I understand the point that @148grss is making - people have been shot and killed on both sides and many of those killings are at least questionable of not completely wrong.
So lets take the way the IDF have dealt with kids. We've all seen the edited videos. Child throwing stones gets shot and killed. And certainly some of those killings will be outrageous. But others hide the barrage that the IDF patrol had come under.
The whole point in the media is that it is mediated. I can take a real undoctored clip and make it about something completely different by clipping it. So yes, some of the IDF actions have been crimes. Many others are portrayed as crimes when if they were looked at dispassionately with all the evidence they clearly wouldn't be.
But what about these Hamas films. How do you clip them to put them into a different context? Especially the ones that Hamas have released to show their ISIS-style butchery. There is no justification for these killings. None. A shooting at a birder fence in a skirmish is not a moral equivalent justification for storming into a Kibbutz to murder and behead and rape and burn.
But others hide the barrage that the IDF patrol had come under.
Kids do stupid shit, and throw stones at cops and soldiers. Is that really an acceptable reason to shoot them?
I do not think it is in any way excusable for anyone to shoot a child - hiding under a table, or walking up to a border fence and demanding freedom. And yet Israeli soldiers are given the benefit of the doubt, despite the data being that Israel kills lots of civilians including children all the time, whereas one instance of Hamas - an extremist terrorist organisation - doing something heinous is considered to be representative of all Palestinians.
Depends. I have seen a variety of clips of these incidents. Some make the IDF look like monsters. Others show the aftermath of a shooting but miss the bit before it. Should you shoot a small child throwing a stone? No? But how about when the large youth who gets shot is in the middle of a mob who are armed with far worse than stones?
Nobody is saying that "all Palestinians" are like Hamas. Nobody.
I understand the point that @148grss is making - people have been shot and killed on both sides and many of those killings are at least questionable of not completely wrong.
So lets take the way the IDF have dealt with kids. We've all seen the edited videos. Child throwing stones gets shot and killed. And certainly some of those killings will be outrageous. But others hide the barrage that the IDF patrol had come under.
The whole point in the media is that it is mediated. I can take a real undoctored clip and make it about something completely different by clipping it. So yes, some of the IDF actions have been crimes. Many others are portrayed as crimes when if they were looked at dispassionately with all the evidence they clearly wouldn't be.
But what about these Hamas films. How do you clip them to put them into a different context? Especially the ones that Hamas have released to show their ISIS-style butchery. There is no justification for these killings. None. A shooting at a birder fence in a skirmish is not a moral equivalent justification for storming into a Kibbutz to murder and behead and rape and burn.
Your point about the films is well made. But I think you are wrong about the response to stone throwing. If British troops in Northern Ireland had opened fire on kids ((or adults) throwing stones at them then they would rightly have been accused of murder. Indeed we have prosecuted soldiers over the years for firing on civilians without what the authorities regarded as due cause.
I understand the point that @148grss is making - people have been shot and killed on both sides and many of those killings are at least questionable of not completely wrong.
So lets take the way the IDF have dealt with kids. We've all seen the edited videos. Child throwing stones gets shot and killed. And certainly some of those killings will be outrageous. But others hide the barrage that the IDF patrol had come under.
The whole point in the media is that it is mediated. I can take a real undoctored clip and make it about something completely different by clipping it. So yes, some of the IDF actions have been crimes. Many others are portrayed as crimes when if they were looked at dispassionately with all the evidence they clearly wouldn't be.
But what about these Hamas films. How do you clip them to put them into a different context? Especially the ones that Hamas have released to show their ISIS-style butchery. There is no justification for these killings. None. A shooting at a birder fence in a skirmish is not a moral equivalent justification for storming into a Kibbutz to murder and behead and rape and burn.
But others hide the barrage that the IDF patrol had come under.
Kids do stupid shit, and throw stones at cops and soldiers. Is that really an acceptable reason to shoot them?
That is an answer to a different point from the one which has been made.
The point being made is that in a Pallywood Production you may see an IDF soldier shooting, and a child dying, but if you were able to zoom out you may see adult Palestinian gunmen behind the children using them as human shields.
I understand the point that @148grss is making - people have been shot and killed on both sides and many of those killings are at least questionable of not completely wrong.
So lets take the way the IDF have dealt with kids. We've all seen the edited videos. Child throwing stones gets shot and killed. And certainly some of those killings will be outrageous. But others hide the barrage that the IDF patrol had come under.
The whole point in the media is that it is mediated. I can take a real undoctored clip and make it about something completely different by clipping it. So yes, some of the IDF actions have been crimes. Many others are portrayed as crimes when if they were looked at dispassionately with all the evidence they clearly wouldn't be.
But what about these Hamas films. How do you clip them to put them into a different context? Especially the ones that Hamas have released to show their ISIS-style butchery. There is no justification for these killings. None. A shooting at a birder fence in a skirmish is not a moral equivalent justification for storming into a Kibbutz to murder and behead and rape and burn.
But others hide the barrage that the IDF patrol had come under.
Kids do stupid shit, and throw stones at cops and soldiers. Is that really an acceptable reason to shoot them?
I do not think it is in any way excusable for anyone to shoot a child - hiding under a table, or walking up to a border fence and demanding freedom. And yet Israeli soldiers are given the benefit of the doubt, despite the data being that Israel kills lots of civilians including children all the time, whereas one instance of Hamas - an extremist terrorist organisation - doing something heinous is considered to be representative of all Palestinians.
If you cannot see a difference between a child cowering under a table and one throwing something at armed soldiers, then you're a very odd fellow.
I also note that you attribute reasons for actions "... and demanding freedom" that you cannot possible know. It might be that the child is doing it because, as you say, he "demands freedom". But it may also be that he is forced to; or just because the hideous stain of anti-Semitism has infected them too, and they're doing it because they hate? But you know best, evidently.
(There's also another issue here: the definition of 'child' in both cases. We tend to think of anyone under 16, and often 18, as being a child. Historically, and in some parts of the world, that's not the case. We sadly have 14 year olds stabbing other kids in this country, including one last week; and child soldiers are sadly common at some times. I would not be surprised if some of the Hamas shits who invaded Israel were under 18, and possibly 16. These things are complex...)
What bottomless level of depravity, inhumanity and hatred must you inhabit, to casually chat with a friend then shoot a 7 year old girl hiding under a table?
I’ve read about this stuff with the Nazis in the Holocaust. The absolute chilled-out relaxation with which they murdered children
This tells me that the constant indoctrination of gazan kids into jew-hatred has gone so far it cannot be redeemed
The only plausible outcome from this is an all out war between Israel and its enemies, and who knows how that ends up for the rest of us?
When this is a Hamas soldier killing a child it is a sign of specific and almost unique hatred; when IDF soldiers or Israeli missile strikes kill even more children it is just the casualties of war?
Without going into whether Israel takes sufficient steps to guard against civilian casualties, where I have a degree of sympathy with your position, there is a very clear moral and legal difference between choosing civilian targets (including children) and choosing military targets in a built-up area where civilians may be killed (sometimes because your enemy cynically uses "their" civilians as a shield).
I do appreciate that distinction doesn't come as any comfort to the families of civilians killed by strikes. But it is nevertheless a really important distinction that has been applied not just to this but to all wars.
If hamas didn't build it's bases it residential districts, hospitals and schools then the death toll of civillians that are innocent would be much less. No one like 148grss will ever explain how the idf are meant to deal with hamas when they hide behind civillian targets without causing collateral damage.
This is not to say israel isn't at fault through their actions either. Frankly I take the view that mostly they are both beyond redemption and have ceased to care about either side. Build a wall around the whole area and come back in a 100 years and see who is left
They deal with it as I said last week (when you apparently weren't listening) by sending in ground troops. They do not deal with it by sitting back in Israel lobbing missles and bombs into Gaza.
Thanks General Tyndall. Noted. Israel believes it is at war. In such circumstances they are unlikely to listen to an archaeologist from Lincs shouting the odds about what their strategy should be. Much like ISAF was oblivious to the no doubt sincere entreaties from Arab nations over their conduct of the war in Afghan.
Don't be a fuckwit all your life Topping. Try having a day off for once.
Pagan asked what else Israel could do instead of bombing civilians. I made a suggestion. I don't expect you or any of the other warmongers on here to agree wth it because frankly you have shown you don't give a flying fuck about civilian casualties as long as they are Arabs.
Some of us do and so are looking for ways they could be reduced.
And to think he’d make this the topic of conversation in real life with someone he otherwise liked!
The point being that I wouldn't like Topping in real life either. I am not a fan of people who support killing civilians just because they are on the wrong side.
I understand the point that @148grss is making - people have been shot and killed on both sides and many of those killings are at least questionable of not completely wrong.
So lets take the way the IDF have dealt with kids. We've all seen the edited videos. Child throwing stones gets shot and killed. And certainly some of those killings will be outrageous. But others hide the barrage that the IDF patrol had come under.
The whole point in the media is that it is mediated. I can take a real undoctored clip and make it about something completely different by clipping it. So yes, some of the IDF actions have been crimes. Many others are portrayed as crimes when if they were looked at dispassionately with all the evidence they clearly wouldn't be.
But what about these Hamas films. How do you clip them to put them into a different context? Especially the ones that Hamas have released to show their ISIS-style butchery. There is no justification for these killings. None. A shooting at a birder fence in a skirmish is not a moral equivalent justification for storming into a Kibbutz to murder and behead and rape and burn.
Your point about the films is well made. But I think you are wrong about the response to stone throwing. If British troops in Northern Ireland had opened fire on kids ((or adults) throwing stones at them then they would rightly have been accused of murder. Indeed we have prosecuted soldiers over the years for firing on civilians without what the authorities regarded as due cause.
Sure! But they're not firing at civilians - or children. They're firing at the armed militia behind the children. The ones that you see in the unedited footage. I am not denying that some of these shootings are dodgy - but the idea that the IDF routinely walk along the wall trying to murder random children is grotesque.
“Here Lads, we’ve got a fellow here who won the London Mayoralty twice as a Conservative, bested a majority winning PM to win a national referendum, then achieved the biggest Tory landslide in a generation. Bit of a bounder, loads of kids with different women, but did manage to charm Marina Wheeler KC to take him back half a dozen times after having affairs. Now with a girl half his age”
“No, he’ll never be able to win over slightly dissatisfied voters, or recover a six point mid term deficit in the polls when there’s a million bad stories in the press about him, best call for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak”
What bottomless level of depravity, inhumanity and hatred must you inhabit, to casually chat with a friend then shoot a 7 year old girl hiding under a table?
I’ve read about this stuff with the Nazis in the Holocaust. The absolute chilled-out relaxation with which they murdered children
This tells me that the constant indoctrination of gazan kids into jew-hatred has gone so far it cannot be redeemed
The only plausible outcome from this is an all out war between Israel and its enemies, and who knows how that ends up for the rest of us?
When this is a Hamas soldier killing a child it is a sign of specific and almost unique hatred; when IDF soldiers or Israeli missile strikes kill even more children it is just the casualties of war?
Without going into whether Israel takes sufficient steps to guard against civilian casualties, where I have a degree of sympathy with your position, there is a very clear moral and legal difference between choosing civilian targets (including children) and choosing military targets in a built-up area where civilians may be killed (sometimes because your enemy cynically uses "their" civilians as a shield).
I do appreciate that distinction doesn't come as any comfort to the families of civilians killed by strikes. But it is nevertheless a really important distinction that has been applied not just to this but to all wars.
If hamas didn't build it's bases it residential districts, hospitals and schools then the death toll of civillians that are innocent would be much less. No one like 148grss will ever explain how the idf are meant to deal with hamas when they hide behind civillian targets without causing collateral damage.
This is not to say israel isn't at fault through their actions either. Frankly I take the view that mostly they are both beyond redemption and have ceased to care about either side. Build a wall around the whole area and come back in a 100 years and see who is left
They deal with it as I said last week (when you apparently weren't listening) by sending in ground troops. They do not deal with it by sitting back in Israel lobbing missles and bombs into Gaza.
Thanks General Tyndall. Noted. Israel believes it is at war. In such circumstances they are unlikely to listen to an archaeologist from Lincs shouting the odds about what their strategy should be. Much like ISAF was oblivious to the no doubt sincere entreaties from Arab nations over their conduct of the war in Afghan.
Don't be a fuckwit all your life Topping. Try having a day off for once.
Pagan asked what else Israel could do instead of bombing civilians. I made a suggestion. I don't expect you or any of the other warmongers on here to agree wth it because frankly you have shown you don't give a flying fuck about civilian casualties as long as they are Arabs.
Some of us do and so are looking for ways they could be reduced.
I care about all civilian casualties whether they are in Gaza, Israel, Fallujah or Dresden.
But war is war and we (ie you) must accept that there is little point saying "oh why don't they try this or that" when it is the entity fighting the war and not you.
But to give us an idea of where your thinking is at, perhaps you could let us know an acceptable range of casualties on each side so we can gauge when they overstep the mark.
What bottomless level of depravity, inhumanity and hatred must you inhabit, to casually chat with a friend then shoot a 7 year old girl hiding under a table?
I’ve read about this stuff with the Nazis in the Holocaust. The absolute chilled-out relaxation with which they murdered children
This tells me that the constant indoctrination of gazan kids into jew-hatred has gone so far it cannot be redeemed
The only plausible outcome from this is an all out war between Israel and its enemies, and who knows how that ends up for the rest of us?
When this is a Hamas soldier killing a child it is a sign of specific and almost unique hatred; when IDF soldiers or Israeli missile strikes kill even more children it is just the casualties of war?
Without going into whether Israel takes sufficient steps to guard against civilian casualties, where I have a degree of sympathy with your position, there is a very clear moral and legal difference between choosing civilian targets (including children) and choosing military targets in a built-up area where civilians may be killed (sometimes because your enemy cynically uses "their" civilians as a shield).
I do appreciate that distinction doesn't come as any comfort to the families of civilians killed by strikes. But it is nevertheless a really important distinction that has been applied not just to this but to all wars.
If hamas didn't build it's bases it residential districts, hospitals and schools then the death toll of civillians that are innocent would be much less. No one like 148grss will ever explain how the idf are meant to deal with hamas when they hide behind civillian targets without causing collateral damage.
This is not to say israel isn't at fault through their actions either. Frankly I take the view that mostly they are both beyond redemption and have ceased to care about either side. Build a wall around the whole area and come back in a 100 years and see who is left
They deal with it as I said last week (when you apparently weren't listening) by sending in ground troops. They do not deal with it by sitting back in Israel lobbing missles and bombs into Gaza.
