No sign yet of the grown-ups taking back control of the Tory Party, I see.
That tweet is not wrong though.
The Tories have been failing for 13 years, and are trying to pass a policy that Rwanda has said it might back out of if it doesn't follow international law. That also seems like a plan to tackle illegal immigration that adds up to sweet FA.
True, the Tories have failed but Labour will be subjected to scrutiny on this and what is their policy. They have many who are pro open door migration, no human is illegal. Make the case if they want to advocate it. Or come up with something they want to offer in place of what we have currently.
Yes, I predict a Labour govt will collapse into infighting and incoherence on immigration within a year, or less
They straddle every opinion from Let Them All In to “Down To Tens of Thousands”, and Starmer does not have the charisma to bind them all together, plus the issue is way more poisonous than it was under Blair/Brown
Trouble ahead
Alternatively, Labour will do a great job declaring victory on migration.
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
I’m not so sure, sadly
I think Russia is going to steal a win out of this, at least in the short-medium term. Long term it must be bad for Moscow
Seattle Times ($) - ‘Escape liberal hell’: Republicans really are fleeing WA
Danny Westneat - At first, the ads seemed like a pandemic-era curiosity, a niche political pitch playing on the red state, blue state divide.
“Escape liberal hell,” counseled one sales video from a Boise, Idaho, real estate agent. “Here are seven reasons conservatives flock to Idaho.” . . .
The idea that people would pick up and move solely for politics has seemed like a stretch. Moving for a job, schools, space, a rural lifestyle, yes. People relocate for all sorts of reasons — nearly 250,000 moved here from another U.S. state last year, with 258,000 going the other way, the Census Bureau says.
But now, there’s solid evidence that some people really are migrating over partisanship.
This past week, Idaho released a database of voters who have moved into that state, along with where they came from and what political party they signed up for when they got there. . . .
The political makeup of who has moved to Idaho is eye-opening. It is, as the Idaho Capital Sun news site called it, a “Republican fever dream.”
Of about 119,000 voters who relocated to Idaho in recent years, 65% signed up as Republican. That’s significantly higher than the partisan makeup of the state already, which is 58% GOP.
Only 12% of the newcomers registered as Democrats. About 21% picked “unaffiliated” and 2% chose a third party such as Libertarian.
The data explodes the myth that liberals, untethered due to remote work, might be moving to Idaho or other red states from San Francisco and Seattle and potentially turning the interior more purple. The exact opposite is happening — people are segregating into like-minded, polarized, geographical camps.
Sixty-two percent of Washingtonians who moved to Idaho registered as Republicans, the data shows. Only 12% were Democrats. Ours is a 60-40 blue state, roughly, so this means Republicans are preferentially sorting themselves out of Washington state at high rates. . . .
From Seattle, the data shows 34% who relocated to Idaho were GOPers. (Seattle tends to vote only about 10% Republican.) . . . .
It is a fever dream for Idaho Republicans to turn that state into a fortress against liberalism — an American redoubt, some of them call it.
But red migration like this to the interior is a nightmare for the Washington state GOP. Its own customers are fleeing.
You can now even choose your real estate agent by their politics. The company GOP Agent “is here to help you connect with a Real Estate Agent who shares your Republican ideals and values,” their website says.
“One of our realtors held an info session in Seattle (about moving to a red State), and had over 150 attendees,” according to the Conservative Move Facebook page. “The interest in moving to red states is not slowing down.”
I hope they warned them that Idaho has a state income tax. [Washington State does NOT.] Could be a sticker shock upon arrival.
Maybe this is the secret to levelling up here in the UK. Some enterprising estate agent could target homeowners in Richmond or St Albans with "Escape liberal hell...here are several reasons conservatives flock to Mansfield".
Re: the grilling of Boris Johnson (figuratively speaking, do NOT get excited!) find myself wish that one of his inquisitors would ask him the following question - in Latin:
"Mr. Johnson, given your high degree of classical learning, do you recall any of the commentaries of Cicero upon similar acts of mis- and malfeasance by the political and governmental leaders of his day?"
Surely a softball of a question for such an eminent classicist? Or perhaps not.
"Er, well, mumble-mumble, even the great Cicero himself, the magnus ipse orator, was, er, mumble, in, um... in hock to the top of his toga to Peppa Pigulus Cornelius Sulla if I am er, mumble, not, er, mistaken. And nor was Cicero averse to the occasional work's drinks gathering, while the pestilence, er, ravaged through Rome like mould through a ripe Stilton."
. . .dum pestilentia per urbem quasi maturum Stilton.
Off topic: Do we know when the SC are to rule on the Scottish GRR case?
Unless I have missed it we haven't even had the decision from Lady Haldane yet. That should be issued shortly but the appeal from there is to the Inner House of the Court of Session and only from there to the Supreme Court if leave is granted. I very much doubt that we will have a Supreme Court decision in the next year. This very probably suits the SG fine because it keeps it in the long grass.
Though what this means is that there will likely be one court decision in the run up to the next election and the ultimate ruling and what mayfollow from that, whatever it is, will be for the next Labour government. It may not welcome this.
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
I’m not so sure, sadly
I think Russia is going to steal a win out of this, at least in the short-medium term. Long term it must be bad for Moscow
I continue to see the most likely outcome being an uneasy truce based around a heavy garrisoning of the current territorial position, or something very closed to it. If and when this happens, I hope that Russia and Ukraine's Western sponsors try to out-do each other in lavishing money upon 'their' bits of Ukraine to demonstrate the merits of the new arrangements (or the old). It seems to be the least the surviving residents deserve.
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
You mean Putin is going to have to give up on building his Great Society ?
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
I’m not so sure, sadly
I think Russia is going to steal a win out of this, at least in the short-medium term. Long term it must be bad for Moscow
Mind you, he is just 22. How can you be that good a chef, at 22?? Phenomenal. He will have a fine career
Amazing he did so well considering his heritage of enslavement.
I noticed some Moroccan flavors in his recipes so my guess is his forefathers made good their escape from Casablanca
The two I liked, the French geeky lad with the specs and the Caribbean girl, both got canned when I predicted they'd go all the way along with Ginger guy who they just seem to adore.
No one, on this show, has ever cooked dog before. Do you reckon they should ?
It would be hilarious: barbecued dog
Sadly they won’t because the BBC would lose the licence fee the next day
Yes the disappearance of French African geeky dude was a surprise. The even bigger surprise for me was when they kicked out the Arabian fusion Bath restaurant woman. One minute she was a genius, next: gone
Yes, we were shocked at that too as she sailed through her first round. The other three were poor in comparison.
If not barbecued dog then deep fried Tarantula (apparently it tastes like bacon with a texture of prawn) or Scorpion. When I worked in the rail industry with a supplier in Hong Kong one of the guys I deakt with adored scorpion.
They are keen on a wide variety of cuisine so why not.
I hope Kasae wins.
If Leon was doing his job properly he would have tried both tarantula and scorpion.
(I don't believe that Cambodians really eat tarantulas, except when starving, and suspect it is a big joke on barangs)
Re: the grilling of Boris Johnson (figuratively speaking, do NOT get excited!) find myself wish that one of his inquisitors would ask him the following question - in Latin:
"Mr. Johnson, given your high degree of classical learning, do you recall any of the commentaries of Cicero upon similar acts of mis- and malfeasance by the political and governmental leaders of his day?"
Surely a softball of a question for such an eminent classicist? Or perhaps not.
"Er, well, mumble-mumble, even the great Cicero himself, the magnus ipse orator, was, er, mumble, in, um... in hock to the top of his toga to Peppa Pigulus Cornelius Sulla if I am er, mumble, not, er, mistaken. And nor was Cicero averse to the occasional work's drinks gathering, while the pestilence, er, ravaged through Rome like mould through a ripe Stilton."
You are giving Boris the benefit of my doubt, by assuming that he could actually comprehend the question when asked in Latin.
That point in a relationship where the other person feels so let down/angry/betrayed that there's not really any point saying/doing anything, because it won't be heard. The main cure is years in the doghouse.
It happened to Major's Conservatives after September 1992. It's probably what happend between Labour and the red wall switchers.
The current crop of the Conservatives managed the genius move of doing it twice. A lot of voters were repulsed by Boris's antics, then the Trusstershambles turned off a load more.
Even if Sunak were a political and governmental genius, it probably wouldn't help much. But he is neither, so it's all moot.
The Tories do really set themselves up for a colossal meme bash, don't they?
Rishi Sunak when asked to show fiscal discipline. James Cleverly when asked what he called Stockton. Suella Braverman when asked why she's failed in all her jobs...
Speaking of failure, that retard Spielman really copped it sweet today didn't she? As did Alan Derry and Chris Russell who were accused of lying (probably correctly since OFSTED hasn't done any training of any sort for many years, including safeguarding).
But then, Spielman always was a fool. It's one reason why OFSTED's new inspection framework which she thinks everyone buys into(!) has been such a fiasco.
I understand your antipathy towards Ofsted, although I'd gently suggest your use of 'retard' is unwise.
It's clear that the Coroner concludes that the Lead Inspector was insensitive and intimidating, although it's also clear that the judgement of the original inspection was probably right under the current framework - as safeguarding is a limiting grade and the school hadn't carried out the necessary checks.
The case raises, though, a whole raft of issues about performance management in both the public and private sectors, especially if such management is insensitive. Any system that can lead to judging an individual as a failure could also lead to that individual not being able to cope with it, and taking their own life. I'd be astonished if the Ruth Perry case, tragic though it is, is unique.
Why? She is a retard. A very stupid woman who is also unbelievably arrogant. I can see why she got on with Cummings. Her every move in education has been a catastrophe, from Ark to OFQUAL to OFSTED.
And there is very considerable doubt as to whether there was fact anything wrong with the paperwork. OFSTED have form for deliberately failing schools on safeguarding to force academisation on them (incidentally there again Derry was at least wrong - it is the statutory duty of the SoS to issue an academy order for a school that has failed on safeguarding. Interesting to note that in this case it hasn't happened, which tells me all I need to know about what was going on).
These peoples' mistakes have cost Ruth Perry her life and done enormous damage to the education of millions of children. They may not have meant it but they took on these jobs and have failed in them. They deserve every ounce of opprobrium we can give them.
The irony being, of course, that OFSTED itself has no actual safeguarding procedures, does not have up to date DBS checks on its inspectors and does not do its statutory training. So on its own terms, it is Inadequate.
Incidentally this is why the Knight report was a bad idea. Self-evaluation is what OFSTED has and look at the disaster it has wrought. There should always be second checks on anything important.
My children went to Caversham Primary some 30 years ago. It was an excellent school then and I believe it still is. I did not know Ruth Perry but have friends who did. By all accounts she was a dedicated, effective and much-loved headteacher. A fundraiser which has raised almost £90000 since 25 November to cover the family’s legal costs (they were denied legal aid) is testament to that.The tragedy for the Perry family, the school and the wider community is heartbreaking. OFSTED does not appear to be fit for purpose.
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
I’m not so sure, sadly
I think Russia is going to steal a win out of this, at least in the short-medium term. Long term it must be bad for Moscow
Invading is the easy part.
Holding onto land full of people who don't want to be a part of your country is the difficult bit.
And, sure, if Russia was 20x the size of Ukraine they could wear it. Chechnya, for example, has a population of 1.4 million people. China was some crazy multiple of people bigger than Tibet.
Eastern Ukraine contains 20 million people. Yeah, sure, they'll have moved some of them around to other parts of Russia. And many will have fled West at the start of the war. But you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think occupying Eastern Ukraine won't be an enormous resource drain on Russia. And at the same time, the world is replacing Russian oil and gas.
Back in 2005, Russia was the biggest oil producer in the world, followed by Saudi, with the US 25% below in third. Now, the US is producing almost 50% more oil than Russia! Europe has entirely replaced Russian gas, something that would have seemed utterly impossible two years ago.
If Russia wins - and while you are very good at noticing that Ukraine is struggling, you are oddly blind to the fact that Russia is facing exactly the same issues - then it will still face an enormously costly occupation, that will cost lives and money, in a country that is increasingly an economic backwater.
Mind you, he is just 22. How can you be that good a chef, at 22?? Phenomenal. He will have a fine career
Amazing he did so well considering his heritage of enslavement.
I noticed some Moroccan flavors in his recipes so my guess is his forefathers made good their escape from Casablanca
The two I liked, the French geeky lad with the specs and the Caribbean girl, both got canned when I predicted they'd go all the way along with Ginger guy who they just seem to adore.
No one, on this show, has ever cooked dog before. Do you reckon they should ?
It would be hilarious: barbecued dog
Sadly they won’t because the BBC would lose the licence fee the next day
Yes the disappearance of French African geeky dude was a surprise. The even bigger surprise for me was when they kicked out the Arabian fusion Bath restaurant woman. One minute she was a genius, next: gone
Yes, we were shocked at that too as she sailed through her first round. The other three were poor in comparison.
If not barbecued dog then deep fried Tarantula (apparently it tastes like bacon with a texture of prawn) or Scorpion. When I worked in the rail industry with a supplier in Hong Kong one of the guys I deakt with adored scorpion.
They are keen on a wide variety of cuisine so why not.
I hope Kasae wins.
If Leon was doing his job properly he would have tried both tarantula and scorpion.
(I don't believe that Cambodians really eat tarantulas, except when starving, and suspect it is a big joke on barangs)
No, they really eat them
I saw them widely on sale during the Water Festival ten days ago in Phnom Penh. They love them, they are seen as a a treat
For @kinabalu and @DavidL, I have just learnt that Lady Haldane's judgment on the S.35 Order challenging Scotland's GRR Bill is due to be published tomorrow.
Seattle Times ($) - ‘Escape liberal hell’: Republicans really are fleeing WA
Danny Westneat - At first, the ads seemed like a pandemic-era curiosity, a niche political pitch playing on the red state, blue state divide.
“Escape liberal hell,” counseled one sales video from a Boise, Idaho, real estate agent. “Here are seven reasons conservatives flock to Idaho.” . . .
The idea that people would pick up and move solely for politics has seemed like a stretch. Moving for a job, schools, space, a rural lifestyle, yes. People relocate for all sorts of reasons — nearly 250,000 moved here from another U.S. state last year, with 258,000 going the other way, the Census Bureau says.
But now, there’s solid evidence that some people really are migrating over partisanship.
