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Did You Really Mean To Say This? – politicalbetting.com
Did You Really Mean To Say This? – politicalbetting.com
In case you missed it: The chief executive of BP Bernard Looney has resigned after admitting he had failed to disclose the extent of past personal relationships with colleagues. His departure has rocked the 113-year-old energy group https://t.co/1wQTXl1dwk
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*Any one. No particular one in mind.
👍Experimental "Sea Kid" of the SBU damaged the Russian missile ship "Samum"
Yesterday, the SBU sea drone made a "cotton" attack on the Samum missile ship near the entrance to the Sevastopol Bay. "Sea Kid" hit the rear right part of the Rashist ship, causing significant damage, the ship lost speed.
The Russians had to tow "Samum" for repairs with a large trim to the stern and a list to starboard.
For this attack, the SBU used an experimental model of a marine drone, which is capable of operating in a storm, hiding from detection behind high waves. During the special operation, the height of the waves reached 1.5 - 2 m.
We are waiting for new and bright surprises from the Security Service for the vessels of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation.
https://x.com/PStyle0ne1/status/1702676211296547322?s=20
In this interview by Chris Williamson, Niall Ferguson discusses historical modelling and why it's not a good idea, and instead recommends looking for close historical examples as a better guide. He also expounds on POTUS 2024. Whilst I agree with some of his points and not on others, the talk is interesting. Here it is.
"The Shocking Lessons Of History Everyone Has Forgotten - Niall Ferguson", Chris Williamson, YouTube, 20230902, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-XRR3z23tU , length 58 mins
Literally, not appropriate. So, we should strive to prevent things that aren't appropriate from happening.
How does that become:
"It has always happened, it will always happen, just suck it up losers."
I wonder whether any former colleagues of his will come forward with their own stories of him in the theatre?
Couple of other points - another demonstration of how meaningless are corporate slogans:
...That Looney appears to have engaged in more than one work-based relationship sends a worrying signal about the blurred lines between work and personal life, which speaks to BP’s corporate culture. A string of work-based relationships is not the message that should be emanating from the corner office of a CEO who oversees a modern company and speaks openly about being guided by values. Looney had said previously that BP’s code of conduct, which includes guidance on organisational culture and challenging inappropriate behaviour, was “at the foundation of all that we do in our roles”...
(Guardian)
And secondly, a demonstration that whistleblowing can work.p
..Looney’s relationships were allegedly raised via BP’s internal whistleblower hotline, OpenTalk. ..
I honestly can't think of anyone in my circle who behaves like that.
The casual falsehoods of the GOP’s impeachment inquiry leader
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/14/comer-biden-impeachment-inquiry/
European nations, including both EU and non-EU countries, pledged a total of €156 billion in aid to Ukraine, nearly doubling the U.S.'s contribution of less than €70 billion
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1702616998705057967
In other areas were people have secrets to hide, they are very good at creating a circle of those who know and excluding others.
For example, when I was teenager, I mentioned in front of some friends that I wasn't anti soft drugs. At which point nearly everyone took out their Virginia Tabbaco tins and started rolling up. I knew them well, but they had, up to that point, made sure that I didn't know.
Another incident - in my twenties and thirties, I hung out with a hard drinking crowd. An unspoken rule was manners - someone brought along a friend who proceeded to say some ugly things to waitress. The evening died then and there. We paid the bill, apologised for the arsehole, tipped heavily and went home. Said arsehole was never seen in our group again.
If you combine the two - people finding like minded folk and others blanking out those with tendencies to behave in that manner - it's not surprising that you don't know people like that. Or at least know that you know them.
Because they will take care that you don't see that side of them, and if you see a hint of that behaviour, you blank them completely.
In the same way drones have got every large army in the world *really* worried.
Going away from the non-sexual, I've seen a fair amount of bullying (to various degrees) in the workplace, which is perhaps not as serious a problem as sexual matters, but still important to counter.
Roger Moore wouldn't go near him off-camera. Said he was diseased.
But, then, Malmesbury's post explains it.
https://www.army.mod.uk/news-and-events/news/2023/09/army-to-showcase-jet-propelled-drone-with-laser-guided-missile/
The drone is an existing model. Heavy drones of this and related types are being using in Ukraine now. Add some launch tubes, duct tape....
What must be really worrying governments everywhere, is the number of serious weapons able to be improvised from consumer-grade technology.
Very few people can get hold of Storm Shadow and a plane to launch it, but pretty much everyone can get hold of a large r/c boat and a satellite phone, or a DJI drone, mated to a few kilos of fertiliser or a grenade.
"X bullies Y" would be an example of active voice. "Bullying happens" does sound like passive voice to me.
X threw the ball to Y
The ball was thrown to Y
Ball-throwing happened
The last two seem to me like distinct examples of passive voice. Does agreement happen?
