"This is simply an extraordinary study. Researchers gave $7,500 (CAD) to homeless people in Vancouver. The result? The program *saved* money. It helped many of them to move into housing faster, which saved the shelter system $8,277 per person. 🧵👇"
I guess you have no plan to "stop all this in its tracks", aside from giving Russia what it wants of Ukraine (the Nick Palmer approach?)
Disagreement is fine, but you shouldn't misrepresent me. I was on a platform with Jeremy Hunt denouncing the invasion and calling for support for Ukraine soon after it happened. I'm glad they were prevented from taking Kyiv and the west where literally almost nobody wants them. And thus I don't favour giving Russia Ukraine. But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line.
I'm not sure I'm misrepresenting you. Your position was that the areas Russia had invaded should have a referendum. When the stupidity of that position was pointed out, you recently said that a peace deal should give Russia the areas they have (*) without a referendum.
"But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line."
That's *exactly* giving Russia what they want at the moment. A pause to rearm and prepare.
(*) Without stating whether that's the area they control, or the areas they *claim* in the rather interesting laws they passed.
No, I favour a referendum in each area as the long-term outcome, as in Slesvig-Holstein. There is, as I've said, an argument about whether people who've fled or arrived get to vote in the new or old place. But anyway it's clearly a long way to agreement on that. In the meantime, I favour a ceaasefire on the current line.with Ukraine allowed to join NATO so that we can guarantee no further incursion without triggering WW3.
But holding a referendum now is pointless, because Russia can import 'Russian' people, and ethnic cleanse anyone they don't like into the heart of Russia. At best. Talk of a 'referendum' is basically shorthand for 'let Russia have it', as there's zero chance of it being free and fair.
Nick, your position on this conflict has always been poor, from saying we should not 'poke' Russia into invading, to blaming NATO's eastwards expansion, to Ukrainian Nazis, to Bandera. I see lots of soft pro=Russian views, but absolutely no concern for the Ukrainians who are being put through Hell because of their invasion by a fascist, imperialist state.
You may want to read the thread I posted earlier this evening, then ask how, with good conscience, you can ask to subject Ukrainians to Russian mistreatment.
Ukraine may well be forced to a ceasefire at some point, leaving a lot of territory and people in Russian hands, but whilst there's some people who are rather flippant about any risks of escalation, there are a larger group of people who seem so keen for 'peace' (or rather, returning to a cold war), that that is worth any cost. That 'peace' now must automatically be better than fighting now. In essence, that no situation of fighting can be worth doing. I think even us armchair generals would say no one can really judge when fighting on is unsustainable other than those doing the fighting, but the implication seems to be that Ukraine being aided to do so is instinctively wrong because fighting is wrong.
I also don't quite understand the idea of 'ceasefire on the current line with Uraine allowed to join NATO'. For one, surely that makes it a permanent settlement since it would mean that Ukraine could never try to take back the rest of its territory (it's solely focused on assuming it prevents more Russian gains) since that would entail a NATO member launching massive strikes against Russian forces as the 'aggressor'. When would the rest of NATO agree to that, and if they might why would Russia agree to such a deal?
For another, ceasefire on those lines would not settle the actual claims of both Russia and Ukraine, which would mean there was still a territorial dispute. Which surely means they couldn't join NATO since that was part of why the Russian propaganda about if only Ukraine had promised to never join NATO (ie, give up control of their own foreign policy) made no sense, since it was never going to happen whilst Crimea and the Donbas was occupied.
What about sanctions? Personally I would not be inclined to remove a single one until Putin is gone and it's clear you have a Russian leader who has renounced Russia's territorial claim to Ukraine (certainly aside from any occupied parts). Is this really so difficult? The horrors of this genocidal war ought to cast a very long shadow over the future of Europe. Not least as Ukraine takes decades to remove all the mines Russia has planted.
I guess you have no plan to "stop all this in its tracks", aside from giving Russia what it wants of Ukraine (the Nick Palmer approach?)
Disagreement is fine, but you shouldn't misrepresent me. I was on a platform with Jeremy Hunt denouncing the invasion and calling for support for Ukraine soon after it happened. I'm glad they were prevented from taking Kyiv and the west where literally almost nobody wants them. And thus I don't favour giving Russia Ukraine. But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line.
The situation in Ukraine seems to be one which a lot of active posters behave in a tribal way, you have to agree completely with them or else you are out of the tribe. This just prevents useful discussion of it, it is true for other areas as well. If you think in this way - complete victory or nothing, good vs evil, light vs dark... then you aren't really going to develop much real insight in to issues, or be very good at predicting what is going to happen in the world.
I think it's quite possible to have useful discussions and also nuanced opinions about Ukraine, for instance to believe that whilst Ukraine should be supported to regain all its lost territory that is unlikely to happen or be supported to that full goal by Western backers. And as such to consider what unpalatable options might crop up and what might happen.
However, it is also the case that opinions can be cloaked in nuanced or mild language, yet not be very nuanced at all when broken down to their basic points, which just mirror pro or anti talking points, dressed up better. And that deserves pointing out when it happens (some might claim it of my own input, gods forbid).
It is also the case that some elements are, on a moral level, rather straightforward. Things are not usually black and white, and I'm a firm proponent of acknowledging that. But sometimes they are black and white, and an attempt at balance can lead to false conclusions, and that should be acknowledged too.
Yes, I think that was Macron's mistake at the start of the campaign too, thinking that a psychopathic dictator and a flawed democracy both have points of view that should somehow be balanced.
For me it's much simpler. Putin needs to be thrown out of Ukraine, and so decisively that he can never think of touching it or any other country again. To do otherwise would betray most of the principles the West claims to stand for, stab the brave Ukrainians in the back and encourage all kinds of dictators, especially the Chinese.
The heroic Ukrainians are doing the hard part - we need to do our much easier bit and send them whatever weapons and intelligence they ask for. If the Russians win it will be our fault, and our generation's biggest failure.
Jonathan at ADL kicked off a massive Twitter boycott campaign less than a week after the acquisition closed.
Literally nothing had changed about the site.
Our US revenue is still 60% down from that campaign, but slowly improving.
"Free speech absolutist" objects to free speech.
Calling for boycotts is perfectly legal free speech.
It's also notable that, as is often the case, none of this is Musk's fault. It's all someone else's fault. He has made no mistakes; the fall in revenue is nothing to do with him, but all the fault of all these awful people.
It’s clearly true that there was an orchestrated campaign to boycott Twitter and pressure was placed on advertisers. The revenue decline wasn’t organic.
Firstly, orchestrated boycotts are clearly legal.
Secondly, who is doing the orchestrating? Who is the head of this (legal) conspiracy?
Wasn't one of the first tweets he posted after taking over twitter some rightwing conspiracy theory about Paul Pelosi? No doubt Jewish people made him do that too. What an arse.
"Elon Musk . . . a scent that lingers . . . out of this world yet down to earth . . . way down . . ."
I guess you have no plan to "stop all this in its tracks", aside from giving Russia what it wants of Ukraine (the Nick Palmer approach?)
Disagreement is fine, but you shouldn't misrepresent me. I was on a platform with Jeremy Hunt denouncing the invasion and calling for support for Ukraine soon after it happened. I'm glad they were prevented from taking Kyiv and the west where literally almost nobody wants them. And thus I don't favour giving Russia Ukraine. But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line.
I'm not sure I'm misrepresenting you. Your position was that the areas Russia had invaded should have a referendum. When the stupidity of that position was pointed out, you recently said that a peace deal should give Russia the areas they have (*) without a referendum.
"But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line."
That's *exactly* giving Russia what they want at the moment. A pause to rearm and prepare.
(*) Without stating whether that's the area they control, or the areas they *claim* in the rather interesting laws they passed.
No, I favour a referendum in each area as the long-term outcome, as in Slesvig-Holstein. There is, as I've said, an argument about whether people who've fled or arrived get to vote in the new or old place. But anyway it's clearly a long way to agreement on that. In the meantime, I favour a ceaasefire on the current line.with Ukraine allowed to join NATO so that we can guarantee no further incursion without triggering WW3.
But holding a referendum now is pointless, because Russia can import 'Russian' people, and ethnic cleanse anyone they don't like into the heart of Russia. At best. Talk of a 'referendum' is basically shorthand for 'let Russia have it', as there's zero chance of it being free and fair.
Nick, your position on this conflict has always been poor, from saying we should not 'poke' Russia into invading, to blaming NATO's eastwards expansion, to Ukrainian Nazis, to Bandera. I see lots of soft pro=Russian views, but absolutely no concern for the Ukrainians who are being put through Hell because of their invasion by a fascist, imperialist state.
You may want to read the thread I posted earlier this evening, then ask how, with good conscience, you can ask to subject Ukrainians to Russian mistreatment.
Ukraine may well be forced to a ceasefire at some point, leaving a lot of territory and people in Russian hands, but whilst there's some people who are rather flippant about any risks of escalation, there are a larger group of people who seem so keen for 'peace' (or rather, returning to a cold war), that that is worth any cost. That 'peace' now must automatically be better than fighting now. In essence, that no situation of fighting can be worth doing. I think even us armchair generals would say no one can really judge when fighting on is unsustainable other than those doing the fighting, but the implication seems to be that Ukraine being aided to do so is instinctively wrong because fighting is wrong.
I also don't quite understand the idea of 'ceasefire on the current line with Uraine allowed to join NATO'. For one, surely that makes it a permanent settlement since it would mean that Ukraine could never try to take back the rest of its territory (it's solely focused on assuming it prevents more Russian gains) since that would entail a NATO member launching massive strikes against Russian forces as the 'aggressor'. When would the rest of NATO agree to that, and if they might why would Russia agree to such a deal?
For another, ceasefire on those lines would not settle the actual claims of both Russia and Ukraine, which would mean there was still a territorial dispute. Which surely means they couldn't join NATO since that was part of why the Russian propaganda about if only Ukraine had promised to never join NATO (ie, give up control of their own foreign policy) made no sense, since it was never going to happen whilst Crimea and the Donbas was occupied.
What about sanctions? Personally I would not be inclined to remove a single one until Putin is gone and it's clear you have a Russian leader who has renounced Russia's territorial claim to Ukraine (certainly aside from any occupied parts). Is this really so difficult? The horrors of this genocidal war ought to cast a very long shadow over the future of Europe. Not least as Ukraine takes decades to remove all the mines Russia has planted.
My personal view is sanctions would need to be longlasting. The reason being that most of the world, including us for the most part, looked the other way in 2014 and convinced ourselves Russia would not go further, the light sanctions were appropriate enough. Even in the run up to 2022 people could not believe it would happen. But it did. I imagine I supported the approach that doing something in 2014 was not worth the escalation, but that was proven incorrect, and trying it again last year was ridiculous. As Fishing alludes to Macron's attempt was probably well meaning, but in the context of what was happening, and after what had failed before, it was doomed.
Of course, Russian claims are that the sanctions are pointless, but also that they are furious about them being opposed.
On topic, let's consider the 1992 election and polling in the run up to it: Labour's peak lead mid-term was comparable to Starmer's now, but within 18 months of the election things were neck and neck.
We are now, at most, under 17 months from the next election. More likely closer to 12. And there is no sign of anything similar happening. The government is stumbling from crisis to crisis without any clear alternative narrative.
Starmer enthuses very few people, but he scares even fewer. He been ruthless in removing the far-left from his team, while being very careful about too many spending pledges. The absence of fear is key: if everyone agrees the Tories are useless, then why not give the other lot a chance if they appear mostly harmless?
What the Tories did in Uxbridge was find something (ULEZ) that motivated the fear response, which was likely decisive in a close race.
So unless the Tories can nail Starmer over something that gets national attention, my view is they are toast. I expect a surprisingly sizable Labour majority.
That graph is quite instructive. Dumping the increasingly toxic Thatcher and her hated Poll tax, on favour of the bland, charisma free Major* switched the poll lead to a photo finish.
The Tories have now ditched 2 Prime Ministers this Parliament, with negligible effect. The writing is on the wall for Sunak.
*bland, charisma free, facing down his head bangers and frightening no one. The Tory Starmer?
Though even before Major arrived on the scene, the gap was closing steadily through Summer 1990. Amazing, really.
