I'm off to Perthshire on Monday. Nowhere better in Europe* for Autumn colours. I know this is far from the biggest concern, but I'm hoping the storm doesn't prematurely remove the goldens and browns from the trees.
*I have travelled nowhere near enough to know whether this is true, but it seems feasible.
- it holds back on massacres in Israel until they are verified - pumps Hamas line on the hospital without checking - wont label Hamas as terrorist despite that being UK policy - says it must remain impartial when civilians are being beheaded etc., when civilisation exists on calling out such behaviour
I cant help but think there will be a reckoning when this all dies down.
- It has to launch an 'urgent investigation' (in its own words) after BBC Arabic journalists endorsed comments describing the Hamas attacks on Israel as a 'Morning of Hope'
One thing last night shows is that the problem of fake news isn't just confined to social media. Many 'serious' journalists seem to be witting or unwitting purveyors of disinformation.
There was a disturbing video on TwiX last night which purported to show a terrible fire inside a collapsing hospital. It’s one reason I believed the story that a hospital was collapsing
Looking at the images today, I can’t see where that fire might have occurred. Where is the ruined shell of a gutted hospital wing?
So what was that vid. Entirely fake? Doctored? Ripped from some real horror in Syria? Or maybe it was real but it looked worse than it was
🤷🏼♂️
Probably ripped from Syria or something like that, Hamas PR people probably have all of these clips ready to send to idiot journalists and to spread on social media.
BBC still saying that hundreds are dead. It looks from all the pictures to be a large fire in a car park. Genuinely not as big as the fire at the Luton airport car park. Hamas have lied and there are large groups in the media across the world who were only too happy to publish the lies directly with no fact checking. Contrast with the murder of the Israeli babies - how much evidence was required for that? It is total double standards and sickening.
Previous reporting stated that the areas around the hospitals have been absolutely rammed with people who were hoping to avoid the bombing. A bomb loaded with shrapnel that landed in such an area could potentially kill or maim a lot of people without doing all that much physical damage. Maybe not 500? But hundreds, sure: Fill all the space between the burnt out cars visible in that video with people & you could easily get to those kind of numbers.
It may, at this point, be impossible to get to the actual truth of what happened on the ground, but it does seem clear that this was not some massive ground penetrating Israeli bomb: There’s no crater & little to no blast damage to the surrounding buildings.
500 is a very round number. Suspiciously so. I do not believe Hamas.
I reflexively don't believe Hamas. But because they are a terrorist organisation, rather than because of the roundness of the number. Round numbers of things do crop up as often as you would expect them to. ISTR @rcs1000 posting a story once of a study which had been shown to have used fake data because of the implausibly low number of round numbers which cropped up in the data (I think there was also a further level of irony - something to the effect that it was a study into how many studies had been faked, or something).
Famously (well, slightly famously), when Mount Everest was first surveyed it was found to be exactly 29000 feet tall. The surveyors lamented that no-one would believe them, and added a spurious extra two feet onto the total.
I've done that kind of thing with tax calculations. I certainly remember one client whose taxable profit came out as exactly zero and I adjusted it by a few quid to avoid the impression it might be an estimate.
By the way, when submitting numbers to HMRC make sure none of them divide by 52. They are bound to assume the worst.
Noting also the red weather alert for coastal areas between Dundee and Aberdeen. A red rain alert 32 hours in advance and 10 inches forecast is quite something.
The weather is moving up from Brittany now, trundles up the UK, out into the North Sea over Lothian then just drives onto the coast and Grampians.
No doubt the hills do see big rainfall numbers at times, this wouldn't be unheard of in Cumbria or Snowdonia, but a lot of the forecast focus of the rain here is at landfall and the easternmost upslopes.
Could be a bad one.
Worth remembering that, following the summer floods of 2007, the Met Office and CEH run a joint flood forecasting centre, which brings together meteorologists and hydrologists. So if they are using a red warning for rain and subsequent flooding impacts that will be based on an understanding of the current hydrological situation in the area, and how it's likely to react to the forecast rainfall.
Not a warning to take lightly.
Particularly not if you live in Ballater, which seems to take the brunt of flooding on the River Dee.
If this looks anything like Storm Frank (2015) it will be bad. Upper Deeside was cut off and it took a long time to repair the washed out roads.
Not being able to trust your own eyes will be the weirdest thing
For 150 years we’ve had the ultimate proof. “Look, here’s a photo. Shut up”
That is coming to an end. It will challenge how we perceive reality. We go back to a pre-photographic world of rumours and reports which are far more unreliable
I think that's a stretch. We are seeing plenty of images today that refute the claims of last night. And don't forget the intelligence agencies have the ability to image from space. So if things are being faked, they will be shown up.
What I find fascinating is how willing people are to believe anything Hamas says. I don't believe a word of what they claim. I don't believe their claims of how many have been killed in the last week. When I posted this the other day posters jumped down my throat spouting rubbish that it was aid agencies reporting etc. Well yes, but they are 'reporting' what they get told, not going round counting bodies.
People are expecting the Israeli bombardment to cause civilian casualties because, well, when has this sort of aerial bombardment ever not caused civilian casualties? And so it's pretty easy to believe reports of civilian casualties, because what did you think was going to happen?
It's another example of people having already made their mind up and interpreting new evidence to fit that opinion.
One thing that was missing was this - in every previous Israeli attack on something, tons of video from the scene of casualties, people digging through the rubble etc.
We live in age of citizen camera persons - a huge number of people walking round with video camera in their pocket, with broadcast capability included.
Starmer going on the hospital and repeating the claim that several hundred have died.
He needs to throw some red meat to the activists who are very, very unhappy with the pro-Israel stance. They want Labour to support Hamas. Hopefully these people all leave the Labour party but clearly Keith doesn't have the cojones to stare them down.
I wonder if either side really *knows* what happened at that hospital. You’ve got two large armies firing crazy amounts of shit at each other in an area the size of Newent - a Newent packed with fuel reserves for generators and ammo for fighting
There could be two dozen explanations for this, pointing at multiple culprits. So then it becomes a race to win the PR war and seize the narrative
“500 dead in bomb-shattered hospital” is a much better headline than “dozens dead in hospital car park fire” - even though both are horrible
Equally, “40 babies beheaded” is a much better headline than “a number of children murdered” - even though both are horrible
I'm inclined to believe the Israelis here. If it was them I think (from past experience) their approach would be 'Sorry about that. But wars is war. Let's move one' rather than try to construct convoluted conspiracy theories.
That’s the difference between the two sides here. Israel will kill civilians in error and apologise for it, whereas the Hamas terrorists decided that women and children at a music festival were fair game for rape and murder.
Sadly history tells us that is not always the case with Israel. But it is still better to wait 48 hours and then try to come to some sort of understanding of what has happened. All the more so if you are a world leader or an international news organisation.
- it holds back on massacres in Israel until they are verified - pumps Hamas line on the hospital without checking - wont label Hamas as terrorist despite that being UK policy - says it must remain impartial when civilians are being beheaded etc., when civilisation exists on calling out such behaviour
I cant help but think there will be a reckoning when this all dies down.
There won't be. Nothing will change. It never does. It will be "they got it about right, because both sides are equally pissed at us".
Now about that BBC Verify.....
This whole reporting what both sides say only works if both sides are peers. Hamas is not a peer of the Israeli government. It's the same sort of trap where you have a news programme where a climatologist is debating with a shill for the oil industry. They aren't alike.
It’s an output of a change in education and the way people are taught to think critically.
I have seen a switch from “I believe in these principles. Because of reasons X, Y and Z.” To - “I believe in these principles. Because they are right”
The later used to be considered fatuous and shallow - we see it more and more in “main stream”.
This leads to the problem of people not being able to think critically about new things - unless they have an understanding of their own moral framework, how can they apply their own thinking to an issue?
They are stuck waiting for Twatter to tell them what to think.
We’ve come a long way from - “I counted them all out. I counted them all back.”
Universities used to teach students *how* to think, rather than *what* to think.
It rather depends on the subject. I believe lawyers are taught how to charge, engineers are taught how to build a bridge, and computer science graduates are taught how to communicate with humans. Well when I say "taught", it's "more left to fend for themselves and give a scroll to the survivors".
I can assure you that the vast majority of engineers have no idea how to build a bridge.
- it holds back on massacres in Israel until they are verified - pumps Hamas line on the hospital without checking - wont label Hamas as terrorist despite that being UK policy - says it must remain impartial when civilians are being beheaded etc., when civilisation exists on calling out such behaviour
I cant help but think there will be a reckoning when this all dies down.
It may seem trivial but I think their coverage of the Aussie Voice referendum was WORSE. There wasn’t even an attempt at balance. It was more slanted than the Guardian. The referendum proposal was a good thing and people voting No were misinformed racists
In other news Biden has condemned Hamas for the hospital incident. Israel had the receipts this time and good thing too. Israel will need to ensure that 24/7 surveillance of civilian infrastructure is in place because Hamas will stage more attacks on their own people and attempt to point the finger at Israel.
It's a bit of leap from 'rocket misfire' to 'stage an attack on their own people'. Some people were quick to judgement last night and condemned the IDF on what now seems a pretty shaky basis. Some people were quick to condemn Hamas, and produced what was then some pretty shaky evidence. The latter complained about Hamas and supporters of Palestine for trying to frame this in a way to set people's perceptions. Your comment appears very much to be doing the same, from the other side.
I don't think (or I want to not think, not that it's impossible) that Hamas fired deliberately on their own people. Perhaps, who knows, they had some kind of controlled explosion there.
Much more likely, however, is that there was a misfire, the thing exploded on launch, and they didn't waste the opportunity to use that to blame it on Israel and create a hoo-ha on the eve of POTUS' visit.
But I will now cease ridiculous speculation because it is just that and helps nothing.
I do absolutely think that whatever happened it was interesting that, like Oct 7th vs the Saudi peace deal, it happened when it happened.
/Tin foil hat off./
If it was an accident, it was a hell of an unlucky one.
For a single rocket to misfire and then drop into the crowded grounds of a hospital, given everywhere else it could have fallen, and given how many other rockets have been launched without problem, for the warhead not to detonate as part of the misfire, or on launch.
However, the more rockets are launched, the greater the chances that some will go wrong - and coincidences do happen; indeed, are to be expected as part of the law of large numbers.
What does seem highly implausible to me is that a rocket could be made to misfire and then drop onto hospital grounds. The control that would be needed to hit a target so accurately with malfunctioning equipment is phenomenal.
So if it wasn't an accident then it seems much more likely to me that it was a ground explosion from a bomb already on site, with the rocket falling elsewhere (shouldn't that have produced an explosion on landing too? Not if there wasn't a warhead on it. Shouldn't we have seen it land anyway? Probably not in the dark, particularly with a genuine explosion occurring. There should, however, still be impact damage visible somewhere).
I should have mentioned the target: a Christian-run hospital. In PR terms, if you wanted to appeal to the emotions of the West, what would do more so? Many vulnerable victims, plus the religious angle. Again, it's a striking coincidence that the explosion hit one of the few religiously-related but not Islamic sites in Gaza. But if you're a cynical fundamentalist Islamist from Hamas, you must have at best ambivalent thoughts about Christians operating there at all. Would they think less of bombing infidel facilities and those using them? Yes, I think they would.