EXCLUSIVE: Married South Dakota governor Kristi Noem and Trump advisor Corey Lewandowski have been having a years-long clandestine affair
DailyMail.com uncovered evidence of Lewandowski and Noem's fling: Dozens of trips that mixed business with pleasure, private flights and luxury resort stays
The pair met up Friday for a Trump campaign rally in Rapid City, South Dakota, but were careful to have no public interaction – despite being close for years
The two were first suspected of being romantically involved in 2021, but Noem scornfully dismissed the story as 'total garbage and a disgusting lie' at the time
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12509093/Kristin-Noem-Corey-Lewandowski-secret-affair.html
I'm not fully convinced I'm right here, but even if I'm wrong I think we're way off the point. The way of speaking here performs the same action as the passive voice in depersonalising and distancing the actor from the action, which is to tacitly to partially absolve the perpetrator. Cyclefree's point stands whether or not it's technically the passive voice (I still think it is!)
Don't put me in charge of the resistance when HYUFD leads the tanks north of the Central Belt.
As I hurtle, with worrying rapidity, through my forties things which, even a few short years ago, would never bother me in the slightest now really grind my gears. Cars parking on grass verges, for example. Why, oh why must moronic motorists make grass verges resemble Passchendaele? Summary execution is too good for them.
One other minor, totally and utterly inconsequential thing that gets my blood pressure rocketing, that instantly gets the molars grinding away, is the use of the number two when the word 'two' should be, to my befuddled mind at least, always, always be used in cases like this.
No doubt some fancy-pants will be able to cite Shakespeare or some other venerable wordsmith doing it in an original manuscript - '2 be or not 2 be' in a spidery hand on some yellowed parchment somewhere perhaps, to give this travesty a sheen of respectability, a gossamer thin legitimacy but I don't care. I will not engage. I am embracing my incipient fogeyism, drawing a line in the sand, choosing this particular hillock to expire on, and issuing a firm 'No, Cyclefree, no!'
It's not that I'm angry, just disappointed. It'll probably cast an unwelcome pall over the entire weekend. I hope you can spend some quiet time to contemplate precisely what you have done.
US news organizations have turned Biden’s age into a scandal and continue to cover Trump as an entertaining side show
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/15/trump-biden-mainstream-politics-news-coverage
Something like the staggering program setup by amateur telescope makers in the US to provide optical components to US military. Little known, this did stuff like virtually all the roof prisms in the Norden bombsights. And nearly all of the optics in the B29 optical fire control system. To name but a few.
https://twitter.com/jamesdoleman/status/1702695648083022218/photo/1
We hang the British "Storm Shadow" under the left wing of the Su-24M, the French "Scalp" - under the right))
https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1702683456612782150
(Mostly because, while I’m interested in aviation and can fly a plane, I’m too old and unfit for military flight school or infantry, haven’t fired a gun in decades, and quite like the idea of doing something that’s useful but slightly remote from the front line).
The deposit (which he'd lose) is £10k plus the expenses of actually running a campaign might give pause for thought, but they pulled in a surprisingly high £700k in income last year so you'd think he'll have a go (I mean, they spent a similar amount so aren't sitting on piles of cash, but they clearly have some ability to raise money to campaign).
Biden can at least string a sentence together, Trump keeps interrupting himself.
So, on a more serious note, will Trump get imprisoned for his many crimes?
I'm wondering whether he may be offered an 'illness' get out - and if so is he sane enough to take it?
The UK's leading animal groups have issued a joint statement saying that banning American bully XLs "will sadly not stop" dog attacks.
The Dog Control Coalition is made up of RSPCA, Blue Cross, Battersea, Dogs Trust, Hope Rescue, Scottish SPCA, The Kennel Club and British Veterinary Association.
It's urging the government "to tackle the root issue by dealing with the unscrupulous breeders, who are putting profit before welfare, and the irresponsible owners whose dogs are dangerously out of control".
The coalition claims the proposed ban will have "significant impacts on owners, the animal welfare sector, vets, law enforcement and the public".
It adds that it's "deeply concerned about the lack of data" behind the decision to ban these types of dogs."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-66818862
If you were a drunkard, a dwarf, have learning difficulties or are in prison, then the Russian army will welcome you with open casket! (*)
(*) Or mobile crematorium. Or meat cube...
It's wrong.
Responsible and innocent owners and dogs are likely to be the people who will lose most with this approach.
https://x.com/hectorcrosbie/status/1702638495603347651
Now, either I attract mad dogs, or the owners have a blindness to their dogs poor behaviour.
Princess Anne might not be best pleased, though....
It's used when a journalist wants to avoid blaming anyone in particular. For whatever reason.
