There's so many named recent official sources, which is new.
What counts is evidence which can be expertly examined and re-examined and reported on according to peer reviewed science standards. Adjectives and hearsay don't count. That which is merely unexplained visual phenomena doesn't count either. We can't explain lots of things - consciousness, the origin of the universe, the reason why the law of gravity is how it is and not different, why we see yellow as yellow and not green, how life began and so on - but we don't attribute it to aliens.
As and when there is a real story it isn't going to be confined to websites no-one has heard of. There is a fortune out there for real scientists and accurate journalists, and they will get it if they can.
The rest is noise.
I wouldn't quite agree with this point of view. Much of the new information is already out there on mainstream news sources, for instance. What we have here, I think, is an entirely new situation where there are multiple current-serving or recently, named governmental officials making extraordinary claims, but for whom there seems to a great deal of legislation preventing them going further. So I would say still this seems to be primarily an issue about process, for the moment, rather than materials or evidence yet.
This is why the focus in the U.S is shifting to new Congressional hearings, and possible changes in the law to make further whistleblowing on this topic more easy.
And an awful lot more current serving or recent officials pouring scorn on the idea.
It’s grift, pure and simple, and it’s conning people who want to believe.
Well, let's do a little bit of a cut-and-paste of all the most credible recent sources, and do a sort of compilation of them, to see how they stack up.
When I have some time in a a bit, I will nose about and put them all together.
Kind of a problem when there are no credible sources, just grifters and lunatics.
This is a good piece on the latest UFO flap, and why it is different from all others. It n
What’s Sturgeon supposed to have done, anyway? Mislaid a campervan?
And don’t give me the sub judice shite.
Supposedly ringfenced funding is apparently hard to find, and various odd purchases which even the treasurers did not know about have been identified.
What might have happened is unclear and what amounts to a crime in this area seems even unclearer. So there's suspicion but detailed allegations are rare.
What does seem clear at the very least is that Murrell and Sturgeon were not doing a good job overseeing the party finances and no one else in the party seems to have had any ability to have real input to them, whatever their position.
From their own perspective, arguably they were doing a great job of overseeing the party's finances.
I remember when Britain was considered politically stable and relatively lacking in the corruption seen in lesser polities like France or the US.
Your objection is purely to when you think the wrong sort of people are being held to account.
If this was Boris Johnson you'd be pleasuring yourself so furiously you'd barely have time to post your euphoria on here.
Sorry, what, are you suggesting I object to Sturgeon’s arrest?
You seemed to be at 3.06pm. That not the case?
Even if not I expect you to rapidly pivot to how this proves that Britain is flushing itself down the toilet, whilst America is on the cusp of a glorious golden age, such is your wont.
There's so many named recent official sources, which is new.
What counts is evidence which can be expertly examined and re-examined and reported on according to peer reviewed science standards. Adjectives and hearsay don't count. That which is merely unexplained visual phenomena doesn't count either. We can't explain lots of things - consciousness, the origin of the universe, the reason why the law of gravity is how it is and not different, why we see yellow as yellow and not green, how life began and so on - but we don't attribute it to aliens.
As and when there is a real story it isn't going to be confined to websites no-one has heard of. There is a fortune out there for real scientists and accurate journalists, and they will get it if they can.
The rest is noise.
I wouldn't quite agree with this point of view. Much of the new information is already out there on mainstream news sources, for instance. What we have here, I think, is an entirely new situation where there are multiple current-serving or recently, named governmental officials making extraordinary claims, but for whom there seems to a great deal of legislation preventing them going further. So I would say still this seems to be primarily an issue about process, for the moment, rather than materials or evidence yet.
This is why the focus in the U.S is shifting to new Congressional hearings, and possible changes in the law to make further whistleblowing on this topic more easy.
And an awful lot more current serving or recent officials pouring scorn on the idea.
It’s grift, pure and simple, and it’s conning people who want to believe.
Well, let's do a little bit of a cut-and-paste of all the most credible recent sources, and do a sort of compilation of them, to see how they stack up.
When I have some time in a a bit, I will nose about and put them all together.
Kind of a problem when there are no credible sources, just grifters and lunatics.
This is a good piece on the latest UFO flap, and why it is different from all others. It makes the point I have been making for many months (but maybe you will accept it from the NYT if not from me) - even if you discount any idea of actual non human intelligence, the level of disclosure is now so high and detailed and “legitimate” something really really WEIRD is happening in the US government. At the very least. And smart people should now pay attention to this story
Well I hope if they’re readying us for the announcement that they’re communing with creatures from outer space that they hurry up and make an announcement soon. Perhaps they can abduct Putin.
Dramatic, however we must remember just because Sturgeon has been arrested doesn't mean she will be charged. Not a great weekend for the SNP now either not just the Conservatives
so Tory, Labour and SNP leaders all investigated by police.
But only two face further action…
Sir Ed Davey: Once again the LDs are ignored! We deserve the same level of police scrutiny! Police: What's a LD?
Your former leader was on trial for conspiracy to murder in the late 1970s, albeit Thorpe was acquitted as portrayed in the brilliant Hugh Grant drama a few years ago
There's so many named recent official sources, which is new.
What counts is evidence which can be expertly examined and re-examined and reported on according to peer reviewed science standards. Adjectives and hearsay don't count. That which is merely unexplained visual phenomena doesn't count either. We can't explain lots of things - consciousness, the origin of the universe, the reason why the law of gravity is how it is and not different, why we see yellow as yellow and not green, how life began and so on - but we don't attribute it to aliens.
As and when there is a real story it isn't going to be confined to websites no-one has heard of. There is a fortune out there for real scientists and accurate journalists, and they will get it if they can.
The rest is noise.
I wouldn't quite agree with this point of view. Much of the new information is already out there on mainstream news sources, for instance. What we have here, I think, is an entirely new situation where there are multiple current-serving or recently, named governmental officials making extraordinary claims, but for whom there seems to a great deal of legislation preventing them going further. So I would say still this seems to be primarily an issue about process, for the moment, rather than materials or evidence yet.