Thanks General Tyndall. Noted. Israel believes it is at war. In such circumstances they are unlikely to listen to an archaeologist from Lincs shouting the odds about what their strategy should be. Much like ISAF was oblivious to the no doubt sincere entreaties from Arab nations over their conduct of the war in Afghan.
Don't be a fuckwit all your life Topping. Try having a day off for once.
Pagan asked what else Israel could do instead of bombing civilians. I made a suggestion. I don't expect you or any of the other warmongers on here to agree wth it because frankly you have shown you don't give a flying fuck about civilian casualties as long as they are Arabs.
Some of us do and so are looking for ways they could be reduced.
And to think he’d make this the topic of conversation in real life with someone he otherwise liked!
The point being that I wouldn't like Topping in real life either. I am not a fan of people who support killing civilians just because they are on the wrong side.
When did Topping ever endorse deliberately killing civilians?
Civilians getting caught in the crossfire during war is entirely different to deliberately killing them.
The UK was well within its rights to bombard before sending troops in - and we did. Same with the USA, same with Israel.
Try to minimise civilian casualties, but there will always be some in any modern war, especially when the enemy uses its own civilians as human shields in violation of the Geneva Convention.
“Here Lads, we’ve got a fellow here who won the London Mayoralty twice as a Conservative, bested a majority winning PM to win a national referendum, then achieved the biggest Tory landslide in a generation. Bit of a bounder, loads of kids with different women, but did manage to charm Marina Wheeler KC to take him back half a dozen times after having affairs. Now with a girl half his age”
“No, he’ll never be able to win over slightly dissatisfied voters, or recover a six point mid term deficit in the polls when there’s a million bad stories in the press about him, best call for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak”
He fecked himself with that Nat Insurance raise. He could’ve ridden out the rest I reckon. If need be he could have called a snap election on the issue of partygate but I doubt he’d have needed to.
I understand the point that @148grss is making - people have been shot and killed on both sides and many of those killings are at least questionable of not completely wrong.
So lets take the way the IDF have dealt with kids. We've all seen the edited videos. Child throwing stones gets shot and killed. And certainly some of those killings will be outrageous. But others hide the barrage that the IDF patrol had come under.
The whole point in the media is that it is mediated. I can take a real undoctored clip and make it about something completely different by clipping it. So yes, some of the IDF actions have been crimes. Many others are portrayed as crimes when if they were looked at dispassionately with all the evidence they clearly wouldn't be.
But what about these Hamas films. How do you clip them to put them into a different context? Especially the ones that Hamas have released to show their ISIS-style butchery. There is no justification for these killings. None. A shooting at a birder fence in a skirmish is not a moral equivalent justification for storming into a Kibbutz to murder and behead and rape and burn.
But others hide the barrage that the IDF patrol had come under.
Kids do stupid shit, and throw stones at cops and soldiers. Is that really an acceptable reason to shoot them?
That is an answer to a different point from the one which has been made.
The point being made is that in a Pallywood Production you may see an IDF soldier shooting, and a child dying, but if you were able to zoom out you may see adult Palestinian gunmen behind the children using them as human shields.
Sounds like a Para justifying "Bloody Sunday".
The problem with the analogous argument as a justification of Bloody Sunday is mainly that it does not fit the available facts, rather than that it would fail as a justification - the civilians were not in any meaningful way being used as human shields by nationalist paramilitaries.
“Here Lads, we’ve got a fellow here who won the London Mayoralty twice as a Conservative, bested a majority winning PM to win a national referendum, then achieved the biggest Tory landslide in a generation. Bit of a bounder, loads of kids with different women, but did manage to charm Marina Wheeler KC to take him back half a dozen times after having affairs. Now with a girl half his age”
“No, he’ll never be able to win over slightly dissatisfied voters, or recover a six point mid term deficit in the polls when there’s a million bad stories in the press about him, best call for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak”
OTOH, there have been no Tory poll leads since December 6th 2021, *while Boris was in charge*.
What bottomless level of depravity, inhumanity and hatred must you inhabit, to casually chat with a friend then shoot a 7 year old girl hiding under a table?
I’ve read about this stuff with the Nazis in the Holocaust. The absolute chilled-out relaxation with which they murdered children
This tells me that the constant indoctrination of gazan kids into jew-hatred has gone so far it cannot be redeemed
The only plausible outcome from this is an all out war between Israel and its enemies, and who knows how that ends up for the rest of us?
When this is a Hamas soldier killing a child it is a sign of specific and almost unique hatred; when IDF soldiers or Israeli missile strikes kill even more children it is just the casualties of war?
Without going into whether Israel takes sufficient steps to guard against civilian casualties, where I have a degree of sympathy with your position, there is a very clear moral and legal difference between choosing civilian targets (including children) and choosing military targets in a built-up area where civilians may be killed (sometimes because your enemy cynically uses "their" civilians as a shield).
I do appreciate that distinction doesn't come as any comfort to the families of civilians killed by strikes. But it is nevertheless a really important distinction that has been applied not just to this but to all wars.
If hamas didn't build it's bases it residential districts, hospitals and schools then the death toll of civillians that are innocent would be much less. No one like 148grss will ever explain how the idf are meant to deal with hamas when they hide behind civillian targets without causing collateral damage.
This is not to say israel isn't at fault through their actions either. Frankly I take the view that mostly they are both beyond redemption and have ceased to care about either side. Build a wall around the whole area and come back in a 100 years and see who is left
They deal with it as I said last week (when you apparently weren't listening) by sending in ground troops. They do not deal with it by sitting back in Israel lobbing missles and bombs into Gaza.
Thanks General Tyndall. Noted. Israel believes it is at war. In such circumstances they are unlikely to listen to an archaeologist from Lincs shouting the odds about what their strategy should be. Much like ISAF was oblivious to the no doubt sincere entreaties from Arab nations over their conduct of the war in Afghan.
Don't be a fuckwit all your life Topping. Try having a day off for once.
Pagan asked what else Israel could do instead of bombing civilians. I made a suggestion. I don't expect you or any of the other warmongers on here to agree wth it because frankly you have shown you don't give a flying fuck about civilian casualties as long as they are Arabs.
Some of us do and so are looking for ways they could be reduced.
When the UK went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan did we send in the troops without prior bombardment?
Its an unreasonable demand you are making. In times of war, bombardments happen. Israel has warned civilians to avoid certain areas prior to doing the bombardments - if Hamas would fight in the open and not hide amongst civilians (a war crime itself) then there'd be far fewer civilian casualties.
Actually yes. We regularly sent troops out into built up areas containing civilians without first bombarding them. Because that is the way civilised people behave.
Did we bollocks.
We started the campaign with a massive bombardment first. "Shock and awe" it was called.
The bombardment didn't last as long as Israel's current campaign has, but then again there wasn't an issue with US hostages being held and ongoing attempts to negotiate their release.
Anyway, it's estimated that several thousand civilians died during the (month-long) initial invasion*. And compared to today's conflict: - The Iraqi government wasn't actively using its own civilians as human shields - That's Iraqi civilians only; it's not clear how many of the current Palestinian deaths are Hamas members and therefore legitimate targets - Gaza is a much more difficult place to minimise civilian casualties than Iraq was (fewer places to run, for starters)
And finally, your regular reminder that the only figures we have for current death toll in Gaza come directly from Hamas, and therefore should not be relied on for anything.
“Here Lads, we’ve got a fellow here who won the London Mayoralty twice as a Conservative, bested a majority winning PM to win a national referendum, then achieved the biggest Tory landslide in a generation. Bit of a bounder, loads of kids with different women, but did manage to charm Marina Wheeler KC to take him back half a dozen times after having affairs. Now with a girl half his age”
“No, he’ll never be able to win over slightly dissatisfied voters, or recover a six point mid term deficit in the polls when there’s a million bad stories in the press about him, best call for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak”
OTOH, there have been no Tory poll leads since December 6th 2021, *while Boris was in charge*.
There’d have been more chance of having any since if they’d stuck with him
What bottomless level of depravity, inhumanity and hatred must you inhabit, to casually chat with a friend then shoot a 7 year old girl hiding under a table?
I’ve read about this stuff with the Nazis in the Holocaust. The absolute chilled-out relaxation with which they murdered children
This tells me that the constant indoctrination of gazan kids into jew-hatred has gone so far it cannot be redeemed
The only plausible outcome from this is an all out war between Israel and its enemies, and who knows how that ends up for the rest of us?
When this is a Hamas soldier killing a child it is a sign of specific and almost unique hatred; when IDF soldiers or Israeli missile strikes kill even more children it is just the casualties of war?
Without going into whether Israel takes sufficient steps to guard against civilian casualties, where I have a degree of sympathy with your position, there is a very clear moral and legal difference between choosing civilian targets (including children) and choosing military targets in a built-up area where civilians may be killed (sometimes because your enemy cynically uses "their" civilians as a shield).
I do appreciate that distinction doesn't come as any comfort to the families of civilians killed by strikes. But it is nevertheless a really important distinction that has been applied not just to this but to all wars.
If hamas didn't build it's bases it residential districts, hospitals and schools then the death toll of civillians that are innocent would be much less. No one like 148grss will ever explain how the idf are meant to deal with hamas when they hide behind civillian targets without causing collateral damage.
This is not to say israel isn't at fault through their actions either. Frankly I take the view that mostly they are both beyond redemption and have ceased to care about either side. Build a wall around the whole area and come back in a 100 years and see who is left
They deal with it as I said last week (when you apparently weren't listening) by sending in ground troops. They do not deal with it by sitting back in Israel lobbing missles and bombs into Gaza.
Thanks General Tyndall. Noted. Israel believes it is at war. In such circumstances they are unlikely to listen to an archaeologist from Lincs shouting the odds about what their strategy should be. Much like ISAF was oblivious to the no doubt sincere entreaties from Arab nations over their conduct of the war in Afghan.
Don't be a fuckwit all your life Topping. Try having a day off for once.
Pagan asked what else Israel could do instead of bombing civilians. I made a suggestion. I don't expect you or any of the other warmongers on here to agree wth it because frankly you have shown you don't give a flying fuck about civilian casualties as long as they are Arabs.
Some of us do and so are looking for ways they could be reduced.
And to think he’d make this the topic of conversation in real life with someone he otherwise liked!
LOL I was at a dinner party last week and someone mentioned Israel/Gaza and I immediately started talking about the rugby.
Elisabeth Braw elisabethbraw.bsky.social @elisabethbraw The Swedish government has just announced that the 🇪🇪 🇸🇪 undersea cable was indeed "damaged by external force".
Just like the Finnish undersea cable and the Balticconnector.
“Here Lads, we’ve got a fellow here who won the London Mayoralty twice as a Conservative, bested a majority winning PM to win a national referendum, then achieved the biggest Tory landslide in a generation. Bit of a bounder, loads of kids with different women, but did manage to charm Marina Wheeler KC to take him back half a dozen times after having affairs. Now with a girl half his age”
“No, he’ll never be able to win over slightly dissatisfied voters, or recover a six point mid term deficit in the polls when there’s a million bad stories in the press about him, best call for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak”
OTOH, there have been no Tory poll leads since December 6th 2021, *while Boris was in charge*.
There’d have been more chance of having any since if they’d stuck with him
He's not coming back, though. So the point is moot.
What bottomless level of depravity, inhumanity and hatred must you inhabit, to casually chat with a friend then shoot a 7 year old girl hiding under a table?
I’ve read about this stuff with the Nazis in the Holocaust. The absolute chilled-out relaxation with which they murdered children
This tells me that the constant indoctrination of gazan kids into jew-hatred has gone so far it cannot be redeemed
The only plausible outcome from this is an all out war between Israel and its enemies, and who knows how that ends up for the rest of us?
When this is a Hamas soldier killing a child it is a sign of specific and almost unique hatred; when IDF soldiers or Israeli missile strikes kill even more children it is just the casualties of war?
Without going into whether Israel takes sufficient steps to guard against civilian casualties, where I have a degree of sympathy with your position, there is a very clear moral and legal difference between choosing civilian targets (including children) and choosing military targets in a built-up area where civilians may be killed (sometimes because your enemy cynically uses "their" civilians as a shield).
I do appreciate that distinction doesn't come as any comfort to the families of civilians killed by strikes. But it is nevertheless a really important distinction that has been applied not just to this but to all wars.
If hamas didn't build it's bases it residential districts, hospitals and schools then the death toll of civillians that are innocent would be much less. No one like 148grss will ever explain how the idf are meant to deal with hamas when they hide behind civillian targets without causing collateral damage.
This is not to say israel isn't at fault through their actions either. Frankly I take the view that mostly they are both beyond redemption and have ceased to care about either side. Build a wall around the whole area and come back in a 100 years and see who is left
They deal with it as I said last week (when you apparently weren't listening) by sending in ground troops. They do not deal with it by sitting back in Israel lobbing missles and bombs into Gaza.
Thanks General Tyndall. Noted. Israel believes it is at war. In such circumstances they are unlikely to listen to an archaeologist from Lincs shouting the odds about what their strategy should be. Much like ISAF was oblivious to the no doubt sincere entreaties from Arab nations over their conduct of the war in Afghan.
Don't be a fuckwit all your life Topping. Try having a day off for once.
Pagan asked what else Israel could do instead of bombing civilians. I made a suggestion. I don't expect you or any of the other warmongers on here to agree wth it because frankly you have shown you don't give a flying fuck about civilian casualties as long as they are Arabs.
Some of us do and so are looking for ways they could be reduced.
And to think he’d make this the topic of conversation in real life with someone he otherwise liked!
The point being that I wouldn't like Topping in real life either. I am not a fan of people who support killing civilians just because they are on the wrong side.
When did Topping ever endorse deliberately killing civilians?
Civilians getting caught in the crossfire during war is entirely different to deliberately killing them.
The UK was well within its rights to bombard before sending troops in - and we did. Same with the USA, same with Israel.
It's a question of degree. Broad scale annihilation with aviation or artillery is more of a Russian/Israeli thing. Although the US/UK did slaughter vast numbers of civilians in Iraq/Afghanistan there were many occasions when they didn't flatten the joint before trying to take it. eg Second Battle of Fallujah.
What bottomless level of depravity, inhumanity and hatred must you inhabit, to casually chat with a friend then shoot a 7 year old girl hiding under a table?
I’ve read about this stuff with the Nazis in the Holocaust. The absolute chilled-out relaxation with which they murdered children
This tells me that the constant indoctrination of gazan kids into jew-hatred has gone so far it cannot be redeemed
The only plausible outcome from this is an all out war between Israel and its enemies, and who knows how that ends up for the rest of us?
When this is a Hamas soldier killing a child it is a sign of specific and almost unique hatred; when IDF soldiers or Israeli missile strikes kill even more children it is just the casualties of war?