This past week, Idaho released a database of voters who have moved into that state, along with where they came from and what political party they signed up for when they got there. . . .
The political makeup of who has moved to Idaho is eye-opening. It is, as the Idaho Capital Sun news site called it, a “Republican fever dream.”
Of about 119,000 voters who relocated to Idaho in recent years, 65% signed up as Republican. That’s significantly higher than the partisan makeup of the state already, which is 58% GOP.
Only 12% of the newcomers registered as Democrats. About 21% picked “unaffiliated” and 2% chose a third party such as Libertarian.
The data explodes the myth that liberals, untethered due to remote work, might be moving to Idaho or other red states from San Francisco and Seattle and potentially turning the interior more purple. The exact opposite is happening — people are segregating into like-minded, polarized, geographical camps.
Sixty-two percent of Washingtonians who moved to Idaho registered as Republicans, the data shows. Only 12% were Democrats. Ours is a 60-40 blue state, roughly, so this means Republicans are preferentially sorting themselves out of Washington state at high rates. . . .
From Seattle, the data shows 34% who relocated to Idaho were GOPers. (Seattle tends to vote only about 10% Republican.) . . . .
It is a fever dream for Idaho Republicans to turn that state into a fortress against liberalism — an American redoubt, some of them call it.
But red migration like this to the interior is a nightmare for the Washington state GOP. Its own customers are fleeing.
You can now even choose your real estate agent by their politics. The company GOP Agent “is here to help you connect with a Real Estate Agent who shares your Republican ideals and values,” their website says.
“One of our realtors held an info session in Seattle (about moving to a red State), and had over 150 attendees,” according to the Conservative Move Facebook page. “The interest in moving to red states is not slowing down.”
I hope they warned them that Idaho has a state income tax. [Washington State does NOT.] Could be a sticker shock upon arrival.
There was an excellent Vox video a couple of years ago about how - in America - people are increasingly ghettoized. Democrats only know Democrats. Republicans only know Republicans.
And this is incredibly unhealthy. And, candidly, toxic for democracy. We need to know and understand why people have different views to us.
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
I’m not so sure, sadly
I think Russia is going to steal a win out of this, at least in the short-medium term. Long term it must be bad for Moscow
Invading is the easy part.
Holding onto land full of people who don't want to be a part of your country is the difficult bit.
And, sure, if Russia was 20x the size of Ukraine they could wear it. Chechnya, for example, has a population of 1.4 million people. China was some crazy multiple of people bigger than Tibet.
Eastern Ukraine contains 20 million people. Yeah, sure, they'll have moved some of them around to other parts of Russia. And many will have fled West at the start of the war. But you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think occupying Eastern Ukraine won't be an enormous resource drain on Russia. And at the same time, the world is replacing Russian oil and gas.
Back in 2005, Russia was the biggest oil producer in the world, followed by Saudi, with the US 25% below in third. Now, the US is producing almost 50% more oil than Russia! Europe has entirely replaced Russian gas, something that would have seemed utterly impossible two years ago.
If Russia wins - and while you are very good at noticing that Ukraine is struggling, you are oddly blind to the fact that Russia is facing exactly the same issues - then it will still face an enormously costly occupation, that will cost lives and money, in a country that is increasingly an economic backwater.
I just said LONG term this will likely be a disaster for Russia - for all the reasons you state
But short-medium term, ie now to five years hence (say) I reckon Putin is going to get a result he can sell as a win
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
I’m not so sure, sadly
I think Russia is going to steal a win out of this, at least in the short-medium term. Long term it must be bad for Moscow
Invading is the easy part.
Holding onto land full of people who don't want to be a part of your country is the difficult bit.
And, sure, if Russia was 20x the size of Ukraine they could wear it. Chechnya, for example, has a population of 1.4 million people. China was some crazy multiple of people bigger than Tibet.
Eastern Ukraine contains 20 million people. Yeah, sure, they'll have moved some of them around to other parts of Russia. And many will have fled West at the start of the war. But you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think occupying Eastern Ukraine won't be an enormous resource drain on Russia. And at the same time, the world is replacing Russian oil and gas.
Back in 2005, Russia was the biggest oil producer in the world, followed by Saudi, with the US 25% below in third. Now, the US is producing almost 50% more oil than Russia! Europe has entirely replaced Russian gas, something that would have seemed utterly impossible two years ago.
If Russia wins - and while you are very good at noticing that Ukraine is struggling, you are oddly blind to the fact that Russia is facing exactly the same issues - then it will still face an enormously costly occupation, that will cost lives and money, in a country that is increasingly an economic backwater.
I just said LONG term this will likely be a disaster for Russia - for all the reasons you state
But short-medium term, ie now to five years hence (say) I reckon Putin is going to get a result he can sell as a win
Maybe. But don't forget that while Ukraine is running out of soldiers, so is Russia. And some of their policies - like allowing prisoners out to fight in return for freedom - are turning out to be incredibly unpopular as murderers and rapists return from the front to their home towns.
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
I’m not so sure, sadly
I think Russia is going to steal a win out of this, at least in the short-medium term. Long term it must be bad for Moscow
Invading is the easy part.
Holding onto land full of people who don't want to be a part of your country is the difficult bit.
And, sure, if Russia was 20x the size of Ukraine they could wear it. Chechnya, for example, has a population of 1.4 million people. China was some crazy multiple of people bigger than Tibet.
Eastern Ukraine contains 20 million people. Yeah, sure, they'll have moved some of them around to other parts of Russia. And many will have fled West at the start of the war. But you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think occupying Eastern Ukraine won't be an enormous resource drain on Russia. And at the same time, the world is replacing Russian oil and gas.
Back in 2005, Russia was the biggest oil producer in the world, followed by Saudi, with the US 25% below in third. Now, the US is producing almost 50% more oil than Russia! Europe has entirely replaced Russian gas, something that would have seemed utterly impossible two years ago.
If Russia wins - and while you are very good at noticing that Ukraine is struggling, you are oddly blind to the fact that Russia is facing exactly the same issues - then it will still face an enormously costly occupation, that will cost lives and money, in a country that is increasingly an economic backwater.
I just said LONG term this will likely be a disaster for Russia - for all the reasons you state
But short-medium term, ie now to five years hence (say) I reckon Putin is going to get a result he can sell as a win
I don't know what to think these days. At the start of the war, and again around the time of Severodonetsk, I thought Ukraine was going to be overrun / ground down. Thereafter it seemed Ukraine was strengthening and Russia weakening with every passing month as more Western weapons appeared. Now it seems increasingly a question of Western political decisions and European munitions manufacturing capacity.
We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
I’m not so sure, sadly
I think Russia is going to steal a win out of this, at least in the short-medium term. Long term it must be bad for Moscow
Invading is the easy part.
Holding onto land full of people who don't want to be a part of your country is the difficult bit.
And, sure, if Russia was 20x the size of Ukraine they could wear it. Chechnya, for example, has a population of 1.4 million people. China was some crazy multiple of people bigger than Tibet.
Eastern Ukraine contains 20 million people. Yeah, sure, they'll have moved some of them around to other parts of Russia. And many will have fled West at the start of the war. But you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think occupying Eastern Ukraine won't be an enormous resource drain on Russia. And at the same time, the world is replacing Russian oil and gas.
Back in 2005, Russia was the biggest oil producer in the world, followed by Saudi, with the US 25% below in third. Now, the US is producing almost 50% more oil than Russia! Europe has entirely replaced Russian gas, something that would have seemed utterly impossible two years ago.
If Russia wins - and while you are very good at noticing that Ukraine is struggling, you are oddly blind to the fact that Russia is facing exactly the same issues - then it will still face an enormously costly occupation, that will cost lives and money, in a country that is increasingly an economic backwater.
I just said LONG term this will likely be a disaster for Russia - for all the reasons you state
But short-medium term, ie now to five years hence (say) I reckon Putin is going to get a result he can sell as a win
Maybe. But don't forget that while Ukraine is running out of soldiers, so is Russia. And some of their policies - like allowing prisoners out to fight in return for freedom - are turning out to be incredibly unpopular as murderers and rapists return from the front to their home towns.
Putin is 71. Does he care what Russia will be like in 10 years? He will likely be dead and very likely out of power if still alive
He’s looking to go out on some kind of “high”. Winning the Eastern chunk of Ukraine can be that. Even if longer term the occupation will be a nightmare for his successor - which it very probably will (but not certainly)
Mind you, he is just 22. How can you be that good a chef, at 22?? Phenomenal. He will have a fine career
Amazing he did so well considering his heritage of enslavement.
I noticed some Moroccan flavors in his recipes so my guess is his forefathers made good their escape from Casablanca
The two I liked, the French geeky lad with the specs and the Caribbean girl, both got canned when I predicted they'd go all the way along with Ginger guy who they just seem to adore.
No one, on this show, has ever cooked dog before. Do you reckon they should ?
It would be hilarious: barbecued dog
Sadly they won’t because the BBC would lose the licence fee the next day
Yes the disappearance of French African geeky dude was a surprise. The even bigger surprise for me was when they kicked out the Arabian fusion Bath restaurant woman. One minute she was a genius, next: gone
Yes, we were shocked at that too as she sailed through her first round. The other three were poor in comparison.
If not barbecued dog then deep fried Tarantula (apparently it tastes like bacon with a texture of prawn) or Scorpion. When I worked in the rail industry with a supplier in Hong Kong one of the guys I deakt with adored scorpion.
They are keen on a wide variety of cuisine so why not.
I hope Kasae wins.
If Leon was doing his job properly he would have tried both tarantula and scorpion.
(I don't believe that Cambodians really eat tarantulas, except when starving, and suspect it is a big joke on barangs)
Tarantula is certainly eaten in South America and parts of Asia. Simon Reeve tried it on Asia on one of his travelogues. They collect the spiders, remove their fangs, and cook them in fat.
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
I’m not so sure, sadly
I think Russia is going to steal a win out of this, at least in the short-medium term. Long term it must be bad for Moscow
Invading is the easy part.
Holding onto land full of people who don't want to be a part of your country is the difficult bit.
And, sure, if Russia was 20x the size of Ukraine they could wear it. Chechnya, for example, has a population of 1.4 million people. China was some crazy multiple of people bigger than Tibet.
Eastern Ukraine contains 20 million people. Yeah, sure, they'll have moved some of them around to other parts of Russia. And many will have fled West at the start of the war. But you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think occupying Eastern Ukraine won't be an enormous resource drain on Russia. And at the same time, the world is replacing Russian oil and gas.
Back in 2005, Russia was the biggest oil producer in the world, followed by Saudi, with the US 25% below in third. Now, the US is producing almost 50% more oil than Russia! Europe has entirely replaced Russian gas, something that would have seemed utterly impossible two years ago.
If Russia wins - and while you are very good at noticing that Ukraine is struggling, you are oddly blind to the fact that Russia is facing exactly the same issues - then it will still face an enormously costly occupation, that will cost lives and money, in a country that is increasingly an economic backwater.
I just said LONG term this will likely be a disaster for Russia - for all the reasons you state
But short-medium term, ie now to five years hence (say) I reckon Putin is going to get a result he can sell as a win
I don't know what to think these days. At the start of the war, and again around the time of Severodonetsk, I thought Ukraine was going to be overrun / ground down. Thereafter it seemed Ukraine was strengthening and Russia weakening with every passing month as more Western weapons appeared. Now it seems increasingly a question of Western political decisions and European munitions manufacturing capacity.
We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
Russia has completely militarised its economy. It is devoting a third of its economic capacity to winning this war. We don’t have the dedication and Ukraine does not have the manpower - to resist this
Again - as I keep saying - in the long run Russia cannot sustain this and will probably crumble in some form. But for the next few years they can *look* like they are winning, or have won
Seattle Times ($) - ‘Escape liberal hell’: Republicans really are fleeing WA
Danny Westneat - At first, the ads seemed like a pandemic-era curiosity, a niche political pitch playing on the red state, blue state divide.
“Escape liberal hell,” counseled one sales video from a Boise, Idaho, real estate agent. “Here are seven reasons conservatives flock to Idaho.” . . .
The idea that people would pick up and move solely for politics has seemed like a stretch. Moving for a job, schools, space, a rural lifestyle, yes. People relocate for all sorts of reasons — nearly 250,000 moved here from another U.S. state last year, with 258,000 going the other way, the Census Bureau says.
But now, there’s solid evidence that some people really are migrating over partisanship.
This past week, Idaho released a database of voters who have moved into that state, along with where they came from and what political party they signed up for when they got there. . . .
The political makeup of who has moved to Idaho is eye-opening. It is, as the Idaho Capital Sun news site called it, a “Republican fever dream.”
Of about 119,000 voters who relocated to Idaho in recent years, 65% signed up as Republican. That’s significantly higher than the partisan makeup of the state already, which is 58% GOP.
Only 12% of the newcomers registered as Democrats. About 21% picked “unaffiliated” and 2% chose a third party such as Libertarian.
The data explodes the myth that liberals, untethered due to remote work, might be moving to Idaho or other red states from San Francisco and Seattle and potentially turning the interior more purple. The exact opposite is happening — people are segregating into like-minded, polarized, geographical camps.
Sixty-two percent of Washingtonians who moved to Idaho registered as Republicans, the data shows. Only 12% were Democrats. Ours is a 60-40 blue state, roughly, so this means Republicans are preferentially sorting themselves out of Washington state at high rates. . . .
From Seattle, the data shows 34% who relocated to Idaho were GOPers. (Seattle tends to vote only about 10% Republican.) . . . .
It is a fever dream for Idaho Republicans to turn that state into a fortress against liberalism — an American redoubt, some of them call it.
But red migration like this to the interior is a nightmare for the Washington state GOP. Its own customers are fleeing.
You can now even choose your real estate agent by their politics. The company GOP Agent “is here to help you connect with a Real Estate Agent who shares your Republican ideals and values,” their website says.
“One of our realtors held an info session in Seattle (about moving to a red State), and had over 150 attendees,” according to the Conservative Move Facebook page. “The interest in moving to red states is not slowing down.”
I hope they warned them that Idaho has a state income tax. [Washington State does NOT.] Could be a sticker shock upon arrival.
You could say they had ...their Own Private Idaho!
