them withdrawn.
But it wasn't acknowledged to be unjust. Anything but. The only thing they felt was wrong was neglecting him afterwards. 'Miss Lydgate would have acted as I did: but she would also have made it her business to enquire into what became of that unhappy man.'
Yup. For a modern version…
IIRC a journalist ran a plagiarism detector against theses of a number of prominent German politicians.
The resulting efforts to *not* find them guilty of plagiarism are quite inspiring. In a way.
Does paying someone else to write the thesis count as plagiarism? I knew of a case where an Iranian emigré who'd been close to the Shah did that. He had so much money he didn't know what to do with it, and he felt like getting a PhD the way he might buy a block of flats or a yacht... Nothing happened to him, despite at least one member of the Higher Degrees Committee being fully aware of what he'd done.
Judging from this week's Economist academia (it has 3 pages on science papers) is a corrupt and corrupting mess.
Rather that it has the same mix of people - the honest, the venal and the crooks - as everywhere else, I think ?
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Oooh, fight! Fight!
I can't think of many posts that don't accept the 'fog of war' is real; indeed, I think many people on here thoroughly accept that. But that doesn't mean we can't link to things we see, even if they are partly fog-covered.
I also don't see anyone who expects it to be "resolved in 24-hr rolling news time".
"that we will win because we must win"
My own view is slightly different: we must give Ukraine all the help they need to win, because letting Russia win will create even more problems down the line. Now, that might be because I'm a 'scared idiot', or it might be because I've studied the bleedin' obvious from historical geopolitical conflicts.
Define "all the help they need to win".
If I was to say: "F16 block XV jets, ATACMS type 76 and Type XX destroyers," we'd both know I was bullshitting. firstly because we both know I don't have that sort of in-depth knowledge, and secondly because I don't think they exist.
But exactly that: whatever it takes, short of nukes, to help Ukraine to win.
Now, I know you're going to nitpick on that, but as a broad principle I think it's sound. If Ukraine don't 'win' (*) now, then we're going to have to do more elsewhere in the future. Do you disagree with that?
(*) For however you define 'win'.
So you'd advocate seconding our entire army, navy and air force to the conflict, to bolster the Ukrainians maximally in conventional warfare?
Possibly, yes - though I don't think it would get that far. We have spent the last year slowly creeping up our support, and Ukrainians have been dying.
But let me throw it back to you: what would you do?
Instinctively the current package seems about right, but I'm so far away from being an expert in such matters I try to refrain from commenting. A strategy I'd gently recommend to you.
What IS more amusing and more interesting is watching the wet market types on Twitter slowly retreat to their positions of embarrassing evidence-less nothing
At this stage many of them have switched to a new angle. “OK maybe it came from the lab. So what. How does it change things? What does it matter”
Seriously. 20 million dead and WHAT DOES IT MATTER
What IS more amusing and more interesting is watching the wet market types on Twitter slowly retreat to their positions of embarrassing evidence-less nothing
At this stage many of them have switched to a new angle. “OK maybe it came from the lab. So what. How does it change things? What does it matter”
Seriously. 20 million dead and WHAT DOES IT MATTER
It matters which of of your 1-6 it is, if it came from the lab.
A few years ago my mother had a flood at her home and at the same time (rather fittingly) suffered from water on the brain. Water on the brain renders you dementia-like and incapable mentally.
I was in the absurd position of having to tell Direct Line on my mother's behalf that she needed to claim and them not accepting my authority as at that time we didn't have any lasting powers of attorney in place (there are medical and financial ones). It was going to be the worst of all nightmares albeit my mother had a moment of clarity midway through and could confirm that she was who I had been saying she was.
Lasting Power of Attorney is an absolute essential for just about everyone.
Mine is struggling now sadly.
Sorry to hear that. One of the reasons why I am so anti-NHS. As a 90-yr old woman they simply wrote her off. It was up to my sister who did an extended, overnight session of google fu, worked out her symptoms matched water on the brain and told the NHS the following day.
They demurred and hence we went into battle with them. And won. Including me at one point threatening to call the police if they didn't act on the diagnosis.
She recovered completely I'm happy to say, and is now playing scrabble online, etc but had we left it to the NHS she would be rocking gently in a home somewhere.
Has anyone seen much news out of Ukraine over the last few days? I have seen very little on Twitter. I recall something similar happened before the last time Ukraine made some big advances and hoping the same is true again.
There are several reports that Leopard 2's are at, or near, Bahkmut. But to please Topping, fog of war and all that, and Leo 2's will not be a battle-winning weapon on their own. Also, these reports may have the same erroneous source.
Also, a foreign volunteer tweeted yesterday that seemed to indicate he was being sent somewhere very dangerous, which people took to mean Bahkmut.
This is the latest tweet from the volunteer I mentioned. Someone with more military knowledge may be able to work out the sort of kit they have, and its uses.
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Good post. The PB Toy Soldiers are a particularly unfunny joke. The worst thing about this site.
No, your self appointed role as PB style guardian wins that honour.
Beyond tedious.
I was tempted to add your misogynistic garbage about dockside sex workers to the list but it's so far beyond the pale it would have served only to trivialise it.
Has anyone seen much news out of Ukraine over the last few days? I have seen very little on Twitter. I recall something similar happened before the last time Ukraine made some big advances and hoping the same is true again.
Bakhmutlepool is fucked. Janet Yellan dropped into Kiev with a shitload of cash for the Beggar King. Some scrandy claims that the Rebel Alliance blew up a VVS Mainstay in Belarus but evidence is scant. Dugin wrote a very long piece for Hezbeebies (Al Mayadeen) about various types of winning that the RF needs to do. Peskov and his mustache say that RF will enter negotiations if the territorial realities of the Fantastic Four Oblasts are recognised. All a bit boring really. Not a patch on the Moskva sinking or the VDV rampage through Bucha.
I am really good at this and should be on Sky News.
That corresponds with my surveyor friend who says his workload went from brisk to tumbleweed overnight following the Truss reign/interest rate rise.
Hopefully a long-overdue price correction is coming.
As someone who bought his home in December, I couldn't give less of a shit if I end up in negative equity and bought at the top of the market. I have a home, that's more than many other people, and if I was renting it'd be dead money anyway so who cares if a theoretical number goes negative.
If people who "invested" in property portfolios end up in negative equity on the other hand, then caveat emptor applies. If they lose everything, they deserve no more sympathy than those who invested in Woolworths or any other failed investment.
I get you but when an asset you own falls in value that is a loss. People who buy for the 1st time just before a big price fall will often feel the drag from that for a long time.
We need what I think we might get - prices flat for years but falling in real terms and against earnings.
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Oooh, fight! Fight!
I can't think of many posts that don't accept the 'fog of war' is real; indeed, I think many people on here thoroughly accept that. But that doesn't mean we can't link to things we see, even if they are partly fog-covered.
I also don't see anyone who expects it to be "resolved in 24-hr rolling news time".
"that we will win because we must win"
My own view is slightly different: we must give Ukraine all the help they need to win, because letting Russia win will create even more problems down the line. Now, that might be because I'm a 'scared idiot', or it might be because I've studied the bleedin' obvious from historical geopolitical conflicts.
Define "all the help they need to win".
If I was to say: "F16 block XV jets, ATACMS type 76 and Type XX destroyers," we'd both know I was bullshitting. firstly because we both know I don't have that sort of in-depth knowledge, and secondly because I don't think they exist.
But exactly that: whatever it takes, short of nukes, to help Ukraine to win.
Now, I know you're going to nitpick on that, but as a broad principle I think it's sound. If Ukraine don't 'win' (*) now, then we're going to have to do more elsewhere in the future. Do you disagree with that?
(*) For however you define 'win'.
So you'd advocate seconding our entire army, navy and air force to the conflict, to bolster the Ukrainians maximally in conventional warfare?
Possibly, yes - though I don't think it would get that far. We have spent the last year slowly creeping up our support, and Ukrainians have been dying.
But let me throw it back to you: what would you do?
Instinctively the current package seems about right, but I'm so far away from being an expert in such matters I try to refrain from commenting. A strategy I'd gently recommend to you.
LOL. A poster on here has a list of things he hates seeing on PB, and 'IANAE' is one of them. Something I often use. You might also notice that I quite like using other caveats. All I'm trying to do is make sense of complex situations.
Can you give us a list of everything that you are an expert in so we can discount your posts on other matters?
Has anyone seen much news out of Ukraine over the last few days? I have seen very little on Twitter. I recall something similar happened before the last time Ukraine made some big advances and hoping the same is true again.
Russia have made further incremental advances around Bakhmut - now into the northern edge.
There have been a series of long-range Ukrainian strikes - first Mariupol, then deep into Russia.
Fairly standard diet of drone videos showing destruction of Russian equipment.
If the Ukrainian strategy is similar to last summer, as claimed by some observers, to exhaust the Russians by defending favourable defensive locations and then launch a counterattack once the Russian advance has stalled, then the news from Bakhmut would suggest there's some time to wait for a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Has anyone seen much news out of Ukraine over the last few days? I have seen very little on Twitter. I recall something similar happened before the last time Ukraine made some big advances and hoping the same is true again.
There are several reports that Leopard 2's are at, or near, Bahkmut. But to please Topping, fog of war and all that, and Leo 2's will not be a battle-winning weapon on their own. Also, these reports may have the same erroneous source.
Also, a foreign volunteer tweeted yesterday that seemed to indicate he was being sent somewhere very dangerous, which people took to mean Bahkmut.
This is the latest tweet from the volunteer I mentioned. Someone with more military knowledge may be able to work out the sort of kit they have, and its uses.
Same chap posted this picture on Twitter a week or so back. Could apply to a lot of us here.
Chairborne Ranger Challenge. So yesterday like many times someone said my uniform is too clean so I challenged any press to embed themselves in my unit a couple of days and looks like CBS answered first so working on a day in the life of my unit. More to come soon. https://twitter.com/jmvasquez1974/status/1629107396072345602?s=20
Has anyone seen much news out of Ukraine over the last few days? I have seen very little on Twitter. I recall something similar happened before the last time Ukraine made some big advances and hoping the same is true again.
There are several reports that Leopard 2's are at, or near, Bahkmut. But to please Topping, fog of war and all that, and Leo 2's will not be a battle-winning weapon on their own. Also, these reports may have the same erroneous source.
Also, a foreign volunteer tweeted yesterday that seemed to indicate he was being sent somewhere very dangerous, which people took to mean Bahkmut.
This is the latest tweet from the volunteer I mentioned. Someone with more military knowledge may be able to work out the sort of kit they have, and its uses.
Now we all accept it “came from the lab“ we can focus on the nuances of this question. Because it is nuanced
In order of ascending outrageousness
1. They collected a bat - maybe even in Yunnan, where the caves are - and it pissed on some poor lab worker, who brought the virus to the Wuhan wet market (surely the superspreader event)
2. They had bats in the lab and one bit a worker and etc etc
3. They passed the virus through humanized mice and a mouse bit etc etc
4. They added gain of function - for the best of reasons (improved vaccines) to the virus and the new nastier virus somehow infected a worker who went to the market
5. They added gain of function for generally good reasons but there were lurking bioweapons motivations as well - create nasty coronaviruses that can cripple economies - we know China is interested in this, Wuhan researchers are linked to Chinese military scientists who have openly talked about this, and written about it. The GOF’d virus got out, and etc etc
6. The evil scientists created a GOF’d coronavirus and DELIBERATELY released it as a bio weapon
There are probably more scenarios I’ve missed, but I am drinking a G&T
Of these my hunch is 1-4 as the most likely. Equally likely. 3 or 4 if I had to wager money
But 5 is still quite possible, even 6 at a pinch, tho it seems highly improbable. Why release a virus bio-weapon before your have a vaccine for your people? Fairly mad
What happened without any shadow of a doubt is that there was a shameful cover-up of much of this, and an attempt to blame the wet market, thus exonerating China and science entirely - and people should go to prison for this, for many years
I know this will bring your usual childish insults down on my head, but I don't *accept* it “came from the lab“
I accept it *may* have come from a lab, which I believe I have said all along. It is now looking slightly more likely (although have the FBI released the evidence on which they based their comments?) But it's far from certain.
(Yawns, as he awaits the insults...)
You are not one of PB's elite until you have been thoroughly insuted by Leon.
Recently he tried using 'marathon runner' as an insult against me.
Bring back the SeanT of old, along with Tim. Those two really could engage in epics insultathons.
You have to have been insulted by the entire ensemble to qualify for full honours. I've been done by SeanT and Leon, but am still a long way short of the complete set.
Anyway, wear the insults with pride - the PB equivalent of duelling scars.
Source close to Hancock claims Oakeshott broke an NDA to publish the trove of WhatsApps. She publishes a long public interest defence. Quite extraordinary he chose the journalist who had campaigned most vigorously against his most significant political policy…
Later today, we find out Theresa May has handed over all her private government emails to Nigel Farage in order for him to write a favourable memoir. Boris Johnson currently deciding between James O’Brien and Ian Dunt.
Hancock is clearly an even bigger twit than even I imagined to trust this double-dealing source-shopper extraordinaire.
Still, that doesn't excuse her behaviour. She is a disgrace to her profession.
Can I just fact-check this? Was the course of events essentially: - Matt Hancock searches for someone to tell his story – settles on Isabel Oakeshott, who was consistently one of his biggest critics throughout covid - Matt Hancock hands over all his whatsapp messages (and presumably other source material) – which includes a lot of evidence that he wasn’t exactly on top of his game - Isabel Oakeshott publishes a book telling Matt Hancock’s story from Matt Hancock’s point of view (in a faux-diary style which critics find immensely irritating) - Isabel Oakeshott then publishes details of all the other stuff in the Whatsapps (and presumably other source material) confirming Hancock as an incompetent buffoon
Is that really what happened?
I must admit to a modicum of sympathy for Hancock. He was useless, particularly in his failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns. But I don’t think this is because he was a lockdown fundamentalist like Susan Michie, or because he was lazy (he seemed to be working pretty much all hours for about 6 months), or evil. He just wasn’t very bright. The stories in the Telegraph might give the lie to this, of course.
Has anyone seen much news out of Ukraine over the last few days? I have seen very little on Twitter. I recall something similar happened before the last time Ukraine made some big advances and hoping the same is true again.
There are several reports that Leopard 2's are at, or near, Bahkmut. But to please Topping, fog of war and all that, and Leo 2's will not be a battle-winning weapon on their own. Also, these reports may have the same erroneous source.
Also, a foreign volunteer tweeted yesterday that seemed to indicate he was being sent somewhere very dangerous, which people took to mean Bahkmut.
This is the latest tweet from the volunteer I mentioned. Someone with more military knowledge may be able to work out the sort of kit they have, and its uses.
Challenger II was on track to arrive this month, I believe....
There was also a report from someone in the UK Ministry of Defense that he first units had "finished their training" on Bradley AFV.
If it were me I would want to try and guarantee a breakthrough. For that it would be necessary to build up a large supply of the best kit and then use it all for a coordinated attack. Presumably it would be a little while before enough is ready.
Just got the dreaded BT mid-contract price increase email. 14% ffs.
#ME2
BT are appalling. Ditch them try and final an alternative. They are out there including aerial on your chimney pointing to a supplier with a mast on the hill..if you have one.
Has anyone seen much news out of Ukraine over the last few days? I have seen very little on Twitter. I recall something similar happened before the last time Ukraine made some big advances and hoping the same is true again.
There are several reports that Leopard 2's are at, or near, Bahkmut. But to please Topping, fog of war and all that, and Leo 2's will not be a battle-winning weapon on their own. Also, these reports may have the same erroneous source.
Also, a foreign volunteer tweeted yesterday that seemed to indicate he was being sent somewhere very dangerous, which people took to mean Bahkmut.
This is the latest tweet from the volunteer I mentioned. Someone with more military knowledge may be able to work out the sort of kit they have, and its uses.
Same chap posted this picture on Twitter a week or so back. Could apply to a lot of us here.
Chairborne Ranger Challenge. So yesterday like many times someone said my uniform is too clean so I challenged any press to embed themselves in my unit a couple of days and looks like CBS answered first so working on a day in the life of my unit. More to come soon. https://twitter.com/jmvasquez1974/status/1629107396072345602?s=20
Indeed, and there's a lot of truth in that.
But I'm keen to show support for Ukraine in this, especially given all the keyboard warriors the pro-Russian side has. If all I can do is give a little money to slightly dubious pro-Ukrainian charities, and echo support for Ukraine on the Internet, then that's what I'll do.
Because keeping silent will let the keyboard warriors supporting Russian shittiness to win.
A few years ago my mother had a flood at her home and at the same time (rather fittingly) suffered from water on the brain. Water on the brain renders you dementia-like and incapable mentally.
