Those toddler birthday parties are ok because the parents stay and are, I assume, plied with booze. And I’d guess there’s an entertainer.
The worst are the 9-10 year old parties where a small number of adults try to corral a group of unruly tweens while staying sober because they’ve all driven somewhere like the cinema or a pizza express (unless it’s laserquest in which case it’s great fun). Swimming parties undoubtedly the worst.
‘Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds Voters in battleground states said they trusted Donald J. Trump over President Biden on the economy, foreign policy and immigration, as Mr. Biden’s multiracial base shows signs of fraying.’
Honestly, what difference will it make to people in the UK? Slightly less warry foreign policy and slightly less coherent economic policy.
There will be some residual shame when Starmer has to lick DJT where he shits but the British people are well acculturated to that particular spasm of discomforting embarrassment.
The US withdrawing from NATO will be a bit crap, TBH
Our defence spending will have to double, that’s gonna hurt lots of other things
Why? The Russians can't take Kharkov which is 20km from their fucking border so the idea that they are a conventional military threat to the UK is nonsense.
I thought it was a truism that truth was the first casualty of war.
Everyone forgets that a subplot in the play Henry V is the Church distracting Henry from reformation of the church, with War With France.
Another subplot is that it includes the first blows of the War of the Roses in the Earl of Cambridge storyline.
Instructive that Cambridge's son was considerably more rebellious but kept his head until he was very nearly king himself.
It was less risky to be rebellious against a weakling like Henry VI than against his dad.
Yes, Henry V did not approve of rebellions.
I've always remembered the dry comment of one historian: 'A friend of his who betrayed him received a fair trial, but it took place some time after he'd been executed.'
Those toddler birthday parties are ok because the parents stay and are, I assume, plied with booze. And I’d guess there’s an entertainer.
The worst are the 9-10 year old parties where a small number of adults try to corral a group of unruly tweens while staying sober because they’ve all driven somewhere like the cinema or a pizza express (unless it’s laserquest in which case it’s great fun). Swimming parties undoubtedly the worst.
Depends who’s organising the swimming party.
Did a couple at a local pool - the staff were brilliantly organised, ran the whole thing as a service. They did a swim test first, the whole thing. Knackered them out, timed the end exactly right to give the children time to change before pizza and cake in the function room.
President Biden is trailing Donald J. Trump in five of the six most important battleground states one year before the 2024 election, suffering from enormous doubts about his age and deep dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy and a host of other issues, new polls by The New York Times and Siena College have found.
NY Times
Biden needs Trump and Trump needs Biden.
The USA needs neither.
The NATO nations certainly don't need Trump.
This would not be a great time for the Yellowstone caldera to blow and cover much of America a metre-deep in volcanc ash.
Or an earthquake along the San Andreas fault: "The U.S. Geological Survey estimates at least a 60 percent chance that an earthquake at a magnitude of 6.7 or greater could occur in the next 30 years in the Los Angeles area."
‘Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds Voters in battleground states said they trusted Donald J. Trump over President Biden on the economy, foreign policy and immigration, as Mr. Biden’s multiracial base shows signs of fraying.’
Honestly, what difference will it make to people in the UK? Slightly less warry foreign policy and slightly less coherent economic policy.
There will be some residual shame when Starmer has to lick DJT where he shits but the British people are well acculturated to that particular spasm of discomforting embarrassment.
The US withdrawing from NATO will be a bit crap, TBH
Our defence spending will have to double, that’s gonna hurt lots of other things
Why? The Russians can't take Kharkov which is 20km from their fucking border so the idea that they are a conventional military threat to the UK is nonsense.
Armies and militaries can be rebuilt fairly quickly, given the national will. Twenty years after Germany was defeated in WW1, they were starting the next bout. Russia went from the civil war in 1923 to the purges of the 1930s, and came out of WW2 a nascent superpower.
If Russia gets a win in Ukraine, expect the leadership to continue selling the myth of Russian Stronk and continuing to build up their military. Putin and his ilk will want vengeance.
I must confess that I’m coming to the view that this is a war where, if I had to support either side, I’d pick neither!
Matthew Parris wrote an at-the-time controversial column a few years ago arguing that we spend far too much time and energy worrying about the Arab-Israeli conflict and we should leave them to it.