This is why the focus in the U.S is shifting to new Congressional hearings, and possible changes in the law to make further whistleblowing on this topic more easy.
And an awful lot more current serving or recent officials pouring scorn on the idea.
It’s grift, pure and simple, and it’s conning people who want to believe.
Well, let's do a little bit of a cut-and-paste of all the most credible recent sources, and do a sort of compilation of them, to see how they stack up.
When I have some time in a a bit, I will nose about and put them all together.
Kind of a problem when there are no credible sources, just grifters and lunatics.
This is a good piece on the latest UFO flap, and why it is different from all others. It makes the point I have been making for many months (but maybe you will accept it from the NYT if not from me) - even if you discount any idea of actual non human intelligence, the level of disclosure is now so high and detailed and “legitimate” something really really WEIRD is happening in the US government. At the very least. And smart people should now pay attention to this story
Well I hope if they’re readying us for the announcement that they’re communing with creatures from outer space that they hurry up and make an announcement soon. Perhaps they can abduct Putin.
There's so many named recent official sources, which is new.
What counts is evidence which can be expertly examined and re-examined and reported on according to peer reviewed science standards. Adjectives and hearsay don't count. That which is merely unexplained visual phenomena doesn't count either. We can't explain lots of things - consciousness, the origin of the universe, the reason why the law of gravity is how it is and not different, why we see yellow as yellow and not green, how life began and so on - but we don't attribute it to aliens.
As and when there is a real story it isn't going to be confined to websites no-one has heard of. There is a fortune out there for real scientists and accurate journalists, and they will get it if they can.
The rest is noise.
I wouldn't quite agree with this point of view. Much of the new information is already out there on mainstream news sources, for instance. What we have here, I think, is an entirely new situation where there are multiple current-serving or recently, named governmental officials making extraordinary claims, but for whom there seems to a great deal of legislation preventing them going further. So I would say still this seems to be primarily an issue about process, for the moment, rather than materials or evidence yet.
This is why the focus in the U.S is shifting to new Congressional hearings, and possible changes in the law to make further whistleblowing on this topic more easy.
You can get 9/1 on NASA confirming the existence of alien life this year. If I could find somewhere to lay, I’d be looking at that.
Something used to cost £100. It now costs £110 due to inflation. Rishi Rich says that he will halve inflation. We are meant to feel grateful when the price increases to £115.50.
Get the price down to £105 if you want public gratitude, PM.
I see your point, but actually deflation is generally seen as an economically even worse problem than inflation as people defer spending if prices are expected to fall.
In general, price stability not dropping prices is the appropriate macroeconomic aim.
This is a point I have made about falling house prices and its impact on housebuilding. People like the idea that falling house prices and an increase in housebuilding could go together, but the reality is that when house prices are falling people are less likely to borrow large sums of money to buy premium new build houses, so there would be less demand for this type of housing, so the most probable outcome is that housebuilding also falls.
I think you've got it backwards.
We don't want a fall in prices to lead to an increase in construction.
We want an increase in construction to lead to a fall in prices.
Increased competition absolutely can lead to prices stabilising or falling. And if competition increases, then prices stabilise or fall, then housebuilding falls back, then it will be because the shortage of houses in the system has resolved. Although unless population growth stops entirely, there will always be a need for construction.
There was no let up in the production of various goods that have fallen in price, massively, over the decades.
Half the cost of building work is directly wages. That is half is bricks and roof tiles, half labour. Approximately. But the material themselves have labour inputs. And the materials for the materials.
Some guesses put the ultimate labour portion of a house at 70-80%.
Labour cost is a direct function, these days, of housing costs. The biggest cost for workers is their own housing!
So when house prices actually fall, for a period, labour costs will begin to trend down (assuming a competitive labour market). This in turn will make it cheaper to build houses.
In addition, the U.K. building industry is low productivity, compared to many other countries. Investment in non-exotic machinery - mini cranes and small diggers, say - could halve the work force on a house.
Its worth noting that half the building work cost of houses may be labour but that's not half the cost of the house.
An incredibly significant portion of the cost of housing is the cost of land, and almost all of the cost of land is planning permission.
An acre of farmland can cost £12-25k while an acre of land with planning permission for a house can be worth hundreds of thousands.
Eliminate that discrepancy and the cost of housing would collapse, without affecting labour costs. And as you say, if its cheaper to house people, then everything including labour becomes cheaper.
That is, ostensibly, Starmer’s headline policy. Whether he can deliver will be interesting to watch.
If he comes up with serious policies on this issue, I will hold my nose and vote Labour at the next election.
Careful. HYUFD might say you’re not a real Tory.
LOL.
One thing HYUFD is right about is that. I'm certainly a liberal who normally votes Tory. If I vote Labour at the next election it will only be the second time in my life, after voting Labour in 2001 in my first election.
The Tories should be the party of aspiration for people to have their own home.
If Starmer can get the importance of that but Sunak can't, what does it say about the state of today's Tory party?
I was going to offer Land Value Taxation as a policy here (good old Liberal idea).
The problem Sunak has is he has to balance the requirement of his core vote to maintain the status quo - his core of middle age and elderly northern and midlands home owners rather like the value of their asset continuing to rise which they can pass on (without IHT hopefully) to the children and grandchildren to provide the deposit for the next generation of home owners).
On the other side, he knows the longer term interests of the country and his Party are served by creating a new generation of home owners but he can't make houses affordable without causing existing values to drop which alienates his core.
That's not an easy circle to square.
It's impossible, which is why the Conservative Party will always cave to the interests of the already wealthy in the end. It's why the rumours of the abolition of IHT and revival of Help to Buy continue to swirl, and it also explains why they've already caved to their Southern Nimbies by junking housing targets for local authorities.
Today's Tories will always default to the elderly homeowner interest, trusting that they can return to power if they bring enough of them on side. What happens when the housing shortage means there aren't enough elderly homeowners left to outvote pissed-off renters is a problem for tomorrow's Tories to solve.