Re: the grilling of Boris Johnson (figuratively speaking, do NOT get excited!) find myself wish that one of his inquisitors would ask him the following question - in Latin:
"Mr. Johnson, given your high degree of classical learning, do you recall any of the commentaries of Cicero upon similar acts of mis- and malfeasance by the political and governmental leaders of his day?"
Surely a softball of a question for such an eminent classicist? Or perhaps not.
"Er, well, mumble-mumble, even the great Cicero himself, the magnus ipse orator, was, er, mumble, in, um... in hock to the top of his toga to Peppa Pigulus Cornelius Sulla if I am er, mumble, not, er, mistaken. And nor was Cicero averse to the occasional work's drinks gathering, while the pestilence, er, ravaged through Rome like mould through a ripe Stilton."
You are giving Boris the benefit of my doubt, by assuming that he could actually comprehend the question when asked in Latin.
Why would you doubt that? He did get a 2:1 in Classics from Oxford, so if you think he can't understand basic Latin it suggests you have a complex about him.
Mind you, he is just 22. How can you be that good a chef, at 22?? Phenomenal. He will have a fine career
Amazing he did so well considering his heritage of enslavement.
I noticed some Moroccan flavors in his recipes so my guess is his forefathers made good their escape from Casablanca
The two I liked, the French geeky lad with the specs and the Caribbean girl, both got canned when I predicted they'd go all the way along with Ginger guy who they just seem to adore.
No one, on this show, has ever cooked dog before. Do you reckon they should ?
It would be hilarious: barbecued dog
Sadly they won’t because the BBC would lose the licence fee the next day
Yes the disappearance of French African geeky dude was a surprise. The even bigger surprise for me was when they kicked out the Arabian fusion Bath restaurant woman. One minute she was a genius, next: gone
Yes, we were shocked at that too as she sailed through her first round. The other three were poor in comparison.
If not barbecued dog then deep fried Tarantula (apparently it tastes like bacon with a texture of prawn) or Scorpion. When I worked in the rail industry with a supplier in Hong Kong one of the guys I deakt with adored scorpion.
They are keen on a wide variety of cuisine so why not.
I hope Kasae wins.
If Leon was doing his job properly he would have tried both tarantula and scorpion.
(I don't believe that Cambodians really eat tarantulas, except when starving, and suspect it is a big joke on barangs)
No, they really eat them
I saw them widely on sale during the Water Festival ten days ago in Phnom Penh. They love them, they are seen as a a treat
My friends are going to expect a selfie of me eating a tarantula, I am not sure I have the balls. Do they eat the whole thing, or just the legs? I have read both suggestions.
Let me get this right, the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill stipulates that:
Every decision-maker must conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country (regardless of any evidence to the contrary).
Sections 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, & 9 of the Human Rights Act 1998, are 'disapplied' where transportation to Rwanda is concerned.
It is for a Minister of the Crown (and only a Minister of the Crown) to decide whether the United Kingdom will comply with the ECHR.
All seems a bit lily-livered. Why not go a bit further and include a clause to the effect that laws of the Kingdom may also be enacted by the government of the Kingdom? Saves all that hassle with getting votes through the HoC.
There is no way that "It is for a Minister of the Crown (and only a Minister of the Crown) to decide whether the United Kingdom will comply with the ECHR." will get thru the courts. it's the equivalent of saying l'etat c'est moi.
Mind you, he is just 22. How can you be that good a chef, at 22?? Phenomenal. He will have a fine career
Amazing he did so well considering his heritage of enslavement.
I noticed some Moroccan flavors in his recipes so my guess is his forefathers made good their escape from Casablanca
The two I liked, the French geeky lad with the specs and the Caribbean girl, both got canned when I predicted they'd go all the way along with Ginger guy who they just seem to adore.
No one, on this show, has ever cooked dog before. Do you reckon they should ?
It would be hilarious: barbecued dog
Sadly they won’t because the BBC would lose the licence fee the next day
Yes the disappearance of French African geeky dude was a surprise. The even bigger surprise for me was when they kicked out the Arabian fusion Bath restaurant woman. One minute she was a genius, next: gone
Yes, we were shocked at that too as she sailed through her first round. The other three were poor in comparison.
If not barbecued dog then deep fried Tarantula (apparently it tastes like bacon with a texture of prawn) or Scorpion. When I worked in the rail industry with a supplier in Hong Kong one of the guys I deakt with adored scorpion.
They are keen on a wide variety of cuisine so why not.
I hope Kasae wins.
If Leon was doing his job properly he would have tried both tarantula and scorpion.
(I don't believe that Cambodians really eat tarantulas, except when starving, and suspect it is a big joke on barangs)
No, they really eat them
I saw them widely on sale during the Water Festival ten days ago in Phnom Penh. They love them, they are seen as a a treat
My friends are going to expect a selfie of me eating a tarantula, I am not sure I have the balls. Do they eat the whole thing, or just the legs? I have read both suggestions.
I ate - or tried to eat - the whole thing. Locals say you should just eat the legs
Others have told me I was right: consume the entirety
Mind you, he is just 22. How can you be that good a chef, at 22?? Phenomenal. He will have a fine career
Amazing he did so well considering his heritage of enslavement.
I noticed some Moroccan flavors in his recipes so my guess is his forefathers made good their escape from Casablanca
The two I liked, the French geeky lad with the specs and the Caribbean girl, both got canned when I predicted they'd go all the way along with Ginger guy who they just seem to adore.
No one, on this show, has ever cooked dog before. Do you reckon they should ?
It would be hilarious: barbecued dog
Sadly they won’t because the BBC would lose the licence fee the next day
Yes the disappearance of French African geeky dude was a surprise. The even bigger surprise for me was when they kicked out the Arabian fusion Bath restaurant woman. One minute she was a genius, next: gone
Yes, we were shocked at that too as she sailed through her first round. The other three were poor in comparison.
If not barbecued dog then deep fried Tarantula (apparently it tastes like bacon with a texture of prawn) or Scorpion. When I worked in the rail industry with a supplier in Hong Kong one of the guys I deakt with adored scorpion.
They are keen on a wide variety of cuisine so why not.
I hope Kasae wins.
If Leon was doing his job properly he would have tried both tarantula and scorpion.
(I don't believe that Cambodians really eat tarantulas, except when starving, and suspect it is a big joke on barangs)
No, they really eat them
I saw them widely on sale during the Water Festival ten days ago in Phnom Penh. They love them, they are seen as a a treat
Mind you, he is just 22. How can you be that good a chef, at 22?? Phenomenal. He will have a fine career
Amazing he did so well considering his heritage of enslavement.
I noticed some Moroccan flavors in his recipes so my guess is his forefathers made good their escape from Casablanca
The two I liked, the French geeky lad with the specs and the Caribbean girl, both got canned when I predicted they'd go all the way along with Ginger guy who they just seem to adore.
No one, on this show, has ever cooked dog before. Do you reckon they should ?
It would be hilarious: barbecued dog
Sadly they won’t because the BBC would lose the licence fee the next day
Yes the disappearance of French African geeky dude was a surprise. The even bigger surprise for me was when they kicked out the Arabian fusion Bath restaurant woman. One minute she was a genius, next: gone
Yes, we were shocked at that too as she sailed through her first round. The other three were poor in comparison.
If not barbecued dog then deep fried Tarantula (apparently it tastes like bacon with a texture of prawn) or Scorpion. When I worked in the rail industry with a supplier in Hong Kong one of the guys I deakt with adored scorpion.
They are keen on a wide variety of cuisine so why not.
I hope Kasae wins.
If Leon was doing his job properly he would have tried both tarantula and scorpion.
(I don't believe that Cambodians really eat tarantulas, except when starving, and suspect it is a big joke on barangs)
No, they really eat them
I saw them widely on sale during the Water Festival ten days ago in Phnom Penh. They love them, they are seen as a a treat
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
I’m not so sure, sadly
I think Russia is going to steal a win out of this, at least in the short-medium term. Long term it must be bad for Moscow
Invading is the easy part.
Holding onto land full of people who don't want to be a part of your country is the difficult bit.
And, sure, if Russia was 20x the size of Ukraine they could wear it. Chechnya, for example, has a population of 1.4 million people. China was some crazy multiple of people bigger than Tibet.
Eastern Ukraine contains 20 million people. Yeah, sure, they'll have moved some of them around to other parts of Russia. And many will have fled West at the start of the war. But you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think occupying Eastern Ukraine won't be an enormous resource drain on Russia. And at the same time, the world is replacing Russian oil and gas.
Back in 2005, Russia was the biggest oil producer in the world, followed by Saudi, with the US 25% below in third. Now, the US is producing almost 50% more oil than Russia! Europe has entirely replaced Russian gas, something that would have seemed utterly impossible two years ago.
If Russia wins - and while you are very good at noticing that Ukraine is struggling, you are oddly blind to the fact that Russia is facing exactly the same issues - then it will still face an enormously costly occupation, that will cost lives and money, in a country that is increasingly an economic backwater.
I just said LONG term this will likely be a disaster for Russia - for all the reasons you state
But short-medium term, ie now to five years hence (say) I reckon Putin is going to get a result he can sell as a win
I don't know what to think these days. At the start of the war, and again around the time of Severodonetsk, I thought Ukraine was going to be overrun / ground down. Thereafter it seemed Ukraine was strengthening and Russia weakening with every passing month as more Western weapons appeared. Now it seems increasingly a question of Western political decisions and European munitions manufacturing capacity.
We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
Russia has completely militarised its economy. It is devoting a third of its economic capacity to winning this war. We don’t have the dedication and Ukraine does not have the manpower - to resist this
Again - as I keep saying - in the long run Russia cannot sustain this and will probably crumble in some form. But for the next few years they can *look* like they are winning, or have won
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
I’m not so sure, sadly
I think Russia is going to steal a win out of this, at least in the short-medium term. Long term it must be bad for Moscow
Invading is the easy part.
Holding onto land full of people who don't want to be a part of your country is the difficult bit.
And, sure, if Russia was 20x the size of Ukraine they could wear it. Chechnya, for example, has a population of 1.4 million people. China was some crazy multiple of people bigger than Tibet.
Eastern Ukraine contains 20 million people. Yeah, sure, they'll have moved some of them around to other parts of Russia. And many will have fled West at the start of the war. But you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think occupying Eastern Ukraine won't be an enormous resource drain on Russia. And at the same time, the world is replacing Russian oil and gas.
Back in 2005, Russia was the biggest oil producer in the world, followed by Saudi, with the US 25% below in third. Now, the US is producing almost 50% more oil than Russia! Europe has entirely replaced Russian gas, something that would have seemed utterly impossible two years ago.
If Russia wins - and while you are very good at noticing that Ukraine is struggling, you are oddly blind to the fact that Russia is facing exactly the same issues - then it will still face an enormously costly occupation, that will cost lives and money, in a country that is increasingly an economic backwater.
I just said LONG term this will likely be a disaster for Russia - for all the reasons you state
But short-medium term, ie now to five years hence (say) I reckon Putin is going to get a result he can sell as a win
I don't know what to think these days. At the start of the war, and again around the time of Severodonetsk, I thought Ukraine was going to be overrun / ground down. Thereafter it seemed Ukraine was strengthening and Russia weakening with every passing month as more Western weapons appeared. Now it seems increasingly a question of Western political decisions and European munitions manufacturing capacity.
We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
Russia has completely militarised its economy. It is devoting a third of its economic capacity to winning this war. We don’t have the dedication and Ukraine does not have the manpower - to resist this
Again - as I keep saying - in the long run Russia cannot sustain this and will probably crumble in some form. But for the next few years they can *look* like they are winning, or have won
Afghanistan says Hi!
Neither Vietnam nor Afghanistan are good analogies for Ukraine::Russia
Ukraine really was seen as an integral part of Russia for a long time, indeed a motherland of Russia. Russian is widely spoken in Ukraine etc
Its more like Germany invading Bavaria if Bavaria seceded from the bundesrepublik
… We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
Let me get this right, the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill stipulates that:
Every decision-maker must conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country (regardless of any evidence to the contrary).
Sections 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, & 9 of the Human Rights Act 1998, are 'disapplied' where transportation to Rwanda is concerned.
It is for a Minister of the Crown (and only a Minister of the Crown) to decide whether the United Kingdom will comply with the ECHR.
All seems a bit lily-livered. Why not go a bit further and include a clause to the effect that laws of the Kingdom may also be enacted by the government of the Kingdom? Saves all that hassle with getting votes through the HoC.
There is no way that "It is for a Minister of the Crown (and only a Minister of the Crown) to decide whether the United Kingdom will comply with the ECHR." will get thru the courts. it's the equivalent of saying l'etat c'est moi.
which will be but an opening salvo, this bit from Mark Elliott, Cambridge law prof, in the discussion and litigation (if the bill gets that far).
Key passage:
In orthodoxy, the principle of parliamentary sovereignty — which makes whatever Parliament enacts lawful — would be a complete answer to these charges. But in Privacy International, Lord Carnwath said ‘it is ultimately for the courts, not the legislature, to determine the limits set by the rule of law to the power to exclude review’...........
....Ultimately, the Rwanda Bill is as parochial as it is hypocritical. It is parochial in the sense that it proceeds on the basis of the sleight of hand that the UK Parliament, because it is sovereign, can somehow free the Government from its international legal obligations.
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
I’m not so sure, sadly
I think Russia is going to steal a win out of this, at least in the short-medium term. Long term it must be bad for Moscow
Invading is the easy part.
Holding onto land full of people who don't want to be a part of your country is the difficult bit.
And, sure, if Russia was 20x the size of Ukraine they could wear it. Chechnya, for example, has a population of 1.4 million people. China was some crazy multiple of people bigger than Tibet.
Eastern Ukraine contains 20 million people. Yeah, sure, they'll have moved some of them around to other parts of Russia. And many will have fled West at the start of the war. But you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think occupying Eastern Ukraine won't be an enormous resource drain on Russia. And at the same time, the world is replacing Russian oil and gas.
Back in 2005, Russia was the biggest oil producer in the world, followed by Saudi, with the US 25% below in third. Now, the US is producing almost 50% more oil than Russia! Europe has entirely replaced Russian gas, something that would have seemed utterly impossible two years ago.
If Russia wins - and while you are very good at noticing that Ukraine is struggling, you are oddly blind to the fact that Russia is facing exactly the same issues - then it will still face an enormously costly occupation, that will cost lives and money, in a country that is increasingly an economic backwater.
