The thinking of Hamas/Iran probably went something like this...
(1) Massive attack on Israel, with utterly disgusting brutal atrocities - to be widely broadcast on social media (2) Provoke the fury and wrath of Israel, to wipe out Gaza - again, capture the worst bits; broadcast it all (3) Trigger a wider Middle East conflagration in disgust, and ally with everyone to wipe out Israel (4) Be rewarded in this life or the next, as holy martyrs, for wiping the Jews and their state
So, it's not dissimilar to the thinking of White Supremacists who want to provoke a race war that, ultimately, will work out in their favour.
[Btw, I don't think (3) would happen regardless, but Netanyahu needs to be careful not to fall into a trap on (2)]
I think you're spot on. Netanyahu has big problems, though: 1. He is in coalition with far-right ethno-nationalists who believe they know better than the IDF 2. He is in that coalition solely because he needed to power to prevent criminal investigation of himself 3. The combination of 1 and 2 means that he totally took his eye off the national security ball
Put all of that together and there is a very good chance that he now reacts in exactly the way that Hamas/Iran want.
Yes, indeed. It's concerning.
Of course, they know all this too (Hamas/Iran aren't stupid) which is why they struck as hard as they did when they did.
Yep - I think the huge protests against the Netanyahu government inside Israel would also have spooked them. They need him in power.
If there were any justice in this world (ha!) Netanyahu would be out on his ear. For months he has been trying to attack the judiciary, arrogate more power to himself, protect himself from legal proceedings and appease extreme nationalist parties. It has led to huge demonstrations against him and some reservists threatening not to serve in the IDF. Whether and to what extent all of this resulted in the Israeli government failing in its duty to keep Israel secure we won't find out for a while, maybe never.
Thing is you can try to dismantle the organs of a liberal democratic state and you will get objections from all sorts but what you do may well be tolerated by many if you provide safety and security in return. But if you cannot do that - as the Netanyahu government has plainly failed to do - why tolerate everything else?
For now those reservists will fight to defend their country, to defend people from being slaughtered in their homes, at bus stops, from girls being kidnapped, raped, killed, their bodies desecrated. But after?
Recent Israeli governments have become more and more horrible and so, while I want Israel to exist and be safe it has become, increasingly hard to support the policies of its government which provide no security and are becoming increasingly undemocratic and illiberal. Israel under Netanyahu has become more and more like the Arab states it claims to be better than. Those Israelis wanting a liberal Democratic Western-style Israel have sometimes looked like the remnants of an older better - but dying - Israel.
But what we have seen of Islamic terrorism in Israel and everywhere it has happened in recent decades and the resurgence of Western anti-semitism under the guise of anti-colonialism has reduced my sympathy for the causes they claim to be fighting for to somewhere near zero. The Palestinians - and Arabs generally - have picked and supported the most appalling causes and leaders. I can feel sorrow and sympathy for innocent individuals in Israel and Gaza being terrorised and tortured and suffering. I feel nothing but contempt for those whose reaction to seeing films of old people gunned down at bus stops and girls being raped is to go out onto the streets of London and celebrate.
100% agree
Unfortunately Islamic militant radicalism needs to be cauterised. I increasingly see no alternative.
I disagree with the idea of pushing Palestinians out of Gaza - although Netanyahu may try it (If he does I hope the West will stop him). But we need to find a way to win the hearts and minds of the people of Gaza.
But first there needs to be regime change. By its actions Hamas has made itself illegitimate as a government.
Hamas are the government of Gaza. Not in a legitimate way by international standards, but they are. How do we make regime change happen? Israel will need a military invasion of Gaza with all that entails. Refugees would try and flee but I assume that Egypt will keep its own border shut.
One of the most densly populated areas in the world, radicalised and armed to the teeth, vs one of the most effective (brutal) militaries in the world. It will be a bloodbath, and doesn't offer a guarantee that Hamas will be removed.
So many of the arab states in the area now want peace deals and links with Israel. So it is time that one of them steps up and finally absorbs the so-called refugee camps. Its absurd that this has been allowed to drag on for nearly a century.
Didn’t Hamas win the last election in Gaza? I don’t think (but am willing to be persuaded) that the election was much, if any, more corrupt than, say, many in the USA.
Hamas won the last Palestinian Authority elections in 2006. There was then a battle for control with Fatah and Hamas expelled everyone else from Gaza in 2007.
There haven't been any elections since...
Thanks. The election itself wasn’t too bad IIRC. The aftermath, however…….. However given the gerrymandering which has gone on here since 2019, perhaps we’d better not be too critical.
WTAF
Words fucking fail me sometimes.
You are an enabler of the horror we have see in Israel.
Surely if this was a fake Labour would have called it out by now.
Even if it’s fake you still wouldn’t mention it unless it’s picked up more widely by the media .
The 'fuck's sake' seems like it may have been dropped in twice. It's a good job if it's AI generated, but this does happen a lot.
I think you may be right on the fuck's sake. Gilding the lily or outright fakery?
I think it's a fake. The 'I'm sick of it, I'm f**g sick of it' bit doesn't ring true to me either, repetition for emphasis is used very seldom in real world speech, it's seen in telly dramas a lot more. Thinking they got a passage from a TV programme and gave the ai some samples of SKS's voice?
But are we being hyper vigilant? At first encounter it sounds real, it’s only when you listen very carefully you start to doubt - but maybe every audio would sound fake if you over-analysed it, seeking anomalies. That’s not how we normally listen
If it is genuine and it is picked up by the media it would be very embarrassing
Yes very embarrassing . Some might be shocked that he ever swears . It’s bad but we’ve all lost our rag and it might make his dull image a bit less dull .
Ha. If this was Sunak you’d be all over it and full of condemnation
Digital fingerprinting of meta data of audio-visual data is going to be a multi-billion dollar business.
Ken Macleod's near-future SF book 'The night sessions' features an Edinburgh polis and his robot spider sidekick. IIRC the polis by that time have to use actual handwritten notebooks, film cameras, audio tape, and so on - nothing digital, as it is so easy to fake. (Or am I muddling it with a Charles Stross novel?)
The thinking of Hamas/Iran probably went something like this...
(1) Massive attack on Israel, with utterly disgusting brutal atrocities - to be widely broadcast on social media (2) Provoke the fury and wrath of Israel, to wipe out Gaza - again, capture the worst bits; broadcast it all (3) Trigger a wider Middle East conflagration in disgust, and ally with everyone to wipe out Israel (4) Be rewarded in this life or the next, as holy martyrs, for wiping the Jews and their state
So, it's not dissimilar to the thinking of White Supremacists who want to provoke a race war that, ultimately, will work out in their favour.
[Btw, I don't think (3) would happen regardless, but Netanyahu needs to be careful not to fall into a trap on (2)]
I think you're spot on. Netanyahu has big problems, though: 1. He is in coalition with far-right ethno-nationalists who believe they know better than the IDF 2. He is in that coalition solely because he needed to power to prevent criminal investigation of himself 3. The combination of 1 and 2 means that he totally took his eye off the national security ball
Put all of that together and there is a very good chance that he now reacts in exactly the way that Hamas/Iran want.
Yes, indeed. It's concerning.
Of course, they know all this too (Hamas/Iran aren't stupid) which is why they struck as hard as they did when they did.
Yep - I think the huge protests against the Netanyahu government inside Israel would also have spooked them. They need him in power.
If there were any justice in this world (ha!) Netanyahu would be out on his ear. For months he has been trying to attack the judiciary, arrogate more power to himself, protect himself from legal proceedings and appease extreme nationalist parties. It has led to huge demonstrations against him and some reservists threatening not to serve in the IDF. Whether and to what extent all of this resulted in the Israeli government failing in its duty to keep Israel secure we won't find out for a while, maybe never.
Thing is you can try to dismantle the organs of a liberal democratic state and you will get objections from all sorts but what you do may well be tolerated by many if you provide safety and security in return. But if you cannot do that - as the Netanyahu government has plainly failed to do - why tolerate everything else?
For now those reservists will fight to defend their country, to defend people from being slaughtered in their homes, at bus stops, from girls being kidnapped, raped, killed, their bodies desecrated. But after?
Recent Israeli governments have become more and more horrible and so, while I want Israel to exist and be safe it has become, increasingly hard to support the policies of its government which provide no security and are becoming increasingly undemocratic and illiberal. Israel under Netanyahu has become more and more like the Arab states it claims to be better than. Those Israelis wanting a liberal Democratic Western-style Israel have sometimes looked like the remnants of an older better - but dying - Israel.
But what we have seen of Islamic terrorism in Israel and everywhere it has happened in recent decades and the resurgence of Western anti-semitism under the guise of anti-colonialism has reduced my sympathy for the causes they claim to be fighting for to somewhere near zero. The Palestinians - and Arabs generally - have picked and supported the most appalling causes and leaders. I can feel sorrow and sympathy for innocent individuals in Israel and Gaza being terrorised and tortured and suffering. I feel nothing but contempt for those whose reaction to seeing films of old people gunned down at bus stops and girls being raped is to go out onto the streets of London and celebrate.
100% agree
Unfortunately Islamic militant radicalism needs to be cauterised. I increasingly see no alternative.
I disagree with the idea of pushing Palestinians out of Gaza - although Netanyahu may try it (If he does I hope the West will stop him). But we need to find a way to win the hearts and minds of the people of Gaza.
But first there needs to be regime change. By its actions Hamas has made itself illegitimate as a government.
Hamas are the government of Gaza. Not in a legitimate way by international standards, but they are. How do we make regime change happen? Israel will need a military invasion of Gaza with all that entails. Refugees would try and flee but I assume that Egypt will keep its own border shut.
One of the most densly populated areas in the world, radicalised and armed to the teeth, vs one of the most effective (brutal) militaries in the world. It will be a bloodbath, and doesn't offer a guarantee that Hamas will be removed.
So many of the arab states in the area now want peace deals and links with Israel. So it is time that one of them steps up and finally absorbs the so-called refugee camps. Its absurd that this has been allowed to drag on for nearly a century.
Didn’t Hamas win the last election in Gaza? I don’t think (but am willing to be persuaded) that the election was much, if any, more corrupt than, say, many in the USA.
Hamas won the last Palestinian Authority elections in 2006. There was then a battle for control with Fatah and Hamas expelled everyone else from Gaza in 2007.
There haven't been any elections since...
Thanks. The election itself wasn’t too bad IIRC. The aftermath, however…….. However given the gerrymandering which has gone on here since 2019, perhaps we’d better not be too critical.
WTAF
Words fucking fail me sometimes.
You are an enabler of the horror we have see in Israel.
Pity words hadn't fucking failed you before that load of faux outraged pish.
If it is genuine and it is picked up by the media it would be very embarrassing
Yes very embarrassing . Some might be shocked that he ever swears . It’s bad but we’ve all lost our rag and it might make his dull image a bit less dull .