By then their children will have inherited of course (and even today by 39 most own property with a mortgage)
There aren't enough houses, therefore those that exist are too expensive. Inheritances will eventually bail some people out, but the numbers staggering under crippling rents into middle age will continue to increase. Eventually this will also undermine your party's support with the grey vote, as more of them end up having to work until they drop down dead to service rents.
No use bellyaching about the concreting of the countryside I'm afraid. If the Conservatives won't do it, eventually things will get so bad that voters will turn to somebody else who will.
There are if we cut immigration.
Most will have inherited by 60-65, so certainly wouldn't need to work beyond normal retirement age (having pensions already saved for too).
Voters across the South are already voting for NIMBY LDs and Greens and Independents because even the modest housebuilding proposed by former Tory controlled councils was too much. If Starmer tried to concrete all over the greenbelt there would be a revolution in the South
Cutting immigration will no more resolve the housing shortage than cutting inflation will see prices fall back down.
Even if net immigration dropped to zero today our pre-existing shortage of houses will still exist. Just as if inflation dropped to zero today, then prices would remain higher than they were in the past.
If we cut net immigration to zero our population would decline as we have a birthrate now well below replacement level. On that basis even just controlled immigration and a fractional net increase each year would still see us have more than enough houses than we need
Ok, here's a random collection of recent quotes, collated from two or three different, and recent articles, to get us off. I would say it stretches credulity to suggest that every one of these recent, and conspicuously *named* and currently working government functionaries, must just be meaningless grifters and hucksters on the take.
"The former intelligence official David Grusch, who led analysis of unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAP) within a US Department of Defense agency, has alleged that the US has craft of non-human origin.
Information on these vehicles is being illegally withheld from Congress, Grusch has said. Grusch said when he turned over classified information about the vehicles to Congress he suffered retaliation from government officials. He left the government in April after a 14-year career in US intelligence.
Jonathan Grey, a current US intelligence official at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (Nasic), confirmed the existence of “exotic materials” , adding: “We are not alone.”
Grusch, 36, is a senior intelligence analyst who represented the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, the precursor to AARO, from 2019-2021. Grusch is also a decorated combat officer for his service in Afghanistan.
“His assertion concerning the existence of a terrestrial arms race occurring sub-rosa over the past eighty years focused on reverse engineering technologies of unknown origin is fundamentally correct,” said Karl Nell, a US Army Colonel who worked with Grusch on the UAP Task Force, which preceded the creation of AARO,” as is the indisputable realization that at least some of these technologies of unknown origin derive from non-human intelligence.”
Wait, I’m criticised for NOT posting and keeping up to speed with debate, on a day when I drove from Virginia into Pennsylvania, to see Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, THEN drove to Maryland, to see the Battlefield of Antietam, and THEN drove to Washington DC to check into my hotel 3 blocks from the White House?
And now when I wake up in said hotel, finally with some spare time and a coffee, I am criticised for saying “hahahahaha I was right about lab leak and aliens” even tho that is absolutely the case?
Something used to cost £100. It now costs £110 due to inflation. Rishi Rich says that he will halve inflation. We are meant to feel grateful when the price increases to £115.50.
Get the price down to £105 if you want public gratitude, PM.
I see your point, but actually deflation is generally seen as an economically even worse problem than inflation as people defer spending if prices are expected to fall.
In general, price stability not dropping prices is the appropriate macroeconomic aim.
This is a point I have made about falling house prices and its impact on housebuilding. People like the idea that falling house prices and an increase in housebuilding could go together, but the reality is that when house prices are falling people are less likely to borrow large sums of money to buy premium new build houses, so there would be less demand for this type of housing, so the most probable outcome is that housebuilding also falls.
I think you've got it backwards.
We don't want a fall in prices to lead to an increase in construction.
We want an increase in construction to lead to a fall in prices.
Increased competition absolutely can lead to prices stabilising or falling. And if competition increases, then prices stabilise or fall, then housebuilding falls back, then it will be because the shortage of houses in the system has resolved. Although unless population growth stops entirely, there will always be a need for construction.
There was no let up in the production of various goods that have fallen in price, massively, over the decades.
Half the cost of building work is directly wages. That is half is bricks and roof tiles, half labour. Approximately. But the material themselves have labour inputs. And the materials for the materials.
Some guesses put the ultimate labour portion of a house at 70-80%.
Labour cost is a direct function, these days, of housing costs. The biggest cost for workers is their own housing!
So when house prices actually fall, for a period, labour costs will begin to trend down (assuming a competitive labour market). This in turn will make it cheaper to build houses.
In addition, the U.K. building industry is low productivity, compared to many other countries. Investment in non-exotic machinery - mini cranes and small diggers, say - could halve the work force on a house.
Its worth noting that half the building work cost of houses may be labour but that's not half the cost of the house.
An incredibly significant portion of the cost of housing is the cost of land, and almost all of the cost of land is planning permission.
An acre of farmland can cost £12-25k while an acre of land with planning permission for a house can be worth hundreds of thousands.
Eliminate that discrepancy and the cost of housing would collapse, without affecting labour costs. And as you say, if its cheaper to house people, then everything including labour becomes cheaper.
That is, ostensibly, Starmer’s headline policy. Whether he can deliver will be interesting to watch.
If he comes up with serious policies on this issue, I will hold my nose and vote Labour at the next election.
Careful. HYUFD might say you’re not a real Tory.
LOL.
One thing HYUFD is right about is that. I'm certainly a liberal who normally votes Tory. If I vote Labour at the next election it will only be the second time in my life, after voting Labour in 2001 in my first election.
The Tories should be the party of aspiration for people to have their own home.
If Starmer can get the importance of that but Sunak can't, what does it say about the state of today's Tory party?
I was going to offer Land Value Taxation as a policy here (good old Liberal idea).
The problem Sunak has is he has to balance the requirement of his core vote to maintain the status quo - his core of middle age and elderly northern and midlands home owners rather like the value of their asset continuing to rise which they can pass on (without IHT hopefully) to the children and grandchildren to provide the deposit for the next generation of home owners).