I just said LONG term this will likely be a disaster for Russia - for all the reasons you state
But short-medium term, ie now to five years hence (say) I reckon Putin is going to get a result he can sell as a win
I don't know what to think these days. At the start of the war, and again around the time of Severodonetsk, I thought Ukraine was going to be overrun / ground down. Thereafter it seemed Ukraine was strengthening and Russia weakening with every passing month as more Western weapons appeared. Now it seems increasingly a question of Western political decisions and European munitions manufacturing capacity.
We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
Russia has completely militarised its economy. It is devoting a third of its economic capacity to winning this war. We don’t have the dedication and Ukraine does not have the manpower - to resist this
Again - as I keep saying - in the long run Russia cannot sustain this and will probably crumble in some form. But for the next few years they can *look* like they are winning, or have won
Afghanistan says Hi!
Neither Vietnam nor Afghanistan are good analogies for Ukraine::Russia
Ukraine really was seen as an integral part of Russia for a long time, indeed a motherland of Russia. Russian is widely spoken in Ukraine etc
Its more like Germany invading Bavaria if Bavaria seceded from the bundesrepublik
Or Alsace, Western Poland, Greece etc. Lots of 20th century examples as borders shifted around.
… We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
Belief in predestination is unusual
Conscious belief in predestination yes. Subconscious...not so sure. It's human nature to intuit that somehow the future is written, even though it's not.
No sign yet of the grown-ups taking back control of the Tory Party, I see.
That tweet is not wrong though.
The Tories have been failing for 13 years, and are trying to pass a policy that Rwanda has said it might back out of if it doesn't follow international law. That also seems like a plan to tackle illegal immigration that adds up to sweet FA.
True, the Tories have failed but Labour will be subjected to scrutiny on this and what is their policy. They have many who are pro open door migration, no human is illegal. Make the case if they want to advocate it. Or come up with something they want to offer in place of what we have currently.
Yes, I predict a Labour govt will collapse into infighting and incoherence on immigration within a year, or less
They straddle every opinion from Let Them All In to “Down To Tens of Thousands”, and Starmer does not have the charisma to bind them all together, plus the issue is way more poisonous than it was under Blair/Brown
Trouble ahead
There are certainly contradictions within labour over migration, as there are within the Tories. Call Me Dave was not a million miles away from the labour "let them all in" brigade whereas the Tory right would see far fewer come in. Labour are not struggling with it as they are in opposition but once in Power, you are right, it will be a major issue for them.
Actually I think Labour are well set for doing alright on migration and the economy in the eyes of the public. The huge immigration numbers mean that they can allow net migration to be at a level higher than there’d dare dream of at the last GE, whilst still claiming to have cut it from what the Tories managed
Same with the economy; they can appear sensible, compared to the mayhem unleashed by Truss and prudent, relative to the money lavished on lockdown by Boris and Sunak
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
I’m not so sure, sadly
I think Russia is going to steal a win out of this, at least in the short-medium term. Long term it must be bad for Moscow
Invading is the easy part.
Holding onto land full of people who don't want to be a part of your country is the difficult bit.
And, sure, if Russia was 20x the size of Ukraine they could wear it. Chechnya, for example, has a population of 1.4 million people. China was some crazy multiple of people bigger than Tibet.
Eastern Ukraine contains 20 million people. Yeah, sure, they'll have moved some of them around to other parts of Russia. And many will have fled West at the start of the war. But you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think occupying Eastern Ukraine won't be an enormous resource drain on Russia. And at the same time, the world is replacing Russian oil and gas.
Back in 2005, Russia was the biggest oil producer in the world, followed by Saudi, with the US 25% below in third. Now, the US is producing almost 50% more oil than Russia! Europe has entirely replaced Russian gas, something that would have seemed utterly impossible two years ago.
If Russia wins - and while you are very good at noticing that Ukraine is struggling, you are oddly blind to the fact that Russia is facing exactly the same issues - then it will still face an enormously costly occupation, that will cost lives and money, in a country that is increasingly an economic backwater.
I just said LONG term this will likely be a disaster for Russia - for all the reasons you state
But short-medium term, ie now to five years hence (say) I reckon Putin is going to get a result he can sell as a win
I don't know what to think these days. At the start of the war, and again around the time of Severodonetsk, I thought Ukraine was going to be overrun / ground down. Thereafter it seemed Ukraine was strengthening and Russia weakening with every passing month as more Western weapons appeared. Now it seems increasingly a question of Western political decisions and European munitions manufacturing capacity.
We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
Russia has completely militarised its economy. It is devoting a third of its economic capacity to winning this war. We don’t have the dedication and Ukraine does not have the manpower - to resist this
Again - as I keep saying - in the long run Russia cannot sustain this and will probably crumble in some form. But for the next few years they can *look* like they are winning, or have won
Afghanistan says Hi!
Neither Vietnam nor Afghanistan are good analogies for Ukraine::Russia
Ukraine really was seen as an integral part of Russia for a long time, indeed a motherland of Russia. Russian is widely spoken in Ukraine etc
Its more like Germany invading Bavaria if Bavaria seceded from the bundesrepublik
A significant reason that many Ukrainians speak Russian - including Zelenskyy - is because Russia (and the USSR) tried its darndest to cleanse Ukraine of its Ukrainian identity and history. Something they are repeating, and perhaps accelerating, in their occupied territories. Exporting Ukrainians to the farthest parts of Russia, and importing true 'slav' Russians.
Mind you, he is just 22. How can you be that good a chef, at 22?? Phenomenal. He will have a fine career
Amazing he did so well considering his heritage of enslavement.
I noticed some Moroccan flavors in his recipes so my guess is his forefathers made good their escape from Casablanca
The two I liked, the French geeky lad with the specs and the Caribbean girl, both got canned when I predicted they'd go all the way along with Ginger guy who they just seem to adore.
No one, on this show, has ever cooked dog before. Do you reckon they should ?
It would be hilarious: barbecued dog
Sadly they won’t because the BBC would lose the licence fee the next day
Yes the disappearance of French African geeky dude was a surprise. The even bigger surprise for me was when they kicked out the Arabian fusion Bath restaurant woman. One minute she was a genius, next: gone
Yes, we were shocked at that too as she sailed through her first round. The other three were poor in comparison.
If not barbecued dog then deep fried Tarantula (apparently it tastes like bacon with a texture of prawn) or Scorpion. When I worked in the rail industry with a supplier in Hong Kong one of the guys I deakt with adored scorpion.
They are keen on a wide variety of cuisine so why not.
I hope Kasae wins.
If Leon was doing his job properly he would have tried both tarantula and scorpion.
(I don't believe that Cambodians really eat tarantulas, except when starving, and suspect it is a big joke on barangs)
No, they really eat them
I saw them widely on sale during the Water Festival ten days ago in Phnom Penh. They love them, they are seen as a a treat
One of the Russian disruptions in, as I recall, 2016, is particularly instructive. They were able to inspire two opposing demonstrations in, again as I recall, Texas.
One of the Russian disruptions in, as I recall, 2016, was particularly instructive. They were able to inspire two opposing demonstrations in, again as I recall, Texas.
Russia are not necessarily interested in the groups they may support; what they are interested in is disrupting their enemies. Hence they might 'support' green or climate groups, despite being a petrochemical state - because they know that countries will still need to buy oil and gas, but the groups will disrupt their host countries.
For that reason, I can easily imagine Russia supporting two sides in an argument.
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
Militarily perhaps. But Russia probably can't have a Nam culturally. For that you need a mass protest movement to capture half the country including most of its intellectuals, creatives and students.
Hey Hey Vlady P. How many kids have you killed todee?
… We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
Belief in predestination is unusual
Conscious belief in predestination yes. Subconscious...not so sure. It's human nature to intuit that somehow the future is written, even though it's not.
If the laws of physics are as they are thought to be and humans have no special mysterious non scientifically analysable powers to suspend them then all events, past present and future, in the universe, including all human events, were decided and thereby predetermined in their entirety at the moment of the big bang. (Most physicists and philosophers after Hume (but notably not Kant) quietly believe this to be the case even when they don't seem to). FWIW I believe no such thing.
Re: the grilling of Boris Johnson (figuratively speaking, do NOT get excited!) find myself wish that one of his inquisitors would ask him the following question - in Latin:
"Mr. Johnson, given your high degree of classical learning, do you recall any of the commentaries of Cicero upon similar acts of mis- and malfeasance by the political and governmental leaders of his day?"
Surely a softball of a question for such an eminent classicist? Or perhaps not.
"Er, well, mumble-mumble, even the great Cicero himself, the magnus ipse orator, was, er, mumble, in, um... in hock to the top of his toga to Peppa Pigulus Cornelius Sulla if I am er, mumble, not, er, mistaken. And nor was Cicero averse to the occasional work's drinks gathering, while the pestilence, er, ravaged through Rome like mould through a ripe Stilton."
You are giving Boris the benefit of my doubt, by assuming that he could actually comprehend the question when asked in Latin.
Why would you doubt that? He did get a 2:1 in Classics from Oxford, so if you think he can't understand basic Latin it suggests you have a complex about him.
And, apparently was very upset that he didn’t get a First. So upset that he complained to the authorities. Who sent him away with a flea in his ear!
Let me get this right, the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill stipulates that:
Every decision-maker must conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country (regardless of any evidence to the contrary).
Sections 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, & 9 of the Human Rights Act 1998, are 'disapplied' where transportation to Rwanda is concerned.
It is for a Minister of the Crown (and only a Minister of the Crown) to decide whether the United Kingdom will comply with the ECHR.
All seems a bit lily-livered. Why not go a bit further and include a clause to the effect that laws of the Kingdom may also be enacted by the government of the Kingdom? Saves all that hassle with getting votes through the HoC.
There is no way that "It is for a Minister of the Crown (and only a Minister of the Crown) to decide whether the United Kingdom will comply with the ECHR." will get thru the courts. it's the equivalent of saying l'etat c'est moi.
which will be but an opening salvo, this bit from Mark Elliott, Cambridge law prof, in the discussion and litigation (if the bill gets that far).
Key passage:
In orthodoxy, the principle of parliamentary sovereignty — which makes whatever Parliament enacts lawful — would be a complete answer to these charges. But in Privacy International, Lord Carnwath said ‘it is ultimately for the courts, not the legislature, to determine the limits set by the rule of law to the power to exclude review’...........
....Ultimately, the Rwanda Bill is as parochial as it is hypocritical. It is parochial in the sense that it proceeds on the basis of the sleight of hand that the UK Parliament, because it is sovereign, can somehow free the Government from its international legal obligations.
Mind you, he is just 22. How can you be that good a chef, at 22?? Phenomenal. He will have a fine career
Amazing he did so well considering his heritage of enslavement.
I noticed some Moroccan flavors in his recipes so my guess is his forefathers made good their escape from Casablanca
The two I liked, the French geeky lad with the specs and the Caribbean girl, both got canned when I predicted they'd go all the way along with Ginger guy who they just seem to adore.
No one, on this show, has ever cooked dog before. Do you reckon they should ?
It would be hilarious: barbecued dog
Sadly they won’t because the BBC would lose the licence fee the next day
Yes the disappearance of French African geeky dude was a surprise. The even bigger surprise for me was when they kicked out the Arabian fusion Bath restaurant woman. One minute she was a genius, next: gone
Yes, we were shocked at that too as she sailed through her first round. The other three were poor in comparison.
If not barbecued dog then deep fried Tarantula (apparently it tastes like bacon with a texture of prawn) or Scorpion. When I worked in the rail industry with a supplier in Hong Kong one of the guys I deakt with adored scorpion.
They are keen on a wide variety of cuisine so why not.
I hope Kasae wins.
If Leon was doing his job properly he would have tried both tarantula and scorpion.
(I don't believe that Cambodians really eat tarantulas, except when starving, and suspect it is a big joke on barangs)
No, they really eat them
I saw them widely on sale during the Water Festival ten days ago in Phnom Penh. They love them, they are seen as a a treat
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
I’m not so sure, sadly
I think Russia is going to steal a win out of this, at least in the short-medium term. Long term it must be bad for Moscow
Invading is the easy part.
Holding onto land full of people who don't want to be a part of your country is the difficult bit.
And, sure, if Russia was 20x the size of Ukraine they could wear it. Chechnya, for example, has a population of 1.4 million people. China was some crazy multiple of people bigger than Tibet.
Eastern Ukraine contains 20 million people. Yeah, sure, they'll have moved some of them around to other parts of Russia. And many will have fled West at the start of the war. But you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think occupying Eastern Ukraine won't be an enormous resource drain on Russia. And at the same time, the world is replacing Russian oil and gas.
Back in 2005, Russia was the biggest oil producer in the world, followed by Saudi, with the US 25% below in third. Now, the US is producing almost 50% more oil than Russia! Europe has entirely replaced Russian gas, something that would have seemed utterly impossible two years ago.
If Russia wins - and while you are very good at noticing that Ukraine is struggling, you are oddly blind to the fact that Russia is facing exactly the same issues - then it will still face an enormously costly occupation, that will cost lives and money, in a country that is increasingly an economic backwater.
I just said LONG term this will likely be a disaster for Russia - for all the reasons you state
But short-medium term, ie now to five years hence (say) I reckon Putin is going to get a result he can sell as a win
I don't know what to think these days. At the start of the war, and again around the time of Severodonetsk, I thought Ukraine was going to be overrun / ground down. Thereafter it seemed Ukraine was strengthening and Russia weakening with every passing month as more Western weapons appeared. Now it seems increasingly a question of Western political decisions and European munitions manufacturing capacity.
We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
Russia has completely militarised its economy. It is devoting a third of its economic capacity to winning this war. We don’t have the dedication and Ukraine does not have the manpower - to resist this
Again - as I keep saying - in the long run Russia cannot sustain this and will probably crumble in some form. But for the next few years they can *look* like they are winning, or have won
Afghanistan says Hi!
Neither Vietnam nor Afghanistan are good analogies for Ukraine::Russia
Ukraine really was seen as an integral part of Russia for a long time, indeed a motherland of Russia. Russian is widely spoken in Ukraine etc
Its more like Germany invading Bavaria if Bavaria seceded from the bundesrepublik
A significant reason that many Ukrainians speak Russian - including Zelenskyy - is because Russia (and the USSR) tried its darndest to cleanse Ukraine of its Ukrainian identity and history. Something they are repeating, and perhaps accelerating, in their occupied territories. Exporting Ukrainians to the farthest parts of Russia, and importing true 'slav' Russians.