Ha. If this was Sunak you’d be all over it and full of condemnation
Anyway, I suspect it is AI.
People can always surprise us, especially how they are in private, but for someone politically on a high and who has been so careful and controlled for years (when plenty of internal enemies would love to have undermined him) it would be a surprise to say the least for Starmer to be flipping out so intensely.
Surely if this was a fake Labour would have called it out by now.
Even if it’s fake you still wouldn’t mention it unless it’s picked up more widely by the media .
The 'fuck's sake' seems like it may have been dropped in twice. It's a good job if it's AI generated, but this does happen a lot.
I think you may be right on the fuck's sake. Gilding the lily or outright fakery?
I think it's a fake. The 'I'm sick of it, I'm f**g sick of it' bit doesn't ring true to me either, repetition for emphasis is used very seldom in real world speech, it's seen in telly dramas a lot more. Thinking they got a passage from a TV programme and gave the ai some samples of SKS's voice?
But are we being hyper vigilant? At first encounter it sounds real, it’s only when you listen very carefully you start to doubt - but maybe every audio would sound fake if you over-analysed it, seeking anomalies. That’s not how we normally listen
I don't really know how you'd obtain the recording either. If SKS was miked up without realising, loads of people would have heard.
Digital fingerprinting of meta data of audio-visual data is going to be a multi-billion dollar business.
Ken Macleod's near-future SF book 'The night sessions' features an Edinburgh polis and his robot spider sidekick. IIRC the polis by that time have to use actual handwritten notebooks, film cameras, audio tape, and so on - nothing digital, as it is so easy to fake. (Or am I muddling it with a Charles Stross novel?)
If it is genuine and it is picked up by the media it would be very embarrassing
Yes very embarrassing . Some might be shocked that he ever swears . It’s bad but we’ve all lost our rag and it might make his dull image a bit less dull .
Ha. If this was Sunak you’d be all over it and full of condemnation
Anyway, I suspect it is AI.
No I wouldn’t . You don’t even know who he was talking to , the context . And he could be making the comments to someone talking about someone else . It’s not clear . Do we have a catalogue of bullying allegations against Starmer , then it would be an issue . If this has legs I’m sure the Daily Hate will be going with it .
Digital fingerprinting of meta data of audio-visual data is going to be a multi-billion dollar business.
Ken Macleod's near-future SF book 'The night sessions' features an Edinburgh polis and his robot spider sidekick. IIRC the polis by that time have to use actual handwritten notebooks, film cameras, audio tape, and so on - nothing digital, as it is so easy to fake. (Or am I muddling it with a Charles Stross novel?)
Not familiar with that one (I'm a fan of his, there seems to be a bit of a cluster of great Scottish Sci-Fi writers for some reason), but I do recall in Ben Elton's This Other Eden there is a bouncer at some event where the same point is used, since a biro and some paper is much harder to cheat.
The same fear with electronic voting of course - that if you can crack any defences it has, you can flip millions of votes, but people standing over counters in village halls at 3am in hundreds of locations? Much tougher.
Digital fingerprinting of meta data of audio-visual data is going to be a multi-billion dollar business.
Ken Macleod's near-future SF book 'The night sessions' features an Edinburgh polis and his robot spider sidekick. IIRC the polis by that time have to use actual handwritten notebooks, film cameras, audio tape, and so on - nothing digital, as it is so easy to fake. (Or am I muddling it with a Charles Stross novel?)
Is there a near-future SDLP book?
Wrong country ... though it does have the last of the Free Presbyterian (in the general category sense) kirks in it.
The flipside of Fucksakegate is that, in future, every miscreant will be able to deny REAL audio and imagery by saying “AI faked it” - and we won’t know the truth
It’s going to be a massive problem in court-rooms. The end of audio, photos and video as acceptable evidence
The thinking of Hamas/Iran probably went something like this...
(1) Massive attack on Israel, with utterly disgusting brutal atrocities - to be widely broadcast on social media (2) Provoke the fury and wrath of Israel, to wipe out Gaza - again, capture the worst bits; broadcast it all (3) Trigger a wider Middle East conflagration in disgust, and ally with everyone to wipe out Israel (4) Be rewarded in this life or the next, as holy martyrs, for wiping the Jews and their state
So, it's not dissimilar to the thinking of White Supremacists who want to provoke a race war that, ultimately, will work out in their favour.
[Btw, I don't think (3) would happen regardless, but Netanyahu needs to be careful not to fall into a trap on (2)]
I think you're spot on. Netanyahu has big problems, though: 1. He is in coalition with far-right ethno-nationalists who believe they know better than the IDF 2. He is in that coalition solely because he needed to power to prevent criminal investigation of himself 3. The combination of 1 and 2 means that he totally took his eye off the national security ball
Put all of that together and there is a very good chance that he now reacts in exactly the way that Hamas/Iran want.
Yes, indeed. It's concerning.
Of course, they know all this too (Hamas/Iran aren't stupid) which is why they struck as hard as they did when they did.
Yep - I think the huge protests against the Netanyahu government inside Israel would also have spooked them. They need him in power.
If there were any justice in this world (ha!) Netanyahu would be out on his ear. For months he has been trying to attack the judiciary, arrogate more power to himself, protect himself from legal proceedings and appease extreme nationalist parties. It has led to huge demonstrations against him and some reservists threatening not to serve in the IDF. Whether and to what extent all of this resulted in the Israeli government failing in its duty to keep Israel secure we won't find out for a while, maybe never.
Thing is you can try to dismantle the organs of a liberal democratic state and you will get objections from all sorts but what you do may well be tolerated by many if you provide safety and security in return. But if you cannot do that - as the Netanyahu government has plainly failed to do - why tolerate everything else?
For now those reservists will fight to defend their country, to defend people from being slaughtered in their homes, at bus stops, from girls being kidnapped, raped, killed, their bodies desecrated. But after?
Recent Israeli governments have become more and more horrible and so, while I want Israel to exist and be safe it has become, increasingly hard to support the policies of its government which provide no security and are becoming increasingly undemocratic and illiberal. Israel under Netanyahu has become more and more like the Arab states it claims to be better than. Those Israelis wanting a liberal Democratic Western-style Israel have sometimes looked like the remnants of an older better - but dying - Israel.
But what we have seen of Islamic terrorism in Israel and everywhere it has happened in recent decades and the resurgence of Western anti-semitism under the guise of anti-colonialism has reduced my sympathy for the causes they claim to be fighting for to somewhere near zero. The Palestinians - and Arabs generally - have picked and supported the most appalling causes and leaders. I can feel sorrow and sympathy for innocent individuals in Israel and Gaza being terrorised and tortured and suffering. I feel nothing but contempt for those whose reaction to seeing films of old people gunned down at bus stops and girls being raped is to go out onto the streets of London and celebrate.
100% agree
Unfortunately Islamic militant radicalism needs to be cauterised. I increasingly see no alternative.
I disagree with the idea of pushing Palestinians out of Gaza - although Netanyahu may try it (If he does I hope the West will stop him). But we need to find a way to win the hearts and minds of the people of Gaza.
But first there needs to be regime change. By its actions Hamas has made itself illegitimate as a government.
Hamas are the government of Gaza. Not in a legitimate way by international standards, but they are. How do we make regime change happen? Israel will need a military invasion of Gaza with all that entails. Refugees would try and flee but I assume that Egypt will keep its own border shut.
One of the most densly populated areas in the world, radicalised and armed to the teeth, vs one of the most effective (brutal) militaries in the world. It will be a bloodbath, and doesn't offer a guarantee that Hamas will be removed.
So many of the arab states in the area now want peace deals and links with Israel. So it is time that one of them steps up and finally absorbs the so-called refugee camps. Its absurd that this has been allowed to drag on for nearly a century.
Didn’t Hamas win the last election in Gaza? I don’t think (but am willing to be persuaded) that the election was much, if any, more corrupt than, say, many in the USA.
Hamas won the last Palestinian Authority elections in 2006. There was then a battle for control with Fatah and Hamas expelled everyone else from Gaza in 2007.
There haven't been any elections since...
Thanks. The election itself wasn’t too bad IIRC. The aftermath, however…….. However given the gerrymandering which has gone on here since 2019, perhaps we’d better not be too critical.
WTAF
Words fucking fail me sometimes.
You are an enabler of the horror we have see in Israel.
Pity words hadn't fucking failed you before that load of faux outraged pish.
Believe you me there’s nothing “faux” about my outrage
The flipside of Fucksakegate is that, in future, every miscreant will be able to deny REAL audio and imagery by saying “AI faked it” - and we won’t know the truth
It’s going to be a massive problem in court-rooms. The end of audio, photos and video as acceptable evidence
I think we will get solutions that incorporate digital fingerprinting that require the level of nation state actor to be able to fake.
Things like iPhones could have such a system tomorrow if Apple really wanted to. Your average man on the street wouldn't be able to spoof such a thing created via a closed eco-system vendor.
Have to say on the whole conference season has been a bit boring. Sure, the Tories had that 'heckler' incident, their bizarre coyness about HS2 which just made them look foolish for not confirming things, and a few wackos dutifully saying something stupid, but all pretty much expected in style.
Here's hoping for something to truly stir things up at Labour's, like Corbyn bounding on to the stage during Starmer's speech and slapping him a la Will Smith.
Surely if this was a fake Labour would have called it out by now.
Even if it’s fake you still wouldn’t mention it unless it’s picked up more widely by the media .
The 'fuck's sake' seems like it may have been dropped in twice. It's a good job if it's AI generated, but this does happen a lot.
I think you may be right on the fuck's sake. Gilding the lily or outright fakery?
I think it's a fake. The 'I'm sick of it, I'm f**g sick of it' bit doesn't ring true to me either, repetition for emphasis is used very seldom in real world speech, it's seen in telly dramas a lot more. Thinking they got a passage from a TV programme and gave the ai some samples of SKS's voice?
But are we being hyper vigilant? At first encounter it sounds real, it’s only when you listen very carefully you start to doubt - but maybe every audio would sound fake if you over-analysed it, seeking anomalies. That’s not how we normally listen
It's an interesting situation. We've become used to regarding a record - a document, video, or audio clip - as being more reliable evidence than personal testimony. But with AI generation of this material now possible, in this situation we're left waiting for someone present to confirm the authenticity of the recording. We're back to relying on personal testimony.
The flipside of Fucksakegate is that, in future, every miscreant will be able to deny REAL audio and imagery by saying “AI faked it” - and we won’t know the truth
It’s going to be a massive problem in court-rooms. The end of audio, photos and video as acceptable evidence
I think we will get solutions that incorporate digital fingerprinting that require the level of nation state actor to be able to fake.