This is something my wife mentioned last night, the alleged attack was on an infidel run hospital. It's what made her very suspicious about who actually did it.
That requires it to be a deliberate attack by Hamas rather than a launch failure. What makes you think that.
Some years ago I went on a course run by a Christian relief organisation in the West Bank. I didn't go to Gaza but did go to Hebron, Ramallah and a few other places. Though the organisation was Christian funded the staff were local and many were Muslims. I suspect that in this hospital nearly all staff would be Muslims, and virtually all the patients.
Christian Palestinians are around 2% of the population of the Palestinian West Bank and Israel, but very few in Gaza.
Not being able to trust your own eyes will be the weirdest thing
For 150 years we’ve had the ultimate proof. “Look, here’s a photo. Shut up”
That is coming to an end. It will challenge how we perceive reality. We go back to a pre-photographic world of rumours and reports which are far more unreliable
I think that's a stretch. We are seeing plenty of images today that refute the claims of last night. And don't forget the intelligence agencies have the ability to image from space. So if things are being faked, they will be shown up.
What I find fascinating is how willing people are to believe anything Hamas says. I don't believe a word of what they claim. I don't believe their claims of how many have been killed in the last week. When I posted this the other day posters jumped down my throat spouting rubbish that it was aid agencies reporting etc. Well yes, but they are 'reporting' what they get told, not going round counting bodies.
People are expecting the Israeli bombardment to cause civilian casualties because, well, when has this sort of aerial bombardment ever not caused civilian casualties? And so it's pretty easy to believe reports of civilian casualties, because what did you think was going to happen?
It's another example of people having already made their mind up and interpreting new evidence to fit that opinion.
One thing that was missing was this - in every previous Israeli attack on something, tons of video from the scene of casualties, people digging through the rubble etc.
We live in age of citizen camera persons - a huge number of people walking round with video camera in their pocket, with broadcast capability included.
You’re absolutely right. I should have noted that
All I saw was that one vivid video “from inside the hospital”. It was brutal and authentic looking but I now strongly suspect it was ripped from a completely different war. Syria seems to be the go-to source for horrific images
Starmer going on the hospital and repeating the claim that several hundred have died.
Stumbled across a Corbyn tweet- 7.8m views - attributing the 500 deaths to an Israeli airstrike without any qualifications. Interesting to see if he walks that back.
One thing last night shows is that the problem of fake news isn't just confined to social media. Many 'serious' journalists seem to be witting or unwitting purveyors of disinformation.
There was a disturbing video on TwiX last night which purported to show a terrible fire inside a collapsing hospital. It’s one reason I believed the story that a hospital was collapsing
Looking at the images today, I can’t see where that fire might have occurred. Where is the ruined shell of a gutted hospital wing?
So what was that vid. Entirely fake? Doctored? Ripped from some real horror in Syria? Or maybe it was real but it looked worse than it was
🤷🏼♂️
Probably ripped from Syria or something like that, Hamas PR people probably have all of these clips ready to send to idiot journalists and to spread on social media.
BBC still saying that hundreds are dead. It looks from all the pictures to be a large fire in a car park. Genuinely not as big as the fire at the Luton airport car park. Hamas have lied and there are large groups in the media across the world who were only too happy to publish the lies directly with no fact checking. Contrast with the murder of the Israeli babies - how much evidence was required for that? It is total double standards and sickening.
Previous reporting stated that the areas around the hospitals have been absolutely rammed with people who were hoping to avoid the bombing. A bomb loaded with shrapnel that landed in such an area could potentially kill or maim a lot of people without doing all that much physical damage. Maybe not 500? But hundreds, sure: Fill all the space between the burnt out cars visible in that video with people & you could easily get to those kind of numbers.
It may, at this point, be impossible to get to the actual truth of what happened on the ground, but it does seem clear that this was not some massive ground penetrating Israeli bomb: There’s no crater & little to no blast damage to the surrounding buildings.
500 is a very round number. Suspiciously so. I do not believe Hamas.
I reflexively don't believe Hamas. But because they are a terrorist organisation, rather than because of the roundness of the number. Round numbers of things do crop up as often as you would expect them to. ISTR @rcs1000 posting a story once of a study which had been shown to have used fake data because of the implausibly low number of round numbers which cropped up in the data (I think there was also a further level of irony - something to the effect that it was a study into how many studies had been faked, or something).
Famously (well, slightly famously), when Mount Everest was first surveyed it was found to be exactly 29000 feet tall. The surveyors lamented that no-one would believe them, and added a spurious extra two feet onto the total.
I've done that kind of thing with tax calculations. I certainly remember one client whose taxable profit came out as exactly zero and I adjusted it by a few quid to avoid the impression it might be an estimate.
By the way, when submitting numbers to HMRC make sure none of them divide by 52. They are bound to assume the worst.
Noting also the red weather alert for coastal areas between Dundee and Aberdeen. A red rain alert 32 hours in advance and 10 inches forecast is quite something.
The weather is moving up from Brittany now, trundles up the UK, out into the North Sea over Lothian then just drives onto the coast and Grampians.
No doubt the hills do see big rainfall numbers at times, this wouldn't be unheard of in Cumbria or Snowdonia, but a lot of the forecast focus of the rain here is at landfall and the easternmost upslopes.
Could be a bad one.
Worth remembering that, following the summer floods of 2007, the Met Office and CEH run a joint flood forecasting centre, which brings together meteorologists and hydrologists. So if they are using a red warning for rain and subsequent flooding impacts that will be based on an understanding of the current hydrological situation in the area, and how it's likely to react to the forecast rainfall.
Not a warning to take lightly.
Particularly not if you live in Ballater, which seems to take the brunt of flooding on the River Dee.
If this looks anything like Storm Frank (2015) it will be bad. Upper Deeside was cut off and it took a long time to repair the washed out roads.
BBC reporter: "The Israeli military.. have said they are investigating, but its hard to see what else this could be, really, given the size of the explosion, other than an Israeli air strike, or several air strikes"
Starmer going on the hospital and repeating the claim that several hundred have died.
Stumbled across a Corbyn tweet- 7.8m views - attributing the 500 deaths to an Israeli airstrike without any qualifications. Interesting to see if he walks that back.
I thought it was always very important not to rush to conclusions on these things. Or does Jeremy not believe that any more?
Not being able to trust your own eyes will be the weirdest thing
For 150 years we’ve had the ultimate proof. “Look, here’s a photo. Shut up”
That is coming to an end. It will challenge how we perceive reality. We go back to a pre-photographic world of rumours and reports which are far more unreliable
I think that's a stretch. We are seeing plenty of images today that refute the claims of last night. And don't forget the intelligence agencies have the ability to image from space. So if things are being faked, they will be shown up.
What I find fascinating is how willing people are to believe anything Hamas says. I don't believe a word of what they claim. I don't believe their claims of how many have been killed in the last week. When I posted this the other day posters jumped down my throat spouting rubbish that it was aid agencies reporting etc. Well yes, but they are 'reporting' what they get told, not going round counting bodies.
People are expecting the Israeli bombardment to cause civilian casualties because, well, when has this sort of aerial bombardment ever not caused civilian casualties? And so it's pretty easy to believe reports of civilian casualties, because what did you think was going to happen?
It's another example of people having already made their mind up and interpreting new evidence to fit that opinion.
One thing that was missing was this - in every previous Israeli attack on something, tons of video from the scene of casualties, people digging through the rubble etc.
We live in age of citizen camera persons - a huge number of people walking round with video camera in their pocket, with broadcast capability included.
Apart from the fact that it must be difficult to charge a mobile phone (or whatever) in Gaza now.
Wouldn't any sensible journalist be of the view that verifying anything going on inside Gaza is incredibly difficult. How many reporters are in there? Who are the ones that are? How much control does Hamas have over what is or isn't said. These would seem to be the sorts of vital questions anyone wanting to get at the truth would ask? But who wants the truth?
Noting also the red weather alert for coastal areas between Dundee and Aberdeen. A red rain alert 32 hours in advance and 10 inches forecast is quite something.
The weather is moving up from Brittany now, trundles up the UK, out into the North Sea over Lothian then just drives onto the coast and Grampians.
No doubt the hills do see big rainfall numbers at times, this wouldn't be unheard of in Cumbria or Snowdonia, but a lot of the forecast focus of the rain here is at landfall and the easternmost upslopes.
Could be a bad one.
Worth remembering that, following the summer floods of 2007, the Met Office and CEH run a joint flood forecasting centre, which brings together meteorologists and hydrologists. So if they are using a red warning for rain and subsequent flooding impacts that will be based on an understanding of the current hydrological situation in the area, and how it's likely to react to the forecast rainfall.
Not a warning to take lightly.
Particularly not if you live in Ballater, which seems to take the brunt of flooding on the River Dee.
If this looks anything like Storm Frank (2015) it will be bad. Upper Deeside was cut off and it took a long time to repair the washed out roads.
Noting also the red weather alert for coastal areas between Dundee and Aberdeen. A red rain alert 32 hours in advance and 10 inches forecast is quite something.
The weather is moving up from Brittany now, trundles up the UK, out into the North Sea over Lothian then just drives onto the coast and Grampians.
No doubt the hills do see big rainfall numbers at times, this wouldn't be unheard of in Cumbria or Snowdonia, but a lot of the forecast focus of the rain here is at landfall and the easternmost upslopes.
Could be a bad one.
Worth remembering that, following the summer floods of 2007, the Met Office and CEH run a joint flood forecasting centre, which brings together meteorologists and hydrologists. So if they are using a red warning for rain and subsequent flooding impacts that will be based on an understanding of the current hydrological situation in the area, and how it's likely to react to the forecast rainfall.
Not a warning to take lightly.
Particularly not if you live in Ballater, which seems to take the brunt of flooding on the River Dee.
If this looks anything like Storm Frank (2015) it will be bad. Upper Deeside was cut off and it took a long time to repair the washed out roads.
If they dredged the rivers, it wouldn't happen nearly so often.
We went over this a few years ago. Dredging works on slow moving lowland rivers where there is a lot of silt accumulation. It does not work well (or at all) in most of the Northern British rivers where flow is higher so the silt doesn't get a chance to settle out.
I doubt very much if dredging will make any difference at all on the Dee. Slowing the flow higher up will do far more to help.
Noting also the red weather alert for coastal areas between Dundee and Aberdeen. A red rain alert 32 hours in advance and 10 inches forecast is quite something.
The weather is moving up from Brittany now, trundles up the UK, out into the North Sea over Lothian then just drives onto the coast and Grampians.
No doubt the hills do see big rainfall numbers at times, this wouldn't be unheard of in Cumbria or Snowdonia, but a lot of the forecast focus of the rain here is at landfall and the easternmost upslopes.
Could be a bad one.
Worth remembering that, following the summer floods of 2007, the Met Office and CEH run a joint flood forecasting centre, which brings together meteorologists and hydrologists. So if they are using a red warning for rain and subsequent flooding impacts that will be based on an understanding of the current hydrological situation in the area, and how it's likely to react to the forecast rainfall.