On the other side, he knows the longer term interests of the country and his Party are served by creating a new generation of home owners but he can't make houses affordable without causing existing values to drop which alienates his core.
That's not an easy circle to square.
It's impossible, which is why the Conservative Party will always cave to the interests of the already wealthy in the end. It's why the rumours of the abolition of IHT and revival of Help to Buy continue to swirl, and it also explains why they've already caved to their Southern Nimbies by junking housing targets for local authorities.
Today's Tories will always default to the elderly homeowner interest, trusting that they can return to power if they bring enough of them on side. What happens when the housing shortage means there aren't enough elderly homeowners left to outvote pissed-off renters is a problem for tomorrow's Tories to solve.
By then their children will have inherited of course (and even today by 39 most own property with a mortgage)
There aren't enough houses, therefore those that exist are too expensive. Inheritances will eventually bail some people out, but the numbers staggering under crippling rents into middle age will continue to increase. Eventually this will also undermine your party's support with the grey vote, as more of them end up having to work until they drop down dead to service rents.
No use bellyaching about the concreting of the countryside I'm afraid. If the Conservatives won't do it, eventually things will get so bad that voters will turn to somebody else who will.
There are if we cut immigration.
Most will have inherited by 60-65, so certainly wouldn't need to work beyond normal retirement age (having pensions already saved for too).
Voters across the South are already voting for NIMBY LDs and Greens and Independents because even the modest housebuilding proposed by former Tory controlled councils was too much. If Starmer tried to concrete all over the greenbelt there would be a revolution in the South
Nobody is going to cut immigration. Regardless of whether the party in power chooses to indulge in flamboyant acts of performative cruelty against the boat people or not, Britain looks set to import hundreds of thousands of workers every year for the foreseeable future. That's what happens when all of the following is true:
* Neither the public nor private sector is interested in investing in the upskilling of British workers when cheaper alternatives can be imported (this is particularly the case in the NHS, where there's an extreme level of desperation to fill vacancies yesterday) * There is, in any case, a shortage of British-born workers because the proportion of retirees and chronically sick people amongst the population is going up and up and up * Immigration isn't a priority for the electorate - a minority of voters may still get very worked up over the boat people, but next to no-one gives a fuck about the students, the health and care workers, the IT professionals and anyone else from abroad who has been invited to study or to do a job
Besides which, Labour's base is predominantly urban. If it can pull together enough constituencies from the cities, from suburban seats full of younger people who have been priced out of London, from poorer areas where masses of new houses are unlikely to be built anyway, plus from Scotland and Wales, then frankly it could tarmac the whole of Surrey if it wanted and there would be nothing that the Nimby vote in the South could do about it.
It could push for Independence for Surrey, now the SNP are imploding perhaps they could even take the letters 'the Surrey Nationalist Party'. No more Labour governments for Surrey it never voted for!
I’m sorry for being right about everything. I know it’s annoying
We discussed this while you were busy posting your holiday photos.
Nonetheless, I was right, wasn’t I? All those months and years ago, when I told you: IT CAME FROM THE LAB
At one point I was the only person on PB voicing that opinion, to the derision of all others. Indeed I was about to give up, until @Gardenwalker - bless him - said “you know, you might be on to something”
Think that was late 2020?
Um, piss off. I most certainly did not deride anyone for theorising that it came from a lab. Once the lab's work and location were known, it was the only remotely sensible theory.
I very much doubt there are any any aliens about. Not nearby anyway - as the speed of light is rapid but the nearest ones will be probably several hundred light years away it's a long bus ride away.
I’m sorry for being right about everything. I know it’s annoying
We discussed this while you were busy posting your holiday photos.
Nonetheless, I was right, wasn’t I? All those months and years ago, when I told you: IT CAME FROM THE LAB
At one point I was the only person on PB voicing that opinion, to the derision of all others. Indeed I was about to give up, until @Gardenwalker - bless him - said “you know, you might be on to something”
Think that was late 2020?
Um, piss off. I most certainly did not deride anyone for theorising that it came from a lab. Once the lab's work and location were known, it was the only remotely sensible theory.
How do you account for MERS? And the original SARS?
There's so many named recent official sources, which is new.
What counts is evidence which can be expertly examined and re-examined and reported on according to peer reviewed science standards. Adjectives and hearsay don't count. That which is merely unexplained visual phenomena doesn't count either. We can't explain lots of things - consciousness, the origin of the universe, the reason why the law of gravity is how it is and not different, why we see yellow as yellow and not green, how life began and so on - but we don't attribute it to aliens.
As and when there is a real story it isn't going to be confined to websites no-one has heard of. There is a fortune out there for real scientists and accurate journalists, and they will get it if they can.
The rest is noise.
I wouldn't quite agree with this point of view. Much of the new information is already out there on mainstream news sources, for instance. What we have here, I think, is an entirely new situation where there are multiple current-serving or recently, named governmental officials making extraordinary claims, but for whom there seems to a great deal of legislation preventing them going further. So I would say still this seems to be primarily an issue about process, for the moment, rather than materials or evidence yet.
This is why the focus in the U.S is shifting to new Congressional hearings, and possible changes in the law to make further whistleblowing on this topic more easy.
And an awful lot more current serving or recent officials pouring scorn on the idea.
It’s grift, pure and simple, and it’s conning people who want to believe.
Well, let's do a little bit of a cut-and-paste of all the most credible recent sources, and do a sort of compilation of them, to see how they stack up.
When I have some time in a a bit, I will nose about and put them all together.
Kind of a problem when there are no credible sources, just grifters and lunatics.
This is a good piece on the latest UFO flap, and why it is different from all others. It n
Wait, I’m criticised for NOT posting and keeping up to speed with debate, on a day when I drove from Virginia into Pennsylvania, to see Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, THEN drove to Maryland, to see the Battlefield of Antietam, and THEN drove to Washington DC to check into my hotel 3 blocks from the White House?