Without going into whether Israel takes sufficient steps to guard against civilian casualties, where I have a degree of sympathy with your position, there is a very clear moral and legal difference between choosing civilian targets (including children) and choosing military targets in a built-up area where civilians may be killed (sometimes because your enemy cynically uses "their" civilians as a shield).
I do appreciate that distinction doesn't come as any comfort to the families of civilians killed by strikes. But it is nevertheless a really important distinction that has been applied not just to this but to all wars.
If hamas didn't build it's bases it residential districts, hospitals and schools then the death toll of civillians that are innocent would be much less. No one like 148grss will ever explain how the idf are meant to deal with hamas when they hide behind civillian targets without causing collateral damage.
This is not to say israel isn't at fault through their actions either. Frankly I take the view that mostly they are both beyond redemption and have ceased to care about either side. Build a wall around the whole area and come back in a 100 years and see who is left
They deal with it as I said last week (when you apparently weren't listening) by sending in ground troops. They do not deal with it by sitting back in Israel lobbing missles and bombs into Gaza.
Thanks General Tyndall. Noted. Israel believes it is at war. In such circumstances they are unlikely to listen to an archaeologist from Lincs shouting the odds about what their strategy should be. Much like ISAF was oblivious to the no doubt sincere entreaties from Arab nations over their conduct of the war in Afghan.
Don't be a fuckwit all your life Topping. Try having a day off for once.
Pagan asked what else Israel could do instead of bombing civilians. I made a suggestion. I don't expect you or any of the other warmongers on here to agree wth it because frankly you have shown you don't give a flying fuck about civilian casualties as long as they are Arabs.
Some of us do and so are looking for ways they could be reduced.
When the UK went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan did we send in the troops without prior bombardment?
Its an unreasonable demand you are making. In times of war, bombardments happen. Israel has warned civilians to avoid certain areas prior to doing the bombardments - if Hamas would fight in the open and not hide amongst civilians (a war crime itself) then there'd be far fewer civilian casualties.
Actually yes. We regularly sent troops out into built up areas containing civilians without first bombarding them. Because that is the way civilised people behave.
Did we bollocks.
We started the campaign with a massive bombardment first. "Shock and awe" it was called.
The bombardment didn't last as long as Israel's current campaign has, but then again there wasn't an issue with US hostages being held and ongoing attempts to negotiate their release.
Anyway, it's estimated that several thousand civilians died during the (month-long) initial invasion*. And compared to today's conflict: - The Iraqi government wasn't actively using its own civilians as human shields - That's Iraqi civilians only; it's not clear how many of the current Palestinian deaths are Hamas members and therefore legitimate targets - Gaza is a much more difficult place to minimise civilian casualties than Iraq was (fewer places to run, for starters)
And finally, your regular reminder that the only figures we have for current death toll in Gaza come directly from Hamas, and therefore should not be relied on for anything.
Elisabeth Braw elisabethbraw.bsky.social @elisabethbraw The Swedish government has just announced that the 🇪🇪 🇸🇪 undersea cable was indeed "damaged by external force".
Just like the Finnish undersea cable and the Balticconnector.
“Here Lads, we’ve got a fellow here who won the London Mayoralty twice as a Conservative, bested a majority winning PM to win a national referendum, then achieved the biggest Tory landslide in a generation. Bit of a bounder, loads of kids with different women, but did manage to charm Marina Wheeler KC to take him back half a dozen times after having affairs. Now with a girl half his age”
“No, he’ll never be able to win over slightly dissatisfied voters, or recover a six point mid term deficit in the polls when there’s a million bad stories in the press about him, best call for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak”
OTOH, there have been no Tory poll leads since December 6th 2021, *while Boris was in charge*.
There’d have been more chance of having any since if they’d stuck with him
Nah, Johnson wears out his welcome quite rapidly and completely. It is why he is on such poor terms with so many ex-paramours, ex-ediditors and ex-colleagues. It is the nature of his thin charm that he needs to move on quickly while the shit is still airborne and fan still pristine.
I understand the point that @148grss is making - people have been shot and killed on both sides and many of those killings are at least questionable of not completely wrong.
So lets take the way the IDF have dealt with kids. We've all seen the edited videos. Child throwing stones gets shot and killed. And certainly some of those killings will be outrageous. But others hide the barrage that the IDF patrol had come under.
The whole point in the media is that it is mediated. I can take a real undoctored clip and make it about something completely different by clipping it. So yes, some of the IDF actions have been crimes. Many others are portrayed as crimes when if they were looked at dispassionately with all the evidence they clearly wouldn't be.
But what about these Hamas films. How do you clip them to put them into a different context? Especially the ones that Hamas have released to show their ISIS-style butchery. There is no justification for these killings. None. A shooting at a birder fence in a skirmish is not a moral equivalent justification for storming into a Kibbutz to murder and behead and rape and burn.
But others hide the barrage that the IDF patrol had come under.
Kids do stupid shit, and throw stones at cops and soldiers. Is that really an acceptable reason to shoot them?
That is an answer to a different point from the one which has been made.
The point being made is that in a Pallywood Production you may see an IDF soldier shooting, and a child dying, but if you were able to zoom out you may see adult Palestinian gunmen behind the children using them as human shields.
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
What bottomless level of depravity, inhumanity and hatred must you inhabit, to casually chat with a friend then shoot a 7 year old girl hiding under a table?
I’ve read about this stuff with the Nazis in the Holocaust. The absolute chilled-out relaxation with which they murdered children
This tells me that the constant indoctrination of gazan kids into jew-hatred has gone so far it cannot be redeemed
The only plausible outcome from this is an all out war between Israel and its enemies, and who knows how that ends up for the rest of us?
When this is a Hamas soldier killing a child it is a sign of specific and almost unique hatred; when IDF soldiers or Israeli missile strikes kill even more children it is just the casualties of war?
Without going into whether Israel takes sufficient steps to guard against civilian casualties, where I have a degree of sympathy with your position, there is a very clear moral and legal difference between choosing civilian targets (including children) and choosing military targets in a built-up area where civilians may be killed (sometimes because your enemy cynically uses "their" civilians as a shield).
I do appreciate that distinction doesn't come as any comfort to the families of civilians killed by strikes. But it is nevertheless a really important distinction that has been applied not just to this but to all wars.
If hamas didn't build it's bases it residential districts, hospitals and schools then the death toll of civillians that are innocent would be much less. No one like 148grss will ever explain how the idf are meant to deal with hamas when they hide behind civillian targets without causing collateral damage.
This is not to say israel isn't at fault through their actions either. Frankly I take the view that mostly they are both beyond redemption and have ceased to care about either side. Build a wall around the whole area and come back in a 100 years and see who is left
They deal with it as I said last week (when you apparently weren't listening) by sending in ground troops. They do not deal with it by sitting back in Israel lobbing missles and bombs into Gaza.
Thanks General Tyndall. Noted. Israel believes it is at war. In such circumstances they are unlikely to listen to an archaeologist from Lincs shouting the odds about what their strategy should be. Much like ISAF was oblivious to the no doubt sincere entreaties from Arab nations over their conduct of the war in Afghan.
Don't be a fuckwit all your life Topping. Try having a day off for once.
Pagan asked what else Israel could do instead of bombing civilians. I made a suggestion. I don't expect you or any of the other warmongers on here to agree wth it because frankly you have shown you don't give a flying fuck about civilian casualties as long as they are Arabs.
Some of us do and so are looking for ways they could be reduced.
And to think he’d make this the topic of conversation in real life with someone he otherwise liked!
The point being that I wouldn't like Topping in real life either. I am not a fan of people who support killing civilians just because they are on the wrong side.
When did Topping ever endorse deliberately killing civilians?
Civilians getting caught in the crossfire during war is entirely different to deliberately killing them.
The UK was well within its rights to bombard before sending troops in - and we did. Same with the USA, same with Israel.
It's a question of degree. Broad scale annihilation with aviation or artillery is more of a Russian/Israeli thing. Although the US/UK did slaughter vast numbers of civilians in Iraq/Afghanistan there were many occasions when they didn't flatten the joint before trying to take it. eg Second Battle of Fallujah.
They're not doing a very good job of 'broad scale annihilation'. So far (and even taking Hamas's numbers at face value and including all deaths) the answer to the question "would you be less likely to die facing the Israeli army in Gaza in 2023, or Covid in the UK in the financial year 2020/21" is Gaza.
Guardian top story “Gaza says more than 5,000 people killed”.
Would any self respecting news org have said “Islamic State says more than 5,000 killed”. Bizarre.
How many Palestinian deaths do YOU think have occurred?
My point is referring to “Gaza” as though it’s a country with the same authority in data reporting as Sweden. When really it’s a legally prescribed terror group doing the reporting.
As to your question, there have been formal estimates from the car park incident as low as 100. So conceivably the total conflict so far is “only” 1,000 civilians in Gaza. But really who knows.
What bottomless level of depravity, inhumanity and hatred must you inhabit, to casually chat with a friend then shoot a 7 year old girl hiding under a table?
I’ve read about this stuff with the Nazis in the Holocaust. The absolute chilled-out relaxation with which they murdered children
This tells me that the constant indoctrination of gazan kids into jew-hatred has gone so far it cannot be redeemed
The only plausible outcome from this is an all out war between Israel and its enemies, and who knows how that ends up for the rest of us?
When this is a Hamas soldier killing a child it is a sign of specific and almost unique hatred; when IDF soldiers or Israeli missile strikes kill even more children it is just the casualties of war?
Without going into whether Israel takes sufficient steps to guard against civilian casualties, where I have a degree of sympathy with your position, there is a very clear moral and legal difference between choosing civilian targets (including children) and choosing military targets in a built-up area where civilians may be killed (sometimes because your enemy cynically uses "their" civilians as a shield).
I do appreciate that distinction doesn't come as any comfort to the families of civilians killed by strikes. But it is nevertheless a really important distinction that has been applied not just to this but to all wars.
If hamas didn't build it's bases it residential districts, hospitals and schools then the death toll of civillians that are innocent would be much less. No one like 148grss will ever explain how the idf are meant to deal with hamas when they hide behind civillian targets without causing collateral damage.
This is not to say israel isn't at fault through their actions either. Frankly I take the view that mostly they are both beyond redemption and have ceased to care about either side. Build a wall around the whole area and come back in a 100 years and see who is left
They deal with it as I said last week (when you apparently weren't listening) by sending in ground troops. They do not deal with it by sitting back in Israel lobbing missles and bombs into Gaza.
Thanks General Tyndall. Noted. Israel believes it is at war. In such circumstances they are unlikely to listen to an archaeologist from Lincs shouting the odds about what their strategy should be. Much like ISAF was oblivious to the no doubt sincere entreaties from Arab nations over their conduct of the war in Afghan.
Don't be a fuckwit all your life Topping. Try having a day off for once.
Pagan asked what else Israel could do instead of bombing civilians. I made a suggestion. I don't expect you or any of the other warmongers on here to agree wth it because frankly you have shown you don't give a flying fuck about civilian casualties as long as they are Arabs.
Some of us do and so are looking for ways they could be reduced.
And to think he’d make this the topic of conversation in real life with someone he otherwise liked!
The point being that I wouldn't like Topping in real life either. I am not a fan of people who support killing civilians just because they are on the wrong side.
When did Topping ever endorse deliberately killing civilians?
Civilians getting caught in the crossfire during war is entirely different to deliberately killing them.
The UK was well within its rights to bombard before sending troops in - and we did. Same with the USA, same with Israel.
It's a question of degree. Broad scale annihilation with aviation or artillery is more of a Russian/Israeli thing. Although the US/UK did slaughter vast numbers of civilians in Iraq/Afghanistan there were many occasions when they didn't flatten the joint before trying to take it. eg Second Battle of Fallujah.
Indeed and the Israelis have acted like the UK/USA not Russia.
Gaza isn't especially big, had Israel acted like Russia there'd be about 2 million dead Gazans now, not a thousand or so if you can even believe those figures.
What bottomless level of depravity, inhumanity and hatred must you inhabit, to casually chat with a friend then shoot a 7 year old girl hiding under a table?
I’ve read about this stuff with the Nazis in the Holocaust. The absolute chilled-out relaxation with which they murdered children
This tells me that the constant indoctrination of gazan kids into jew-hatred has gone so far it cannot be redeemed
The only plausible outcome from this is an all out war between Israel and its enemies, and who knows how that ends up for the rest of us?
When this is a Hamas soldier killing a child it is a sign of specific and almost unique hatred; when IDF soldiers or Israeli missile strikes kill even more children it is just the casualties of war?
This is what boggles my mind - the clear prioritisation of one group of peoples' lives over another; both of whom are distant groups that, in the grand scheme of things, barely impact our lives.
If your concern is for dying children the only position you can take is one where Israel stops all bombardments of Gaza from the sky - which has resulted in the death of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of children.
The only solution to a lasting peace in the region is one where Israel is not an oppressive, apartheid state. As long as Israel creates more orphans, there will be Palestinians who see violence as the only possible route to freedom.
So there are two things: 1. Hamas terrorist shoots small child in the head in cold blood with no warning. 2. Israel bombs kill small child who was still in Gaza because their parents had ignored the warning to leave because bombs would be dropped
War is shit. Death is death. But there is a clear and rather obvious difference between the two.
There is a difference. The 1st is more viscerally evil. However let's not forget there's also a difference as regards the scale of the killing. The ratio of Palestinian to Israeli casualties in these conflicts in recent times is many many to 1 and the way this is going it's likely to be even more skewed this time, esp if looking specifically at children. As unspeakable as the Hamas attack was it doesn't imo justify a response of flattening Gaza and the mass killing and displacement of the people living there. And this is leaving aside the matter of whether it will leave Israel safer at the end of it (probably not).
I hear you. I ask what the alternative is. Even the Palestinian ambassador interviewed on The Rest is Politics was clear that Hamas is an enemy of the Palestinian people. They have to be destroyed if there is to be peace.
Displacing people to try as surgically as possible to decapitate Hamas has to be better than levelling Gaza. You said that is what they are doing - not true. They could have just bombed the place to rubble with the civilians in place. Instead they told them to leave, knowing that Hamas would almost certainly embed themselves in the civilians heading for safety.
We saw the other night with the hospital blast that the Terrorists are quite happy setting themselves up in urban areas, using the civilians as human shields. Hamas and IJ have no interest in civilian lives either - they want them to be martyred.
Well I hear you too. There are people whose support for Israel is ridiculously unequivocal because it's fuelled by contempt for the Palestinians and a view of them as inferior beings. I know you're not one of those people.