But amazing things do happen. And next year either the Conservatives will claw back their position starting now to deny Labour a majority (pretty amazing) or Labour will overturn a big Conservative majority and replace it with one of their own (also pretty amazing).
In 1990, the key point was when the pollsters did a VI with Heseltine as Prime Minister instead of Thatcher. With Thatcher as PM, the Conservatives trailed by 10 points, with Heseltine as leader, the parties were level. Backbenchers seeing their seats at real risk if Thatcher continued to lead were only too happy to push her out to save their seats.
Later, when Major polled as well as Heseltine he won with Thatcher's backing but the Conservatives still lost 40 seats in 1992 though they came out of the election with a 21-seat majority.
Broken Britain in microcosm today at Citizens Advice:
First client: man in his 70s, lives alone, own house, can't get about much, frugal habits, being paid State Pension + Pension Credit (PC). Even though he has repeatedly reported his savings have gone up and up because he is not spending, can he get DWP to review his PC? No, 'they only have enough staff to answer the phones and deal with people not getting what they should'.
Next client: Married woman, two children, £180k mortgage, she and her husband both work full-time in low paid employment, mortgage repayments have doubled. Can they get help through UC? No. Would they get UC if they were paying in rent what they are (or even were)on their mortgage? Oh yes.
Retired man being paid more than he needs (or indeed is due) while a typical 'hard-working family' look like they are possibly going to lose their house.
I guess you have no plan to "stop all this in its tracks", aside from giving Russia what it wants of Ukraine (the Nick Palmer approach?)
Disagreement is fine, but you shouldn't misrepresent me. I was on a platform with Jeremy Hunt denouncing the invasion and calling for support for Ukraine soon after it happened. I'm glad they were prevented from taking Kyiv and the west where literally almost nobody wants them. And thus I don't favour giving Russia Ukraine. But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line.
The situation in Ukraine seems to be one which a lot of active posters behave in a tribal way, you have to agree completely with them or else you are out of the tribe. This just prevents useful discussion of it, it is true for other areas as well. If you think in this way - complete victory or nothing, good vs evil, light vs dark... then you aren't really going to develop much real insight in to issues, or be very good at predicting what is going to happen in the world.
I think it's quite possible to have useful discussions and also nuanced opinions about Ukraine, for instance to believe that whilst Ukraine should be supported to regain all its lost territory that is unlikely to happen or be supported to that full goal by Western backers. And as such to consider what unpalatable options might crop up and what might happen.
However, it is also the case that opinions can be cloaked in nuanced or mild language, yet not be very nuanced at all when broken down to their basic points, which just mirror pro or anti talking points, dressed up better. And that deserves pointing out when it happens (some might claim it of my own input, gods forbid).
It is also the case that some elements are, on a moral level, rather straightforward. Things are not usually black and white, and I'm a firm proponent of acknowledging that. But sometimes they are black and white, and an attempt at balance can lead to false conclusions, and that should be acknowledged too.
Yes, I think that was Macron's mistake at the start of the campaign too, thinking that a psychopathic dictator and a flawed democracy both have points of view that should somehow be balanced.
For me it's much simpler. Putin needs to be thrown out of Ukraine, and so decisively that he can never think of touching it or any other country again. To do otherwise would betray most of the principles the West claims to stand for, stab the brave Ukrainians in the back and encourage all kinds of dictators, especially the Chinese.
The heroic Ukrainians are doing the hard part - we need to do our much easier bit and send them whatever weapons and intelligence they ask for. If the Russians win it will be our fault, and our generation's biggest failure.
I was very critical of Macron at the start of this war, but about six months ago a clip was released of his conversation with Zelenskyy on the first day of the war. IIRC, Zelenskyy pleaded with Macron to try to persuade Putin to call it off. For me at least, it put a more positive light on Macron's actions over the first few weeks.
Jonathan at ADL kicked off a massive Twitter boycott campaign less than a week after the acquisition closed.
Literally nothing had changed about the site.
Our US revenue is still 60% down from that campaign, but slowly improving.
"Free speech absolutist" objects to free speech.
Calling for boycotts is perfectly legal free speech.
It's also notable that, as is often the case, none of this is Musk's fault. It's all someone else's fault. He has made no mistakes; the fall in revenue is nothing to do with him, but all the fault of all these awful people.
It’s clearly true that there was an orchestrated campaign to boycott Twitter and pressure was placed on advertisers. The revenue decline wasn’t organic.
Free speech and free assembly means people are free to orchestrate campaigns, yes.
So what?
Advertising isn't organic either, Twitter isn't organic. If you want organic, get into niche farming, don't run a free speech business as a free speech absolutist then cry that others said things you don't like.
I’ve said this before but the real reason most advertisers left Xwitter was that it was easy to leave. Not because of pressure groups. Because their ad offering was (and is) not very good. If Musk has bought Meta or Alphabet, advertisers would have stayed. But a niche channel that is suddenly becoming a brand risk and potentially declining user base - with a shitty targeting engine? More trouble than it’s worth. And what’s that? Your brand account has lost its blue tick for no apparent reasons? F*ck that noise.
You take that money and instead put it into Insta, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, radio or whatever else reaches your audience.
Probably the only exception is if you’re flogging some crypto or NFT scam, in which I daresay it is still worth it.
Broken Britain in microcosm today at Citizens Advice:
First client: man in his 70s, lives alone, own house, can't get about much, frugal habits, being paid State Pension + Pension Credit (PC). Even though he has repeatedly reported his savings have gone up and up because he is not spending, can he get DWP to review his PC? No, 'they only have enough staff to answer the phones and deal with people not getting what they should'.
Next client: Married woman, two children, £180k mortgage, she and her husband both work full-time in low paid employment, mortgage repayments have doubled. Can they get help through UC? No. Would they get UC if they were paying in rent what they are (or even were)on their mortgage? Oh yes.
Retired man being paid more than he needs (or indeed is due) while a typical 'hard-working family' look like they are possibly going to lose their house.
What the Conservative Party has become, in a nutshell.
On topic, let's consider the 1992 election and polling in the run up to it: Labour's peak lead mid-term was comparable to Starmer's now, but within 18 months of the election things were neck and neck.
We are now, at most, under 17 months from the next election. More likely closer to 12. And there is no sign of anything similar happening. The government is stumbling from crisis to crisis without any clear alternative narrative.
Starmer enthuses very few people, but he scares even fewer. He been ruthless in removing the far-left from his team, while being very careful about too many spending pledges. The absence of fear is key: if everyone agrees the Tories are useless, then why not give the other lot a chance if they appear mostly harmless?
What the Tories did in Uxbridge was find something (ULEZ) that motivated the fear response, which was likely decisive in a close race.
So unless the Tories can nail Starmer over something that gets national attention, my view is they are toast. I expect a surprisingly sizable Labour majority.
That graph is quite instructive. Dumping the increasingly toxic Thatcher and her hated Poll tax, on favour of the bland, charisma free Major* switched the poll lead to a photo finish.
The Tories have now ditched 2 Prime Ministers this Parliament, with negligible effect. The writing is on the wall for Sunak.
*bland, charisma free, facing down his head bangers and frightening no one. The Tory Starmer?
Though even before Major arrived on the scene, the gap was closing steadily through Summer 1990. Amazing, really.
But amazing things do happen. And next year either the Conservatives will claw back their position starting now to deny Labour a majority (pretty amazing) or Labour will overturn a big Conservative majority and replace it with one of their own (also pretty amazing).
In 1990, the key point was when the pollsters did a VI with Heseltine as Prime Minister instead of Thatcher. With Thatcher as PM, the Conservatives trailed by 10 points, with Heseltine as leader, the parties were level. Backbenchers seeing their seats at real risk if Thatcher continued to lead were only too happy to push her out to save their seats.
Later, when Major polled as well as Heseltine he won with Thatcher's backing but the Conservatives still lost 40 seats in 1992 though they came out of the election with a 21-seat majority.
And Major also had some favourable polling as well- there's a bit about it in Alan Clark's Diaries. Right now, I doubt that would work.
First, it's possible that Badenoch/Braverman/Mordaunt would deliver a useful shot of adrenaline to Conservative ratings, but I doubt it. The fundamentals are too bad for that, I suspect. But it would be interesting to have suspicions confirmed, if anyone with a polling company is listening.
Second, the Conservative party is in a strange mood right now. Do they even care about winning next time?
"This is simply an extraordinary study. Researchers gave $7,500 (CAD) to homeless people in Vancouver. The result? The program *saved* money. It helped many of them to move into housing faster, which saved the shelter system $8,277 per person. 🧵👇"
An arbitrary selection of homeless people, or a cherrypicked group of those most likely to succeed? Good news either way, but rather different things.
Homeless less than 2 years, and no addiction issues, but even so.
Here in LA, there are lots of homeless charities. It's fairly easy - if you are willing to not drink or take drugs - to move into mini shelters, and then there are support networks to get people jobs and into permanent accommodation from there.
But they aren't the problem. That transient homelessness is what we wish most homelessness is. But it isn't.
Most homelessness - in LA at least - have at least one of (a) severe mental health issues and (b) substance issues.
Solving those is massively problematic than a $7,500 cheque.
I guess you have no plan to "stop all this in its tracks", aside from giving Russia what it wants of Ukraine (the Nick Palmer approach?)
Disagreement is fine, but you shouldn't misrepresent me. I was on a platform with Jeremy Hunt denouncing the invasion and calling for support for Ukraine soon after it happened. I'm glad they were prevented from taking Kyiv and the west where literally almost nobody wants them. And thus I don't favour giving Russia Ukraine. But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line.
The situation in Ukraine seems to be one which a lot of active posters behave in a tribal way, you have to agree completely with them or else you are out of the tribe. This just prevents useful discussion of it, it is true for other areas as well. If you think in this way - complete victory or nothing, good vs evil, light vs dark... then you aren't really going to develop much real insight in to issues, or be very good at predicting what is going to happen in the world.
I think it's quite possible to have useful discussions and also nuanced opinions about Ukraine, for instance to believe that whilst Ukraine should be supported to regain all its lost territory that is unlikely to happen or be supported to that full goal by Western backers. And as such to consider what unpalatable options might crop up and what might happen.
However, it is also the case that opinions can be cloaked in nuanced or mild language, yet not be very nuanced at all when broken down to their basic points, which just mirror pro or anti talking points, dressed up better. And that deserves pointing out when it happens (some might claim it of my own input, gods forbid).
It is also the case that some elements are, on a moral level, rather straightforward. Things are not usually black and white, and I'm a firm proponent of acknowledging that. But sometimes they are black and white, and an attempt at balance can lead to false conclusions, and that should be acknowledged too.
Yes this is black and white. Right is all on one side and wrong is on the other. You don't demonstrate pragmatism or free thinking or man of the worldness by saying otherwise. You're just mistaken.
But all that means is you have to want Ukraine to win. It doesn't mean you have to predict that they will or that you have to be up for supporting them militarily come what may for as long as it takes. I find that a bit postury.
I guess you have no plan to "stop all this in its tracks", aside from giving Russia what it wants of Ukraine (the Nick Palmer approach?)
Disagreement is fine, but you shouldn't misrepresent me. I was on a platform with Jeremy Hunt denouncing the invasion and calling for support for Ukraine soon after it happened. I'm glad they were prevented from taking Kyiv and the west where literally almost nobody wants them. And thus I don't favour giving Russia Ukraine. But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line.
The situation in Ukraine seems to be one which a lot of active posters behave in a tribal way, you have to agree completely with them or else you are out of the tribe. This just prevents useful discussion of it, it is true for other areas as well. If you think in this way - complete victory or nothing, good vs evil, light vs dark... then you aren't really going to develop much real insight in to issues, or be very good at predicting what is going to happen in the world.
I think it's quite possible to have useful discussions and also nuanced opinions about Ukraine, for instance to believe that whilst Ukraine should be supported to regain all its lost territory that is unlikely to happen or be supported to that full goal by Western backers. And as such to consider what unpalatable options might crop up and what might happen.
However, it is also the case that opinions can be cloaked in nuanced or mild language, yet not be very nuanced at all when broken down to their basic points, which just mirror pro or anti talking points, dressed up better. And that deserves pointing out when it happens (some might claim it of my own input, gods forbid).