And now when I wake up in said hotel, finally with some spare time and a coffee, I am criticised for saying “hahahahaha I was right about lab leak and aliens” even tho that is absolutely the case?
I don’t admit to any great insight. I still don’t know what a furin cleavage is. A lab leak seemed - Occam’s razor - the simplest explanation.
And none of the avowals that it just couldn’t be ever seemed terribly convincing,
Every prior pandemic was naturally occurring. Occam’s razor says COVID-19 was too. An article from the newspaper that denied HIV caused AIDS isn’t convincing as to the contrary. Let’s see some peer reviewed research. Otherwise, it’s just like the UFO stories.
There's so many named recent official sources, which is new.
What counts is evidence which can be expertly examined and re-examined and reported on according to peer reviewed science standards. Adjectives and hearsay don't count. That which is merely unexplained visual phenomena doesn't count either. We can't explain lots of things - consciousness, the origin of the universe, the reason why the law of gravity is how it is and not different, why we see yellow as yellow and not green, how life began and so on - but we don't attribute it to aliens.
As and when there is a real story it isn't going to be confined to websites no-one has heard of. There is a fortune out there for real scientists and accurate journalists, and they will get it if they can.
The rest is noise.
I wouldn't quite agree with this point of view. Much of the new information is already out there on mainstream news sources, for instance. What we have here, I think, is an entirely new situation where there are multiple current-serving or recently, named governmental officials making extraordinary claims, but for whom there seems to a great deal of legislation preventing them going further. So I would say still this seems to be primarily an issue about process, for the moment, rather than materials or evidence yet.
This is why the focus in the U.S is shifting to new Congressional hearings, and possible changes in the law to make further whistleblowing on this topic more easy.
You can get 9/1 on NASA confirming the existence of alien life this year. If I could find somewhere to lay, I’d be looking at that.
I'll beat that. I'll give anybody a fiver at 12s. My £60 to their £5.
I’m sorry for being right about everything. I know it’s annoying
We discussed this while you were busy posting your holiday photos.
Nonetheless, I was right, wasn’t I? All those months and years ago, when I told you: IT CAME FROM THE LAB
At one point I was the only person on PB voicing that opinion, to the derision of all others. Indeed I was about to give up, until @Gardenwalker - bless him - said “you know, you might be on to something”
Think that was late 2020?
Um, piss off. I most certainly did not deride anyone for theorising that it came from a lab. Once the lab's work and location were known, it was the only remotely sensible theory.
How do you account for MERS? And the original SARS?
I’m sorry for being right about everything. I know it’s annoying
We discussed this while you were busy posting your holiday photos.
Nonetheless, I was right, wasn’t I? All those months and years ago, when I told you: IT CAME FROM THE LAB
At one point I was the only person on PB voicing that opinion, to the derision of all others. Indeed I was about to give up, until @Gardenwalker - bless him - said “you know, you might be on to something”
Think that was late 2020?
Um, piss off. I most certainly did not deride anyone for theorising that it came from a lab. Once the lab's work and location were known, it was the only remotely sensible theory.
How do you account for MERS? And the original SARS?
I don't account for them. I don't know remotely enough about their origins to posit any sort of theory. This is whataboutery.
I’m sorry for being right about everything. I know it’s annoying
We discussed this while you were busy posting your holiday photos.
Nonetheless, I was right, wasn’t I? All those months and years ago, when I told you: IT CAME FROM THE LAB
At one point I was the only person on PB voicing that opinion, to the derision of all others. Indeed I was about to give up, until @Gardenwalker - bless him - said “you know, you might be on to something”
Think that was late 2020?
Um, piss off. I most certainly did not deride anyone for theorising that it came from a lab. Once the lab's work and location were known, it was the only remotely sensible theory.
How do you account for MERS? And the original SARS?
I don’t admit to any great insight. I still don’t know what a furin cleavage is. A lab leak seemed - Occam’s razor - the simplest explanation.
And none of the avowals that it just couldn’t be ever seemed terribly convincing,
Every prior pandemic was naturally occurring. Occam’s razor says COVID-19 was too. An article from the newspaper that denied HIV caused AIDS isn’t convincing as to the contrary. Let’s see some peer reviewed research. Otherwise, it’s just like the UFO stories.
I don’t admit to any great insight. I still don’t know what a furin cleavage is. A lab leak seemed - Occam’s razor - the simplest explanation.
And none of the avowals that it just couldn’t be ever seemed terribly convincing,
Every prior pandemic was naturally occurring. Occam’s razor says COVID-19 was too. An article from the newspaper that denied HIV caused AIDS isn’t convincing as to the contrary. Let’s see some peer reviewed research. Otherwise, it’s just like the UFO stories.
Your point about the Times is another reason I find the lab leak more convincing. The haste to discredit what is, in the tawdry British media landscape, one of the more reliable sources (though not infallible of course).
I don’t admit to any great insight. I still don’t know what a furin cleavage is. A lab leak seemed - Occam’s razor - the simplest explanation.
And none of the avowals that it just couldn’t be ever seemed terribly convincing,
Every prior pandemic was naturally occurring. Occam’s razor says COVID-19 was too. An article from the newspaper that denied HIV caused AIDS isn’t convincing as to the contrary. Let’s see some peer reviewed research. Otherwise, it’s just like the UFO stories.
Your point about the Times is another reason I find the lab leak more convincing. The haste to discredit what is, in the tawdry British media landscape, one of the more reliable sources (though not infallible of course).
Though is is all hearsay from unknown sources with an unknown agenda.
Let's see sum real evidence rather than an appeal to authority to the Sunday Times.
I don’t admit to any great insight. I still don’t know what a furin cleavage is. A lab leak seemed - Occam’s razor - the simplest explanation.
And none of the avowals that it just couldn’t be ever seemed terribly convincing,
Every prior pandemic was naturally occurring. Occam’s razor says COVID-19 was too. An article from the newspaper that denied HIV caused AIDS isn’t convincing as to the contrary. Let’s see some peer reviewed research. Otherwise, it’s just like the UFO stories.