The flipside of Fucksakegate is that, in future, every miscreant will be able to deny REAL audio and imagery by saying “AI faked it” - and we won’t know the truth
It’s going to be a massive problem in court-rooms. The end of audio, photos and video as acceptable evidence
Or it could still be used but greater checks will be needed to ensure no AI interference
The Israel conflict is terrible with unknown consequences and outcome
This article highlights just how perilous the world's economy's are and why there is absolutely no money to spend by governments
Also sorry to see @Farooq and @FrankBooth leave this forum but at times it does seem like an echo chamber, but it is important that as many different views are expressed as possible otherwise it will become an echo chamber
Why has @Farooq left? Great loss. I really enjoyed his posts. He often made me laugh out loud. Don't know enough about Frank, but generally sad to see anyone leave regardless of their views. I can only think of one exception, and that person was banned so clearly I wasn't alone in that view.
They are going travelling for some months, so a good time to switch off.
@Farooq objected to a few other posters calling for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and expulsion from their remaining lands.
I don't think our site or country can usefully contribute to resolving the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, so try to stay out of it, but is difficult to tolerate reading a site calling for further war crimes as answer to war crimes.
PB benefits from a diversity of voices and opinions, and is generally civil compared to other sites, but when any poster dominates thread after thread then it loses that charm.
I think the struggle for Israel is how it provides itself security without expelling people from Gaza. The status quo simply doesn't work, and a significant number there are pledged to the extermination of Israel and its people. Yes the hard right illegal settlers are crazy, yes they steal land, but they aren't pledged to genocide like Hamas.
Gaza is an open sore on the region, allowed to be sustained by other states. Egypt likes to blame Israel but has its own border wall at the south to keep Gazans imprisoned. Iran is after a fight and seem to be responsible for all those missiles arriving into Gaza. Russia seem to have armed and trained Hamas with drones to drop bombs.
Removing Gaza and pushing the people there back onto the arab diaspora isn't that crazy an idea. The idiocy of "refugee camps" has to end. These are not displaced refugees, they are several generations down the track from that. Resettle them in the other parts of the former Ottoman empire. So that they can also find peace.
The Arab dictatorships don’t want settlement of trained radicals in their lands. The refugee camps are also useful in keeping the pressure on Israel.
Do the settlers steal land? My understanding was that normally they purchase it (and then build exclusive compounds).
But - as always - a lot comes down to water rights. That was the flashpoint in previous discussions. The Jordan is a pretty feeble river.
L The nastier types of settlers use Mafia tactics. They make life hell for any Palestinian neighbours - killing livestock, criminal damage to other property. There have been reports of murders.
Then they buy the land cheap when they leave.
If they are committing crimes then they should be prosecuted as with anyone else. I was aware the government turned a blind eye to settlements in Palestinian designated areas, but that’s more of a political question.
In any case the settlers are generally nutters and their actions - both legal and illegal - are profoundly unhelpful
Have to say on the whole conference season has been a bit boring. Sure, the Tories had that 'heckler' incident, their bizarre coyness about HS2 which just made them look foolish for not confirming things, and a few wackos dutifully saying something stupid, but all pretty much expected in style.
Here's hoping for something to truly stir things up at Labour's, like Corbyn bounding on to the stage during Starmer's speech and slapping him a la Will Smith.
I think it will be cool, calm and collected for LAB.
Keir won't say anything particularly new or exciting in his speech. It's about running down the clock now.
We know CON and SNP are sinking, this is all good for LAB and the main thing for LAB now is not to appear over confident.
Surely if this was a fake Labour would have called it out by now.
Even if it’s fake you still wouldn’t mention it unless it’s picked up more widely by the media .
The 'fuck's sake' seems like it may have been dropped in twice. It's a good job if it's AI generated, but this does happen a lot.
I think you may be right on the fuck's sake. Gilding the lily or outright fakery?
I think it's a fake. The 'I'm sick of it, I'm f**g sick of it' bit doesn't ring true to me either, repetition for emphasis is used very seldom in real world speech, it's seen in telly dramas a lot more. Thinking they got a passage from a TV programme and gave the ai some samples of SKS's voice?
But are we being hyper vigilant? At first encounter it sounds real, it’s only when you listen very carefully you start to doubt - but maybe every audio would sound fake if you over-analysed it, seeking anomalies. That’s not how we normally listen
It's an interesting situation. We've become used to regarding a record - a document, video, or audio clip - as being more reliable evidence than personal testimony. But with AI generation of this material now possible, in this situation we're left waiting for someone present to confirm the authenticity of the recording. We're back to relying on personal testimony.
The Israel conflict is terrible with unknown consequences and outcome
This article highlights just how perilous the world's economy's are and why there is absolutely no money to spend by governments
Also sorry to see @Farooq and @FrankBooth leave this forum but at times it does seem like an echo chamber, but it is important that as many different views are expressed as possible otherwise it will become an echo chamber
Why has @Farooq left? Great loss. I really enjoyed his posts. He often made me laugh out loud. Don't know enough about Frank, but generally sad to see anyone leave regardless of their views. I can only think of one exception, and that person was banned so clearly I wasn't alone in that view.
@Farooq is a troll and a complete and utter f**king d***head.
However, clenching my teeth, he did at least make vaguely half-intelligent posts at time, and hadn't yet crossed the boundary for being so deeply unpleasant and toxic that he needed evicting from the site, so I wouldn't support his expulsion.
I trust he will return after a few days.
People come, people go. So what.
I don’t mind Faarooq, but it’s all getting a bit like CHB when he was crying for some departed posters to return and then promptly flounced himself. It’s bizarre when people are nostalgic For posters on a message board.
People get far too invested in these debates and discussions. Especially on fucking Israel. Which is why I avoid the topic in any depth. No good ever comes out of it and on Twitter it’s far worse.
I agree with getting too invested, but some people of evil want good people to have exactly the attitude of: "The conversation on this issue is far too toxic: I'll keep out."
Hence leaving the playing field to the extremists. And it's not just issues like Israel / Palestine / Hamas, either.
I think there's a bit of colonialist mentality on both sides of the debate in this country, the idea that we must have a position. Maybe it's just a really bloody complicated issue, it is a zero sum game, there are no goodies and baddies, there is no neat solution, it is a long way away and we don't need to get overly involved other than doing what we can to lower the bloodshed. It's a very sad situation but when you have people disputing who has ownership over land and then you throw a load of religious mumbo jumbo into the equation too it's unsurprising it is so intractable.
We have interests. It’s nothing to do with colonialism (why is it the left always rabbits on about the Empire? It’s gone guys, 70+ years ago, it’s not coming back).
We have to stand up for a democracy, however flawed and however much we dislike the incumbent. We have to stand against terrorism and radical Islamic militants. Those are fundamental strategic priorities for this country and the whole of the West.
Unless it is Scotland, last remaining colony
You forget Wales and Northern Ireland!
Very true OKC, I am biased towards Scotland though.
Do not worry, you could do that and still ensure the area remains almost all green, and if spread out very managable growth for each settlement.
You know how we can be sure of that? Because people are always saying that you could build everything we need on what is already classed as brownfield, so you could easily build on that land and very small parts of the green belt without damaging the character of the areas.
The Israel conflict is terrible with unknown consequences and outcome
This article highlights just how perilous the world's economy's are and why there is absolutely no money to spend by governments
Also sorry to see @Farooq and @FrankBooth leave this forum but at times it does seem like an echo chamber, but it is important that as many different views are expressed as possible otherwise it will become an echo chamber
Why has @Farooq left? Great loss. I really enjoyed his posts. He often made me laugh out loud. Don't know enough about Frank, but generally sad to see anyone leave regardless of their views. I can only think of one exception, and that person was banned so clearly I wasn't alone in that view.
They are going travelling for some months, so a good time to switch off.
@Farooq objected to a few other posters calling for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and expulsion from their remaining lands.
I don't think our site or country can usefully contribute to resolving the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, so try to stay out of it, but is difficult to tolerate reading a site calling for further war crimes as answer to war crimes.
PB benefits from a diversity of voices and opinions, and is generally civil compared to other sites, but when any poster dominates thread after thread then it loses that charm.
I think the struggle for Israel is how it provides itself security without expelling people from Gaza. The status quo simply doesn't work, and a significant number there are pledged to the extermination of Israel and its people. Yes the hard right illegal settlers are crazy, yes they steal land, but they aren't pledged to genocide like Hamas.
Gaza is an open sore on the region, allowed to be sustained by other states. Egypt likes to blame Israel but has its own border wall at the south to keep Gazans imprisoned. Iran is after a fight and seem to be responsible for all those missiles arriving into Gaza. Russia seem to have armed and trained Hamas with drones to drop bombs.
Removing Gaza and pushing the people there back onto the arab diaspora isn't that crazy an idea. The idiocy of "refugee camps" has to end. These are not displaced refugees, they are several generations down the track from that. Resettle them in the other parts of the former Ottoman empire. So that they can also find peace.
The Arab dictatorships don’t want settlement of trained radicals in their lands. The refugee camps are also useful in keeping the pressure on Israel.
Do the settlers steal land? My understanding was that normally they purchase it (and then build exclusive compounds).
But - as always - a lot comes down to water rights. That was the flashpoint in previous discussions. The Jordan is a pretty feeble river.
L The nastier types of settlers use Mafia tactics. They make life hell for any Palestinian neighbours - killing livestock, criminal damage to other property. There have been reports of murders.
Then they buy the land cheap when they leave.
If they are committing crimes then they should be prosecuted as with anyone else. I was aware the government turned a blind eye to settlements in Palestinian designated areas, but that’s more of a political question.
In any case the settlers are generally nutters and their actions - both legal and illegal - are profoundly unhelpful
The IDF not only fail to prosecute, they often connive at helping illegal settlements.
The most radical settlers tend to be Haredi Yeshiva students who are exempt from military service, which does cause some friction with the often secular conscripts deployed to protect them. Israel is a strange and diverse society with many internal conflicts.
Have to say on the whole conference season has been a bit boring. Sure, the Tories had that 'heckler' incident, their bizarre coyness about HS2 which just made them look foolish for not confirming things, and a few wackos dutifully saying something stupid, but all pretty much expected in style.
Here's hoping for something to truly stir things up at Labour's, like Corbyn bounding on to the stage during Starmer's speech and slapping him a la Will Smith.
I think it will be cool, calm and collected for LAB.
Keir won't say anything particularly new or exciting in his speech. It's about running down the clock now.
We know CON and SNP are sinking, this is all good for LAB and the main thing for LAB now is not to appear over confident.
Starmer: Did someone put "We are all right" in my f*cking speech? F*ck's sake.
(Yes, I know it's meant to be a bit of a myth that that rally actually harmed things)
The thinking of Hamas/Iran probably went something like this...