The alternative? I don't know. All the better options are ruled out because both sides want the carnage. Israel want revenge and Hamas want them to go crazy in pursuit of it.
What bottomless level of depravity, inhumanity and hatred must you inhabit, to casually chat with a friend then shoot a 7 year old girl hiding under a table?
I’ve read about this stuff with the Nazis in the Holocaust. The absolute chilled-out relaxation with which they murdered children
This tells me that the constant indoctrination of gazan kids into jew-hatred has gone so far it cannot be redeemed
The only plausible outcome from this is an all out war between Israel and its enemies, and who knows how that ends up for the rest of us?
When this is a Hamas soldier killing a child it is a sign of specific and almost unique hatred; when IDF soldiers or Israeli missile strikes kill even more children it is just the casualties of war?
This is what boggles my mind - the clear prioritisation of one group of peoples' lives over another; both of whom are distant groups that, in the grand scheme of things, barely impact our lives.
If your concern is for dying children the only position you can take is one where Israel stops all bombardments of Gaza from the sky - which has resulted in the death of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of children.
The only solution to a lasting peace in the region is one where Israel is not an oppressive, apartheid state. As long as Israel creates more orphans, there will be Palestinians who see violence as the only possible route to freedom.
So there are two things: 1. Hamas terrorist shoots small child in the head in cold blood with no warning. 2. Israel bombs kill small child who was still in Gaza because their parents had ignored the warning to leave because bombs would be dropped
War is shit. Death is death. But there is a clear and rather obvious difference between the two.
There is a difference. The 1st is more viscerally evil. However let's not forget there's also a difference as regards the scale of the killing. The ratio of Palestinian to Israeli casualties in these conflicts in recent times is many many to 1 and the way this is going it's likely to be even more skewed this time, esp if looking specifically at children. As unspeakable as the Hamas attack was it doesn't imo justify a response of flattening Gaza and the mass killing and displacement of the people living there. And this is leaving aside the matter of whether it will leave Israel safer at the end of it (probably not).
I hear you. I ask what the alternative is. Even the Palestinian ambassador interviewed on The Rest is Politics was clear that Hamas is an enemy of the Palestinian people. They have to be destroyed if there is to be peace.
Displacing people to try as surgically as possible to decapitate Hamas has to be better than levelling Gaza. You said that is what they are doing - not true. They could have just bombed the place to rubble with the civilians in place. Instead they told them to leave, knowing that Hamas would almost certainly embed themselves in the civilians heading for safety.
We saw the other night with the hospital blast that the Terrorists are quite happy setting themselves up in urban areas, using the civilians as human shields. Hamas and IJ have no interest in civilian lives either - they want them to be martyred.
Well I hear you too. There are people whose support for Israel is ridiculously unequivocal because it's fuelled by contempt for the Palestinians and a view of them as inferior beings. I know you're not one of those people.
The alternative? I don't know. All the better options are ruled out because both sides want the carnage. Israel want revenge and Hamas want them to go crazy in pursuit of it.
I haven't seen that by anyone here.
The ones who treat Palestinians as inferior human beings are the Palestinian leaders. Hamas etc who use their own civilians as human shields.
In war every government has the duty to put its own people first, Israel is entirely appropriate to do so, its a shame Hamas do not do the same.
Guardian top story “Gaza says more than 5,000 people killed”.
Would any self respecting news org have said “Islamic State says more than 5,000 killed”. Bizarre.
There is quite the difference, though, as Islamic State never had UN observers on the ground. I have no idea how accurate the numbers are, and neither do you - but they are not completely incredible.
How large does the number need to be before it becomes a matter of concern ?
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
A trading friend of mine was like a kid at Xmas that week. He didn’t realise at first why but he (correctly) sensed that selling gilts was a one way bet. A couple of days later the terrible truth within ldi emerged to a broader audience, combined with the narrative of a chaotic govt flying by the seat of its pants. That last bit was true actually given the hasty and in my view unnecessary reverse ferret.
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
Also @kinabaluAll the better options are ruled out because both sides want the carnage.
This is completely fallacious. Israel wants peace.
This has been shown time and again. From 1948 when Israel endorsed the UN division of the land, to Camp David when Israel agreed to peace but Arafat rejected it. As recently as 2005 Ariel Sharon pulled Israel out of Gaza (which is why there's now talk of Israel going in to Gaza as they're not occupying Gaza currently) and Israel was supporting the Palestinian authorities in building the Port of Gaza.
It is Hamas taking over Gaza and the Palestinian leaders rejecting peace that has time and again stymied any hope of peace. If Palestinian leaders would start putting their people first, work for peace, then democratic Israel would go for that too as they have repeatedly in the past.
People think that the October 7th incursion was "just" terrorism albeit on steroids.
Israel seems to think it was an act of war. In war, especially if you think it is an existential one, then rules can go out of the window. Although as has been pointed out, the Israeli response doesn't look wholly indiscriminate to me.
That's intended to be on topic. It's my impression that believing in magic has been trending upward in the US, for some time.
If so, that would explain some of our political problems, because demagogues can now more easily sell magical "solutions" to our problems. (Obvious examples: BLM and Trump.)
If -- and I must emphasize the "if" -- something similar is true in the UK, then you are unlikely to elect a popular prime minister any time soon.
I think this Gaza Israel debate is possibly even more depressing than discussing proportional representation
I know. Controversial take
The correct take. It's ruining PB.
And yet it fires up debate - worldwide - like no other geopolitical issue. Especially in proportion to its numerical scale
Why? - is a fascinating question. I am pretty sure the deep rooted mental fungus of anti Semitism is partly to blame. If you analyse most ardent pro Palestinians hard enough you will find fear and hatred of Jews. As we have seen this last week; many of the sufferers won’t even realise it
Guardian top story “Gaza says more than 5,000 people killed”.
Would any self respecting news org have said “Islamic State says more than 5,000 killed”. Bizarre.
There is quite the difference, though, as Islamic State never had UN observers on the ground. I have no idea how accurate the numbers are, and neither do you - but they are not completely incredible.
How large does the number need to be before it becomes a matter of concern ?
Some of society’s brightest minds have devoted their lives to solving this problem over decades. It seems insoluble to me. Certainly I don’t see how it could be solved unless Palestine’s allies commit to finding a lasting peaceful solution, as seriously as Israel’s allies have over the years.
My main concern is that things don’t spiral into a direct conflict between multiple nation states. So far so good, Israel has been fairly measured so far under the circumstances.
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
A trading friend of mine was like a kid at Xmas that week. He didn’t realise at first why but he (correctly) sensed that selling gilts was a one way bet. A couple of days later the terrible truth within ldi emerged to a broader audience, combined with the narrative of a chaotic govt flying by the seat of its pants. That last bit was true actually given the hasty and in my view unnecessary reverse ferret.
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
With all due respect, the hypothesis can very easily be tested. Let's look at the yield gap on a day-by-day basis, and overlay events that happened.
I think this Gaza Israel debate is possibly even more depressing than discussing proportional representation
I know. Controversial take
The correct take. It's ruining PB.
And yet it fires up debate - worldwide - like no other geopolitical issue. Especially in proportion to its numerical scale
Why? - is a fascinating question. I am pretty sure the deep rooted mental fungus of anti Semitism is partly to blame. If you analyse most ardent pro Palestinians hard enough you will find fear and hatred of Jews. As we have seen this last week; many of the sufferers won’t even realise it
Well back in the day when I was sitting waiting for 3rd Shock Army to come over the hill and we were expecting minutes of life should the balloon go up, there was a proxy war going on in the Middle East whereby the USSR was, broadly, arming the Arabs and we, broadly, were arming Israel.
So it has had geopolitical resonance for decades.
Plus there's the anti-semitism thing going on also of course but as far as the Western powers were concerned that was irrelevant.
People think that the October 7th incursion was "just" terrorism albeit on steroids.
Israel seems to think it was an act of war. In war, especially if you think it is an existential one, then rules can go out of the window. Although as has been pointed out, the Israeli response doesn't look wholly indiscriminate to me.
Perhaps not wholly.
It is obvious though that they were completely surprised on Oct 7th, which suggests that their intelligence on Hamas numbers, deployment, equipment and fortifications are likely very poor. So they are substantially in the dark.
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
A trading friend of mine was like a kid at Xmas that week. He didn’t realise at first why but he (correctly) sensed that selling gilts was a one way bet. A couple of days later the terrible truth within ldi emerged to a broader audience, combined with the narrative of a chaotic govt flying by the seat of its pants. That last bit was true actually given the hasty and in my view unnecessary reverse ferret.
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
With all due respect, the hypothesis can very easily be tested. Let's look at the yield gap on a day-by-day basis, and overlay events that happened.
Ldi forced selling and media hysteria over 45% tax cut et al were happening simultaneously. Perhaps an economics professor one day might try and tease it out. Don’t know about you but I’ve not got the time nor motivation to do it myself.
I think "there were many occasions when they [we] didn't flatten the joint" is a record to be proud of.
We did completely fuck Basra up by destroying civilian infrastructure - water, power, etc. SCOTS DG even set fire to the library in an act of admirable thoroughness. BUT IT WAS NOT FLATTENED! 🫡
Elisabeth Braw elisabethbraw.bsky.social @elisabethbraw The Swedish government has just announced that the 🇪🇪 🇸🇪 undersea cable was indeed "damaged by external force".
Just like the Finnish undersea cable and the Balticconnector.
Greyzone aggression.
So was it Hamas or Israel?
To be exact, the Baltic interconnector was damaged in the Finnish exclusive economic zone, the first cable was damaged in the Estonian exclusive economic zone and the latest attack on a cable was in the Swedish exclusive economic zone. There have also been attacks on UK sea bed infrastructure a few months ago, and of course the mysterious destruction of Nordstream.
None of this was done by North Korea, Iran or Hamas. It is clearly a test of NATO by Russia. The problem is that any direct NATO response could destabilise the situation further and is clearly not a deterrent. I think we could see several more grey zone hybrid attacks from the Russians, in the North Sea or the Danish straits (one of their powder-keg rust bucket tankers under the Liberian flag owned via Limassol going on fire in a very inconvenient place, for example).
However there is real concern at NATO level that making too much noise about red lines on this will not achieve anything. I think that for the time being we will pretend we don´t know what happened and send more weapons to Ukraine as an indirect punishment.
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
A trading friend of mine was like a kid at Xmas that week. He didn’t realise at first why but he (correctly) sensed that selling gilts was a one way bet. A couple of days later the terrible truth within ldi emerged to a broader audience, combined with the narrative of a chaotic govt flying by the seat of its pants. That last bit was true actually given the hasty and in my view unnecessary reverse ferret.
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
With all due respect, the hypothesis can very easily be tested. Let's look at the yield gap on a day-by-day basis, and overlay events that happened.
And don't forget events like the Bank of England stupidly selling QE bonds, something no other nation was doing.
The Bank of England set fire to the bond rate. Kwasi then stepped into the inferno.
People think that the October 7th incursion was "just" terrorism albeit on steroids.
Israel seems to think it was an act of war. In war, especially if you think it is an existential one, then rules can go out of the window. Although as has been pointed out, the Israeli response doesn't look wholly indiscriminate to me.
Perhaps not wholly.
It is obvious though that they were completely surprised on Oct 7th, which suggests that their intelligence on Hamas numbers, deployment, equipment and fortifications are likely very poor. So they are substantially in the dark.
Maybe. There appears to have been a huge intelligence failing in terms of troop build up, etc, on Oct 7th. But I can't believe that through what is apparently a significant network of informants that they weren't aware of where eg Hamas No.1 Battery was located.
Afghanistan is going to win the cricket. England bottom of the table.
Perhaps one grain of comfort is it does rather put England's performance against Afghanistan into a slightly different light. Okay, it is a very small grain but still...
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
A trading friend of mine was like a kid at Xmas that week. He didn’t realise at first why but he (correctly) sensed that selling gilts was a one way bet. A couple of days later the terrible truth within ldi emerged to a broader audience, combined with the narrative of a chaotic govt flying by the seat of its pants. That last bit was true actually given the hasty and in my view unnecessary reverse ferret.
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
With all due respect, the hypothesis can very easily be tested. Let's look at the yield gap on a day-by-day basis, and overlay events that happened.
Ldi forced selling and media hysteria over 45% tax cut et al were happening simultaneously. Perhaps an economics professor one day might try and tease it out. Don’t know about you but I’ve not got the time nor motivation to do it myself.
The LDI forced selling was caused by the spiking yields, you can't disaggregate them.
“Here Lads, we’ve got a fellow here who won the London Mayoralty twice as a Conservative, bested a majority winning PM to win a national referendum, then achieved the biggest Tory landslide in a generation. Bit of a bounder, loads of kids with different women, but did manage to charm Marina Wheeler KC to take him back half a dozen times after having affairs. Now with a girl half his age”
“No, he’ll never be able to win over slightly dissatisfied voters, or recover a six point mid term deficit in the polls when there’s a million bad stories in the press about him, best call for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak”
Doesn't that overlook the elephant(s) in the room?
Even if you think that his charisma could have overcome the Paterson and Pincher stories, it was never going to work on the Privileges Committee. They were going to find him seriously guilty of knowingly lying.
Charisma lets you get away with a lot. But not everything.
(Besides, the thing that brought Boris down with Conservative MPs was the Pincher story. Partly because it was yet another lie on top of all the others, but also it directly affected them. How would you feel if your boss knowingly put a sex pest in as your line manager and then lied to you about doing it?)
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
A trading friend of mine was like a kid at Xmas that week. He didn’t realise at first why but he (correctly) sensed that selling gilts was a one way bet. A couple of days later the terrible truth within ldi emerged to a broader audience, combined with the narrative of a chaotic govt flying by the seat of its pants. That last bit was true actually given the hasty and in my view unnecessary reverse ferret.
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
With all due respect, the hypothesis can very easily be tested. Let's look at the yield gap on a day-by-day basis, and overlay events that happened.
Ldi forced selling and media hysteria over 45% tax cut et al were happening simultaneously. Perhaps an economics professor one day might try and tease it out. Don’t know about you but I’ve not got the time nor motivation to do it myself.
The LDI forced selling was caused by the spiking yields, you can't disaggregate them.
And the spiking yields were caused in part by the Bank of England.
Afghanistan is going to win the cricket. England bottom of the table.
Perhaps one grain of comfort is it does rather put England's performance against Afghanistan into a slightly different light. Okay, it is a very small grain but still...
One’s got to be happy for the Afghanis.
Interestingly, a second cousin, an officer in, IIRC, the Blues & Royals, when he did his service in Afghanistan, took cricket gear for the locals. I’ve no idea how he feels about current developments, cricket-wise.