Your point about the Times is another reason I find the lab leak more convincing. The haste to discredit what is, in the tawdry British media landscape, one of the more reliable sources (though not infallible of course).
Though is is all hearsay from unknown sources with an unknown agenda.
Let's see sum real evidence rather than an appeal to authority to the Sunday Times.
I’m not making an appeal to authority. Others are making whatever the opposite of that is. Which I find further “unconvincing evidence” against my prior assumption.
Ok, here's a random collection of recent quotes, collated from two or three different, and recent articles, to get us off. I would say it stretches credulity to suggest that every one of these recent, and conspicuously *named* and currently working government functionaries, must just be meaningless grifters and hucksters on the take.
"The former intelligence official David Grusch, who led analysis of unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAP) within a US Department of Defense agency, has alleged that the US has craft of non-human origin.
Information on these vehicles is being illegally withheld from Congress, Grusch has said. Grusch said when he turned over classified information about the vehicles to Congress he suffered retaliation from government officials. He left the government in April after a 14-year career in US intelligence.
Jonathan Grey, a current US intelligence official at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (Nasic), confirmed the existence of “exotic materials” , adding: “We are not alone.”
Grusch, 36, is a senior intelligence analyst who represented the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, the precursor to AARO, from 2019-2021. Grusch is also a decorated combat officer for his service in Afghanistan.
“His assertion concerning the existence of a terrestrial arms race occurring sub-rosa over the past eighty years focused on reverse engineering technologies of unknown origin is fundamentally correct,” said Karl Nell, a US Army Colonel who worked with Grusch on the UAP Task Force, which preceded the creation of AARO,” as is the indisputable realization that at least some of these technologies of unknown origin derive from non-human intelligence.”
The really big question tba will it be a male or female prison?
The even bigger question is why the Scottish Government hasn't built any prisons for the non-binary and genderqueer community? They've had long enough to do it, after all.
Binary normativity. Tut tut. The SNP should cancel itself.
Ok, here's a random collection of recent quotes, collated from two or three different, and recent articles, to get us off. I would say it stretches credulity to suggest that every one of these recent, and conspicuously *named* and currently working government functionaries, must just be meaningless grifters and hucksters on the take.
"The former intelligence official David Grusch, who led analysis of unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAP) within a US Department of Defense agency, has alleged that the US has craft of non-human origin.
Information on these vehicles is being illegally withheld from Congress, Grusch has said. Grusch said when he turned over classified information about the vehicles to Congress he suffered retaliation from government officials. He left the government in April after a 14-year career in US intelligence.
Jonathan Grey, a current US intelligence official at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (Nasic), confirmed the existence of “exotic materials” , adding: “We are not alone.”
Grusch, 36, is a senior intelligence analyst who represented the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, the precursor to AARO, from 2019-2021. Grusch is also a decorated combat officer for his service in Afghanistan.
“His assertion concerning the existence of a terrestrial arms race occurring sub-rosa over the past eighty years focused on reverse engineering technologies of unknown origin is fundamentally correct,” said Karl Nell, a US Army Colonel who worked with Grusch on the UAP Task Force, which preceded the creation of AARO,” as is the indisputable realization that at least some of these technologies of unknown origin derive from non-human intelligence.”
Given complete CON and SNP meltdown, is LAB now expecting 400 minimum at the GE??
Why would you assume SNP meltdown from this? It's not a given.
Well their polling has declined from the mid-forties to the high-thirties in the last four months, so it's had some impact so far.
The most recent poll saw Labour down 3, Conservative up 2 and the SNP up 4.
It had the SNP on 37%, which is still significantly lower than their polling a few months back. Then there's also the recent Scotland YouGov MRP and Best for Britain MRP which predicted significant gains for SLAB.
I’m sorry for being right about everything. I know it’s annoying
We discussed this while you were busy posting your holiday photos.
Nonetheless, I was right, wasn’t I? All those months and years ago, when I told you: IT CAME FROM THE LAB
At one point I was the only person on PB voicing that opinion, to the derision of all others. Indeed I was about to give up, until @Gardenwalker - bless him - said “you know, you might be on to something”
Think that was late 2020?
Um, piss off. I most certainly did not deride anyone for theorising that it came from a lab. Once the lab's work and location were known, it was the only remotely sensible theory.
How do you account for MERS? And the original SARS?
I don't account for them. I don't know remotely enough about their origins to posit any sort of theory. This is whataboutery.
It’s really not. It’s making the point that all known epidemics in the history of man have been natural in origin. That does not preclude covid being the result of genetic manipulation in the WIV but it makes it having a natural source eminently plausible, in the way all the others ones started by crossing species to man.
There's so many named recent official sources, which is new.
What counts is evidence which can be expertly examined and re-examined and reported on according to peer reviewed science standards. Adjectives and hearsay don't count. That which is merely unexplained visual phenomena doesn't count either. We can't explain lots of things - consciousness, the origin of the universe, the reason why the law of gravity is how it is and not different, why we see yellow as yellow and not green, how life began and so on - but we don't attribute it to aliens.
As and when there is a real story it isn't going to be confined to websites no-one has heard of. There is a fortune out there for real scientists and accurate journalists, and they will get it if they can.
The rest is noise.
I wouldn't quite agree with this point of view. Much of the new information is already out there on mainstream news sources, for instance. What we have here, I think, is an entirely new situation where there are multiple current-serving or recently, named governmental officials making extraordinary claims, but for whom there seems to a great deal of legislation preventing them going further. So I would say still this seems to be primarily an issue about process, for the moment, rather than materials or evidence yet.
This is why the focus in the U.S is shifting to new Congressional hearings, and possible changes in the law to make further whistleblowing on this topic more easy.
And an awful lot more current serving or recent officials pouring scorn on the idea.
It’s grift, pure and simple, and it’s conning people who want to believe.
Well, let's do a little bit of a cut-and-paste of all the most credible recent sources, and do a sort of compilation of them, to see how they stack up.