(1) Massive attack on Israel, with utterly disgusting brutal atrocities - to be widely broadcast on social media (2) Provoke the fury and wrath of Israel, to wipe out Gaza - again, capture the worst bits; broadcast it all (3) Trigger a wider Middle East conflagration in disgust, and ally with everyone to wipe out Israel (4) Be rewarded in this life or the next, as holy martyrs, for wiping the Jews and their state
So, it's not dissimilar to the thinking of White Supremacists who want to provoke a race war that, ultimately, will work out in their favour.
[Btw, I don't think (3) would happen regardless, but Netanyahu needs to be careful not to fall into a trap on (2)]
I think you're spot on. Netanyahu has big problems, though: 1. He is in coalition with far-right ethno-nationalists who believe they know better than the IDF 2. He is in that coalition solely because he needed to power to prevent criminal investigation of himself 3. The combination of 1 and 2 means that he totally took his eye off the national security ball
Put all of that together and there is a very good chance that he now reacts in exactly the way that Hamas/Iran want.
Yes, indeed. It's concerning.
Of course, they know all this too (Hamas/Iran aren't stupid) which is why they struck as hard as they did when they did.
Yep - I think the huge protests against the Netanyahu government inside Israel would also have spooked them. They need him in power.
If there were any justice in this world (ha!) Netanyahu would be out on his ear. For months he has been trying to attack the judiciary, arrogate more power to himself, protect himself from legal proceedings and appease extreme nationalist parties. It has led to huge demonstrations against him and some reservists threatening not to serve in the IDF. Whether and to what extent all of this resulted in the Israeli government failing in its duty to keep Israel secure we won't find out for a while, maybe never.
Thing is you can try to dismantle the organs of a liberal democratic state and you will get objections from all sorts but what you do may well be tolerated by many if you provide safety and security in return. But if you cannot do that - as the Netanyahu government has plainly failed to do - why tolerate everything else?
For now those reservists will fight to defend their country, to defend people from being slaughtered in their homes, at bus stops, from girls being kidnapped, raped, killed, their bodies desecrated. But after?
Recent Israeli governments have become more and more horrible and so, while I want Israel to exist and be safe it has become, increasingly hard to support the policies of its government which provide no security and are becoming increasingly undemocratic and illiberal. Israel under Netanyahu has become more and more like the Arab states it claims to be better than. Those Israelis wanting a liberal Democratic Western-style Israel have sometimes looked like the remnants of an older better - but dying - Israel.
But what we have seen of Islamic terrorism in Israel and everywhere it has happened in recent decades and the resurgence of Western anti-semitism under the guise of anti-colonialism has reduced my sympathy for the causes they claim to be fighting for to somewhere near zero. The Palestinians - and Arabs generally - have picked and supported the most appalling causes and leaders. I can feel sorrow and sympathy for innocent individuals in Israel and Gaza being terrorised and tortured and suffering. I feel nothing but contempt for those whose reaction to seeing films of old people gunned down at bus stops and girls being raped is to go out onto the streets of London and celebrate.
100% agree
Unfortunately Islamic militant radicalism needs to be cauterised. I increasingly see no alternative.
I disagree with the idea of pushing Palestinians out of Gaza - although Netanyahu may try it (If he does I hope the West will stop him). But we need to find a way to win the hearts and minds of the people of Gaza.
But first there needs to be regime change. By its actions Hamas has made itself illegitimate as a government.
Hamas are the government of Gaza. Not in a legitimate way by international standards, but they are. How do we make regime change happen? Israel will need a military invasion of Gaza with all that entails. Refugees would try and flee but I assume that Egypt will keep its own border shut.
One of the most densly populated areas in the world, radicalised and armed to the teeth, vs one of the most effective (brutal) militaries in the world. It will be a bloodbath, and doesn't offer a guarantee that Hamas will be removed.
So many of the arab states in the area now want peace deals and links with Israel. So it is time that one of them steps up and finally absorbs the so-called refugee camps. Its absurd that this has been allowed to drag on for nearly a century.
Didn’t Hamas win the last election in Gaza? I don’t think (but am willing to be persuaded) that the election was much, if any, more corrupt than, say, many in the USA.
Hamas won the last Palestinian Authority elections in 2006. There was then a battle for control with Fatah and Hamas expelled everyone else from Gaza in 2007.
There haven't been any elections since...
Thanks. The election itself wasn’t too bad IIRC. The aftermath, however…….. However given the gerrymandering which has gone on here since 2019, perhaps we’d better not be too critical.
WTAF
Words fucking fail me sometimes.
You are an enabler of the horror we have see in Israel.
Sounds like you are unhinged and need to go lie down in a darkened room
The flipside of Fucksakegate is that, in future, every miscreant will be able to deny REAL audio and imagery by saying “AI faked it” - and we won’t know the truth
It’s going to be a massive problem in court-rooms. The end of audio, photos and video as acceptable evidence
I think we will get solutions that incorporate digital fingerprinting that require the level of nation state actor to be able to fake.
Things like iPhones could have such a system tomorrow if Apple really wanted to. Your average man on the street wouldn't be able to spoof such a thing created via a closed eco-system vendor.
So you fake the audio on the computer, then play it out through a speaker while recording with the audio recorder on the phone, possibly with time and data on the device changed, for an an authenticated genuine fake.
It’s indeed going to be a nightmare, not just for journalists but also police and courts.
I can understand why people don't want to see - or have described - the reality of what rape - especially in wartime - looks like. It is deeply disturbing. It can easily stray into a sort of vile pornography or glorification.
But it is also necessary to understand the brutality of what happens and why there is the reaction there is.
Anyway I have seen and read enough. Like everyone else I too cannot bear so much reality. Social media is best avoided at times like these. And there is plenty of nicer stuff to be getting on with.
I was not dimishing the wickedness of the violence in any way. This isn't the Observer colour supplement, did we need such detail here? Maybe we did. But I would have preferred to look at more obvious sources should the need arise.
There is a case that by editing the news, it convinces people that the news is being “shaped”.
For example, on one of the Greek islands that was getting refugees landing there, to x hundred percent of the local population…. They started throwing stones at news crews. Why?
Well, whenever the locals were being interviewed by international news, the moment they started saying anything about the crime rate (fruit trees in orchards being stripped etc), it got cut from the report.
So the locals, who watched TV became convinced that the international media were “on the side of the migrants” and “against them”
I wouldn't advocate sanitising news.
I was merely offended at how graphic,and my interpretation as to why a poster on PB needed to be so graphic.
My bad.
The level of horror and violence of sexual violence is not I think fully understood. We shy away from it precisely because it is so horrible and out of a sense of decency and self-protection - some things once seen cannot be unseen or unheard.
The danger in doing that it is that it risks it being overlooked and the victims forgotten and it being seen as just one of those things that happen. I think there is a tendency for that to happen with all forms of sexual violence. Precisely because it is a perversion of something wonderful we cannot bear to learn what happens when it is used to harm.
I do not know what the right balance is. I only pray that those girls will come home alive and be given the help and care they need.
I'm not sure there is a right balance.
The extremes - total denial, or blatant violence porn - are obvious.
Surely if this was a fake Labour would have called it out by now.
Even if it’s fake you still wouldn’t mention it unless it’s picked up more widely by the media .
The 'fuck's sake' seems like it may have been dropped in twice. It's a good job if it's AI generated, but this does happen a lot.
I think you may be right on the fuck's sake. Gilding the lily or outright fakery?
I think it's a fake. The 'I'm sick of it, I'm f**g sick of it' bit doesn't ring true to me either, repetition for emphasis is used very seldom in real world speech, it's seen in telly dramas a lot more. Thinking they got a passage from a TV programme and gave the ai some samples of SKS's voice?
It would be a tad on the nose for the text to come straight out of “The Thick of It”.
Just had one of those frequent 'US politicians are how old?' moments in realising Neil Kinnock is only a few months older than Joe Biden and hasn't been relevant for almost 30 years (working at the European Commission doesn't count).
In fairness that does indicate he was out of power politics at a pretty young age, though not as young as Sunak will be. Done and dusted as a politician before turning 45.
Surely if this was a fake Labour would have called it out by now.
Even if it’s fake you still wouldn’t mention it unless it’s picked up more widely by the media .
There's a good chance that it's authentic because Starmer sounds like he's AI generated at the best of times.
lol
His nasal monotoned voice does seem designed for AI cloning
It’s quite scary because this tech will only get better, until we have absolutely no way of knowing. We are nearly there now
Agreed, except now at least when something like this pops up there is enough popular awareness of AI that it is veracity is questioned rather than accepted uncritically.
In that sense the deepfake of Obama did a lot of good.
Surely if this was a fake Labour would have called it out by now.
Even if it’s fake you still wouldn’t mention it unless it’s picked up more widely by the media .
The 'fuck's sake' seems like it may have been dropped in twice. It's a good job if it's AI generated, but this does happen a lot.
I think you may be right on the fuck's sake. Gilding the lily or outright fakery?
I think it's a fake. The 'I'm sick of it, I'm f**g sick of it' bit doesn't ring true to me either, repetition for emphasis is used very seldom in real world speech, it's seen in telly dramas a lot more. Thinking they got a passage from a TV programme and gave the ai some samples of SKS's voice?
It would be a tad on the nose for the text to come straight out of “The Thick of It”.
It does sound rather like Malcolm Tucker’s script, read in Keir Starmer’s voice.
Just had one of those frequent 'US politicians are how old?' moments in realising Neil Kinnock is only a few months older than Joe Biden and hasn't been relevant for almost 30 years (working at the European Commission doesn't count).
In fairness that does indicate he was out of power politics at a pretty young age.
Fun fact.
Joe Biden's 1988 Presidential run failed because he was caught plagiarising a Neil Kinnock speech.
That's not a commute though. It is just a dramatic example of having to reconcile work obligations with obligations arising from being a seperated parent. There is no additional travel beyond what would have happened anyway.
The thinking of Hamas/Iran probably went something like this...
(1) Massive attack on Israel, with utterly disgusting brutal atrocities - to be widely broadcast on social media (2) Provoke the fury and wrath of Israel, to wipe out Gaza - again, capture the worst bits; broadcast it all (3) Trigger a wider Middle East conflagration in disgust, and ally with everyone to wipe out Israel (4) Be rewarded in this life or the next, as holy martyrs, for wiping the Jews and their state
So, it's not dissimilar to the thinking of White Supremacists who want to provoke a race war that, ultimately, will work out in their favour.
[Btw, I don't think (3) would happen regardless, but Netanyahu needs to be careful not to fall into a trap on (2)]
I think you're spot on. Netanyahu has big problems, though: 1. He is in coalition with far-right ethno-nationalists who believe they know better than the IDF 2. He is in that coalition solely because he needed to power to prevent criminal investigation of himself 3. The combination of 1 and 2 means that he totally took his eye off the national security ball
Put all of that together and there is a very good chance that he now reacts in exactly the way that Hamas/Iran want.
Yes, indeed. It's concerning.