Not a warning to take lightly.
Particularly not if you live in Ballater, which seems to take the brunt of flooding on the River Dee.
If this looks anything like Storm Frank (2015) it will be bad. Upper Deeside was cut off and it took a long time to repair the washed out roads.
If they dredged the rivers, it wouldn't happen nearly so often.
Dredging rivers can often contribute to flooding as the flood water moves more quickly and can't be accommodated. Much better to restore the uplands so they can store the water. The loss of natural wet features such as marshes due to drainage work is a major contributor to communities downstream being flooded.
- it holds back on massacres in Israel until they are verified - pumps Hamas line on the hospital without checking - wont label Hamas as terrorist despite that being UK policy - says it must remain impartial when civilians are being beheaded etc., when civilisation exists on calling out such behaviour
I cant help but think there will be a reckoning when this all dies down.
There won't be. Nothing will change. It never does. It will be "they got it about right, because both sides are equally pissed at us".
Now about that BBC Verify.....
This whole reporting what both sides say only works if both sides are peers. Hamas is not a peer of the Israeli government. It's the same sort of trap where you have a news programme where a climatologist is debating with a shill for the oil industry. They aren't alike.
It’s an output of a change in education and the way people are taught to think critically.
I have seen a switch from “I believe in these principles. Because of reasons X, Y and Z.” To - “I believe in these principles. Because they are right”
The later used to be considered fatuous and shallow - we see it more and more in “main stream”.
This leads to the problem of people not being able to think critically about new things - unless they have an understanding of their own moral framework, how can they apply their own thinking to an issue?
They are stuck waiting for Twatter to tell them what to think.
We’ve come a long way from - “I counted them all out. I counted them all back.”
Universities used to teach students *how* to think, rather than *what* to think.
It rather depends on the subject. I believe lawyers are taught how to charge, engineers are taught how to build a bridge, and computer science graduates are taught how to communicate with humans. Well when I say "taught", it's "more left to fend for themselves and give a scroll to the survivors".
The more that they can target Russian forces in places like this, well behind the front lines, the fewer casualties they will incur to break through those front lines.
I think there's a real possibility of Ukraine's domestic drone industry continuing to develop and grow to the extent that the Russians are defeated in Ukraine mostly by Ukrainian drones in the end.
Not being able to trust your own eyes will be the weirdest thing
For 150 years we’ve had the ultimate proof. “Look, here’s a photo. Shut up”
That is coming to an end. It will challenge how we perceive reality. We go back to a pre-photographic world of rumours and reports which are far more unreliable
Photographic evidence has never been definitive.
Our ability to prove that the Holocaust took place, for example, depends much on eye-witness testimony and written records, than on photographic evidence.
So, we'll just have to be sceptical, but we can verify the truth, without just relying upon rumour. Rules of evidence were reasonably sophisticated, even before photography became common. And, people did a lot of fact-checking. A good example is the way people had to do a lot of waiting around in large communal chambers in royal courts, surrounded by lots of courtiers and other bigwigs. The intent was that if someone turned up claiming to be the Spanish ambassador, or the Earl of Devon, there would be people there who could attest to it.
I disagree
One of the reasons the Holocaust is so vivid in our minds and so utterly uncontested (apart from a few total nutters) is because there is ample horrific visual evidence. Photos in the thousands. Photos of ghettoes and pogroms, photos of Auschwitz and Belsen. Photos of piled bodies and gas chambers
Contrast that with the Armenian genocide. There we have almost zero photographic evidence, even tho maybe 2 million died. It was just before the era of mass camera ownership and the Turks did a great job of keeping it all quiet
Go look for photos of this appalling crime and you’ll be amazed at the paucity. A handful
Noting also the red weather alert for coastal areas between Dundee and Aberdeen. A red rain alert 32 hours in advance and 10 inches forecast is quite something.
The weather is moving up from Brittany now, trundles up the UK, out into the North Sea over Lothian then just drives onto the coast and Grampians.
No doubt the hills do see big rainfall numbers at times, this wouldn't be unheard of in Cumbria or Snowdonia, but a lot of the forecast focus of the rain here is at landfall and the easternmost upslopes.
Could be a bad one.
Worth remembering that, following the summer floods of 2007, the Met Office and CEH run a joint flood forecasting centre, which brings together meteorologists and hydrologists. So if they are using a red warning for rain and subsequent flooding impacts that will be based on an understanding of the current hydrological situation in the area, and how it's likely to react to the forecast rainfall.
Not a warning to take lightly.
Particularly not if you live in Ballater, which seems to take the brunt of flooding on the River Dee.
If this looks anything like Storm Frank (2015) it will be bad. Upper Deeside was cut off and it took a long time to repair the washed out roads.
BBC reporter: "The Israeli military.. have said they are investigating, but its hard to see what else this could be, really, given the size of the explosion, other than an Israeli air strike, or several air strikes"
The Israeli officer on Today this morning really gave them both barrels after some doctor from the West Bank had been allowed to say how awful the Israelis were to do a strike on a hospital. He was right and the defensive muttering by Bowen afterwards showed it had stung.
Starmer going on the hospital and repeating the claim that several hundred have died.
He needs to throw some red meat to the activists who are very, very unhappy with the pro-Israel stance. They want Labour to support Hamas. Hopefully these people all leave the Labour party but clearly Keith doesn't have the cojones to stare them down.
See lockdown. He has a history of not waiting for the evidence.
BBC reporter: "The Israeli military.. have said they are investigating, but its hard to see what else this could be, really, given the size of the explosion, other than an Israeli air strike, or several air strikes"
Noting also the red weather alert for coastal areas between Dundee and Aberdeen. A red rain alert 32 hours in advance and 10 inches forecast is quite something.
The weather is moving up from Brittany now, trundles up the UK, out into the North Sea over Lothian then just drives onto the coast and Grampians.
No doubt the hills do see big rainfall numbers at times, this wouldn't be unheard of in Cumbria or Snowdonia, but a lot of the forecast focus of the rain here is at landfall and the easternmost upslopes.
Could be a bad one.
Worth remembering that, following the summer floods of 2007, the Met Office and CEH run a joint flood forecasting centre, which brings together meteorologists and hydrologists. So if they are using a red warning for rain and subsequent flooding impacts that will be based on an understanding of the current hydrological situation in the area, and how it's likely to react to the forecast rainfall.
Not a warning to take lightly.
Particularly not if you live in Ballater, which seems to take the brunt of flooding on the River Dee.
If this looks anything like Storm Frank (2015) it will be bad. Upper Deeside was cut off and it took a long time to repair the washed out roads.
I wonder if either side really *knows* what happened at that hospital. You’ve got two large armies firing crazy amounts of shit at each other in an area the size of Newent - a Newent packed with fuel reserves for generators and ammo for fighting
There could be two dozen explanations for this, pointing at multiple culprits. So then it becomes a race to win the PR war and seize the narrative
“500 dead in bomb-shattered hospital” is a much better headline than “dozens dead in hospital car park fire” - even though both are horrible
Equally, “40 babies beheaded” is a much better headline than “a number of children murdered” - even though both are horrible
I'm inclined to believe the Israelis here. If it was them I think (from past experience) their approach would be 'Sorry about that. But wars is war. Let's move one' rather than try to construct convoluted conspiracy theories.
Dunno, in the months after Shireen Abu Akleh was shot the IDF first accused Palestinian gunmen of killing her, then moved to it could of been anyone and finally onto her likely being ‘accidentally’ shot by one of their troops but no further investigation would take place. It hardly fills one with confidence in their inclinations to take responsibility.
Here is - no joke - virtually the only photo of the Armenian genocide in action (there is no gore)
It shows Armenians being marched out of a town - into the deserts where they were killed in their thousands: starved, drowned, pushed over cliffs. Dozens of children were tied together and thrown in rivers
It was an unspeakable crime yet we have about four photos and this is one
So we forget. We don’t even learn in the first place
Noting also the red weather alert for coastal areas between Dundee and Aberdeen. A red rain alert 32 hours in advance and 10 inches forecast is quite something.
The weather is moving up from Brittany now, trundles up the UK, out into the North Sea over Lothian then just drives onto the coast and Grampians.
No doubt the hills do see big rainfall numbers at times, this wouldn't be unheard of in Cumbria or Snowdonia, but a lot of the forecast focus of the rain here is at landfall and the easternmost upslopes.
Could be a bad one.
Worth remembering that, following the summer floods of 2007, the Met Office and CEH run a joint flood forecasting centre, which brings together meteorologists and hydrologists. So if they are using a red warning for rain and subsequent flooding impacts that will be based on an understanding of the current hydrological situation in the area, and how it's likely to react to the forecast rainfall.
Not a warning to take lightly.
Particularly not if you live in Ballater, which seems to take the brunt of flooding on the River Dee.
If this looks anything like Storm Frank (2015) it will be bad. Upper Deeside was cut off and it took a long time to repair the washed out roads.
One thing last night shows is that the problem of fake news isn't just confined to social media. Many 'serious' journalists seem to be witting or unwitting purveyors of disinformation.
There was a disturbing video on TwiX last night which purported to show a terrible fire inside a collapsing hospital. It’s one reason I believed the story that a hospital was collapsing
Looking at the images today, I can’t see where that fire might have occurred. Where is the ruined shell of a gutted hospital wing?
So what was that vid. Entirely fake? Doctored? Ripped from some real horror in Syria? Or maybe it was real but it looked worse than it was
🤷🏼♂️
Probably ripped from Syria or something like that, Hamas PR people probably have all of these clips ready to send to idiot journalists and to spread on social media.
BBC still saying that hundreds are dead. It looks from all the pictures to be a large fire in a car park. Genuinely not as big as the fire at the Luton airport car park. Hamas have lied and there are large groups in the media across the world who were only too happy to publish the lies directly with no fact checking. Contrast with the murder of the Israeli babies - how much evidence was required for that? It is total double standards and sickening.
Previous reporting stated that the areas around the hospitals have been absolutely rammed with people who were hoping to avoid the bombing. A bomb loaded with shrapnel that landed in such an area could potentially kill or maim a lot of people without doing all that much physical damage. Maybe not 500? But hundreds, sure: Fill all the space between the burnt out cars visible in that video with people & you could easily get to those kind of numbers.
It may, at this point, be impossible to get to the actual truth of what happened on the ground, but it does seem clear that this was not some massive ground penetrating Israeli bomb: There’s no crater & little to no blast damage to the surrounding buildings.
500 is a very round number. Suspiciously so. I do not believe Hamas.
I reflexively don't believe Hamas. But because they are a terrorist organisation, rather than because of the roundness of the number. Round numbers of things do crop up as often as you would expect them to. ISTR @rcs1000 posting a story once of a study which had been shown to have used fake data because of the implausibly low number of round numbers which cropped up in the data (I think there was also a further level of irony - something to the effect that it was a study into how many studies had been faked, or something).
Famously (well, slightly famously), when Mount Everest was first surveyed it was found to be exactly 29000 feet tall. The surveyors lamented that no-one would believe them, and added a spurious extra two feet onto the total.