For historical reasons this is of course practically impossible, but I do think it takes up an inordinate amount of Western political oxygen compared with just about any other conflict, including Russia-Ukraine. Out of all proportion to the scale of the conflict. Think of the others in recent years in the same broad neighbourhood: Yemen, Syria, Nagorno Karabakh, Libya. Some of which - notably Libya - the West was as involved in at the start as anything to do with Palestine.
One of the advantages of the post oil world will be not being beholden to the murderous clown shows who run so many petro-states.
Another reason why the Arab-Israeli conflict is such an aberration. No oil there (well not quite none but you know what I mean). So I suspect well after we’re no longer importing hydrocarbons we’ll still be seeing Palestine flags on peoples social media posts.
The one geopolitically salient angle on this is Hezbollah and by extension Iran.
No. Turns out the Jews were right, all along
All this wanking on about Palestine (but not wanking on about the Uigurs, the Rohingya, Yemen, etc) proves that it’s just a proxy for anti-Semitism. It really is. Scratch 80% of the protestors deep enough and they will eventually bleed Jew-hatred. Guaranteed. The last few weeks have shown this beyond reasonable doubt
However, this does not exonerate Israel or its governments in terms of politics. It has often done things which, quite rationally, evoke hatred in its enemies
Compare with the silence on what Pakistan is now doing to Afghan refugees.
Yes. Anyone who denies this, now, is a fool or a liar. It’s anti-Semitism which fuels the Palestinian cause beyond all reason, the mask has finally slipped
Perhaps it should not be a surprise that the most ancient hatred never went away; it’s plagued humanity for at least 2000 years, like some horrible genetic curse, like the Habsburg chin of racism, we were deluding ourselves that we’d killed it off (along with 6m Jews) post 1945
We just re-imported it. Like ash die-back, or rabies
No, it’s that every cause has its infestation of horrible people.
Organise a demo and Fascists and other human failures will show up to try and somehow tap into the support for your cause.
You have to push them out, that’s all.
Nah. I used to believe that; not any more
I’ve looked at the protests and seen the gleam in the eye; it’s anti-Semitism
It’s definitely there. But let’s not let the minority define the majority.
Look at those recent polling results and they suggest:
15-20% of people are genuinely either antisemitic or in danger of letting AS tropes enter their brains, and are on the far left of politics.
A further 5% or so are antisemitic because they buy into far right conspiracy theory, and are probably also islamophobic (but quite fond of Russia)
25% are very hostile to Muslims and squarely on the Israeli side, and would probably happily ban those protests as well as sinking small boats and forcing everyone to wear poppies.
That leaves around half the population that seems, from polling, to split between indifference and disengagement on the one side, and non-partisan sympathy for both Jews and Muslims on the other.
‘Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds Voters in battleground states said they trusted Donald J. Trump over President Biden on the economy, foreign policy and immigration, as Mr. Biden’s multiracial base shows signs of fraying.’
The details on that US polling are even worse for Biden than the headlines. He’s heading for defeat
If he has a shred of decency he will step back and let a younger candidate take the reins, defeating Trump is more important than his career. He somehow needs to ensure it won’t be Harris
But I bet Biden will stumble on. He’s old and vain; it’s a bad mix
The problem is everyone else still polls worse than Biden does against Trump...
Yeah, there's no obvious successor, and those Democrats who say they want somebody other than Biden don't agree on who it could or should be. In an alternate universe where Biden's VP had used their role skillfully to maintain a high political profile and Biden had given them opportunities to have policies and causes where they could say "I helped us achieve that", a non Biden nominee would be a live option -- you could imagine that VP polling well and Biden feeling a managed succession was the best path forward. But in the world we actually live in, I can't see it happening. There will be continued chatter about the possibility of some other nominee, because people aren't very enthusiastic about Biden and the media don't like foregone conclusions, but to my mind it really is a foregone conclusion unless there's some unexpected health issue.
Just seems very odd to me that Braverman's about 5/1 to be next Tory leader and Patel is 50/1 when they will both be making a similar pitch - but the latter has advantages the former does not. People just seem to have forgotten that if Tory MPs/members want to elect an Asian woman who is a hardline former home secretary and annoys liberals and left-wingers, there's another option who might have a very influential backer and who isn't bound to a government that looks likely to get a shellacking at the polls.