When I have some time in a a bit, I will nose about and put them all together.
Kind of a problem when there are no credible sources, just grifters and lunatics.
This is a good piece on the latest UFO flap, and why it is different from all others. It makes the point I have been making for many months (but maybe you will accept it from the NYT if not from me) - even if you discount any idea of actual non human intelligence, the level of disclosure is now so high and detailed and “legitimate” something really really WEIRD is happening in the US government. At the very least. And smart people should now pay attention to this story
Indeed. What we have in fact is a completely new situation of multiple, current or near-current US official sources making UFO claims.
I’m sorry for being right about everything. I know it’s annoying
We discussed this while you were busy posting your holiday photos.
Nonetheless, I was right, wasn’t I? All those months and years ago, when I told you: IT CAME FROM THE LAB
At one point I was the only person on PB voicing that opinion, to the derision of all others. Indeed I was about to give up, until @Gardenwalker - bless him - said “you know, you might be on to something”
Think that was late 2020?
Um, piss off. I most certainly did not deride anyone for theorising that it came from a lab. Once the lab's work and location were known, it was the only remotely sensible theory.
How do you account for MERS? And the original SARS?
I don't account for them. I don't know remotely enough about their origins to posit any sort of theory. This is whataboutery.
It’s really not. It’s making the point that all known epidemics in the history of man have been natural in origin. That does not preclude covid being the result of genetic manipulation in the WIV but it makes it having a natural source eminently plausible, in the way all the others ones started by crossing species to man.
The 1977 Flu epidemic may have been caused by a Soviet lab leak -
Given complete CON and SNP meltdown, is LAB now expecting 400 minimum at the GE??
They haven't completely melted down. Not yet...
Nor are they anywhere close. It's time we remembered that, despite having both its reputation and its finances dragged through the mire, and having its new leader routinely lampooned as a hopeless incompetent by almost everyone, the SNP still leads Scottish Labour in every opinion poll conducted. And that despite being the principal or sole governing party in Edinburgh continuously since 2007.
There's a very large body of Scottish public opinion that are either blood and soil nationalists or fall into the broader category of those who are more likely to back an exclusively Scottish party rather than a British one, and who have nowhere realistically to go in a General Election other than to the SNP. I see no reason at this stage to alter my opinion that Labour will probably win no more than about a dozen Scottish seats, and may consider that it has done very well even if it gets that far.
Given complete CON and SNP meltdown, is LAB now expecting 400 minimum at the GE??
Why would you assume SNP meltdown from this? It's not a given.
Well their polling has declined from the mid-forties to the high-thirties in the last four months, so it's had some impact so far.
The most recent poll saw Labour down 3, Conservative up 2 and the SNP up 4.
It had the SNP on 37%, which is still significantly lower than their polling a few months back. Then there's also the recent Scotland YouGov MRP and Best for Britain MRP which predicted significant gains for SLAB.
Both of the latter were not based on the most recent poll which as you know saw movement away from Labour. The initial Labour boost may already be waning. Those Labour gains are far from in the bag.
Despite the mask as a handy disguise I knew by the scythe and shroud it was you. Still, a jolly jape on our Russian friends, it does not, the arrest of Nippy surpass. Sorry.
I don’t admit to any great insight. I still don’t know what a furin cleavage is. A lab leak seemed - Occam’s razor - the simplest explanation.
And none of the avowals that it just couldn’t be ever seemed terribly convincing,
And a robber button is?
I’ve no idea what a “robber button” is. Is it something you’ve had to have installed chez Casino because you saw a gypsy at the bottom of the lane?
Devoid of a sense of humour as well as core British popular culture knowledge.
Sad.
You regularly post aperçus like, “I just farted”. You’re the last person to be judging senses of humour.
If you were half as British as you claim to be you'd be familiar with core cultural institutions like Blackadder.
As things stand, you're just a driftless humourless establishment internationalist centre-leftie, of which there are many, who's rather boring as well as tedious.
Dramatic, however we must remember just because Sturgeon has been arrested doesn't mean she will be charged. Not a great weekend for the SNP now either not just the Conservatives
so Tory, Labour and SNP leaders all investigated by police.
But only two face further action…
Sir Ed Davey: Once again the LDs are ignored! We deserve the same level of police scrutiny! Police: What's a LD?
Your former leader was on trial for conspiracy to murder in the late 1970s, albeit Thorpe was acquitted as portrayed in the brilliant Hugh Grant drama a few years ago
There's so many named recent official sources, which is new.
What counts is evidence which can be expertly examined and re-examined and reported on according to peer reviewed science standards. Adjectives and hearsay don't count. That which is merely unexplained visual phenomena doesn't count either. We can't explain lots of things - consciousness, the origin of the universe, the reason why the law of gravity is how it is and not different, why we see yellow as yellow and not green, how life began and so on - but we don't attribute it to aliens.
As and when there is a real story it isn't going to be confined to websites no-one has heard of. There is a fortune out there for real scientists and accurate journalists, and they will get it if they can.
The rest is noise.
I wouldn't quite agree with this point of view. Much of the new information is already out there on mainstream news sources, for instance. What we have here, I think, is an entirely new situation where there are multiple current-serving or recently, named governmental officials making extraordinary claims, but for whom there seems to a great deal of legislation preventing them going further. So I would say still this seems to be primarily an issue about process, for the moment, rather than materials or evidence yet.
This is why the focus in the U.S is shifting to new Congressional hearings, and possible changes in the law to make further whistleblowing on this topic more easy.
And an awful lot more current serving or recent officials pouring scorn on the idea.
It’s grift, pure and simple, and it’s conning people who want to believe.
Well, let's do a little bit of a cut-and-paste of all the most credible recent sources, and do a sort of compilation of them, to see how they stack up.
When I have some time in a a bit, I will nose about and put them all together.
Kind of a problem when there are no credible sources, just grifters and lunatics.