Of course, they know all this too (Hamas/Iran aren't stupid) which is why they struck as hard as they did when they did.
Yep - I think the huge protests against the Netanyahu government inside Israel would also have spooked them. They need him in power.
If there were any justice in this world (ha!) Netanyahu would be out on his ear. For months he has been trying to attack the judiciary, arrogate more power to himself, protect himself from legal proceedings and appease extreme nationalist parties. It has led to huge demonstrations against him and some reservists threatening not to serve in the IDF. Whether and to what extent all of this resulted in the Israeli government failing in its duty to keep Israel secure we won't find out for a while, maybe never.
Thing is you can try to dismantle the organs of a liberal democratic state and you will get objections from all sorts but what you do may well be tolerated by many if you provide safety and security in return. But if you cannot do that - as the Netanyahu government has plainly failed to do - why tolerate everything else?
For now those reservists will fight to defend their country, to defend people from being slaughtered in their homes, at bus stops, from girls being kidnapped, raped, killed, their bodies desecrated. But after?
Recent Israeli governments have become more and more horrible and so, while I want Israel to exist and be safe it has become, increasingly hard to support the policies of its government which provide no security and are becoming increasingly undemocratic and illiberal. Israel under Netanyahu has become more and more like the Arab states it claims to be better than. Those Israelis wanting a liberal Democratic Western-style Israel have sometimes looked like the remnants of an older better - but dying - Israel.
But what we have seen of Islamic terrorism in Israel and everywhere it has happened in recent decades and the resurgence of Western anti-semitism under the guise of anti-colonialism has reduced my sympathy for the causes they claim to be fighting for to somewhere near zero. The Palestinians - and Arabs generally - have picked and supported the most appalling causes and leaders. I can feel sorrow and sympathy for innocent individuals in Israel and Gaza being terrorised and tortured and suffering. I feel nothing but contempt for those whose reaction to seeing films of old people gunned down at bus stops and girls being raped is to go out onto the streets of London and celebrate.
100% agree
Unfortunately Islamic militant radicalism needs to be cauterised. I increasingly see no alternative.
I disagree with the idea of pushing Palestinians out of Gaza - although Netanyahu may try it (If he does I hope the West will stop him). But we need to find a way to win the hearts and minds of the people of Gaza.
But first there needs to be regime change. By its actions Hamas has made itself illegitimate as a government.
Hamas are the government of Gaza. Not in a legitimate way by international standards, but they are. How do we make regime change happen? Israel will need a military invasion of Gaza with all that entails. Refugees would try and flee but I assume that Egypt will keep its own border shut.
One of the most densly populated areas in the world, radicalised and armed to the teeth, vs one of the most effective (brutal) militaries in the world. It will be a bloodbath, and doesn't offer a guarantee that Hamas will be removed.
So many of the arab states in the area now want peace deals and links with Israel. So it is time that one of them steps up and finally absorbs the so-called refugee camps. Its absurd that this has been allowed to drag on for nearly a century.
Didn’t Hamas win the last election in Gaza? I don’t think (but am willing to be persuaded) that the election was much, if any, more corrupt than, say, many in the USA.
Hamas won the last Palestinian Authority elections in 2006. There was then a battle for control with Fatah and Hamas expelled everyone else from Gaza in 2007.
There haven't been any elections since...
Thanks. The election itself wasn’t too bad IIRC. The aftermath, however…….. However given the gerrymandering which has gone on here since 2019, perhaps we’d better not be too critical.
WTAF
Words fucking fail me sometimes.
You are an enabler of the horror we have see in Israel.
Sounds like you are unhinged and need to go lie down in a darkened room
Surely if this was a fake Labour would have called it out by now.
Even if it’s fake you still wouldn’t mention it unless it’s picked up more widely by the media .
The 'fuck's sake' seems like it may have been dropped in twice. It's a good job if it's AI generated, but this does happen a lot.
I think you may be right on the fuck's sake. Gilding the lily or outright fakery?
I think it's a fake. The 'I'm sick of it, I'm f**g sick of it' bit doesn't ring true to me either, repetition for emphasis is used very seldom in real world speech, it's seen in telly dramas a lot more. Thinking they got a passage from a TV programme and gave the ai some samples of SKS's voice?
It would be a tad on the nose for the text to come straight out of “The Thick of It”.
It does sound rather like Malcolm Tucker’s script, read in Keir Starmer’s voice.
He should weave a few lines into his conference speech. “This government…I’m sick of it. Sick of it. The Tories, morons, every time. Sick of it”.
after a spate of by-election defeats, the Government’s working majority is down to just 60. So by threatening to abstain in a budget vote, these low-tax Tory MPs could defeat Sunak, which could well bring down his Government.
I can understand why people don't want to see - or have described - the reality of what rape - especially in wartime - looks like. It is deeply disturbing. It can easily stray into a sort of vile pornography or glorification.
But it is also necessary to understand the brutality of what happens and why there is the reaction there is.
Anyway I have seen and read enough. Like everyone else I too cannot bear so much reality. Social media is best avoided at times like these. And there is plenty of nicer stuff to be getting on with.
I was not dimishing the wickedness of the violence in any way. This isn't the Observer colour supplement, did we need such detail here? Maybe we did. But I would have preferred to look at more obvious sources should the need arise.
There is a case that by editing the news, it convinces people that the news is being “shaped”.
For example, on one of the Greek islands that was getting refugees landing there, to x hundred percent of the local population…. They started throwing stones at news crews. Why?
Well, whenever the locals were being interviewed by international news, the moment they started saying anything about the crime rate (fruit trees in orchards being stripped etc), it got cut from the report.
So the locals, who watched TV became convinced that the international media were “on the side of the migrants” and “against them”
I wouldn't advocate sanitising news.
I was merely offended at how graphic,and my interpretation as to why a poster on PB needed to be so graphic.
My bad.
The level of horror and violence of sexual violence is not I think fully understood. We shy away from it precisely because it is so horrible and out of a sense of decency and self-protection - some things once seen cannot be unseen or unheard.
The danger in doing that it is that it risks it being overlooked and the victims forgotten and it being seen as just one of those things that happen. I think there is a tendency for that to happen with all forms of sexual violence. Precisely because it is a perversion of something wonderful we cannot bear to learn what happens when it is used to harm.
I do not know what the right balance is. I only pray that those girls will come home alive and be given the help and care they need.
I'm not sure there is a right balance.
The extremes - total denial, or blatant violence porn - are obvious.
OK let's hash this out. This seems to be the comment of mine which got everyone flustered, and nearly gave @Mexicanpete a heart attack, the poor wee lamb
I was actually and simply copying and pasting a viral tweet. Here it is:
"Nothing says "I'm fighting colonial oppression" than kidnapping a German tourist, breaking her arms and legs, killing her, stripping her corpse naked and parading it on the back of an open truck, spitting upon it while happily shouting "god is great"..."
Now, is that "blatant violence porn"? I don't think so. I reckon it is a bitterly powerful way of expressing precisely what happened to that poor girl, at the hands of those savages. It is not nice, but then what happened to her is really not nice. If PB-ers can't cope with this perhaps they shouldn't argue politics
Just had one of those frequent 'US politicians are how old?' moments in realising Neil Kinnock is only a few months older than Joe Biden and hasn't been relevant for almost 30 years (working at the European Commission doesn't count).
In fairness that does indicate he was out of power politics at a pretty young age.
Fun fact.
Joe Biden's 1988 Presidential run failed because he was caught plagiarising a Neil Kinnock speech.
In was a more innocent time. In some ways at least. You can call for the execution of one of your own former Cabinet now and they'd not blink an eye.
Its often better to build on greenfield land and turn brownfield land into country parks and woods.
The land use of the 1940s is not necessarily the optimum one for now.
Considering it is so accepted that we are not bound by the decisions of the past a lot of people are insistent that certain decisions or set ups must be maintained forever.
The deepfake stuff has been coming for years. I think it will be utilised more ruthlessly by right wing campaigns/parties than left wing parties.
Sufficiently convincing fake audio has been a thing for as long as we've had recordings. Think of Jon Culshaw pranking the No 10 switchboard. Or Chris Morris almost persuading a right wing tabloid that he had a recording of Neil Kinnock abusing hotel staff. (He'd have got away with it if he hadn't claimed to have a second recording of Kinnock saying to Nerys Hughes "forget Paddy Pantsdown, I'm Neil Kingcock.")
And the protections are what they've always been. Boring things. Shunning those who transmit lies. Trying to truthful ourselves. Not leaping on something just because we want it to be true.
after a spate of by-election defeats, the Government’s working majority is down to just 60. So by threatening to abstain in a budget vote, these low-tax Tory MPs could defeat Sunak, which could well bring down his Government.
They’ve been paying attention, to what a handful of low-tax Representatives managed to achieve in the US last week.
The UK system is sufficiently different though, in that any Conservative MP voting against the Budget would instantly lose the whip, along with any chance of re-election. It might work for a handful of defectors, but not three dozen of them.
Interesting that they've put quotes around 'Green Belt'. Implies something a bit weaker, less real, than Green Belt. Just waiting for so-called to be added.
It’s not a commute. It’s a business trip that he has shoe-horned into his available slot.
Years ago I broke into my holiday for a meeting - a 13,000 mile round trip for with 1 night and 1 day on the ground in London.
But it maximised the time available with my family.
There is an issue about quality of time. I've found that regular international air travel across time zones gets disorientating. Better to spend longer chunks of time in different places, the exception to this being emergencies when you just have to go and do what you need to do.
Interesting that they've put quotes around 'Green Belt'. Implies something a bit weaker, less real, than Green Belt. Just waiting for so-called to be added.
That would be a good start, given the reality of what some of the land is vs what people pretend it is.
I can understand why people don't want to see - or have described - the reality of what rape - especially in wartime - looks like. It is deeply disturbing. It can easily stray into a sort of vile pornography or glorification.
But it is also necessary to understand the brutality of what happens and why there is the reaction there is.
Anyway I have seen and read enough. Like everyone else I too cannot bear so much reality. Social media is best avoided at times like these. And there is plenty of nicer stuff to be getting on with.
I was not dimishing the wickedness of the violence in any way. This isn't the Observer colour supplement, did we need such detail here? Maybe we did. But I would have preferred to look at more obvious sources should the need arise.
There is a case that by editing the news, it convinces people that the news is being “shaped”.
For example, on one of the Greek islands that was getting refugees landing there, to x hundred percent of the local population…. They started throwing stones at news crews. Why?
Well, whenever the locals were being interviewed by international news, the moment they started saying anything about the crime rate (fruit trees in orchards being stripped etc), it got cut from the report.
So the locals, who watched TV became convinced that the international media were “on the side of the migrants” and “against them”
I wouldn't advocate sanitising news.
I was merely offended at how graphic,and my interpretation as to why a poster on PB needed to be so graphic.