It is also the case that some elements are, on a moral level, rather straightforward. Things are not usually black and white, and I'm a firm proponent of acknowledging that. But sometimes they are black and white, and an attempt at balance can lead to false conclusions, and that should be acknowledged too.
I would summarise as: - Goal 1: provide Ukraine with sufficient weapons and resources to fight Russia out or Ukraine soil - Goal 2: if Ukraine wishes to commence a ceasefire / accept the stalemate, then they can choose to do so (it is their young people dying), but they shouldn't be pressured into this. - Goal 3: continue to support Ukraine and isolate Russia, including maintaining sanctions and military/financial support. Make sure next time round Ukraine is even stronger
Any suggestion that Russia can rejoin the international community until they leave all of Ukraine must be rejected.
While I was reading about ancient local monuments yesterday, I kept noticing the name of an archaeologist who seems to have written about all of them. He shares the same name as one of my near neighbours
Funnily enough I had a parcel to deliver to him today, and it turns out he is the very same archaeologist I was reading about yesterday! We had a nice chat about the local sites, about my recent trip to Carnac, and about how I should buy his book from the shop at Avebury or Stonehenge when I walk to them
If you are going to visit morte than a few paying EH sites, have a look at the website to check the price of the season ticket versus the admissions - it could be worthwhile. You could also get a discount on the stuff they sell at the sites, at least some time back.
"This is simply an extraordinary study. Researchers gave $7,500 (CAD) to homeless people in Vancouver. The result? The program *saved* money. It helped many of them to move into housing faster, which saved the shelter system $8,277 per person. 🧵👇"
An arbitrary selection of homeless people, or a cherrypicked group of those most likely to succeed? Good news either way, but rather different things.
Homeless less than 2 years, and no addiction issues, but even so.
Here in LA, there are lots of homeless charities. It's fairly easy - if you are willing to not drink or take drugs - to move into mini shelters, and then there are support networks to get people jobs and into permanent accommodation from there.
But they aren't the problem. That transient homelessness is what we wish most homelessness is. But it isn't.
Most homelessness - in LA at least - have at least one of (a) severe mental health issues and (b) substance issues.
Solving those is massively problematic than a $7,500 cheque.
Certainly so. It is quite striking how many of the US homeless are afflicted by addiction or other mental health issues.
I guess you have no plan to "stop all this in its tracks", aside from giving Russia what it wants of Ukraine (the Nick Palmer approach?)
Disagreement is fine, but you shouldn't misrepresent me. I was on a platform with Jeremy Hunt denouncing the invasion and calling for support for Ukraine soon after it happened. I'm glad they were prevented from taking Kyiv and the west where literally almost nobody wants them. And thus I don't favour giving Russia Ukraine. But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line.
The situation in Ukraine seems to be one which a lot of active posters behave in a tribal way, you have to agree completely with them or else you are out of the tribe. This just prevents useful discussion of it, it is true for other areas as well. If you think in this way - complete victory or nothing, good vs evil, light vs dark... then you aren't really going to develop much real insight in to issues, or be very good at predicting what is going to happen in the world.
I think it's quite possible to have useful discussions and also nuanced opinions about Ukraine, for instance to believe that whilst Ukraine should be supported to regain all its lost territory that is unlikely to happen or be supported to that full goal by Western backers. And as such to consider what unpalatable options might crop up and what might happen.
However, it is also the case that opinions can be cloaked in nuanced or mild language, yet not be very nuanced at all when broken down to their basic points, which just mirror pro or anti talking points, dressed up better. And that deserves pointing out when it happens (some might claim it of my own input, gods forbid).
It is also the case that some elements are, on a moral level, rather straightforward. Things are not usually black and white, and I'm a firm proponent of acknowledging that. But sometimes they are black and white, and an attempt at balance can lead to false conclusions, and that should be acknowledged too.
I would summarise as: - Goal 1: provide Ukraine with sufficient weapons and resources to fight Russia out or Ukraine soil - Goal 2: if Ukraine wishes to commence a ceasefire / accept the stalemate, then they can choose to do so (it is their young people dying), but they shouldn't be pressured into this. - Goal 3: continue to support Ukraine and isolate Russia, including maintaining sanctions and military/financial support. Make sure next time round Ukraine is even stronger
Any suggestion that Russia can rejoin the international community until they leave all of Ukraine must be rejected.
Admirably succinct (that is not a strength of mine).
If there is a clear solution to the problem of Putin's aggression, I haven't seen it. But I think we are more likely to get one if we encourage Ukraine to, for example, ask for territorial concessions in exchange for even a ceasefire.
In other words we should signal to Putin that the possible results for him are not just win or break even, but win, break even, or lose. (I assume he doesn't care about Russian losses.)
And I am beginning to wonder whether we should start speculating about the need for referendums in, for instance, St. Petersburg and Vladivostok. (Not officially, of course.)
Broken Britain in microcosm today at Citizens Advice:
First client: man in his 70s, lives alone, own house, can't get about much, frugal habits, being paid State Pension + Pension Credit (PC). Even though he has repeatedly reported his savings have gone up and up because he is not spending, can he get DWP to review his PC? No, 'they only have enough staff to answer the phones and deal with people not getting what they should'.
Next client: Married woman, two children, £180k mortgage, she and her husband both work full-time in low paid employment, mortgage repayments have doubled. Can they get help through UC? No. Would they get UC if they were paying in rent what they are (or even were)on their mortgage? Oh yes.
Retired man being paid more than he needs (or indeed is due) while a typical 'hard-working family' look like they are possibly going to lose their house.
It was ever the case I am afraid Ben.
Back in the early 2000s I was earning about £40K a year. Brown had introduced working/child tax credits and I got a letter telling me I should fill out all my details and would be eligible for money from the State.
My wife and I discussed it and decided that, as a point of principle, when earning £40K a year we should not be taking money from the State. So we wrote back saying no thanks.
We were told we were not allowed to say no thanks and had to fill out the forms. We spoke with the tax office and they said just fill them out and put a note declining the money. This we did and lo and behold we started getting tax credits. We donated the money to charity.
The next year they wanted more details and we refused to give them, stating again we did not want the money . So we were threatened with court. Eventually Our MP had to step in and start making representations before they would back down and accept that we did not want the money and were going to make a big scene with the press if they took us to court for refusing State aid.
"This is simply an extraordinary study. Researchers gave $7,500 (CAD) to homeless people in Vancouver. The result? The program *saved* money. It helped many of them to move into housing faster, which saved the shelter system $8,277 per person. 🧵👇"
An arbitrary selection of homeless people, or a cherrypicked group of those most likely to succeed? Good news either way, but rather different things.
Homeless less than 2 years, and no addiction issues, but even so.
Here in LA, there are lots of homeless charities. It's fairly easy - if you are willing to not drink or take drugs - to move into mini shelters, and then there are support networks to get people jobs and into permanent accommodation from there.
But they aren't the problem. That transient homelessness is what we wish most homelessness is. But it isn't.
Most homelessness - in LA at least - have at least one of (a) severe mental health issues and (b) substance issues.
Solving those is massively problematic than a $7,500 cheque.
I was once talking to a woman who worked with the homeless, first in Lewisham and then in and around Totnes in Devon. She said homelessness in the two areas involved completely different challenges and approaches.
In SE London most people were homeless because they didn’t have enough money for a home. Usually they’d broken up with a partner or lost a job and were stuck sofa surfing.
In Devon most people were homeless because they had drug or alcohol issues.
The solution to the former was generally practical and financial, to the latter was medical and social.
On topic, let's consider the 1992 election and polling in the run up to it: Labour's peak lead mid-term was comparable to Starmer's now, but within 18 months of the election things were neck and neck.
We are now, at most, under 17 months from the next election. More likely closer to 12. And there is no sign of anything similar happening. The government is stumbling from crisis to crisis without any clear alternative narrative.
Starmer enthuses very few people, but he scares even fewer. He been ruthless in removing the far-left from his team, while being very careful about too many spending pledges. The absence of fear is key: if everyone agrees the Tories are useless, then why not give the other lot a chance if they appear mostly harmless?
What the Tories did in Uxbridge was find something (ULEZ) that motivated the fear response, which was likely decisive in a close race.
So unless the Tories can nail Starmer over something that gets national attention, my view is they are toast. I expect a surprisingly sizable Labour majority.
That graph is quite instructive. Dumping the increasingly toxic Thatcher and her hated Poll tax, on favour of the bland, charisma free Major* switched the poll lead to a photo finish.
The Tories have now ditched 2 Prime Ministers this Parliament, with negligible effect. The writing is on the wall for Sunak.
*bland, charisma free, facing down his head bangers and frightening no one. The Tory Starmer?
Though even before Major arrived on the scene, the gap was closing steadily through Summer 1990. Amazing, really.
But amazing things do happen. And next year either the Conservatives will claw back their position starting now to deny Labour a majority (pretty amazing) or Labour will overturn a big Conservative majority and replace it with one of their own (also pretty amazing).
In 1990, the key point was when the pollsters did a VI with Heseltine as Prime Minister instead of Thatcher. With Thatcher as PM, the Conservatives trailed by 10 points, with Heseltine as leader, the parties were level. Backbenchers seeing their seats at real risk if Thatcher continued to lead were only too happy to push her out to save their seats.
Later, when Major polled as well as Heseltine he won with Thatcher's backing but the Conservatives still lost 40 seats in 1992 though they came out of the election with a 21-seat majority.
And Major also had some favourable polling as well- there's a bit about it in Alan Clark's Diaries. Right now, I doubt that would work.
First, it's possible that Badenoch/Braverman/Mordaunt would deliver a useful shot of adrenaline to Conservative ratings, but I doubt it. The fundamentals are too bad for that, I suspect. But it would be interesting to have suspicions confirmed, if anyone with a polling company is listening.
Second, the Conservative party is in a strange mood right now. Do they even care about winning next time?
It isn't about the presence of a new leader - on balance a change in leadership is a small negative, because it looks silly. It's the fact that only a new leader can credibly change the direction of the Government and give that new agenda a face. Sunak cannot credibly re-launch and stop his dismal decline-management bullshit, because that's the agenda he came in on and what he's all about. It would be like May trying constantly to re-heat her Brexit deal in her latter days.
You made a comment about Twitter/X's advertising revenues that was simply not true.
A meaningful proportion of Twitter's revenue decline was entirely self inflicted, and had nothing to do with the ADL or any organized conspiracy.
Within days of taking over, Twitter fired a host of engineers and switched off dozens of microservices. One of those was the two factor authentication system for advertisers. For several days. smaller advertisers simply couldn't login to spend money on advertising. And there was no-one to call!
That locked out thousands of smaller advertisers from the platform for a couple of days. And all those people will have reevaluated where they want to spend their money.
We used to spend $10-15,000 per month on Twitter. We currently spend a few hundred dollars. (I would note that this is better than Instagram/Facebook/Snapchat where our spend has gone to zero.)
The partnerships with other firms that Twitter previously had, that enabled you to do Enhanced Targeting no longer exist.
Which is a major problem. Targeting by "is interested in Donald Trump" is pretty shit for sensible selling of a product. And Google, for all its faults, allows us to target exactly our demographic: 21-35 years old, no kids, owns a car, lives in an apartment in Phoenix, works in a professional or semi-professional job.
You can't do that with Twitter. Indeed, targeting is worse than it was.
Now maybe if you're selling - I don't know - washing up liquid, then you really don't care who sees your adverts. But in the real world, targeting matters. And Twitter is shockingly bad at this, and has only gotten worse.
"This is simply an extraordinary study. Researchers gave $7,500 (CAD) to homeless people in Vancouver. The result? The program *saved* money. It helped many of them to move into housing faster, which saved the shelter system $8,277 per person. 🧵👇"
An arbitrary selection of homeless people, or a cherrypicked group of those most likely to succeed? Good news either way, but rather different things.
Homeless less than 2 years, and no addiction issues, but even so.
Here in LA, there are lots of homeless charities. It's fairly easy - if you are willing to not drink or take drugs - to move into mini shelters, and then there are support networks to get people jobs and into permanent accommodation from there.