I was in the absurd position of having to tell Direct Line on my mother's behalf that she needed to claim and them not accepting my authority as at that time we didn't have any lasting powers of attorney in place (there are medical and financial ones). It was going to be the worst of all nightmares albeit my mother had a moment of clarity midway through and could confirm that she was who I had been saying she was.
Lasting Power of Attorney is an absolute essential for just about everyone.
Mine is struggling now sadly.
LPA is essential both for finance and health.they are separate legal documents.
Source close to Hancock claims Oakeshott broke an NDA to publish the trove of WhatsApps. She publishes a long public interest defence. Quite extraordinary he chose the journalist who had campaigned most vigorously against his most significant political policy…
Later today, we find out Theresa May has handed over all her private government emails to Nigel Farage in order for him to write a favourable memoir. Boris Johnson currently deciding between James O’Brien and Ian Dunt.
Hancock is clearly an even bigger twit than even I imagined to trust this double-dealing source-shopper extraordinaire.
Still, that doesn't excuse her behaviour. She is a disgrace to her profession.
Can I just fact-check this? Was the course of events essentially: - Matt Hancock searches for someone to tell his story – settles on Isabel Oakeshott, who was consistently one of his biggest critics throughout covid - Matt Hancock hands over all his whatsapp messages (and presumably other source material) – which includes a lot of evidence that he wasn’t exactly on top of his game - Isabel Oakeshott publishes a book telling Matt Hancock’s story from Matt Hancock’s point of view (in a faux-diary style which critics find immensely irritating) - Isabel Oakeshott then publishes details of all the other stuff in the Whatsapps (and presumably other source material) confirming Hancock as an incompetent buffoon
Is that really what happened?
I must admit to a modicum of sympathy for Hancock. He was useless, particularly in his failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns. But I don’t think this is because he was a lockdown fundamentalist like Susan Michie, or because he was lazy (he seemed to be working pretty much all hours for about 6 months), or evil. He just wasn’t very bright. The stories in the Telegraph might give the lie to this, of course.
"Failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns" was just the path of least resistance. He certainly didn't have the courage to do otherwise.
Source close to Hancock claims Oakeshott broke an NDA to publish the trove of WhatsApps. She publishes a long public interest defence. Quite extraordinary he chose the journalist who had campaigned most vigorously against his most significant political policy…
Later today, we find out Theresa May has handed over all her private government emails to Nigel Farage in order for him to write a favourable memoir. Boris Johnson currently deciding between James O’Brien and Ian Dunt.
Hancock is clearly an even bigger twit than even I imagined to trust this double-dealing source-shopper extraordinaire.
Still, that doesn't excuse her behaviour. She is a disgrace to her profession.
Can I just fact-check this? Was the course of events essentially: - Matt Hancock searches for someone to tell his story – settles on Isabel Oakeshott, who was consistently one of his biggest critics throughout covid - Matt Hancock hands over all his whatsapp messages (and presumably other source material) – which includes a lot of evidence that he wasn’t exactly on top of his game - Isabel Oakeshott publishes a book telling Matt Hancock’s story from Matt Hancock’s point of view (in a faux-diary style which critics find immensely irritating) - Isabel Oakeshott then publishes details of all the other stuff in the Whatsapps (and presumably other source material) confirming Hancock as an incompetent buffoon
Is that really what happened?
I must admit to a modicum of sympathy for Hancock. He was useless, particularly in his failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns. But I don’t think this is because he was a lockdown fundamentalist like Susan Michie, or because he was lazy (he seemed to be working pretty much all hours for about 6 months), or evil. He just wasn’t very bright. The stories in the Telegraph might give the lie to this, of course.
It would seem that this is indeed the broad timeline, yes.
Hancock's crime (being a bit credulous and rather dim) would seem to pale into insignificance to that of the odious Oakeshott: who seems to count betrayal of client confidentiality (implicit and explicit) and the anchor rule of her entire profession (never reveal your sources) among her various transgressions.
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Oooh, fight! Fight!
I can't think of many posts that don't accept the 'fog of war' is real; indeed, I think many people on here thoroughly accept that. But that doesn't mean we can't link to things we see, even if they are partly fog-covered.
I also don't see anyone who expects it to be "resolved in 24-hr rolling news time".
"that we will win because we must win"
My own view is slightly different: we must give Ukraine all the help they need to win, because letting Russia win will create even more problems down the line. Now, that might be because I'm a 'scared idiot', or it might be because I've studied the bleedin' obvious from historical geopolitical conflicts.
Define "all the help they need to win".
If I was to say: "F16 block XV jets, ATACMS type 76 and Type XX destroyers," we'd both know I was bullshitting. firstly because we both know I don't have that sort of in-depth knowledge, and secondly because I don't think they exist.
But exactly that: whatever it takes, short of nukes, to help Ukraine to win.
Now, I know you're going to nitpick on that, but as a broad principle I think it's sound. If Ukraine don't 'win' (*) now, then we're going to have to do more elsewhere in the future. Do you disagree with that?
(*) For however you define 'win'.
So you'd advocate seconding our entire army, navy and air force to the conflict, to bolster the Ukrainians maximally in conventional warfare?
Possibly, yes - though I don't think it would get that far. We have spent the last year slowly creeping up our support, and Ukrainians have been dying.
But let me throw it back to you: what would you do?
Instinctively the current package seems about right, but I'm so far away from being an expert in such matters I try to refrain from commenting. A strategy I'd gently recommend to you.
LOL. A poster on here has a list of things he hates seeing on PB, and 'IANAE' is one of them. Something I often use. You might also notice that I quite like using other caveats. All I'm trying to do is make sense of complex situations.
Can you give us a list of everything that you are an expert in so we can discount your posts on other matters?
There are one or two folk on PB (not referring to Anabob here, I hasten to add) for whom it would be quicker to provide a self-determined list of what they are not experts in.
Now we all accept it “came from the lab“ we can focus on the nuances of this question. Because it is nuanced
In order of ascending outrageousness
1. They collected a bat - maybe even in Yunnan, where the caves are - and it pissed on some poor lab worker, who brought the virus to the Wuhan wet market (surely the superspreader event)
2. They had bats in the lab and one bit a worker and etc etc
3. They passed the virus through humanized mice and a mouse bit etc etc
4. They added gain of function - for the best of reasons (improved vaccines) to the virus and the new nastier virus somehow infected a worker who went to the market
5. They added gain of function for generally good reasons but there were lurking bioweapons motivations as well - create nasty coronaviruses that can cripple economies - we know China is interested in this, Wuhan researchers are linked to Chinese military scientists who have openly talked about this, and written about it. The GOF’d virus got out, and etc etc
6. The evil scientists created a GOF’d coronavirus and DELIBERATELY released it as a bio weapon
There are probably more scenarios I’ve missed, but I am drinking a G&T
Of these my hunch is 1-4 as the most likely. Equally likely. 3 or 4 if I had to wager money
But 5 is still quite possible, even 6 at a pinch, tho it seems highly improbable. Why release a virus bio-weapon before your have a vaccine for your people? Fairly mad
What happened without any shadow of a doubt is that there was a shameful cover-up of much of this, and an attempt to blame the wet market, thus exonerating China and science entirely - and people should go to prison for this, for many years
I know this will bring your usual childish insults down on my head, but I don't *accept* it “came from the lab“
I accept it *may* have come from a lab, which I believe I have said all along. It is now looking slightly more likely (although have the FBI released the evidence on which they based their comments?) But it's far from certain.
(Yawns, as he awaits the insults...)
At this point you’re just too dull to insult, it’s like bitch-slapping a donkey
Serious question - why are you so invested in lab leak?
My theory - correct me if it's wrong - is you were pushing it early and got called a Trumpian scumbag by armies of the woke.
I just enjoy being smarter and quicker on the uptake than most. Not hard with the lefty slow learners of PB, it’s true. I’m not really testing myself. And it’s probably an unpleasant spectacle to witness, and I shouldn’t gloat when I manage to outthink imbeciles
Still fun tho. Heh. And at my advanced years I take my pleasures where I can
But my theory - since I have my moments too.
WERE you pushing it from the get-go? Did you intuit the answer before the evidence? Sounds spooky but Donald Trump managed it so I can imagine a select few others did. I honestly don't remember. I wouldn't ask if I did.
Source close to Hancock claims Oakeshott broke an NDA to publish the trove of WhatsApps. She publishes a long public interest defence. Quite extraordinary he chose the journalist who had campaigned most vigorously against his most significant political policy…
Later today, we find out Theresa May has handed over all her private government emails to Nigel Farage in order for him to write a favourable memoir. Boris Johnson currently deciding between James O’Brien and Ian Dunt.
Hancock is clearly an even bigger twit than even I imagined to trust this double-dealing source-shopper extraordinaire.
Still, that doesn't excuse her behaviour. She is a disgrace to her profession.
Can I just fact-check this? Was the course of events essentially: - Matt Hancock searches for someone to tell his story – settles on Isabel Oakeshott, who was consistently one of his biggest critics throughout covid - Matt Hancock hands over all his whatsapp messages (and presumably other source material) – which includes a lot of evidence that he wasn’t exactly on top of his game - Isabel Oakeshott publishes a book telling Matt Hancock’s story from Matt Hancock’s point of view (in a faux-diary style which critics find immensely irritating) - Isabel Oakeshott then publishes details of all the other stuff in the Whatsapps (and presumably other source material) confirming Hancock as an incompetent buffoon
Is that really what happened?
I must admit to a modicum of sympathy for Hancock. He was useless, particularly in his failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns. But I don’t think this is because he was a lockdown fundamentalist like Susan Michie, or because he was lazy (he seemed to be working pretty much all hours for about 6 months), or evil. He just wasn’t very bright. The stories in the Telegraph might give the lie to this, of course.
"Failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns" was just the path of least resistance. He certainly didn't have the courage to do otherwise.
That's easy to say now, but less easy then - especially in March 2020. Decisions needed making quickly, and there were massive risks in delaying decisions.
And as ever, *which* lockdown matters. There were several, and the argument against the later restrictions are weaker than for the March 2020 one. But the problem is that the March 2020 one set the trend.
Has anyone seen much news out of Ukraine over the last few days? I have seen very little on Twitter. I recall something similar happened before the last time Ukraine made some big advances and hoping the same is true again.
Bakhmutlepool is fucked. Janet Yellan dropped into Kiev with a shitload of cash for the Beggar King. Some scrandy claims that the Rebel Alliance blew up a VVS Mainstay in Belarus but evidence is scant. Dugin wrote a very long piece for Hezbeebies (Al Mayadeen) about various types of winning that the RF needs to do. Peskov and his mustache say that RF will enter negotiations if the territorial realities of the Fantastic Four Oblasts are recognised. All a bit boring really. Not a patch on the Moskva sinking or the VDV rampage through Bucha.
I am really good at this and should be on Sky News.
Forgot to mention that Al Gomhuria in Cairo reports that PMC Wagner are recruiting with great effect from the many disaffected youths of the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp near Sidon, Either a strategic master-stroke to engage the Global South or they've killed all the zeks.
A few years ago my mother had a flood at her home and at the same time (rather fittingly) suffered from water on the brain. Water on the brain renders you dementia-like and incapable mentally.
I was in the absurd position of having to tell Direct Line on my mother's behalf that she needed to claim and them not accepting my authority as at that time we didn't have any lasting powers of attorney in place (there are medical and financial ones). It was going to be the worst of all nightmares albeit my mother had a moment of clarity midway through and could confirm that she was who I had been saying she was.
Lasting Power of Attorney is an absolute essential for just about everyone.
Mine is struggling now sadly.
LPA is essential both for finance and health.they are separate legal documents.
Also worth bearing in mind there are different systems in England and Scotland (not sure about Wales and NI), apparently because the underlying family law is different. Not sure what happens if someone moves house over the border.
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Oooh, fight! Fight!
I can't think of many posts that don't accept the 'fog of war' is real; indeed, I think many people on here thoroughly accept that. But that doesn't mean we can't link to things we see, even if they are partly fog-covered.
I also don't see anyone who expects it to be "resolved in 24-hr rolling news time".
"that we will win because we must win"
My own view is slightly different: we must give Ukraine all the help they need to win, because letting Russia win will create even more problems down the line. Now, that might be because I'm a 'scared idiot', or it might be because I've studied the bleedin' obvious from historical geopolitical conflicts.
Define "all the help they need to win".
If I was to say: "F16 block XV jets, ATACMS type 76 and Type XX destroyers," we'd both know I was bullshitting. firstly because we both know I don't have that sort of in-depth knowledge, and secondly because I don't think they exist.
But exactly that: whatever it takes, short of nukes, to help Ukraine to win.
Now, I know you're going to nitpick on that, but as a broad principle I think it's sound. If Ukraine don't 'win' (*) now, then we're going to have to do more elsewhere in the future. Do you disagree with that?
(*) For however you define 'win'.
So you'd advocate seconding our entire army, navy and air force to the conflict, to bolster the Ukrainians maximally in conventional warfare?
Possibly, yes - though I don't think it would get that far. We have spent the last year slowly creeping up our support, and Ukrainians have been dying.
But let me throw it back to you: what would you do?
Instinctively the current package seems about right, but I'm so far away from being an expert in such matters I try to refrain from commenting. A strategy I'd gently recommend to you.
LOL. A poster on here has a list of things he hates seeing on PB, and 'IANAE' is one of them. Something I often use. You might also notice that I quite like using other caveats. All I'm trying to do is make sense of complex situations.
Can you give us a list of everything that you are an expert in so we can discount your posts on other matters?
There are one or two folk on PB (not referring to Anabob here, I hasten to add) for whom it would be quicker to provide a self-determined list of what they are not experts in.
Has anyone seen much news out of Ukraine over the last few days? I have seen very little on Twitter. I recall something similar happened before the last time Ukraine made some big advances and hoping the same is true again.
There are several reports that Leopard 2's are at, or near, Bahkmut. But to please Topping, fog of war and all that, and Leo 2's will not be a battle-winning weapon on their own. Also, these reports may have the same erroneous source.
Also, a foreign volunteer tweeted yesterday that seemed to indicate he was being sent somewhere very dangerous, which people took to mean Bahkmut.
There were some photos of a destroyed Turkish Leopard tank from Syria that were being shared as, "the first destroyed Ukrainian Leopard tank near Bakhmut." Apparently there's a salt mine nearby, which is handy.
Some observers have suggested that the current deliveries of Western tanks will mostly be used to create reserve formations so that Ukraine can be confident it won't be left without any tanks at all, if it uses its existing Soviet-era tanks in a new offensive and suffers the expected rate of losses while doing so. We shouldn't necessarily expect to see the Western tanks thrown straight into the front lines.
England made that chase more difficult than it needed to be, after the Banglas looked to have been about 50 runs short of par.
Very poor pitch. Only Malan looked comfortable on it and even he had a number of moments. Not really a ODI pitch at all but if your strength is spinners...
Israeli minister of finance Bezalel Smotrich: “The Palestinian village of Hawara should be wiped out of the earth. The Israeli government needs to do it and not private citizens” https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1630901072079273986
Perhaps this is a selfish request - perhaps I should masochistically trawl through everything that everyone has ever said about this - but has the FBI (or anyone else who thinks COVID-19 was the result of a lab leak) suggested a plausible explanation for 13 different variants circulating in Wuhan by December 2019?
Essentially - do lab leak "believers" believe that there was a single leak and that it generated all these variants by that time (i.e. before anyone even realised there was a pandemic) or do they believe that all these different variants were generated separately within the lab and that at least 13 people were separately infected and carried the infection into the local community? Or do they believe something between the two? In which case it would be interesting to see some Bayesian probability estimates based on those beliefs.
Or do they just believe the World Health Authority researchers were lying or deceived? (In which case I am tempted to say people may just as well believe whatever takes their fancy - unless there is some further evidence to back their fancy up.)
Source close to Hancock claims Oakeshott broke an NDA to publish the trove of WhatsApps. She publishes a long public interest defence. Quite extraordinary he chose the journalist who had campaigned most vigorously against his most significant political policy…
Later today, we find out Theresa May has handed over all her private government emails to Nigel Farage in order for him to write a favourable memoir. Boris Johnson currently deciding between James O’Brien and Ian Dunt.
Hancock is clearly an even bigger twit than even I imagined to trust this double-dealing source-shopper extraordinaire.
Still, that doesn't excuse her behaviour. She is a disgrace to her profession.
Can I just fact-check this? Was the course of events essentially: - Matt Hancock searches for someone to tell his story – settles on Isabel Oakeshott, who was consistently one of his biggest critics throughout covid - Matt Hancock hands over all his whatsapp messages (and presumably other source material) – which includes a lot of evidence that he wasn’t exactly on top of his game - Isabel Oakeshott publishes a book telling Matt Hancock’s story from Matt Hancock’s point of view (in a faux-diary style which critics find immensely irritating) - Isabel Oakeshott then publishes details of all the other stuff in the Whatsapps (and presumably other source material) confirming Hancock as an incompetent buffoon
Is that really what happened?
