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A land of many (black) waters – politicalbetting.com
A land of many (black) waters – politicalbetting.com
Picture: Thatched roofed houses in Guyana, credit Wikimedia Commons
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A land of many (black) waters – politicalbetting.com
Picture: Thatched roofed houses in Guyana, credit Wikimedia Commons
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It is the right thing to do, also as a member of the Commonwealth it is what the late Queen would have wanted.
Their existence is neo-colonialist imperialism anyway. After they have been driven from the land by the vastly superior Venezuelan forces, there is no prospect of their return. So the future facts on the ground demand their immediate capitulation.
I doubt most US voters care what happens there
So much for soft "British" power.
Perhaps any sabre rattling in Venezuela probably tells us far more about contemporary Venezuela than it does Guyana?
I note that Wiki seems to think the Guyana GDP is $20k/head not $10k/head. That is the 4th higherst in South America.
IIRC Guyana was the pioneer place where a decade ago a significant international endowment fund was setup to help preserve he rainforest. Have you run into any indication of how well that has worked, and how rainforest preservation might work with new oil wealth?
26 Methalox FFSC engines on the first stage.....
We could build a massive retirement complex there to solve our ageing population problem.
Guyana (former British Guiana)
Suriname (former Dutch Guiana)
French Guiana (still French, natch)
Portuguese Guiana (roughly corresponding to the Amapa State of Brazil)
and
Spanish Guiana (covering the Amazonas, Bolivar, and Delta Amacuro provinces of Venezuela). There's even a Cuidad Guayana in the region.
Wasn't HYUFD going on about the importance of links with India? They play cricket but dumped the King a lot longer ago than Guyana.
Figures vary, but there are in the order of 200,000 to 300,000 Guyanans living in he USA; mainly in New York. This is a large proportion of the ~800,000 population of Guyana itself.
40% of Guyanans are of Indian heritage, as a consequence of the abolition of slavery and its British roots (*); 30% are of West African heritage, brought over as part of the slave trade.
*Never* confuse Guyana with French Guiana. It annoys lots of people. The latter is best known for launching loads of rockets for FranceEurope.
The oil finds are causing an explosion in Guyana's GDP. This obviously has advantages, but also some rather serious potential consequences. Will all that money be spent and distributed wisely? Will it destabilise its already slightly rocky politics? Will it be able to be exploited to Guyana's advantage, especially if oil demand reduces over the next few decades?
For a different perspective, Forbes published the following after I wrote this, stating that war is unlikely. Some of the points it makes vary with what other sources (for instance that the 1966 Geneva Agreement voided the earlier agreement - that is very much Venezuela's position, which many other countries disagree with. Still, it is worth a read:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/eliasferrerbreda/2023/11/30/essequibo-dispute-no-plan-for-war-in-guyana/?sh=2c02005f15a4
(*) Not that I believe that the Indians who went to Guyana had a massively better life than the Africans had before. Life was hard, especially as indentured people.
Any resemblance to following is a coincidence....
We climbed up Mount Roriama and walked around the tripoint of Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil.
So I can state I have have visited Essequibo, if only briefly.
As I said outside British Overseas Territories or Commonwealth realms we don't go to war to defend any other nation without a UN or NATO mandate or under a US led campaign
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=GY
There is a semi private Chinese rocket company that is doing the same for Falcon 9
So the Chinese are going for copying. Europe is going for Denial. As is trad aerospace in the US.
Wish someone would do something smart - see Stoke….
It is screamingly obvious there will be a full on extremist government jn the west within a decade or so
You could argue Trump was fairly close. Closer than Meloni. Orban is close
And it might not be extreme right - could be left. Certainly don’t rule it out. Everything is pushing politics towards the edges - tho my hunch is far right is much more likely because so much of the pressure is from migration and from the woke left pushing red buttons
We need to keep our powder dry to recover the Malvinas.
Lucid, cogent, direct, illuminating and thought-provoking. You give the background, you explain the issues, you offer context, you say why it matters. Bingo
Better than we will get from several major papers, probably
Irish Times journalist Kitty Holland says the Irish media "were right" to not publish the full comments of Ryan Casey, boyfriend of murdered 23-year-old Ashling Murphy, claiming that his remarks were "incitement to hatred" and that it wouldn't be "helpful" to share them.
As for far right v far left, yes the former has by far the easier path to power in the democratic west. It takes real skill and guts to fight racism and xenophobia. Pandering, fostering and exploiting it, less so.
I don't know. Much would depend on Venezuela's exact actions, and the reaction of neighbouring countries and the USA.
@SpeakerJohnson
told me he will vote AGAINST expelling
@MrSantosNY
https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1730590623869112491
Effing LOL.
I guess they need his vote for Biden's impeachment.
LOL again.
(sorry, couldn't resist
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111503576899732074
(Language might be nsfw.)
“You are trolling folks and trying to play political games so you can out-Trump Trump,” Newsom said. “How is that going for you, Ron? You are down 41 points in your own home state.”