I've done that kind of thing with tax calculations. I certainly remember one client whose taxable profit came out as exactly zero and I adjusted it by a few quid to avoid the impression it might be an estimate.
By the way, when submitting numbers to HMRC make sure none of them divide by 52. They are bound to assume the worst.
If you ever beg in the street make sure you don't ask for £1 or 50p. Make sure you ask for something PRECISE like £1.73 or 88p as it seems more convincing.
Noting also the red weather alert for coastal areas between Dundee and Aberdeen. A red rain alert 32 hours in advance and 10 inches forecast is quite something.
The weather is moving up from Brittany now, trundles up the UK, out into the North Sea over Lothian then just drives onto the coast and Grampians.
No doubt the hills do see big rainfall numbers at times, this wouldn't be unheard of in Cumbria or Snowdonia, but a lot of the forecast focus of the rain here is at landfall and the easternmost upslopes.
Could be a bad one.
Worth remembering that, following the summer floods of 2007, the Met Office and CEH run a joint flood forecasting centre, which brings together meteorologists and hydrologists. So if they are using a red warning for rain and subsequent flooding impacts that will be based on an understanding of the current hydrological situation in the area, and how it's likely to react to the forecast rainfall.
Not a warning to take lightly.
Particularly not if you live in Ballater, which seems to take the brunt of flooding on the River Dee.
If this looks anything like Storm Frank (2015) it will be bad. Upper Deeside was cut off and it took a long time to repair the washed out roads.
If they dredged the rivers, it wouldn't happen nearly so often.
We went over this a few years ago. Dredging works on slow moving lowland rivers where there is a lot of silt accumulation. It does not work well (or at all) in most of the Northern British rivers where flow is higher so the silt doesn't get a chance to settle out.
I doubt very much if dredging will make any difference at all on the Dee. Slowing the flow higher up will do far more to help.
Yes, it is the bog and fen and flooded fields upstream that determine the flow. This has been known for ages.
Noting also the red weather alert for coastal areas between Dundee and Aberdeen. A red rain alert 32 hours in advance and 10 inches forecast is quite something.
The weather is moving up from Brittany now, trundles up the UK, out into the North Sea over Lothian then just drives onto the coast and Grampians.
No doubt the hills do see big rainfall numbers at times, this wouldn't be unheard of in Cumbria or Snowdonia, but a lot of the forecast focus of the rain here is at landfall and the easternmost upslopes.
Could be a bad one.
Worth remembering that, following the summer floods of 2007, the Met Office and CEH run a joint flood forecasting centre, which brings together meteorologists and hydrologists. So if they are using a red warning for rain and subsequent flooding impacts that will be based on an understanding of the current hydrological situation in the area, and how it's likely to react to the forecast rainfall.
Not a warning to take lightly.
Particularly not if you live in Ballater, which seems to take the brunt of flooding on the River Dee.
If this looks anything like Storm Frank (2015) it will be bad. Upper Deeside was cut off and it took a long time to repair the washed out roads.
If they dredged the rivers, it wouldn't happen nearly so often.
Slowing down the flow of water into rivers is the best way to prevent flooding. Along with not fecking up the climate, of course.
If the floor of the River rises consistently, it can hold less water. It's not rocket science.
Depends how *wide* the river is - which includes, beign able to overflow into flood meadows (haughlands up here). This dampens down (sic) the fluctuations ... or simply the water getting into the bogs and carrs first, as SAndy and David say.
Noting also the red weather alert for coastal areas between Dundee and Aberdeen. A red rain alert 32 hours in advance and 10 inches forecast is quite something.
The weather is moving up from Brittany now, trundles up the UK, out into the North Sea over Lothian then just drives onto the coast and Grampians.
No doubt the hills do see big rainfall numbers at times, this wouldn't be unheard of in Cumbria or Snowdonia, but a lot of the forecast focus of the rain here is at landfall and the easternmost upslopes.
Could be a bad one.
Worth remembering that, following the summer floods of 2007, the Met Office and CEH run a joint flood forecasting centre, which brings together meteorologists and hydrologists. So if they are using a red warning for rain and subsequent flooding impacts that will be based on an understanding of the current hydrological situation in the area, and how it's likely to react to the forecast rainfall.
Not a warning to take lightly.
Particularly not if you live in Ballater, which seems to take the brunt of flooding on the River Dee.
If this looks anything like Storm Frank (2015) it will be bad. Upper Deeside was cut off and it took a long time to repair the washed out roads.
OT. If LibDems cost Labour the seat could have pretty negative consequences for Davey. A significant number of anti-Tory voters likely to reflexively vote Labour at the GE and not "risk" a LibDem vote even in seats where the LibDems are challengers. Not everyone is clued in sufficiently to realise where the value lies.
- it holds back on massacres in Israel until they are verified - pumps Hamas line on the hospital without checking - wont label Hamas as terrorist despite that being UK policy - says it must remain impartial when civilians are being beheaded etc., when civilisation exists on calling out such behaviour
I cant help but think there will be a reckoning when this all dies down.
There won't be. Nothing will change. It never does. It will be "they got it about right, because both sides are equally pissed at us".
Now about that BBC Verify.....
This whole reporting what both sides say only works if both sides are peers. Hamas is not a peer of the Israeli government. It's the same sort of trap where you have a news programme where a climatologist is debating with a shill for the oil industry. They aren't alike.
It’s an output of a change in education and the way people are taught to think critically.
I have seen a switch from “I believe in these principles. Because of reasons X, Y and Z.” To - “I believe in these principles. Because they are right”
The later used to be considered fatuous and shallow - we see it more and more in “main stream”.
This leads to the problem of people not being able to think critically about new things - unless they have an understanding of their own moral framework, how can they apply their own thinking to an issue?
They are stuck waiting for Twatter to tell them what to think.
We’ve come a long way from - “I counted them all out. I counted them all back.”
Universities used to teach students *how* to think, rather than *what* to think.
It rather depends on the subject. I believe lawyers are taught how to charge, engineers are taught how to build a bridge, and computer science graduates are taught how to communicate with humans. Well when I say "taught", it's "more left to fend for themselves and give a scroll to the survivors".
Noting also the red weather alert for coastal areas between Dundee and Aberdeen. A red rain alert 32 hours in advance and 10 inches forecast is quite something.
The weather is moving up from Brittany now, trundles up the UK, out into the North Sea over Lothian then just drives onto the coast and Grampians.
No doubt the hills do see big rainfall numbers at times, this wouldn't be unheard of in Cumbria or Snowdonia, but a lot of the forecast focus of the rain here is at landfall and the easternmost upslopes.
Could be a bad one.
Worth remembering that, following the summer floods of 2007, the Met Office and CEH run a joint flood forecasting centre, which brings together meteorologists and hydrologists. So if they are using a red warning for rain and subsequent flooding impacts that will be based on an understanding of the current hydrological situation in the area, and how it's likely to react to the forecast rainfall.
Not a warning to take lightly.
Particularly not if you live in Ballater, which seems to take the brunt of flooding on the River Dee.
If this looks anything like Storm Frank (2015) it will be bad. Upper Deeside was cut off and it took a long time to repair the washed out roads.
Noting also the red weather alert for coastal areas between Dundee and Aberdeen. A red rain alert 32 hours in advance and 10 inches forecast is quite something.
The weather is moving up from Brittany now, trundles up the UK, out into the North Sea over Lothian then just drives onto the coast and Grampians.
No doubt the hills do see big rainfall numbers at times, this wouldn't be unheard of in Cumbria or Snowdonia, but a lot of the forecast focus of the rain here is at landfall and the easternmost upslopes.
Could be a bad one.
Worth remembering that, following the summer floods of 2007, the Met Office and CEH run a joint flood forecasting centre, which brings together meteorologists and hydrologists. So if they are using a red warning for rain and subsequent flooding impacts that will be based on an understanding of the current hydrological situation in the area, and how it's likely to react to the forecast rainfall.
Not a warning to take lightly.
Particularly not if you live in Ballater, which seems to take the brunt of flooding on the River Dee.
If this looks anything like Storm Frank (2015) it will be bad. Upper Deeside was cut off and it took a long time to repair the washed out roads.
If they dredged the rivers, it wouldn't happen nearly so often.
Slowing down the flow of water into rivers is the best way to prevent flooding. Along with not fecking up the climate, of course.
If the floor of the River rises consistently, it can hold less water. It's not rocket science.
No, its fluid dynamics which is considerably more complicated.
Except when you are dealing with the turbulent flow inside the rocket motor, of course.
Ah you see, fluid dynamics.
Modelling the boundries between turbulent and laminar flow in any system makes your head hurt. We have to do it for the drilling fluids in the well annulus or they won't carry the cuttings. Bloody horrible even when you have computers to help.
Starmer going on the hospital and repeating the claim that several hundred have died.
Stumbled across a Corbyn tweet- 7.8m views - attributing the 500 deaths to an Israeli airstrike without any qualifications. Interesting to see if he walks that back.
I thought it was always very important not to rush to conclusions on these things. Or does Jeremy not believe that any more?
Talking of impervious to evidence, #CorbynWasRight is trending this morning.
Here is - no joke - virtually the only photo of the Armenian genocide in action (there is no gore)
It shows Armenians being marched out of a town - into the deserts where they were killed in their thousands: starved, drowned, pushed over cliffs. Dozens of children were tied together and thrown in rivers
It was an unspeakable crime yet we have about four photos and this is one
So we forget. We don’t even learn in the first place
Sadly, people never cared very much about the Armenians. European governments cared far more about Greeks or Bulgarians being massacred by Turks (not so much about Turks being massacred by Greeks and Bulgarians), because they were classically educated. It wasn't about the lack of photography.
Starmer going on the hospital and repeating the claim that several hundred have died.
Stumbled across a Corbyn tweet- 7.8m views - attributing the 500 deaths to an Israeli airstrike without any qualifications. Interesting to see if he walks that back.
I thought it was always very important not to rush to conclusions on these things. Or does Jeremy not believe that any more?
Talking of impervious to evidence, #CorbynWasRight is trending this morning.
France looks like it is having a rougher time on Gaza than the UK. Target for lots of the arab world due to past colonial history and bubbling suburbs in the big cities.
Not being able to trust your own eyes will be the weirdest thing
For 150 years we’ve had the ultimate proof. “Look, here’s a photo. Shut up”
That is coming to an end. It will challenge how we perceive reality. We go back to a pre-photographic world of rumours and reports which are far more unreliable
I think that's a stretch. We are seeing plenty of images today that refute the claims of last night. And don't forget the intelligence agencies have the ability to image from space. So if things are being faked, they will be shown up.
What I find fascinating is how willing people are to believe anything Hamas says. I don't believe a word of what they claim. I don't believe their claims of how many have been killed in the last week. When I posted this the other day posters jumped down my throat spouting rubbish that it was aid agencies reporting etc. Well yes, but they are 'reporting' what they get told, not going round counting bodies.
People are expecting the Israeli bombardment to cause civilian casualties because, well, when has this sort of aerial bombardment ever not caused civilian casualties? And so it's pretty easy to believe reports of civilian casualties, because what did you think was going to happen?
It's another example of people having already made their mind up and interpreting new evidence to fit that opinion.