Swella doesn't even act like part of the government and has been running her leadership campaign for months. For that reason, and the soundings from my 81 year old median age focus group at the WI, she isn't going to get as spattered as the rest of the fucking scum when they have stand in front of the diarrhea filled trombone at the election.
True to some extent. But she won't be able to escape every failure. If, as seems likely, the Tories haven't managed to 'Stop The Boats' by the next election then she owns that.
Sure, she can claim it was all lefty lawyers' and civil servants' fault. But that rather raises the question why she didn't do more at the time and doesn't work as well against an opponent who is running on your terms who has the flexibility of having been out of office and able to adapt their pitch.
Does anyone know if any bookie is offering odds on next cabinet minister to leave at the moment? They sometimes do, but I can't find anything.
The allegations about treatment of sexual assault allegations in Dowden's time as party chairman may ultimately fizzle out, but look to at least have the potential to be fatal.
‘Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds Voters in battleground states said they trusted Donald J. Trump over President Biden on the economy, foreign policy and immigration, as Mr. Biden’s multiracial base shows signs of fraying.’
Honestly, what difference will it make to people in the UK? Slightly less warry foreign policy and slightly less coherent economic policy.
There will be some residual shame when Starmer has to lick DJT where he shits but the British people are well acculturated to that particular spasm of discomforting embarrassment.
The US withdrawing from NATO will be a bit crap, TBH
Our defence spending will have to double, that’s gonna hurt lots of other things
Otherwise the UK will survive. I’d be much less sanguine if I was living in Eastern Europe or maybe Taiwan
Triple, more like.
Poland will be nuclear armed power within a decade.
A Ukraine within NATO will again have nukes on its soil first....
Trump doesn’t have a clear polling lead across the different companies. There are quite strong house effects (as there are in Britain, it’s just all now show a large Labour lead).
If it weren’t for the fear of Trump we’d be looking at these and assuming a comfortable Biden hold in 2024 taking into account swingback. Certainly if polls here had the Tories ranging from a few points behind to a few points ahead we’d assume a victory next year was nailed on.
I'm not keen on this survey question. Its 'strictness' is a poor metric for judging the government's handling of the pandemic. Let's face facts, it was a shambles. They were far less competent in general and in many specific areas than we had a right to expect. However this doesn't mean they were 'too strict' or 'not strict enough'. Indeed the 'strictness' was about right. I'd have answered that way ('about right') yet as I say I think they messed up the pandemic quite badly. Even after cutting the relevant slack for being hit out of the blue with such a monumental crisis I score them way down. 4/10 max. But about right on the strictness.
Are you referring to 'the government' ie Boris and his gang or 'government' ie the public sector leadership in particular and public sector in general.
I'd say that the only groups to come out with their reputation enhanced were:
the supermarkets the vaccine sector the Treasury (much to my surprise)
As to the strictness of restrictions IMO they were too strict on some things and not strict enough on others.
Boris & Co mainly. Yes, I agree on the strictness. About right overall but too lax in places and too much micro-managing in others. Also messed up on timings. Too late to act, then too late to loosen. But I just want to forget about it now really.
Just seems very odd to me that Braverman's about 5/1 to be next Tory leader and Patel is 50/1 when they will both be making a similar pitch - but the latter has advantages the former does not. People just seem to have forgotten that if Tory MPs/members want to elect an Asian woman who is a hardline former home secretary and annoys liberals and left-wingers, there's another option who might have a very influential backer and who isn't bound to a government that looks likely to get a shellacking at the polls.
Swella doesn't even act like part of the government and has been running her leadership campaign for months. For that reason, and the soundings from my 81 year old median age focus group at the WI, she isn't going to get as spattered as the rest of the fucking scum when they have stand in front of the diarrhea filled trombone at the election.
True to some extent. But she won't be able to escape every failure. If, as seems likely, the Tories haven't managed to 'Stop The Boats' by the next election then she owns that.
Sure, she can claim it was all lefty lawyers' and civil servants' fault. But that rather raises the question why she didn't do more at the time and doesn't work as well against an opponent who is running on your terms who has the flexibility of having been out of office and able to adapt their pitch.
She will say Rishi and the Blob stopped her, and the ECHR/HRA which she will make the repeal of/withdrawal from a big part of her pitch.