Ofcom study has found viewers miss days when BBC was ‘fun’, with output becoming ‘dry’, ‘cringey’ and out of touch
By Anita Singh, ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR and India McTaggart, ENTERTAINMENT & ROYAL CORRESPONDENT'
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/30/bbc-too-politically-correct-working-class-audiences-ofcom
Fascism is possible, but I don't think it will actually resolve any of the issues driving people to vote for it. We have seen, for example, the abject failure of our populist rightist government to seriously control immigration ('tens of thousands', lol), because they don't take the problem seriously from a policy/delivery POV, only from a 'talking tough' optics POV. It doesn't cost much to have vans with GO HOME on the side driving around; developing a robust and modern immigration system (with the right staffing, infrastructure and equipment) does.
Per the excellent John Gray video (on Joe Media) somebody posted here a few days back, a lot of the popular outlook in our declining liberal democracies is quite leftist/statist in many ways.
If it does happen, Trump seems by far the most likely. He's a deranged narcissist with a massive groundswell of support (and tbh I feel the segments of the US are more apt to trying out a bit of full-on fash than in Europe, especially if it comes Gilead-flavoured).
There are obvious exceptions, e.g. Skara Brae on Orkney, but it seems a rather common example of convergent design evolution. The best shapes for strength, materials and purpose. I wonder if you could place an 1800-era tribesman from PNG in an Iron Age British roundhouse and have them feel at home?
Ofcom produced excellent studies like this pretty routinely; it's worth periodically checking in our their site to see what they're up to.
They were attempting all up testing - for a tiny fraction of the Saturn 5 budget, they nearly got it working. A couple more launches and they would have had it working.
The big problems were a complete lack of ground testing of the individual engines - explosively opening valves! - plus poor computer control.
The program was already dead, politically, when they were launching. The Soviet leadership was already moving away from attempting to catch up with the Americans in space. Funding was already cut off - they were using up what they had to try and persuade the Big Bosses to turn the taps on again.
Second, sometimes there is a "rally round the flag" effect in the US, where support for a president goes up -- usually for a short period of time -- in foreign crises.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rally_'round_the_flag_effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogan
He’s been pointing out for years that patenting rocket technology merely provides a blueprint. How do you sue a government or a government’s pet military contractor for infringing?
EDIT : I’m expecting an other Long March 9 update, as are most observers. Following the announcement of Starship version 2.
"A key issue, raised by a number of people that we spoke to, was that BBC programming is increasingly
seen as dry and serious compared to other PSB channels and the major streaming services. While this
was seen as appropriate for some genres (such as news and current affairs, and certain dramas),
overall our participants felt there was more ‘fun’ content available elsewhere and often turned to
other channels or to streaming services for more light-hearted programming.
BBC content was also seen as increasingly ‘safe’ and, by some, overly politically correct. In explaining
how the BBC has become ‘safe’ people mentioned past programming they had enjoyed but felt
wouldn’t be made any more , or they mentioned presenters and talent that they felt the BBC used to
employ but wouldn’t now (e.g. Ricky Gervais, Jeremy Clarkson)."
Not unexpectedly, the Telegraph's take on it probably isn't a balanced representation of the main points in the report.
Mind you, it is slightly better than doing nothing - see Europe
No obvious movement as a result of the Autumn Statement. Libdems down and Reform up.
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/concorde-the-race-for-supersonic
I guess this means educated opinion is that Biden is more beatable by a Not Trump than Trump is by a Not Biden. And maybe that's right due to Trump's bigger 'core', ie of voters who think of him positively and passionately. Hate to stumble my way to a point supporting Trump's chances, so hopefully there's another and better explanation.
They didn’t get delta wings right
Vulcan prototype
Vulcan production
The wing shape on the Concorde was even more sophisticated, curved in 3D.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=gklVhRzkVqA
What did converge were the requirements. And if you try to build something to do the same task with roughly the same technology level, you may get things that look very similar on the surface - because that's the best design for the job. The same thing happened with the Space Shuttle and Buran: they were designed to perform pretty much identical tasks, and so they look superficially similar.
Prime Minister criticised by George Osborne after Sunak cancelled meeting with the Greek prime minister
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/12/01/kyriakos-mitsotakis-george-osborne-rishi-sunak-elgin-marble/ (£££)
Great headlines of our time but not Rishi's.
Osborne had suggested Rishi had a hissy fit because the Greek PM met Starmer.
Fergus Butler-Gallie
@_F_B_G_
Perfect Elgin Marbles solution: The King personally gives them back, but says he can only do so to a fellow sovereign. At short notice they need a monarch with Greek heritage and an obviously Greek name for a one way trip to Athens: step up Andrew
https://twitter.com/_F_B_G_/status/1730611567086157996
And yes, having engines that could not be ground-tested was stupid. As was not building a ground-test facility for stages, as the US did for Saturn V. From memory, the engineers and project managers knew this and argued for it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouYoF9cQI44
And where all the tree kangaroos had gone.
But yes, the house would seem sensible to him ...
*correct term - a friend of mine did an internship at the diarrhoea specialist hospital (I forget what it was called) up country.