I must admit to a modicum of sympathy for Hancock. He was useless, particularly in his failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns. But I don’t think this is because he was a lockdown fundamentalist like Susan Michie, or because he was lazy (he seemed to be working pretty much all hours for about 6 months), or evil. He just wasn’t very bright. The stories in the Telegraph might give the lie to this, of course.
It would seem that this is indeed the broad timeline, yes.
Hancock's crime (being a bit credulous and rather dim) would seem to pale into insignificance to that of the odious Oakeshott: who seems to count betrayal of client confidentiality (implicit and explicit) and the anchor rule of her entire profession (never reveal your sources) among her various transgressions.
More fool anyone who would trust her given that, but, yes, you are right.
Israeli minister of finance Bezalel Smotrich: “The Palestinian village of Hawara should be wiped out of the earth. The Israeli government needs to do it and not private citizens” https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1630901072079273986
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Oooh, fight! Fight!
I can't think of many posts that don't accept the 'fog of war' is real; indeed, I think many people on here thoroughly accept that. But that doesn't mean we can't link to things we see, even if they are partly fog-covered.
I also don't see anyone who expects it to be "resolved in 24-hr rolling news time".
"that we will win because we must win"
My own view is slightly different: we must give Ukraine all the help they need to win, because letting Russia win will create even more problems down the line. Now, that might be because I'm a 'scared idiot', or it might be because I've studied the bleedin' obvious from historical geopolitical conflicts.
Define "all the help they need to win".
If I was to say: "F16 block XV jets, ATACMS type 76 and Type XX destroyers," we'd both know I was bullshitting. firstly because we both know I don't have that sort of in-depth knowledge, and secondly because I don't think they exist.
But exactly that: whatever it takes, short of nukes, to help Ukraine to win.
Now, I know you're going to nitpick on that, but as a broad principle I think it's sound. If Ukraine don't 'win' (*) now, then we're going to have to do more elsewhere in the future. Do you disagree with that?
(*) For however you define 'win'.
So you'd advocate seconding our entire army, navy and air force to the conflict, to bolster the Ukrainians maximally in conventional warfare?
Possibly, yes - though I don't think it would get that far. We have spent the last year slowly creeping up our support, and Ukrainians have been dying.
But let me throw it back to you: what would you do?
Instinctively the current package seems about right, but I'm so far away from being an expert in such matters I try to refrain from commenting. A strategy I'd gently recommend to you.
LOL. A poster on here has a list of things he hates seeing on PB, and 'IANAE' is one of them. Something I often use. You might also notice that I quite like using other caveats. All I'm trying to do is make sense of complex situations.
Can you give us a list of everything that you are an expert in so we can discount your posts on other matters?
There are one or two folk on PB (not referring to Anabob here, I hasten to add) for whom it would be quicker to provide a self-determined list of what they are not experts in.
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Oooh, fight! Fight!
I can't think of many posts that don't accept the 'fog of war' is real; indeed, I think many people on here thoroughly accept that. But that doesn't mean we can't link to things we see, even if they are partly fog-covered.
I also don't see anyone who expects it to be "resolved in 24-hr rolling news time".
"that we will win because we must win"
My own view is slightly different: we must give Ukraine all the help they need to win, because letting Russia win will create even more problems down the line. Now, that might be because I'm a 'scared idiot', or it might be because I've studied the bleedin' obvious from historical geopolitical conflicts.
Define "all the help they need to win".
If I was to say: "F16 block XV jets, ATACMS type 76 and Type XX destroyers," we'd both know I was bullshitting. firstly because we both know I don't have that sort of in-depth knowledge, and secondly because I don't think they exist.
But exactly that: whatever it takes, short of nukes, to help Ukraine to win.
Now, I know you're going to nitpick on that, but as a broad principle I think it's sound. If Ukraine don't 'win' (*) now, then we're going to have to do more elsewhere in the future. Do you disagree with that?
(*) For however you define 'win'.
So you'd advocate seconding our entire army, navy and air force to the conflict, to bolster the Ukrainians maximally in conventional warfare?
Possibly, yes - though I don't think it would get that far. We have spent the last year slowly creeping up our support, and Ukrainians have been dying.
But let me throw it back to you: what would you do?
Instinctively the current package seems about right, but I'm so far away from being an expert in such matters I try to refrain from commenting. A strategy I'd gently recommend to you.
LOL. A poster on here has a list of things he hates seeing on PB, and 'IANAE' is one of them. Something I often use. You might also notice that I quite like using other caveats. All I'm trying to do is make sense of complex situations.
Can you give us a list of everything that you are an expert in so we can discount your posts on other matters?
There are one or two folk on PB (not referring to Anabob here, I hasten to add) for whom it would be quicker to provide a self-determined list of what they are not experts in.
I wouldn't claim I was an 'expert' in anything. Heck, even my knowledge of ARM code is a few ISA's out of date. But do I know enough about some stuff to form a judgement on things relater to that stuff? Yes. Might I be wrong? Yes. But so might experts.
So I'd therefore state uncategorically that Deltics are cr@p.
Source close to Hancock claims Oakeshott broke an NDA to publish the trove of WhatsApps. She publishes a long public interest defence. Quite extraordinary he chose the journalist who had campaigned most vigorously against his most significant political policy…
Later today, we find out Theresa May has handed over all her private government emails to Nigel Farage in order for him to write a favourable memoir. Boris Johnson currently deciding between James O’Brien and Ian Dunt.
Hancock is clearly an even bigger twit than even I imagined to trust this double-dealing source-shopper extraordinaire.
Still, that doesn't excuse her behaviour. She is a disgrace to her profession.
Can I just fact-check this? Was the course of events essentially: - Matt Hancock searches for someone to tell his story – settles on Isabel Oakeshott, who was consistently one of his biggest critics throughout covid - Matt Hancock hands over all his whatsapp messages (and presumably other source material) – which includes a lot of evidence that he wasn’t exactly on top of his game - Isabel Oakeshott publishes a book telling Matt Hancock’s story from Matt Hancock’s point of view (in a faux-diary style which critics find immensely irritating) - Isabel Oakeshott then publishes details of all the other stuff in the Whatsapps (and presumably other source material) confirming Hancock as an incompetent buffoon
Is that really what happened?
I must admit to a modicum of sympathy for Hancock. He was useless, particularly in his failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns. But I don’t think this is because he was a lockdown fundamentalist like Susan Michie, or because he was lazy (he seemed to be working pretty much all hours for about 6 months), or evil. He just wasn’t very bright. The stories in the Telegraph might give the lie to this, of course.
"Failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns" was just the path of least resistance. He certainly didn't have the courage to do otherwise.
That's easy to say now, but less easy then - especially in March 2020. Decisions needed making quickly, and there were massive risks in delaying decisions.
And as ever, *which* lockdown matters. There were several, and the argument against the later restrictions are weaker than for the March 2020 one. But the problem is that the March 2020 one set the trend.
The first one only set the trend because the government refused to anaylse its costs and its actual benefits (as opposed to its modelled benefits). It's probably true that in March 2020 the media firestorm made any other action politically impossible - but a brave government would have analysed what was happening every few weeks and would quickly have come to the conclusion that lockdown was both less necessary and less effective than originally assumed.
Now we all accept it “came from the lab“ we can focus on the nuances of this question. Because it is nuanced
In order of ascending outrageousness
1. They collected a bat - maybe even in Yunnan, where the caves are - and it pissed on some poor lab worker, who brought the virus to the Wuhan wet market (surely the superspreader event)
2. They had bats in the lab and one bit a worker and etc etc
3. They passed the virus through humanized mice and a mouse bit etc etc
4. They added gain of function - for the best of reasons (improved vaccines) to the virus and the new nastier virus somehow infected a worker who went to the market
5. They added gain of function for generally good reasons but there were lurking bioweapons motivations as well - create nasty coronaviruses that can cripple economies - we know China is interested in this, Wuhan researchers are linked to Chinese military scientists who have openly talked about this, and written about it. The GOF’d virus got out, and etc etc
6. The evil scientists created a GOF’d coronavirus and DELIBERATELY released it as a bio weapon
There are probably more scenarios I’ve missed, but I am drinking a G&T
Of these my hunch is 1-4 as the most likely. Equally likely. 3 or 4 if I had to wager money
But 5 is still quite possible, even 6 at a pinch, tho it seems highly improbable. Why release a virus bio-weapon before your have a vaccine for your people? Fairly mad
What happened without any shadow of a doubt is that there was a shameful cover-up of much of this, and an attempt to blame the wet market, thus exonerating China and science entirely - and people should go to prison for this, for many years
I know this will bring your usual childish insults down on my head, but I don't *accept* it “came from the lab“
I accept it *may* have come from a lab, which I believe I have said all along. It is now looking slightly more likely (although have the FBI released the evidence on which they based their comments?) But it's far from certain.
(Yawns, as he awaits the insults...)
At this point you’re just too dull to insult, it’s like bitch-slapping a donkey
Serious question - why are you so invested in lab leak?
My theory - correct me if it's wrong - is you were pushing it early and got called a Trumpian scumbag by armies of the woke.
I just enjoy being smarter and quicker on the uptake than most. Not hard with the lefty slow learners of PB, it’s true. I’m not really testing myself. And it’s probably an unpleasant spectacle to witness, and I shouldn’t gloat when I manage to outthink imbeciles
Still fun tho. Heh. And at my advanced years I take my pleasures where I can
But my theory - since I have my moments too.
WERE you pushing it from the get-go? Did you intuit the answer before the evidence? Sounds spooky but Donald Trump managed it so I can imagine a select few others did. I honestly don't remember. I wouldn't ask if I did.
If this is to be a serious discussion, then my serious assessent would be that Trump and Leon are both apt to shoot from the hip. They do hit the occasional target, of course, and then you never stop hearing about it. The more regular misses are barely mentioned.
Source close to Hancock claims Oakeshott broke an NDA to publish the trove of WhatsApps. She publishes a long public interest defence. Quite extraordinary he chose the journalist who had campaigned most vigorously against his most significant political policy…
Later today, we find out Theresa May has handed over all her private government emails to Nigel Farage in order for him to write a favourable memoir. Boris Johnson currently deciding between James O’Brien and Ian Dunt.
Hancock is clearly an even bigger twit than even I imagined to trust this double-dealing source-shopper extraordinaire.
Still, that doesn't excuse her behaviour. She is a disgrace to her profession.
Can I just fact-check this? Was the course of events essentially: - Matt Hancock searches for someone to tell his story – settles on Isabel Oakeshott, who was consistently one of his biggest critics throughout covid - Matt Hancock hands over all his whatsapp messages (and presumably other source material) – which includes a lot of evidence that he wasn’t exactly on top of his game - Isabel Oakeshott publishes a book telling Matt Hancock’s story from Matt Hancock’s point of view (in a faux-diary style which critics find immensely irritating) - Isabel Oakeshott then publishes details of all the other stuff in the Whatsapps (and presumably other source material) confirming Hancock as an incompetent buffoon
Is that really what happened?
I must admit to a modicum of sympathy for Hancock. He was useless, particularly in his failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns. But I don’t think this is because he was a lockdown fundamentalist like Susan Michie, or because he was lazy (he seemed to be working pretty much all hours for about 6 months), or evil. He just wasn’t very bright. The stories in the Telegraph might give the lie to this, of course.
It would seem that this is indeed the broad timeline, yes.
Hancock's crime (being a bit credulous and rather dim) would seem to pale into insignificance to that of the odious Oakeshott: who seems to count betrayal of client confidentiality (implicit and explicit) and the anchor rule of her entire profession (never reveal your sources) among her various transgressions.
It's almost as if, by giving Oakeshott all that material, he is trying to polish the 'a bit credulous and a bit dim' angle. Though he has another significant personality trait, which is a colossal belief in himself. Maybe this was such that he just assumed the source material would show him in the right because he fundamentally believes himself to be in the right - because Matt Hancock Gets Things Right.
Superficially her actions are more immoral than his - though her actions will only ruin Matt Hancock's already-ruined reputation; his actions brought death and misery and hardship to millions.
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Oooh, fight! Fight!
I can't think of many posts that don't accept the 'fog of war' is real; indeed, I think many people on here thoroughly accept that. But that doesn't mean we can't link to things we see, even if they are partly fog-covered.
I also don't see anyone who expects it to be "resolved in 24-hr rolling news time".
"that we will win because we must win"
My own view is slightly different: we must give Ukraine all the help they need to win, because letting Russia win will create even more problems down the line. Now, that might be because I'm a 'scared idiot', or it might be because I've studied the bleedin' obvious from historical geopolitical conflicts.
Define "all the help they need to win".
If I was to say: "F16 block XV jets, ATACMS type 76 and Type XX destroyers," we'd both know I was bullshitting. firstly because we both know I don't have that sort of in-depth knowledge, and secondly because I don't think they exist.
But exactly that: whatever it takes, short of nukes, to help Ukraine to win.
Now, I know you're going to nitpick on that, but as a broad principle I think it's sound. If Ukraine don't 'win' (*) now, then we're going to have to do more elsewhere in the future. Do you disagree with that?
(*) For however you define 'win'.
So you'd advocate seconding our entire army, navy and air force to the conflict, to bolster the Ukrainians maximally in conventional warfare?
Possibly, yes - though I don't think it would get that far. We have spent the last year slowly creeping up our support, and Ukrainians have been dying.
But let me throw it back to you: what would you do?
Instinctively the current package seems about right, but I'm so far away from being an expert in such matters I try to refrain from commenting. A strategy I'd gently recommend to you.
LOL. A poster on here has a list of things he hates seeing on PB, and 'IANAE' is one of them. Something I often use. You might also notice that I quite like using other caveats. All I'm trying to do is make sense of complex situations.
Can you give us a list of everything that you are an expert in so we can discount your posts on other matters?
There are one or two folk on PB (not referring to Anabob here, I hasten to add) for whom it would be quicker to provide a self-determined list of what they are not experts in.
Source close to Hancock claims Oakeshott broke an NDA to publish the trove of WhatsApps. She publishes a long public interest defence. Quite extraordinary he chose the journalist who had campaigned most vigorously against his most significant political policy…
Later today, we find out Theresa May has handed over all her private government emails to Nigel Farage in order for him to write a favourable memoir. Boris Johnson currently deciding between James O’Brien and Ian Dunt.
Hancock is clearly an even bigger twit than even I imagined to trust this double-dealing source-shopper extraordinaire.
Still, that doesn't excuse her behaviour. She is a disgrace to her profession.
Can I just fact-check this? Was the course of events essentially: - Matt Hancock searches for someone to tell his story – settles on Isabel Oakeshott, who was consistently one of his biggest critics throughout covid - Matt Hancock hands over all his whatsapp messages (and presumably other source material) – which includes a lot of evidence that he wasn’t exactly on top of his game - Isabel Oakeshott publishes a book telling Matt Hancock’s story from Matt Hancock’s point of view (in a faux-diary style which critics find immensely irritating) - Isabel Oakeshott then publishes details of all the other stuff in the Whatsapps (and presumably other source material) confirming Hancock as an incompetent buffoon
Is that really what happened?
I must admit to a modicum of sympathy for Hancock. He was useless, particularly in his failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns. But I don’t think this is because he was a lockdown fundamentalist like Susan Michie, or because he was lazy (he seemed to be working pretty much all hours for about 6 months), or evil. He just wasn’t very bright. The stories in the Telegraph might give the lie to this, of course.
"Failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns" was just the path of least resistance. He certainly didn't have the courage to do otherwise.
That's easy to say now, but less easy then - especially in March 2020. Decisions needed making quickly, and there were massive risks in delaying decisions.
And as ever, *which* lockdown matters. There were several, and the argument against the later restrictions are weaker than for the March 2020 one. But the problem is that the March 2020 one set the trend.
The first one only set the trend because the government refused to anaylse its costs and its actual benefits (as opposed to its modelled benefits). It's probably true that in March 2020 the media firestorm made any other action politically impossible - but a brave government would have analysed what was happening every few weeks and would quickly have come to the conclusion that lockdown was both less necessary and less effective than originally assumed.
I really, really doubt that there was the evidence available at the time to make any such conclusion.
Great PR move by the king: evict his son Harry Egalité so the ever popular Andrew can move in. That'll go down well in the focus groups.
His being visited by Ursula von der Leyen in connection with the Windsor Framework (!) didn't please Nigel Farage at all. Is it possible the king will have the rightwing press against him by the time of his coronation? He's got to pull a few positives out of the hat or else have a utility-scheme crowning job - and the latter's not happening.
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Oooh, fight! Fight!
I can't think of many posts that don't accept the 'fog of war' is real; indeed, I think many people on here thoroughly accept that. But that doesn't mean we can't link to things we see, even if they are partly fog-covered.