One thing that was missing was this - in every previous Israeli attack on something, tons of video from the scene of casualties, people digging through the rubble etc.
We live in age of citizen camera persons - a huge number of people walking round with video camera in their pocket, with broadcast capability included.
Apart from the fact that it must be difficult to charge a mobile phone (or whatever) in Gaza now.
There is a large quantity of videos from Gaza appearing on social media. Or at least claiming to be from Gaza.
Mobile phones are often regarded as a vital necessity in many poor places. Huge efforts put into solar panel chargers etc. Especially in war zones.
Two things that have come out of listening to how people make do in Ukraine is - 1) some kind of ultra low power LED lighting system, 2) phone charging/power from solar. See also thermoelectric systems..
The SNP leader in Westminster calling for a ceasefire without also calling for the release of hostages.
They need to be much more careful about reassuring Scotland’s Jewish community. We all understand Humza's concern about his relatives in Gaza, which is all the more reason to be balanced. Refusing to fly the Israeli flag at Holyrood was not a good look and upset a lot of people.
After the severe floods in the Calder Valley several years ago, efforts have been made to slow the run off from the hills. Leaky dams have been built across the streams, for example.
Noting also the red weather alert for coastal areas between Dundee and Aberdeen. A red rain alert 32 hours in advance and 10 inches forecast is quite something.
The weather is moving up from Brittany now, trundles up the UK, out into the North Sea over Lothian then just drives onto the coast and Grampians.
No doubt the hills do see big rainfall numbers at times, this wouldn't be unheard of in Cumbria or Snowdonia, but a lot of the forecast focus of the rain here is at landfall and the easternmost upslopes.
Could be a bad one.
Worth remembering that, following the summer floods of 2007, the Met Office and CEH run a joint flood forecasting centre, which brings together meteorologists and hydrologists. So if they are using a red warning for rain and subsequent flooding impacts that will be based on an understanding of the current hydrological situation in the area, and how it's likely to react to the forecast rainfall.
Not a warning to take lightly.
Particularly not if you live in Ballater, which seems to take the brunt of flooding on the River Dee.
If this looks anything like Storm Frank (2015) it will be bad. Upper Deeside was cut off and it took a long time to repair the washed out roads.
If they dredged the rivers, it wouldn't happen nearly so often.
Slowing down the flow of water into rivers is the best way to prevent flooding. Along with not fecking up the climate, of course.
If the floor of the River rises consistently, it can hold less water. It's not rocket science.
No, its fluid dynamics which is considerably more complicated.
Except when you are dealing with the turbulent flow inside the rocket motor, of course.
Ah you see, fluid dynamics.
Modelling the boundries between turbulent and laminar flow in any system makes your head hurt. We have to do it for the drilling fluids in the well annulus or they won't carry the cuttings. Bloody horrible even when you have computers to help.
Reynolds Number finally makes its way into a PB thread!
Here is - no joke - virtually the only photo of the Armenian genocide in action (there is no gore)
It shows Armenians being marched out of a town - into the deserts where they were killed in their thousands: starved, drowned, pushed over cliffs. Dozens of children were tied together and thrown in rivers
It was an unspeakable crime yet we have about four photos and this is one
So we forget. We don’t even learn in the first place
Sadly, people never cared very much about the Armenians. European governments cared far more about Greeks or Bulgarians being massacred by Turks (not so much about Turks being massacred by Greeks and Bulgarians), because they were classically educated. It wasn't about the lack of photography.
Again. I disagree
Imagine if we had thousands of photos of THIS:
"At least 150,000 Armenians passed through Erzindjan from June 1915, where a series of transit camps were set up to control the flow of victims to the killing site at the nearby Kemah gorge.[172] Thousands of Armenians were killed near Lake Hazar, pushed by paramilitaries off the cliffs.[168] More than 500,000 Armenians passed through the Firincilar plain south of Malatya, one of the deadliest areas during the genocide. Arriving convoys, having passed through the plain to approach the Kahta highlands, would have found gorges already filled with corpses from previous convoys"
If you look at the Daily Mail general coverage the defacto statement is Hamas a terrorist organisation, Hamas terrorists etc etc etc. They do from time to time mix it up with terms such as operatives, fighters etc, often within the same article. It called writing.
So they have no issue with making a claim that Hamas are terrorists.
The BBC on the other hand have tried to claim we don't use the term terrorism / terrorist, we don't judge etc, but they have and they do about other terrorist incidents, just not when it comes to Hamas, they only quote others.
By every definition of the word, what Hamas did to Israel was terrorism.
France looks like it is having a rougher time on Gaza than the UK. Target for lots of the arab world due to past colonial history and bubbling suburbs in the big cities.
France has a much larger Muslim community than UK. 5.7m. Nearly 9% of the population. He'll have to tread carefully. (Total global Jewish population is just 16m. Which is why Jews feel so vulnerable. )
Noting also the red weather alert for coastal areas between Dundee and Aberdeen. A red rain alert 32 hours in advance and 10 inches forecast is quite something.
The weather is moving up from Brittany now, trundles up the UK, out into the North Sea over Lothian then just drives onto the coast and Grampians.
No doubt the hills do see big rainfall numbers at times, this wouldn't be unheard of in Cumbria or Snowdonia, but a lot of the forecast focus of the rain here is at landfall and the easternmost upslopes.
Could be a bad one.
Worth remembering that, following the summer floods of 2007, the Met Office and CEH run a joint flood forecasting centre, which brings together meteorologists and hydrologists. So if they are using a red warning for rain and subsequent flooding impacts that will be based on an understanding of the current hydrological situation in the area, and how it's likely to react to the forecast rainfall.
Not a warning to take lightly.
Particularly not if you live in Ballater, which seems to take the brunt of flooding on the River Dee.
If this looks anything like Storm Frank (2015) it will be bad. Upper Deeside was cut off and it took a long time to repair the washed out roads.
If they dredged the rivers, it wouldn't happen nearly so often.
Slowing down the flow of water into rivers is the best way to prevent flooding. Along with not fecking up the climate, of course.
If the floor of the River rises consistently, it can hold less water. It's not rocket science.
No, its fluid dynamics which is considerably more complicated.
Except when you are dealing with the turbulent flow inside the rocket motor, of course.
Ah you see, fluid dynamics.
Modelling the boundries between turbulent and laminar flow in any system makes your head hurt. We have to do it for the drilling fluids in the well annulus or they won't carry the cuttings. Bloody horrible even when you have computers to help.
Even more fun with compressible fluids and supersonic shockwaves. Been there, done that...
Flood modelling is big business. A two man band Mrs Flatlander worked with 30 years ago on a project in Calderdale is now a 700 employee worldwide consultancy.
Following on from my last post, this is, in a sense, the same conflict playing out. The decline of the Ottoman Empire, and the various nationalities all fighting for power, and getting rid of the rival minority groups in their midst.
It was really quite telling that my guide book, on my recent holiday in Greek, went into a long rant about Turkish atrocities on the island (real enough) before remarking that the Turkish (actually, Cretan Muslim) population "left" the island between 1897 and 1923.
France looks like it is having a rougher time on Gaza than the UK. Target for lots of the arab world due to past colonial history and bubbling suburbs in the big cities.
This would be a really easy way to cripple a tourist industry. Keep making vaguely credible bomb threats, set off the odd actual bomb to make it all believable. Could any airport ignore a threat? I doubt it. So they could be continuously closed, causing utter chaos
Here is - no joke - virtually the only photo of the Armenian genocide in action (there is no gore)
It shows Armenians being marched out of a town - into the deserts where they were killed in their thousands: starved, drowned, pushed over cliffs. Dozens of children were tied together and thrown in rivers
It was an unspeakable crime yet we have about four photos and this is one
So we forget. We don’t even learn in the first place
Sadly, people never cared very much about the Armenians. European governments cared far more about Greeks or Bulgarians being massacred by Turks (not so much about Turks being massacred by Greeks and Bulgarians), because they were classically educated. It wasn't about the lack of photography.
Again. I disagree
Imagine if we had thousands of photos of THIS:
"At least 150,000 Armenians passed through Erzindjan from June 1915, where a series of transit camps were set up to control the flow of victims to the killing site at the nearby Kemah gorge.[172] Thousands of Armenians were killed near Lake Hazar, pushed by paramilitaries off the cliffs.[168] More than 500,000 Armenians passed through the Firincilar plain south of Malatya, one of the deadliest areas during the genocide. Arriving convoys, having passed through the plain to approach the Kahta highlands, would have found gorges already filled with corpses from previous convoys"
France looks like it is having a rougher time on Gaza than the UK. Target for lots of the arab world due to past colonial history and bubbling suburbs in the big cities.
France has a much larger Muslim community than UK. 5.7m. Nearly 9% of the population. He'll have to tread carefully. (Total global Jewish population is just 16m. Which is why Jews feel so vulnerable. )
France is struggling to integrate its migrant population. Laicite and Islam just dont mix.
France looks like it is having a rougher time on Gaza than the UK. Target for lots of the arab world due to past colonial history and bubbling suburbs in the big cities.
This would be a really easy way to cripple a tourist industry. Keep making vaguely credible bomb threats, set off the odd actual bomb to make it all believable. Could any airport ignore a threat? I doubt it. So they could be continuously closed, causing utter chaos
Surprised the extremist eco nutters haven't done it.
It *is* possible I guess that the brass in Labour and LDs are playing 4D chess and creating an argument for electoral pact come the GE. Emboldening Sunak isn’t a bad idea either, as the more he says, the less popular he becomes.
But Occam’s Razor. They probably just both thought they can win and will lose as a result.
Here is - no joke - virtually the only photo of the Armenian genocide in action (there is no gore)
It shows Armenians being marched out of a town - into the deserts where they were killed in their thousands: starved, drowned, pushed over cliffs. Dozens of children were tied together and thrown in rivers
It was an unspeakable crime yet we have about four photos and this is one
So we forget. We don’t even learn in the first place
Sadly, people never cared very much about the Armenians. European governments cared far more about Greeks or Bulgarians being massacred by Turks (not so much about Turks being massacred by Greeks and Bulgarians), because they were classically educated. It wasn't about the lack of photography.
Again. I disagree
Imagine if we had thousands of photos of THIS:
"At least 150,000 Armenians passed through Erzindjan from June 1915, where a series of transit camps were set up to control the flow of victims to the killing site at the nearby Kemah gorge.[172] Thousands of Armenians were killed near Lake Hazar, pushed by paramilitaries off the cliffs.[168] More than 500,000 Armenians passed through the Firincilar plain south of Malatya, one of the deadliest areas during the genocide. Arriving convoys, having passed through the plain to approach the Kahta highlands, would have found gorges already filled with corpses from previous convoys"
It would be seared in the collective consciousness. We do not have photos; it is not seared
And the lack of photos is no coincidence:
"The Ottoman Empire tried to prevent journalists and photographers from documenting the atrocities, threatening them with arrest"
How many people really cared about the Rwandan genocide, or ongoing massacres in Central Africa, despite the photographic evidence?
I can remember Richard Littlejohn at the time, writing an article along the lines of "If the MBongo tribe and the Mbango tribes want to wipe each other out, why should that bother me?"