There are, allegedly, a great number of Ukrainians in the Vladivostok area.
No sign yet of the grown-ups taking back control of the Tory Party, I see.
That tweet is not wrong though.
The Tories have been failing for 13 years, and are trying to pass a policy that Rwanda has said it might back out of if it doesn't follow international law. That also seems like a plan to tackle illegal immigration that adds up to sweet FA.
True, the Tories have failed but Labour will be subjected to scrutiny on this and what is their policy. They have many who are pro open door migration, no human is illegal. Make the case if they want to advocate it. Or come up with something they want to offer in place of what we have currently.
Yes, I predict a Labour govt will collapse into infighting and incoherence on immigration within a year, or less
They straddle every opinion from Let Them All In to “Down To Tens of Thousands”, and Starmer does not have the charisma to bind them all together, plus the issue is way more poisonous than it was under Blair/Brown
Trouble ahead
There are certainly contradictions within labour over migration, as there are within the Tories. Call Me Dave was not a million miles away from the labour "let them all in" brigade whereas the Tory right would see far fewer come in. Labour are not struggling with it as they are in opposition but once in Power, you are right, it will be a major issue for them.
Actually I think Labour are well set for doing alright on migration and the economy in the eyes of the public. The huge immigration numbers mean that they can allow net migration to be at a level higher than there’d dare dream of at the last GE, whilst still claiming to have cut it from what the Tories managed
Same with the economy; they can appear sensible, compared to the mayhem unleashed by Truss and prudent, relative to the money lavished on lockdown by Boris and Sunak
Yep. The Starmer decade commences with a following wind. Big win, modest expectations, awful predecessor. Politically it's a golden legacy.
No sign yet of the grown-ups taking back control of the Tory Party, I see.
That tweet is not wrong though.
The Tories have been failing for 13 years, and are trying to pass a policy that Rwanda has said it might back out of if it doesn't follow international law. That also seems like a plan to tackle illegal immigration that adds up to sweet FA.
True, the Tories have failed but Labour will be subjected to scrutiny on this and what is their policy. They have many who are pro open door migration, no human is illegal. Make the case if they want to advocate it. Or come up with something they want to offer in place of what we have currently.
Yes, I predict a Labour govt will collapse into infighting and incoherence on immigration within a year, or less
They straddle every opinion from Let Them All In to “Down To Tens of Thousands”, and Starmer does not have the charisma to bind them all together, plus the issue is way more poisonous than it was under Blair/Brown
Trouble ahead
There are certainly contradictions within labour over migration, as there are within the Tories. Call Me Dave was not a million miles away from the labour "let them all in" brigade whereas the Tory right would see far fewer come in. Labour are not struggling with it as they are in opposition but once in Power, you are right, it will be a major issue for them.
Actually I think Labour are well set for doing alright on migration and the economy in the eyes of the public. The huge immigration numbers mean that they can allow net migration to be at a level higher than there’d dare dream of at the last GE, whilst still claiming to have cut it from what the Tories managed
Same with the economy; they can appear sensible, compared to the mayhem unleashed by Truss and prudent, relative to the money lavished on lockdown by Boris and Sunak
The big test for Labour on both economy and immigration is housing. Build enough and the rest takes care of itself. Not sure they are ambitious enough though.
The Tories do really set themselves up for a colossal meme bash, don't they?
Rishi Sunak when asked to show fiscal discipline. James Cleverly when asked what he called Stockton. Suella Braverman when asked why she's failed in all her jobs...
Speaking of failure, that retard Spielman really copped it sweet today didn't she? As did Alan Derry and Chris Russell who were accused of lying (probably correctly since OFSTED hasn't done any training of any sort for many years, including safeguarding).
But then, Spielman always was a fool. It's one reason why OFSTED's new inspection framework which she thinks everyone buys into(!) has been such a fiasco.
I understand your antipathy towards Ofsted, although I'd gently suggest your use of 'retard' is unwise.
It's clear that the Coroner concludes that the Lead Inspector was insensitive and intimidating, although it's also clear that the judgement of the original inspection was probably right under the current framework - as safeguarding is a limiting grade and the school hadn't carried out the necessary checks.
The case raises, though, a whole raft of issues about performance management in both the public and private sectors, especially if such management is insensitive. Any system that can lead to judging an individual as a failure could also lead to that individual not being able to cope with it, and taking their own life. I'd be astonished if the Ruth Perry case, tragic though it is, is unique.
Why? She is a retard. A very stupid woman who is also unbelievably arrogant. I can see why she got on with Cummings. Her every move in education has been a catastrophe, from Ark to OFQUAL to OFSTED.
And there is very considerable doubt as to whether there was fact anything wrong with the paperwork. OFSTED have form for deliberately failing schools on safeguarding to force academisation on them (incidentally there again Derry was at least wrong - it is the statutory duty of the SoS to issue an academy order for a school that has failed on safeguarding. Interesting to note that in this case it hasn't happened, which tells me all I need to know about what was going on).
These peoples' mistakes have cost Ruth Perry her life and done enormous damage to the education of millions of children. They may not have meant it but they took on these jobs and have failed in them. They deserve every ounce of opprobrium we can give them.
The irony being, of course, that OFSTED itself has no actual safeguarding procedures, does not have up to date DBS checks on its inspectors and does not do its statutory training. So on its own terms, it is Inadequate.
Incidentally this is why the Knight report was a bad idea. Self-evaluation is what OFSTED has and look at the disaster it has wrought. There should always be second checks on anything important.
… We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
Belief in predestination is unusual
Conscious belief in predestination yes. Subconscious...not so sure. It's human nature to intuit that somehow the future is written, even though it's not.
If the laws of physics are as they are thought to be and humans have no special mysterious non scientifically analysable powers to suspend them then all events, past present and future, in the universe, including all human events, were decided and thereby predetermined in their entirety at the moment of the big bang. (Most physicists and philosophers after Hume (but notably not Kant) quietly believe this to be the case even when they don't seem to). FWIW I believe no such thing.
Quantum uncertainty. There is a very very small probability that you will vanish in the next second. The laws of physics apply over a very long time and are very reliable, but not perfectly and infinitely so. There are random elements when you get down to the quantum level. Given an infinite amount of time and an infinite path, a brick thrown at nonrelativistic speeds and no gravity nor air resistance will nevertheless slowly spread out.
The political reason being that Nicola would leak and tweak anything that was agreed to make her look better and different for the sake of it?
Which she did. She took priviliged info from SAGE and rushed to the airwaves ahead of the UK government. Unquestionably she used covid for her political ends.
The Scottish government (which, as we all know is a bastion of transparancy) went to the Court of Session yesterday to appeal against the decision of the Scottish Information Commissioner that they had to release the information which was provided to James Hamilton when he did his report on the investigation of Alex Salmond. Their argument was that since the paperwork was in the hands of the author of the report (who complained at the time about the redactions which, he said, made it misleading) they were no longer in the hands of the SM.
The 3 judges, who included the Lord President, took nearly 2 minutes of discussion to throw out the appeal. It was a bizarre waste of public money and time. What is the SG trying to hide? Who knows, one day we might actually find out.
whole thing was a farce, especially his decision on it, totally rigged.
Mind you, he is just 22. How can you be that good a chef, at 22?? Phenomenal. He will have a fine career
Amazing he did so well considering his heritage of enslavement.
I noticed some Moroccan flavors in his recipes so my guess is his forefathers made good their escape from Casablanca
The two I liked, the French geeky lad with the specs and the Caribbean girl, both got canned when I predicted they'd go all the way along with Ginger guy who they just seem to adore.
No one, on this show, has ever cooked dog before. Do you reckon they should ?
It would be hilarious: barbecued dog
Sadly they won’t because the BBC would lose the licence fee the next day
Yes the disappearance of French African geeky dude was a surprise. The even bigger surprise for me was when they kicked out the Arabian fusion Bath restaurant woman. One minute she was a genius, next: gone
Tom looks like the winner though at this stage one slip and you are out. Markus is the boy to sort them out.
… We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
Belief in predestination is unusual
Conscious belief in predestination yes. Subconscious...not so sure. It's human nature to intuit that somehow the future is written, even though it's not.
If the laws of physics are as they are thought to be and humans have no special mysterious non scientifically analysable powers to suspend them then all events, past present and future, in the universe, including all human events, were decided and thereby predetermined in their entirety at the moment of the big bang. (Most physicists and philosophers after Hume (but notably not Kant) quietly believe this to be the case even when they don't seem to). FWIW I believe no such thing.
Quantum uncertainty. There is a very very small probability that you will vanish in the next second. The laws of physics apply over a very long time and are very reliable, but not perfectly and infinitely so. There are random elements when you get down to the quantum level. Given an infinite amount of time and an infinite path, a brick thrown at nonrelativistic speeds and no gravity nor air resistance will nevertheless slowly spread out.
The political reason being that Nicola would leak and tweak anything that was agreed to make her look better and different for the sake of it?
Which she did. She took priviliged info from SAGE and rushed to the airwaves ahead of the UK government. Unquestionably she used covid for her political ends.
What utter bollox, that bunch of turkeys were only marginally better than Bozo and his clown circus. She was desperate to get her picture taken but had control over little given Bozo had all our cash.
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
I’m not so sure, sadly
I think Russia is going to steal a win out of this, at least in the short-medium term. Long term it must be bad for Moscow
They are making it look hard then, going to be very long term for them to have any chance and more likely Ukraine will get some proper stuff from NATO and whup their arses.
Has Michael Crick been living in a cave or something? How can an experienced journalist not only not know this was already the case, but find it 'bizarre'?
It was quite a bizarre apology, & I suspect the BBC will have to apologise for its apology. If we now include Jewish people among ethnic minorities then we are going to have to revise all our stats about ethnic minorities - in BBC staff, universities, & my own @tomorrowsMPs etc https://nitter.net/MichaelLCrick/status/1732687339544031312#m
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
I’m not so sure, sadly
I think Russia is going to steal a win out of this, at least in the short-medium term. Long term it must be bad for Moscow
Invading is the easy part.
Holding onto land full of people who don't want to be a part of your country is the difficult bit.
And, sure, if Russia was 20x the size of Ukraine they could wear it. Chechnya, for example, has a population of 1.4 million people. China was some crazy multiple of people bigger than Tibet.
Eastern Ukraine contains 20 million people. Yeah, sure, they'll have moved some of them around to other parts of Russia. And many will have fled West at the start of the war. But you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think occupying Eastern Ukraine won't be an enormous resource drain on Russia. And at the same time, the world is replacing Russian oil and gas.
Back in 2005, Russia was the biggest oil producer in the world, followed by Saudi, with the US 25% below in third. Now, the US is producing almost 50% more oil than Russia! Europe has entirely replaced Russian gas, something that would have seemed utterly impossible two years ago.
If Russia wins - and while you are very good at noticing that Ukraine is struggling, you are oddly blind to the fact that Russia is facing exactly the same issues - then it will still face an enormously costly occupation, that will cost lives and money, in a country that is increasingly an economic backwater.
I just said LONG term this will likely be a disaster for Russia - for all the reasons you state
But short-medium term, ie now to five years hence (say) I reckon Putin is going to get a result he can sell as a win
I don't know what to think these days. At the start of the war, and again around the time of Severodonetsk, I thought Ukraine was going to be overrun / ground down. Thereafter it seemed Ukraine was strengthening and Russia weakening with every passing month as more Western weapons appeared. Now it seems increasingly a question of Western political decisions and European munitions manufacturing capacity.
We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
Russia has completely militarised its economy. It is devoting a third of its economic capacity to winning this war. We don’t have the dedication and Ukraine does not have the manpower - to resist this
Again - as I keep saying - in the long run Russia cannot sustain this and will probably crumble in some form. But for the next few years they can *look* like they are winning, or have won
A third of not very much is not a great lot, given the inflation their new budget is less than their previous one. It is cheaper to wipe your arse with roubles than it is to spend them.
… We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
Belief in predestination is unusual
Conscious belief in predestination yes. Subconscious...not so sure. It's human nature to intuit that somehow the future is written, even though it's not.
If the laws of physics are as they are thought to be and humans have no special mysterious non scientifically analysable powers to suspend them then all events, past present and future, in the universe, including all human events, were decided and thereby predetermined in their entirety at the moment of the big bang. (Most physicists and philosophers after Hume (but notably not Kant) quietly believe this to be the case even when they don't seem to). FWIW I believe no such thing.
Quantum uncertainty. There is a very very small probability that you will vanish in the next second. The laws of physics apply over a very long time and are very reliable, but not perfectly and infinitely so. There are random elements when you get down to the quantum level. Given an infinite amount of time and an infinite path, a brick thrown at nonrelativistic speeds and no gravity nor air resistance will nevertheless slowly spread out.
The 'random' element may depend on your frame of reference. A lottery draw is properly random with regard to human advance knowledge and predictive powers, but is not at all random WRT the laws of physics operating on the ball with a number on it generating device. So with the quantum level, the findings may not concur with the idea of cause and effect as known to us in general physics, but there is no reason to think that the operations are outside of naturalistic laws, ie magic.
… We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
Belief in predestination is unusual
Conscious belief in predestination yes. Subconscious...not so sure. It's human nature to intuit that somehow the future is written, even though it's not.
If the laws of physics are as they are thought to be and humans have no special mysterious non scientifically analysable powers to suspend them then all events, past present and future, in the universe, including all human events, were decided and thereby predetermined in their entirety at the moment of the big bang. (Most physicists and philosophers after Hume (but notably not Kant) quietly believe this to be the case even when they don't seem to). FWIW I believe no such thing.
Quantum uncertainty. There is a very very small probability that you will vanish in the next second. The laws of physics apply over a very long time and are very reliable, but not perfectly and infinitely so. There are random elements when you get down to the quantum level. Given an infinite amount of time and an infinite path, a brick thrown at nonrelativistic speeds and no gravity nor air resistance will nevertheless slowly spread out.
Katie Mack wrote a very good book, "The End of Everything: (Astrophysically Speaking)" which iirc goes into this as one of the more frightening of the several ways everything may end. For it all has to end.