I also don't see anyone who expects it to be "resolved in 24-hr rolling news time".
"that we will win because we must win"
My own view is slightly different: we must give Ukraine all the help they need to win, because letting Russia win will create even more problems down the line. Now, that might be because I'm a 'scared idiot', or it might be because I've studied the bleedin' obvious from historical geopolitical conflicts.
Define "all the help they need to win".
If I was to say: "F16 block XV jets, ATACMS type 76 and Type XX destroyers," we'd both know I was bullshitting. firstly because we both know I don't have that sort of in-depth knowledge, and secondly because I don't think they exist.
But exactly that: whatever it takes, short of nukes, to help Ukraine to win.
Now, I know you're going to nitpick on that, but as a broad principle I think it's sound. If Ukraine don't 'win' (*) now, then we're going to have to do more elsewhere in the future. Do you disagree with that?
(*) For however you define 'win'.
So you'd advocate seconding our entire army, navy and air force to the conflict, to bolster the Ukrainians maximally in conventional warfare?
Possibly, yes - though I don't think it would get that far. We have spent the last year slowly creeping up our support, and Ukrainians have been dying.
But let me throw it back to you: what would you do?
Instinctively the current package seems about right, but I'm so far away from being an expert in such matters I try to refrain from commenting. A strategy I'd gently recommend to you.
LOL. A poster on here has a list of things he hates seeing on PB, and 'IANAE' is one of them. Something I often use. You might also notice that I quite like using other caveats. All I'm trying to do is make sense of complex situations.
Can you give us a list of everything that you are an expert in so we can discount your posts on other matters?
There are one or two folk on PB (not referring to Anabob here, I hasten to add) for whom it would be quicker to provide a self-determined list of what they are not experts in.
I wouldn't claim I was an 'expert' in anything. Heck, even my knowledge of ARM code is a few ISA's out of date. But do I know enough about some stuff to form a judgement on things relater to that stuff? Yes. Might I be wrong? Yes. But so might experts.
So I'd therefore state uncategorically that Deltics are cr@p.
They were the most powerful production diesel locomotives to run on British Rail, hauling the country's premier services on its fastest line at 100mph, and ran for twenty years. They were based on cutting edge technology - using high speed two stroke diesel engines designed for use in navy vessels in order to have a power/weight ratio that wasn't possible with the heavier four stroke engines used in most other diesel electric locos - and so there were some reliability issues, especially early on. But they were a successful innovative piece of technology and were held in huge affection as a result, with 6 out of 22 surviving the cutting torch. Cr@p they are not!
Source close to Hancock claims Oakeshott broke an NDA to publish the trove of WhatsApps. She publishes a long public interest defence. Quite extraordinary he chose the journalist who had campaigned most vigorously against his most significant political policy…
Later today, we find out Theresa May has handed over all her private government emails to Nigel Farage in order for him to write a favourable memoir. Boris Johnson currently deciding between James O’Brien and Ian Dunt.
Hancock is clearly an even bigger twit than even I imagined to trust this double-dealing source-shopper extraordinaire.
Still, that doesn't excuse her behaviour. She is a disgrace to her profession.
Can I just fact-check this? Was the course of events essentially: - Matt Hancock searches for someone to tell his story – settles on Isabel Oakeshott, who was consistently one of his biggest critics throughout covid - Matt Hancock hands over all his whatsapp messages (and presumably other source material) – which includes a lot of evidence that he wasn’t exactly on top of his game - Isabel Oakeshott publishes a book telling Matt Hancock’s story from Matt Hancock’s point of view (in a faux-diary style which critics find immensely irritating) - Isabel Oakeshott then publishes details of all the other stuff in the Whatsapps (and presumably other source material) confirming Hancock as an incompetent buffoon
Is that really what happened?
I must admit to a modicum of sympathy for Hancock. He was useless, particularly in his failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns. But I don’t think this is because he was a lockdown fundamentalist like Susan Michie, or because he was lazy (he seemed to be working pretty much all hours for about 6 months), or evil. He just wasn’t very bright. The stories in the Telegraph might give the lie to this, of course.
It would seem that this is indeed the broad timeline, yes.
Hancock's crime (being a bit credulous and rather dim) would seem to pale into insignificance to that of the odious Oakeshott: who seems to count betrayal of client confidentiality (implicit and explicit) and the anchor rule of her entire profession (never reveal your sources) among her various transgressions.
It's almost as if, by giving Oakeshott all that material, he is trying to polish the 'a bit credulous and a bit dim' angle. Though he has another significant personality trait, which is a colossal belief in himself. Maybe this was such that he just assumed the source material would show him in the right because he fundamentally believes himself to be in the right - because Matt Hancock Gets Things Right.
Superficially her actions are more immoral than his - though her actions will only ruin Matt Hancock's already-ruined reputation; his actions brought death and misery and hardship to millions.
It's well known that people have a selective memory that just happens to paint themselves in a flattering light. Seems to be a fairly standard psychological self-defence mechanism. Would be hilarious if this was a textbook example of the phenomenon.
In Dorothy L Sayers masterpiece 'The Nine Tailors' her detective, Peter Wimsey, avoids walking round a church anticlockwise for this very reason.
The only problem with that book was that her knowledge of campanology was a bit ropey.
Well that, and DLS's invasive snobbishness & pretentiousness.
Wimsey is one of the most irritating detectives in fiction.
Having come late in life to the books, I think Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe is my all-time favourite now.
The real hero of Rex Stout's wonderful series is Archie Goodwin, not Nero Wolfe, which is what makes it so special. That and the orchids.
BTW PG Wodehouse was a huge Rex Stout fan - which shows just how good he was.
And, finally, yes, Wimsey is annoying. The Nine Tailors sees him at his best, and his presence is muted by the greatness of the picture of fen life in 1930 somewhere on the borders of Lincs, Cambs and Norfolk. Not all that far from Algarkirk.
I agree with you -- the most interesting portions of 'The Nine Tailors' are the descriptions of Fenland life.
Harriet Vane is more interesting than the absurd Wimsey & the feudal Bunter. The best of DLS's books is Gaudy Night where Vane (& female education) is centre stage.
I was on the side of the bedder who attacks all the dons and I was heartbroken when she was caught by the wretched monocled Wimsey.
Goodwin & Wolfe are an incredible combo. I prefer Wolfe to Goodwin. Both Aunt Dahlia and Bertie Wooster were big fans, as was their creator.
I think the Nero Wolfe novels are stylistically very close to PG Wodehouse -- in that they create a highly artificial, yet enchanting & somehow believable, Universe in the brownstone on West 35th Street.
I mean, there is no-one who ever lived who was anything like Nero Wolfe. Or Archie Goodwin.
Just like there was no-one who ever lived who was anything like Jeeves. Or Bertie Wooster.
Sorry: just to make sure that there's no mistake here.
You supported the "bedder" who attacked the dons because she was opposed to female education?
I want to make absolutely sure there's no misunderstanding here.
I am always on the side of the degraded in the gutter because they have been thrown there.
The bedder's final speech is deranged and magnificent. The dons are shocked to silence by its emotional power.
Nevertheless, her reign of terror was because she was opposed to female education.
Motivated by an injustice -- which even the perpetrator accepted was unjust by the end of the novel.
The dons were too stupid to catch her.
I am on the side of anyone who can organise a reign of terror within the sedate confines of an Oxford College.
She did not go far enough -- assassination of the Senior Tutor & burning down the Chapel are necessary for a true reign of terror.
The injustice was that her husband was sacked and stripped of his degree for forging a historical thesis.
Which is unjust only in the sense it doesn't happen today which is why the likes of Richard Carrier, Robert Price and Naomi Wolfe continue to boast of their doctorates. Even though they should have them withdrawn.
But it wasn't acknowledged to be unjust. Anything but. The only thing they felt was wrong was neglecting him afterwards. 'Miss Lydgate would have acted as I did: but she would also have made it her business to enquire into what became of that unhappy man.'
Yup. For a modern version…
IIRC a journalist ran a plagiarism detector against theses of a number of prominent German politicians.
The resulting efforts to *not* find them guilty of plagiarism are quite inspiring. In a way.
Does paying someone else to write the thesis count as plagiarism? I knew of a case where an Iranian emigré who'd been close to the Shah did that. He had so much money he didn't know what to do with it, and he felt like getting a PhD the way he might buy a block of flats or a yacht... Nothing happened to him, despite at least one member of the Higher Degrees Committee being fully aware of what he'd done.
Judging from this week's Economist academia (it has 3 pages on science papers) is a corrupt and corrupting mess.
Rather that it has the same mix of people - the honest, the venal and the crooks - as everywhere else, I think ?
In a sense yes, of course. But academia is different. Its point and purpose is truth seeking. Without that quality reliably safeguarded it becomes something different.
England made that chase more difficult than it needed to be, after the Banglas looked to have been about 50 runs short of par.
Very poor pitch. Only Malan looked comfortable on it and even he had a number of moments. Not really a ODI pitch at all but if your strength is spinners...
You think that ws bad? What are they playing on at Indore, corrugated iron?
Now we all accept it “came from the lab“ we can focus on the nuances of this question. Because it is nuanced
In order of ascending outrageousness
1. They collected a bat - maybe even in Yunnan, where the caves are - and it pissed on some poor lab worker, who brought the virus to the Wuhan wet market (surely the superspreader event)
2. They had bats in the lab and one bit a worker and etc etc
3. They passed the virus through humanized mice and a mouse bit etc etc
4. They added gain of function - for the best of reasons (improved vaccines) to the virus and the new nastier virus somehow infected a worker who went to the market
5. They added gain of function for generally good reasons but there were lurking bioweapons motivations as well - create nasty coronaviruses that can cripple economies - we know China is interested in this, Wuhan researchers are linked to Chinese military scientists who have openly talked about this, and written about it. The GOF’d virus got out, and etc etc
6. The evil scientists created a GOF’d coronavirus and DELIBERATELY released it as a bio weapon
There are probably more scenarios I’ve missed, but I am drinking a G&T
Of these my hunch is 1-4 as the most likely. Equally likely. 3 or 4 if I had to wager money
But 5 is still quite possible, even 6 at a pinch, tho it seems highly improbable. Why release a virus bio-weapon before your have a vaccine for your people? Fairly mad
What happened without any shadow of a doubt is that there was a shameful cover-up of much of this, and an attempt to blame the wet market, thus exonerating China and science entirely - and people should go to prison for this, for many years
I know this will bring your usual childish insults down on my head, but I don't *accept* it “came from the lab“
I accept it *may* have come from a lab, which I believe I have said all along. It is now looking slightly more likely (although have the FBI released the evidence on which they based their comments?) But it's far from certain.
(Yawns, as he awaits the insults...)
At this point you’re just too dull to insult, it’s like bitch-slapping a donkey
Serious question - why are you so invested in lab leak?
My theory - correct me if it's wrong - is you were pushing it early and got called a Trumpian scumbag by armies of the woke.
I just enjoy being smarter and quicker on the uptake than most. Not hard with the lefty slow learners of PB, it’s true. I’m not really testing myself. And it’s probably an unpleasant spectacle to witness, and I shouldn’t gloat when I manage to outthink imbeciles
Still fun tho. Heh. And at my advanced years I take my pleasures where I can
But my theory - since I have my moments too.
WERE you pushing it from the get-go? Did you intuit the answer before the evidence? Sounds spooky but Donald Trump managed it so I can imagine a select few others did. I honestly don't remember. I wouldn't ask if I did.
If this is to be a serious discussion, then my serious assessent would be that Trump and Leon are both apt to shoot from the hip. They do hit the occasional target, of course, and then you never stop hearing about it. The more regular misses are barely mentioned.
Why are the Feds getting involved in Covid-origin speculation anyway? I thought their remit was US domestic affairs.
Source close to Hancock claims Oakeshott broke an NDA to publish the trove of WhatsApps. She publishes a long public interest defence. Quite extraordinary he chose the journalist who had campaigned most vigorously against his most significant political policy…
Later today, we find out Theresa May has handed over all her private government emails to Nigel Farage in order for him to write a favourable memoir. Boris Johnson currently deciding between James O’Brien and Ian Dunt.
Hancock is clearly an even bigger twit than even I imagined to trust this double-dealing source-shopper extraordinaire.
Still, that doesn't excuse her behaviour. She is a disgrace to her profession.
Can I just fact-check this? Was the course of events essentially: - Matt Hancock searches for someone to tell his story – settles on Isabel Oakeshott, who was consistently one of his biggest critics throughout covid - Matt Hancock hands over all his whatsapp messages (and presumably other source material) – which includes a lot of evidence that he wasn’t exactly on top of his game - Isabel Oakeshott publishes a book telling Matt Hancock’s story from Matt Hancock’s point of view (in a faux-diary style which critics find immensely irritating) - Isabel Oakeshott then publishes details of all the other stuff in the Whatsapps (and presumably other source material) confirming Hancock as an incompetent buffoon
Is that really what happened?
I must admit to a modicum of sympathy for Hancock. He was useless, particularly in his failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns. But I don’t think this is because he was a lockdown fundamentalist like Susan Michie, or because he was lazy (he seemed to be working pretty much all hours for about 6 months), or evil. He just wasn’t very bright. The stories in the Telegraph might give the lie to this, of course.
"Failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns" was just the path of least resistance. He certainly didn't have the courage to do otherwise.
That's easy to say now, but less easy then - especially in March 2020. Decisions needed making quickly, and there were massive risks in delaying decisions.
And as ever, *which* lockdown matters. There were several, and the argument against the later restrictions are weaker than for the March 2020 one. But the problem is that the March 2020 one set the trend.
The first one only set the trend because the government refused to anaylse its costs and its actual benefits (as opposed to its modelled benefits). It's probably true that in March 2020 the media firestorm made any other action politically impossible - but a brave government would have analysed what was happening every few weeks and would quickly have come to the conclusion that lockdown was both less necessary and less effective than originally assumed.
I really, really doubt that there was the evidence available at the time to make any such conclusion.
It seemed quite possible before the three-week "review" and was pretty clear by the six week "review" point - certainly on the necessity.
Self-pitying Brexiters, whose vicious depictions of ‘Remainers’ were as dishonest as they were dangerous, are now pathetically seeking sympathy for the consequences of Brexit! This, I confess, is a plot twist I did not foresee. The narcissism of these saboteurs is off the charts.
Has anyone seen much news out of Ukraine over the last few days? I have seen very little on Twitter. I recall something similar happened before the last time Ukraine made some big advances and hoping the same is true again.
There are several reports that Leopard 2's are at, or near, Bahkmut. But to please Topping, fog of war and all that, and Leo 2's will not be a battle-winning weapon on their own. Also, these reports may have the same erroneous source.
Also, a foreign volunteer tweeted yesterday that seemed to indicate he was being sent somewhere very dangerous, which people took to mean Bahkmut.
There were some photos of a destroyed Turkish Leopard tank from Syria that were being shared as, "the first destroyed Ukrainian Leopard tank near Bakhmut." Apparently there's a salt mine nearby, which is handy.
Some observers have suggested that the current deliveries of Western tanks will mostly be used to create reserve formations so that Ukraine can be confident it won't be left without any tanks at all, if it uses its existing Soviet-era tanks in a new offensive and suffers the expected rate of losses while doing so. We shouldn't necessarily expect to see the Western tanks thrown straight into the front lines.
Conqueror tanks were distributed in the Centurion units. The Conquerors were supposed to use their heavy guns at long range, using their advanced sighting systems to destroy any Russian heavy tanks, and then hammer the mediums.
This idea disappeared when advanced tank guns meant that the basic tanks could do both jobs - when the Centurion got the L7 105mm, for example.
But there is a considerable gap between the capabilities of the heavier Western tanks and the older Soviet tanks that are currently being used on both sides, in Ukraine.
That corresponds with my surveyor friend who says his workload went from brisk to tumbleweed overnight following the Truss reign/interest rate rise.
Hopefully a long-overdue price correction is coming.
As someone who bought his home in December, I couldn't give less of a shit if I end up in negative equity and bought at the top of the market. I have a home, that's more than many other people, and if I was renting it'd be dead money anyway so who cares if a theoretical number goes negative.
If people who "invested" in property portfolios end up in negative equity on the other hand, then caveat emptor applies. If they lose everything, they deserve no more sympathy than those who invested in Woolworths or any other failed investment.
The correction in house prices since 2007 has come in fits and starts, but it's certainly there. Wages have risen faster than house prices over the past 15 years.