This is a good piece on the latest UFO flap, and why it is different from all others. It makes the point I have been making for many months (but maybe you will accept it from the NYT if not from me) - even if you discount any idea of actual non human intelligence, the level of disclosure is now so high and detailed and “legitimate” something really really WEIRD is happening in the US government. At the very least. And smart people should now pay attention to this story
Indeed. What we have in fact is a completely new situation of multiple, current or near-current US official sources making UFO claims.
That 's certainly very interesting, at the least.
And when China is knocking on their door, they will regret deeply investing time and resources in creating such a frivolous ruse.
I’m sorry for being right about everything. I know it’s annoying
We discussed this while you were busy posting your holiday photos.
Nonetheless, I was right, wasn’t I? All those months and years ago, when I told you: IT CAME FROM THE LAB
At one point I was the only person on PB voicing that opinion, to the derision of all others. Indeed I was about to give up, until @Gardenwalker - bless him - said “you know, you might be on to something”
Think that was late 2020?
Um, piss off. I most certainly did not deride anyone for theorising that it came from a lab. Once the lab's work and location were known, it was the only remotely sensible theory.
How do you account for MERS? And the original SARS?
I don't account for them. I don't know remotely enough about their origins to posit any sort of theory. This is whataboutery.
It’s really not. It’s making the point that all known epidemics in the history of man have been natural in origin. That does not preclude covid being the result of genetic manipulation in the WIV but it makes it having a natural source eminently plausible, in the way all the others ones started by crossing species to man.
Yes, in the absence of proof or near proof Natural is the default. For Lab to become favourite requires evidence compatible with Lab and incompatible with Natural. Just the first doesn't cut it.
Not surprising for anyone following the story, though.
Starmer appears to be a very lucky general.
Corbyn, Johnson, Sturgeon. Keir is not the PM we want, but maybe he’s the PM we need.
To be fair to SKS, there's no luck involved in avoiding questionable people and behaviour. And whilst that shouldn't be sufficient qualification to be PM (just a good start), it looks like it will be enough.
Comments
From donors' perspective, not so much.
Even if not I expect you to rapidly pivot to how this proves that Britain is flushing itself down the toilet, whilst America is on the cusp of a glorious golden age, such is your wont.
Seriously though @TSE, it always blows up when you’re on duty!
But we’ve had some stormy weather here the last 24 hours. This Spanish heat isn’t all its cracked up to be…
"The former intelligence official David Grusch, who led analysis of unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAP) within a US Department of Defense agency, has alleged that the US has craft of non-human origin.
Information on these vehicles is being illegally withheld from Congress, Grusch has said. Grusch said when he turned over classified information about the vehicles to Congress he suffered retaliation from government officials. He left the government in April after a 14-year career in US intelligence.
Jonathan Grey, a current US intelligence official at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (Nasic), confirmed the existence of “exotic materials” , adding: “We are not alone.”
Grusch, 36, is a senior intelligence analyst who represented the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, the precursor to AARO, from 2019-2021. Grusch is also a decorated combat officer for his service in Afghanistan.
“His assertion concerning the existence of a terrestrial arms race occurring sub-rosa over the past eighty years focused on reverse engineering technologies of unknown origin is fundamentally correct,” said Karl Nell, a US Army Colonel who worked with Grusch on the UAP Task Force, which preceded the creation of AARO,” as is the indisputable realization that at least some of these technologies of unknown origin derive from non-human intelligence.”
And now when I wake up in said hotel, finally with some spare time and a coffee, I am criticised for saying “hahahahaha I was right about lab leak and aliens” even tho that is absolutely the case?
Man can’t win
I still don’t know what a furin cleavage is.
A lab leak seemed - Occam’s razor - the simplest explanation.
And none of the avowals that it just couldn’t be ever seemed terribly convincing,
How Keir Starmer is actually to blame for Nicola Sturgeon being arrested and how he forced Johnson to resign, LEFTIE LAWYER KORMA EATER IS EVIL
Even Big G’s wife is getting fed up with the total garbage coming from the Daily Mail - GB News - Boris Johnson - Matt Goodwin - IEA nexus.
I’m sure many Scots will find supporters of Scotland’s most unpopular and second most unpopular parties chortling in unison instructive.
Is it something you’ve had to have installed chez Casino because you saw a gypsy at the bottom of the lane?
Pollster explains hows the Tories will lose the next election
I know this is PoliticsJoe but listen to what this bloke is saying, it could inform the betting.
I am still betting on NOM but coming round to the idea that maybe I should plop some money on Labour majority.
Let's see sum real evidence rather than an appeal to authority to the Sunday Times.
Others are making whatever the opposite of that is.
Which I find further “unconvincing evidence” against my prior assumption.
Binary normativity. Tut tut. The SNP should cancel itself.
Sad.
"I'm Alex Hollings, and THIS...is Airpower"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XtLsIoj3Sg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44ATBmXuf9E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O621aLTWYMY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZfI6ep0O9Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDSVJfuyJlk
(You have interrupted my Perun, which I will now get back to)
https://twitter.com/NewVoiceUkraine/status/1667896214560604160
You’re the last person to be judging senses of humour.
Starmer should but out!
Then there's also the recent Scotland YouGov MRP and Best for Britain MRP which predicted significant gains for SLAB.
That 's certainly very interesting, at the least.
Broadcast in 1987.
Blackadder was and remains v funny, but there’s something a bit necrophiliac about constantly invoking it through emphysemic wheezes of hilarity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Russian_flu
Not surprising for anyone following the story, though.
Starmer appears to be a very lucky general.
There's a very large body of Scottish public opinion that are either blood and soil nationalists or fall into the broader category of those who are more likely to back an exclusively Scottish party rather than a British one, and who have nowhere realistically to go in a General Election other than to the SNP. I see no reason at this stage to alter my opinion that Labour will probably win no more than about a dozen Scottish seats, and may consider that it has done very well even if it gets that far.
Keir is not the PM we want, but maybe he’s the PM we need.
As things stand, you're just a driftless humourless establishment internationalist centre-leftie, of which there are many, who's rather boring as well as tedious.
Sorry.
Never trust someone without one.