But they aren't the problem. That transient homelessness is what we wish most homelessness is. But it isn't.
Most homelessness - in LA at least - have at least one of (a) severe mental health issues and (b) substance issues.
Solving those is massively problematic than a $7,500 cheque.
Certainly so. It is quite striking how many of the US homeless are afflicted by addiction or other mental health issues.
Nick P asked, and I'd also like to know, what is procedure for uploading pictures onto PB?
It's the last Icon on the right above the box when posting via Vanilla (as opposed to the website).
With the website www2.politicalbetting.com you can post any internet image using its URL in the following format but < and > rather than the ( ) brackets I have used for illustration:
Have been watching, but only sporadically, live coverage of Ken Paxton impeachment trial by Texas senate.
Watching mostly with sound off.
Based just on body language, appears that Paxton's defense attorney is slick in more ways than one, and that the first witness against the state attorney general, a former assistant ag turned FBI informant, is squirming somewhat, not falling apart but experiencing a through grilling by a high-price defense lawyer.
Nick P asked, and I'd also like to know, what is procedure for uploading pictures onto PB?
It's the last Icon on the right above the box when posting via Vanilla (as opposed to the website).
And do you know procedure on how to post pics via the website instead?
See my comment earlier.
Here's an example, if you quote this post you will see the actual html format used. The image needs to have a URL address - I post any of my own photos I want to show on imgur.com first and use a link to that image, thus:
By popular demand, wolf porn (I was visiting a Hungarian wolf rescue centre for the charity I was then working for) - as I said, no human has looked at me that affectionately...
By popular demand, wolf porn (I was visiting a Hungarian wolf rescue centre for the charity I was then working for) - as I said, no human has looked at me that affectionately...
By popular demand, wolf porn (I was visiting a Hungarian wolf rescue centre for the charity I was then working for) - as I said, no human has looked at me that affectionately...
By popular demand, wolf porn (I was visiting a Hungarian wolf rescue centre for the charity I was then working for) - as I said, no human has looked at me that affectionately...
By popular demand, wolf porn (I was visiting a Hungarian wolf rescue centre for the charity I was then working for) - as I said, no human has looked at me that affectionately...
Texas Tribune - Buzbee suggests whistleblowers colluded with George P. Bush against Paxton Sept. 6, 2023 at 2:46 p.m (Central - about 10 min ago)
Ken Paxton’s attorney Tony Buzbee has repeatedly brought up George P. Bush’s law license reactivation as he tries to paint the impeachment as a political witch-hunt.
Buzbee appears to be insinuating that Jeff Mateer, former first assistant attorney general, and other whistleblowers were colluding with Paxton’s political rivals.
Buzbee noted that Bush (son of Jeb Bush) reactivated his law license in the fall of 2020, around the time the Paxton whistleblowers took their concerns to the FBI.
Bush, the then-land commissioner, ran against Paxton in the 2022 Republican primary. Another candidate in that primary, Eva Guzman, regularly criticized Bush for having an inactive law license from 2010-2020, suggesting it showed he had insufficient legal experience.
Bush downplayed the issue throughout the primary. He said he made his license inactive in 2010 because that is when he deployed to Afghanistan — he was a Navy Reserve officer at the time — and he kept it inactive when he returned because he did not need it to lead the General Land Office, which has its own lawyers.
“It’s basically a formality, and once a lawyer, always a lawyer,” Bush said during the campaign.
On the witness stand Wednesday, Mateer flatly denied any contact with Bush.
SSI - classic ploy out of an old "Matlock" rerun by Paxton's lawyer.
By popular demand, wolf porn (I was visiting a Hungarian wolf rescue centre for the charity I was then working for) - as I said, no human has looked at me that affectionately...
I guess you have no plan to "stop all this in its tracks", aside from giving Russia what it wants of Ukraine (the Nick Palmer approach?)
Disagreement is fine, but you shouldn't misrepresent me. I was on a platform with Jeremy Hunt denouncing the invasion and calling for support for Ukraine soon after it happened. I'm glad they were prevented from taking Kyiv and the west where literally almost nobody wants them. And thus I don't favour giving Russia Ukraine. But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line.
The situation in Ukraine seems to be one which a lot of active posters behave in a tribal way, you have to agree completely with them or else you are out of the tribe. This just prevents useful discussion of it, it is true for other areas as well. If you think in this way - complete victory or nothing, good vs evil, light vs dark... then you aren't really going to develop much real insight in to issues, or be very good at predicting what is going to happen in the world.
I think it's quite possible to have useful discussions and also nuanced opinions about Ukraine, for instance to believe that whilst Ukraine should be supported to regain all its lost territory that is unlikely to happen or be supported to that full goal by Western backers. And as such to consider what unpalatable options might crop up and what might happen.
However, it is also the case that opinions can be cloaked in nuanced or mild language, yet not be very nuanced at all when broken down to their basic points, which just mirror pro or anti talking points, dressed up better. And that deserves pointing out when it happens (some might claim it of my own input, gods forbid).
It is also the case that some elements are, on a moral level, rather straightforward. Things are not usually black and white, and I'm a firm proponent of acknowledging that. But sometimes they are black and white, and an attempt at balance can lead to false conclusions, and that should be acknowledged too.
I would summarise as: - Goal 1: provide Ukraine with sufficient weapons and resources to fight Russia out or Ukraine soil - Goal 2: if Ukraine wishes to commence a ceasefire / accept the stalemate, then they can choose to do so (it is their young people dying), but they shouldn't be pressured into this. - Goal 3: continue to support Ukraine and isolate Russia, including maintaining sanctions and military/financial support. Make sure next time round Ukraine is even stronger
Any suggestion that Russia can rejoin the international community until they leave all of Ukraine must be rejected.
This is the current US policy, I think? And likely to remain so unless Trump/Maga get in.
Broken Britain in microcosm today at Citizens Advice:
First client: man in his 70s, lives alone, own house, can't get about much, frugal habits, being paid State Pension + Pension Credit (PC). Even though he has repeatedly reported his savings have gone up and up because he is not spending, can he get DWP to review his PC? No, 'they only have enough staff to answer the phones and deal with people not getting what they should'.
Next client: Married woman, two children, £180k mortgage, she and her husband both work full-time in low paid employment, mortgage repayments have doubled. Can they get help through UC? No. Would they get UC if they were paying in rent what they are (or even were)on their mortgage? Oh yes.
Retired man being paid more than he needs (or indeed is due) while a typical 'hard-working family' look like they are possibly going to lose their house.
It was ever the case I am afraid Ben.
Back in the early 2000s I was earning about £40K a year. Brown had introduced working/child tax credits and I got a letter telling me I should fill out all my details and would be eligible for money from the State.
My wife and I discussed it and decided that, as a point of principle, when earning £40K a year we should not be taking money from the State. So we wrote back saying no thanks.
We were told we were not allowed to say no thanks and had to fill out the forms. We spoke with the tax office and they said just fill them out and put a note declining the money. This we did and lo and behold we started getting tax credits. We donated the money to charity.
The next year they wanted more details and we refused to give them, stating again we did not want the money . So we were threatened with court. Eventually Our MP had to step in and start making representations before they would back down and accept that we did not want the money and were going to make a big scene with the press if they took us to court for refusing State aid.
I guess you have no plan to "stop all this in its tracks", aside from giving Russia what it wants of Ukraine (the Nick Palmer approach?)
Disagreement is fine, but you shouldn't misrepresent me. I was on a platform with Jeremy Hunt denouncing the invasion and calling for support for Ukraine soon after it happened. I'm glad they were prevented from taking Kyiv and the west where literally almost nobody wants them. And thus I don't favour giving Russia Ukraine. But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line.
The situation in Ukraine seems to be one which a lot of active posters behave in a tribal way, you have to agree completely with them or else you are out of the tribe. This just prevents useful discussion of it, it is true for other areas as well. If you think in this way - complete victory or nothing, good vs evil, light vs dark... then you aren't really going to develop much real insight in to issues, or be very good at predicting what is going to happen in the world.
I think it's quite possible to have useful discussions and also nuanced opinions about Ukraine, for instance to believe that whilst Ukraine should be supported to regain all its lost territory that is unlikely to happen or be supported to that full goal by Western backers. And as such to consider what unpalatable options might crop up and what might happen.
However, it is also the case that opinions can be cloaked in nuanced or mild language, yet not be very nuanced at all when broken down to their basic points, which just mirror pro or anti talking points, dressed up better. And that deserves pointing out when it happens (some might claim it of my own input, gods forbid).
It is also the case that some elements are, on a moral level, rather straightforward. Things are not usually black and white, and I'm a firm proponent of acknowledging that. But sometimes they are black and white, and an attempt at balance can lead to false conclusions, and that should be acknowledged too.
Yes this is black and white. Right is all on one side and wrong is on the other. You don't demonstrate pragmatism or free thinking or man of the worldness by saying otherwise. You're just mistaken.
But all that means is you have to want Ukraine to win. It doesn't mean you have to predict that they will or that you have to be up for supporting them militarily come what may for as long as it takes. I find that a bit postury.
This is actually quite a good example of the tribal reaction I am describing. There are loads of things going on in the world that we may find morally repulsive and can be framed in a similarly black and white way... obvious example being the Uighurs, but an endless list of others too.
The reality here is that the situation in Ukraine can go backwards just as the situation with the Taliban went backwards. The rights and wrongs of the conflict are of little consequence to predicting what might happen. In this context it just gets annoying to be lectured continuously that 'we must keep supporting them until Russia is beaten back' with appeals to morality. Why Russia and not the taliban? Why not China?
To what extent should we be concerned about the continuing rise in oil prices? I see Saudi and Russia have agreed to maintain production cuts until the year of the end.
Oil at $90 a barrel doesn't do a lot for inflation and meeting inflationary targets, I'd imagine.
To what extent should we be concerned about the continuing rise in oil prices? I see Saudi and Russia have agreed to maintain production cuts until the year of the end.
Oil at $90 a barrel doesn't do a lot for inflation and meeting inflationary targets, I'd imagine.
Two rogue states ******* over the rest of the world. One rogue state our government likes, and one they don't.
I guess you have no plan to "stop all this in its tracks", aside from giving Russia what it wants of Ukraine (the Nick Palmer approach?)
Disagreement is fine, but you shouldn't misrepresent me. I was on a platform with Jeremy Hunt denouncing the invasion and calling for support for Ukraine soon after it happened. I'm glad they were prevented from taking Kyiv and the west where literally almost nobody wants them. And thus I don't favour giving Russia Ukraine. But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line.
The situation in Ukraine seems to be one which a lot of active posters behave in a tribal way, you have to agree completely with them or else you are out of the tribe. This just prevents useful discussion of it, it is true for other areas as well. If you think in this way - complete victory or nothing, good vs evil, light vs dark... then you aren't really going to develop much real insight in to issues, or be very good at predicting what is going to happen in the world.
I think it's quite possible to have useful discussions and also nuanced opinions about Ukraine, for instance to believe that whilst Ukraine should be supported to regain all its lost territory that is unlikely to happen or be supported to that full goal by Western backers. And as such to consider what unpalatable options might crop up and what might happen.
However, it is also the case that opinions can be cloaked in nuanced or mild language, yet not be very nuanced at all when broken down to their basic points, which just mirror pro or anti talking points, dressed up better. And that deserves pointing out when it happens (some might claim it of my own input, gods forbid).
It is also the case that some elements are, on a moral level, rather straightforward. Things are not usually black and white, and I'm a firm proponent of acknowledging that. But sometimes they are black and white, and an attempt at balance can lead to false conclusions, and that should be acknowledged too.
Yes this is black and white. Right is all on one side and wrong is on the other. You don't demonstrate pragmatism or free thinking or man of the worldness by saying otherwise. You're just mistaken.
But all that means is you have to want Ukraine to win. It doesn't mean you have to predict that they will or that you have to be up for supporting them militarily come what may for as long as it takes. I find that a bit postury.
This is actually quite a good example of the tribal reaction I am describing. There are loads of things going on in the world that we may find morally repulsive and can be framed in a similarly black and white way... obvious example being the Uighurs, but an endless list of others too.