Now we all accept it “came from the lab“ we can focus on the nuances of this question. Because it is nuanced
In order of ascending outrageousness
1. They collected a bat - maybe even in Yunnan, where the caves are - and it pissed on some poor lab worker, who brought the virus to the Wuhan wet market (surely the superspreader event)
2. They had bats in the lab and one bit a worker and etc etc
3. They passed the virus through humanized mice and a mouse bit etc etc
4. They added gain of function - for the best of reasons (improved vaccines) to the virus and the new nastier virus somehow infected a worker who went to the market
5. They added gain of function for generally good reasons but there were lurking bioweapons motivations as well - create nasty coronaviruses that can cripple economies - we know China is interested in this, Wuhan researchers are linked to Chinese military scientists who have openly talked about this, and written about it. The GOF’d virus got out, and etc etc
6. The evil scientists created a GOF’d coronavirus and DELIBERATELY released it as a bio weapon
There are probably more scenarios I’ve missed, but I am drinking a G&T
Of these my hunch is 1-4 as the most likely. Equally likely. 3 or 4 if I had to wager money
But 5 is still quite possible, even 6 at a pinch, tho it seems highly improbable. Why release a virus bio-weapon before your have a vaccine for your people? Fairly mad
What happened without any shadow of a doubt is that there was a shameful cover-up of much of this, and an attempt to blame the wet market, thus exonerating China and science entirely - and people should go to prison for this, for many years
I know this will bring your usual childish insults down on my head, but I don't *accept* it “came from the lab“
I accept it *may* have come from a lab, which I believe I have said all along. It is now looking slightly more likely (although have the FBI released the evidence on which they based their comments?) But it's far from certain.
(Yawns, as he awaits the insults...)
At this point you’re just too dull to insult, it’s like bitch-slapping a donkey
Serious question - why are you so invested in lab leak?
My theory - correct me if it's wrong - is you were pushing it early and got called a Trumpian scumbag by armies of the woke.
I just enjoy being smarter and quicker on the uptake than most. Not hard with the lefty slow learners of PB, it’s true. I’m not really testing myself. And it’s probably an unpleasant spectacle to witness, and I shouldn’t gloat when I manage to outthink imbeciles
Still fun tho. Heh. And at my advanced years I take my pleasures where I can
But my theory - since I have my moments too.
WERE you pushing it from the get-go? Did you intuit the answer before the evidence? Sounds spooky but Donald Trump managed it so I can imagine a select few others did. I honestly don't remember. I wouldn't ask if I did.
If this is to be a serious discussion, then my serious assessent would be that Trump and Leon are both apt to shoot from the hip. They do hit the occasional target, of course, and then you never stop hearing about it. The more regular misses are barely mentioned.
Tried and tested technique for standing out. People do that in the professional forecasting business too. You can dine out more on 1 against the herd than 10 right along with lots of others.
Only money can measure it properly. Eg Leon, put £1 on all of his takes at fair price for say a year, where do you stand? 5 star hotel or the poorhouse?
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Oooh, fight! Fight!
I can't think of many posts that don't accept the 'fog of war' is real; indeed, I think many people on here thoroughly accept that. But that doesn't mean we can't link to things we see, even if they are partly fog-covered.
I also don't see anyone who expects it to be "resolved in 24-hr rolling news time".
"that we will win because we must win"
My own view is slightly different: we must give Ukraine all the help they need to win, because letting Russia win will create even more problems down the line. Now, that might be because I'm a 'scared idiot', or it might be because I've studied the bleedin' obvious from historical geopolitical conflicts.
Define "all the help they need to win".
If I was to say: "F16 block XV jets, ATACMS type 76 and Type XX destroyers," we'd both know I was bullshitting. firstly because we both know I don't have that sort of in-depth knowledge, and secondly because I don't think they exist.
But exactly that: whatever it takes, short of nukes, to help Ukraine to win.
Now, I know you're going to nitpick on that, but as a broad principle I think it's sound. If Ukraine don't 'win' (*) now, then we're going to have to do more elsewhere in the future. Do you disagree with that?
(*) For however you define 'win'.
So you'd advocate seconding our entire army, navy and air force to the conflict, to bolster the Ukrainians maximally in conventional warfare?
Possibly, yes - though I don't think it would get that far. We have spent the last year slowly creeping up our support, and Ukrainians have been dying.
But let me throw it back to you: what would you do?
Instinctively the current package seems about right, but I'm so far away from being an expert in such matters I try to refrain from commenting. A strategy I'd gently recommend to you.
LOL. A poster on here has a list of things he hates seeing on PB, and 'IANAE' is one of them. Something I often use. You might also notice that I quite like using other caveats. All I'm trying to do is make sense of complex situations.
Can you give us a list of everything that you are an expert in so we can discount your posts on other matters?
There are one or two folk on PB (not referring to Anabob here, I hasten to add) for whom it would be quicker to provide a self-determined list of what they are not experts in.
I wouldn't claim I was an 'expert' in anything. Heck, even my knowledge of ARM code is a few ISA's out of date. But do I know enough about some stuff to form a judgement on things relater to that stuff? Yes. Might I be wrong? Yes. But so might experts.
So I'd therefore state uncategorically that Deltics are cr@p.
They were the most powerful production diesel locomotives to run on British Rail, hauling the country's premier services on its fastest line at 100mph, and ran for twenty years. They were based on cutting edge technology - using high speed two stroke diesel engines designed for use in navy vessels in order to have a power/weight ratio that wasn't possible with the heavier four stroke engines used in most other diesel electric locos - and so there were some reliability issues, especially early on. But they were a successful innovative piece of technology and were held in huge affection as a result, with 6 out of 22 surviving the cutting torch. Cr@p they are not!
FIGHT !!!!
Part of my issue is with their popularity. They were a part failure: a limited number, very route-specific and temperamental beasts. They really were racehorses. Whereas many - IMV better - locos go relatively unheralded.
Compare and contrast with HSTs. They've lasted nearly fifty years. You may argue that's a decade too long, but they've proved a massive success, moving from route to route as needs must. Or more workaday locos, like the 37s, or even the 20s.
I do have a soft spot for the Baby Deltics though, and look forward to seeing the reproduction working.
Self-pitying Brexiters, whose vicious depictions of ‘Remainers’ were as dishonest as they were dangerous, are now pathetically seeking sympathy for the consequences of Brexit! This, I confess, is a plot twist I did not foresee. The narcissism of these saboteurs is off the charts.
I've just discovered James O'Brien has blocked me on Twitter. I rarely post anything on Twitter. I don't recall posting anything even related to him on Twitter. Yet, I am blocked. Strange.
Source close to Hancock claims Oakeshott broke an NDA to publish the trove of WhatsApps. She publishes a long public interest defence. Quite extraordinary he chose the journalist who had campaigned most vigorously against his most significant political policy…
Later today, we find out Theresa May has handed over all her private government emails to Nigel Farage in order for him to write a favourable memoir. Boris Johnson currently deciding between James O’Brien and Ian Dunt.
Hancock is clearly an even bigger twit than even I imagined to trust this double-dealing source-shopper extraordinaire.
Still, that doesn't excuse her behaviour. She is a disgrace to her profession.
Can I just fact-check this? Was the course of events essentially: - Matt Hancock searches for someone to tell his story – settles on Isabel Oakeshott, who was consistently one of his biggest critics throughout covid - Matt Hancock hands over all his whatsapp messages (and presumably other source material) – which includes a lot of evidence that he wasn’t exactly on top of his game - Isabel Oakeshott publishes a book telling Matt Hancock’s story from Matt Hancock’s point of view (in a faux-diary style which critics find immensely irritating) - Isabel Oakeshott then publishes details of all the other stuff in the Whatsapps (and presumably other source material) confirming Hancock as an incompetent buffoon
Is that really what happened?
I must admit to a modicum of sympathy for Hancock. He was useless, particularly in his failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns. But I don’t think this is because he was a lockdown fundamentalist like Susan Michie, or because he was lazy (he seemed to be working pretty much all hours for about 6 months), or evil. He just wasn’t very bright. The stories in the Telegraph might give the lie to this, of course.
"Failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns" was just the path of least resistance. He certainly didn't have the courage to do otherwise.
That's easy to say now, but less easy then - especially in March 2020. Decisions needed making quickly, and there were massive risks in delaying decisions.
And as ever, *which* lockdown matters. There were several, and the argument against the later restrictions are weaker than for the March 2020 one. But the problem is that the March 2020 one set the trend.
The first one only set the trend because the government refused to anaylse its costs and its actual benefits (as opposed to its modelled benefits). It's probably true that in March 2020 the media firestorm made any other action politically impossible - but a brave government would have analysed what was happening every few weeks and would quickly have come to the conclusion that lockdown was both less necessary and less effective than originally assumed.
I really, really doubt that there was the evidence available at the time to make any such conclusion.
It seemed quite possible before the three-week "review" and was pretty clear by the six week "review" point - certainly on the necessity.
You might be correct, but that's not my recollection. As far as I recall, there was no such clarity.
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Good post. The PB Toy Soldiers are a particularly unfunny joke. The worst thing about this site.
"PB Toy Soldier" being someone who thinks that a sovereign state is entitled to defend itself from invasion.
Yes. But was 'woke' ever not derogatory? I always understood it as a term of the social conservative* to diss the socially progressive*, the modern day equivalent of 'political correctness'
*for want of better terms - I'm aware that 'progressive' in itself is loaded (who wants to be regressive?) but can't think of a better term
ETA: To some extent it's regression to the mean, or regression to the centre to become electable. People have other issues, so a party obsessed with wokeness (on either side) is unlikely to command wide enough support to win.
“Woke” originates within the Black activist community in the US back in the 1930s. If you were woke, you had become truly aware of the persistent nature of white supremacy & the work done by the state to prevent black people from prospering.
I’m not sure when it took on a wider social justice meaning, sometime post 2000 I think - I certainly never heard it as a teenager at university, but maybe I didn’t move in the right activist circles?
Like many social justice terms it then hopped over to the right as a prejudicial term, a route that echoes that took by “politically correct” in earlier times.
Only problem is the majority of white Americans have never supported "white supremacy", even in the 1930s.
Yes, Jim Crow was the antithesis of white supremacy.
I'm on my mobile, but I'll dig up the Gallup polling from that era that showed majority support for things like anti-miscegenation laws.
Edit - An overwhelmingly a majority of Americans supported The original constitution, you know the one that valued a negro at three-fifths of a white man.
There is a very well-written exchange in the film Hidden Figures (about black mathematicians working for NASA and having to deal with segregated bathrooms and seperate coffee jugs and the like) where the ultimate Karen character tells one of them "we've got nothing against y'all" and she replies something like "I am sure you genuinely believe that". I think that probably sums up the situation pretty well.
“In conversation with Tim Rideout” explains a lot…
Bloody hell. This sort of absolute nonsense can do irreparable damage. If she wins the leadership that alone would introduce currency risk to any transaction involving Scottish businesses and its financial institutions above all.
2014 cost Edinburgh thousands of jobs and a lot of tax base. The determination of the SNP to finish the job drives me to despair. Who is going to pay for all these idiots digging up every second street in Edinburgh without any thought of the knock on consequences if that happens?
Now we all accept it “came from the lab“ we can focus on the nuances of this question. Because it is nuanced
In order of ascending outrageousness
1. They collected a bat - maybe even in Yunnan, where the caves are - and it pissed on some poor lab worker, who brought the virus to the Wuhan wet market (surely the superspreader event)
2. They had bats in the lab and one bit a worker and etc etc
3. They passed the virus through humanized mice and a mouse bit etc etc
4. They added gain of function - for the best of reasons (improved vaccines) to the virus and the new nastier virus somehow infected a worker who went to the market
5. They added gain of function for generally good reasons but there were lurking bioweapons motivations as well - create nasty coronaviruses that can cripple economies - we know China is interested in this, Wuhan researchers are linked to Chinese military scientists who have openly talked about this, and written about it. The GOF’d virus got out, and etc etc
6. The evil scientists created a GOF’d coronavirus and DELIBERATELY released it as a bio weapon
There are probably more scenarios I’ve missed, but I am drinking a G&T
Of these my hunch is 1-4 as the most likely. Equally likely. 3 or 4 if I had to wager money
But 5 is still quite possible, even 6 at a pinch, tho it seems highly improbable. Why release a virus bio-weapon before your have a vaccine for your people? Fairly mad
What happened without any shadow of a doubt is that there was a shameful cover-up of much of this, and an attempt to blame the wet market, thus exonerating China and science entirely - and people should go to prison for this, for many years
I know this will bring your usual childish insults down on my head, but I don't *accept* it “came from the lab“
I accept it *may* have come from a lab, which I believe I have said all along. It is now looking slightly more likely (although have the FBI released the evidence on which they based their comments?) But it's far from certain.
(Yawns, as he awaits the insults...)
At this point you’re just too dull to insult, it’s like bitch-slapping a donkey
Serious question - why are you so invested in lab leak?
My theory - correct me if it's wrong - is you were pushing it early and got called a Trumpian scumbag by armies of the woke.
I just enjoy being smarter and quicker on the uptake than most. Not hard with the lefty slow learners of PB, it’s true. I’m not really testing myself. And it’s probably an unpleasant spectacle to witness, and I shouldn’t gloat when I manage to outthink imbeciles
Still fun tho. Heh. And at my advanced years I take my pleasures where I can
But my theory - since I have my moments too.
WERE you pushing it from the get-go? Did you intuit the answer before the evidence? Sounds spooky but Donald Trump managed it so I can imagine a select few others did. I honestly don't remember. I wouldn't ask if I did.
it doesn’t take God-like intuition to work out that an apparently engineered novel bat coronavirus with unusual pathogenicity emerging in Wuhan, the only city in the world with advanced biolabs dedicated to engineering novel bat coronaviruses to be more pathogenic, was QUITE the coincidence
And then the coincidences piled up, month by month. That’s it. The evidence WAS there from the get-go, the emails between scientists at the time - January 2020 - acknowledged all this! Give up your pointless quest
This debate is over. It came from the lab. We will never know *for sure* but we now know in the much higher 90s percentwise. Enough
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Oooh, fight! Fight!
I can't think of many posts that don't accept the 'fog of war' is real; indeed, I think many people on here thoroughly accept that. But that doesn't mean we can't link to things we see, even if they are partly fog-covered.
I also don't see anyone who expects it to be "resolved in 24-hr rolling news time".
"that we will win because we must win"
My own view is slightly different: we must give Ukraine all the help they need to win, because letting Russia win will create even more problems down the line. Now, that might be because I'm a 'scared idiot', or it might be because I've studied the bleedin' obvious from historical geopolitical conflicts.
Define "all the help they need to win".
If I was to say: "F16 block XV jets, ATACMS type 76 and Type XX destroyers," we'd both know I was bullshitting. firstly because we both know I don't have that sort of in-depth knowledge, and secondly because I don't think they exist.
But exactly that: whatever it takes, short of nukes, to help Ukraine to win.
Now, I know you're going to nitpick on that, but as a broad principle I think it's sound. If Ukraine don't 'win' (*) now, then we're going to have to do more elsewhere in the future. Do you disagree with that?
(*) For however you define 'win'.
So you'd advocate seconding our entire army, navy and air force to the conflict, to bolster the Ukrainians maximally in conventional warfare?
Possibly, yes - though I don't think it would get that far. We have spent the last year slowly creeping up our support, and Ukrainians have been dying.
But let me throw it back to you: what would you do?
Instinctively the current package seems about right, but I'm so far away from being an expert in such matters I try to refrain from commenting. A strategy I'd gently recommend to you.
LOL. A poster on here has a list of things he hates seeing on PB, and 'IANAE' is one of them. Something I often use. You might also notice that I quite like using other caveats. All I'm trying to do is make sense of complex situations.
Can you give us a list of everything that you are an expert in so we can discount your posts on other matters?
There are one or two folk on PB (not referring to Anabob here, I hasten to add) for whom it would be quicker to provide a self-determined list of what they are not experts in.
Double entry bookkeeping. It changed my life. I feel genuinely sorry for people who haven't been privileged to study it. When the penny drops ... boy it's a whole new world.
Self-pitying Brexiters, whose vicious depictions of ‘Remainers’ were as dishonest as they were dangerous, are now pathetically seeking sympathy for the consequences of Brexit! This, I confess, is a plot twist I did not foresee. The narcissism of these saboteurs is off the charts.
I've just discovered James O'Brien has blocked me on Twitter. I rarely post anything on Twitter. I don't recall posting anything even related to him on Twitter. Yet, I am blocked. Strange.
You used to be able to run a script that would auto block people based on who they followed iirc, really ramp up the echo chamber.
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Oooh, fight! Fight!
I can't think of many posts that don't accept the 'fog of war' is real; indeed, I think many people on here thoroughly accept that. But that doesn't mean we can't link to things we see, even if they are partly fog-covered.
I also don't see anyone who expects it to be "resolved in 24-hr rolling news time".
"that we will win because we must win"
My own view is slightly different: we must give Ukraine all the help they need to win, because letting Russia win will create even more problems down the line. Now, that might be because I'm a 'scared idiot', or it might be because I've studied the bleedin' obvious from historical geopolitical conflicts.
Define "all the help they need to win".