My bad.
The level of horror and violence of sexual violence is not I think fully understood. We shy away from it precisely because it is so horrible and out of a sense of decency and self-protection - some things once seen cannot be unseen or unheard.
The danger in doing that it is that it risks it being overlooked and the victims forgotten and it being seen as just one of those things that happen. I think there is a tendency for that to happen with all forms of sexual violence. Precisely because it is a perversion of something wonderful we cannot bear to learn what happens when it is used to harm.
I do not know what the right balance is. I only pray that those girls will come home alive and be given the help and care they need.
I'm not sure there is a right balance.
The extremes - total denial, or blatant violence porn - are obvious.
OK let's hash this out. This seems to be the comment of mine which got everyone flustered, and nearly gave @Mexicanpete a heart attack, the poor wee lamb
I was actually and simply copying and pasting a viral tweet. Here it is:
"Nothing says "I'm fighting colonial oppression" than kidnapping a German tourist, breaking her arms and legs, killing her, stripping her corpse naked and parading it on the back of an open truck, spitting upon it while happily shouting "god is great"..."
Now, is that "blatant violence porn"? I don't think so. I reckon it is a bitterly powerful way of expressing precisely what happened to that poor girl, at the hands of those savages. It is not nice, but then what happened to her is really not nice. If PB-ers can't cope with this perhaps they shouldn't argue politics
I wasn't commenting on yesterday, as I didn't read most of it. I don't have a problem with your post, in those terms.
The deepfake stuff has been coming for years. I think it will be utilised more ruthlessly by right wing campaigns/parties than left wing parties.
There is a danger that the forces of the Left could use AI to manipulate the words of Sunak to make him sound competent, Braverman to make her sound moderate, or Trump to make him sound sane. It's a terrifying prospect.
Re deep-fakes....I have been telling friends and family for years, at very least don't have public social media, you are literally just opening yourself to a world of trouble in the near future. Personally, I don't post any photos / audio of myself to anything.
Now if you are a public figure that is impossible, but voluntarily doing it is really dumb.
Speaking of age, a reminder Keir Starmer, if he wins, will be the oldest 'first time' Prime Minister we've had since Callaghan, nearly 50 years ago. If Rishi waits for an autumn election Starmer will be the same age as Attlee and Macmillan were, 79 and 67 years ago.
The era of the baby PMs is over! (despite him also continuing the trend of become PM very quickly after entering parliament).
Are the Tories going to campaign against Labour pledging to build houses?
I assume the complaint will be that they should corruptly grant permission like the Tories do instead of following due process as Labour will.
I suspect if there is a Labour majority government after the election, the largely southern England rump of Tory MPs that comprise what is left of the parliamentary party in opposition would combine with southern LD MPs (including those who might be elected in bluewall seats) to oppose a Starmer government imposing too high housing targets on greenbelt land.
O/t, is there any greater memento mori in the modern world than a message from FB reminding you that ‘It’s X’s birthday today, wish him all the best’ when they’ve been dead for 8 years?
I keep getting emails purporting to be from my mum's cousin (decd. 8 yrs too), who'd had her computer hacked ...
Who uses AI for political purposes...I don't think from the mainstream either side will deliberately do it, but we have already seen how quick people on social media are to jump on things that confirm their biases / get a win for their team.
Australia are surely going to get bowled out here and not for many. Not sure they have the right attack to reply in kind. Seems a spinner's paradise.
In fairness, the Aussies did make the final over before they were all out but 199 surely cannot be a competitive score. They are in danger of having as bad a net run rate as England.
The thinking of Hamas/Iran probably went something like this...
(1) Massive attack on Israel, with utterly disgusting brutal atrocities - to be widely broadcast on social media (2) Provoke the fury and wrath of Israel, to wipe out Gaza - again, capture the worst bits; broadcast it all (3) Trigger a wider Middle East conflagration in disgust, and ally with everyone to wipe out Israel (4) Be rewarded in this life or the next, as holy martyrs, for wiping the Jews and their state
So, it's not dissimilar to the thinking of White Supremacists who want to provoke a race war that, ultimately, will work out in their favour.
[Btw, I don't think (3) would happen regardless, but Netanyahu needs to be careful not to fall into a trap on (2)]
I think you're spot on. Netanyahu has big problems, though: 1. He is in coalition with far-right ethno-nationalists who believe they know better than the IDF 2. He is in that coalition solely because he needed to power to prevent criminal investigation of himself 3. The combination of 1 and 2 means that he totally took his eye off the national security ball
Put all of that together and there is a very good chance that he now reacts in exactly the way that Hamas/Iran want.
Yes, indeed. It's concerning.
Of course, they know all this too (Hamas/Iran aren't stupid) which is why they struck as hard as they did when they did.
Yep - I think the huge protests against the Netanyahu government inside Israel would also have spooked them. They need him in power.
If there were any justice in this world (ha!) Netanyahu would be out on his ear. For months he has been trying to attack the judiciary, arrogate more power to himself, protect himself from legal proceedings and appease extreme nationalist parties. It has led to huge demonstrations against him and some reservists threatening not to serve in the IDF. Whether and to what extent all of this resulted in the Israeli government failing in its duty to keep Israel secure we won't find out for a while, maybe never.
Thing is you can try to dismantle the organs of a liberal democratic state and you will get objections from all sorts but what you do may well be tolerated by many if you provide safety and security in return. But if you cannot do that - as the Netanyahu government has plainly failed to do - why tolerate everything else?
For now those reservists will fight to defend their country, to defend people from being slaughtered in their homes, at bus stops, from girls being kidnapped, raped, killed, their bodies desecrated. But after?
Recent Israeli governments have become more and more horrible and so, while I want Israel to exist and be safe it has become, increasingly hard to support the policies of its government which provide no security and are becoming increasingly undemocratic and illiberal. Israel under Netanyahu has become more and more like the Arab states it claims to be better than. Those Israelis wanting a liberal Democratic Western-style Israel have sometimes looked like the remnants of an older better - but dying - Israel.
But what we have seen of Islamic terrorism in Israel and everywhere it has happened in recent decades and the resurgence of Western anti-semitism under the guise of anti-colonialism has reduced my sympathy for the causes they claim to be fighting for to somewhere near zero. The Palestinians - and Arabs generally - have picked and supported the most appalling causes and leaders. I can feel sorrow and sympathy for innocent individuals in Israel and Gaza being terrorised and tortured and suffering. I feel nothing but contempt for those whose reaction to seeing films of old people gunned down at bus stops and girls being raped is to go out onto the streets of London and celebrate.
100% agree
Unfortunately Islamic militant radicalism needs to be cauterised. I increasingly see no alternative.
I disagree with the idea of pushing Palestinians out of Gaza - although Netanyahu may try it (If he does I hope the West will stop him). But we need to find a way to win the hearts and minds of the people of Gaza.
But first there needs to be regime change. By its actions Hamas has made itself illegitimate as a government.
Hamas are the government of Gaza. Not in a legitimate way by international standards, but they are. How do we make regime change happen? Israel will need a military invasion of Gaza with all that entails. Refugees would try and flee but I assume that Egypt will keep its own border shut.
One of the most densly populated areas in the world, radicalised and armed to the teeth, vs one of the most effective (brutal) militaries in the world. It will be a bloodbath, and doesn't offer a guarantee that Hamas will be removed.
So many of the arab states in the area now want peace deals and links with Israel. So it is time that one of them steps up and finally absorbs the so-called refugee camps. Its absurd that this has been allowed to drag on for nearly a century.
Didn’t Hamas win the last election in Gaza? I don’t think (but am willing to be persuaded) that the election was much, if any, more corrupt than, say, many in the USA.
Hamas won the last Palestinian Authority elections in 2006. There was then a battle for control with Fatah and Hamas expelled everyone else from Gaza in 2007.
There haven't been any elections since...
Thanks. The election itself wasn’t too bad IIRC. The aftermath, however…….. However given the gerrymandering which has gone on here since 2019, perhaps we’d better not be too critical.
WTAF
Words fucking fail me sometimes.
You are an enabler of the horror we have see in Israel.
Pity words hadn't fucking failed you before that load of faux outraged pish.
Thanks. I have no time for Hamas’ actions, or for Netanyahu’s. Or for the abuse of civilians. Or, come to that for the use of the f word, whether written or in speech.
Lots more disturbing images from Israel circulating today
I'll link to just one, which is not disturbing, more astonishing. Topically, it looks fake, but it is apparently real: it shows the Hamas terrorists arriving by paraglider
Video from a road near one of the first points that Hamas attacked yesterday in Israel. The level of destruction is hard to grasp. The number of civilians killed here was very high
Not going to link to it...but the death toll isn't going to be a couple of hundred when the dust settles. It seems as the Israelis liberate their land back, they are finding more and more horrific scenes.
I have had messages from Jewish friends over the past 24hrs who are very liberal, easy going and don't get caught up usual mud slinging about the conflict (Brexit exercises them much more), saying this is our 9/11.
Lots more disturbing images from Israel circulating today
I'll link to just one, which is not disturbing, more astonishing. Topically, it looks fake, but it is apparently real: it shows the Hamas terrorists arriving by paraglider
The amount of training and rehearsal that has gone into this invasion makes it even more astonishing that Israeli intelligence (and MI6, CIA etc) missed it completely.
Interesting that they've put quotes around 'Green Belt'. Implies something a bit weaker, less real, than Green Belt. Just waiting for so-called to be added.
One of the problems is the power the big developers have over the market. There needs to be a way of stopping land banking, maybe planning permission should expire after a set period and the original applicant forbidden to reapply. Also, small developers need access to the market - it should be possible to buy a plot of land and get someone to build you a house, as it is in much of Europe
Australia are surely going to get bowled out here and not for many. Not sure they have the right attack to reply in kind. Seems a spinner's paradise.
In fairness, the Aussies did make the final over before they were all out but 199 surely cannot be a competitive score. They are in danger of having as bad a net run rate as England.
England may well have to beat Australia to qualify. Essentially you need minimum 5 group wins maybe 6 out of the 9.
It’s not a commute. It’s a business trip that he has shoe-horned into his available slot.
Years ago I broke into my holiday for a meeting - a 13,000 mile round trip for with 1 night and 1 day on the ground in London.
But it maximised the time available with my family.
There is an issue about quality of time. I've found that regular international air travel across time zones gets disorientating. Better to spend longer chunks of time in different places, the exception to this being emergencies when you just have to go and do what you need to do.
Lots more disturbing images from Israel circulating today
I'll link to just one, which is not disturbing, more astonishing. Topically, it looks fake, but it is apparently real: it shows the Hamas terrorists arriving by paraglider
I can understand why people don't want to see - or have described - the reality of what rape - especially in wartime - looks like. It is deeply disturbing. It can easily stray into a sort of vile pornography or glorification.