She will be utterly shameless on this front. I think she’ll succeed in at least fooling enough of the people to make her leader, beyond that is too difficult to say.
Does anyone know if any bookie is offering odds on next cabinet minister to leave at the moment? They sometimes do, but I can't find anything.
The allegations about treatment of sexual assault allegations in Dowden's time as party chairman may ultimately fizzle out, but look to at least have the potential to be fatal.
With Hunt seemingly standing down at the GE, I can see him standing down after the Autumn statement. It would be very odd for Sunak to go into his final year with no CoE steer on the economy or on tax.
‘Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds Voters in battleground states said they trusted Donald J. Trump over President Biden on the economy, foreign policy and immigration, as Mr. Biden’s multiracial base shows signs of fraying.’
Honestly, what difference will it make to people in the UK? Slightly less warry foreign policy and slightly less coherent economic policy.
There will be some residual shame when Starmer has to lick DJT where he shits but the British people are well acculturated to that particular spasm of discomforting embarrassment.
The US withdrawing from NATO will be a bit crap, TBH
Our defence spending will have to double, that’s gonna hurt lots of other things
Why? The Russians can't take Kharkov which is 20km from their fucking border so the idea that they are a conventional military threat to the UK is nonsense.
Armies and militaries can be rebuilt fairly quickly, given the national will. Twenty years after Germany was defeated in WW1, they were starting the next bout. Russia went from the civil war in 1923 to the purges of the 1930s, and came out of WW2 a nascent superpower.
If Russia gets a win in Ukraine, expect the leadership to continue selling the myth of Russian Stronk and continuing to build up their military. Putin and his ilk will want vengeance.
Yes but a modern army is a product of an economic and technological base, and as far as that goes Russia is no longer in the running.
China is the only real prospect of a modern military outside NATO capable of a serious fight in a conventional war. They seem only interested militarily in their own neighbourhood.
Any country is capable of asymetric warfare, but that is not a hegemonic offensive threat.
I thought it was a truism that truth was the first casualty of war.
Everyone forgets that a subplot in the play Henry V is the Church distracting Henry from reformation of the church, with War With France.
Another subplot is that it includes the first blows of the War of the Roses in the Earl of Cambridge storyline.
Instructive that Cambridge's son was considerably more rebellious but kept his head until he was very nearly king himself.
It was less risky to be rebellious against a weakling like Henry VI than against his dad.
Yes, Henry V did not approve of rebellions.
I've always remembered the dry comment of one historian: 'A friend of his who betrayed him received a fair trial, but it took place some time after he'd been executed.'
I loved Sir Steven Runciman’s comment on Genghis Khan.
“He had a genuine love of learning, and was always ready to spare a scholar’s life. Unfortunately, few people ever got close enough to him to demonstrate their scholarship.”
Some of old the gentlemen amateur (in the best sense) historians had a wonderful turn of phrase.
Just seems very odd to me that Braverman's about 5/1 to be next Tory leader and Patel is 50/1 when they will both be making a similar pitch - but the latter has advantages the former does not. People just seem to have forgotten that if Tory MPs/members want to elect an Asian woman who is a hardline former home secretary and annoys liberals and left-wingers, there's another option who might have a very influential backer and who isn't bound to a government that looks likely to get a shellacking at the polls.
Swella doesn't even act like part of the government and has been running her leadership campaign for months. For that reason, and the soundings from my 81 year old median age focus group at the WI, she isn't going to get as spattered as the rest of the fucking scum when they have stand in front of the diarrhea filled trombone at the election.
True to some extent. But she won't be able to escape every failure. If, as seems likely, the Tories haven't managed to 'Stop The Boats' by the next election then she owns that.
Sure, she can claim it was all lefty lawyers' and civil servants' fault. But that rather raises the question why she didn't do more at the time and doesn't work as well against an opponent who is running on your terms who has the flexibility of having been out of office and able to adapt their pitch.
She will say Rishi and the Blob stopped her, and the ECHR/HRA which she will make the repeal of/withdrawal from a big part of her pitch.
She will be utterly shameless on this front. I think she’ll succeed in at least fooling enough of the people to make her leader, beyond that is too difficult to say.
Spitting on Churchill’s legacy won’t go down well.
Trump doesn’t have a clear polling lead across the different companies. There are quite strong house effects (as there are in Britain, it’s just all now show a large Labour lead).