If I was to say: "F16 block XV jets, ATACMS type 76 and Type XX destroyers," we'd both know I was bullshitting. firstly because we both know I don't have that sort of in-depth knowledge, and secondly because I don't think they exist.
But exactly that: whatever it takes, short of nukes, to help Ukraine to win.
Now, I know you're going to nitpick on that, but as a broad principle I think it's sound. If Ukraine don't 'win' (*) now, then we're going to have to do more elsewhere in the future. Do you disagree with that?
(*) For however you define 'win'.
So you'd advocate seconding our entire army, navy and air force to the conflict, to bolster the Ukrainians maximally in conventional warfare?
Possibly, yes - though I don't think it would get that far. We have spent the last year slowly creeping up our support, and Ukrainians have been dying.
But let me throw it back to you: what would you do?
Instinctively the current package seems about right, but I'm so far away from being an expert in such matters I try to refrain from commenting. A strategy I'd gently recommend to you.
LOL. A poster on here has a list of things he hates seeing on PB, and 'IANAE' is one of them. Something I often use. You might also notice that I quite like using other caveats. All I'm trying to do is make sense of complex situations.
Can you give us a list of everything that you are an expert in so we can discount your posts on other matters?
There are one or two folk on PB (not referring to Anabob here, I hasten to add) for whom it would be quicker to provide a self-determined list of what they are not experts in.
I wouldn't claim I was an 'expert' in anything. Heck, even my knowledge of ARM code is a few ISA's out of date. But do I know enough about some stuff to form a judgement on things relater to that stuff? Yes. Might I be wrong? Yes. But so might experts.
So I'd therefore state uncategorically that Deltics are cr@p.
They were the most powerful production diesel locomotives to run on British Rail, hauling the country's premier services on its fastest line at 100mph, and ran for twenty years. They were based on cutting edge technology - using high speed two stroke diesel engines designed for use in navy vessels in order to have a power/weight ratio that wasn't possible with the heavier four stroke engines used in most other diesel electric locos - and so there were some reliability issues, especially early on. But they were a successful innovative piece of technology and were held in huge affection as a result, with 6 out of 22 surviving the cutting torch. Cr@p they are not!
FIGHT !!!!
Part of my issue is with their popularity. They were a part failure: a limited number, very route-specific and temperamental beasts. They really were racehorses. Whereas many - IMV better - locos go relatively unheralded.
Compare and contrast with HSTs. They've lasted nearly fifty years. You may argue that's a decade too long, but they've proved a massive success, moving from route to route as needs must. Or more workaday locos, like the 37s, or even the 20s.
I do have a soft spot for the Baby Deltics though, and look forward to seeing the reproduction working.
After decades of rather crap UK diesel engines, the Deltic was something else in the naval context. The account of fitting them to an E-boat after the war - more power, and leaving a huge space in the engine room - says much.
Self-pitying Brexiters, whose vicious depictions of ‘Remainers’ were as dishonest as they were dangerous, are now pathetically seeking sympathy for the consequences of Brexit! This, I confess, is a plot twist I did not foresee. The narcissism of these saboteurs is off the charts.
I've just discovered James O'Brien has blocked me on Twitter. I rarely post anything on Twitter. I don't recall posting anything even related to him on Twitter. Yet, I am blocked. Strange.
You used to be able to run a script that would auto block people based on who they followed iirc, really ramp up the echo chamber.
Now we all accept it “came from the lab“ we can focus on the nuances of this question. Because it is nuanced
In order of ascending outrageousness
1. They collected a bat - maybe even in Yunnan, where the caves are - and it pissed on some poor lab worker, who brought the virus to the Wuhan wet market (surely the superspreader event)
2. They had bats in the lab and one bit a worker and etc etc
3. They passed the virus through humanized mice and a mouse bit etc etc
4. They added gain of function - for the best of reasons (improved vaccines) to the virus and the new nastier virus somehow infected a worker who went to the market
5. They added gain of function for generally good reasons but there were lurking bioweapons motivations as well - create nasty coronaviruses that can cripple economies - we know China is interested in this, Wuhan researchers are linked to Chinese military scientists who have openly talked about this, and written about it. The GOF’d virus got out, and etc etc
6. The evil scientists created a GOF’d coronavirus and DELIBERATELY released it as a bio weapon
There are probably more scenarios I’ve missed, but I am drinking a G&T
Of these my hunch is 1-4 as the most likely. Equally likely. 3 or 4 if I had to wager money
But 5 is still quite possible, even 6 at a pinch, tho it seems highly improbable. Why release a virus bio-weapon before your have a vaccine for your people? Fairly mad
What happened without any shadow of a doubt is that there was a shameful cover-up of much of this, and an attempt to blame the wet market, thus exonerating China and science entirely - and people should go to prison for this, for many years
A decision to attack with BW on this scale wouldn't be left up to scientists in any country.
Where's the line between defensive and offensive BW research anyway? .
Why release a virus bio-weapon before your have a vaccine for your people? Fairly mad
Not at all. Ask what internal objectives the rulers of China may have had (and still have) that aren't confined to considerations of whether or not people in China get the lergy. They locked down entire cities. Was that beneficial to their longer-term objectives? The first-order answer has to be yes.
How improbable does 6 seem if we consider what happened in 2020-22 outside of China and ask cui bono? Some and not just in China may have had a damned good idea of how things would develop in that period, or at least much better than they let on. You don't just chuck out a BW and laugh like Muttley. You assess likely effects and their probabilities and in particular you consider how good your opponents' defences are and how your opponents are likely to respond.
Then there are questions of who is an opponent and who you are cooperating with and to what extent. And the italicised question shouldn't only be asked of China. Thought you were interested in the technological revolution.
Source close to Hancock claims Oakeshott broke an NDA to publish the trove of WhatsApps. She publishes a long public interest defence. Quite extraordinary he chose the journalist who had campaigned most vigorously against his most significant political policy…
Later today, we find out Theresa May has handed over all her private government emails to Nigel Farage in order for him to write a favourable memoir. Boris Johnson currently deciding between James O’Brien and Ian Dunt.
Hancock is clearly an even bigger twit than even I imagined to trust this double-dealing source-shopper extraordinaire.
Still, that doesn't excuse her behaviour. She is a disgrace to her profession.
Can I just fact-check this? Was the course of events essentially: - Matt Hancock searches for someone to tell his story – settles on Isabel Oakeshott, who was consistently one of his biggest critics throughout covid - Matt Hancock hands over all his whatsapp messages (and presumably other source material) – which includes a lot of evidence that he wasn’t exactly on top of his game - Isabel Oakeshott publishes a book telling Matt Hancock’s story from Matt Hancock’s point of view (in a faux-diary style which critics find immensely irritating) - Isabel Oakeshott then publishes details of all the other stuff in the Whatsapps (and presumably other source material) confirming Hancock as an incompetent buffoon
Is that really what happened?
I must admit to a modicum of sympathy for Hancock. He was useless, particularly in his failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns. But I don’t think this is because he was a lockdown fundamentalist like Susan Michie, or because he was lazy (he seemed to be working pretty much all hours for about 6 months), or evil. He just wasn’t very bright. The stories in the Telegraph might give the lie to this, of course.
"Failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns" was just the path of least resistance. He certainly didn't have the courage to do otherwise.
That's easy to say now, but less easy then - especially in March 2020. Decisions needed making quickly, and there were massive risks in delaying decisions.
And as ever, *which* lockdown matters. There were several, and the argument against the later restrictions are weaker than for the March 2020 one. But the problem is that the March 2020 one set the trend.
The first one only set the trend because the government refused to anaylse its costs and its actual benefits (as opposed to its modelled benefits). It's probably true that in March 2020 the media firestorm made any other action politically impossible - but a brave government would have analysed what was happening every few weeks and would quickly have come to the conclusion that lockdown was both less necessary and less effective than originally assumed.
I really, really doubt that there was the evidence available at the time to make any such conclusion.
It seemed quite possible before the three-week "review" and was pretty clear by the six week "review" point - certainly on the necessity.
You might be correct, but that's not my recollection. As far as I recall, there was no such clarity.
That's because people pointing out the data were being howled down as "granny killers". If they could even get a hearing at all - which was incredibly difficult for anyone mildly questioning the orthodoxy.
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Oooh, fight! Fight!
I can't think of many posts that don't accept the 'fog of war' is real; indeed, I think many people on here thoroughly accept that. But that doesn't mean we can't link to things we see, even if they are partly fog-covered.
I also don't see anyone who expects it to be "resolved in 24-hr rolling news time".
"that we will win because we must win"
My own view is slightly different: we must give Ukraine all the help they need to win, because letting Russia win will create even more problems down the line. Now, that might be because I'm a 'scared idiot', or it might be because I've studied the bleedin' obvious from historical geopolitical conflicts.
Define "all the help they need to win".
If I was to say: "F16 block XV jets, ATACMS type 76 and Type XX destroyers," we'd both know I was bullshitting. firstly because we both know I don't have that sort of in-depth knowledge, and secondly because I don't think they exist.
But exactly that: whatever it takes, short of nukes, to help Ukraine to win.
Now, I know you're going to nitpick on that, but as a broad principle I think it's sound. If Ukraine don't 'win' (*) now, then we're going to have to do more elsewhere in the future. Do you disagree with that?
(*) For however you define 'win'.
So you'd advocate seconding our entire army, navy and air force to the conflict, to bolster the Ukrainians maximally in conventional warfare?
Possibly, yes - though I don't think it would get that far. We have spent the last year slowly creeping up our support, and Ukrainians have been dying.
But let me throw it back to you: what would you do?
Instinctively the current package seems about right, but I'm so far away from being an expert in such matters I try to refrain from commenting. A strategy I'd gently recommend to you.
LOL. A poster on here has a list of things he hates seeing on PB, and 'IANAE' is one of them. Something I often use. You might also notice that I quite like using other caveats. All I'm trying to do is make sense of complex situations.
Can you give us a list of everything that you are an expert in so we can discount your posts on other matters?
There are one or two folk on PB (not referring to Anabob here, I hasten to add) for whom it would be quicker to provide a self-determined list of what they are not experts in.
I wouldn't claim I was an 'expert' in anything. Heck, even my knowledge of ARM code is a few ISA's out of date. But do I know enough about some stuff to form a judgement on things relater to that stuff? Yes. Might I be wrong? Yes. But so might experts.
So I'd therefore state uncategorically that Deltics are cr@p.
They were the most powerful production diesel locomotives to run on British Rail, hauling the country's premier services on its fastest line at 100mph, and ran for twenty years. They were based on cutting edge technology - using high speed two stroke diesel engines designed for use in navy vessels in order to have a power/weight ratio that wasn't possible with the heavier four stroke engines used in most other diesel electric locos - and so there were some reliability issues, especially early on. But they were a successful innovative piece of technology and were held in huge affection as a result, with 6 out of 22 surviving the cutting torch. Cr@p they are not!
FIGHT !!!!
Part of my issue is with their popularity. They were a part failure: a limited number, very route-specific and temperamental beasts. They really were racehorses. Whereas many - IMV better - locos go relatively unheralded.
Compare and contrast with HSTs. They've lasted nearly fifty years. You may argue that's a decade too long, but they've proved a massive success, moving from route to route as needs must. Or more workaday locos, like the 37s, or even the 20s.
I do have a soft spot for the Baby Deltics though, and look forward to seeing the reproduction working.
After decades of rather crap UK diesel engines, the Deltic was something else in the naval context. The account of fitting them to an E-boat after the war - more power, and leaving a huge space in the engine room - says much.
A working E.185 would be interesting.
Yes, but AIUI that's the problem: marine engines have a very different ?duty cycle? to railway engines, which have to slow down and accelerate frequently, with large changes in revs. A patrol boat has a much easier time of it.
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Oooh, fight! Fight!
I can't think of many posts that don't accept the 'fog of war' is real; indeed, I think many people on here thoroughly accept that. But that doesn't mean we can't link to things we see, even if they are partly fog-covered.
I also don't see anyone who expects it to be "resolved in 24-hr rolling news time".
"that we will win because we must win"
My own view is slightly different: we must give Ukraine all the help they need to win, because letting Russia win will create even more problems down the line. Now, that might be because I'm a 'scared idiot', or it might be because I've studied the bleedin' obvious from historical geopolitical conflicts.
Define "all the help they need to win".
If I was to say: "F16 block XV jets, ATACMS type 76 and Type XX destroyers," we'd both know I was bullshitting. firstly because we both know I don't have that sort of in-depth knowledge, and secondly because I don't think they exist.
But exactly that: whatever it takes, short of nukes, to help Ukraine to win.
Now, I know you're going to nitpick on that, but as a broad principle I think it's sound. If Ukraine don't 'win' (*) now, then we're going to have to do more elsewhere in the future. Do you disagree with that?
(*) For however you define 'win'.
So you'd advocate seconding our entire army, navy and air force to the conflict, to bolster the Ukrainians maximally in conventional warfare?
Possibly, yes - though I don't think it would get that far. We have spent the last year slowly creeping up our support, and Ukrainians have been dying.
But let me throw it back to you: what would you do?
Instinctively the current package seems about right, but I'm so far away from being an expert in such matters I try to refrain from commenting. A strategy I'd gently recommend to you.
LOL. A poster on here has a list of things he hates seeing on PB, and 'IANAE' is one of them. Something I often use. You might also notice that I quite like using other caveats. All I'm trying to do is make sense of complex situations.
Can you give us a list of everything that you are an expert in so we can discount your posts on other matters?
There are one or two folk on PB (not referring to Anabob here, I hasten to add) for whom it would be quicker to provide a self-determined list of what they are not experts in.
I wouldn't claim I was an 'expert' in anything. Heck, even my knowledge of ARM code is a few ISA's out of date. But do I know enough about some stuff to form a judgement on things relater to that stuff? Yes. Might I be wrong? Yes. But so might experts.
So I'd therefore state uncategorically that Deltics are cr@p.
They were the most powerful production diesel locomotives to run on British Rail, hauling the country's premier services on its fastest line at 100mph, and ran for twenty years. They were based on cutting edge technology - using high speed two stroke diesel engines designed for use in navy vessels in order to have a power/weight ratio that wasn't possible with the heavier four stroke engines used in most other diesel electric locos - and so there were some reliability issues, especially early on. But they were a successful innovative piece of technology and were held in huge affection as a result, with 6 out of 22 surviving the cutting torch. Cr@p they are not!
FIGHT !!!!
Part of my issue is with their popularity. They were a part failure: a limited number, very route-specific and temperamental beasts. They really were racehorses. Whereas many - IMV better - locos go relatively unheralded.
Compare and contrast with HSTs. They've lasted nearly fifty years. You may argue that's a decade too long, but they've proved a massive success, moving from route to route as needs must. Or more workaday locos, like the 37s, or even the 20s.
I do have a soft spot for the Baby Deltics though, and look forward to seeing the reproduction working.
Yeah I get that. It's a bit like say the Boeing 737 vs Concorde. I can come up with so many reasons why Concorde was a disgrace and a ridiculous contraption, but once you've seen it flying... The Deltics are just absolute beasts, no two ways about it. At the same time I would say categorically that the HST was the best train ever made in this country, even if it doesn't stir the same passions in me.
Great PR move by the king: evict his son Harry Egalité so the ever popular Andrew can move in. That'll go down well in the focus groups.
His being visited by Ursula von der Leyen in connection with the Windsor Framework (!) didn't please Nigel Farage at all. Is it possible the king will have the rightwing press against him by the time of his coronation? He's got to pull a few positives out of the hat or else have a utility-scheme crowning job - and the latter's not happening.
Evicting Harry would indeed be popular.
And so would making Andrew down-size from 31 rooms to a pauper's 10 rooms.
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Oooh, fight! Fight!
I can't think of many posts that don't accept the 'fog of war' is real; indeed, I think many people on here thoroughly accept that. But that doesn't mean we can't link to things we see, even if they are partly fog-covered.
I also don't see anyone who expects it to be "resolved in 24-hr rolling news time".
"that we will win because we must win"
My own view is slightly different: we must give Ukraine all the help they need to win, because letting Russia win will create even more problems down the line. Now, that might be because I'm a 'scared idiot', or it might be because I've studied the bleedin' obvious from historical geopolitical conflicts.
Define "all the help they need to win".
If I was to say: "F16 block XV jets, ATACMS type 76 and Type XX destroyers," we'd both know I was bullshitting. firstly because we both know I don't have that sort of in-depth knowledge, and secondly because I don't think they exist.
But exactly that: whatever it takes, short of nukes, to help Ukraine to win.
Now, I know you're going to nitpick on that, but as a broad principle I think it's sound. If Ukraine don't 'win' (*) now, then we're going to have to do more elsewhere in the future. Do you disagree with that?
(*) For however you define 'win'.
So you'd advocate seconding our entire army, navy and air force to the conflict, to bolster the Ukrainians maximally in conventional warfare?