France looks like it is having a rougher time on Gaza than the UK. Target for lots of the arab world due to past colonial history and bubbling suburbs in the big cities.
This would be a really easy way to cripple a tourist industry. Keep making vaguely credible bomb threats, set off the odd actual bomb to make it all believable. Could any airport ignore a threat? I doubt it. So they could be continuously closed, causing utter chaos
Yesterday it was Gare du Nord, Versailles and the Louvre. ( bomb threats )
Starmer going on the hospital and repeating the claim that several hundred have died.
He needs to throw some red meat to the activists who are very, very unhappy with the pro-Israel stance. They want Labour to support Hamas. Hopefully these people all leave the Labour party but clearly Keith doesn't have the cojones to stare them down.
See lockdown. He has a history of not waiting for the evidence.
France looks like it is having a rougher time on Gaza than the UK. Target for lots of the arab world due to past colonial history and bubbling suburbs in the big cities.
This would be a really easy way to cripple a tourist industry. Keep making vaguely credible bomb threats, set off the odd actual bomb to make it all believable. Could any airport ignore a threat? I doubt it. So they could be continuously closed, causing utter chaos
Yesterday it was Gare du Nord, Versailles and the Louvre. ( bomb threats )
Olympics should be a delight.
We've got the Rugby Semi-finals and final to negotiate first !!!!
Here is - no joke - virtually the only photo of the Armenian genocide in action (there is no gore)
It shows Armenians being marched out of a town - into the deserts where they were killed in their thousands: starved, drowned, pushed over cliffs. Dozens of children were tied together and thrown in rivers
It was an unspeakable crime yet we have about four photos and this is one
So we forget. We don’t even learn in the first place
Sadly, people never cared very much about the Armenians. European governments cared far more about Greeks or Bulgarians being massacred by Turks (not so much about Turks being massacred by Greeks and Bulgarians), because they were classically educated. It wasn't about the lack of photography.
Again. I disagree
Imagine if we had thousands of photos of THIS:
"At least 150,000 Armenians passed through Erzindjan from June 1915, where a series of transit camps were set up to control the flow of victims to the killing site at the nearby Kemah gorge.[172] Thousands of Armenians were killed near Lake Hazar, pushed by paramilitaries off the cliffs.[168] More than 500,000 Armenians passed through the Firincilar plain south of Malatya, one of the deadliest areas during the genocide. Arriving convoys, having passed through the plain to approach the Kahta highlands, would have found gorges already filled with corpses from previous convoys"
It would be seared in the collective consciousness. We do not have photos; it is not seared
And the lack of photos is no coincidence:
"The Ottoman Empire tried to prevent journalists and photographers from documenting the atrocities, threatening them with arrest"
Even now referring to the Armenian genocide can get you into trouble in Turkey. Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel-winning Turkish novelist, can vouch for that.
Even now the Turks are openly contemptuous of Armenians - as are the Georgians and the Azeris. It is perplexing
Only Mother Russia seems to care about them, and even Russia shrugged at Nagorno Karabakh
I dunno what the Armenians have done to engender such hatred, apart from be quite commercially successful (but nothing like the success of Jewish people)
France looks like it is having a rougher time on Gaza than the UK. Target for lots of the arab world due to past colonial history and bubbling suburbs in the big cities.
This would be a really easy way to cripple a tourist industry. Keep making vaguely credible bomb threats, set off the odd actual bomb to make it all believable. Could any airport ignore a threat? I doubt it. So they could be continuously closed, causing utter chaos
Yesterday it was Gare du Nord, Versailles and the Louvre. ( bomb threats )
Olympics should be a delight.
We've got the Rugby Semi-finals and final to negotiate first !!!!
with France out I suspect they wont care that much. They must be torn between cancelling the english semi final or wanting to see England regally stuffed.
If you look at the Daily Mail general coverage the defacto statement is Hamas a terrorist organisation, Hamas terrorists etc etc etc. They do from time to time mix it up with terms such as operatives, fighters etc, often within the same article. It called writing.
So they have no issue with making a claim that Hamas are terrorists.
The BBC on the other hand have tried to claim we don't use the term terrorism / terrorist, we don't judge etc, but they have and they do about other terrorist incidents, just not when it comes to Hamas, they only quote others.
By every definition of the word, what Hamas did to Israel was terrorism.
I don't know what the big deal is here. The BBC routinely say that Hamas are a designated 'terrorist organisation'.
What they don't do is colloquially call them 'terrorists' in the flow of their reporting. They call them Hamas, with that frequent rider, a designated terrorist organisation.
So you don't hear stuff like, "the Israelis are determined and well armed, but so are the terrorists".
Which imo we wouldn't want because it lacks gravitas.
Here is - no joke - virtually the only photo of the Armenian genocide in action (there is no gore)
It shows Armenians being marched out of a town - into the deserts where they were killed in their thousands: starved, drowned, pushed over cliffs. Dozens of children were tied together and thrown in rivers
It was an unspeakable crime yet we have about four photos and this is one
So we forget. We don’t even learn in the first place
Sadly, people never cared very much about the Armenians. European governments cared far more about Greeks or Bulgarians being massacred by Turks (not so much about Turks being massacred by Greeks and Bulgarians), because they were classically educated. It wasn't about the lack of photography.
Again. I disagree
Imagine if we had thousands of photos of THIS:
"At least 150,000 Armenians passed through Erzindjan from June 1915, where a series of transit camps were set up to control the flow of victims to the killing site at the nearby Kemah gorge.[172] Thousands of Armenians were killed near Lake Hazar, pushed by paramilitaries off the cliffs.[168] More than 500,000 Armenians passed through the Firincilar plain south of Malatya, one of the deadliest areas during the genocide. Arriving convoys, having passed through the plain to approach the Kahta highlands, would have found gorges already filled with corpses from previous convoys"
It would be seared in the collective consciousness. We do not have photos; it is not seared
And the lack of photos is no coincidence:
"The Ottoman Empire tried to prevent journalists and photographers from documenting the atrocities, threatening them with arrest"
How many people really cared about the Rwandan genocide, or ongoing massacres in Central Africa, despite the photographic evidence?
I can remember Richard Littlejohn at the time, writing an article along the lines of "If the MBongo tribe and the Mbango tribes want to wipe each other out, why should that bother me?"
A sentiment shared by Corbynistas (cf Myanmar, Yemen, Xinjiang, Ukraine et al). There are no Jews to blame, y’see.
Lay Tory! Yes, it’s possible to come through the middle in the face of a split opposition, but you need a dose of luck as well. The Tory vote has to hold up somewhat. The Lab and LD votes have to be balanced. I don’t see it being a 56% chance. (Do your own research. I’ve not put any of my own money on this.)
It *is* possible I guess that the brass in Labour and LDs are playing 4D chess and creating an argument for electoral pact come the GE. Emboldening Sunak isn’t a bad idea either, as the more he says, the less popular he becomes.
But Occam’s Razor. They probably just both thought they can win and will lose as a result.
In truth, Mid Bedfordshire isn't unlike Shropshire North and Tiverton & Honiton. In all three seats, the LDs were third in 2019 - in Shropshire North, they were 52% behind the Conservatives, in T&H they were 45% behind the Conservatives, in Mid Bedfordshire they start 47% behind the Conservatives.
Labour were further ahead of the LDs in Shropshire North but nobody said the LDs should "let" Labour have the seat. The LDs started five points behind Labour in T&H but nobody said they should give up and let Labour have the seat. Why do we hear this now in Mid Bedfordshire?
Here is - no joke - virtually the only photo of the Armenian genocide in action (there is no gore)
It shows Armenians being marched out of a town - into the deserts where they were killed in their thousands: starved, drowned, pushed over cliffs. Dozens of children were tied together and thrown in rivers
It was an unspeakable crime yet we have about four photos and this is one
So we forget. We don’t even learn in the first place
Sadly, people never cared very much about the Armenians. European governments cared far more about Greeks or Bulgarians being massacred by Turks (not so much about Turks being massacred by Greeks and Bulgarians), because they were classically educated. It wasn't about the lack of photography.
Again. I disagree
Imagine if we had thousands of photos of THIS:
"At least 150,000 Armenians passed through Erzindjan from June 1915, where a series of transit camps were set up to control the flow of victims to the killing site at the nearby Kemah gorge.[172] Thousands of Armenians were killed near Lake Hazar, pushed by paramilitaries off the cliffs.[168] More than 500,000 Armenians passed through the Firincilar plain south of Malatya, one of the deadliest areas during the genocide. Arriving convoys, having passed through the plain to approach the Kahta highlands, would have found gorges already filled with corpses from previous convoys"
It would be seared in the collective consciousness. We do not have photos; it is not seared
And the lack of photos is no coincidence:
"The Ottoman Empire tried to prevent journalists and photographers from documenting the atrocities, threatening them with arrest"
How many people really cared about the Rwandan genocide, or ongoing massacres in Central Africa, despite the photographic evidence?
I can remember Richard Littlejohn at the time, writing an article along the lines of "If the MBongo tribe and the Mbango tribes want to wipe each other out, why should that bother me?"
True, but that's more an artifice of racial and cultural distance
The Armenians look, sound and come across as southern Europeans, and Europeans with a grand, ancient, Christian civilisation at that. If we had images of the genocide we would care about it more, I am sure of it
I've been to the Genocide museum in Yerevan. Even they don't have images, there are none. You encounter a lot of documents, eye witness accounts, reportage, but you have to work at the task, to get the sense of scale and horror. You have to read, basically
A picture tells a thousand words...
On my way out I went to the eternal flame of the Armenian people: a striking large shrine on a mountaintop, which cradles a fire which burns perpetually in the memory of the Armenian dead. I saw a young pretty Armenian mother with two small boys tentatively approach the flame and then lay two little bouquets of flowers. Then they just stood there. Them and me, and the flame, and the ancient, haunting Armenian church music which echoes around the shrine, 24/7
Following on from my last post, this is, in a sense, the same conflict playing out. The decline of the Ottoman Empire, and the various nationalities all fighting for power, and getting rid of the rival minority groups in their midst.
It was really quite telling that my guide book, on my recent holiday in Greek, went into a long rant about Turkish atrocities on the island (real enough) before remarking that the Turkish (actually, Cretan Muslim) population "left" the island between 1897 and 1923.
If anyone says that the Falklands "belong" to Argentina because it is obvious from a map, show them a map of the Aegean and ask which islands are "obviously" Greek?
It *is* possible I guess that the brass in Labour and LDs are playing 4D chess and creating an argument for electoral pact come the GE. Emboldening Sunak isn’t a bad idea either, as the more he says, the less popular he becomes.
But Occam’s Razor. They probably just both thought they can win and will lose as a result.
In truth, Mid Bedfordshire isn't unlike Shropshire North and Tiverton & Honiton. In all three seats, the LDs were third in 2019 - in Shropshire North, they were 52% behind the Conservatives, in T&H they were 45% behind the Conservatives, in Mid Bedfordshire they start 47% behind the Conservatives.
Labour were further ahead of the LDs in Shropshire North but nobody said the LDs should "let" Labour have the seat. The LDs started five points behind Labour in T&H but nobody said they should give up and let Labour have the seat. Why do we hear this now in Mid Bedfordshire?