If it weren’t for the fear of Trump we’d be looking at these and assuming a comfortable Biden hold in 2024 taking into account swingback. Certainly if polls here had the Tories ranging from a few points behind to a few points ahead we’d assume a victory next year was nailed on.
The US is so polarised that I think potential for swing back is limited.
Just seems very odd to me that Braverman's about 5/1 to be next Tory leader and Patel is 50/1 when they will both be making a similar pitch - but the latter has advantages the former does not. People just seem to have forgotten that if Tory MPs/members want to elect an Asian woman who is a hardline former home secretary and annoys liberals and left-wingers, there's another option who might have a very influential backer and who isn't bound to a government that looks likely to get a shellacking at the polls.
Swella doesn't even act like part of the government and has been running her leadership campaign for months. For that reason, and the soundings from my 81 year old median age focus group at the WI, she isn't going to get as spattered as the rest of the fucking scum when they have stand in front of the diarrhea filled trombone at the election.
True to some extent. But she won't be able to escape every failure. If, as seems likely, the Tories haven't managed to 'Stop The Boats' by the next election then she owns that.
Sure, she can claim it was all lefty lawyers' and civil servants' fault. But that rather raises the question why she didn't do more at the time and doesn't work as well against an opponent who is running on your terms who has the flexibility of having been out of office and able to adapt their pitch.
She will say Rishi and the Blob stopped her, and the ECHR/HRA which she will make the repeal of/withdrawal from a big part of her pitch.
She will be utterly shameless on this front. I think she’ll succeed in at least fooling enough of the people to make her leader, beyond that is too difficult to say.
Spitting on Churchill’s legacy won’t go down well.
Yes but in the post-truth era we are no longer interested in what Churchill, Thatcher or anyone else actually said or believed. People prefer their own imagined construct.
Trump doesn’t have a clear polling lead across the different companies. There are quite strong house effects (as there are in Britain, it’s just all now show a large Labour lead).
If it weren’t for the fear of Trump we’d be looking at these and assuming a comfortable Biden hold in 2024 taking into account swingback. Certainly if polls here had the Tories ranging from a few points behind to a few points ahead we’d assume a victory next year was nailed on.
The US is so polarised that I think potential for swing back is limited.
The independents are definitely a minority but they don't seem keen on Trump 2: The Reckoning.
‘Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds Voters in battleground states said they trusted Donald J. Trump over President Biden on the economy, foreign policy and immigration, as Mr. Biden’s multiracial base shows signs of fraying.’
Honestly, what difference will it make to people in the UK? Slightly less warry foreign policy and slightly less coherent economic policy.
There will be some residual shame when Starmer has to lick DJT where he shits but the British people are well acculturated to that particular spasm of discomforting embarrassment.
The US withdrawing from NATO will be a bit crap, TBH
Our defence spending will have to double, that’s gonna hurt lots of other things
Why? The Russians can't take Kharkov which is 20km from their fucking border so the idea that they are a conventional military threat to the UK is nonsense.
They can cut our pipelines and undersea cables though.
‘Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds Voters in battleground states said they trusted Donald J. Trump over President Biden on the economy, foreign policy and immigration, as Mr. Biden’s multiracial base shows signs of fraying.’
Honestly, what difference will it make to people in the UK? Slightly less warry foreign policy and slightly less coherent economic policy.
There will be some residual shame when Starmer has to lick DJT where he shits but the British people are well acculturated to that particular spasm of discomforting embarrassment.
The US withdrawing from NATO will be a bit crap, TBH
Our defence spending will have to double, that’s gonna hurt lots of other things
Why? The Russians can't take Kharkov which is 20km from their fucking border so the idea that they are a conventional military threat to the UK is nonsense.
Armies and militaries can be rebuilt fairly quickly, given the national will. Twenty years after Germany was defeated in WW1, they were starting the next bout. Russia went from the civil war in 1923 to the purges of the 1930s, and came out of WW2 a nascent superpower.
If Russia gets a win in Ukraine, expect the leadership to continue selling the myth of Russian Stronk and continuing to build up their military. Putin and his ilk will want vengeance.
Yes but a modern army is a product of an economic and technological base, and as far as that goes Russia is no longer in the running.