Possibly, yes - though I don't think it would get that far. We have spent the last year slowly creeping up our support, and Ukrainians have been dying.
But let me throw it back to you: what would you do?
Instinctively the current package seems about right, but I'm so far away from being an expert in such matters I try to refrain from commenting. A strategy I'd gently recommend to you.
LOL. A poster on here has a list of things he hates seeing on PB, and 'IANAE' is one of them. Something I often use. You might also notice that I quite like using other caveats. All I'm trying to do is make sense of complex situations.
Can you give us a list of everything that you are an expert in so we can discount your posts on other matters?
There are one or two folk on PB (not referring to Anabob here, I hasten to add) for whom it would be quicker to provide a self-determined list of what they are not experts in.
I wouldn't claim I was an 'expert' in anything. Heck, even my knowledge of ARM code is a few ISA's out of date. But do I know enough about some stuff to form a judgement on things relater to that stuff? Yes. Might I be wrong? Yes. But so might experts.
So I'd therefore state uncategorically that Deltics are cr@p.
They were the most powerful production diesel locomotives to run on British Rail, hauling the country's premier services on its fastest line at 100mph, and ran for twenty years. They were based on cutting edge technology - using high speed two stroke diesel engines designed for use in navy vessels in order to have a power/weight ratio that wasn't possible with the heavier four stroke engines used in most other diesel electric locos - and so there were some reliability issues, especially early on. But they were a successful innovative piece of technology and were held in huge affection as a result, with 6 out of 22 surviving the cutting torch. Cr@p they are not!
FIGHT !!!!
Part of my issue is with their popularity. They were a part failure: a limited number, very route-specific and temperamental beasts. They really were racehorses. Whereas many - IMV better - locos go relatively unheralded.
Compare and contrast with HSTs. They've lasted nearly fifty years. You may argue that's a decade too long, but they've proved a massive success, moving from route to route as needs must. Or more workaday locos, like the 37s, or even the 20s.
I do have a soft spot for the Baby Deltics though, and look forward to seeing the reproduction working.
After decades of rather crap UK diesel engines, the Deltic was something else in the naval context. The account of fitting them to an E-boat after the war - more power, and leaving a huge space in the engine room - says much.
A working E.185 would be interesting.
Yes, but AIUI that's the problem: marine engines have a very different ?duty cycle? to railway engines, which have to slow down and accelerate frequently, with large changes in revs. A patrol boat has a much easier time of it.
Shame my dad isn't with us to be asked. He served in Ton class engine rooms in the RNR. Now he would have been an expert on crapness or otherwise (albeit in a different regime of operations from a Co-Co loco).
Now we all accept it “came from the lab“ we can focus on the nuances of this question. Because it is nuanced
In order of ascending outrageousness
1. They collected a bat - maybe even in Yunnan, where the caves are - and it pissed on some poor lab worker, who brought the virus to the Wuhan wet market (surely the superspreader event)
2. They had bats in the lab and one bit a worker and etc etc
3. They passed the virus through humanized mice and a mouse bit etc etc
4. They added gain of function - for the best of reasons (improved vaccines) to the virus and the new nastier virus somehow infected a worker who went to the market
5. They added gain of function for generally good reasons but there were lurking bioweapons motivations as well - create nasty coronaviruses that can cripple economies - we know China is interested in this, Wuhan researchers are linked to Chinese military scientists who have openly talked about this, and written about it. The GOF’d virus got out, and etc etc
6. The evil scientists created a GOF’d coronavirus and DELIBERATELY released it as a bio weapon
There are probably more scenarios I’ve missed, but I am drinking a G&T
Of these my hunch is 1-4 as the most likely. Equally likely. 3 or 4 if I had to wager money
But 5 is still quite possible, even 6 at a pinch, tho it seems highly improbable. Why release a virus bio-weapon before your have a vaccine for your people? Fairly mad
What happened without any shadow of a doubt is that there was a shameful cover-up of much of this, and an attempt to blame the wet market, thus exonerating China and science entirely - and people should go to prison for this, for many years
I know this will bring your usual childish insults down on my head, but I don't *accept* it “came from the lab“
I accept it *may* have come from a lab, which I believe I have said all along. It is now looking slightly more likely (although have the FBI released the evidence on which they based their comments?) But it's far from certain.
(Yawns, as he awaits the insults...)
At this point you’re just too dull to insult, it’s like bitch-slapping a donkey
Serious question - why are you so invested in lab leak?
My theory - correct me if it's wrong - is you were pushing it early and got called a Trumpian scumbag by armies of the woke.
I just enjoy being smarter and quicker on the uptake than most. Not hard with the lefty slow learners of PB, it’s true. I’m not really testing myself. And it’s probably an unpleasant spectacle to witness, and I shouldn’t gloat when I manage to outthink imbeciles
Still fun tho. Heh. And at my advanced years I take my pleasures where I can
But my theory - since I have my moments too.
WERE you pushing it from the get-go? Did you intuit the answer before the evidence? Sounds spooky but Donald Trump managed it so I can imagine a select few others did. I honestly don't remember. I wouldn't ask if I did.
it doesn’t take God-like intuition to work out that an apparently engineered novel bat coronavirus with unusual pathogenicity emerging in Wuhan, the only city in the world with advanced biolabs dedicated to engineering novel bat coronaviruses to be more pathogenic, was QUITE the coincidence
And then the coincidences piled up, month by month. That’s it. The evidence WAS there from the get-go, the emails between scientists at the time - January 2020 - acknowledged all this! Give up your pointless quest
This debate is over. It came from the lab. We will never know *for sure* but we now know in the much higher 90s percentwise. Enough
I had a root around the old threads, and TimT posted in spring 2020 about a Nature paper published about gain of function research at the Wuhan lab on coronaviruses in mice. Not really sure why you're identifying someone as a seer on the basis of an article published in 2021.
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Good post. The PB Toy Soldiers are a particularly unfunny joke. The worst thing about this site.
"PB Toy Soldier" being someone who thinks that a sovereign state is entitled to defend itself from invasion.
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Good post. The PB Toy Soldiers are a particularly unfunny joke. The worst thing about this site.
"PB Toy Soldier" being someone who thinks that a sovereign state is entitled to defend itself from invasion.
Do they lack external genitalia but have scars on their cheeks?
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Oooh, fight! Fight!
I can't think of many posts that don't accept the 'fog of war' is real; indeed, I think many people on here thoroughly accept that. But that doesn't mean we can't link to things we see, even if they are partly fog-covered.
I also don't see anyone who expects it to be "resolved in 24-hr rolling news time".
"that we will win because we must win"
My own view is slightly different: we must give Ukraine all the help they need to win, because letting Russia win will create even more problems down the line. Now, that might be because I'm a 'scared idiot', or it might be because I've studied the bleedin' obvious from historical geopolitical conflicts.
Define "all the help they need to win".
If I was to say: "F16 block XV jets, ATACMS type 76 and Type XX destroyers," we'd both know I was bullshitting. firstly because we both know I don't have that sort of in-depth knowledge, and secondly because I don't think they exist.
But exactly that: whatever it takes, short of nukes, to help Ukraine to win.
Now, I know you're going to nitpick on that, but as a broad principle I think it's sound. If Ukraine don't 'win' (*) now, then we're going to have to do more elsewhere in the future. Do you disagree with that?
(*) For however you define 'win'.
So you'd advocate seconding our entire army, navy and air force to the conflict, to bolster the Ukrainians maximally in conventional warfare?
Possibly, yes - though I don't think it would get that far. We have spent the last year slowly creeping up our support, and Ukrainians have been dying.
But let me throw it back to you: what would you do?
Instinctively the current package seems about right, but I'm so far away from being an expert in such matters I try to refrain from commenting. A strategy I'd gently recommend to you.
LOL. A poster on here has a list of things he hates seeing on PB, and 'IANAE' is one of them. Something I often use. You might also notice that I quite like using other caveats. All I'm trying to do is make sense of complex situations.
Can you give us a list of everything that you are an expert in so we can discount your posts on other matters?
There are one or two folk on PB (not referring to Anabob here, I hasten to add) for whom it would be quicker to provide a self-determined list of what they are not experts in.
I wouldn't claim I was an 'expert' in anything. Heck, even my knowledge of ARM code is a few ISA's out of date. But do I know enough about some stuff to form a judgement on things relater to that stuff? Yes. Might I be wrong? Yes. But so might experts.
So I'd therefore state uncategorically that Deltics are cr@p.
They were the most powerful production diesel locomotives to run on British Rail, hauling the country's premier services on its fastest line at 100mph, and ran for twenty years. They were based on cutting edge technology - using high speed two stroke diesel engines designed for use in navy vessels in order to have a power/weight ratio that wasn't possible with the heavier four stroke engines used in most other diesel electric locos - and so there were some reliability issues, especially early on. But they were a successful innovative piece of technology and were held in huge affection as a result, with 6 out of 22 surviving the cutting torch. Cr@p they are not!
FIGHT !!!!
Part of my issue is with their popularity. They were a part failure: a limited number, very route-specific and temperamental beasts. They really were racehorses. Whereas many - IMV better - locos go relatively unheralded.
Compare and contrast with HSTs. They've lasted nearly fifty years. You may argue that's a decade too long, but they've proved a massive success, moving from route to route as needs must. Or more workaday locos, like the 37s, or even the 20s.
I do have a soft spot for the Baby Deltics though, and look forward to seeing the reproduction working.
After decades of rather crap UK diesel engines, the Deltic was something else in the naval context. The account of fitting them to an E-boat after the war - more power, and leaving a huge space in the engine room - says much.
A working E.185 would be interesting.
Yes, but AIUI that's the problem: marine engines have a very different ?duty cycle? to railway engines, which have to slow down and accelerate frequently, with large changes in revs. A patrol boat has a much easier time of it.
IIRC the problem for naval diesels, for the UK, was building a reliable unit that didn't fall through the bottom of the ship on account of the weight.
Up till the Deltic, UK naval diesels were very, very heavy.
I've never seen a good explanation of why. Even when the UK literally took diesels out of U Boat prizes at the end of WWI - and even installed them in some operational boats (such as X1) - there were massive reliability problems.
An interesting What-if - Someone in RN engineering tires of the problems with diesels in the 1930s. After decades of no improvement, what about this internal combustion turbine* this Whittle chap is talking about?
*Fisher tried to promote internal combustion turbines (aka gas turbines) as the engine of the future. Which sparked Sire Charles Parsons to remark that the internal combustion engine may "come in" for the Navy**, but the internal combustion turbine was impossible.
Now we all accept it “came from the lab“ we can focus on the nuances of this question. Because it is nuanced
In order of ascending outrageousness
1. They collected a bat - maybe even in Yunnan, where the caves are - and it pissed on some poor lab worker, who brought the virus to the Wuhan wet market (surely the superspreader event)
2. They had bats in the lab and one bit a worker and etc etc
3. They passed the virus through humanized mice and a mouse bit etc etc
4. They added gain of function - for the best of reasons (improved vaccines) to the virus and the new nastier virus somehow infected a worker who went to the market
5. They added gain of function for generally good reasons but there were lurking bioweapons motivations as well - create nasty coronaviruses that can cripple economies - we know China is interested in this, Wuhan researchers are linked to Chinese military scientists who have openly talked about this, and written about it. The GOF’d virus got out, and etc etc
6. The evil scientists created a GOF’d coronavirus and DELIBERATELY released it as a bio weapon
There are probably more scenarios I’ve missed, but I am drinking a G&T
Of these my hunch is 1-4 as the most likely. Equally likely. 3 or 4 if I had to wager money
But 5 is still quite possible, even 6 at a pinch, tho it seems highly improbable. Why release a virus bio-weapon before your have a vaccine for your people? Fairly mad
What happened without any shadow of a doubt is that there was a shameful cover-up of much of this, and an attempt to blame the wet market, thus exonerating China and science entirely - and people should go to prison for this, for many years
I know this will bring your usual childish insults down on my head, but I don't *accept* it “came from the lab“
I accept it *may* have come from a lab, which I believe I have said all along. It is now looking slightly more likely (although have the FBI released the evidence on which they based their comments?) But it's far from certain.
(Yawns, as he awaits the insults...)
At this point you’re just too dull to insult, it’s like bitch-slapping a donkey
Serious question - why are you so invested in lab leak?
My theory - correct me if it's wrong - is you were pushing it early and got called a Trumpian scumbag by armies of the woke.
I just enjoy being smarter and quicker on the uptake than most. Not hard with the lefty slow learners of PB, it’s true. I’m not really testing myself. And it’s probably an unpleasant spectacle to witness, and I shouldn’t gloat when I manage to outthink imbeciles
Still fun tho. Heh. And at my advanced years I take my pleasures where I can
But my theory - since I have my moments too.
WERE you pushing it from the get-go? Did you intuit the answer before the evidence? Sounds spooky but Donald Trump managed it so I can imagine a select few others did. I honestly don't remember. I wouldn't ask if I did.
it doesn’t take God-like intuition to work out that an apparently engineered novel bat coronavirus with unusual pathogenicity emerging in Wuhan, the only city in the world with advanced biolabs dedicated to engineering novel bat coronaviruses to be more pathogenic, was QUITE the coincidence
And then the coincidences piled up, month by month. That’s it. The evidence WAS there from the get-go, the emails between scientists at the time - January 2020 - acknowledged all this! Give up your pointless quest
This debate is over. It came from the lab. We will never know *for sure* but we now know in the much higher 90s percentwise. Enough
I had a root around the old threads, and TimT posted in spring 2020 about a Nature paper published about gain of function research at the Wuhan lab on coronaviruses in mice. Not really sure why you're identifying someone as a seer on the basis of an article published in 2021.
I remember persuading TimT to look again at lab origin in early 2020. To his credit (he blamed zoonosis at first) he did so
You know what, I am beyond arguing about this. I was right. I have surely been wrong about many things, as @Peter_the_Punter points out, and I naturally focus on the things I got correct. A selection bias
But I WAS right about this
Now, I shall go and watch BETTER CALL SAUL Season 2. Later
In Dorothy L Sayers masterpiece 'The Nine Tailors' her detective, Peter Wimsey, avoids walking round a church anticlockwise for this very reason.
The only problem with that book was that her knowledge of campanology was a bit ropey.
Well that, and DLS's invasive snobbishness & pretentiousness.
Wimsey is one of the most irritating detectives in fiction.
Having come late in life to the books, I think Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe is my all-time favourite now.
The real hero of Rex Stout's wonderful series is Archie Goodwin, not Nero Wolfe, which is what makes it so special. That and the orchids.
BTW PG Wodehouse was a huge Rex Stout fan - which shows just how good he was.
And, finally, yes, Wimsey is annoying. The Nine Tailors sees him at his best, and his presence is muted by the greatness of the picture of fen life in 1930 somewhere on the borders of Lincs, Cambs and Norfolk. Not all that far from Algarkirk.
I agree with you -- the most interesting portions of 'The Nine Tailors' are the descriptions of Fenland life.
Harriet Vane is more interesting than the absurd Wimsey & the feudal Bunter. The best of DLS's books is Gaudy Night where Vane (& female education) is centre stage.
I was on the side of the bedder who attacks all the dons and I was heartbroken when she was caught by the wretched monocled Wimsey.
Goodwin & Wolfe are an incredible combo. I prefer Wolfe to Goodwin. Both Aunt Dahlia and Bertie Wooster were big fans, as was their creator.
I think the Nero Wolfe novels are stylistically very close to PG Wodehouse -- in that they create a highly artificial, yet enchanting & somehow believable, Universe in the brownstone on West 35th Street.
I mean, there is no-one who ever lived who was anything like Nero Wolfe. Or Archie Goodwin.
Just like there was no-one who ever lived who was anything like Jeeves. Or Bertie Wooster.
Sorry: just to make sure that there's no mistake here.
You supported the "bedder" who attacked the dons because she was opposed to female education?
I want to make absolutely sure there's no misunderstanding here.
I am always on the side of the degraded in the gutter because they have been thrown there.
The bedder's final speech is deranged and magnificent. The dons are shocked to silence by its emotional power.
Nevertheless, her reign of terror was because she was opposed to female education.
Motivated by an injustice -- which even the perpetrator accepted was unjust by the end of the novel.
The dons were too stupid to catch her.
I am on the side of anyone who can organise a reign of terror within the sedate confines of an Oxford College.
She did not go far enough -- assassination of the Senior Tutor & burning down the Chapel are necessary for a true reign of terror.
The injustice was that her husband was sacked and stripped of his degree for forging a historical thesis.
Which is unjust only in the sense it doesn't happen today which is why the likes of Richard Carrier, Robert Price and Naomi Wolfe continue to boast of their doctorates. Even though they should have them withdrawn.
But it wasn't acknowledged to be unjust. Anything but. The only thing they felt was wrong was neglecting him afterwards. 'Miss Lydgate would have acted as I did: but she would also have made it her business to enquire into what became of that unhappy man.'