The reality here is that the situation in Ukraine can go backwards just as the situation with the Taliban went backwards. The rights and wrongs of the conflict are of little consequence to predicting what might happen. In this context it just gets annoying to be lectured continuously that 'we must keep supporting them until Russia is beaten back' with appeals to morality. Why Russia and not the taliban? Why not China?
Because this is the invasion of a country in the border of NATO - and the other two cases aren't even invasions. The case for defending the principle if international order is far greater - and doesn't involve us meddling in the internal affairs of a hostile country.
The appeal is as much pragmatic as moral. The one reinforces the other.
'Why not China' ignores the fact that the west is making similar calculations about Taiwan.
Thanks for the advice on how to block my car's annoying engine cut-out when stationary. I found the switch, and now it works fine, just as I would like.
When you have a moment, perhaps you could also teach me how to work the wireless.
Thanks for the advice on how to block my car's annoying engine cut-out when stationary. I found the switch, and now it works fine, just as I would like.
When you have a moment, perhaps you could also teach me how to work the wireless.
I guess you have no plan to "stop all this in its tracks", aside from giving Russia what it wants of Ukraine (the Nick Palmer approach?)
Disagreement is fine, but you shouldn't misrepresent me. I was on a platform with Jeremy Hunt denouncing the invasion and calling for support for Ukraine soon after it happened. I'm glad they were prevented from taking Kyiv and the west where literally almost nobody wants them. And thus I don't favour giving Russia Ukraine. But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line.
I'm not sure I'm misrepresenting you. Your position was that the areas Russia had invaded should have a referendum. When the stupidity of that position was pointed out, you recently said that a peace deal should give Russia the areas they have (*) without a referendum.
"But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line."
That's *exactly* giving Russia what they want at the moment. A pause to rearm and prepare.
(*) Without stating whether that's the area they control, or the areas they *claim* in the rather interesting laws they passed.
No, I favour a referendum in each area as the long-term outcome, as in Slesvig-Holstein. There is, as I've said, an argument about whether people who've fled or arrived get to vote in the new or old place. But anyway it's clearly a long way to agreement on that. In the meantime, I favour a ceaasefire on the current line.with Ukraine allowed to join NATO so that we can guarantee no further incursion without triggering WW3.
But holding a referendum now is pointless, because Russia can import 'Russian' people, and ethnic cleanse anyone they don't like into the heart of Russia. At best. Talk of a 'referendum' is basically shorthand for 'let Russia have it', as there's zero chance of it being free and fair.
Nick, your position on this conflict has always been poor, from saying we should not 'poke' Russia into invading, to blaming NATO's eastwards expansion, to Ukrainian Nazis, to Bandera. I see lots of soft pro=Russian views, but absolutely no concern for the Ukrainians who are being put through Hell because of their invasion by a fascist, imperialist state.
You may want to read the thread I posted earlier this evening, then ask how, with good conscience, you can ask to subject Ukrainians to Russian mistreatment.
Ukraine may well be forced to a ceasefire at some point, leaving a lot of territory and people in Russian hands, but whilst there's some people who are rather flippant about any risks of escalation, there are a larger group of people who seem so keen for 'peace' (or rather, returning to a cold war), that that is worth any cost. That 'peace' now must automatically be better than fighting now. In essence, that no situation of fighting can be worth doing. I think even us armchair generals would say no one can really judge when fighting on is unsustainable other than those doing the fighting, but the implication seems to be that Ukraine being aided to do so is instinctively wrong because fighting is wrong.
I also don't quite understand the idea of 'ceasefire on the current line with Uraine allowed to join NATO'. For one, surely that makes it a permanent settlement since it would mean that Ukraine could never try to take back the rest of its territory (it's solely focused on assuming it prevents more Russian gains) since that would entail a NATO member launching massive strikes against Russian forces as the 'aggressor'. When would the rest of NATO agree to that, and if they might why would Russia agree to such a deal?
For another, ceasefire on those lines would not settle the actual claims of both Russia and Ukraine, which would mean there was still a territorial dispute. Which surely means they couldn't join NATO since that was part of why the Russian propaganda about if only Ukraine had promised to never join NATO (ie, give up control of their own foreign policy) made no sense, since it was never going to happen whilst Crimea and the Donbas was occupied.
What about sanctions? Personally I would not be inclined to remove a single one until Putin is gone and it's clear you have a Russian leader who has renounced Russia's territorial claim to Ukraine (certainly aside from any occupied parts). Is this really so difficult? The horrors of this genocidal war ought to cast a very long shadow over the future of Europe. Not least as Ukraine takes decades to remove all the mines Russia has planted.
My personal view is sanctions would need to be longlasting. The reason being that most of the world, including us for the most part, looked the other way in 2014 and convinced ourselves Russia would not go further, the light sanctions were appropriate enough. Even in the run up to 2022 people could not believe it would happen. But it did. I imagine I supported the approach that doing something in 2014 was not worth the escalation, but that was proven incorrect, and trying it again last year was ridiculous. As Fishing alludes to Macron's attempt was probably well meaning, but in the context of what was happening, and after what had failed before, it was doomed.
Of course, Russian claims are that the sanctions are pointless, but also that they are furious about them being opposed.
Didn't the collapse of the oil price in the 1980s do for the Soviet Union? Saudi Arabia is very hard to understand on this. They seemed to be edging towards Ukraine with that peace conference but the cut in oil production suggests they're trying to help Putin. Do we not have any leverage over OPEC anymore?
"This is simply an extraordinary study. Researchers gave $7,500 (CAD) to homeless people in Vancouver. The result? The program *saved* money. It helped many of them to move into housing faster, which saved the shelter system $8,277 per person. 🧵👇"
You made a comment about Twitter/X's advertising revenues that was simply not true.
A meaningful proportion of Twitter's revenue decline was entirely self inflicted, and had nothing to do with the ADL or any organized conspiracy.
Within days of taking over, Twitter fired a host of engineers and switched off dozens of microservices. One of those was the two factor authentication system for advertisers. For several days. smaller advertisers simply couldn't login to spend money on advertising. And there was no-one to call!
That locked out thousands of smaller advertisers from the platform for a couple of days. And all those people will have reevaluated where they want to spend their money.
Ok, it's wrong to say that none of the decline was organic but this doesn't mean that the boycott campaign and general atmosphere of hysteria surrounding the takeover had no effect.
"This is simply an extraordinary study. Researchers gave $7,500 (CAD) to homeless people in Vancouver. The result? The program *saved* money. It helped many of them to move into housing faster, which saved the shelter system $8,277 per person. 🧵👇"
But Conservatives can never adopt a policy that "appears" to be giving money to the "undeserving".
Foxy was irritated by people being able to order things from the internet the other day; I can't see him actually wanting to give homeless people free money.
Thanks for the advice on how to block my car's annoying engine cut-out when stationary. I found the switch, and now it works fine, just as I would like.
When you have a moment, perhaps you could also teach me how to work the wireless.
Atb
PtP
Glad to be of assistance - to you if not to the environment(!)
Funnily enough, I sort of took my own advice and read the manual to find out how to switch off the very annoying Lane Assist on my new VW.
Thanks for the advice on how to block my car's annoying engine cut-out when stationary. I found the switch, and now it works fine, just as I would like.
When you have a moment, perhaps you could also teach me how to work the wireless.
Atb
PtP
It'll soon be time to change the clock...
An extra hour to be added to the shopping days till Christmas.
I guess you have no plan to "stop all this in its tracks", aside from giving Russia what it wants of Ukraine (the Nick Palmer approach?)
Disagreement is fine, but you shouldn't misrepresent me. I was on a platform with Jeremy Hunt denouncing the invasion and calling for support for Ukraine soon after it happened. I'm glad they were prevented from taking Kyiv and the west where literally almost nobody wants them. And thus I don't favour giving Russia Ukraine. But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line.
The situation in Ukraine seems to be one which a lot of active posters behave in a tribal way, you have to agree completely with them or else you are out of the tribe. This just prevents useful discussion of it, it is true for other areas as well. If you think in this way - complete victory or nothing, good vs evil, light vs dark... then you aren't really going to develop much real insight in to issues, or be very good at predicting what is going to happen in the world.
I think it's quite possible to have useful discussions and also nuanced opinions about Ukraine, for instance to believe that whilst Ukraine should be supported to regain all its lost territory that is unlikely to happen or be supported to that full goal by Western backers. And as such to consider what unpalatable options might crop up and what might happen.
However, it is also the case that opinions can be cloaked in nuanced or mild language, yet not be very nuanced at all when broken down to their basic points, which just mirror pro or anti talking points, dressed up better. And that deserves pointing out when it happens (some might claim it of my own input, gods forbid).
It is also the case that some elements are, on a moral level, rather straightforward. Things are not usually black and white, and I'm a firm proponent of acknowledging that. But sometimes they are black and white, and an attempt at balance can lead to false conclusions, and that should be acknowledged too.
Yes this is black and white. Right is all on one side and wrong is on the other. You don't demonstrate pragmatism or free thinking or man of the worldness by saying otherwise. You're just mistaken.
But all that means is you have to want Ukraine to win. It doesn't mean you have to predict that they will or that you have to be up for supporting them militarily come what may for as long as it takes. I find that a bit postury.
This is actually quite a good example of the tribal reaction I am describing. There are loads of things going on in the world that we may find morally repulsive and can be framed in a similarly black and white way... obvious example being the Uighurs, but an endless list of others too.
The reality here is that the situation in Ukraine can go backwards just as the situation with the Taliban went backwards. The rights and wrongs of the conflict are of little consequence to predicting what might happen. In this context it just gets annoying to be lectured continuously that 'we must keep supporting them until Russia is beaten back' with appeals to morality. Why Russia and not the taliban? Why not China?
I think most who wish to support Ukraine for as long as they wish to continue fighting, rather than urging them to settle, are most worried about moral hazard. Game theory, essentially.
I would say this is probably the dividing line within the broadly pro-Ukrainian camp.
One view is comfortable Russia can be bright to negotiate a settlement that it will either voluntarily stick to, or it can be made through diplomatic pressure to stick to. Therefore, by this logic, further bloodshed in this war is avoidable and there is a better outcome. This is the “off ramp” thinking that dominated the early days of 2022 in Western European capitals.
The other view is that peace now guarantees a worse war later. This view has zero trust in Russia to keep its word, and believes it cannot be contained diplomatically. That any settlement will be taken as a win and a chance to regroup ahead of the next invasion, cyber attack, poisoning or whatever. That Russia is a classic bully that only respects force. This is the thinking of much of Eastern Europe since 1991.
I have gone on a journey to the second of those since 2014. I was quite forgiving of Russia, enjoyed the culture, I worked with Russian colleagues and clients, visited several times. Saw Russians as simply unfortunate to live under a corrupt government. I thought Putin could be contained and managed, as indeed I still think is the case with Xi in China. After 2014 I started to sense the problem went deeper than Putin but I was still a little in denial.
It was the behaviour in Syria supporting the revolting Assad (which then made me clock just his brutal they’d been in Chechnya) and then the brazen poisonings in Salisbury and Wagner’s carrying on in Africa that made me see the Russian state itself as a uniquely poisonous criminal organisation. It was also the Salisbury poisonings that gave me that moment of clarity on Corbyn too.
Thanks for the advice on how to block my car's annoying engine cut-out when stationary. I found the switch, and now it works fine, just as I would like.
When you have a moment, perhaps you could also teach me how to work the wireless.
Atb
PtP
Lol! Always amazes me how few people read the manual for their cars.
To what extent should we be concerned about the continuing rise in oil prices? I see Saudi and Russia have agreed to maintain production cuts until the year of the end.
Oil at $90 a barrel doesn't do a lot for inflation and meeting inflationary targets, I'd imagine.
I guess you have no plan to "stop all this in its tracks", aside from giving Russia what it wants of Ukraine (the Nick Palmer approach?)
Disagreement is fine, but you shouldn't misrepresent me. I was on a platform with Jeremy Hunt denouncing the invasion and calling for support for Ukraine soon after it happened. I'm glad they were prevented from taking Kyiv and the west where literally almost nobody wants them. And thus I don't favour giving Russia Ukraine. But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line.