China is the only real prospect of a modern military outside NATO capable of a serious fight in a conventional war. They seem only interested militarily in their own neighbourhood.
Any country is capable of asymetric warfare, but that is not a hegemonic offensive threat.
"...and as far as that goes Russia is no longer in the running."
Rubbish; they could change that very rapidly if they wanted, and especially if they create the right strategic alliances. The thing is, Russia has everything it needs to be a superpower: vast resources, a fairly-well educated population and a vast industrial base. It is going backwards at the moment, but it can easily change. In fact, as a dictatorship, it can change far more rapidly than we can.
And don't underestimate the problems we would have in any prospective conflict; lots of people on here seem to hate us and the west more than they hate the dictators and religious zealots who might be our enemies.
‘Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds Voters in battleground states said they trusted Donald J. Trump over President Biden on the economy, foreign policy and immigration, as Mr. Biden’s multiracial base shows signs of fraying.’
Honestly, what difference will it make to people in the UK? Slightly less warry foreign policy and slightly less coherent economic policy.
There will be some residual shame when Starmer has to lick DJT where he shits but the British people are well acculturated to that particular spasm of discomforting embarrassment.
The US withdrawing from NATO will be a bit crap, TBH
Our defence spending will have to double, that’s gonna hurt lots of other things
Why? The Russians can't take Kharkov which is 20km from their fucking border so the idea that they are a conventional military threat to the UK is nonsense.
Armies and militaries can be rebuilt fairly quickly, given the national will. Twenty years after Germany was defeated in WW1, they were starting the next bout. Russia went from the civil war in 1923 to the purges of the 1930s, and came out of WW2 a nascent superpower.
If Russia gets a win in Ukraine, expect the leadership to continue selling the myth of Russian Stronk and continuing to build up their military. Putin and his ilk will want vengeance.
Yes but a modern army is a product of an economic and technological base, and as far as that goes Russia is no longer in the running.
China is the only real prospect of a modern military outside NATO capable of a serious fight in a conventional war. They seem only interested militarily in their own neighbourhood.
Any country is capable of asymetric warfare, but that is not a hegemonic offensive threat.
"...and as far as that goes Russia is no longer in the running."
Rubbish; they could change that very rapidly if they wanted, and especially if they create the right strategic alliances. The thing is, Russia has everything it needs to be a superpower: vast resources, a fairly-well educated population and a vast industrial base. It is going backwards at the moment, but it can easily change. In fact, as a dictatorship, it can change far more rapidly than we can.
And don't underestimate the problems we would have in any prospective conflict; lots of people on here seem to hate us and the west more than they hate the dictators and religious zealots who might be our enemies.
All Western countries have a substantial minority who wish to see their own societies burn down.
‘Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds Voters in battleground states said they trusted Donald J. Trump over President Biden on the economy, foreign policy and immigration, as Mr. Biden’s multiracial base shows signs of fraying.’
Honestly, what difference will it make to people in the UK? Slightly less warry foreign policy and slightly less coherent economic policy.
There will be some residual shame when Starmer has to lick DJT where he shits but the British people are well acculturated to that particular spasm of discomforting embarrassment.
The US withdrawing from NATO will be a bit crap, TBH
Our defence spending will have to double, that’s gonna hurt lots of other things
Why? The Russians can't take Kharkov which is 20km from their fucking border so the idea that they are a conventional military threat to the UK is nonsense.
Armies and militaries can be rebuilt fairly quickly, given the national will. Twenty years after Germany was defeated in WW1, they were starting the next bout. Russia went from the civil war in 1923 to the purges of the 1930s, and came out of WW2 a nascent superpower.
If Russia gets a win in Ukraine, expect the leadership to continue selling the myth of Russian Stronk and continuing to build up their military. Putin and his ilk will want vengeance.
Yes but a modern army is a product of an economic and technological base, and as far as that goes Russia is no longer in the running.
China is the only real prospect of a modern military outside NATO capable of a serious fight in a conventional war. They seem only interested militarily in their own neighbourhood.
Any country is capable of asymetric warfare, but that is not a hegemonic offensive threat.
"...and as far as that goes Russia is no longer in the running."
Rubbish; they could change that very rapidly if they wanted, and especially if they create the right strategic alliances. The thing is, Russia has everything it needs to be a superpower: vast resources, a fairly-well educated population and a vast industrial base. It is going backwards at the moment, but it can easily change. In fact, as a dictatorship, it can change far more rapidly than we can.