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
I’m not so sure, sadly
I think Russia is going to steal a win out of this, at least in the short-medium term. Long term it must be bad for Moscow
Invading is the easy part.
Holding onto land full of people who don't want to be a part of your country is the difficult bit.
And, sure, if Russia was 20x the size of Ukraine they could wear it. Chechnya, for example, has a population of 1.4 million people. China was some crazy multiple of people bigger than Tibet.
Eastern Ukraine contains 20 million people. Yeah, sure, they'll have moved some of them around to other parts of Russia. And many will have fled West at the start of the war. But you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think occupying Eastern Ukraine won't be an enormous resource drain on Russia. And at the same time, the world is replacing Russian oil and gas.
Back in 2005, Russia was the biggest oil producer in the world, followed by Saudi, with the US 25% below in third. Now, the US is producing almost 50% more oil than Russia! Europe has entirely replaced Russian gas, something that would have seemed utterly impossible two years ago.
If Russia wins - and while you are very good at noticing that Ukraine is struggling, you are oddly blind to the fact that Russia is facing exactly the same issues - then it will still face an enormously costly occupation, that will cost lives and money, in a country that is increasingly an economic backwater.
I just said LONG term this will likely be a disaster for Russia - for all the reasons you state
But short-medium term, ie now to five years hence (say) I reckon Putin is going to get a result he can sell as a win
I don't know what to think these days. At the start of the war, and again around the time of Severodonetsk, I thought Ukraine was going to be overrun / ground down. Thereafter it seemed Ukraine was strengthening and Russia weakening with every passing month as more Western weapons appeared. Now it seems increasingly a question of Western political decisions and European munitions manufacturing capacity.
We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
Russia has completely militarised its economy. It is devoting a third of its economic capacity to winning this war. We don’t have the dedication and Ukraine does not have the manpower - to resist this
Again - as I keep saying - in the long run Russia cannot sustain this and will probably crumble in some form. But for the next few years they can *look* like they are winning, or have won
Afghanistan says Hi!
Neither Vietnam nor Afghanistan are good analogies for Ukraine::Russia
Ukraine really was seen as an integral part of Russia for a long time, indeed a motherland of Russia. Russian is widely spoken in Ukraine etc
Its more like Germany invading Bavaria if Bavaria seceded from the bundesrepublik
That's what Russians would like to have you think, but I don't think it's accurate.
Let's start with the obvious. The Ukrainians had a referendum thirty years ago, and voted overwhelmingly to be an independent country. More recent polling has repeatedly backed this up, with CNN polling Ukraine on the eve of the war, as well as numerous polls from international groups.
Sure, there were political parties in Eastern Ukraine who got lots of votes and supported closer relations with Russia. But there are lots of LibDems who support closer relations with the EU, but very few - with the possible exception of Alistair Meeks - would be in favour of a German invasion.
… We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
Belief in predestination is unusual
Conscious belief in predestination yes. Subconscious...not so sure. It's human nature to intuit that somehow the future is written, even though it's not.
If the laws of physics are as they are thought to be and humans have no special mysterious non scientifically analysable powers to suspend them then all events, past present and future, in the universe, including all human events, were decided and thereby predetermined in their entirety at the moment of the big bang. (Most physicists and philosophers after Hume (but notably not Kant) quietly believe this to be the case even when they don't seem to). FWIW I believe no such thing.
Quantum uncertainty. There is a very very small probability that you will vanish in the next second. The laws of physics apply over a very long time and are very reliable, but not perfectly and infinitely so. There are random elements when you get down to the quantum level. Given an infinite amount of time and an infinite path, a brick thrown at nonrelativistic speeds and no gravity nor air resistance will nevertheless slowly spread out.
Wouldn't it just become a spherical clump?
I was trying to visualize how a brick-shaped object would look as it began to probabilistically fuzz out, and it involved moving my hands moving slowly apart whilst mouthing "grrrraaaawwwwoooohhh" very slowly.
This is messaging designed to scare US voters, but is essentially rubbish. Annual US expenditures in Ukraine are somewhere around a quarter of one percent of GDP; at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the US was spending around ten times that percentage.
And the US military are not deployed in Ukraine.
Conversely, Russia grew its military during the Vietnam war years; in Ukraine it has lost a significant proportion of its military reserves.
Ukraine is closer to a more costly second Afghanistan for Russia.
It is true: Ukraine will be another Vietnam. Specifically, Russia's Vietnam.
I’m not so sure, sadly
I think Russia is going to steal a win out of this, at least in the short-medium term. Long term it must be bad for Moscow
Invading is the easy part.
Holding onto land full of people who don't want to be a part of your country is the difficult bit.
And, sure, if Russia was 20x the size of Ukraine they could wear it. Chechnya, for example, has a population of 1.4 million people. China was some crazy multiple of people bigger than Tibet.
Eastern Ukraine contains 20 million people. Yeah, sure, they'll have moved some of them around to other parts of Russia. And many will have fled West at the start of the war. But you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think occupying Eastern Ukraine won't be an enormous resource drain on Russia. And at the same time, the world is replacing Russian oil and gas.
Back in 2005, Russia was the biggest oil producer in the world, followed by Saudi, with the US 25% below in third. Now, the US is producing almost 50% more oil than Russia! Europe has entirely replaced Russian gas, something that would have seemed utterly impossible two years ago.
If Russia wins - and while you are very good at noticing that Ukraine is struggling, you are oddly blind to the fact that Russia is facing exactly the same issues - then it will still face an enormously costly occupation, that will cost lives and money, in a country that is increasingly an economic backwater.
I just said LONG term this will likely be a disaster for Russia - for all the reasons you state
But short-medium term, ie now to five years hence (say) I reckon Putin is going to get a result he can sell as a win
I don't know what to think these days. At the start of the war, and again around the time of Severodonetsk, I thought Ukraine was going to be overrun / ground down. Thereafter it seemed Ukraine was strengthening and Russia weakening with every passing month as more Western weapons appeared. Now it seems increasingly a question of Western political decisions and European munitions manufacturing capacity.
We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
Russia has completely militarised its economy. It is devoting a third of its economic capacity to winning this war. We don’t have the dedication and Ukraine does not have the manpower - to resist this
Again - as I keep saying - in the long run Russia cannot sustain this and will probably crumble in some form. But for the next few years they can *look* like they are winning, or have won
Afghanistan says Hi!
Neither Vietnam nor Afghanistan are good analogies for Ukraine::Russia
Ukraine really was seen as an integral part of Russia for a long time, indeed a motherland of Russia. Russian is widely spoken in Ukraine etc
Its more like Germany invading Bavaria if Bavaria seceded from the bundesrepublik
That's what Russians would like to have you think, but I don't think it's accurate.
Let's start with the obvious. The Ukrainians had a referendum thirty years ago, and voted overwhelmingly to be an independent country. More recent polling has repeatedly backed this up, with CNN polling Ukraine on the eve of the war, as well as numerous polls from international groups.
Sure, there were political parties in Eastern Ukraine who got lots of votes and supported closer relations with Russia. But there are lots of LibDems who support closer relations with the EU, but very few - with the possible exception of Alistair Meeks - would be in favour of a German invasion.
Note - in relation to your earlier post - that Russia doesn’t really aim to occupy it, certainly no more than the few eastern bits that they want. Their aim is to trash the place, such that it doesn’t provide an adjacent exemplar (full of people with Russian friends and relatives) to Russians as to how much better life might be in somewhere run by western, rather than Russian, values.
… We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
Belief in predestination is unusual
Conscious belief in predestination yes. Subconscious...not so sure. It's human nature to intuit that somehow the future is written, even though it's not.
If the laws of physics are as they are thought to be and humans have no special mysterious non scientifically analysable powers to suspend them then all events, past present and future, in the universe, including all human events, were decided and thereby predetermined in their entirety at the moment of the big bang. (Most physicists and philosophers after Hume (but notably not Kant) quietly believe this to be the case even when they don't seem to). FWIW I believe no such thing.
Quantum uncertainty. There is a very very small probability that you will vanish in the next second. The laws of physics apply over a very long time and are very reliable, but not perfectly and infinitely so. There are random elements when you get down to the quantum level. Given an infinite amount of time and an infinite path, a brick thrown at nonrelativistic speeds and no gravity nor air resistance will nevertheless slowly spread out.
Wouldn't it just become a spherical clump?
I was trying to visualize how a brick-shaped object would look as it began to probabilistically fuzz out, and it involved moving my hands moving slowly apart whilst mouthing "grrrraaaawwwwoooohhh" very slowly.
So I gave up and said "slowly spread out"
I guess that if you find yourself on your own and dying in space that there's an upside. You become your own odd cloud.
Has Michael Crick been living in a cave or something? How can an experienced journalist not only not know this was already the case, but find it 'bizarre'?
It was quite a bizarre apology, & I suspect the BBC will have to apologise for its apology. If we now include Jewish people among ethnic minorities then we are going to have to revise all our stats about ethnic minorities - in BBC staff, universities, & my own @tomorrowsMPs etc https://nitter.net/MichaelLCrick/status/1732687339544031312#m
Actually this is quite controversial and caused a fuss in the last census: is Judaism an ethnicity or a religion?
Has Michael Crick been living in a cave or something? How can an experienced journalist not only not know this was already the case, but find it 'bizarre'?
It was quite a bizarre apology, & I suspect the BBC will have to apologise for its apology. If we now include Jewish people among ethnic minorities then we are going to have to revise all our stats about ethnic minorities - in BBC staff, universities, & my own @tomorrowsMPs etc https://nitter.net/MichaelLCrick/status/1732687339544031312#m
You would think as an experienced political journalist he might have heard of Disraeli and the fact that he is the first ethnic minority PM by virtue of being born into a Jewish family (despite conversion aged 12).
Seattle Times ($) - ‘Escape liberal hell’: Republicans really are fleeing WA
Danny Westneat - At first, the ads seemed like a pandemic-era curiosity, a niche political pitch playing on the red state, blue state divide.
“Escape liberal hell,” counseled one sales video from a Boise, Idaho, real estate agent. “Here are seven reasons conservatives flock to Idaho.” . . .
The idea that people would pick up and move solely for politics has seemed like a stretch. Moving for a job, schools, space, a rural lifestyle, yes. People relocate for all sorts of reasons — nearly 250,000 moved here from another U.S. state last year, with 258,000 going the other way, the Census Bureau says.
But now, there’s solid evidence that some people really are migrating over partisanship.
This past week, Idaho released a database of voters who have moved into that state, along with where they came from and what political party they signed up for when they got there. . . .
The political makeup of who has moved to Idaho is eye-opening. It is, as the Idaho Capital Sun news site called it, a “Republican fever dream.”
Of about 119,000 voters who relocated to Idaho in recent years, 65% signed up as Republican. That’s significantly higher than the partisan makeup of the state already, which is 58% GOP.
Only 12% of the newcomers registered as Democrats. About 21% picked “unaffiliated” and 2% chose a third party such as Libertarian.
The data explodes the myth that liberals, untethered due to remote work, might be moving to Idaho or other red states from San Francisco and Seattle and potentially turning the interior more purple. The exact opposite is happening — people are segregating into like-minded, polarized, geographical camps.
Sixty-two percent of Washingtonians who moved to Idaho registered as Republicans, the data shows. Only 12% were Democrats. Ours is a 60-40 blue state, roughly, so this means Republicans are preferentially sorting themselves out of Washington state at high rates. . . .
From Seattle, the data shows 34% who relocated to Idaho were GOPers. (Seattle tends to vote only about 10% Republican.) . . . .
It is a fever dream for Idaho Republicans to turn that state into a fortress against liberalism — an American redoubt, some of them call it.
But red migration like this to the interior is a nightmare for the Washington state GOP. Its own customers are fleeing.
You can now even choose your real estate agent by their politics. The company GOP Agent “is here to help you connect with a Real Estate Agent who shares your Republican ideals and values,” their website says.
“One of our realtors held an info session in Seattle (about moving to a red State), and had over 150 attendees,” according to the Conservative Move Facebook page. “The interest in moving to red states is not slowing down.”
I hope they warned them that Idaho has a state income tax. [Washington State does NOT.] Could be a sticker shock upon arrival.
There was an excellent Vox video a couple of years ago about how - in America - people are increasingly ghettoized. Democrats only know Democrats. Republicans only know Republicans.
And this is incredibly unhealthy. And, candidly, toxic for democracy. We need to know and understand why people have different views to us.
Even here inner cities are increasingly left liberal and rural areas conservative.
Suburbs and commuter towns do still have more of a mix of political views and thus determine elections too
Mind you, he is just 22. How can you be that good a chef, at 22?? Phenomenal. He will have a fine career
Amazing he did so well considering his heritage of enslavement.
I noticed some Moroccan flavors in his recipes so my guess is his forefathers made good their escape from Casablanca
The two I liked, the French geeky lad with the specs and the Caribbean girl, both got canned when I predicted they'd go all the way along with Ginger guy who they just seem to adore.
No one, on this show, has ever cooked dog before. Do you reckon they should ?
It would be hilarious: barbecued dog
Sadly they won’t because the BBC would lose the licence fee the next day
Yes the disappearance of French African geeky dude was a surprise. The even bigger surprise for me was when they kicked out the Arabian fusion Bath restaurant woman. One minute she was a genius, next: gone
Yes, we were shocked at that too as she sailed through her first round. The other three were poor in comparison.
If not barbecued dog then deep fried Tarantula (apparently it tastes like bacon with a texture of prawn) or Scorpion. When I worked in the rail industry with a supplier in Hong Kong one of the guys I deakt with adored scorpion.
They are keen on a wide variety of cuisine so why not.
I hope Kasae wins.
If Leon was doing his job properly he would have tried both tarantula and scorpion.
(I don't believe that Cambodians really eat tarantulas, except when starving, and suspect it is a big joke on barangs)
No, they really eat them
I saw them widely on sale during the Water Festival ten days ago in Phnom Penh. They love them, they are seen as a a treat
Being a vegetarian I wouldn't eat this anyway, but if you eat any animal too small to gut you are eating its entire digestive tract including its shit. No thanks.
Seattle Times ($) - ‘Escape liberal hell’: Republicans really are fleeing WA
Danny Westneat - At first, the ads seemed like a pandemic-era curiosity, a niche political pitch playing on the red state, blue state divide.