I'm not sure I'm misrepresenting you. Your position was that the areas Russia had invaded should have a referendum. When the stupidity of that position was pointed out, you recently said that a peace deal should give Russia the areas they have (*) without a referendum.
"But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line."
That's *exactly* giving Russia what they want at the moment. A pause to rearm and prepare.
(*) Without stating whether that's the area they control, or the areas they *claim* in the rather interesting laws they passed.
No, I favour a referendum in each area as the long-term outcome, as in Slesvig-Holstein. There is, as I've said, an argument about whether people who've fled or arrived get to vote in the new or old place. But anyway it's clearly a long way to agreement on that. In the meantime, I favour a ceaasefire on the current line.with Ukraine allowed to join NATO so that we can guarantee no further incursion without triggering WW3.
But holding a referendum now is pointless, because Russia can import 'Russian' people, and ethnic cleanse anyone they don't like into the heart of Russia. At best. Talk of a 'referendum' is basically shorthand for 'let Russia have it', as there's zero chance of it being free and fair.
Nick, your position on this conflict has always been poor, from saying we should not 'poke' Russia into invading, to blaming NATO's eastwards expansion, to Ukrainian Nazis, to Bandera. I see lots of soft pro=Russian views, but absolutely no concern for the Ukrainians who are being put through Hell because of their invasion by a fascist, imperialist state.
You may want to read the thread I posted earlier this evening, then ask how, with good conscience, you can ask to subject Ukrainians to Russian mistreatment.
Ukraine may well be forced to a ceasefire at some point, leaving a lot of territory and people in Russian hands, but whilst there's some people who are rather flippant about any risks of escalation, there are a larger group of people who seem so keen for 'peace' (or rather, returning to a cold war), that that is worth any cost. That 'peace' now must automatically be better than fighting now. In essence, that no situation of fighting can be worth doing. I think even us armchair generals would say no one can really judge when fighting on is unsustainable other than those doing the fighting, but the implication seems to be that Ukraine being aided to do so is instinctively wrong because fighting is wrong.
I also don't quite understand the idea of 'ceasefire on the current line with Uraine allowed to join NATO'. For one, surely that makes it a permanent settlement since it would mean that Ukraine could never try to take back the rest of its territory (it's solely focused on assuming it prevents more Russian gains) since that would entail a NATO member launching massive strikes against Russian forces as the 'aggressor'. When would the rest of NATO agree to that, and if they might why would Russia agree to such a deal?
For another, ceasefire on those lines would not settle the actual claims of both Russia and Ukraine, which would mean there was still a territorial dispute. Which surely means they couldn't join NATO since that was part of why the Russian propaganda about if only Ukraine had promised to never join NATO (ie, give up control of their own foreign policy) made no sense, since it was never going to happen whilst Crimea and the Donbas was occupied.
What about sanctions? Personally I would not be inclined to remove a single one until Putin is gone and it's clear you have a Russian leader who has renounced Russia's territorial claim to Ukraine (certainly aside from any occupied parts). Is this really so difficult? The horrors of this genocidal war ought to cast a very long shadow over the future of Europe. Not least as Ukraine takes decades to remove all the mines Russia has planted.
My personal view is sanctions would need to be longlasting. The reason being that most of the world, including us for the most part, looked the other way in 2014 and convinced ourselves Russia would not go further, the light sanctions were appropriate enough. Even in the run up to 2022 people could not believe it would happen. But it did. I imagine I supported the approach that doing something in 2014 was not worth the escalation, but that was proven incorrect, and trying it again last year was ridiculous. As Fishing alludes to Macron's attempt was probably well meaning, but in the context of what was happening, and after what had failed before, it was doomed.
Of course, Russian claims are that the sanctions are pointless, but also that they are furious about them being opposed.
Didn't the collapse of the oil price in the 1980s do for the Soviet Union? Saudi Arabia is very hard to understand on this. They seemed to be edging towards Ukraine with that peace conference but the cut in oil production suggests they're trying to help Putin. Do we not have any leverage over OPEC anymore?
We do have massive long term leverage: the less oil and gas we use, the lower the price drops (and, long term, the less the oil price affects the economy).
We managed a miracle - a true miracle - last winter in weaning Europe almost wholly off Russian gas and keeping prices down through efficiency. We should do that again this winter.
Eventually OPEC and the oil exporters eat themselves. It was the Western reaction to high oil prices in the 70s that led to the price collapse in the 80s and 90s.
Thanks for the advice on how to block my car's annoying engine cut-out when stationary. I found the switch, and now it works fine, just as I would like.
When you have a moment, perhaps you could also teach me how to work the wireless.
Atb
PtP
Lol! Always amazes me how few people read the manual for their cars.
I guess you have no plan to "stop all this in its tracks", aside from giving Russia what it wants of Ukraine (the Nick Palmer approach?)
Disagreement is fine, but you shouldn't misrepresent me. I was on a platform with Jeremy Hunt denouncing the invasion and calling for support for Ukraine soon after it happened. I'm glad they were prevented from taking Kyiv and the west where literally almost nobody wants them. And thus I don't favour giving Russia Ukraine. But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line.
I'm not sure I'm misrepresenting you. Your position was that the areas Russia had invaded should have a referendum. When the stupidity of that position was pointed out, you recently said that a peace deal should give Russia the areas they have (*) without a referendum.
"But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line."
That's *exactly* giving Russia what they want at the moment. A pause to rearm and prepare.
(*) Without stating whether that's the area they control, or the areas they *claim* in the rather interesting laws they passed.
No, I favour a referendum in each area as the long-term outcome, as in Slesvig-Holstein. There is, as I've said, an argument about whether people who've fled or arrived get to vote in the new or old place. But anyway it's clearly a long way to agreement on that. In the meantime, I favour a ceaasefire on the current line.with Ukraine allowed to join NATO so that we can guarantee no further incursion without triggering WW3.
But holding a referendum now is pointless, because Russia can import 'Russian' people, and ethnic cleanse anyone they don't like into the heart of Russia. At best. Talk of a 'referendum' is basically shorthand for 'let Russia have it', as there's zero chance of it being free and fair.
Nick, your position on this conflict has always been poor, from saying we should not 'poke' Russia into invading, to blaming NATO's eastwards expansion, to Ukrainian Nazis, to Bandera. I see lots of soft pro=Russian views, but absolutely no concern for the Ukrainians who are being put through Hell because of their invasion by a fascist, imperialist state.
You may want to read the thread I posted earlier this evening, then ask how, with good conscience, you can ask to subject Ukrainians to Russian mistreatment.
Ukraine may well be forced to a ceasefire at some point, leaving a lot of territory and people in Russian hands, but whilst there's some people who are rather flippant about any risks of escalation, there are a larger group of people who seem so keen for 'peace' (or rather, returning to a cold war), that that is worth any cost. That 'peace' now must automatically be better than fighting now. In essence, that no situation of fighting can be worth doing. I think even us armchair generals would say no one can really judge when fighting on is unsustainable other than those doing the fighting, but the implication seems to be that Ukraine being aided to do so is instinctively wrong because fighting is wrong.
I also don't quite understand the idea of 'ceasefire on the current line with Uraine allowed to join NATO'. For one, surely that makes it a permanent settlement since it would mean that Ukraine could never try to take back the rest of its territory (it's solely focused on assuming it prevents more Russian gains) since that would entail a NATO member launching massive strikes against Russian forces as the 'aggressor'. When would the rest of NATO agree to that, and if they might why would Russia agree to such a deal?
For another, ceasefire on those lines would not settle the actual claims of both Russia and Ukraine, which would mean there was still a territorial dispute. Which surely means they couldn't join NATO since that was part of why the Russian propaganda about if only Ukraine had promised to never join NATO (ie, give up control of their own foreign policy) made no sense, since it was never going to happen whilst Crimea and the Donbas was occupied.
What about sanctions? Personally I would not be inclined to remove a single one until Putin is gone and it's clear you have a Russian leader who has renounced Russia's territorial claim to Ukraine (certainly aside from any occupied parts). Is this really so difficult? The horrors of this genocidal war ought to cast a very long shadow over the future of Europe. Not least as Ukraine takes decades to remove all the mines Russia has planted.
My personal view is sanctions would need to be longlasting. The reason being that most of the world, including us for the most part, looked the other way in 2014 and convinced ourselves Russia would not go further, the light sanctions were appropriate enough. Even in the run up to 2022 people could not believe it would happen. But it did. I imagine I supported the approach that doing something in 2014 was not worth the escalation, but that was proven incorrect, and trying it again last year was ridiculous. As Fishing alludes to Macron's attempt was probably well meaning, but in the context of what was happening, and after what had failed before, it was doomed.
Of course, Russian claims are that the sanctions are pointless, but also that they are furious about them being opposed.
Didn't the collapse of the oil price in the 1980s do for the Soviet Union? Saudi Arabia is very hard to understand on this. They seemed to be edging towards Ukraine with that peace conference but the cut in oil production suggests they're trying to help Putin. Do we not have any leverage over OPEC anymore?
See also the Global South.
Almost as if we don't have an empire any more and the map isn't painted red.
I think @darkage sums up well the process that we have previously discussed on PB.
You made a comment about Twitter/X's advertising revenues that was simply not true.
A meaningful proportion of Twitter's revenue decline was entirely self inflicted, and had nothing to do with the ADL or any organized conspiracy.
Within days of taking over, Twitter fired a host of engineers and switched off dozens of microservices. One of those was the two factor authentication system for advertisers. For several days. smaller advertisers simply couldn't login to spend money on advertising. And there was no-one to call!
That locked out thousands of smaller advertisers from the platform for a couple of days. And all those people will have reevaluated where they want to spend their money.
Ok, it's wrong to say that none of the decline was organic but this doesn't mean that the boycott campaign and general atmosphere of hysteria surrounding the takeover had no effect.
The takeover was fairly chaotic. Who's fault is that? If onlookers got a bit hysterical, that was partly because the events and Musk's behaviour were so ludicrous.
With respect to the adverts, however, Musk in the immediate days after taking over was posting/retweeting right-wing clickbait and pretty quickly unblocking far right accounts. As the new owner, people were obviously going to pay some attention to Musk's public actions. It's quite logical for advertisers to have concerns about such matters.
Musk could have conducted himself more normally. He could have kept off Twitter entirely. He could have stuck to retweeting cute cat pictures. This would not have scared off advertisers. He chose a provocative approach. Advertisers don't like that.
Within all that, some called for a boycott. They had rational reasons to do that, and Musk since has only proved them right! We live in a society that values freedom, which includes the freedom for people to try to persuade others to boycott a company.
Musk's claims now are preposterous. He's not going to win a suit against the ADL. His claim for damages is ludicrous.
While PBers will understand the significance of regional vs constituency (the latter balances out the effects of the former, within reason and for larger parties), I'm surprised that the voters are that discriminating, with a big jump in SNP support for the latter and a big drop for the former. What might be the explanation (given that it's the same people answering the same poll)?
History. The last few Holyrood elections have shown the SNP list votes are a bit of a waste, with them sweeping a lot of constituencies.
SNP constituency voters are saying they might vote Green to maximise pro-Indy MSPs. That will comprise people with SNP VI and people who would prefer Green but know they might not stand in their constituency.
If your main aim is indy, it's a no brainer to pick SNP/Green in the constituency/list.
Not necessarily - a couple of points swing to Alba (I know, I know) could increase the Indy side by a few more seats and reduce Green influence. That would make for interesting times…
If you say so. I'm not motivated by independence so it's a moot point for me anyway, but even if I was, I wouldn't touch Alba with a barge pole because they're very obviously lunatics.
Could some of differential in Holyrood constituency v regional poll results, stem from voters still supporting incumbent SNP MSPs, but registering disaffection (putting it politely) with national SNP situation (ditto) by voting for some other party for region, NOT necessarily Greens or Alba, but instead Labour?
I'm baffled by people on the left who recommend some kind of accommodation with Russia. Russia is literally fascist these days.
There can be no peace with fascism. It's not even an unwise choice, it's literally not available. People on the left ought to know this better than most.
There was peace with fascist Spain from 1939 to 1975, that seemed satisfactory.
I'm baffled by people on the left who recommend some kind of accommodation with Russia. Russia is literally fascist these days.