And don't underestimate the problems we would have in any prospective conflict; lots of people on here seem to hate us and the west more than they hate the dictators and religious zealots who might be our enemies.
All Western countries have a substantial minority who wish to see their own societies burn down.
As do most non-Western countries, as surveys tend to show.
But I think a lot of this is just performative. When push comes to shove a lot of the supposed revolutionaries would shit themselves and log off Twitter.
There was no fallout at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They were air bursts - deliberately planned that way, specifically to eliminate fallout.
Airbursts create greater fallout, by pulverizing the ground beneath it, irradiating it, and creating a vacuum which upsucks the pulverized radioactive dirt into the atmosphere, thence to drift of the wind
Groundbursts create greater destruction in a smaller area and do not have as big of a debris cloud.
‘Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds Voters in battleground states said they trusted Donald J. Trump over President Biden on the economy, foreign policy and immigration, as Mr. Biden’s multiracial base shows signs of fraying.’
Honestly, what difference will it make to people in the UK? Slightly less warry foreign policy and slightly less coherent economic policy.
There will be some residual shame when Starmer has to lick DJT where he shits but the British people are well acculturated to that particular spasm of discomforting embarrassment.
The US withdrawing from NATO will be a bit crap, TBH
Our defence spending will have to double, that’s gonna hurt lots of other things
Otherwise the UK will survive. I’d be much less sanguine if I was living in Eastern Europe or maybe Taiwan
Triple, more like.
Poland will be nuclear armed power within a decade.
A Ukraine within NATO will again have nukes on its soil first....
Yes. And may well share the contents of the power station cooling ponds with Poland.
Why do you think Putin and chums are so frightened of Ukraine possessing nuclear power stations?
Unless Ukraine really, really wins this, a strategic deterrent is a must for them. As in a crowd pleaser for Moscow and enough to build a lake where the leadership bunker is.
There was no fallout at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They were air bursts - deliberately planned that way, specifically to eliminate fallout.
Airbursts create greater fallout, by pulverizing the ground beneath it, irradiating it, and creating a vacuum which upsucks the pulverized radioactive dirt into the atmosphere, thence to drift of the wind
Groundbursts create greater destruction in a smaller area and do not have as big of a debris cloud.
Er no.
Airburst is defined as the primary fireball not touching down. So the unburnt fission fuel doesn’t have tons of material to stick to - which is fallout. Instead the active material is chucked up to 50,000 feet plus and dispersed rapidly.
Ground bursts excavate zillions of tons of pulverised dirt into the primary fireball. Creating your classic radiological disaster - Castle Bravo etc.
There was no fallout at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They were air bursts - deliberately planned that way, specifically to eliminate fallout.
Airbursts create greater fallout, by pulverizing the ground beneath it, irradiating it, and creating a vacuum which upsucks the pulverized radioactive dirt into the atmosphere, thence to drift of the wind
Groundbursts create greater destruction in a smaller area and do not have as big of a debris cloud.
Er no.
Airburst is defined as the primary fireball not touching down. So the unburnt fission fuel doesn’t have tons of material to stick to - which is fallout. Instead the active material is chucked up to 50,000 feet plus and dispersed rapidly.
Ground bursts excavate zillions of tons of pulverised dirt into the primary fireball. Creating your classic radiological disaster - Castle Bravo etc.
Er, um?
An airburst is one in the air. Nagasaki was 20kt, so if it airbursted under 200m the fireball would still have touched the ground. The trick with fallout is to suck it up and let the winds carry it out. If you do it on the ground you irradiate less ground plus there's less impulse to suck it up
Groundbursts do a lot of explosive/thermal damage within a smaller area. Airbursts do less damage (but more radiological/thermal damage) over a wider area.
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The worst are the 9-10 year old parties where a small number of adults try to corral a group of unruly tweens while staying sober because they’ve all driven somewhere like the cinema or a pizza express (unless it’s laserquest in which case it’s great fun). Swimming parties undoubtedly the worst.
I've always remembered the dry comment of one historian: 'A friend of his who betrayed him received a fair trial, but it took place some time after he'd been executed.'
