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Rasputitsa – politicalbetting.com
Rasputitsa – politicalbetting.com
Remember Ukraine ? Since 7th October the war in the East of Europe has been pretty much forgotten. The Grim Reaper has probably taken a bigger toll in October in Ukraine than he has in the Middle East but that’s no longer news. And still the fighting goes on.
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Biden visited Kyiv before Putin.
http://wxmaps.org/pix/soil4
It’s been unusually warm in Ukraine this autumn, particularly the South. And soil moisture is unusually low. So a bit of time before things get muddy.
The fact the Ukrainian attacks are in the drier South while the Russian attacks are in the wetter cooler Donbas might count in Ukraine’s favour for a few weeks.
Mud varies in texture. Sometimes waterlogged and squelchy, sometimes darkly organic and stainy, occasionally slick and wet like the runoff from a potters wheel. Mine is cakey. Big adhesive clumps that stick to your boots.
Its a long haul, these things don't happen overnight, but the west has deeper pockets than Russia does, so long as the west keeps up at it and doesn't give up. The Ukrainians don't want to give up and we should support them to the hilt unless or until they do, or more likely they succeed in full.
There is a strong illiberal trait to too many people in this country. How utterly depressing.
And the US is the root of all evil, of course...
(/sarcasm)
Something Number 10 is not responsible for...
"National Highways has withdrawn claims the deaths of thousands of trees beside a new road might have been due to government pressure to open it early."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-67308830
Come on.
One of my favourite bits of vintage gossip was Sir L. having an affair with Danny Kaye. As far as I can tell everyone was shagging everyone in them olden days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt1BD_pGpZc
I think this is going to be a very difficult winter for Ukraine. Maintaining morale os going to be a real challenge as the body bags continue to stream home.
A change of Russian leadership is now probably their best chance.
(Aren't imaginary numbers a high England score?)
That last paragraph may seem like an exaggeration, but it’s the sort of sentiment that’s driving Trump’s support.
Irrespective of who wins the next US election, Europe is going to have to think much more about their own defence in future, as the Americans turn from seeing Russia to China as their main enemy. European nations should be getting every available weapon into Ukraine now, to make damn sure that Russia is properly defeated militarily.
England are shit.
The minnows pull off some hilarious upsets.
South Africa choke at the key moments.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/11/05/rishi-sunak-scrambling-tourist-tax-vat-shopping-backlash/
Personal anecdote - this is stopping me spending money on big-ticket items in the UK at the moment.
"Senior officials in Downing Street discussed Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn forming a government of national unity at the height of Covid, it has emerged
The plan was suggested by Helen MacNamara, the then deputy cabinet secretary
@janemerrick23"
https://twitter.com/ChaplainChloe/status/1721080012533621062
1) Make criminals attend their sentencing.
2) Ban tents
3) Reform leaseholding but only for some people.
How can anyone doubt that a No 10 with such fingers on the pulse and such an instinct for spotting the big issues concerning the electorate will cruise to a comfortable fourth term?
(Apols for drifting back on topic.)
The Russian economy is stuttering and it's less than a year since the oil and gas sanctions came in. Why did the Saudis co-ordinate an oil production cut?
With power comes responsibility
These things matter
They know the alternative is worse
It is really worth recalling that the wheels only started to fall off this government when the news of the lockdown parties started coming out.
I agree about Gaza being a sideshow compared to Ukraine (and Taiwan) though. We should be putting our economy onto much more of a war footing imho.
And who counts as a tourist? Someone on holiday? On a visa? A non-resident? A non-citizen?
"Ukraine is both the conventional short and long name of the country," she says. "This name is stated in the Ukrainian Declaration of Independence and Constitution."
The use of the article relates to the time before independence in 1991, when Ukraine was a republic of the Soviet Union known as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, she says. Since then, it should be merely Ukraine.
There is no definite article in the Ukrainian or Russian languages and there is another theory why it crept into the English language."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18233844
Everyone in the West needs to be lobbying OPEC hard to get the oil price down, especially those with elections next year - because cheaper petrol and Putin being screwed are both good things.
It's just about understandable that we all ignored it then and were happy to abandon Ukraine to the point a grim stalemate was all they could do, it'd be unforgivably stupid to repeat that. Cost of supplies and support now may be tough, but compared to the cost of dialling back that support?
If tourists buy something, they should pay the same taxes as anyone else.
When I go to the other side of the Atlantic I don't get a refund on any sales taxes levied there.
The UK is a major hub for tourists annually, of course they should be paying taxes. Better than we do.
Edit to add: which I think is a pretty stupid idea
It's quite a fun scifi tale.
My reaction is (yet again) to wonder about the polling and who the heck they are asking.
Did the words 'the government' in the question impel opponents to give the answer which they thought was most critical? The other thing I notice (apols if this was discussed in previous thread) is the wording 'the Covid-19 outbreak'; could this be construed as referring to the first few weeks of the pandemic only.
If the question had said: 'In hindsight, regarding the whole Covid pandemic, on balance were our freedoms restricted Too Much, Not Enough or About Right' then maybe the poll result would have different?
Now, unlike many pb-ers I admire Elon. He does amazing things. But my God, he is bad at names
Grok????
https://www.unix.com/man-page/debian/1/grok/
Edit: I see that has already been pointed out.
Though why anyone thought decision making would be improved by having even more arguing politicians involved is beyond me.
Inquiry has been v poor so far imho.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/05/us/politics/biden-trump-2024-poll.html
One of the reasons, which I have not seen discussed much here is the increasing distrust of Republicans for our "mainstream media".
"In just five years, the percentage of Republicans with at least some trust in national news organizations has been cut in half – dropping from 70% in 2016 to 35% this year. This decline is fueling the continued widening of the partisan gap in trust of the media.
A line graph showing that wider partisan gaps have emerged in trust of national and local news organizations, social media
Nearly eight-in-ten Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (78%) say they have “a lot” or “some” trust in the information that comes from national news organizations – 43 percentage points higher than Republicans and Republican leaners (35%) – according to a new Pew Research Center survey conducted June 14-27, 2021. This partisan gap is the largest of any time that this question has been asked since 2016. And it grows even wider – to 53 points – between liberal Democrats (83%) and conservative Republicans (30%).
The 35% of Republicans who have at least some trust in national news organizations in 2021 is half that of in 2016 (70%) – and has dropped 14 points since late 2019 (49%). By comparison, Democrats have remained far more consistent in the past five years, ranging somewhere between 78% and 86%."
source: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/08/30/partisan-divides-in-media-trust-widen-driven-by-a-decline-among-republicans/
That timing should give you a clue as to one of the causes for that decrease in trust. If that isn't enough of a hint, think about the title of Bernard Goldberg's little book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-slobbering-love-affair-bernard-goldberg/1114684276
I know nuanced discussions about economic analysis don't fit well on internet discussion forums. But the guiding principle here should be whether the country as a whole (not just the government) is better or worse off for having this system in place. Does the revenue to shopkeepers, retailers, etc. lost from it offset the hit to the government? I haven't looked at the analysis so I'm not sure, and such studies are pretty sketchy anyway, but if we can get more money off foreigners in this instance we should do so.
https://youtu.be/fH-E6J5TJTY?feature=shared
If the GOP had any sense they would advocate higher taxes on the urban rich.
Building an LLM based on Llama is not such an impressive achievement as doing one from scratch.
The fairness / social justice factor needs to be considered as well.
Even if it resulted in enough extra money for the purveyors of overpriced consumer tat to offset the loss in VAT that wouldn't make up for the aggravation felt by those people now having to pay a tax which rich foreigners did not have to.