There can be no peace with fascism. It's not even an unwise choice, it's literally not available. People on the left ought to know this better than most.
There was peace with fascist Spain from 1939 to 1975, that seemed satisfactory.
I'm baffled by people on the left who recommend some kind of accommodation with Russia. Russia is literally fascist these days.
There can be no peace with fascism. It's not even an unwise choice, it's literally not available. People on the left ought to know this better than most.
There was peace with fascist Spain from 1939 to 1975, that seemed satisfactory.
The labelling of Franco's Spain as fascist is possibly problematic. I personally reject the label in that case, and I'm not alone in that.
What were the crucial differences from Mussolini's Italy?
I'm baffled by people on the left who recommend some kind of accommodation with Russia. Russia is literally fascist these days.
There can be no peace with fascism. It's not even an unwise choice, it's literally not available. People on the left ought to know this better than most.
There was peace with fascist Spain from 1939 to 1975, that seemed satisfactory.
The labelling of Franco's Spain as fascist is possibly problematic. I personally reject the label in that case, and I'm not alone in that.
"This is simply an extraordinary study. Researchers gave $7,500 (CAD) to homeless people in Vancouver. The result? The program *saved* money. It helped many of them to move into housing faster, which saved the shelter system $8,277 per person. 🧵👇"
But Conservatives can never adopt a policy that "appears" to be giving money to the "undeserving".
Foxy was irritated by people being able to order things from the internet the other day; I can't see him actually wanting to give homeless people free money.
Quite different things.
1) a lot of what is wrong with our society is excessive consumerism driven by one click purchases.
2) the whole point of the homeless study is that it saved money (as well as got people back on their feet economically and socially)
A truly historic event in the Pett Bottom valley of Kent today?
It’s been a notable humid day, we’ve all felt it. But in a thin sliver of the far East of the country it’s been more than that.
The record highest dew point ever recorded in the British isles I understand is 23.8C, somewhere in SW Ireland. Dew point is the temperature at which the air becomes saturated. If Dp is 23.8C, then at 23.8C it’ll be foggy.
Today I noticed the station of Headcorn aérodrome was showing 23C dew point. Gosh, I thought. I looked at the live data from my weather station at the vineyard in Pett Bottom and it was 23.6C. But it kept climbing on my weather station. It topped out at 24.6C. In other words so much moisture inbred air that at that temperature it would be misty and condensation would form on objects.
I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. Has my weather station just broken an all time British isles record?*
*disclaimer: private weather stations don’t count; readings can sometimes be faulty (though Dpt is usually quite accurate); I need to verify the current record with the Met Office / Met Eirann.
A truly historic event in the Pett Bottom valley of Kent today?
It’s been a notable humid day, we’ve all felt it. But in a thin sliver of the far East of the country it’s been more than that.
The record highest dew point ever recorded in the British isles I understand is 23.8C, somewhere in SW Ireland. Dew point is the temperature at which the air becomes saturated. If Dp is 23.8C, then at 23.8C it’ll be foggy.
Today I noticed the station of Headcorn aérodrome was showing 23C dew point. Gosh, I thought. I looked at the live data from my weather station at the vineyard in Pett Bottom and it was 23.6C. But it kept climbing on my weather station. It topped out at 24.6C. In other words so much moisture inbred air that at that temperature it would be misty and condensation would form on objects.
I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. Has my weather station just broken an all time British isles record?*
*disclaimer: private weather stations don’t count; readings can sometimes be faulty (though Dpt is usually quite accurate); I need to verify the current record with the Met Office / Met Eirann.
I'm baffled by people on the left who recommend some kind of accommodation with Russia. Russia is literally fascist these days.
There can be no peace with fascism. It's not even an unwise choice, it's literally not available. People on the left ought to know this better than most.
There was peace with fascist Spain from 1939 to 1975, that seemed satisfactory.
The labelling of Franco's Spain as fascist is possibly problematic. I personally reject the label in that case, and I'm not alone in that.
Military conquest and constant war as a defining factor of government was lacking. It had most of the other traits: traditional macho values, central power and repression of minority or regional identity, the strong man etc. I’d say the central importance of the church and, for want of a better word culture war, is what made Spain subtly different from Mussolini’s Italy. More akin to MAGA Trumpism or the current Polish government.
A truly historic event in the Pett Bottom valley of Kent today?
It’s been a notable humid day, we’ve all felt it. But in a thin sliver of the far East of the country it’s been more than that.
The record highest dew point ever recorded in the British isles I understand is 23.8C, somewhere in SW Ireland. Dew point is the temperature at which the air becomes saturated. If Dp is 23.8C, then at 23.8C it’ll be foggy.
Today I noticed the station of Headcorn aérodrome was showing 23C dew point. Gosh, I thought. I looked at the live data from my weather station at the vineyard in Pett Bottom and it was 23.6C. But it kept climbing on my weather station. It topped out at 24.6C. In other words so much moisture inbred air that at that temperature it would be misty and condensation would form on objects.
I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. Has my weather station just broken an all time British isles record?*
*disclaimer: private weather stations don’t count; readings can sometimes be faulty (though Dpt is usually quite accurate); I need to verify the current record with the Met Office / Met Eirann.
Temperature 25.6 degrees in my living room!
Your dew point though will probably be about 10C indoors.
"This is simply an extraordinary study. Researchers gave $7,500 (CAD) to homeless people in Vancouver. The result? The program *saved* money. It helped many of them to move into housing faster, which saved the shelter system $8,277 per person. 🧵👇"
But Conservatives can never adopt a policy that "appears" to be giving money to the "undeserving".
Foxy was irritated by people being able to order things from the internet the other day; I can't see him actually wanting to give homeless people free money.
Quite different things.
1) a lot of what is wrong with our society is excessive consumerism driven by one click purchases.
2) the whole point of the homeless study is that it saved money (as well as got people back on their feet economically and socially)
1) Citation needed
2) We cannot know the details, as there's no link to the work, just a screenshot of the executive summary. There could have been various caveats and stipulations. Personally, I like the idea; I like the thought of trusting the person to do the right thing. However, your instincts are distinctly authoritarian, and your approval of the freedom of being given a lump sum to spend as desired is distinctly at odds with your wish to deprive people of 'one click purchases' etc.
A truly historic event in the Pett Bottom valley of Kent today?
It’s been a notable humid day, we’ve all felt it. But in a thin sliver of the far East of the country it’s been more than that.
The record highest dew point ever recorded in the British isles I understand is 23.8C, somewhere in SW Ireland. Dew point is the temperature at which the air becomes saturated. If Dp is 23.8C, then at 23.8C it’ll be foggy.
Today I noticed the station of Headcorn aérodrome was showing 23C dew point. Gosh, I thought. I looked at the live data from my weather station at the vineyard in Pett Bottom and it was 23.6C. But it kept climbing on my weather station. It topped out at 24.6C. In other words so much moisture inbred air that at that temperature it would be misty and condensation would form on objects.
I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. Has my weather station just broken an all time British isles record?*
*disclaimer: private weather stations don’t count; readings can sometimes be faulty (though Dpt is usually quite accurate); I need to verify the current record with the Met Office / Met Eirann.
Temperature 25.6 degrees in my living room!
Your dew point though will probably be about 10C indoors.
I'm blaming you for this extremely hot weather BTW
I guess you have no plan to "stop all this in its tracks", aside from giving Russia what it wants of Ukraine (the Nick Palmer approach?)
Disagreement is fine, but you shouldn't misrepresent me. I was on a platform with Jeremy Hunt denouncing the invasion and calling for support for Ukraine soon after it happened. I'm glad they were prevented from taking Kyiv and the west where literally almost nobody wants them. And thus I don't favour giving Russia Ukraine. But I favour encouraging a ceasefire on the current line.
If you give russia a ceasefire on the currentlines do you not think its handing them a win.if you do then it shows them this sort of action gets them results and encourages them do it it again just like 2014 did.
I don't state russia must lose because i hate russia. i state it because it might actually stop them doing shit like this
"This is simply an extraordinary study. Researchers gave $7,500 (CAD) to homeless people in Vancouver. The result? The program *saved* money. It helped many of them to move into housing faster, which saved the shelter system $8,277 per person. 🧵👇"
But Conservatives can never adopt a policy that "appears" to be giving money to the "undeserving".
Foxy was irritated by people being able to order things from the internet the other day; I can't see him actually wanting to give homeless people free money.
Quite different things.
1) a lot of what is wrong with our society is excessive consumerism driven by one click purchases.
2) the whole point of the homeless study is that it saved money (as well as got people back on their feet economically and socially)
1) Citation needed
2) We cannot know the details, as there's no link to the work, just a screenshot of the executive summary. There could have been various caveats and stipulations. Personally, I like the idea; I like the thought of trusting the person to do the right thing. However, your instincts are distinctly authoritarian, and your approval of the freedom of being given a lump sum to spend as desired is distinctly at odds with your wish to deprive people of 'one click purchases' etc.
2) Have you heard of Google? You can search for things online quite easily. I typed in the article name and found the paper straight away. Here are all the details:
I'm baffled by people on the left who recommend some kind of accommodation with Russia. Russia is literally fascist these days.
There can be no peace with fascism. It's not even an unwise choice, it's literally not available. People on the left ought to know this better than most.
"This is simply an extraordinary study. Researchers gave $7,500 (CAD) to homeless people in Vancouver. The result? The program *saved* money. It helped many of them to move into housing faster, which saved the shelter system $8,277 per person. 🧵👇"
An arbitrary selection of homeless people, or a cherrypicked group of those most likely to succeed? Good news either way, but rather different things.
Yes, a small-sample study (N=115) that ascribes the average cost of shelter to the cheapest quartile of cases: short-term homeless, legally resident so more readily employable, not with "severe" drug problems/mental illness.
A truly historic event in the Pett Bottom valley of Kent today?
It’s been a notable humid day, we’ve all felt it. But in a thin sliver of the far East of the country it’s been more than that.
The record highest dew point ever recorded in the British isles I understand is 23.8C, somewhere in SW Ireland. Dew point is the temperature at which the air becomes saturated. If Dp is 23.8C, then at 23.8C it’ll be foggy.
Today I noticed the station of Headcorn aérodrome was showing 23C dew point. Gosh, I thought. I looked at the live data from my weather station at the vineyard in Pett Bottom and it was 23.6C. But it kept climbing on my weather station. It topped out at 24.6C. In other words so much moisture inbred air that at that temperature it would be misty and condensation would form on objects.
I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. Has my weather station just broken an all time British isles record?*
*disclaimer: private weather stations don’t count; readings can sometimes be faulty (though Dpt is usually quite accurate); I need to verify the current record with the Met Office / Met Eirann.
Temperature 25.6 degrees in my living room!
Would feel hell of a lot hotter IF it were 78.1 degrees Fahrenheit!
Hottest it got in my humble abode this summer was (hopefully) 77 degrees F, on a few days, but except for one the humidity was low.
Putting film on windows made major difference. Putting in half-way decent windows would help even more.
Comments
For me it's much simpler. Putin needs to be thrown out of Ukraine, and so decisively that he can never think of touching it or any other country again. To do otherwise would betray most of the principles the West claims to stand for, stab the brave Ukrainians in the back and encourage all kinds of dictators, especially the Chinese.
The heroic Ukrainians are doing the hard part - we need to do our much easier bit and send them whatever weapons and intelligence they ask for. If the Russians win it will be our fault, and our generation's biggest failure.
https://www.hmpforestbank.co.uk/home/about-the-prison.html
Of course, Russian claims are that the sanctions are pointless, but also that they are furious about them being opposed.
Later, when Major polled as well as Heseltine he won with Thatcher's backing but the Conservatives still lost 40 seats in 1992 though they came out of the election with a 21-seat majority.
First client: man in his 70s, lives alone, own house, can't get about much, frugal habits, being paid State Pension + Pension Credit (PC). Even though he has repeatedly reported his savings have gone up and up because he is not spending, can he get DWP to review his PC? No, 'they only have enough staff to answer the phones and deal with people not getting what they should'.
Next client: Married woman, two children, £180k mortgage, she and her husband both work full-time in low paid employment, mortgage repayments have doubled. Can they get help through UC? No. Would they get UC if they were paying in rent what they are (or even were)on their mortgage? Oh yes.