Did a couple at a local pool - the staff were brilliantly organised, ran the whole thing as a service. They did a swim test first, the whole thing. Knackered them out, timed the end exactly right to give the children time to change before pizza and cake in the function room.
This would not be a great time for the Yellowstone caldera to blow and cover much of America a metre-deep in volcanc ash.
Or an earthquake along the San Andreas fault: "The U.S. Geological Survey estimates at least a 60 percent chance that an earthquake at a magnitude of 6.7 or greater could occur in the next 30 years in the Los Angeles area."
(The good news seems to be the drying out of the Salton Sea makes this a receding threat:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/06/07/earthquake-california-san-andreas/)
If Russia gets a win in Ukraine, expect the leadership to continue selling the myth of Russian Stronk and continuing to build up their military. Putin and his ilk will want vengeance.
Look at those recent polling results and they suggest:
15-20% of people are genuinely either antisemitic or in danger of letting AS tropes enter their brains, and are on the far left of politics.
A further 5% or so are antisemitic because they buy into far right conspiracy theory, and are probably also islamophobic (but quite fond of Russia)
25% are very hostile to Muslims and squarely on the Israeli side, and would probably happily ban those protests as well as sinking small boats and forcing everyone to wear poppies.
That leaves around half the population that seems, from polling, to split between indifference and disengagement on the one side, and non-partisan sympathy for both Jews and Muslims on the other.
https://archive.ph/YUKrn
Sure, she can claim it was all lefty lawyers' and civil servants' fault. But that rather raises the question why she didn't do more at the time and doesn't work as well against an opponent who is running on your terms who has the flexibility of having been out of office and able to adapt their pitch.
The allegations about treatment of sexual assault allegations in Dowden's time as party chairman may ultimately fizzle out, but look to at least have the potential to be fatal.
Here are the last few:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/
If it weren’t for the fear of Trump we’d be looking at these and assuming a comfortable Biden hold in 2024 taking into account swingback. Certainly if polls here had the Tories ranging from a few points behind to a few points ahead we’d assume a victory next year was nailed on.
She will be utterly shameless on this front. I think she’ll succeed in at least fooling enough of the people to make her leader, beyond that is too difficult to say.
China is the only real prospect of a modern military outside NATO capable of a serious fight in a conventional war. They seem only interested militarily in their own neighbourhood.
Any country is capable of asymetric warfare, but that is not a hegemonic offensive threat.
“He had a genuine love of learning, and was always ready to spare a scholar’s life. Unfortunately, few people ever got close enough to him to demonstrate their scholarship.”
Some of old the gentlemen amateur (in the best sense) historians had a wonderful turn of phrase.
As they are demonstrating in the Baltic.
Rubbish; they could change that very rapidly if they wanted, and especially if they create the right strategic alliances. The thing is, Russia has everything it needs to be a superpower: vast resources, a fairly-well educated population and a vast industrial base. It is going backwards at the moment, but it can easily change. In fact, as a dictatorship, it can change far more rapidly than we can.
And don't underestimate the problems we would have in any prospective conflict; lots of people on here seem to hate us and the west more than they hate the dictators and religious zealots who might be our enemies.
NEW THREAD
But I think a lot of this is just performative. When push comes to shove a lot of the supposed revolutionaries would shit themselves and log off Twitter.
Groundbursts create greater destruction in a smaller area and do not have as big of a debris cloud.
Why do you think Putin and chums are so frightened of Ukraine possessing nuclear power stations?
Unless Ukraine really, really wins this, a strategic deterrent is a must for them. As in a crowd pleaser for Moscow and enough to build a lake where the leadership bunker is.
Airburst is defined as the primary fireball not touching down. So the unburnt fission fuel doesn’t have tons of material to stick to - which is fallout. Instead the active material is chucked up to 50,000 feet plus and dispersed rapidly.
Ground bursts excavate zillions of tons of pulverised dirt into the primary fireball. Creating your classic radiological disaster - Castle Bravo etc.
An airburst is one in the air. Nagasaki was 20kt, so if it airbursted under 200m the fireball would still have touched the ground. The trick with fallout is to suck it up and let the winds carry it out. If you do it on the ground you irradiate less ground plus there's less impulse to suck it up
Groundbursts do a lot of explosive/thermal damage within a smaller area. Airbursts do less damage (but more radiological/thermal damage) over a wider area.
Have a play with this: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/