“Escape liberal hell,” counseled one sales video from a Boise, Idaho, real estate agent. “Here are seven reasons conservatives flock to Idaho.” . . .
The idea that people would pick up and move solely for politics has seemed like a stretch. Moving for a job, schools, space, a rural lifestyle, yes. People relocate for all sorts of reasons — nearly 250,000 moved here from another U.S. state last year, with 258,000 going the other way, the Census Bureau says.
But now, there’s solid evidence that some people really are migrating over partisanship.
This past week, Idaho released a database of voters who have moved into that state, along with where they came from and what political party they signed up for when they got there. . . .
The political makeup of who has moved to Idaho is eye-opening. It is, as the Idaho Capital Sun news site called it, a “Republican fever dream.”
Of about 119,000 voters who relocated to Idaho in recent years, 65% signed up as Republican. That’s significantly higher than the partisan makeup of the state already, which is 58% GOP.
Only 12% of the newcomers registered as Democrats. About 21% picked “unaffiliated” and 2% chose a third party such as Libertarian.
The data explodes the myth that liberals, untethered due to remote work, might be moving to Idaho or other red states from San Francisco and Seattle and potentially turning the interior more purple. The exact opposite is happening — people are segregating into like-minded, polarized, geographical camps.
Sixty-two percent of Washingtonians who moved to Idaho registered as Republicans, the data shows. Only 12% were Democrats. Ours is a 60-40 blue state, roughly, so this means Republicans are preferentially sorting themselves out of Washington state at high rates. . . .
From Seattle, the data shows 34% who relocated to Idaho were GOPers. (Seattle tends to vote only about 10% Republican.) . . . .
It is a fever dream for Idaho Republicans to turn that state into a fortress against liberalism — an American redoubt, some of them call it.
But red migration like this to the interior is a nightmare for the Washington state GOP. Its own customers are fleeing.
You can now even choose your real estate agent by their politics. The company GOP Agent “is here to help you connect with a Real Estate Agent who shares your Republican ideals and values,” their website says.
“One of our realtors held an info session in Seattle (about moving to a red State), and had over 150 attendees,” according to the Conservative Move Facebook page. “The interest in moving to red states is not slowing down.”
I hope they warned them that Idaho has a state income tax. [Washington State does NOT.] Could be a sticker shock upon arrival.
There was an excellent Vox video a couple of years ago about how - in America - people are increasingly ghettoized. Democrats only know Democrats. Republicans only know Republicans.
And this is incredibly unhealthy. And, candidly, toxic for democracy. We need to know and understand why people have different views to us.
Even here inner cities are increasingly left liberal and rural areas conservative.
Suburbs and commuter towns do still have more of a mix of political views and thus determine elections too
Yes, SE14 is pretty devoid of Tories. There must be some but they keep it under their hat.
What are people's thoughts on whether Congress will vote any more money for Ukraine?
I'm beginning to think that the Republicans are now simply looking for any excuse not to do so, in the hope that the Ukraine war goes badly for Ukraine, and so they can tie that failure to Biden.
Biden is no mug, they will do a deal. He will get the saner Republicans on board. The deal is not just for Ukraine but Israel and Gaza.
But an insane Republican is currently Speaker of the House. There's no deal possible if he doesn't want a deal.
Speaker Johnson met Cameron yesterday, he isn't insane, he is basically in the middle of today's GOP but has to keep the Trumpite MAGA Congressional representatives on board too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX8rpjtr9WU
Has Michael Crick been living in a cave or something? How can an experienced journalist not only not know this was already the case, but find it 'bizarre'?
It was quite a bizarre apology, & I suspect the BBC will have to apologise for its apology. If we now include Jewish people among ethnic minorities then we are going to have to revise all our stats about ethnic minorities - in BBC staff, universities, & my own @tomorrowsMPs etc https://nitter.net/MichaelLCrick/status/1732687339544031312#m
Actually this is quite controversial and caused a fuss in the last census: is Judaism an ethnicity or a religion?
But it shouldn't be a surprise to Crick is the point. That question has been asked, and officially answered even if some still disagree with that answer, many times.
I do not believe for a second someone as plugged into politics as Crick has never encountered this point before, even though I would accept it of a member of the public, so his labelling it as 'bizarre' looks like some weird kind of virtue signalling, though what he is signalling I have no idea. There's just no way he does not know about it, so pretending the BBC will need to apologise for accepting it is strange.
Is there any profession more maligned than investment management?
It's a shame because it is a great industry to work in - the work is fascinating and varied, it is highly meritocratic and a lot more diverse than law or journalism, and it pays well.
Is there any profession more maligned than investment management?
It's a shame because it is a great industry to work in - the work is fascinating and varied, it is highly meritocratic and a lot more diverse than law or journalism, and it pays well.
Don't be silly, the pay's shit, which is why the recruitment targets are being miss...oh, sorry, did you mean investment fund management?
Seattle Times ($) - ‘Escape liberal hell’: Republicans really are fleeing WA
Danny Westneat - At first, the ads seemed like a pandemic-era curiosity, a niche political pitch playing on the red state, blue state divide.
“Escape liberal hell,” counseled one sales video from a Boise, Idaho, real estate agent. “Here are seven reasons conservatives flock to Idaho.” . . .
The idea that people would pick up and move solely for politics has seemed like a stretch. Moving for a job, schools, space, a rural lifestyle, yes. People relocate for all sorts of reasons — nearly 250,000 moved here from another U.S. state last year, with 258,000 going the other way, the Census Bureau says.
But now, there’s solid evidence that some people really are migrating over partisanship.
This past week, Idaho released a database of voters who have moved into that state, along with where they came from and what political party they signed up for when they got there. . . .
The political makeup of who has moved to Idaho is eye-opening. It is, as the Idaho Capital Sun news site called it, a “Republican fever dream.”
Of about 119,000 voters who relocated to Idaho in recent years, 65% signed up as Republican. That’s significantly higher than the partisan makeup of the state already, which is 58% GOP.
Only 12% of the newcomers registered as Democrats. About 21% picked “unaffiliated” and 2% chose a third party such as Libertarian.
The data explodes the myth that liberals, untethered due to remote work, might be moving to Idaho or other red states from San Francisco and Seattle and potentially turning the interior more purple. The exact opposite is happening — people are segregating into like-minded, polarized, geographical camps.
Sixty-two percent of Washingtonians who moved to Idaho registered as Republicans, the data shows. Only 12% were Democrats. Ours is a 60-40 blue state, roughly, so this means Republicans are preferentially sorting themselves out of Washington state at high rates. . . .
From Seattle, the data shows 34% who relocated to Idaho were GOPers. (Seattle tends to vote only about 10% Republican.) . . . .
It is a fever dream for Idaho Republicans to turn that state into a fortress against liberalism — an American redoubt, some of them call it.
But red migration like this to the interior is a nightmare for the Washington state GOP. Its own customers are fleeing.
You can now even choose your real estate agent by their politics. The company GOP Agent “is here to help you connect with a Real Estate Agent who shares your Republican ideals and values,” their website says.
“One of our realtors held an info session in Seattle (about moving to a red State), and had over 150 attendees,” according to the Conservative Move Facebook page. “The interest in moving to red states is not slowing down.”
I hope they warned them that Idaho has a state income tax. [Washington State does NOT.] Could be a sticker shock upon arrival.
There was an excellent Vox video a couple of years ago about how - in America - people are increasingly ghettoized. Democrats only know Democrats. Republicans only know Republicans.
And this is incredibly unhealthy. And, candidly, toxic for democracy. We need to know and understand why people have different views to us.
Even here inner cities are increasingly left liberal and rural areas conservative.
Suburbs and commuter towns do still have more of a mix of political views and thus determine elections too
The “rural areas conservative” rule which by and large applies in most of the country will be tested in the next election in a few areas, notably the Lib Dem targets in the SW.
It'd be nice if we had at least one consistently pro development party (not pro developer, they need reining in in various ways) to pick.
Honestly, the NIMBYs have so much variety to choose from, it makes me very jealous.
This would be one (but probably the only one) major advantage of a form of PR with party lists. Far less potential for NIMBY blackmail.
STV would still retain the NIMBY blackmail risk but somewhat less than FPTP. A pro building candidate might well score highly enough to get a seat in a multimember constituency. PR in local elections would also help.
They should have had that hotline years ago. They were warned six months ago about lack of training. Any competent organisation would not have needed to be told this.
And still nothing on DBS checks.
Spielman should have agreed to leave at once. She won't but this is very much on her inept leadership.
(Incidentally it's also not true that 'all of our inspectors are current or former school leaders' - leaving aside the fact that several never got that far, many OFSTED inspectors have a background in social care not school leadership. Which is sensible in one way as they inspect social services, but stupid in another way as the two are very different. Which is one reason why OFSTED should be broken up.)
Has Michael Crick been living in a cave or something? How can an experienced journalist not only not know this was already the case, but find it 'bizarre'?
It was quite a bizarre apology, & I suspect the BBC will have to apologise for its apology. If we now include Jewish people among ethnic minorities then we are going to have to revise all our stats about ethnic minorities - in BBC staff, universities, & my own @tomorrowsMPs etc https://nitter.net/MichaelLCrick/status/1732687339544031312#m
Actually this is quite controversial and caused a fuss in the last census: is Judaism an ethnicity or a religion?
But it shouldn't be a surprise to Crick is the point. That question has been asked, and officially answered even if some still disagree with that answer, many times.
I do not believe for a second someone as plugged into politics as Crick has never encountered this point before, even though I would accept it of a member of the public, so his labelling it as 'bizarre' looks like some weird kind of virtue signalling, though what he is signalling I have no idea. There's just no way he does not know about it, so pretending the BBC will need to apologise for accepting it is strange.
No, Crick has a point if he is talking about official statistics.
ETA my understanding is Judaism (or Jewishness) is an ethnic minority for the law but not for population statistics.
It'd be nice if we had at least one consistently pro development party (not pro developer, they need reining in in various ways) to pick.
Honestly, the NIMBYs have so much variety to choose from, it makes me very jealous.
This would be one (but probably the only one) major advantage of a form of PR with party lists. Far less potential for NIMBY blackmail.
STV would still retain the NIMBY blackmail risk but somewhat less than FPTP. A pro building candidate might well score highly enough to get a seat in a multimember constituency. PR in local elections would also help.
I live in hope for some canvasser to launch into some NIMBY spiel at me to win me over, only to faint in surprise as I reveal I actually don't mind that new housing going up on that edge of town piece of useless scrubland.
I mean, it's a number's game, most of the time it will work for them.
Yes, poor chap: "The Tory MP is reported to have pocketed at least £7.5m in dividends from Somerset since the EU referendum in 2016, including £500,000 in 2022. He also received about £15,000 a month from the firm on top of his MP’s pay until 2019, when he became a minister under Boris Johnson."
Has Michael Crick been living in a cave or something? How can an experienced journalist not only not know this was already the case, but find it 'bizarre'?
It was quite a bizarre apology, & I suspect the BBC will have to apologise for its apology. If we now include Jewish people among ethnic minorities then we are going to have to revise all our stats about ethnic minorities - in BBC staff, universities, & my own @tomorrowsMPs etc https://nitter.net/MichaelLCrick/status/1732687339544031312#m
Actually this is quite controversial and caused a fuss in the last census: is Judaism an ethnicity or a religion?
But it shouldn't be a surprise to Crick is the point. That question has been asked, and officially answered even if some still disagree with that answer, many times.
I do not believe for a second someone as plugged into politics as Crick has never encountered this point before, even though I would accept it of a member of the public, so his labelling it as 'bizarre' looks like some weird kind of virtue signalling, though what he is signalling I have no idea. There's just no way he does not know about it, so pretending the BBC will need to apologise for accepting it is strange.
No, Crick has a point if he is talking about official statistics.
That seems pretty clearly a side point to me, based on how he has responded - he thinks the apology was bizarre, as if he'd never heard of the question before, and then tangential to that raises how it might affect stats. Not that it is bizarre because of the stats point, bizarre because this is apparently the first he has ever heard of this debate (one I've seen/heard many many times for decades). The more I think about it the more convinced I am he is lying, though no clue why.
Has Michael Crick been living in a cave or something? How can an experienced journalist not only not know this was already the case, but find it 'bizarre'?
It was quite a bizarre apology, & I suspect the BBC will have to apologise for its apology. If we now include Jewish people among ethnic minorities then we are going to have to revise all our stats about ethnic minorities - in BBC staff, universities, & my own @tomorrowsMPs etc https://nitter.net/MichaelLCrick/status/1732687339544031312#m
Actually this is quite controversial and caused a fuss in the last census: is Judaism an ethnicity or a religion?
As far as I know it is classed as a religion not an ethnicity. When you fill in those forms that monitor ethnicity I don't think I have ever seen a White-Jewish category, just white-British, White-Irish, White-Traveller and White-Other as far as I can recall. Perhaps that's a mistake, I don't know, but certainly it seems the norm at the moment is to treat it as a religion and not an ethnicity. It raises some interesting questions. Eg Judaism passes through the mother IIRC so someone with a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish white father might consider themselves Jewish, but shouldn't they be classed as mixed: White Jewish and White Other, if Jewish is an ethnicity? Like my kids are mixed-white and Asian? And what about converts? You can't convert to be Black (people who have have got in a whole load of trouble). So if being Jewish is an ethnicity does a convert change their ethnicity? Or only their religion?
Seattle Times ($) - ‘Escape liberal hell’: Republicans really are fleeing WA
Danny Westneat - At first, the ads seemed like a pandemic-era curiosity, a niche political pitch playing on the red state, blue state divide.
“Escape liberal hell,” counseled one sales video from a Boise, Idaho, real estate agent. “Here are seven reasons conservatives flock to Idaho.” . . .
The idea that people would pick up and move solely for politics has seemed like a stretch. Moving for a job, schools, space, a rural lifestyle, yes. People relocate for all sorts of reasons — nearly 250,000 moved here from another U.S. state last year, with 258,000 going the other way, the Census Bureau says.
But now, there’s solid evidence that some people really are migrating over partisanship.
This past week, Idaho released a database of voters who have moved into that state, along with where they came from and what political party they signed up for when they got there. . . .
The political makeup of who has moved to Idaho is eye-opening. It is, as the Idaho Capital Sun news site called it, a “Republican fever dream.”