Retired man being paid more than he needs (or indeed is due) while a typical 'hard-working family' look like they are possibly going to lose their house.
https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1567518365761011712
You take that money and instead put it into Insta, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, radio or whatever else reaches your audience.
Probably the only exception is if you’re flogging some crypto or NFT scam, in which I daresay it is still worth it.
Thatcher must be spinning.
First, it's possible that Badenoch/Braverman/Mordaunt would deliver a useful shot of adrenaline to Conservative ratings, but I doubt it. The fundamentals are too bad for that, I suspect. But it would be interesting to have suspicions confirmed, if anyone with a polling company is listening.
Second, the Conservative party is in a strange mood right now. Do they even care about winning next time?
But they aren't the problem. That transient homelessness is what we wish most homelessness is. But it isn't.
Most homelessness - in LA at least - have at least one of (a) severe mental health issues and (b) substance issues.
Solving those is massively problematic than a $7,500 cheque.
But all that means is you have to want Ukraine to win. It doesn't mean you have to predict that they will or that you have to be up for supporting them militarily come what may for as long as it takes. I find that a bit postury.
AND could that have been the (triple) X-factor in Nick's election loss - Palmer Envy?
- Goal 1: provide Ukraine with sufficient weapons and resources to fight Russia out or Ukraine soil
- Goal 2: if Ukraine wishes to commence a ceasefire / accept the stalemate, then they can choose to do so (it is their young people dying), but they shouldn't be pressured into this.
- Goal 3: continue to support Ukraine and isolate Russia, including maintaining sanctions and military/financial support. Make sure next time round Ukraine is even stronger
Any suggestion that Russia can rejoin the international community until they leave all of Ukraine must be rejected.
In other words we should signal to Putin that the possible results for him are not just win or break even, but win, break even, or lose. (I assume he doesn't care about Russian losses.)
And I am beginning to wonder whether we should start speculating about the need for referendums in, for instance, St. Petersburg and Vladivostok. (Not officially, of course.)
Back in the early 2000s I was earning about £40K a year. Brown had introduced working/child tax credits and I got a letter telling me I should fill out all my details and would be eligible for money from the State.
My wife and I discussed it and decided that, as a point of principle, when earning £40K a year we should not be taking money from the State. So we wrote back saying no thanks.
We were told we were not allowed to say no thanks and had to fill out the forms. We spoke with the tax office and they said just fill them out and put a note declining the money. This we did and lo and behold we started getting tax credits. We donated the money to charity.
The next year they wanted more details and we refused to give them, stating again we did not want the money . So we were threatened with court. Eventually Our MP had to step in and start making representations before they would back down and accept that we did not want the money and were going to make a big scene with the press if they took us to court for refusing State aid.
In SE London most people were homeless because they didn’t have enough money for a home. Usually they’d broken up with a partner or lost a job and were stuck sofa surfing.
In Devon most people were homeless because they had drug or alcohol issues.
The solution to the former was generally practical and financial, to the latter was medical and social.
You made a comment about Twitter/X's advertising revenues that was simply not true.
A meaningful proportion of Twitter's revenue decline was entirely self inflicted, and had nothing to do with the ADL or any organized conspiracy.
Within days of taking over, Twitter fired a host of engineers and switched off dozens of microservices. One of those was the two factor authentication system for advertisers. For several days. smaller advertisers simply couldn't login to spend money on advertising. And there was no-one to call!
That locked out thousands of smaller advertisers from the platform for a couple of days. And all those people will have reevaluated where they want to spend their money.
We used to spend $10-15,000 per month on Twitter. We currently spend a few hundred dollars. (I would note that this is better than Instagram/Facebook/Snapchat where our spend has gone to zero.)
The partnerships with other firms that Twitter previously had, that enabled you to do Enhanced Targeting no longer exist.
Which is a major problem. Targeting by "is interested in Donald Trump" is pretty shit for sensible selling of a product. And Google, for all its faults, allows us to target exactly our demographic: 21-35 years old, no kids, owns a car, lives in an apartment in Phoenix, works in a professional or semi-professional job.
You can't do that with Twitter. Indeed, targeting is worse than it was.
Now maybe if you're selling - I don't know - washing up liquid, then you really don't care who sees your adverts. But in the real world, targeting matters. And Twitter is shockingly bad at this, and has only gotten worse.
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/
Then get used to the comments being sensibly ordered
Then scroll to the bottom to comment
Type something (you can't post a pic with no words)
Click on the picture icon about three quarters of the way along the toolbar at the top
Are you uploading a pic or linking to one on the internet?
If uploading click "choose files", if linking paste the link in "Image URL" - I always make sure my link ends .jpg
(img src="URL")
Watching mostly with sound off.
Based just on body language, appears that Paxton's defense attorney is slick in more ways than one, and that the first witness against the state attorney general, a former assistant ag turned FBI informant, is squirming somewhat, not falling apart but experiencing a through grilling by a high-price defense lawyer.
Here's an example, if you quote this post you will see the actual html format used. The image needs to have a URL address - I post any of my own photos I want to show on imgur.com first and use a link to that image, thus:
By popular demand, wolf porn (I was visiting a Hungarian wolf rescue centre for the charity I was then working for) - as I said, no human has looked at me that affectionately...
Sept. 6, 2023 at 2:46 p.m (Central - about 10 min ago)
Ken Paxton’s attorney Tony Buzbee has repeatedly brought up George P. Bush’s law license reactivation as he tries to paint the impeachment as a political witch-hunt.
Buzbee appears to be insinuating that Jeff Mateer, former first assistant attorney general, and other whistleblowers were colluding with Paxton’s political rivals.
Buzbee noted that Bush (son of Jeb Bush) reactivated his law license in the fall of 2020, around the time the Paxton whistleblowers took their concerns to the FBI.
Bush, the then-land commissioner, ran against Paxton in the 2022 Republican primary. Another candidate in that primary, Eva Guzman, regularly criticized Bush for having an inactive law license from 2010-2020, suggesting it showed he had insufficient legal experience.
Bush downplayed the issue throughout the primary. He said he made his license inactive in 2010 because that is when he deployed to Afghanistan — he was a Navy Reserve officer at the time — and he kept it inactive when he returned because he did not need it to lead the General Land Office, which has its own lawyers.
“It’s basically a formality, and once a lawyer, always a lawyer,” Bush said during the campaign.
On the witness stand Wednesday, Mateer flatly denied any contact with Bush.
SSI - classic ploy out of an old "Matlock" rerun by Paxton's lawyer.
The reality here is that the situation in Ukraine can go backwards just as the situation with the Taliban went backwards. The rights and wrongs of the conflict are of little consequence to predicting what might happen. In this context it just gets annoying to be lectured continuously that 'we must keep supporting them until Russia is beaten back' with appeals to morality. Why Russia and not the taliban? Why not China?
It doesn't need a file.
Oil at $90 a barrel doesn't do a lot for inflation and meeting inflationary targets, I'd imagine.
The case for defending the principle if international order is far greater - and doesn't involve us meddling in the internal affairs of a hostile country.
The appeal is as much pragmatic as moral. The one reinforces the other.
'Why not China' ignores the fact that the west is making similar calculations about Taiwan.
Thanks for the advice on how to block my car's annoying engine cut-out when stationary. I found the switch, and now it works fine, just as I would like.
When you have a moment, perhaps you could also teach me how to work the wireless.
Atb
PtP
Because that's madness
(Though switching to the website usefully clears the posting box of old moth eaten posts)
Paxton's wife, Sen. Angela Paxton, is NOT one of 'em. She is (or was) a high school math teacher and counselor.
As I understanding it, she's NOT allowed to speak at the trial, but IS allowed to vote on her husband's case.
Funnily enough, I sort of took my own advice and read the manual to find out how to switch off the very annoying Lane Assist on my new VW.
I would say this is probably the dividing line within the broadly pro-Ukrainian camp.
One view is comfortable Russia can be bright to negotiate a settlement that it will either voluntarily stick to, or it can be made through diplomatic pressure to stick to. Therefore, by this logic, further bloodshed in this war is avoidable and there is a better outcome. This is the “off ramp” thinking that dominated the early days of 2022 in Western European capitals.
The other view is that peace now guarantees a worse war later. This view has zero trust in Russia to keep its word, and believes it cannot be contained diplomatically. That any settlement will be taken as a win and a chance to regroup ahead of the next invasion, cyber attack, poisoning or whatever. That Russia is a classic bully that only respects force. This is the thinking of much of Eastern Europe since 1991.
I have gone on a journey to the second of those since 2014. I was quite forgiving of Russia, enjoyed the culture, I worked with Russian colleagues and clients, visited several times. Saw Russians as simply unfortunate to live under a corrupt government. I thought Putin could be contained and managed, as indeed I still think is the case with Xi in China. After 2014 I started to sense the problem went deeper than Putin but I was still a little in denial.
It was the behaviour in Syria supporting the revolting Assad (which then made me clock just his brutal they’d been in Chechnya) and then the brazen poisonings in Salisbury and Wagner’s carrying on in Africa that made me see the Russian state itself as a uniquely poisonous criminal organisation. It was also the Salisbury poisonings that gave me that moment of clarity on Corbyn too.
We managed a miracle - a true miracle - last winter in weaning Europe almost wholly off Russian gas and keeping prices down through efficiency. We should do that again this winter.
Eventually OPEC and the oil exporters eat themselves. It was the Western reaction to high oil prices in the 70s that led to the price collapse in the 80s and 90s.
Almost as if we don't have an empire any more and the map isn't painted red.
I think @darkage sums up well the process that we have previously discussed on PB.
With respect to the adverts, however, Musk in the immediate days after taking over was posting/retweeting right-wing clickbait and pretty quickly unblocking far right accounts. As the new owner, people were obviously going to pay some attention to Musk's public actions. It's quite logical for advertisers to have concerns about such matters.
Musk could have conducted himself more normally. He could have kept off Twitter entirely. He could have stuck to retweeting cute cat pictures. This would not have scared off advertisers. He chose a provocative approach. Advertisers don't like that.
Within all that, some called for a boycott. They had rational reasons to do that, and Musk since has only proved them right! We live in a society that values freedom, which includes the freedom for people to try to persuade others to boycott a company.
Musk's claims now are preposterous. He's not going to win a suit against the ADL. His claim for damages is ludicrous.
Necessity means I switch to vf for editing and the bits that don't work on plain old pb.com
1) a lot of what is wrong with our society is excessive consumerism driven by one click purchases.
2) the whole point of the homeless study is that it saved money (as well as got people back on their feet economically and socially)
It’s been a notable humid day, we’ve all felt it. But in a thin sliver of the far East of the country it’s been more than that.
The record highest dew point ever recorded in the British isles I understand is 23.8C, somewhere in SW Ireland. Dew point is the temperature at which the air becomes saturated. If Dp is 23.8C, then at 23.8C it’ll be foggy.
Today I noticed the station of Headcorn aérodrome was showing 23C dew point. Gosh, I thought. I looked at the live data from my weather station at the vineyard in Pett Bottom and it was 23.6C. But it kept climbing on my weather station. It topped out at 24.6C. In other words so much moisture inbred air that at that temperature it would be misty and condensation would form on objects.
I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. Has my weather station just broken an all time British isles record?*
*disclaimer: private weather stations don’t count; readings can sometimes be faulty (though Dpt is usually quite accurate); I need to verify the current record with the Met Office / Met Eirann.
2) We cannot know the details, as there's no link to the work, just a screenshot of the executive summary. There could have been various caveats and stipulations. Personally, I like the idea; I like the thought of trusting the person to do the right thing. However, your instincts are distinctly authoritarian, and your approval of the freedom of being given a lump sum to spend as desired is distinctly at odds with your wish to deprive people of 'one click purchases' etc.
I don't state russia must lose because i hate russia. i state it because it might actually stop them doing shit like this
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2222103120
https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/international/verteidigung-deutschland-startet-neuen-anlauf-fuer-kampfpanzer-allianz/29374860.html
Hottest it got in my humble abode this summer was (hopefully) 77 degrees F, on a few days, but except for one the humidity was low.
Putting film on windows made major difference. Putting in half-way decent windows would help even more.