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
A trading friend of mine was like a kid at Xmas that week. He didn’t realise at first why but he (correctly) sensed that selling gilts was a one way bet. A couple of days later the terrible truth within ldi emerged to a broader audience, combined with the narrative of a chaotic govt flying by the seat of its pants. That last bit was true actually given the hasty and in my view unnecessary reverse ferret.
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
With all due respect, the hypothesis can very easily be tested. Let's look at the yield gap on a day-by-day basis, and overlay events that happened.
Ldi forced selling and media hysteria over 45% tax cut et al were happening simultaneously. Perhaps an economics professor one day might try and tease it out. Don’t know about you but I’ve not got the time nor motivation to do it myself.
The LDI forced selling was caused by the spiking yields, you can't disaggregate them.
The Kwartang announcement was communicating change planned for his future Budget (rather than an immediate change) and this plan was reversed very swiftly.
If the markets reacted due to these planned changes wouldn't they have re-corrected when they were withdrawn shortly thereafter?
Guardian top story “Gaza says more than 5,000 people killed”.
Would any self respecting news org have said “Islamic State says more than 5,000 killed”. Bizarre.
There is quite the difference, though, as Islamic State never had UN observers on the ground. I have no idea how accurate the numbers are, and neither do you - but they are not completely incredible.
How large does the number need to be before it becomes a matter of concern ?
Some of society’s brightest minds have devoted their lives to solving this problem over decades. It seems insoluble to me. Certainly I don’t see how it could be solved unless Palestine’s allies commit to finding a lasting peaceful solution, as seriously as Israel’s allies have over the years.
My main concern is that things don’t spiral into a direct conflict between multiple nation states. So far so good, Israel has been fairly measured so far under the circumstances.
We are in agreement on that - but like me, you have no answers, either.
I think this Gaza Israel debate is possibly even more depressing than discussing proportional representation
I know. Controversial take
The correct take. It's ruining PB.
And yet it fires up debate - worldwide - like no other geopolitical issue. Especially in proportion to its numerical scale
Why? - is a fascinating question. I am pretty sure the deep rooted mental fungus of anti Semitism is partly to blame. If you analyse most ardent pro Palestinians hard enough you will find fear and hatred of Jews. As we have seen this last week; many of the sufferers won’t even realise it
And I wonder what 'urges' drive the more exuberant of the pro-Israel brigade? And will they admit to or even realize it?
Netanyahu and sources within the defense establishment are briefing against each other. Netanyahu has been doing it for 2 weeks already, trying to place the sole blame on the IDF and Shin Bet for Hamas’ surprise attac. In the last 2 days he’s sending, through proxies, a new line.. https://twitter.com/AnshelPfeffer/status/1716459869039907032
“Here Lads, we’ve got a fellow here who won the London Mayoralty twice as a Conservative, bested a majority winning PM to win a national referendum, then achieved the biggest Tory landslide in a generation. Bit of a bounder, loads of kids with different women, but did manage to charm Marina Wheeler KC to take him back half a dozen times after having affairs. Now with a girl half his age”
“No, he’ll never be able to win over slightly dissatisfied voters, or recover a six point mid term deficit in the polls when there’s a million bad stories in the press about him, best call for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak”
He was facing being suspended from the Commons for lying to the House.
It's possible he might have had a better chance of winning the next election, but I think it's to the credit of British politics in general, and the Conservative Party in particular, that Johnson was given the heave for lying to the Commons.
Afghanistan is going to win the cricket. England bottom of the table.
Perhaps one grain of comfort is it does rather put England's performance against Afghanistan into a slightly different light. Okay, it is a very small grain but still...
One’s got to be happy for the Afghanis.
Interestingly, a second cousin, an officer in, IIRC, the Blues & Royals, when he did his service in Afghanistan, took cricket gear for the locals. I’ve no idea how he feels about current developments, cricket-wise.
Should've taught them how to play football instead
... as I've mentioned my Surrey friend says she will not be voting Conservative for the first time in her life. She is "disgusted by them" (her words). She thinks the lurch to the right is appalling and cannot stand Braverman and her nasty brand of extremist right wing politics.
It's worth noting that she would vote Boris like a shot. But she will not be voting blue.
The tories are in for an evisceration on election night. Sunak and his loopy lot are losing both the gentle heart of the party, like my friend, and the red wall.
Afghanistan is going to win the cricket. England bottom of the table.
Perhaps one grain of comfort is it does rather put England's performance against Afghanistan into a slightly different light. Okay, it is a very small grain but still...
One’s got to be happy for the Afghanis.
Interestingly, a second cousin, an officer in, IIRC, the Blues & Royals, when he did his service in Afghanistan, took cricket gear for the locals. I’ve no idea how he feels about current developments, cricket-wise.
Should've taught them how to play football instead
Have we noted the death of Bishan Bedi. One of the greatest and most compellingly watchable of all spinners of my lifetime.
I think this Gaza Israel debate is possibly even more depressing than discussing proportional representation
I know. Controversial take
The correct take. It's ruining PB.
And yet it fires up debate - worldwide - like no other geopolitical issue. Especially in proportion to its numerical scale
Why? - is a fascinating question. I am pretty sure the deep rooted mental fungus of anti Semitism is partly to blame. If you analyse most ardent pro Palestinians hard enough you will find fear and hatred of Jews. As we have seen this last week; many of the sufferers won’t even realise it
And I wonder what 'urges' drive the more exuberant of the pro-Israel brigade? And will they admit to or even realize it?
I’ve no doubt that “Islamophobia” is your tediously middlebrow answer
Let’s accept your terms
1. Islamophobia means an irrational fear of Islam. For many Jews the fear is entirely rational. Significant parts of the Islamic world apparently want them all dead
2. Islamophobia has never, in history, led to a serious attempt to kill every Muslim on earth, just for being Muslim
So I don’t think your comparison stands even if we accept it (despite its fatuity)
Afghanistan is going to win the cricket. England bottom of the table.
Perhaps one grain of comfort is it does rather put England's performance against Afghanistan into a slightly different light. Okay, it is a very small grain but still...
One’s got to be happy for the Afghanis.
Interestingly, a second cousin, an officer in, IIRC, the Blues & Royals, when he did his service in Afghanistan, took cricket gear for the locals. I’ve no idea how he feels about current developments, cricket-wise.
Should've taught them how to play football instead
Come, come Mr P; an officer and a gentleman doesn’t become involved with such plebeian sports.
That's intended to be on topic. It's my impression that believing in magic has been trending upward in the US, for some time.
If so, that would explain some of our political problems, because demagogues can now more easily sell magical "solutions" to our problems. (Obvious examples: BLM and Trump.)
If -- and I must emphasize the "if" -- something similar is true in the UK, then you are unlikely to elect a popular prime minister any time soon.
Terry Pratchett defined magic as, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Which is to say that, if you don't understand how something works then, for all intents and purposes, it is magic.
I think you can easily argue that the standard of public debate has declined and therefore that the level of public understanding of politics and economics has also declined. This then increases the amount of space in which things appear to be the result of magic, because they are otherwise beyond common understanding.
So, given that it is a political shibboleth that the public must be promised increased spending and lower taxes, then I think it is fair to say that the practice of politics has moved fair into the realms of magic and out of rational understanding.
People think that the October 7th incursion was "just" terrorism albeit on steroids.
Israel seems to think it was an act of war. In war, especially if you think it is an existential one, then rules can go out of the window. Although as has been pointed out, the Israeli response doesn't look wholly indiscriminate to me.
Perhaps not wholly.
It is obvious though that they were completely surprised on Oct 7th, which suggests that their intelligence on Hamas numbers, deployment, equipment and fortifications are likely very poor. So they are substantially in the dark.
Maybe. There appears to have been a huge intelligence failing in terms of troop build up, etc, on Oct 7th. But I can't believe that through what is apparently a significant network of informants that they weren't aware of where eg Hamas No.1 Battery was located.
Their informants don't seem very good if they missed such a large scale Hamas plan. So they cannot know what else they have missed.
Going into a city fight against a guerrilla enemy, hiding an unknown weaponry amongst buildings, tunnels and rubble alongside civilians is quite a hairy prospect.
Seattle Times ($) - Alaska Air off-duty pilot tries to shut off engines on flight from Everett
An off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot taking a ride Sunday in the jump seat of a flight out of Everett attempted to shut down the engines inflight and had to be subdued, the pilot is heard saying in a recording of the exchange with air traffic controllers.
Horizon Air flight 2059 from Everett to San Francisco diverted to Portland where it landed safely, and the Alaska Airlines pilot was arrested.
“I’ll just give you a heads-up. We’ve got the guy that tried to shut the engines down out of the cockpit,” the pilot told Portland air traffic control in a calm voice. “It doesn’t seem like he’s causing any issue at the back. I think he’s subdued.”
“Other than that, we want law enforcement as soon as we get on the ground and parked,” the pilot is heard saying in a recording of the exchange with air traffic controllers.
This was after the air traffic controller had got the plane set up for the unscheduled landing in Portland and asked the pilot to “let me know the threat level.”
(Listen on the LiveATC website [see link below]. Go to minute 10:56 in the recording.)
In a statement Monday, Alaska Air Group — the parent company of Alaska Airlines and its regional subsidiary Horizon Air — said “The Horizon Captain and First Officer quickly responded, engine power was not lost, and the crew secured the aircraft without incident.”
The diversion and unscheduled landing in Portland was done “following appropriate FAA procedures and guidance from Air Traffic Control,” the statement adds.
The Multnomah County [Portland OR] Sheriff’s office website shows that Alaska Airlines pilot Joe Emerson, 44, was arrested by Port of Portland Police and booked into jail just after 4:00 a.m. Monday morning.
The booking site shows Emerson is being held on suspicion of attempted murder and reckless endangerment.
In a statement, the FBI said it “is investigating and can assure the traveling public there is no continuing threat related to this incident.”
The Embraer E-175 regional jet had taken off from Everett’s Paine Field airport at 5:23 p.m. Sunday. The flight was full, with 80 passengers on board, including lap infants, with two pilots flying and two flight attendants in the passenger cabin. . . .
In its statement Monday Alaska Air said “a credible security threat related to an authorized occupant in the flight deck jump seat” occurred on the flight.
“The crew secured the aircraft without incident,” Alaska Air stated. “All passengers on board were able to travel on a later flight.”
“We are grateful for the professional handling of the situation by the Horizon flight crew and appreciate our guests’ calm and patience throughout this event,” the airline stated.
Passengers received travel vouchers for use on future travel.
Guardian top story “Gaza says more than 5,000 people killed”.
Would any self respecting news org have said “Islamic State says more than 5,000 killed”. Bizarre.
There is quite the difference, though, as Islamic State never had UN observers on the ground. I have no idea how accurate the numbers are, and neither do you - but they are not completely incredible.
How large does the number need to be before it becomes a matter of concern ?
That's intended to be on topic. It's my impression that believing in magic has been trending upward in the US, for some time.
If so, that would explain some of our political problems, because demagogues can now more easily sell magical "solutions" to our problems. (Obvious examples: BLM and Trump.)
If -- and I must emphasize the "if" -- something similar is true in the UK, then you are unlikely to elect a popular prime minister any time soon.
Terry Pratchett defined magic as, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Which is to say that, if you don't understand how something works then, for all intents and purposes, it is magic.
I think you can easily argue that the standard of public debate has declined and therefore that the level of public understanding of politics and economics has also declined. This then increases the amount of space in which things appear to be the result of magic, because they are otherwise beyond common understanding.
So, given that it is a political shibboleth that the public must be promised increased spending and lower taxes, then I think it is fair to say that the practice of politics has moved fair into the realms of magic and out of rational understanding.
People think that the October 7th incursion was "just" terrorism albeit on steroids.
Israel seems to think it was an act of war. In war, especially if you think it is an existential one, then rules can go out of the window. Although as has been pointed out, the Israeli response doesn't look wholly indiscriminate to me.
Perhaps not wholly.
It is obvious though that they were completely surprised on Oct 7th, which suggests that their intelligence on Hamas numbers, deployment, equipment and fortifications are likely very poor. So they are substantially in the dark.
Maybe. There appears to have been a huge intelligence failing in terms of troop build up, etc, on Oct 7th. But I can't believe that through what is apparently a significant network of informants that they weren't aware of where eg Hamas No.1 Battery was located.
Their informants don't seem very good if they missed such a large scale Hamas plan. So they cannot know what else they have missed.
Going into a city fight against a guerrilla enemy, hiding an unknown weaponry amongst buildings, tunnels and rubble alongside civilians is quite a hairy prospect.
Off topic, but I thought you* might like some good news from the US: "Nikki Haley is increasingly threatening to supplant Ron DeSantis as the principal GOP presidential rival to Donald Trump, escalating frictions between the two candidates that are playing out before voters on the campaign trail and behind closed doors with wealthy donors. . . . Haley rose to third in a Washington Post average of national polling from October, with 8 percent support to DeSantis’s 14 percent. She’s pulled into third in Iowa, where DeSantis’s support is still noticeably stronger, and jumped ahead of DeSantis in recent surveys of New Hampshire and South Carolina." source $: https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2023/10/21/haley-desantis-trump-presidential-race/
Seattle Times ($) - Alaska Air off-duty pilot tries to shut off engines on flight from Everett
An off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot taking a ride Sunday in the jump seat of a flight out of Everett attempted to shut down the engines inflight and had to be subdued, the pilot is heard saying in a recording of the exchange with air traffic controllers.
Horizon Air flight 2059 from Everett to San Francisco diverted to Portland where it landed safely, and the Alaska Airlines pilot was arrested.
“I’ll just give you a heads-up. We’ve got the guy that tried to shut the engines down out of the cockpit,” the pilot told Portland air traffic control in a calm voice. “It doesn’t seem like he’s causing any issue at the back. I think he’s subdued.”
“Other than that, we want law enforcement as soon as we get on the ground and parked,” the pilot is heard saying in a recording of the exchange with air traffic controllers.
This was after the air traffic controller had got the plane set up for the unscheduled landing in Portland and asked the pilot to “let me know the threat level.”
(Listen on the LiveATC website [see link below]. Go to minute 10:56 in the recording.)
In a statement Monday, Alaska Air Group — the parent company of Alaska Airlines and its regional subsidiary Horizon Air — said “The Horizon Captain and First Officer quickly responded, engine power was not lost, and the crew secured the aircraft without incident.”
The diversion and unscheduled landing in Portland was done “following appropriate FAA procedures and guidance from Air Traffic Control,” the statement adds.