(Having read many, perhaps too many, popular geology books, and living where I often see volcanos, the phrase always makes me picture a volcano -- which is probably not what the speaker or writer intends me to do.)
One example of where writing makes something that was completely passive more active is when journalists decide they want to evoke grassroots uproar that's actually just them being editorially against something.
"Fury as Starmer refuses to come clean on Donkey Sanctuary story".
"Community in uproar as wind farms to be built miles away and out of sight"
The use of "refuses to" in cases where someone simply hasn't done something that nobody expected them to do in the first place is a regular press tactic.
One year when I introduced the student to my parents at their home their Labrador attacked my guest. “Never done anything like that before!” applies.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=igzNAzcXNBA
"Members of Generation Z in the U.S. -- those between the ages of 12 and 26 -- generally lack trust in political and societal institutions, according to a new study from Gallup and Walton Family Foundation. Among the institutions rated in the survey, youth express the lowest levels of trust in Congress, the news, the presidency and large technology companies, with one in six or fewer reporting they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of trust in each."
source: https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/510395/gen-voices-lackluster-trust-major-institutions.aspx
Still the last woman to drive an F1 car at a GP weekend.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Operation+Clark+County
#TwoTonsOfCuteness
If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you. One careful-ish owner. In need of some TLC.
"How to invade France": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luNM61NMP6Q
The condemnation of his attitudes has been very vocal and widespread on medical social media. Not least by 55 Anaesthetists and Intensivists at his former Trust:
https://sbuhb.nhs.wales/news/swansea-bay-health-news/consultants-respond-to-retired-doctor-peter-hilton/
Sexual harassment in surgery clearly remains an issue, but those reporting it are taken very seriously in my experience as an investigator.
Officers admit armed move on sanctioned oligarch was unlawful
A ten-month criminal investigation into London’s last Russian oligarch has collapsed after the National Crime Agency admitted its armed raid on his mansion was unlawful.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russian-oligarch-london-investigation-raid-2023-pmdzmvvjn (£££)
Labour has reacted to today's announcement by supporting a ban on American bully XL dogs, while also criticising the prime minister for "dithering" over outlawing the cross-breed. Shadow Environment Secretary Steve Reed believes the dogs leave "a trail of destruction in communities up and down the country". "Labour MPs have long called for these dogs to be banned," he adds. "Families will be furious that it has taken this long for Rishi Sunak to finally act. "But, if Rishi Sunak continues to dither, the next Labour government will do the right thing and ban these dogs causing terror.""
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-66818862
Colour me underwhelmed.
My dog is just 6kg and nervous of many bigger dogs, though plays nicely with others such as a Rottweiler cross that he has known since a puppy. His nervousness can make him a bit defensive and even aggressive with big dogs, though never with people.
No idea if they voted for us, though.
Allegations of conspiring to circumvent sanctions, money laundering, fraud and perjury against Mikhail Fridman, 59, have been dropped. The NCA will have to pay damages for trespass, cover Fridman’s legal bills and return seized cash.
The abandonment of the case is an embarrassment for the NCA’s Combating Kleptocracy Cell, which was set up in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to investigate sanctions evasion.
More than 50 officials, including armed police, specialist search teams, Europol officers and a lawyer, took part in the raid on Fridman’s home — the £65 million Athlone House in Highgate, north London — last December.
In court papers the NCA said the mansion was believed to be “the largest property ever searched by UK law enforcement in terms of warrant execution”.....
...The case unravelled as lawyers for Fridman — who moved to the UK in 2014 and helped to set up the LetterOne group, which owns Holland & Barrett — pulled apart the NCA case.
It emerged that a judge had entered the wrong date on the search warrant, writing 2021 instead of 2022, and the document was neither signed by an identifiable NCA officer nor specified the area to be searched.
Material in support of the warrant appeared to have been cut and pasted from a dossier posted on the internet in 2008 to discredit Fridman and alleging he had “historical and ongoing involvement in organised crime”. It is an allegation he totally rejects.
NCA officers claimed Fridman jumped out of a window and attempted to run away but his lawyer testified that CCTV showed him “walking calmly and slowly towards the officers with his arms raised”.
Government lawyers concede the raid was “unlawful and the NCA is liable in damages for trespass to land and goods”, and Fridman is “not currently subject to any NCA criminal investigations of conspiracy to circumvent sanctions”.
His passport has been returned and bail conditions requiring him to report to police twice a week have been dropped.
However, Fridman — who described the invasion of Ukraine as “a tragedy” last year — remains under UK and European Union sanctions as one of the ownership board of Russia’s giant Alfa Bank.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russian-oligarch-london-investigation-raid-2023-pmdzmvvjn
The problem of course with radical solutions even for radical problems is that if you get it wrong the results are even more disastrous. And since radical solutions are usually ideologically based not evidence based they go wrong more often than not.