Would have made sense for Lab to focus on Tamworth.
There again, I have no idea what the relationship is between the two parties on the ground. In Stockport the animus between Lib and Lab is visceral.
Following on from my last post, this is, in a sense, the same conflict playing out. The decline of the Ottoman Empire, and the various nationalities all fighting for power, and getting rid of the rival minority groups in their midst.
It was really quite telling that my guide book, on my recent holiday in Greek, went into a long rant about Turkish atrocities on the island (real enough) before remarking that the Turkish (actually, Cretan Muslim) population "left" the island between 1897 and 1923.
If anyone says that the Falklands "belong" to Argentina because it is obvious from a map, show them a map of the Aegean and ask which islands are "obviously" Greek?
Well, Turkey is illegally occupying North Cyprus...
Here is - no joke - virtually the only photo of the Armenian genocide in action (there is no gore)
It shows Armenians being marched out of a town - into the deserts where they were killed in their thousands: starved, drowned, pushed over cliffs. Dozens of children were tied together and thrown in rivers
It was an unspeakable crime yet we have about four photos and this is one
So we forget. We don’t even learn in the first place
Sadly, people never cared very much about the Armenians. European governments cared far more about Greeks or Bulgarians being massacred by Turks (not so much about Turks being massacred by Greeks and Bulgarians), because they were classically educated. It wasn't about the lack of photography.
Again. I disagree
Imagine if we had thousands of photos of THIS:
"At least 150,000 Armenians passed through Erzindjan from June 1915, where a series of transit camps were set up to control the flow of victims to the killing site at the nearby Kemah gorge.[172] Thousands of Armenians were killed near Lake Hazar, pushed by paramilitaries off the cliffs.[168] More than 500,000 Armenians passed through the Firincilar plain south of Malatya, one of the deadliest areas during the genocide. Arriving convoys, having passed through the plain to approach the Kahta highlands, would have found gorges already filled with corpses from previous convoys"
It would be seared in the collective consciousness. We do not have photos; it is not seared
And the lack of photos is no coincidence:
"The Ottoman Empire tried to prevent journalists and photographers from documenting the atrocities, threatening them with arrest"
How many people really cared about the Rwandan genocide, or ongoing massacres in Central Africa, despite the photographic evidence?
I can remember Richard Littlejohn at the time, writing an article along the lines of "If the MBongo tribe and the Mbango tribes want to wipe each other out, why should that bother me?"
A sentiment shared by Corbynistas (cf Myanmar, Yemen, Xinjiang, Ukraine et al). There are no Jews to blame, y’see.
Around 3000 people died in earthquakes in Afghanistan in the last fortnight it hardly merits a mention.
The banter outcome (and therefore the most likely) is that Labour wins Mid Beds despite the LibDems targeting the seat, and Labour loses Tamworth despite the LibDems not targeting the seat.
Here is - no joke - virtually the only photo of the Armenian genocide in action (there is no gore)
It shows Armenians being marched out of a town - into the deserts where they were killed in their thousands: starved, drowned, pushed over cliffs. Dozens of children were tied together and thrown in rivers
It was an unspeakable crime yet we have about four photos and this is one
So we forget. We don’t even learn in the first place
Sadly, people never cared very much about the Armenians. European governments cared far more about Greeks or Bulgarians being massacred by Turks (not so much about Turks being massacred by Greeks and Bulgarians), because they were classically educated. It wasn't about the lack of photography.
Again. I disagree
Imagine if we had thousands of photos of THIS:
"At least 150,000 Armenians passed through Erzindjan from June 1915, where a series of transit camps were set up to control the flow of victims to the killing site at the nearby Kemah gorge.[172] Thousands of Armenians were killed near Lake Hazar, pushed by paramilitaries off the cliffs.[168] More than 500,000 Armenians passed through the Firincilar plain south of Malatya, one of the deadliest areas during the genocide. Arriving convoys, having passed through the plain to approach the Kahta highlands, would have found gorges already filled with corpses from previous convoys"
It would be seared in the collective consciousness. We do not have photos; it is not seared
And the lack of photos is no coincidence:
"The Ottoman Empire tried to prevent journalists and photographers from documenting the atrocities, threatening them with arrest"
How many people really cared about the Rwandan genocide, or ongoing massacres in Central Africa, despite the photographic evidence?
I can remember Richard Littlejohn at the time, writing an article along the lines of "If the MBongo tribe and the Mbango tribes want to wipe each other out, why should that bother me?"
True, but that's more an artifice of racial and cultural distance
The Armenians look, sound and come across as southern Europeans, and Europeans with a grand, ancient, Christian civilisation at that. If we had images of the genocide we would care about it more, I am sure of it
I've been to the Genocide museum in Yerevan. Even they don't have images, there are none. You encounter a lot of documents, eye witness accounts, reportage, but you have to work at the task, to get the sense of scale and horror. You have to read, basically
A picture tells a thousand words...
On my way out I went to the eternal flame of the Armenian people: a striking large shrine on a mountaintop, which cradles a fire which burns perpetually in the memory of the Armenian dead. I saw a young pretty Armenian mother with two small boys tentatively approach the flame and then lay two little bouquets of flowers. Then they just stood there. Them and me, and the flame, and the ancient, haunting Armenian church music which echoes around the shrine, 24/7
Unbearably moving; I had tears in my eyes
It is hugely sad, and I don't really know why some peoples' sufferings elicit widespread sympathy and other peoples' sufferings don't.
I have a sense that without the Holocaust, Jewish suffering (in pogroms, riots, expulsions etc.) would have been met with a shrug. Reading Savage Continent, by Keith Lowe, it's not even the case that the Holocaust was seen as such a big deal, in the immediate aftermath of WWII. The attitude of the Communists in the East, and Western allies in Germany was very much along the lines of "Yes, Jews suffered horribly at Nazi hands, but so did lots of people."
OT. If LibDems cost Labour the seat could have pretty negative consequences for Davey. A significant number of anti-Tory voters likely to reflexively vote Labour at the GE and not "risk" a LibDem vote even in seats where the LibDems are challengers. Not everyone is clued in sufficiently to realise where the value lies.
If LibDems don't win the seat, I hope the Tories win it rather than Labour.
It will make little difference to the current parliamentary arithmetic.
It will show Labour that barging the LibDems aside has consequences.
It will encourage more cooperation between Labour and LibDems on tactical voting.
It may encourage the Tories and reduce the number of Tory losses in the GE making a minority rather than majority Labour government more likely.
Here is - no joke - virtually the only photo of the Armenian genocide in action (there is no gore)
It shows Armenians being marched out of a town - into the deserts where they were killed in their thousands: starved, drowned, pushed over cliffs. Dozens of children were tied together and thrown in rivers
It was an unspeakable crime yet we have about four photos and this is one
So we forget. We don’t even learn in the first place
Sadly, people never cared very much about the Armenians. European governments cared far more about Greeks or Bulgarians being massacred by Turks (not so much about Turks being massacred by Greeks and Bulgarians), because they were classically educated. It wasn't about the lack of photography.
Again. I disagree
Imagine if we had thousands of photos of THIS:
"At least 150,000 Armenians passed through Erzindjan from June 1915, where a series of transit camps were set up to control the flow of victims to the killing site at the nearby Kemah gorge.[172] Thousands of Armenians were killed near Lake Hazar, pushed by paramilitaries off the cliffs.[168] More than 500,000 Armenians passed through the Firincilar plain south of Malatya, one of the deadliest areas during the genocide. Arriving convoys, having passed through the plain to approach the Kahta highlands, would have found gorges already filled with corpses from previous convoys"
It would be seared in the collective consciousness. We do not have photos; it is not seared
And the lack of photos is no coincidence:
"The Ottoman Empire tried to prevent journalists and photographers from documenting the atrocities, threatening them with arrest"
How many people really cared about the Rwandan genocide, or ongoing massacres in Central Africa, despite the photographic evidence?
I can remember Richard Littlejohn at the time, writing an article along the lines of "If the MBongo tribe and the Mbango tribes want to wipe each other out, why should that bother me?"
A sentiment shared by Corbynistas (cf Myanmar, Yemen, Xinjiang, Ukraine et al). There are no Jews to blame, y’see.
Around 3000 people died in earthquakes in Afghanistan in the last fortnight it hardly merits a mention.
People move on quickly. I went to Morocco a week after the recent earthquake there, and it was very much business as normal for the vast majority of people.
Here is - no joke - virtually the only photo of the Armenian genocide in action (there is no gore)
It shows Armenians being marched out of a town - into the deserts where they were killed in their thousands: starved, drowned, pushed over cliffs. Dozens of children were tied together and thrown in rivers
It was an unspeakable crime yet we have about four photos and this is one
So we forget. We don’t even learn in the first place
Sadly, people never cared very much about the Armenians. European governments cared far more about Greeks or Bulgarians being massacred by Turks (not so much about Turks being massacred by Greeks and Bulgarians), because they were classically educated. It wasn't about the lack of photography.
Again. I disagree
Imagine if we had thousands of photos of THIS:
"At least 150,000 Armenians passed through Erzindjan from June 1915, where a series of transit camps were set up to control the flow of victims to the killing site at the nearby Kemah gorge.[172] Thousands of Armenians were killed near Lake Hazar, pushed by paramilitaries off the cliffs.[168] More than 500,000 Armenians passed through the Firincilar plain south of Malatya, one of the deadliest areas during the genocide. Arriving convoys, having passed through the plain to approach the Kahta highlands, would have found gorges already filled with corpses from previous convoys"
It would be seared in the collective consciousness. We do not have photos; it is not seared
And the lack of photos is no coincidence:
"The Ottoman Empire tried to prevent journalists and photographers from documenting the atrocities, threatening them with arrest"
How many people really cared about the Rwandan genocide, or ongoing massacres in Central Africa, despite the photographic evidence?
I can remember Richard Littlejohn at the time, writing an article along the lines of "If the MBongo tribe and the Mbango tribes want to wipe each other out, why should that bother me?"
True, but that's more an artifice of racial and cultural distance
The Armenians look, sound and come across as southern Europeans, and Europeans with a grand, ancient, Christian civilisation at that. If we had images of the genocide we would care about it more, I am sure of it
I've been to the Genocide museum in Yerevan. Even they don't have images, there are none. You encounter a lot of documents, eye witness accounts, reportage, but you have to work at the task, to get the sense of scale and horror. You have to read, basically
A picture tells a thousand words...
On my way out I went to the eternal flame of the Armenian people: a striking large shrine on a mountaintop, which cradles a fire which burns perpetually in the memory of the Armenian dead. I saw a young pretty Armenian mother with two small boys tentatively approach the flame and then lay two little bouquets of flowers. Then they just stood there. Them and me, and the flame, and the ancient, haunting Armenian church music which echoes around the shrine, 24/7
Unbearably moving; I had tears in my eyes
It is hugely sad, and I don't really know why some peoples' sufferings elicit widespread sympathy and other peoples' sufferings don't.