The Multnomah County [Portland OR] Sheriff’s office website shows that Alaska Airlines pilot Joe Emerson, 44, was arrested by Port of Portland Police and booked into jail just after 4:00 a.m. Monday morning.
The booking site shows Emerson is being held on suspicion of attempted murder and reckless endangerment.
In a statement, the FBI said it “is investigating and can assure the traveling public there is no continuing threat related to this incident.”
The Embraer E-175 regional jet had taken off from Everett’s Paine Field airport at 5:23 p.m. Sunday. The flight was full, with 80 passengers on board, including lap infants, with two pilots flying and two flight attendants in the passenger cabin. . . .
In its statement Monday Alaska Air said “a credible security threat related to an authorized occupant in the flight deck jump seat” occurred on the flight.
“The crew secured the aircraft without incident,” Alaska Air stated. “All passengers on board were able to travel on a later flight.”
“We are grateful for the professional handling of the situation by the Horizon flight crew and appreciate our guests’ calm and patience throughout this event,” the airline stated.
Passengers received travel vouchers for use on future travel.
Afghanistan is going to win the cricket. England bottom of the table.
Perhaps one grain of comfort is it does rather put England's performance against Afghanistan into a slightly different light. Okay, it is a very small grain but still...
One’s got to be happy for the Afghanis.
Interestingly, a second cousin, an officer in, IIRC, the Blues & Royals, when he did his service in Afghanistan, took cricket gear for the locals. I’ve no idea how he feels about current developments, cricket-wise.
My cousin, Grenadier Guards, had a slightly less amusing time in Afghanistan. He was shot in the back and because of the position he was in on a rooftop the bullet travelled through his back, neck and out through his helmet.
He was dubbed “the luckiest soldier in Afghanistan” in the press but I never asked if he tried to teach them cricket.
That's intended to be on topic. It's my impression that believing in magic has been trending upward in the US, for some time.
If so, that would explain some of our political problems, because demagogues can now more easily sell magical "solutions" to our problems. (Obvious examples: BLM and Trump.)
If -- and I must emphasize the "if" -- something similar is true in the UK, then you are unlikely to elect a popular prime minister any time soon.
Terry Pratchett defined magic as, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Which is to say that, if you don't understand how something works then, for all intents and purposes, it is magic.
I think you can easily argue that the standard of public debate has declined and therefore that the level of public understanding of politics and economics has also declined. This then increases the amount of space in which things appear to be the result of magic, because they are otherwise beyond common understanding.
So, given that it is a political shibboleth that the public must be promised increased spending and lower taxes, then I think it is fair to say that the practice of politics has moved fair into the realms of magic and out of rational understanding.
Which is a bit problematic.
Ahem.
Arthur C Clarke said "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." (it's Clarke's Third Law)
Terry Pratchett (or Larry Niven or both) said "any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
A trading friend of mine was like a kid at Xmas that week. He didn’t realise at first why but he (correctly) sensed that selling gilts was a one way bet. A couple of days later the terrible truth within ldi emerged to a broader audience, combined with the narrative of a chaotic govt flying by the seat of its pants. That last bit was true actually given the hasty and in my view unnecessary reverse ferret.
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
With all due respect, the hypothesis can very easily be tested. Let's look at the yield gap on a day-by-day basis, and overlay events that happened.
Ldi forced selling and media hysteria over 45% tax cut et al were happening simultaneously. Perhaps an economics professor one day might try and tease it out. Don’t know about you but I’ve not got the time nor motivation to do it myself.
The LDI forced selling was caused by the spiking yields, you can't disaggregate them.
The Kwartang announcement was communicating change planned for his future Budget (rather than an immediate change) and this plan was reversed very swiftly.
If the markets reacted due to these planned changes wouldn't they have re-corrected when they were withdrawn shortly thereafter?
Yields shot up, came partly back when Kwarteng (who I would note is a friend of mine) was defenestrated and the changes were rolled back, and then returned to roughly the same position relative to other developed nations after Truss herself stepped down.
Why did yields spike?
Because Mr Market thought that the Truss/Kwarteng changes were adding inflationary fire to an economy that was already running quite hot. Wage growth in 2022 had been steadily climbing through the year (source), and had reached 6% in June, heading for 6.5%.
It was generally considered that increasing aggregate demand via lower tax (and a bit of higher spending) due to a focus on growth was likely to cause wage growth to continue to run hot. It was also considered unwise to throw fiscal fire on the economy at a time when the country was facing external inflationary pressures due to the Ukraine war.
Now, did the markets overreact? Quite possibly. But they were not behaving irrationally. Truss was elected on a platform of throwing away balanced budget orthodoxy and making a dash for growth.
Not growth grounded on supply side reforms and fiscal restraint; but instead driven by the belief that the reason growth had been modest was because of excessive levels of taxation.
We can argue this one to death. I'm a believer that you get to lower taxes by lower spending; Ms Truss believed that a more buoyant economy would generate more taxes.
But one cannot credibly claim that spiking bond yields - that only happened in the UK - was somehow a coincidence, and had nothing to do with the government's avowed change of direction.
I think this Gaza Israel debate is possibly even more depressing than discussing proportional representation
I know. Controversial take
The correct take. It's ruining PB.
And yet it fires up debate - worldwide - like no other geopolitical issue. Especially in proportion to its numerical scale
Why? - is a fascinating question. I am pretty sure the deep rooted mental fungus of anti Semitism is partly to blame. If you analyse most ardent pro Palestinians hard enough you will find fear and hatred of Jews. As we have seen this last week; many of the sufferers won’t even realise it
And I wonder what 'urges' drive the more exuberant of the pro-Israel brigade? And will they admit to or even realize it?
I don't know if you'd call me one of the "more exuberant of the pro-Israel brigade?", but here's an answer as to why I'm unwilling to see Israel be driven into the sea.
*) Israel is, in laws and lifestyle, more like the 'west' than many of its neighbouring countries. Homosexual rights being a classic example. If I had to live anywhere in that region (and not having visited the region), I'd choose Israel. As an agnostic with a Christian upbringing, I'd feel like my rights would most be respected there.
*) History. Not just the obvious Holocaust, but also the way Jews have been treated throughout time. There's still a massive amount of sympathy for their plight out there.
*) Emerging from the above, an understanding that many (not all) Jews believe they can only be 'safe' within their own country. (I also support a Kurdish state as well, although also accept that it would be massively complex to create one.)
*) Israel has already made moves for peace many times; for instance returning Sinai to Egypt, or their withdrawal from Gaza twenty-odd years ago.
For these reasons, I find it hard to paint Israel as the bad guy - or at least, the only bad guy. In contrast, see the way Palestinians and Palestinian refugees have been treated by their neighbouring countries over the years. Innocent Palestinian civilians are used, not just by the shits of Hamas, but also by Egypt, Jordan, Syria etc. Ditto Lebanon.
On the other hand, my position is that Israel has to make the first (in fact, more...) moves to peace.
AP (via Seattle Times) - Trump will file for New Hampshire presidential primary in person ahead of campaign rally
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Monday will formally file for the New Hampshire presidential primary ahead of a campaign rally in Derry.
It will be Trump’s second trip to the secretary of state’s office. Eight years ago, he signed up for the 2016 contest on the first day of the filing period, then sent Vice President Mike Pence to file his paperwork for the 2020 primary. He won both primaries but lost the state in the general election.
Candidates this year have until Oct. 27 to officially sign up, and dozens are expected to do so. The process is easy: They need only meet the basic requirements to be president, fill out a one-page form and pay a $1,000 filing fee.
The first to sign up this year was Mark Stewart Greenstein, who arrived at the Statehouse at 6:30 a.m. the day registration opened and paid his fee in cash, which included $400 in $2 bills. Greenstein got 31 votes when he ran in 2020.
In 2020, 33 Democrats and 17 Republicans signed up. The all-time high was 1992, when 61 people got on the ballot. . . .
One of the references on the Wikipedia article on the Nigerian Civil War says thus:
Levey, "Israel, Nigeria and the Biafra civil war" (2014), p. 270. "Michal Givoni points out that after June 1967, Israelis viewed the Biafrans as a people threatened in a manner similar to Israel during the crisis period that preceded the war.60 She also notes that Israel's daily newspapers reported frequently and prominently on what they termed the 'genocide' taking place in Nigeria. The general public in Israel, in the wake of that intense press coverage, expressed revulsion at the world's feckless response and the helplessness of the Biafran victims, which, for Israelis, recalled their own catastrophe."
Seattle Times ($) - Alaska Air off-duty pilot tries to shut off engines on flight from Everett
An off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot taking a ride Sunday in the jump seat of a flight out of Everett attempted to shut down the engines inflight and had to be subdued, the pilot is heard saying in a recording of the exchange with air traffic controllers.
Horizon Air flight 2059 from Everett to San Francisco diverted to Portland where it landed safely, and the Alaska Airlines pilot was arrested.
“I’ll just give you a heads-up. We’ve got the guy that tried to shut the engines down out of the cockpit,” the pilot told Portland air traffic control in a calm voice. “It doesn’t seem like he’s causing any issue at the back. I think he’s subdued.”
“Other than that, we want law enforcement as soon as we get on the ground and parked,” the pilot is heard saying in a recording of the exchange with air traffic controllers.
This was after the air traffic controller had got the plane set up for the unscheduled landing in Portland and asked the pilot to “let me know the threat level.”
(Listen on the LiveATC website [see link below]. Go to minute 10:56 in the recording.)
In a statement Monday, Alaska Air Group — the parent company of Alaska Airlines and its regional subsidiary Horizon Air — said “The Horizon Captain and First Officer quickly responded, engine power was not lost, and the crew secured the aircraft without incident.”
The diversion and unscheduled landing in Portland was done “following appropriate FAA procedures and guidance from Air Traffic Control,” the statement adds.
The Multnomah County [Portland OR] Sheriff’s office website shows that Alaska Airlines pilot Joe Emerson, 44, was arrested by Port of Portland Police and booked into jail just after 4:00 a.m. Monday morning.
The booking site shows Emerson is being held on suspicion of attempted murder and reckless endangerment.
In a statement, the FBI said it “is investigating and can assure the traveling public there is no continuing threat related to this incident.”
The Embraer E-175 regional jet had taken off from Everett’s Paine Field airport at 5:23 p.m. Sunday. The flight was full, with 80 passengers on board, including lap infants, with two pilots flying and two flight attendants in the passenger cabin. . . .
In its statement Monday Alaska Air said “a credible security threat related to an authorized occupant in the flight deck jump seat” occurred on the flight.
“The crew secured the aircraft without incident,” Alaska Air stated. “All passengers on board were able to travel on a later flight.”
“We are grateful for the professional handling of the situation by the Horizon flight crew and appreciate our guests’ calm and patience throughout this event,” the airline stated.
Passengers received travel vouchers for use on future travel.
I think this Gaza Israel debate is possibly even more depressing than discussing proportional representation
I know. Controversial take
The correct take. It's ruining PB.
And yet it fires up debate - worldwide - like no other geopolitical issue. Especially in proportion to its numerical scale
Why? - is a fascinating question. I am pretty sure the deep rooted mental fungus of anti Semitism is partly to blame. If you analyse most ardent pro Palestinians hard enough you will find fear and hatred of Jews. As we have seen this last week; many of the sufferers won’t even realise it
And I wonder what 'urges' drive the more exuberant of the pro-Israel brigade? And will they admit to or even realize it?
I don't know if you'd call me one of the "more exuberant of the pro-Israel brigade?", but here's an answer as to why I'm unwilling to see Israel be driven into the sea.
*) Israel is, in laws and lifestyle, more like the 'west' than many of its neighbouring countries. Homosexual rights being a classic example. If I had to live anywhere in that region (and not having visited the region), I'd choose Israel. As an agnostic with a Christian upbringing, I'd feel like my rights would most be respected there.
*) History. Not just the obvious Holocaust, but also the way Jews have been treated throughout time. There's still a massive amount of sympathy for their plight out there.
*) Emerging from the above, an understanding that many (not all) Jews believe they can only be 'safe' within their own country. (I also support a Kurdish state as well, although also accept that it would be massively complex to create one.)
*) Israel has already made moves for peace many times; for instance returning Sinai to Egypt, or their withdrawal from Gaza twenty-odd years ago.
For these reasons, I find it hard to paint Israel as the bad guy - or at least, the only bad guy. In contrast, see the way Palestinians and Palestinian refugees have been treated by their neighbouring countries over the years. Innocent Palestinian civilians are used, not just by the shits of Hamas, but also by Egypt, Jordan, Syria etc. Ditto Lebanon.
On the other hand, my position is that Israel has to make the first (in fact, more...) moves to peace.
Great post. I am definitely a "more exuberant" of the anti-Hamas brigade. I am also a "more exuberant" of the anti-ISIS and Al Qaeda brigade. Oh, and definitely a "more exuberant" of the anti-Putin brigade.
In fact, I am generally a "more exuberant" of the anti-baby murdering rapist sick bastards brigade, and anyone that provides them with excuses or apologies.
I think this Gaza Israel debate is possibly even more depressing than discussing proportional representation
I know. Controversial take
The correct take. It's ruining PB.
And yet it fires up debate - worldwide - like no other geopolitical issue. Especially in proportion to its numerical scale
Why? - is a fascinating question. I am pretty sure the deep rooted mental fungus of anti Semitism is partly to blame. If you analyse most ardent pro Palestinians hard enough you will find fear and hatred of Jews. As we have seen this last week; many of the sufferers won’t even realise it
And I wonder what 'urges' drive the more exuberant of the pro-Israel brigade? And will they admit to or even realize it?
I don't know if you'd call me one of the "more exuberant of the pro-Israel brigade?", but here's an answer as to why I'm unwilling to see Israel be driven into the sea.
*) Israel is, in laws and lifestyle, more like the 'west' than many of its neighbouring countries. Homosexual rights being a classic example. If I had to live anywhere in that region (and not having visited the region), I'd choose Israel. As an agnostic with a Christian upbringing, I'd feel like my rights would most be respected there.
*) History. Not just the obvious Holocaust, but also the way Jews have been treated throughout time. There's still a massive amount of sympathy for their plight out there.
*) Emerging from the above, an understanding that many (not all) Jews believe they can only be 'safe' within their own country. (I also support a Kurdish state as well, although also accept that it would be massively complex to create one.)
*) Israel has already made moves for peace many times; for instance returning Sinai to Egypt, or their withdrawal from Gaza twenty-odd years ago.
For these reasons, I find it hard to paint Israel as the bad guy - or at least, the only bad guy. In contrast, see the way Palestinians and Palestinian refugees have been treated by their neighbouring countries over the years. Innocent Palestinian civilians are used, not just by the shits of Hamas, but also by Egypt, Jordan, Syria etc. Ditto Lebanon.