Of about 119,000 voters who relocated to Idaho in recent years, 65% signed up as Republican. That’s significantly higher than the partisan makeup of the state already, which is 58% GOP.
Only 12% of the newcomers registered as Democrats. About 21% picked “unaffiliated” and 2% chose a third party such as Libertarian.
The data explodes the myth that liberals, untethered due to remote work, might be moving to Idaho or other red states from San Francisco and Seattle and potentially turning the interior more purple. The exact opposite is happening — people are segregating into like-minded, polarized, geographical camps.
Sixty-two percent of Washingtonians who moved to Idaho registered as Republicans, the data shows. Only 12% were Democrats. Ours is a 60-40 blue state, roughly, so this means Republicans are preferentially sorting themselves out of Washington state at high rates. . . .
From Seattle, the data shows 34% who relocated to Idaho were GOPers. (Seattle tends to vote only about 10% Republican.) . . . .
It is a fever dream for Idaho Republicans to turn that state into a fortress against liberalism — an American redoubt, some of them call it.
But red migration like this to the interior is a nightmare for the Washington state GOP. Its own customers are fleeing.
You can now even choose your real estate agent by their politics. The company GOP Agent “is here to help you connect with a Real Estate Agent who shares your Republican ideals and values,” their website says.
“One of our realtors held an info session in Seattle (about moving to a red State), and had over 150 attendees,” according to the Conservative Move Facebook page. “The interest in moving to red states is not slowing down.”
I hope they warned them that Idaho has a state income tax. [Washington State does NOT.] Could be a sticker shock upon arrival.
There was an excellent Vox video a couple of years ago about how - in America - people are increasingly ghettoized. Democrats only know Democrats. Republicans only know Republicans.
And this is incredibly unhealthy. And, candidly, toxic for democracy. We need to know and understand why people have different views to us.
Even here inner cities are increasingly left liberal and rural areas conservative.
Suburbs and commuter towns do still have more of a mix of political views and thus determine elections too
I live in a seat with an 18,000 Tory majority (old boundaries) and it is quite a long time since I met anyone planning to vote Tory. Funnily enough I used to meet them all the time.
Completely agree with your post on the last thread. Basically what I have been trying to say for the last 24hours or so. Don’t know how to FPT else I would have, but it’s probably best to leave it there anyway
The contemptible Putin fanboy drivel on display here this evening needs a heavy corrective.
If you want to compare Ukraine to another Western European country, it could be Ireland, and for at least four centuries there has been a different political sense in Ukraine, whether Cossack or Ukrainian, than that of Russia, That many Ukrainians speak Russian does not make them Russian, any more than English speakers in Ireland, or Australia or wherever, are English.
The problem is that Russia does not have an analogue. It is an Imperium, not a nation. It refuses to accept that its economic and political system, of theft and corruption, is profoundly unattractive and it demands recognition for a cultural superiority it does not possess. Indeed, as the demonisation of minorities, Gays in Russia, Jews in NSDAP Germany, shows, the parallels with fascism are now uncomfortably exact.
Putin will attack the West, How do we know? Because he has been doing it for more than 20 years.
A campaign of bribery, propaganda, subversion, cyberattacks and the whole panoply of Hybrid war have been focussed on the political systems of the democratic world and beyond. From the Gilets Jeunes to the Bad Boys of Brexit, there has been covert Russian activity for many years. So Ukraine is no "more a far away country of which we know nothing" than Poland or Czechoslovakia were.
The fact that the subversion of Russia has now successfully delayed further assistance to Ukraine should not discourage us, it should galvanise those who care about democratic freedom at home as well as abroad, to redouble our efforts.
Estonians need no reminder. At the border crossing between Estonia and Russia, the Putinists have put up a poster- "Russian borders have no limits". Both here and in Poland, we are preparing for war,
We have an opportunity to put Putin in his box now. If we do not, the survivors will ask why we did not destroy Russian neo-fascism while we had the chance and before millions died in the destruction of Western cities after a botched, but still partly successful Russian nuclear strike.
Cowardice does not make you stronger or safer. We need to accept that and when idiotic fools proclaim "Putin is right" we put them in the same box as all the other enemies of democracy, freedom and justice.
Comments
I think Russia is going to steal a win out of this, at least in the short-medium term. Long term it must be bad for Moscow
(I don't believe that Cambodians really eat tarantulas, except when starving, and suspect it is a big joke on barangs)
@DegenRolf
Psychopaths and narcissists ran a greater risk of falling victim to cybercrime.
https://tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00223980.2023.2286451"
https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1732741562293957106
https://blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/sarahlethbridgelean/trust-thermoclines/
That point in a relationship where the other person feels so let down/angry/betrayed that there's not really any point saying/doing anything, because it won't be heard. The main cure is years in the doghouse.
It happened to Major's Conservatives after September 1992. It's probably what happend between Labour and the red wall switchers.
The current crop of the Conservatives managed the genius move of doing it twice. A lot of voters were repulsed by Boris's antics, then the Trusstershambles turned off a load more.
Even if Sunak were a political and governmental genius, it probably wouldn't help much. But he is neither, so it's all moot.
Holding onto land full of people who don't want to be a part of your country is the difficult bit.
And, sure, if Russia was 20x the size of Ukraine they could wear it. Chechnya, for example, has a population of 1.4 million people. China was some crazy multiple of people bigger than Tibet.
Eastern Ukraine contains 20 million people. Yeah, sure, they'll have moved some of them around to other parts of Russia. And many will have fled West at the start of the war. But you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think occupying Eastern Ukraine won't be an enormous resource drain on Russia. And at the same time, the world is replacing Russian oil and gas.
Back in 2005, Russia was the biggest oil producer in the world, followed by Saudi, with the US 25% below in third. Now, the US is producing almost 50% more oil than Russia! Europe has entirely replaced Russian gas, something that would have seemed utterly impossible two years ago.
If Russia wins - and while you are very good at noticing that Ukraine is struggling, you are oddly blind to the fact that Russia is facing exactly the same issues - then it will still face an enormously costly occupation, that will cost lives and money, in a country that is increasingly an economic backwater.
I saw them widely on sale during the Water Festival ten days ago in Phnom Penh. They love them, they are seen as a a treat
"My expectation is that we will not see a Tory lead this side of the election."
Bold! By which I mean obviously not!
And this is incredibly unhealthy. And, candidly, toxic for democracy. We need to know and understand why people have different views to us.
But short-medium term, ie now to five years hence (say) I reckon Putin is going to get a result he can sell as a win
We tend subconsciously to think that the history of the future is already written, but in reality it's still completely contingent. This one's as hard to read as any.
He’s looking to go out on some kind of “high”. Winning the Eastern chunk of Ukraine can be that. Even if longer term the occupation will be a nightmare for his successor - which it very probably will (but not certainly)
Again - as I keep saying - in the long run Russia cannot sustain this and will probably crumble in some form. But for the next few years they can *look* like they are winning, or have won
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxHyliIspkA
Others have told me I was right: consume the entirety
My advice is avoid them altogether, they are vile
https://youtu.be/0B5GAlD9VUk?si=z4pdU1cs9lnrMmp3
https://twitter.com/GrahamAllen_1/status/1732811971622215941
Ukraine really was seen as an integral part of Russia for a long time, indeed a motherland of Russia. Russian is widely spoken in Ukraine etc
Its more like Germany invading Bavaria if Bavaria seceded from the bundesrepublik
https://publiclawforeveryone.com/2023/12/06/the-rwanda-bill-and-its-constitutional-implications/
which will be but an opening salvo, this bit from Mark Elliott, Cambridge law prof, in the discussion and litigation (if the bill gets that far).
Key passage:
In orthodoxy, the principle of parliamentary sovereignty — which makes whatever Parliament enacts lawful — would be a complete answer to these charges. But in Privacy International, Lord Carnwath said ‘it is ultimately for the courts, not the legislature, to determine the limits set by the rule of law to the power to exclude review’...........
....Ultimately, the Rwanda Bill is as parochial as it is hypocritical. It is parochial in the sense that it proceeds on the basis of the sleight of hand that the UK Parliament, because it is sovereign, can somehow free the Government from its international legal obligations.
Text of bill is here
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65709c317391350013b03c36/Rwanda_Bill_as_introduced.pdf
Same with the economy; they can appear sensible, compared to the mayhem unleashed by Truss and prudent, relative to the money lavished on lockdown by Boris and Sunak
For that reason, I can easily imagine Russia supporting two sides in an argument.
Hey Hey Vlady P. How many kids have you killed todee?
Who sent him away with a flea in his ear!
Any self-respecting Tory MP should vote against it. So it will probably sail through.
Russia:
"Russia luring migrants from Finnish border for war in Ukraine"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67647379
It was quite a bizarre apology, & I suspect the BBC will have to apologise for its apology. If we now include Jewish people among ethnic minorities then we are going to have to revise all our stats about ethnic minorities - in BBC staff, universities, & my own @tomorrowsMPs etc
https://nitter.net/MichaelLCrick/status/1732687339544031312#m
https://www.amazon.co.uk/End-Everything-Astrophysically-Speaking/dp/024137233X
Let's start with the obvious. The Ukrainians had a referendum thirty years ago, and voted overwhelmingly to be an independent country. More recent polling has repeatedly backed this up, with CNN polling Ukraine on the eve of the war, as well as numerous polls from international groups.
Sure, there were political parties in Eastern Ukraine who got lots of votes and supported closer relations with Russia. But there are lots of LibDems who support closer relations with the EU, but very few - with the possible exception of Alistair Meeks - would be in favour of a German invasion.
So I gave up and said "slowly spread out"
Remember despite Labour getting just 29% at the 2010 election, Ed Miliband had poll leads over the Conservative led government within a year
Blow for Tory MP as Somerset Capital Management closes after 16 years
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/12/07/jacob-rees-moggs-somerset-capital-management-to-shut-down/ (£££)
Thoughts and prayers.
Suburbs and commuter towns do still have more of a mix of political views and thus determine elections too
Ruth Perry: Ofsted inspection 'contributed' to head teacher's death
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-67639942 Is there any profession more maligned than investment management?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX8rpjtr9WU
I do not believe for a second someone as plugged into politics as Crick has never encountered this point before, even though I would accept it of a member of the public, so his labelling it as 'bizarre' looks like some weird kind of virtue signalling, though what he is signalling I have no idea. There's just no way he does not know about it, so pretending the BBC will need to apologise for accepting it is strange.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/labour-mps-oppose-house-building-defy-starmer-green-belt/
https://www.africanews.com/2023/10/23/thousands-sign-petition-to-resume-dakar-ziguinchor-maritime-service-amid-political-tension/
This is annoying, I was planning to take that ferry next year.
Honestly, the NIMBYs have so much variety to choose from, it makes me very jealous.
STV would still retain the NIMBY blackmail risk but somewhat less than FPTP. A pro building candidate might well score highly enough to get a seat in a multimember constituency. PR in local elections would also help.
https://schoolsweek.co.uk/ruth-perry-ofsted-delays-inspections-by-a-day-for-extra-training/
They should have had that hotline years ago. They were warned six months ago about lack of training. Any competent organisation would not have needed to be told this.
And still nothing on DBS checks.
Spielman should have agreed to leave at once. She won't but this is very much on her inept leadership.
(Incidentally it's also not true that 'all of our inspectors are current or former school leaders' - leaving aside the fact that several never got that far, many OFSTED inspectors have a background in social care not school leadership. Which is sensible in one way as they inspect social services, but stupid in another way as the two are very different. Which is one reason why OFSTED should be broken up.)
ETA my understanding is Judaism (or Jewishness) is an ethnic minority for the law but not for population statistics.
I mean, it's a number's game, most of the time it will work for them.
"The Tory MP is reported to have pocketed at least £7.5m in dividends from Somerset since the EU referendum in 2016, including £500,000 in 2022. He also received about £15,000 a month from the firm on top of his MP’s pay until 2019, when he became a minister under Boris Johnson."
It raises some interesting questions. Eg Judaism passes through the mother IIRC so someone with a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish white father might consider themselves Jewish, but shouldn't they be classed as mixed: White Jewish and White Other, if Jewish is an ethnicity? Like my kids are mixed-white and Asian? And what about converts? You can't convert to be Black (people who have have got in a whole load of trouble). So if being Jewish is an ethnicity does a convert change their ethnicity? Or only their religion?
Completely agree with your post on the last thread. Basically what I have been trying to say for the last 24hours or so. Don’t know how to FPT else I would have, but it’s probably best to leave it there anyway
If you want to compare Ukraine to another Western European country, it could be Ireland, and for at least four centuries there has been a different political sense in Ukraine, whether Cossack or Ukrainian, than that of Russia, That many Ukrainians speak Russian does not make them Russian, any more than English speakers in Ireland, or Australia or wherever, are English.
The problem is that Russia does not have an analogue. It is an Imperium, not a nation. It refuses to accept that its economic and political system, of theft and corruption, is profoundly unattractive and it demands recognition for a cultural superiority it does not possess. Indeed, as the demonisation of minorities, Gays in Russia, Jews in NSDAP Germany, shows, the parallels with fascism are now uncomfortably exact.
Putin will attack the West, How do we know? Because he has been doing it for more than 20 years.
A campaign of bribery, propaganda, subversion, cyberattacks and the whole panoply of Hybrid war have been focussed on the political systems of the democratic world and beyond. From the Gilets Jeunes to the Bad Boys of Brexit, there has been covert Russian activity for many years. So Ukraine is no "more a far away country of which we know nothing" than Poland or Czechoslovakia were.
The fact that the subversion of Russia has now successfully delayed further assistance to Ukraine should not discourage us, it should galvanise those who care about democratic freedom at home as well as abroad, to redouble our efforts.
Estonians need no reminder. At the border crossing between Estonia and Russia, the Putinists have put up a poster- "Russian borders have no limits". Both here and in Poland, we are preparing for war,
We have an opportunity to put Putin in his box now. If we do not, the survivors will ask why we did not destroy Russian neo-fascism while we had the chance and before millions died in the destruction of Western cities after a botched, but still partly successful Russian nuclear strike.
Cowardice does not make you stronger or safer. We need to accept that and when idiotic fools proclaim "Putin is right" we put them in the same box as all the other enemies of democracy, freedom and justice.