But it is also necessary to understand the brutality of what happens and why there is the reaction there is.
Anyway I have seen and read enough. Like everyone else I too cannot bear so much reality. Social media is best avoided at times like these. And there is plenty of nicer stuff to be getting on with.
I was not dimishing the wickedness of the violence in any way. This isn't the Observer colour supplement, did we need such detail here? Maybe we did. But I would have preferred to look at more obvious sources should the need arise.
There is a case that by editing the news, it convinces people that the news is being “shaped”.
For example, on one of the Greek islands that was getting refugees landing there, to x hundred percent of the local population…. They started throwing stones at news crews. Why?
Well, whenever the locals were being interviewed by international news, the moment they started saying anything about the crime rate (fruit trees in orchards being stripped etc), it got cut from the report.
So the locals, who watched TV became convinced that the international media were “on the side of the migrants” and “against them”
I wouldn't advocate sanitising news.
I was merely offended at how graphic,and my interpretation as to why a poster on PB needed to be so graphic.
My bad.
The level of horror and violence of sexual violence is not I think fully understood. We shy away from it precisely because it is so horrible and out of a sense of decency and self-protection - some things once seen cannot be unseen or unheard.
The danger in doing that it is that it risks it being overlooked and the victims forgotten and it being seen as just one of those things that happen. I think there is a tendency for that to happen with all forms of sexual violence. Precisely because it is a perversion of something wonderful we cannot bear to learn what happens when it is used to harm.
I do not know what the right balance is. I only pray that those girls will come home alive and be given the help and care they need.
I'm not sure there is a right balance.
The extremes - total denial, or blatant violence porn - are obvious.
OK let's hash this out. This seems to be the comment of mine which got everyone flustered, and nearly gave @Mexicanpete a heart attack, the poor wee lamb
I was actually and simply copying and pasting a viral tweet. Here it is:
"Nothing says "I'm fighting colonial oppression" than kidnapping a German tourist, breaking her arms and legs, killing her, stripping her corpse naked and parading it on the back of an open truck, spitting upon it while happily shouting "god is great"..."
Now, is that "blatant violence porn"? I don't think so. I reckon it is a bitterly powerful way of expressing precisely what happened to that poor girl, at the hands of those savages. It is not nice, but then what happened to her is really not nice. If PB-ers can't cope with this perhaps they shouldn't argue politics
The accounts sound pretty similar to reports of things that happened in Ukraine, and in Xinjiang, in Iraq/Syria... things that are actually unfortunately quite common in other parts of the world, particularly in wartime. They should be certainly be discussed/confronted.
The thinking of Hamas/Iran probably went something like this...
(1) Massive attack on Israel, with utterly disgusting brutal atrocities - to be widely broadcast on social media (2) Provoke the fury and wrath of Israel, to wipe out Gaza - again, capture the worst bits; broadcast it all (3) Trigger a wider Middle East conflagration in disgust, and ally with everyone to wipe out Israel (4) Be rewarded in this life or the next, as holy martyrs, for wiping the Jews and their state
So, it's not dissimilar to the thinking of White Supremacists who want to provoke a race war that, ultimately, will work out in their favour.
[Btw, I don't think (3) would happen regardless, but Netanyahu needs to be careful not to fall into a trap on (2)]
I think you're spot on. Netanyahu has big problems, though: 1. He is in coalition with far-right ethno-nationalists who believe they know better than the IDF 2. He is in that coalition solely because he needed to power to prevent criminal investigation of himself 3. The combination of 1 and 2 means that he totally took his eye off the national security ball
Put all of that together and there is a very good chance that he now reacts in exactly the way that Hamas/Iran want.
Yes, indeed. It's concerning.
Of course, they know all this too (Hamas/Iran aren't stupid) which is why they struck as hard as they did when they did.
Yep - I think the huge protests against the Netanyahu government inside Israel would also have spooked them. They need him in power.
If there were any justice in this world (ha!) Netanyahu would be out on his ear. For months he has been trying to attack the judiciary, arrogate more power to himself, protect himself from legal proceedings and appease extreme nationalist parties. It has led to huge demonstrations against him and some reservists threatening not to serve in the IDF. Whether and to what extent all of this resulted in the Israeli government failing in its duty to keep Israel secure we won't find out for a while, maybe never.
Thing is you can try to dismantle the organs of a liberal democratic state and you will get objections from all sorts but what you do may well be tolerated by many if you provide safety and security in return. But if you cannot do that - as the Netanyahu government has plainly failed to do - why tolerate everything else?
For now those reservists will fight to defend their country, to defend people from being slaughtered in their homes, at bus stops, from girls being kidnapped, raped, killed, their bodies desecrated. But after?
Recent Israeli governments have become more and more horrible and so, while I want Israel to exist and be safe it has become, increasingly hard to support the policies of its government which provide no security and are becoming increasingly undemocratic and illiberal. Israel under Netanyahu has become more and more like the Arab states it claims to be better than. Those Israelis wanting a liberal Democratic Western-style Israel have sometimes looked like the remnants of an older better - but dying - Israel.
But what we have seen of Islamic terrorism in Israel and everywhere it has happened in recent decades and the resurgence of Western anti-semitism under the guise of anti-colonialism has reduced my sympathy for the causes they claim to be fighting for to somewhere near zero. The Palestinians - and Arabs generally - have picked and supported the most appalling causes and leaders. I can feel sorrow and sympathy for innocent individuals in Israel and Gaza being terrorised and tortured and suffering. I feel nothing but contempt for those whose reaction to seeing films of old people gunned down at bus stops and girls being raped is to go out onto the streets of London and celebrate.
100% agree
Unfortunately Islamic militant radicalism needs to be cauterised. I increasingly see no alternative.
I disagree with the idea of pushing Palestinians out of Gaza - although Netanyahu may try it (If he does I hope the West will stop him). But we need to find a way to win the hearts and minds of the people of Gaza.
But first there needs to be regime change. By its actions Hamas has made itself illegitimate as a government.
Hamas are the government of Gaza. Not in a legitimate way by international standards, but they are. How do we make regime change happen? Israel will need a military invasion of Gaza with all that entails. Refugees would try and flee but I assume that Egypt will keep its own border shut.
One of the most densly populated areas in the world, radicalised and armed to the teeth, vs one of the most effective (brutal) militaries in the world. It will be a bloodbath, and doesn't offer a guarantee that Hamas will be removed.
So many of the arab states in the area now want peace deals and links with Israel. So it is time that one of them steps up and finally absorbs the so-called refugee camps. Its absurd that this has been allowed to drag on for nearly a century.
Didn’t Hamas win the last election in Gaza? I don’t think (but am willing to be persuaded) that the election was much, if any, more corrupt than, say, many in the USA.
Hamas won the last Palestinian Authority elections in 2006. There was then a battle for control with Fatah and Hamas expelled everyone else from Gaza in 2007.
There haven't been any elections since...
Thanks. The election itself wasn’t too bad IIRC. The aftermath, however…….. However given the gerrymandering which has gone on here since 2019, perhaps we’d better not be too critical.
WTAF
Words fucking fail me sometimes.
You are an enabler of the horror we have see in Israel.
Pity words hadn't fucking failed you before that load of faux outraged pish.
Thanks. I have no time for Hamas’ actions, or for Netanyahu’s. Or for the abuse of civilians. Or, come to that for the use of the f word, whether written or in speech.
But you believe that the UK government is as bad as Hamas.
Lots more disturbing images from Israel circulating today
I'll link to just one, which is not disturbing, more astonishing. Topically, it looks fake, but it is apparently real: it shows the Hamas terrorists arriving by paraglider
The amount of training and rehearsal that has gone into this invasion makes it even more astonishing that Israeli intelligence (and MI6, CIA etc) missed it completely.
Yep. The hand of Iran is obvious
The fear for Israel must be that Hamas have more surprises planned and ready to go. Or did they blow it all on one day of Shock and Awe?
I think the struggle for Israel is how it provides itself security without expelling people from Gaza. The status quo simply doesn't work, and a significant number there are pledged to the extermination of Israel and its people. Yes the hard right illegal settlers are crazy, yes they steal land, but they aren't pledged to genocide like Hamas.
Gaza is an open sore on the region, allowed to be sustained by other states. Egypt likes to blame Israel but has its own border wall at the south to keep Gazans imprisoned. Iran is after a fight and seem to be responsible for all those missiles arriving into Gaza. Russia seem to have armed and trained Hamas with drones to drop bombs.
Removing Gaza and pushing the people there back onto the arab diaspora isn't that crazy an idea. The idiocy of "refugee camps" has to end. These are not displaced refugees, they are several generations down the track from that. Resettle them in the other parts of the former Ottoman empire. So that they can also find peace.
I understand your logic, but the history of forcible resettlement is not encouraging, not least as you're likely to get a NIMBYist reaction (to put it mildly) from whichever area you decide to settle them. Leon's suggestion of offering them huge sums of money to resettle voluntarily might be better, but you'd probably only get the non-violent people seizing the chance to get out of the hellhole, and you still have to solve the question of where will accept them.
I don't have logic. There is no logic to solve this mess. I am simply observing that the status quo does not work and something else needs to be done. Ideally the people of Gaza would be allowed a free election and move against Hamas. And the people of Israel would overthrow the crook and send him to jail.
That is unlikely to happen. I am clear that Israel are more in the right than the Gazans (Jeremy's crank left are still pumping the #freepalestine schtick this morning even as Hamas rape and kidnap women and girls whilst chanting about God). So will give them a little leeway.
It is hard to move against Hamas when they are embedded in the civilian population. So the options seem to be bomb them out or force them out. I am open to other options...
Broadly speaking there are four possible options.
1. The Israelis win outright. The occupied territories are incorporated into Israel. Most of the Palestinians flee, give up on returning, and assimilate into other countries.
2. The Palestinians win outright. Israel is destroyed. Jews flee, give up on returning, and assimilate into other countries.
3. There is a grand compromise that involves both sides giving up on a lot, accepting grievances and concerns of the other party as legitimate, and making efforts to provide reassurance, security and reconciliation.
4. There's a deus ex machina where some external power sweeps in and makes everything okay by providing masses of money and land to smooth over the pain of the compromises necessary for option 3, or the other options. Perhaps Musk could build a New Palestine on Mars?
Ultimately the reason the Oslo process failed is that the situation is the best example of a negative-sum game. Any compromise involves both sides having to make enormous concessions and giving up on objectives that they believe to be reasonable and just. It's very hard for people to crystallise their losses to such an extent. And impossible without any degree of trust.
Given that the Israelis seem to have the stronger military I can see why some people are looking to option 1. It looks like the one most likely to happen.
Fully a fifth of Israel's citizens are arabs. Israel gets rightly criticised for many things, but it does give full rights to non-Jews. An arab is currently deputy speaker in their parliament.