On the other hand, my position is that Israel has to make the first (in fact, more...) moves to peace.
It doesn't follow from all this that it's OK to rob your neighbour's land or bomb residential dwellings because you might get a baddie.
I think this Gaza Israel debate is possibly even more depressing than discussing proportional representation
I know. Controversial take
The correct take. It's ruining PB.
And yet it fires up debate - worldwide - like no other geopolitical issue. Especially in proportion to its numerical scale
Why? - is a fascinating question. I am pretty sure the deep rooted mental fungus of anti Semitism is partly to blame. If you analyse most ardent pro Palestinians hard enough you will find fear and hatred of Jews. As we have seen this last week; many of the sufferers won’t even realise it
And I wonder what 'urges' drive the more exuberant of the pro-Israel brigade? And will they admit to or even realize it?
I don't know if you'd call me one of the "more exuberant of the pro-Israel brigade?", but here's an answer as to why I'm unwilling to see Israel be driven into the sea.
*) Israel is, in laws and lifestyle, more like the 'west' than many of its neighbouring countries. Homosexual rights being a classic example. If I had to live anywhere in that region (and not having visited the region), I'd choose Israel. As an agnostic with a Christian upbringing, I'd feel like my rights would most be respected there.
*) History. Not just the obvious Holocaust, but also the way Jews have been treated throughout time. There's still a massive amount of sympathy for their plight out there.
*) Emerging from the above, an understanding that many (not all) Jews believe they can only be 'safe' within their own country. (I also support a Kurdish state as well, although also accept that it would be massively complex to create one.)
*) Israel has already made moves for peace many times; for instance returning Sinai to Egypt, or their withdrawal from Gaza twenty-odd years ago.
For these reasons, I find it hard to paint Israel as the bad guy - or at least, the only bad guy. In contrast, see the way Palestinians and Palestinian refugees have been treated by their neighbouring countries over the years. Innocent Palestinian civilians are used, not just by the shits of Hamas, but also by Egypt, Jordan, Syria etc. Ditto Lebanon.
On the other hand, my position is that Israel has to make the first (in fact, more...) moves to peace.
Great post. I am definitely a "more exuberant" of the anti-Hamas brigade. I am also a "more exuberant" of the anti-ISIS and Al Qaeda brigade. Oh, and definitely a "more exuberant" of the anti-Putin brigade.
In fact, I am generally a "more exuberant" of the anti-baby murdering rapist sick bastards brigade, and anyone that provides them with excuses or apologies.
Yes. I am also quite openly exuberant in my loathing of people who casually shoot seven year old girls hiding under kitchen tables - especially when they laughingly slay them just for being Jewish
And I also agree that was an eloquent and measured post by @JosiasJessop
Perhaps the most articulate summary of the whole conflict that I have seen on PB in these recent troubled days
I think this Gaza Israel debate is possibly even more depressing than discussing proportional representation
I know. Controversial take
The correct take. It's ruining PB.
And yet it fires up debate - worldwide - like no other geopolitical issue. Especially in proportion to its numerical scale
Why? - is a fascinating question. I am pretty sure the deep rooted mental fungus of anti Semitism is partly to blame. If you analyse most ardent pro Palestinians hard enough you will find fear and hatred of Jews. As we have seen this last week; many of the sufferers won’t even realise it
And I wonder what 'urges' drive the more exuberant of the pro-Israel brigade? And will they admit to or even realize it?
I don't know if you'd call me one of the "more exuberant of the pro-Israel brigade?", but here's an answer as to why I'm unwilling to see Israel be driven into the sea.
*) Israel is, in laws and lifestyle, more like the 'west' than many of its neighbouring countries. Homosexual rights being a classic example. If I had to live anywhere in that region (and not having visited the region), I'd choose Israel. As an agnostic with a Christian upbringing, I'd feel like my rights would most be respected there.
*) History. Not just the obvious Holocaust, but also the way Jews have been treated throughout time. There's still a massive amount of sympathy for their plight out there.
*) Emerging from the above, an understanding that many (not all) Jews believe they can only be 'safe' within their own country. (I also support a Kurdish state as well, although also accept that it would be massively complex to create one.)
*) Israel has already made moves for peace many times; for instance returning Sinai to Egypt, or their withdrawal from Gaza twenty-odd years ago.
For these reasons, I find it hard to paint Israel as the bad guy - or at least, the only bad guy. In contrast, see the way Palestinians and Palestinian refugees have been treated by their neighbouring countries over the years. Innocent Palestinian civilians are used, not just by the shits of Hamas, but also by Egypt, Jordan, Syria etc. Ditto Lebanon.
On the other hand, my position is that Israel has to make the first (in fact, more...) moves to peace.
Great post. I am definitely a "more exuberant" of the anti-Hamas brigade. I am also a "more exuberant" of the anti-ISIS and Al Qaeda brigade. Oh, and definitely a "more exuberant" of the anti-Putin brigade.
In fact, I am generally a "more exuberant" of the anti-baby murdering rapist sick bastards brigade, and anyone that provides them with excuses or apologies.
One of the references on the Wikipedia article on the Nigerian Civil War says thus:
Levey, "Israel, Nigeria and the Biafra civil war" (2014), p. 270. "Michal Givoni points out that after June 1967, Israelis viewed the Biafrans as a people threatened in a manner similar to Israel during the crisis period that preceded the war.60 She also notes that Israel's daily newspapers reported frequently and prominently on what they termed the 'genocide' taking place in Nigeria. The general public in Israel, in the wake of that intense press coverage, expressed revulsion at the world's feckless response and the helplessness of the Biafran victims, which, for Israelis, recalled their own catastrophe."
Off topic, but I thought you* might like some good news from the US: "Nikki Haley is increasingly threatening to supplant Ron DeSantis as the principal GOP presidential rival to Donald Trump, escalating frictions between the two candidates that are playing out before voters on the campaign trail and behind closed doors with wealthy donors. . . . Haley rose to third in a Washington Post average of national polling from October, with 8 percent support to DeSantis’s 14 percent. She’s pulled into third in Iowa, where DeSantis’s support is still noticeably stronger, and jumped ahead of DeSantis in recent surveys of New Hampshire and South Carolina." source $: https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2023/10/21/haley-desantis-trump-presidential-race/
People think that the October 7th incursion was "just" terrorism albeit on steroids.
Israel seems to think it was an act of war. In war, especially if you think it is an existential one, then rules can go out of the window. Although as has been pointed out, the Israeli response doesn't look wholly indiscriminate to me.
Perhaps not wholly.
It is obvious though that they were completely surprised on Oct 7th, which suggests that their intelligence on Hamas numbers, deployment, equipment and fortifications are likely very poor. So they are substantially in the dark.
Maybe. There appears to have been a huge intelligence failing in terms of troop build up, etc, on Oct 7th. But I can't believe that through what is apparently a significant network of informants that they weren't aware of where eg Hamas No.1 Battery was located.
Their informants don't seem very good if they missed such a large scale Hamas plan. So they cannot know what else they have missed.
Going into a city fight against a guerrilla enemy, hiding an unknown weaponry amongst buildings, tunnels and rubble alongside civilians is quite a hairy prospect.
Hence the initial bombardment.
And hence that it cannot be well targeted. It is area bombing and dehousing in the classic Bomber Harris style.
I think this Gaza Israel debate is possibly even more depressing than discussing proportional representation
I know. Controversial take
The correct take. It's ruining PB.
And yet it fires up debate - worldwide - like no other geopolitical issue. Especially in proportion to its numerical scale
Why? - is a fascinating question. I am pretty sure the deep rooted mental fungus of anti Semitism is partly to blame. If you analyse most ardent pro Palestinians hard enough you will find fear and hatred of Jews. As we have seen this last week; many of the sufferers won’t even realise it
And I wonder what 'urges' drive the more exuberant of the pro-Israel brigade? And will they admit to or even realize it?
I don't know if you'd call me one of the "more exuberant of the pro-Israel brigade?", but here's an answer as to why I'm unwilling to see Israel be driven into the sea.
*) Israel is, in laws and lifestyle, more like the 'west' than many of its neighbouring countries. Homosexual rights being a classic example. If I had to live anywhere in that region (and not having visited the region), I'd choose Israel. As an agnostic with a Christian upbringing, I'd feel like my rights would most be respected there.
*) History. Not just the obvious Holocaust, but also the way Jews have been treated throughout time. There's still a massive amount of sympathy for their plight out there.
*) Emerging from the above, an understanding that many (not all) Jews believe they can only be 'safe' within their own country. (I also support a Kurdish state as well, although also accept that it would be massively complex to create one.)
*) Israel has already made moves for peace many times; for instance returning Sinai to Egypt, or their withdrawal from Gaza twenty-odd years ago.
For these reasons, I find it hard to paint Israel as the bad guy - or at least, the only bad guy. In contrast, see the way Palestinians and Palestinian refugees have been treated by their neighbouring countries over the years. Innocent Palestinian civilians are used, not just by the shits of Hamas, but also by Egypt, Jordan, Syria etc. Ditto Lebanon.
On the other hand, my position is that Israel has to make the first (in fact, more...) moves to peace.
It doesn't follow from all this that it's OK to rob your neighbour's land or bomb residential dwellings because you might get a baddie.
No, it doesn't. But ask yourself if a country - and Hamas is in charge of Gaza - had just killed well over a thousand of our population (or relatively more, given our larger population...), how would you want us to react? Especially if the bad guys were willing and able to do the same again, and their avowed intention was to wipe us off the face of the Earth?
I find it impossible to say it is not a casus belli.
This is not to excuse many of Israel's actions that led up to this - the expansion of the settlements in particular. But the idea that Israel is not able to react to the attack is odd, to say the least. And if you know if a surgical scalpel that can just it Hamas soldiers and leaders, please let me know.
I think this Gaza Israel debate is possibly even more depressing than discussing proportional representation
I know. Controversial take
The correct take. It's ruining PB.
And yet it fires up debate - worldwide - like no other geopolitical issue. Especially in proportion to its numerical scale
Why? - is a fascinating question. I am pretty sure the deep rooted mental fungus of anti Semitism is partly to blame. If you analyse most ardent pro Palestinians hard enough you will find fear and hatred of Jews. As we have seen this last week; many of the sufferers won’t even realise it
And I wonder what 'urges' drive the more exuberant of the pro-Israel brigade? And will they admit to or even realize it?
I don't know if you'd call me one of the "more exuberant of the pro-Israel brigade?", but here's an answer as to why I'm unwilling to see Israel be driven into the sea.
*) Israel is, in laws and lifestyle, more like the 'west' than many of its neighbouring countries. Homosexual rights being a classic example. If I had to live anywhere in that region (and not having visited the region), I'd choose Israel. As an agnostic with a Christian upbringing, I'd feel like my rights would most be respected there.
*) History. Not just the obvious Holocaust, but also the way Jews have been treated throughout time. There's still a massive amount of sympathy for their plight out there.
*) Emerging from the above, an understanding that many (not all) Jews believe they can only be 'safe' within their own country. (I also support a Kurdish state as well, although also accept that it would be massively complex to create one.)
*) Israel has already made moves for peace many times; for instance returning Sinai to Egypt, or their withdrawal from Gaza twenty-odd years ago.
For these reasons, I find it hard to paint Israel as the bad guy - or at least, the only bad guy. In contrast, see the way Palestinians and Palestinian refugees have been treated by their neighbouring countries over the years. Innocent Palestinian civilians are used, not just by the shits of Hamas, but also by Egypt, Jordan, Syria etc. Ditto Lebanon.
On the other hand, my position is that Israel has to make the first (in fact, more...) moves to peace.
Great post. I am definitely a "more exuberant" of the anti-Hamas brigade. I am also a "more exuberant" of the anti-ISIS and Al Qaeda brigade. Oh, and definitely a "more exuberant" of the anti-Putin brigade.
In fact, I am generally a "more exuberant" of the anti-baby murdering rapist sick bastards brigade, and anyone that provides them with excuses or apologies.
One of the references on the Wikipedia article on the Nigerian Civil War says thus:
Levey, "Israel, Nigeria and the Biafra civil war" (2014), p. 270. "Michal Givoni points out that after June 1967, Israelis viewed the Biafrans as a people threatened in a manner similar to Israel during the crisis period that preceded the war.60 She also notes that Israel's daily newspapers reported frequently and prominently on what they termed the 'genocide' taking place in Nigeria. The general public in Israel, in the wake of that intense press coverage, expressed revulsion at the world's feckless response and the helplessness of the Biafran victims, which, for Israelis, recalled their own catastrophe."
Comments
Nobody is saying that "all Palestinians" are like Hamas. Nobody.
I also note that you attribute reasons for actions "... and demanding freedom" that you cannot possible know. It might be that the child is doing it because, as you say, he "demands freedom". But it may also be that he is forced to; or just because the hideous stain of anti-Semitism has infected them too, and they're doing it because they hate? But you know best, evidently.
(There's also another issue here: the definition of 'child' in both cases. We tend to think of anyone under 16, and often 18, as being a child. Historically, and in some parts of the world, that's not the case. We sadly have 14 year olds stabbing other kids in this country, including one last week; and child soldiers are sadly common at some times. I would not be surprised if some of the Hamas shits who invaded Israel were under 18, and possibly 16. These things are complex...)
Among the civilian populations maybe.
Would any self respecting news org have said “Islamic State says more than 5,000 killed”. Bizarre.
“Here Lads, we’ve got a fellow here who won the London Mayoralty twice as a Conservative, bested a majority winning PM to win a national referendum, then achieved the biggest Tory landslide in a generation. Bit of a bounder, loads of kids with different women, but did manage to charm Marina Wheeler KC to take him back half a dozen times after having affairs. Now with a girl half his age”
“No, he’ll never be able to win over slightly dissatisfied voters, or recover a six point mid term deficit in the polls when there’s a million bad stories in the press about him, best call for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak”
But war is war and we (ie you) must accept that there is little point saying "oh why don't they try this or that" when it is the entity fighting the war and not you.
But to give us an idea of where your thinking is at, perhaps you could let us know an acceptable range of casualties on each side so we can gauge when they overstep the mark.
Civilians getting caught in the crossfire during war is entirely different to deliberately killing them.
The UK was well within its rights to bombard before sending troops in - and we did. Same with the USA, same with Israel.
Try to minimise civilian casualties, but there will always be some in any modern war, especially when the enemy uses its own civilians as human shields in violation of the Geneva Convention.