I have a sense that without the Holocaust, Jewish suffering (in pogroms, riots, expulsions etc.) would have been met with a shrug. Reading Savage Continent, by Keith Lowe, it's not even the case that the Holocaust was seen as such a big deal, in the immediate aftermath of WWII. The attitude of the Communists in the East, and Western allies in Germany was very much along the lines of "Yes, Jews suffered horribly at Nazi hands, but so did lots of people."
Yes, I agree on that. For centuries everyone DID shrug at anti-Semitism, even - as we have discussed - civilised western Europeans of great intellect, from TS Eliot down. Jew hatred was acceptable, and pogroms were unfortunate but oh well weird stuff happens
It took the monumental, earth shaking horror of the Holocaust to change this, and it took a couple of decades after 1945 for it to really sink in
Dan Hodges is spot on. It is very quiet on this topic this morning.
We have never seen a more graphic example of the double standards applied to Israel than the wave of condemnation that erupted when people thought the IDF were responsible for the hospital attack, followed by the silence accompanying the realisation it was Hamas or their proxies. https://x.com/DPJHodges/status/1714578145532125638?s=20
As someone who was prepared to condemn Israel if the strike was from them, I’d say this is absolutely right.
If indeed the rockets came from the Palestinian side it only reinforces that the organisations purporting to fight for Palestinian freedom by firing rockets…at a Palestinian hospital need to be destroyed.
Following on from my last post, this is, in a sense, the same conflict playing out. The decline of the Ottoman Empire, and the various nationalities all fighting for power, and getting rid of the rival minority groups in their midst.
It was really quite telling that my guide book, on my recent holiday in Greek, went into a long rant about Turkish atrocities on the island (real enough) before remarking that the Turkish (actually, Cretan Muslim) population "left" the island between 1897 and 1923.
If anyone says that the Falklands "belong" to Argentina because it is obvious from a map, show them a map of the Aegean and ask which islands are "obviously" Greek?
Comments
*I have travelled nowhere near enough to know whether this is true, but it seems feasible.
It's been woefully mismanaged.
By the way, when submitting numbers to HMRC make sure none of them divide by 52. They are bound to assume the worst.
We live in age of citizen camera persons - a huge number of people walking round with video camera in their pocket, with broadcast capability included.
Good news it reports. States push ahead anyway
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/16/australian-states-to-push-ahead-with-voice-and-treaty-processes-in-absence-of-federal-body?mibextid=Zxz2cZ
Also an indigenuous rapper, I am sure Rap is a part of Indigenuous Australian culture, has chipped in with a message for people who were wrong.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12638309/The-Voice-rapper-Briggss-message.html
Some years ago I went on a course run by a Christian relief organisation in the West Bank. I didn't go to Gaza but did go to Hebron, Ramallah and a few other places. Though the organisation was Christian funded the staff were local and many were Muslims. I suspect that in this hospital nearly all staff would be Muslims, and virtually all the patients.
Christian Palestinians are around 2% of the population of the Palestinian West Bank and Israel, but very few in Gaza.
All I saw was that one vivid video “from inside the hospital”. It was brutal and authentic looking but I now strongly suspect it was ripped from a completely different war. Syria seems to be the go-to source for horrific images
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford's_law
TLDR: Real life numerical data doesn't have an even distribution of the most significant digit.
BREAKING:
Palestinian media publish a picture of what they claim to be the crater caused by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1714598373230088346?s=20c
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1714598373230088346?s=20
Looks more like my neighbours driveway, which they are currently digging it up to replace some bricks.
BBC reporter: "The Israeli military.. have said they are investigating, but its hard to see what else this could be, really, given the size of the explosion, other than an Israeli air strike, or several air strikes"
No doubt you'd be digging a straight course all the way to the sea, too.
I doubt very much if dredging will make any difference at all on the Dee. Slowing the flow higher up will do far more to help.
https://kyivindependent.com/media-sbu-drones-attack-russian-military-camp-near-kursk/
The more that they can target Russian forces in places like this, well behind the front lines, the fewer casualties they will incur to break through those front lines.
I think there's a real possibility of Ukraine's domestic drone industry continuing to develop and grow to the extent that the Russians are defeated in Ukraine mostly by Ukrainian drones in the end.
One of the reasons the Holocaust is so vivid in our minds and so utterly uncontested (apart from a few total nutters) is because there is ample horrific visual evidence. Photos in the thousands. Photos of ghettoes and pogroms, photos of Auschwitz and Belsen. Photos of piled bodies and gas chambers
Contrast that with the Armenian genocide. There we have almost zero photographic evidence, even tho maybe 2 million died. It was just before the era of mass camera ownership and the Turks did a great job of keeping it all quiet
Go look for photos of this appalling crime and you’ll be amazed at the paucity. A handful
And that is one reason it is almost forgotten
It shows Armenians being marched out of a town - into the deserts where they were killed in their thousands: starved, drowned, pushed over cliffs. Dozens of children were tied together and thrown in rivers
It was an unspeakable crime yet we have about four photos and this is one
So we forget. We don’t even learn in the first place
Inch Marshes saved a big chunk of Moray in the last few weeks.
https://twitter.com/PrivateEyeNews/status/1714545102977421797
(See also, fracking, and Liz Truss.)
Modelling the boundries between turbulent and laminar flow in any system makes your head hurt. We have to do it for the drilling fluids in the well annulus or they won't carry the cuttings. Bloody horrible even when you have computers to help.
Macron will no doubt stamp on all discontent.
https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/en-direct-guerre-israel-hamas-des-centaines-de-morts-dans-un-hopital-de-gaza-israel-et-palestiniens-se-rejettent-la-responsabilite-20231018
Mobile phones are often regarded as a vital necessity in many poor places. Huge efforts put into solar panel chargers etc. Especially in war zones.
Two things that have come out of listening to how people make do in Ukraine is - 1) some kind of ultra low power LED lighting system, 2) phone charging/power from solar. See also thermoelectric systems..
https://twitter.com/judecambridge/status/1714586246746390594
Imagine if we had thousands of photos of THIS:
"At least 150,000 Armenians passed through Erzindjan from June 1915, where a series of transit camps were set up to control the flow of victims to the killing site at the nearby Kemah gorge.[172] Thousands of Armenians were killed near Lake Hazar, pushed by paramilitaries off the cliffs.[168] More than 500,000 Armenians passed through the Firincilar plain south of Malatya, one of the deadliest areas during the genocide. Arriving convoys, having passed through the plain to approach the Kahta highlands, would have found gorges already filled with corpses from previous convoys"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_genocide
It would be seared in the collective consciousness. We do not have photos; it is not seared
And the lack of photos is no coincidence:
"The Ottoman Empire tried to prevent journalists and photographers from documenting the atrocities, threatening them with arrest"
If you look at the Daily Mail general coverage the defacto statement is Hamas a terrorist organisation, Hamas terrorists etc etc etc. They do from time to time mix it up with terms such as operatives, fighters etc, often within the same article. It called writing.
e.g. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12643229/Israel-blast-Gaza-hospital-Palestine-video-rocket-misfire.html
"Hamas operatives"..."Hamas terrorists"
So they have no issue with making a claim that Hamas are terrorists.
The BBC on the other hand have tried to claim we don't use the term terrorism / terrorist, we don't judge etc, but they have and they do about other terrorist incidents, just not when it comes to Hamas, they only quote others.
By every definition of the word, what Hamas did to Israel was terrorism.
Flood modelling is big business. A two man band Mrs Flatlander worked with 30 years ago on a project in Calderdale is now a 700 employee worldwide consultancy.
It was really quite telling that my guide book, on my recent holiday in Greek, went into a long rant about Turkish atrocities on the island (real enough) before remarking that the Turkish (actually, Cretan Muslim) population "left" the island between 1897 and 1923.
https://x.com/FRANCE24/status/1714605036020318543?s=20
This would be a really easy way to cripple a tourist industry. Keep making vaguely credible bomb threats, set off the odd actual bomb to make it all believable. Could any airport ignore a threat? I doubt it. So they could be continuously closed, causing utter chaos
It *is* possible I guess that the brass in Labour and LDs are playing 4D chess and creating an argument for electoral pact come the GE. Emboldening Sunak isn’t a bad idea either, as the more he says, the less popular he becomes.
But Occam’s Razor. They probably just both thought they can win and will lose as a result.
I can remember Richard Littlejohn at the time, writing an article along the lines of "If the MBongo tribe and the Mbango tribes want to wipe each other out, why should that bother me?"
Olympics should be a delight.
Only Mother Russia seems to care about them, and even Russia shrugged at Nagorno Karabakh
I dunno what the Armenians have done to engender such hatred, apart from be quite commercially successful (but nothing like the success of Jewish people)
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1714606810013811170?s=20
What they don't do is colloquially call them 'terrorists' in the flow of their reporting. They call them Hamas, with that frequent rider, a designated terrorist organisation.
So you don't hear stuff like, "the Israelis are determined and well armed, but so are the terrorists".
Which imo we wouldn't want because it lacks gravitas.
Labour were further ahead of the LDs in Shropshire North but nobody said the LDs should "let" Labour have the seat. The LDs started five points behind Labour in T&H but nobody said they should give up and let Labour have the seat. Why do we hear this now in Mid Bedfordshire?
The Armenians look, sound and come across as southern Europeans, and Europeans with a grand, ancient, Christian civilisation at that. If we had images of the genocide we would care about it more, I am sure of it
I've been to the Genocide museum in Yerevan. Even they don't have images, there are none. You encounter a lot of documents, eye witness accounts, reportage, but you have to work at the task, to get the sense of scale and horror. You have to read, basically
A picture tells a thousand words...
On my way out I went to the eternal flame of the Armenian people: a striking large shrine on a mountaintop, which cradles a fire which burns perpetually in the memory of the Armenian dead. I saw a young pretty Armenian mother with two small boys tentatively approach the flame and then lay two little bouquets of flowers. Then they just stood there. Them and me, and the flame, and the ancient, haunting Armenian church music which echoes around the shrine, 24/7
Unbearably moving; I had tears in my eyes
There again, I have no idea what the relationship is between the two parties on the ground. In Stockport the animus between Lib and Lab is visceral.
I have a sense that without the Holocaust, Jewish suffering (in pogroms, riots, expulsions etc.) would have been met with a shrug. Reading Savage Continent, by Keith Lowe, it's not even the case that the Holocaust was seen as such a big deal, in the immediate aftermath of WWII. The attitude of the Communists in the East, and Western allies in Germany was very much along the lines of "Yes, Jews suffered horribly at Nazi hands, but so did lots of people."
One of them is fake..
Listened to Robert Fox on LBC a few minutes ago. Says stuff can't be checked without independent verification - which we won't get.
It will make little difference to the current parliamentary arithmetic.
It will show Labour that barging the LibDems aside has consequences.
It will encourage more cooperation between Labour and LibDems on tactical voting.
It may encourage the Tories and reduce the number of Tory losses in the GE making a minority rather than majority Labour government more likely.
It took the monumental, earth shaking horror of the Holocaust to change this, and it took a couple of decades after 1945 for it to really sink in
If indeed the rockets came from the Palestinian side it only reinforces that the
organisations purporting to fight for Palestinian freedom by firing rockets…at a Palestinian hospital need to be destroyed.