I had been a long-standing supporter of a two state solution, but it has become increasingly clear in recent years that the moment for that has passed. Israel needs to make a comprehensive offer to onboard the palestinians who want to become citizens. Sadly this is a threat to the religious right, so it won't happen.
Agreed. I went off the two-state solution some time ago.
Israel has been biting off chunks of the West Bank for years, but I'm also fed up of the "Palestine" nonsense. Not good for them, or Israel.
Lots more disturbing images from Israel circulating today
I'll link to just one, which is not disturbing, more astonishing. Topically, it looks fake, but it is apparently real: it shows the Hamas terrorists arriving by paraglider
Lots more disturbing images from Israel circulating today
I'll link to just one, which is not disturbing, more astonishing. Topically, it looks fake, but it is apparently real: it shows the Hamas terrorists arriving by paraglider
The amount of training and rehearsal that has gone into this invasion makes it even more astonishing that Israeli intelligence (and MI6, CIA etc) missed it completely.
It also suggests the targeting by the IDF in their response isn’t going to be that easy. If they didn’t know this was happening, can they be confident they know where Hamas command centres actually are?
Lots more disturbing images from Israel circulating today
I'll link to just one, which is not disturbing, more astonishing. Topically, it looks fake, but it is apparently real: it shows the Hamas terrorists arriving by paraglider
Lots more disturbing images from Israel circulating today
I'll link to just one, which is not disturbing, more astonishing. Topically, it looks fake, but it is apparently real: it shows the Hamas terrorists arriving by paraglider
I can understand why people don't want to see - or have described - the reality of what rape - especially in wartime - looks like. It is deeply disturbing. It can easily stray into a sort of vile pornography or glorification.
But it is also necessary to understand the brutality of what happens and why there is the reaction there is.
Anyway I have seen and read enough. Like everyone else I too cannot bear so much reality. Social media is best avoided at times like these. And there is plenty of nicer stuff to be getting on with.
I was not dimishing the wickedness of the violence in any way. This isn't the Observer colour supplement, did we need such detail here? Maybe we did. But I would have preferred to look at more obvious sources should the need arise.
There is a case that by editing the news, it convinces people that the news is being “shaped”.
For example, on one of the Greek islands that was getting refugees landing there, to x hundred percent of the local population…. They started throwing stones at news crews. Why?
Well, whenever the locals were being interviewed by international news, the moment they started saying anything about the crime rate (fruit trees in orchards being stripped etc), it got cut from the report.
So the locals, who watched TV became convinced that the international media were “on the side of the migrants” and “against them”
I wouldn't advocate sanitising news.
I was merely offended at how graphic,and my interpretation as to why a poster on PB needed to be so graphic.
My bad.
The level of horror and violence of sexual violence is not I think fully understood. We shy away from it precisely because it is so horrible and out of a sense of decency and self-protection - some things once seen cannot be unseen or unheard.
The danger in doing that it is that it risks it being overlooked and the victims forgotten and it being seen as just one of those things that happen. I think there is a tendency for that to happen with all forms of sexual violence. Precisely because it is a perversion of something wonderful we cannot bear to learn what happens when it is used to harm.
I do not know what the right balance is. I only pray that those girls will come home alive and be given the help and care they need.
I'm not sure there is a right balance.
The extremes - total denial, or blatant violence porn - are obvious.
OK let's hash this out. This seems to be the comment of mine which got everyone flustered, and nearly gave @Mexicanpete a heart attack, the poor wee lamb
I was actually and simply copying and pasting a viral tweet. Here it is:
"Nothing says "I'm fighting colonial oppression" than kidnapping a German tourist, breaking her arms and legs, killing, stripping her corpse naked and parading it on the back of an open truck, spitting upon it while happily shouting "god is great"..."
Now, is that "blatant violence porn"? I don't think so. I reckon it is a bitterly powerful way of expressing precisely what happened to that poor girl, at the hands of those savages. It is not nice, but then what happened to her is really not nice. If PB-ers can't cope with this perhaps they shouldn't argue politics
OK, I confess, over the decades Israel and the Palestinians have both been bad, but Hamas's actions yesterday and today are abominable.
Lots more disturbing images from Israel circulating today
I'll link to just one, which is not disturbing, more astonishing. Topically, it looks fake, but it is apparently real: it shows the Hamas terrorists arriving by paraglider
The amount of training and rehearsal that has gone into this invasion makes it even more astonishing that Israeli intelligence (and MI6, CIA etc) missed it completely.
Yep. The hand of Iran is obvious
The fear for Israel must be that Hamas have more surprises planned and ready to go. Or did they blow it all on one day of Shock and Awe?
Lots of Israeli securocrats will get the sack
The hostage taking has all the hallmarks of Iran who do it with westerners as a matter of policy.
The real question for Israel is how to strike back at Iran, a failing regime desperate to cling on to power.
Comments
I prefer my fakery on leaflets, thank you very much.
Words fucking fail me sometimes.
You are an enabler of the horror we have see in Israel.
Anyway, I suspect it is AI.
The same fear with electronic voting of course - that if you can crack any defences it has, you can flip millions of votes, but people standing over counters in village halls at 3am in hundreds of locations? Much tougher.
It’s going to be a massive problem in court-rooms. The end of audio, photos and video as acceptable evidence
Things like iPhones could have such a system tomorrow if Apple really wanted to. Your average man on the street wouldn't be able to spoof such a thing created via a closed eco-system vendor.
Here's hoping for something to truly stir things up at Labour's, like Corbyn bounding on to the stage during Starmer's speech and slapping him a la Will Smith.
In any case the settlers are generally nutters and their actions - both legal and illegal - are profoundly unhelpful
Keir won't say anything particularly new or exciting in his speech. It's about running down the clock now.
We know CON and SNP are sinking, this is all good for LAB and the main thing for LAB now is not to appear over confident.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12607241/Labour-Rachel-Reeves-hundreds-thousands-homes-built-Green-Belt.html
You know how we can be sure of that? Because people are always saying that you could build everything we need on what is already classed as brownfield, so you could easily build on that land and very small parts of the green belt without damaging the character of the areas.
Boss of 'green' company Octopus Energy reveals his extraordinary 20,000-mile school run just so he can pick up his two sons
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12606311/green-company-Octopus-Energy-school-run-sons.html
The most radical settlers tend to be Haredi Yeshiva students who are exempt from military service, which does cause some friction with the often secular conscripts deployed to protect them. Israel is a strange and diverse society with many internal conflicts.
(Yes, I know it's meant to be a bit of a myth that that rally actually harmed things)
But why did @FrankBooth leave? That's a shame
It’s very convincing if so.
It’s indeed going to be a nightmare, not just for journalists but also police and courts.
The extremes - total denial, or blatant violence porn - are obvious.
The land use of the 1940s is not necessarily the optimum one for now.
In fairness that does indicate he was out of power politics at a pretty young age, though not as young as Sunak will be. Done and dusted as a politician before turning 45.
In that sense the deepfake of Obama did a lot of good.
Years ago I broke into my holiday for a meeting - a 13,000 mile round trip for with 1 night and 1 day on the ground in London.
But it maximised the time available with my family.
Joe Biden's 1988 Presidential run failed because he was caught plagiarising a Neil Kinnock speech.
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1710976754733469910
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/10/08/sunak-ignored-housing-crisis-cost-tories-next-election/
I was actually and simply copying and pasting a viral tweet. Here it is:
"Nothing says "I'm fighting colonial oppression" than kidnapping a German tourist, breaking her arms and legs, killing her, stripping her corpse naked and parading it on the back of an open truck, spitting upon it while happily shouting "god is great"..."
https://x.com/The_Mdawini/status/1710771666895159423?s=20
Now, is that "blatant violence porn"? I don't think so. I reckon it is a bitterly powerful way of expressing precisely what happened to that poor girl, at the hands of those savages. It is not nice, but then what happened to her is really not nice. If PB-ers can't cope with this perhaps they shouldn't argue politics
It’s a reminder why the upcoming AI summit organised by the Prime Minister is so important.
From the Slovakian elections a few days ago to today’s incident, this is a new threat to democracy.
https://twitter.com/SimonClarkeMP/status/1710979175589290434
It seems that the situation there was much worse than initially thought
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1710988452798378245?s=20
There is little doubt Hamas are using sexual terror as a weapon. Ignoring this is wrong. They are ISIS in government
And the protections are what they've always been. Boring things. Shunning those who transmit lies. Trying to truthful ourselves. Not leaping on something just because we want it to be true.
The UK system is sufficiently different though, in that any Conservative MP voting against the Budget would instantly lose the whip, along with any chance of re-election. It might work for a handful of defectors, but not three dozen of them.
I don't have a problem with your post, in those terms.
https://x.com/hoffman_noa/status/1710994134809358675?s=20
"CONFIRMED: Jeremy Corbyn never applied for a Labour conference pass and therefor cannot enter the conference secure zone"
I assume the complaint will be that they should corruptly grant permission like the Tories do instead of following due process as Labour will.
Now if you are a public figure that is impossible, but voluntarily doing it is really dumb.
One to cross off the list of those likely to make a total arse of themselves - and the party - over the Israel/Palestine situation.
The era of the baby PMs is over! (despite him also continuing the trend of become PM very quickly after entering parliament).
https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Useful idiots will help turbocharge this stuff.
Or, come to that for the use of the f word, whether written or in speech.
I'll link to just one, which is not disturbing, more astonishing. Topically, it looks fake, but it is apparently real: it shows the Hamas terrorists arriving by paraglider
https://x.com/iamunkown05/status/1710993274163646617?s=20
Not going to link to it...but the death toll isn't going to be a couple of hundred when the dust settles. It seems as the Israelis liberate their land back, they are finding more and more horrific scenes.
I have had messages from Jewish friends over the past 24hrs who are very liberal, easy going and don't get caught up usual mud slinging about the conflict (Brexit exercises them much more), saying this is our 9/11.
It seems a long time ago that they were always among the favourites to win the 50 over competition
Says الكلية الحربية or 'Military Academy' in ARABIC (there's your first clue).
Those are normal parachutes not paragliders (there's your second clue).
It's the Egyptian Army Military Academy in Alexandria and you are an excitable and gullible fool.
Go with your good self.
The fear for Israel must be that Hamas have more surprises planned and ready to go. Or did they blow it all on one day of Shock and Awe?
Lots of Israeli securocrats will get the sack
According to reports, many of the victims are Europeans and Americans.
Much more will be revealed about what happened there in the coming days.
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1710998832106926378?s=20
Israel has been biting off chunks of the West Bank for years, but I'm also fed up of the "Palestine" nonsense. Not good for them, or Israel.
Just annex and be done with it.
But I did say "apparently" real
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1710831127668072676?s=20
500 Israelis dead BTW
The real question for Israel is how to strike back at Iran, a failing regime desperate to cling on to power.