Anyway, it's estimated that several thousand civilians died during the (month-long) initial invasion*. And compared to today's conflict:
- The Iraqi government wasn't actively using its own civilians as human shields
- That's Iraqi civilians only; it's not clear how many of the current Palestinian deaths are Hamas members and therefore legitimate targets
- Gaza is a much more difficult place to minimise civilian casualties than Iraq was (fewer places to run, for starters)
And finally, your regular reminder that the only figures we have for current death toll in Gaza come directly from Hamas, and therefore should not be relied on for anything.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq#Casualties
Elisabeth Braw elisabethbraw.bsky.social
@elisabethbraw
The Swedish government has just announced that the
🇪🇪 🇸🇪 undersea cable was indeed "damaged by external force".
Just like the Finnish undersea cable and the Balticconnector.
Greyzone aggression.
So the point is moot.
Westminster VI (22 October):
Labour 44% (+1)
Conservative 26% (-3)
Liberal Democrat 13% (-1)
Reform UK 8% (+1)
Green 4% (–)
Scottish National Party 2% (+1)
https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1716484630105473265
Which one?
All of them!
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng
(2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
As to your question, there have been formal estimates from the car park incident as low as 100. So conceivably the total conflict so far is “only” 1,000 civilians in Gaza. But really who knows.
Gaza isn't especially big, had Israel acted like Russia there'd be about 2 million dead Gazans now, not a thousand or so if you can even believe those figures.
The alternative? I don't know. All the better options are ruled out because both sides want the carnage. Israel want revenge and Hamas want them to go crazy in pursuit of it.
The ones who treat Palestinians as inferior human beings are the Palestinian leaders. Hamas etc who use their own civilians as human shields.
In war every government has the duty to put its own people first, Israel is entirely appropriate to do so, its a shame Hamas do not do the same.
I have no idea how accurate the numbers are, and neither do you - but they are not completely incredible.
How large does the number need to be before it becomes a matter of concern ?
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
This is completely fallacious. Israel wants peace.
This has been shown time and again. From 1948 when Israel endorsed the UN division of the land, to Camp David when Israel agreed to peace but Arafat rejected it. As recently as 2005 Ariel Sharon pulled Israel out of Gaza (which is why there's now talk of Israel going in to Gaza as they're not occupying Gaza currently) and Israel was supporting the Palestinian authorities in building the Port of Gaza.
It is Hamas taking over Gaza and the Palestinian leaders rejecting peace that has time and again stymied any hope of peace. If Palestinian leaders would start putting their people first, work for peace, then democratic Israel would go for that too as they have repeatedly in the past.
Israel seems to think it was an act of war. In war, especially if you think it is an existential one, then rules can go out of the window. Although as has been pointed out, the Israeli response doesn't look wholly indiscriminate to me.
That's intended to be on topic. It's my impression that believing in magic has been trending upward in the US, for some time.
If so, that would explain some of our political problems, because demagogues can now more easily sell magical "solutions" to our problems. (Obvious examples: BLM and Trump.)
If -- and I must emphasize the "if" -- something similar is true in the UK, then you are unlikely to elect a popular prime minister any time soon.
Why? - is a fascinating question. I am pretty sure the deep rooted mental fungus of anti Semitism is partly to blame. If you analyse most ardent pro Palestinians hard enough you will find fear and hatred of Jews. As we have seen this last week; many of the sufferers won’t even realise it
My main concern is that things don’t spiral into a direct conflict between multiple nation states. So far so good, Israel has been fairly measured so far under the circumstances.
So it has had geopolitical resonance for decades.
Plus there's the anti-semitism thing going on also of course but as far as the Western powers were concerned that was irrelevant.
It is obvious though that they were completely surprised on Oct 7th, which suggests that their intelligence on Hamas numbers, deployment, equipment and fortifications are likely very poor. So they are substantially in the dark.
None of this was done by North Korea, Iran or Hamas. It is clearly a test of NATO by Russia. The problem is that any direct NATO response could destabilise the situation further and is clearly not a deterrent. I think we could see several more grey zone hybrid attacks from the Russians, in the North Sea or the Danish straits (one of their powder-keg rust bucket tankers under the Liberian flag owned via Limassol going on fire in a very inconvenient place, for example).
However there is real concern at NATO level that making too much noise about red lines on this will not achieve anything. I think that for the time being we will pretend we don´t know what happened and send more weapons to Ukraine as an indirect punishment.
The Bank of England set fire to the bond rate. Kwasi then stepped into the inferno.
Even if you think that his charisma could have overcome the Paterson and Pincher stories, it was never going to work on the Privileges Committee. They were going to find him seriously guilty of knowingly lying.
Charisma lets you get away with a lot. But not everything.
(Besides, the thing that brought Boris down with Conservative MPs was the Pincher story. Partly because it was yet another lie on top of all the others, but also it directly affected them. How would you feel if your boss knowingly put a sex pest in as your line manager and then lied to you about doing it?)
Interestingly, a second cousin, an officer in, IIRC, the Blues & Royals, when he did his service in Afghanistan, took cricket gear for the locals.
I’ve no idea how he feels about current developments, cricket-wise.
If the markets reacted due to these planned changes wouldn't they have re-corrected when they were withdrawn shortly thereafter?
Trump Plots to Pull Out of NATO — If He Doesn’t Get His Way
At the very least, the former president wants to put the U.S. on “standby” mode — and undermine NATO’s principle of collective defense
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/donald-trump-u-s-leave-nato-1234860016/
https://twitter.com/AnshelPfeffer/status/1716459869039907032
It's possible he might have had a better chance of winning the next election, but I think it's to the credit of British politics in general, and the Conservative Party in particular, that Johnson was given the heave for lying to the Commons.
"Turkey’s Erdogan submits Sweden’s bid for NATO membership to parliament"
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/23/turkeys-erdogan-submits-swedens-bid-for-nato-membership-to-parliament
... as I've mentioned my Surrey friend says she will not be voting Conservative for the first time in her life. She is "disgusted by them" (her words). She thinks the lurch to the right is appalling and cannot stand Braverman and her nasty brand of extremist right wing politics.
It's worth noting that she would vote Boris like a shot. But she will not be voting blue.
The tories are in for an evisceration on election night. Sunak and his loopy lot are losing both the gentle heart of the party, like my friend, and the red wall.
Let’s accept your terms
1. Islamophobia means an irrational fear of Islam. For many Jews the fear is entirely rational. Significant parts of the Islamic world apparently want them all dead
2. Islamophobia has never, in history, led to a serious attempt to kill every Muslim on earth, just for being Muslim
So I don’t think your comparison stands even if we accept it (despite its fatuity)
I think you can easily argue that the standard of public debate has declined and therefore that the level of public understanding of politics and economics has also declined. This then increases the amount of space in which things appear to be the result of magic, because they are otherwise beyond common understanding.
So, given that it is a political shibboleth that the public must be promised increased spending and lower taxes, then I think it is fair to say that the practice of politics has moved fair into the realms of magic and out of rational understanding.
Which is a bit problematic.
Going into a city fight against a guerrilla enemy, hiding an unknown weaponry amongst buildings, tunnels and rubble alongside civilians is quite a hairy prospect.
An off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot taking a ride Sunday in the jump seat of a flight out of Everett attempted to shut down the engines inflight and had to be subdued, the pilot is heard saying in a recording of the exchange with air traffic controllers.
Horizon Air flight 2059 from Everett to San Francisco diverted to Portland where it landed safely, and the Alaska Airlines pilot was arrested.
“I’ll just give you a heads-up. We’ve got the guy that tried to shut the engines down out of the cockpit,” the pilot told Portland air traffic control in a calm voice. “It doesn’t seem like he’s causing any issue at the back. I think he’s subdued.”
“Other than that, we want law enforcement as soon as we get on the ground and parked,” the pilot is heard saying in a recording of the exchange with air traffic controllers.
This was after the air traffic controller had got the plane set up for the unscheduled landing in Portland and asked the pilot to “let me know the threat level.”
(Listen on the LiveATC website [see link below]. Go to minute 10:56 in the recording.)
https://archive.liveatc.net/kpdx/KPDX-ZSE-Oct-23-2023-0100Z.mp3
In a statement Monday, Alaska Air Group — the parent company of Alaska Airlines and its regional subsidiary Horizon Air — said “The Horizon Captain and First Officer quickly responded, engine power was not lost, and the crew secured the aircraft without incident.”
The diversion and unscheduled landing in Portland was done “following appropriate FAA procedures and guidance from Air Traffic Control,” the statement adds.
The Multnomah County [Portland OR] Sheriff’s office website shows that Alaska Airlines pilot Joe Emerson, 44, was arrested by Port of Portland Police and booked into jail just after 4:00 a.m. Monday morning.
The booking site shows Emerson is being held on suspicion of attempted murder and reckless endangerment.
In a statement, the FBI said it “is investigating and can assure the traveling public there is no continuing threat related to this incident.”
The Embraer E-175 regional jet had taken off from Everett’s Paine Field airport at 5:23 p.m. Sunday. The flight was full, with 80 passengers on board, including lap infants, with two pilots flying and two flight attendants in the passenger cabin. . . .
In its statement Monday Alaska Air said “a credible security threat related to an authorized occupant in the flight deck jump seat” occurred on the flight.
“The crew secured the aircraft without incident,” Alaska Air stated. “All passengers on board were able to travel on a later flight.”
“We are grateful for the professional handling of the situation by the Horizon flight crew and appreciate our guests’ calm and patience throughout this event,” the airline stated.
Passengers received travel vouchers for use on future travel.
. . .
Haley rose to third in a Washington Post average of national polling from October, with 8 percent support to DeSantis’s 14 percent. She’s pulled into third in Iowa, where DeSantis’s support is still noticeably stronger, and jumped ahead of DeSantis in recent surveys of New Hampshire and South Carolina."
source $:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2023/10/21/haley-desantis-trump-presidential-race/
She's been endorsed by an impressive former candidate, Will Hurd. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Hurd
And I like the fact that she can do arithmetic. (She was doing the books for her family's business, as a teenager.) Too many of our politicians can't.
*Well, most of you, anyway.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Express_Flight_705
He was dubbed “the luckiest soldier in Afghanistan” in the press but I never asked if he tried to teach them cricket.
Why did yields spike?
Because Mr Market thought that the Truss/Kwarteng changes were adding inflationary fire to an economy that was already running quite hot. Wage growth in 2022 had been steadily climbing through the year (source), and had reached 6% in June, heading for 6.5%.
It was generally considered that increasing aggregate demand via lower tax (and a bit of higher spending) due to a focus on growth was likely to cause wage growth to continue to run hot. It was also considered unwise to throw fiscal fire on the economy at a time when the country was facing external inflationary pressures due to the Ukraine war.
Now, did the markets overreact? Quite possibly. But they were not behaving irrationally. Truss was elected on a platform of throwing away balanced budget orthodoxy and making a dash for growth.
Not growth grounded on supply side reforms and fiscal restraint; but instead driven by the belief that the reason growth had been modest was because of excessive levels of taxation.
We can argue this one to death. I'm a believer that you get to lower taxes by lower spending; Ms Truss believed that a more buoyant economy would generate more taxes.
But one cannot credibly claim that spiking bond yields - that only happened in the UK - was somehow a coincidence, and had nothing to do with the government's avowed change of direction.
*) Israel is, in laws and lifestyle, more like the 'west' than many of its neighbouring countries. Homosexual rights being a classic example. If I had to live anywhere in that region (and not having visited the region), I'd choose Israel. As an agnostic with a Christian upbringing, I'd feel like my rights would most be respected there.
*) History. Not just the obvious Holocaust, but also the way Jews have been treated throughout time. There's still a massive amount of sympathy for their plight out there.
*) Emerging from the above, an understanding that many (not all) Jews believe they can only be 'safe' within their own country. (I also support a Kurdish state as well, although also accept that it would be massively complex to create one.)
*) Israel has already made moves for peace many times; for instance returning Sinai to Egypt, or their withdrawal from Gaza twenty-odd years ago.
For these reasons, I find it hard to paint Israel as the bad guy - or at least, the only bad guy. In contrast, see the way Palestinians and Palestinian refugees have been treated by their neighbouring countries over the years. Innocent Palestinian civilians are used, not just by the shits of Hamas, but also by Egypt, Jordan, Syria etc. Ditto Lebanon.
On the other hand, my position is that Israel has to make the first (in fact, more...) moves to peace.
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Monday will formally file for the New Hampshire presidential primary ahead of a campaign rally in Derry.
It will be Trump’s second trip to the secretary of state’s office. Eight years ago, he signed up for the 2016 contest on the first day of the filing period, then sent Vice President Mike Pence to file his paperwork for the 2020 primary. He won both primaries but lost the state in the general election.
Candidates this year have until Oct. 27 to officially sign up, and dozens are expected to do so. The process is easy: They need only meet the basic requirements to be president, fill out a one-page form and pay a $1,000 filing fee.
The first to sign up this year was Mark Stewart Greenstein, who arrived at the Statehouse at 6:30 a.m. the day registration opened and paid his fee in cash, which included $400 in $2 bills. Greenstein got 31 votes when he ran in 2020.
In 2020, 33 Democrats and 17 Republicans signed up. The all-time high was 1992, when 61 people got on the ballot. . . .
Yes
At some point one just has to sit back and admire, in a dark sardonic way, the total surrealism of everything
https://x.com/war_noir/status/1716145623567593805?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Levey, "Israel, Nigeria and the Biafra civil war" (2014), p. 270. "Michal Givoni points out that after June 1967, Israelis viewed the Biafrans as a people threatened in a manner similar to Israel during the crisis period that preceded the war.60 She also notes that Israel's daily newspapers reported frequently and prominently on what they termed the 'genocide' taking place in Nigeria. The general public in Israel, in the wake of that intense press coverage, expressed revulsion at the world's feckless response and the helplessness of the Biafran victims, which, for Israelis, recalled their own catastrophe."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_Civil_War#cite_note-234
Am awaiting more facts than available in quick news flash, before putting on my speculating tin helmet.
In fact, I am generally a "more exuberant" of the anti-baby murdering rapist sick bastards brigade, and anyone that provides them with excuses or apologies.
And I also agree that was an eloquent and measured post by @JosiasJessop
Perhaps the most articulate summary of the whole conflict that I have seen on PB in these recent troubled days
But a whiz at his own version of New Math!
BTW, think that Nikki Haley leap-frogged into 2nd-place over Ron DiSantis weeks ago, with national polling being a lagging indicator.
I find it impossible to say it is not a casus belli.
This is not to excuse many of Israel's actions that led up to this - the expansion of the settlements in particular. But the idea that Israel is not able to react to the attack is odd, to say the least. And if you know if a surgical scalpel that can just it Hamas soldiers and leaders, please let me know.
It's a truly hideous situation.