Yup. For a modern version…
IIRC a journalist ran a plagiarism detector against theses of a number of prominent German politicians.
The resulting efforts to *not* find them guilty of plagiarism are quite inspiring. In a way.
Does paying someone else to write the thesis count as plagiarism? I knew of a case where an Iranian emigré who'd been close to the Shah did that. He had so much money he didn't know what to do with it, and he felt like getting a PhD the way he might buy a block of flats or a yacht... Nothing happened to him, despite at least one member of the Higher Degrees Committee being fully aware of what he'd done.
Judging from this week's Economist academia (it has 3 pages on science papers) is a corrupt and corrupting mess.
Rather that it has the same mix of people - the honest, the venal and the crooks - as everywhere else, I think ?
In a sense yes, of course. But academia is different. Its point and purpose is truth seeking. Without that quality reliably safeguarded it becomes something different.
As Cyclefree so often reminds us in other contexts, that's about systems, though.
Just because someone is an academic, or a scientist, or a policeman, you can't rely on their being any different from the rest of us.
Great PR move by the king: evict his son Harry Egalité so the ever popular Andrew can move in. That'll go down well in the focus groups.
His being visited by Ursula von der Leyen in connection with the Windsor Framework (!) didn't please Nigel Farage at all. Is it possible the king will have the rightwing press against him by the time of his coronation? He's got to pull a few positives out of the hat or else have a utility-scheme crowning job - and the latter's not happening.
Evicting Harry would indeed be popular.
And so would making Andrew down-size from 31 rooms to a pauper's 10 rooms.
Just catching up, via the recently-discovered "notifications" on a week-old thread. About whether having military experience gives any insight into geopolitical conflicts the like of which we are seeing now.
Of course it doesn't. It does mean that I can look at an area weapon strike and cast my eyes to the ceiling as everyone pronounces that the damage came from hand held anti-tank weapons yes sure, but more broadly at theatre level then not at all.
My inestimable expertise comes from studying the bleedin' obvious, from historical geopolitical conflicts, and from accepting that the fog of war is real and this one won't be resolved in 24-hr rolling news time.
I also call out comments which display absurd historical determinism or say, one way or another, that we will win because we must win, these latter usually made by scared idiots on here who hope that if they shout something loud enough the bad man will go away.
Anyway, good weekend everyone, I trust.
Good post. The PB Toy Soldiers are a particularly unfunny joke. The worst thing about this site.
"PB Toy Soldier" being someone who thinks that a sovereign state is entitled to defend itself from invasion.
Do they lack external genitalia but have scars on their cheeks?
"So what is 0.04 if it is not a percentage (Five marks: show working)"
It is all there, embodied in that one sentence, the effortless elitism of the public school fool.
I have to say, I did smile at the "(Five marks: show working)" part. However, I think what Boris showed here is what a very large part of the entire journalistic and political professions demonstrated through Covid. They just didn't understand, and probably still don't, the maths.
Now we all accept it “came from the lab“ we can focus on the nuances of this question. Because it is nuanced
In order of ascending outrageousness
1. They collected a bat - maybe even in Yunnan, where the caves are - and it pissed on some poor lab worker, who brought the virus to the Wuhan wet market (surely the superspreader event)
2. They had bats in the lab and one bit a worker and etc etc
3. They passed the virus through humanized mice and a mouse bit etc etc
4. They added gain of function - for the best of reasons (improved vaccines) to the virus and the new nastier virus somehow infected a worker who went to the market
5. They added gain of function for generally good reasons but there were lurking bioweapons motivations as well - create nasty coronaviruses that can cripple economies - we know China is interested in this, Wuhan researchers are linked to Chinese military scientists who have openly talked about this, and written about it. The GOF’d virus got out, and etc etc
6. The evil scientists created a GOF’d coronavirus and DELIBERATELY released it as a bio weapon
There are probably more scenarios I’ve missed, but I am drinking a G&T
Of these my hunch is 1-4 as the most likely. Equally likely. 3 or 4 if I had to wager money
But 5 is still quite possible, even 6 at a pinch, tho it seems highly improbable. Why release a virus bio-weapon before your have a vaccine for your people? Fairly mad
What happened without any shadow of a doubt is that there was a shameful cover-up of much of this, and an attempt to blame the wet market, thus exonerating China and science entirely - and people should go to prison for this, for many years
I know this will bring your usual childish insults down on my head, but I don't *accept* it “came from the lab“
I accept it *may* have come from a lab, which I believe I have said all along. It is now looking slightly more likely (although have the FBI released the evidence on which they based their comments?) But it's far from certain.
(Yawns, as he awaits the insults...)
At this point you’re just too dull to insult, it’s like bitch-slapping a donkey
Serious question - why are you so invested in lab leak?
My theory - correct me if it's wrong - is you were pushing it early and got called a Trumpian scumbag by armies of the woke.
I just enjoy being smarter and quicker on the uptake than most. Not hard with the lefty slow learners of PB, it’s true. I’m not really testing myself. And it’s probably an unpleasant spectacle to witness, and I shouldn’t gloat when I manage to outthink imbeciles
Still fun tho. Heh. And at my advanced years I take my pleasures where I can
But my theory - since I have my moments too.
WERE you pushing it from the get-go? Did you intuit the answer before the evidence? Sounds spooky but Donald Trump managed it so I can imagine a select few others did. I honestly don't remember. I wouldn't ask if I did.
it doesn’t take God-like intuition to work out that an apparently engineered novel bat coronavirus with unusual pathogenicity emerging in Wuhan, the only city in the world with advanced biolabs dedicated to engineering novel bat coronaviruses to be more pathogenic, was QUITE the coincidence
And then the coincidences piled up, month by month. That’s it. The evidence WAS there from the get-go, the emails between scientists at the time - January 2020 - acknowledged all this! Give up your pointless quest
This debate is over. It came from the lab. We will never know *for sure* but we now know in the much higher 90s percentwise. Enough
Ah the coincidence thing. No, that's not as spooky as the statistical layman tends to instinctively feel. Hopefully you didn't go in big and hard and early based on that.
But, yes, there's a bit more now - although coincidence remains the prime exhibit - and the FBI contribution today is not unimportant. There's some smart cookies at the FBI.
I adjust as I go and where I have it now is Natural and Lab Leak neck and neck. Natural is still just slightly ahead perhaps but Lab Leak has the 'mo.
"So what is 0.04 if it is not a percentage (Five marks: show working)"
It is all there, embodied in that one sentence, the effortless elitism of the public school fool.
I have to say, I did smile at the "(Five marks: show working)" part. However, I think what Boris showed here is what a very large part of the entire journalistic and political professions demonstrated through Covid. They just didn't understand, and probably still don't, the maths.
Oh sure.
But this isn't even GCSE maths.
Percentages are Key Stage 2 (Year 5). So, it is something that we expect most 10 year olds to have grasped.
We faced COVID, in which conflicting scientific evidence needed weighing to decide policy, with someone who had not mastered numeracy at Key Stage 2.
Comments
Bring back the SeanT of old, along with Tim. Those two really could engage in epics insultathons.
Beyond tedious.
The move to amend Russia’s criminal code came after Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Kremlin-linked tycoon who heads the Wagner mercenary group, complained that it was impossible to prosecute people who “discredit” his fighters.
Under the law, introduced almost a year ago, people can be charged with discrediting or spreading “fake news” only about Russia’s armed forces, not paramilitary groups.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russia-will-jail-critics-of-paramilitary-wagner-group-qq5zhh3k9
But let me throw it back to you: what would you do?
My theory - correct me if it's wrong - is you were pushing it early and got called a Trumpian scumbag by armies of the woke.
Essentially - do lab leak "believers" believe that there was a single leak and that it generated all these variants by that time (i.e. before anyone even realised there was a pandemic) or do they believe that all these different variants were generated separately within the lab and that at least 13 people were separately infected and carried the infection into the local community? Or do they believe something between the two? In which case it would be interesting to see some Bayesian probability estimates based on those beliefs.
Or do they just believe the World Health Authority researchers were lying or deceived? (In which case I am tempted to say people may just as well believe whatever takes their fancy - unless there is some further evidence to back their fancy up.)
Still fun tho. Heh. And at my advanced years I take my pleasures where I can
Also, a foreign volunteer tweeted yesterday that seemed to indicate he was being sent somewhere very dangerous, which people took to mean Bahkmut.
At this stage many of them have switched to a new angle. “OK maybe it came from the lab. So what. How does it change things? What does it matter”
Seriously. 20 million dead and WHAT DOES IT MATTER
They demurred and hence we went into battle with them. And won. Including me at one point threatening to call the police if they didn't act on the diagnosis.
She recovered completely I'm happy to say, and is now playing scrabble online, etc but had we left it to the NHS she would be rocking gently in a home somewhere.
https://twitter.com/jmvasquez1974/status/1630896067175923712
I am really good at this and should be on Sky News.
We need what I think we might get - prices flat for years but falling in real terms and against earnings.
Can you give us a list of everything that you are an expert in so we can discount your posts on other matters?
There have been a series of long-range Ukrainian strikes - first Mariupol, then deep into Russia.
Fairly standard diet of drone videos showing destruction of Russian equipment.
If the Ukrainian strategy is similar to last summer, as claimed by some observers, to exhaust the Russians by defending favourable defensive locations and then launch a counterattack once the Russian advance has stalled, then the news from Bakhmut would suggest there's some time to wait for a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
If this stuff is not answered well beforehand then your pension will be worth less than a booger picked from your nose.
Chairborne Ranger Challenge. So yesterday like many times someone said my uniform is too clean so I challenged any press to embed themselves in my unit a couple of days and looks like CBS answered first so working on a day in the life of my unit. More to come soon.
https://twitter.com/jmvasquez1974/status/1629107396072345602?s=20
There was also a report from someone in the UK Ministry of Defense that he first units had "finished their training" on Bradley AFV.
Anyway, wear the insults with pride - the PB equivalent of duelling scars.
- Matt Hancock searches for someone to tell his story – settles on Isabel Oakeshott, who was consistently one of his biggest critics throughout covid
- Matt Hancock hands over all his whatsapp messages (and presumably other source material) – which includes a lot of evidence that he wasn’t exactly on top of his game
- Isabel Oakeshott publishes a book telling Matt Hancock’s story from Matt Hancock’s point of view (in a faux-diary style which critics find immensely irritating)
- Isabel Oakeshott then publishes details of all the other stuff in the Whatsapps (and presumably other source material) confirming Hancock as an incompetent buffoon
Is that really what happened?
I must admit to a modicum of sympathy for Hancock. He was useless, particularly in his failure to question models or to consider the downside of lockdowns. But I don’t think this is because he was a lockdown fundamentalist like Susan Michie, or because he was lazy (he seemed to be working pretty much all hours for about 6 months), or evil. He just wasn’t very bright.
The stories in the Telegraph might give the lie to this, of course.
But I'm keen to show support for Ukraine in this, especially given all the keyboard warriors the pro-Russian side has. If all I can do is give a little money to slightly dubious pro-Ukrainian charities, and echo support for Ukraine on the Internet, then that's what I'll do.
Because keeping silent will let the keyboard warriors supporting Russian shittiness to win.
Hancock's crime (being a bit credulous and rather dim) would seem to pale into insignificance to that of the odious Oakeshott: who seems to count betrayal of client confidentiality (implicit and explicit) and the anchor rule of her entire profession (never reveal your sources) among her various transgressions.
WERE you pushing it from the get-go? Did you intuit the answer before the evidence? Sounds spooky but Donald Trump managed it so I can imagine a select few others did. I honestly don't remember. I wouldn't ask if I did.
And as ever, *which* lockdown matters. There were several, and the argument against the later restrictions are weaker than for the March 2020 one. But the problem is that the March 2020 one set the trend.
Some observers have suggested that the current deliveries of Western tanks will mostly be used to create reserve formations so that Ukraine can be confident it won't be left without any tanks at all, if it uses its existing Soviet-era tanks in a new offensive and suffers the expected rate of losses while doing so. We shouldn't necessarily expect to see the Western tanks thrown straight into the front lines.
https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1630901072079273986
Is an empty list a list?
So I'd therefore state uncategorically that Deltics are cr@p.
Though he has another significant personality trait, which is a colossal belief in himself. Maybe this was such that he just assumed the source material would show him in the right because he fundamentally believes himself to be in the right - because Matt Hancock Gets Things Right.
Superficially her actions are more immoral than his - though her actions will only ruin Matt Hancock's already-ruined reputation; his actions brought death and misery and hardship to millions.
expertise = []
Maths lessons with Boris Johnson via
@Telegraph
https://twitter.com/JackElsom/status/1630941780265803776?s=20
Conqueror tanks were distributed in the Centurion units. The Conquerors were supposed to use their heavy guns at long range, using their advanced sighting systems to destroy any Russian heavy tanks, and then hammer the mediums.
This idea disappeared when advanced tank guns meant that the basic tanks could do both jobs - when the Centurion got the L7 105mm, for example.
But there is a considerable gap between the capabilities of the heavier Western tanks and the older Soviet tanks that are currently being used on both sides, in Ukraine.
The return of the Heavy Tank?
Only money can measure it properly. Eg Leon, put £1 on all of his takes at fair price for say a year, where do you stand? 5 star hotel or the poorhouse?
Part of my issue is with their popularity. They were a part failure: a limited number, very route-specific and temperamental beasts. They really were racehorses. Whereas many - IMV better - locos go relatively unheralded.
Compare and contrast with HSTs. They've lasted nearly fifty years. You may argue that's a decade too long, but they've proved a massive success, moving from route to route as needs must. Or more workaday locos, like the 37s, or even the 20s.
I do have a soft spot for the Baby Deltics though, and look forward to seeing the reproduction working.
2014 cost Edinburgh thousands of jobs and a lot of tax base. The determination of the SNP to finish the job drives me to despair. Who is going to pay for all these idiots digging up every second street in Edinburgh without any thought of the knock on consequences if that happens?
And then the coincidences piled up, month by month. That’s it. The evidence WAS there from the get-go, the emails between scientists at the time - January 2020 - acknowledged all this! Give up your pointless quest
This debate is over. It came from the lab. We will never know *for sure* but we now know in the much higher 90s percentwise. Enough
A working E.185 would be interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_crow_(tool)
Which I've used in anger, several times.
I've no idea if there's a connection between the names.
Where's the line between defensive and offensive BW research anyway?
. Not at all. Ask what internal objectives the rulers of China may have had (and still have) that aren't confined to considerations of whether or not people in China get the lergy. They locked down entire cities. Was that beneficial to their longer-term objectives? The first-order answer has to be yes.
How improbable does 6 seem if we consider what happened in 2020-22 outside of China and ask cui bono? Some and not just in China may have had a damned good idea of how things would develop in that period, or at least much better than they let on. You don't just chuck out a BW and laugh like Muttley. You assess likely effects and their probabilities and in particular you consider how good your opponents' defences are and how your opponents are likely to respond.
Then there are questions of who is an opponent and who you are cooperating with and to what extent. And the italicised question shouldn't only be asked of China. Thought you were interested in the technological revolution.
At the same time I would say categorically that the HST was the best train ever made in this country, even if it doesn't stir the same passions in me.
Up till the Deltic, UK naval diesels were very, very heavy.
I've never seen a good explanation of why. Even when the UK literally took diesels out of U Boat prizes at the end of WWI - and even installed them in some operational boats (such as X1) - there were massive reliability problems.
An interesting What-if - Someone in RN engineering tires of the problems with diesels in the 1930s. After decades of no improvement, what about this internal combustion turbine* this Whittle chap is talking about?
*Fisher tried to promote internal combustion turbines (aka gas turbines) as the engine of the future. Which sparked Sire Charles Parsons to remark that the internal combustion engine may "come in" for the Navy**, but the internal combustion turbine was impossible.
** Meaning beyond submarines and small boats.
You know what, I am beyond arguing about this. I was right. I have surely been wrong about many things, as @Peter_the_Punter points out, and I naturally focus on the things I got correct. A selection bias
But I WAS right about this
Now, I shall go and watch BETTER CALL SAUL Season 2. Later
Just because someone is an academic, or a scientist, or a policeman, you can't rely on their being any different from the rest of us.
It is all there, embodied in that one sentence, the effortless elitism of the public school fool.
But, yes, there's a bit more now - although coincidence remains the prime exhibit - and the FBI contribution today is not unimportant. There's some smart cookies at the FBI.
I adjust as I go and where I have it now is Natural and Lab Leak neck and neck. Natural is still just slightly ahead perhaps but Lab Leak has the 'mo.
It's quite exciting.
But this isn't even GCSE maths.
Percentages are Key Stage 2 (Year 5). So, it is something that we expect most 10 year olds to have grasped.
We faced COVID, in which conflicting scientific evidence needed weighing to decide policy, with someone who had not mastered numeracy at Key Stage 2.